finally updating

A layout using the papermaze challenge kit. Normally I try to attend this crop but unfortunately it fell on the same week as the bramford crop. so I decided to pick up the kit early and give it a go at bramford.

in the kit was a sheet of 12x12 white and turquoise card stock. 1 sheet of crate paper bundled up and half a sheet of the bundled up  collection,. a bag of embellishments containing some bling,. At first I struggled with the colours until I added a bright pink sheet of card stock which I had in my stash.

 

As its Christmas I want to wish all my crafty friends a happy Christmas and new year. This year has flown by and in that time i have been inspired by many artist in the scrapbook world..  I have formed  old friendships, and continued with others that have supported me, especially when family life hasn't been good. An extra thank you to those friends who give me a boost when i have most needed it, when i have doubted myself and when i have been at my lowest.

3 things to show

some projects to show you that I did over the holidays, and only now I have got round to putting them up. the first project is a wedding memory box, again a commissioned piece. This took me some time to get my head round due to the theme being, Turkish and bright colours. After a little research on Moroccan style wedding cakes I came up with this. I used a papertrey ink patterned cutting die as my background, dusty attic Moroccan lamps that Lou Collins gave me, and create paper restoration kit used to make the flowers. Really pleased with the result

this shadow box was made on my weekend away with my friend Emma and the scrapettes. I believe the box was from QD which had a glass lid. so I took off the lid. Painted with a blue acrylic paint, then crackled, added some white on the top and then distressed the edges with distress ink. I used some basic grey wisteria paper, prima resin Lou Collins gave me, flowers some of which were coloured with dylusions ink, papertrey ink and basic grey stamps, book pate and metal key plate, little glass bottle with shells in, chipboard butterfly, and a sizzix and technique Tuesday die.
I still have 2 niches to fill so again not totally complete.

lastly a bramford challenge, using a matchbox. JOFY stamps, paperartsy fresco paints, Martha Stewart butterfly punch and a die cut gate from memory box

 

 

altered bird house (bramford swap and tando challenge)

last months challenge at bramford was a paper mache bird house. so after much consideration I decided to cut the roof of with a craft knife, paint it with fresco paints, crackle glaze it and add a lighter shade of paint.

then to seek out some stamps. I used some paperarsty stamps, Ding Dong for the words stamped on the front, side and roof of the house. Flora and fauna with the trailing leaves

once I got my leaves glued to the front of the house I hot glued the roof back in place and added more leaves. Then cut a hole in the base and cut a piece of dowling to size and then painted it. Finally a base made from heavy duty board and painted. Now to the bird which was from a stamp I got last time I went to ally pally, painted with fresco paints and the boots are from a dylusions set. I decided to give him wellies due to the miserable weather we have had this week.

so much to tell......

well the summer holidays have gone, which means more time to craft, but as the days get shorter and the weather begins to turn, it reminds me that Christmas is on its way. So when I looked at my craft space over the summer holidays it filled me with dread.

I share the space with a large dinning table and a 5yr old and every November I clear the dinning table of my craft stuff, cram it underneath my nans old sewing machine table in hope that a tidy fairy will go through it all and sort it out... in my dreams.

I should have taken a pic before the transformation but I think I was so embarrassed by the state of it and the amount of stuff I had. So off we ventured to B & Q to by kitchen units and worktop and then to IKEA for shelving and hanging rail

 

Plus the mammoth sort out and selling of paper

 

 here is the much improved space which holds all my 12x12 paper boxes, my cricut and big shot. My sewing machine I bought 2 years ago, a hanging rail that holds buckets of sewing bobbins and threads and some of my punches

The expedit shelving unit which should really stand the other way up has turned the other way, thanks to my hubby and some industrial sized brackets. As I now have shelf and way to display my creations. The dinning table is the clearest I have ever seen it and it allows me to scrap and create without feel in clutter and chaos.

lack of time, summer holidays and trying out art journaling

well its the summer holidays here, so very little crafting done except a wedding memory box I was  asked to do (won't show that till after the wedding). The summer holiday are always a struggle as I need to keep a 5yr old entertained, plus  run the house and go to work.

