Thursday 30 May 2013

Fashion Week at The Craft Barn

Good morning friends.
Just a very quick post from me today. Full on PANIC mode has set it as I need to be packed ready and sorted for this weekend and in the process I have "lost" a day and "gained" a class...........
Still, I'm sure you are not here to hear me whinge so onto better things.
This week is Fashion Week over on The Craft Barn Blog and today is my turn. HERE is my post, I'd love you to to pop on by and take a closer look!

I went with "accessories"

Right, I really must dash! Have a great day everyone.

Wednesday 29 May 2013

WOYWW - Happy Anniversary!

Hi Folks
Would you believe it, 4 years today! Short post today as it's almost The Craft Barn's Extravaganza time and I am not ready!!!!! I did however not want to miss this very important date!

My desk, taken yesterday afternoon, it looks much much worse now so consider yourselves blessed.... The ribbon and lace drawer is open; I really should close and tidy as I go, shouldn't I? It would keep it neater and easier to tidy up at the end of a session!
 Look, Anniversary ATC alert, One for my swap partner, one for Patsy who already asked to swap(Email me your details please!) which leaves a spare couple so if there are two others who would like to swap, let me know. If more than two ask then I'll do a random draw as I won't have time to make more at the moment! I've having fun with my masks too.
 Anyway, back to the desk, one of my book kits all made up for a loose leaf journal and I'm working on pages inside at the moment.
 And look, Susan sneaked in to play/help me with some stuff too. It's always good to have some creative time shared.
 Distress paints and grunge paste.  All the paint caps show the colour, I do love these paints and my collection is growing! I've only had a tiny play with the Grunge Paste but early indicators are looking good! All sorts going on really. Not enough hours in the day.
Happy Anniversary all you Stamping Ground WOYWWers, Here's raising a glass to the next .
Have a good day everyone!

Tuesday 28 May 2013

Bank Holiday Sunshine

Morning friends.
I hope you have had a good weekend (Long one here in UK, YAY!)
Been a fun busy one for me. Sunday saw me at The Craft Barn for the second session of my journaling classes which was, as always, fun and organised chaos! (We missed the Irish contingent though!)
Here they are all focussed and concentrating away


 A background in progress.....
Yesterday we woke up to sunshine and decided we'd better make use of it so we headed out for a drive and ended up in Tenterden, then off to Biddenden Vineyard and ended up at the beach to finish a nice relaxing day. And, as I'm typing this looking at the rain falling outside, I can't help being glad we did!




Hope you all have a lovely day, I'd better get to work! Catch you all later.......

Thursday 23 May 2013

Simple cards






 Hi there friends, I had been busy  playing with my masks a while ago and had a pile of bits and pieces and was wondering what I could do with them. Don't you find that sometimes you have a good time trying things out and generally just playing and experimenting with no real plan or purpose. I decided that these backgrounds would make great simple cards so that's what I did, I used 6 x 6 card blanks and made these cards. All they need is the addition of a sentiment and they are ready to go. Perfect for when I need a card in a hurry! The card above is made with my Shoal Positive mask.

 I just used a selection of different background "scraps" and cut and layered a selection of On the Edge die cut shapes for this card.

 I love this Funky Butterfly and shaped it and added it to the page with foam for dimension.
This card used my Winged Pattern and Shoal Negative mask and I added some JOFY flowers. I like the way the Shoal mask looks like grasses in the breeze when you apply it sideways.
So, just some fun ways to use up those simple backgrounds and pages that you make.
Hope you like them.
My masks are available from The Craft Barn HERE and HERE, if you are interested as well as other Tando Creative Stockists!

Tuesday 21 May 2013

Tag time

Good afternoon friends.
I hope you are all well. Thought I'd share this tag I finished last night with you today. Not the easiest of things to photograph but still, hopefully you will get an idea.
I started off by creating a textured tag with a Tim Holtz folder onto silver card. This was then coloured with a selection of Distress Paints

 When the paint had dried, I sanded some of it back to expose the silver. I fixed the tag to a mountboard tag and then the tag was covered with a layer of clear UTEE

 The UTEE gives an amazing depth to the colours and dimension to the background. It's beautiful!
 I added a decorative edge using Tim's Metal gate on the edge die coloured with metallic stain and Black Soot Distress ink.
I used Distress Paint to add colour onto a metal flower and leaf. The paint adheres really well.

Then I stamped onto the tag with one of the images from Time Travelers onto the tag using black StazOn. I wanted to add some colour to the character, I used a couple of things, Distress Markers which gave a nice colour wash but not as intense as I wanted and I was too impatient to wait till dry to layer up so I used Copics too. However there is one thing to be aware of, being alcohol based, the markers can "erase" the StazOn so care is needed. Still the end result is a fabulously depth filled tag, which I think looks amazing, especially in real life!
Hope you like it and that you all have a great and creative afternoon.

Monday 20 May 2013

Hi there friends, hope you are well.
Not much crafting this weekend as I was on garden duty, with a little togetherness time wife my wife thrown in so it was all good.
On Friday I was teaching at The Craft Barn. We were exploring different techniques to create a journal using my Geometric book kit.
Here are a couple of the ladies enjoying the class and the books they made.


aren't they great?!

