Sam's Debut tag

Not blogged for while but when Sam came up as Guest Designer, my little friend who has helped me to build my blog and help me with crafting in general then I couldn't not have a go.

I love her tag and admire her style and the way that she plays with different materials and techniques. You can tell that she just loves to play.

I started with  size ten tag and brayered like Sam but using Chartreuse and Bora Bora. Then I stamped a background using LPC022 and used Cornflower blue Archival. Finishing off with white pen highlights like Sam.

Next I made a tag from corrugated card and brayered some Bora Bora onto it. Stamped and cut out 3 faces also from LPC022 and stamped some circle patterns from LPC024.

I coloured with red pen around the faces and on the cheek and cut them out . I was going to colour the eyes red to match mine but thought that it was going for the sympathy vote a bit too much.

I stamped onto crunchy wax paper, scrunched it and glued it to the tag.

A bit of arranging and gluing and  few threads and Hey Presto….Back on the circuit. Feel a bit wobbly but pleased to mark Sam's debut!!

Forces Letter 2

Having enjoyed playing so much I played again along the same theme.
I began as before by brayering neutral Fresco colours onto my page and this time added some Fresco Sky for added life!
I once again mixed neutral Fresco paint with Grungepaste and applied it with my palette knife, adding assorted mica flakes before it dried and a little Frantage aged Gold embossing powder.

I then built up my page with assorted wartime pages which were torn and distressed, another image of a girl with flowers, some lace and fabric. I chose  Lin Brown sentiment and stamped it onto manuscript paper. Finished it off with an anchor button to continue the forces story.

I got a lot of pleasure from this page and will progress to more of this theme. 

Forces Letter

Happy Easter everyone, I hope that the bunny brought you your heart's desire!

I decided to have a little play today just for me and forget about challenges as I have been burning myself out trying to keep up with myself. I started off looking through some of my stash labelled vintage and found lots of stuff that I had forgotten about. lovely images from Creative Expressions and some wartime things that set me off on an adventure.

I started by brayering some Fresco paints onto my journalling page and randomly stamping in sepia. Then I got out the "trowel" and mixed up Grungepaste, frescos and some mica flakes to spread across the page. Soon learned that mica flakes have to be pushed in on top of the grungepaste as they get lost in the paint. Had fun experimenting, added some Frantage embossing powder and got to this stage.

I selected an image from Creative expressions and glued it to some frayed fabric, aged it with Vintage photo and sewed on some buttons. Cut and frayed a strip of hessian, aged some ribbon, tore up some card and found some wartime music.(We'll meet again).

I arranged them and glued them down.

To finish off I stamped a PA sentiment onto more manuscript paper in sepia and that completed my page.

Really enjoyed it and might turn this into a series of pages.

Ellen Vargo, tone on tone.

Lovely to see Ellen back on our PA challenges. Have been a fan since she started and have used her brayer technique over and over.
Loving Ellen's new stamps but because they are uber new, I had to improvise. Need to get them as soon as!

I started by choosing PA Fresco paints Chartreuse, Hey Pesto, Lake Wanaka and Beach Hut for my project.I didn't use a folder as my organising days are sort of on the back burner. Instead I used a sheet of A4 card with the idea that I will play and then chop into 4 pieces to make cards (a brill idea from Ellen!)
I brayered my selected colours, overlaid Snowflake in parts and then stamped tone on tone ( fab idea Ellen). I used PA stamp Squiggly ink 15 and a Dyan Reavely circles stamp. I highlighted some of the circles with black pen and stamped lines using archival ink and Snowflake fresco, stamping with an old credit card.

Next, I tore up some strips of Docrafts printed tissue paper, Madame Payraud's and glued onto my work using Claudia Hellmuth multi medium matte. As I mentioned, I will chop this up and make it into four cards somehow or other which is another of Ellen's masterstrokes. Much respect Ellen….loved playing and looking forward to tomorrow!

Easter Hoop

Just before I launch into my description I wanted to share a story which made me feel good.
A few weeks ago we had a new postman, a cheeky chappie with an infectious grin. I realised almost immediately that I used to teach him when he was an eight year old. We chatted and he seemed pleased to see me too. He was the kind of child who came to school because he had to and just wanted to be a bit silly. No malice to him, just a normal little boy who found learning a bit of an unnecessary part of his life. I liked Adam and tried to make life as fun as possible. At the end of the year I had a lovely letter from his parents thanking me and saying that he now didn't mind going to school etc.
This morning I photocopied the letter and gave it to him to show his Mum. He grinned like a little boy again. Oooooo my Mums writing looks just the same, he said , and held it carefully because he didn't want to crease it. Made me smile too.

Anyway, Katrina Rollings came into our lives yesterday and gave us yet another refreshing idea to play with. I stored it in the back of my mind and got on with washing tidying etc. When I was in the spare bedroom tidying away some craft boxes I just spotted an embroidery hoop, and, Ping!! an idea blossomed. So here it is.
I started by cutting lonnnng triangles of paper left over from my theatre project. I rolled them round a skewer, glued them and wound wire around them to make beads. I glazed them with PA gloss glaze.