I have booked swimming lessons for him in the last week of the holidays, going to the park. weather permitting and play dates, so that leaves very little time to craft. Also I'm going away the first weekend in September with some crafty friends so I need to get layouts organised and crop bag sorted, photos printed.

Any way I have attempted to do some art journaling when we went away in the motor home at the beginning of the holidays I packed a bag of stamps, watercolour card, brushes, archival ink pad, gesso, white and black pen. stamp block and water colour blocks

 this page uses, 2 sets of dylusions stamps, i masked areas of with paper so i could stamp my images how i wanted, found a quote on the net and used that at the bottom of the page

 this one uses stampotique stamps

this one uses donna downey stamps

what t do about blogging and latest layouts

well as in the title, what shall I do about blogging???. I rarely update it with my projects mainly because I forget to take a picture of what I have done. So should I keep it going? not sure can my crafty friends help me out here as I'm struggling to decide on what to do.

Any way back to some projects. Yes they are both he same photo and papers but I wanted to use up the stash I had. It the pink paislee portfolio range. The frame I  won at a local crop and so I have taken out the glass mounted a photo on the top aperture and decorated the bottom one.

Heather Jacobs and Finnbar have inspired me. Using flowers, die cut leaves, metal embellishments and ink

 

 

next is a layout using the same papers If you are wondering about the shape of the layout I drew around a Fancy Pants 12x12 die cut paper to get the shape I wanted.  Just some stitching to do on the layout when I have time

prima doll stamps

I know I say it every single time that I will be a better blogger, but I can safely say I'm rubbish. Anyway back to what I have been up to. well as you can see I have invested in the prima doll stamps that have been designed by Julia nutting.

so I pulled out my scraps, lace, ribbon, dies, punches and stickers and came up with 12 (so far), they are all very different

 I'm quiet please with results

bramford challenge

 

yet again its been a while since I last blogged. We have hit a few snags at home and so that has taken over my time lately. So although I have done bits of crafting most of them are uncompleted  or I can't show.

Anyway the Bramford challenge was a circle coaster and although you can't see the coaster it is the base of this project. The base is made up of dylusions inks and stamps. The top layer is made from T/H pocket watch die that has the inner circle cut out and painted, lollypop stick adhered and painted.

the outer part is clearly art cut slightly lager heated and moulded and adhered with hot glue.

puzzle piece 6

 

this is the last piece with carol choosing the theme TEXTURES. So I began by painting my background blue and then applying some ferro through a crafters workshop mask, to make the flowery background then painted them with some acrylic paints

Once dry I added some viva décor clear crackle and then left to dry. The bird cage is a die cut which I coloured with distress inks, the chain is from a necklace extender piece. My bird is die cut from canvas and painted and the small flowers are dipped in UTEE

puzzle piece 5

VINTAGE is the theme of this piece chosen by me. The base is some T/H wax kraft paper crumpled up, flattened and stamped with a studio calico dress pattern stamp.

I then stitched and added some lace and burlap.

I wanted to use a vintage image so I printed one on to printable canvas and glued into my embellishment

The flowers are watercolour paper painted in distress paints, die cut and UTEE'd to give them a porcelain feel

puzzle piece 4

 

The Camera theme was chosen by Nancy. I struggled with this theme so I searched the web and was inspired by a tag, by Tammy Tutterow on her blog. I had the movers and shapers camera die and used that as my main focal piece. Layering  parts of the camera so it looked like it was zooming in and some metal sheet for the lens

The background  I absolutely love and I used the new T/H distress paints, splodged them on a craft mat added water and swiped my card through the paint and then dried with my heat tool. The camera stamp is from a scrapagogo kit added some white distress paint to it and stamped it on to the background. I then added film strip and a 1/4 of an old view master disc, and placed  my camera on top. Finally I stamped a technique Tuesday stamp around the edge.

puzzle piece 3

Butterflies was the next theme chosen by Ang and this is what I came up with. I painted my background first using dabbers and once dry layered on strips of T/H tissue tape. The flowers are painted on using a dabbers, in orange, red and green using cut and dry through a prima mask.