Nothing much happened on Saturday other than work then on Sunday it was off to the bootfair nice and early to see what was there..... I love seeing what there is, and it's great fun to people watch too!
I did manage to pick up a few bits to add to my altering stash.
A little travel album, some jewellery bits, the flowers (which are great when added to canvasses and painted) and then of course we all know Tim has just brought out his alarm clocks to alter so these made me very happy! I've already dismantled them and can't wait to see what I can do with them!

Then we popped down to Lewes and explored all the fabulous antiques shops which was fun too and then time was spent working in the garden while the sun was shining. I've been enjoying some studio time this morning but can't share anything yet but I'll have something tomorrow to share!
Until then, I hope you all have a lovely day too.

Thursday 16 May 2013

Build it up at The Craft Barn

Good morning friends
I meant to share this yesterday but it slipped through the scheduling net so you get it today instead. Over at The Craft Barn blog this week we are looking at building it up and yesterday was my turn.

I've used the Tim Holtz on the edge die to create a tray and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.
There is a how I did it on their blog HERE and this is the finished article.




Hope you all have a great and creative day. I'm off to pack for tomorrows class at The Craft Barn too. We'll be making a cool journal from one of my kits. There are still some places so if you want to join me the details are HERE



Tim Holtz Stamps - Spring Sprung
6 x 6 chipboard 




Wednesday 15 May 2013

WOYWW 206

Good morning folks
My name is Neil and i'm a What's on your Workdesk addict...... Hi Neil, we are too so welcome, You are among friends here. (Click Here to get the full picture, if you still haven't a clue what I'm talking about!)

The wind is howling around the shed, it's been raining and I'm cold; yet here I am at 4:30am. Awake and thinking I need to go and take photos of my desk; I forgot to last night!
So here we are. First the big picture....
 There's a theme there folks if you look closely enough...... Journals!
 These ones are for classes, the first of which is at The Craft Barn this Friday.
 I just love this page, that's why it is open, so I can stare at it lovingly. Of course those stamps are awesome and I know that they will be used often and loved well. Underneath is another couple of journals too. Peeking out bottom left of the picture is another bird design I'm working on too (that is a sneaky peek, didn't think it was there!)
The germination of an idea means Mr skull has undergone a bit of surgery and the image is just waiting for  dash of colour before going into one of the books. So there you have it, my little creative haven in the storm! Hope you have a great day too.

Tuesday 14 May 2013

More Journaling

Morning friends,
Back again with some more journal pages. These are in my large Dylusions journal. This first page is "hijacked" from a page I saw in my daughter's journal when she was visiting, so thanks Alyssa!
 The page has been covered with maps and roughly aged with Walnut Stain distress ink. I stamped my fantasy border around the edge in blue archival ink and the sentiment was just written in black marker.
 I stamped my Travel Mouse onto card and cut out. Colouring is with Distress Markers (very roughly, I must add!)
 This next page is the page I made a spelling mistake on and only realised when I had finished it! Not impressed with myself. Still; I was not going to despair and managed to patch it up. I'm sure that you can see what I've done but hey, there are no mistakes in art, only layers.......
 I began with a background that had been made with mop up inks a while ago.  I stamped the birds onto card, coloured them with Distress Markers, cut them out and glued them onto the page. Once stuck I cut away the page to the left of them (after first checking that I would not ruin the page on the reverse!)
 I like the way the cut away adds interest to the page.I stamped a geometric border around the other edges; added my journaling lines and wrote out the words and coloured them in so they stood out.
I finished off with some doodled detail in white pen onto the darker purple areas to break it up a bit.
So, I'm sure that you've discovered my patch up job. If you tell me in the comment what where I've patched it I'll put all the correct ones into a hat and choose one random entry to received a little crafty treat from me......
Hope you have a fun and creative day.

My stamps are available HERE at The Artistic Stamper if you want to get your hands on some!

Monday 13 May 2013

Journaling round up.

Hi there folks
I've been trying to catch up some pages in my journals again. I tend to to get carried away on backgrounds sometimes so periodically I have to slow down and finish some. I know that doesn't suit some people's way of working but it suits me sometimes, and especially in a class there is not time to finish everything off.
So here is the latest round of pages (Lots of photos warning)
First page to share. Background is Dylusions inks, masks and ghosting.
 The sun stamp is from De Stempelwinkel.  I cut the letters out of card that I had stamped my backgrounds onto.  Coloured with Distress Markers and Dylusions ink. I've used my hatched border stamp too around the edges of the pages.


 Then next we have this page. I left the image un coloured as I thought it went rather well with the psychedelic colours and the mushrooms!!!!!!!

 Again I've used my stamps to create a different border and there's a bit of faux stitching which you can't really see too well in the picture.



 This next page is definitely number 1 for me today; I'm really pleased with it! It's fun and quirky. and I just think the quote is brilliant!

 I can't help wondering, is Mr bowler hat the artist and Mr top hat hiding from him; or is Mr Top hat  the artist waiting to pounce onto the unsuspecting Mr Bowler...... What do you think?
 I love the combination of bright and muted colours and the tuckaways and pockets
 See, a place to hide your "dangerous" thoughts LOL!
Right, I can see your eyes beginning to glaze over so I'll stop there for now. Enjoy the evening and I'll catch up later!