 

High lighted with barn door, Victorian velvet distress pens and a green for the stem. The butterflies are made out of clearly art. Once I painted the clearly art in orange and yellow dabbers, I stamped a butterfly stamp x2 and cut it out. Heated and then manipulated to make them look like they have come of the piece, and then adhered.

puzzle piece 2

 

Yes I know forgot to post yesterday. But I had a last minute memory box to make and a birthday party to go to. I'll show the memory box at the end of the week. Any way the theme to this piece is FACES, chosen by Janet

 

Basically its very much a dylusions piece. Using both her stamps and inks to make the background and the focal point. The small glasses and lips are from Wendy Vecchi which gives the piece added dimension

puzzle piece 1

 

so what I'm going to try and do is post an altered puzzle piece for the next 6 days. Can't guarantee it but I'm going to try. Janet gave us a 6 piece children's puzzle and each of us decided on a theme for each the first on being metal. The pocket watch is a Wendy Vecchi art part painted and distressed

the chipboard cogs are from dusty attic, some watch parts and a book pate. The stamped man with top hat is from a Tim Holtz stamp set 
I have one piece to finish and hope to get it done this week and the 6 piece altered puzzle will be complete. Its my 40th birthday so a may just celebrate with a nice glass of red

easter tag - tim holtz/ ukstampers/tando challenges

i know i'm useless at blogging . But this week i decided to play with my dylusions ink sprays, stamps and some tattered florals die. I knew i wanted to make a colorful tag so i statrted spraying the tag with pink, yellow green and torquise inks and then stamped the leaves on the tag. I recently bought some decorative eggs and a nest. So i sprayed the eggs with dylusions and panted the nest with some white paint

 

 

i stamped some more leaves and adhered them to my tag using silicone glue so they had dimention Added my nest and then misted some card orange and turned them in to flowers useing T/H tatered florals die and garland die Finally added a book plate, stamped spring, inked edges in black and tag complete.

Also entered in the UK stampers Easter tag comp
Tando creative challenge  - flowers


Hel's workshop at birds in the barn

 

yes i know it s been a while since i  last blogged, but i have been busy.  Birthdays, brownies and now organising Wednesday day centre at work. Which means that over Valentine and Easter fast approaching i have been researching and preparing crafty afternoons with them. So not got a vast amount done for myself

But i had the opportunity to go on a workshop at birds in the barn and Hel's Sheridan was teaching.The day was based using a melt pot, beeswax and some UTEE . Since i had a melt pot i felt that needed more instruction on hoe to use it and hels is a great teacher

 

 

This is the canvas i made on the day plus a little extra tweaking at home, Love the techniques used, and ones I'll use again There were several of us doing the workshop including Janet, carol and Tracey. and all our canvas were different. Hels bought i her own stamps which means we had a fab selection to work with. Thank you hels for the use of your stamps

Using old stash and flowers

So finally got to show off my recent layout, using some old and new stash

I was experimenting with viva decor crackle medium on some paper and left it to dry overnight and this is what happened

I plastered the medium on to some basic grey figgy pudding paper and then enhanced the crackles with some distress ink and stain. Stitched on the paper so i could get it sort of flat as the medium tended to buckle the paper, used my mask (chicken wire) a text stamp and made some splats using distress stain to make my background, and washi tape

 

 

Then added blocks of paper, tags and flowers, along side some metal embellishments and leaf die cuts. Really pleased with the out come. Finally I'm getting the whole flower idea on boy layouts

Bramford Challenge - tray 'she art'

 

Well it been a long time since i last posted. Its been a never ending month of birthdays and i really haven't got much done. And what i have done, i haven't got round to photographing. So i finally got round to taking some pics and this one i had fun getting messy. I started by grabbing scraps of pink paislee 'she art paper' and adhered to a piece of scrap canvas paper.

 

Made my face from a piece of book paper and coloured it in using wax soluble crayons. Once i knew where i wanted this. I messed up my papers using paint, a spotty mask, Tim Holtz background stamps, stampotique flower stamp, stitching and white circles made from paint and a mister lid.  I glued my face in place made the top of the dress from paper and scrap lace. Painted her hair in brown, stamped a butterfly and painted it and then added words form a Donna Downey stamp. Painted over with glue and seal, to seal the finished project