Next I used Katrina's baby wipe method to paint onto white card. loved the technique because it was quick and I like quick! I used 2 different colour schemes on one piece of card mimicking the colours of my theatre.

I stamped various Lynne Perrella images onto the card with Versafine in Sepia. I then die cut some of the images using Lin Brown's die and reversed each one to be able to glue back to back. I also added a dragonfly PA die and cut out a rectangle. I used Treasure Gold to highlight around my shapes.

I threaded ribbon onto a large needle and threaded my beads, some PA beads and a few others as well as my glued and stuffed images and a couple of skeleton leaves. They are there because of the lovely Julie Ann and her last blog post where she used leaves.

I wrapped my hoop up in bandage and painted it with the same fresco paints in the blue range that I used before. Then I wound wools and ribbons around it. 

Finally I tied my three hangings in place and Abracadabra….another finished project.

The hardest bit was taking a photo to show it off. Decided upon a garden setting.

Pleased with it and thanks to Katrina, you gave me another fun playtime.

Theatre

Will run out of superlatives if I attempt to describe Julie Ann's Theatre. Needless to say, I am  huge fan and she always fires me up!

I decided not to cut up the cover of my journal so went for a rummage and came up with a suitable box with acetate window.
I cut a facade to fit over the front,( 2 actually) one in photo was too clumsy.

I gessoed everything to start and got out all the paints that Julie Ann listed as I love her colour scheme.

I began with the inside of the box and stamped from LPC030 onto white tissue paper in sepia. Then I painted on the back with Mermaid. 

The next step was different from Julie Ann's as I had been watching Hels Sheridan using beeswax and wanted a play. I painted beeswax to the base of my box, overtaxed the tissue and added lots of extra wax around the edges to create texture. I highlighted the texture with Treasure Gold Aquamarine.

I stamped the same sentiment as in the challenge and made curtains from folded tissue which I rubbed with treasure brass and added ribbon.

Next I worked on the facade. layering paint, grungepasting through a stencil, stamping script , rubbing in TG and adding threads. I distress inked the edges for extra definition.

I finished the inside simply as it is much smaller than Julie Ann's, just adding a bee and corners.

I don't have many LP stamps yet so made my own bunting and used stamps from LPCO27 for the front . Again, my theatre is small so I didn't want to overpower it. Will probably make another one as I have ordered more LP stamps!

So there it is, and because it opens at the base, I can stand it up. I hope that you approve Julie Ann, I loved using your fabulous ideas, thanks. x

Yellow Tag

Another fabulous challenge from Clare LLoyd and a must for me to try.

I decided to work on a large, size 10 tag and began by brayering Frescos, Limelight, Zesty Zing and my fave, Chartreuse .
Next I stamped some of Lin's sentiment stamps in Olive and Black archival.
I grungepasted through a leaf stencil and sponged chartreuse over the top.

I used a flower that I made last week for Deborahs' flower wreath and sprayed it with watered down Little Black Dress. I wanted to go for a dark brown shade so then sprayed it with Bronze Blush Cosmic Shimmer Mist. to finish off the flower I dry brushed a lime Treasure Gold over the tips of the petals.

I stamped leaves from Lin Browns ELB01 onto grungepaper and sprayed them dark brown with the Mica Mist.

I stamped ART IN BLOOM onto my mop up paper and mounted it on brown card.

Finally, all glued into place and some string and twine attached. Forgot to mention that I Treasure gilded with Onyxite around the edges of the tag.

Another challenge that I thoroughly enjoyed. Love your work Clare. 

Hexagon Frameworks

I recently bought a Tim Holtz Die Frameworks. Really like hexagons and how clever they are. I knew that there would be endless possibilities for playing.
For my first attempt I cut my shapes from a Prima collection of papers called Romance Novel.
I brayered a subtle background using Fresco Rose, Toad Hall and Space Cadet and used the same to stipple through a stencil.
Next I arranged my shapes on the page, glued down and added a little more stencilling.
I added one extra glitzy pink hexagon for a bit of impact.
Finally, I doodled and wrote a message in black pen and added some white.

When Sam saw my work on Twitter, she gave me a link to a video of Tim demonstrating frameworks. This gave me lots of extra ideas so here is my second attempt.

I cut out this time from Tim Holtz Ideology Lost and Found papers and then cut out loads of hexagons from small scraps of card of varying colours and textures.

For my background I tore some dictionary pages, stippled through my hexagon stencil with Golden Monarch Silks and sprayed Perfect Pearls Mists blue patina. I cut my hexagon framework up and arranged it with my cut outs. I added extra hexagons of black shiny card, gold linen card and a silver one. I selected one of the images to highlight with a hessian frame and jewels.

Finally I wrote something that seemed appropriate and scribbled around the edge.

So, there they are, two different interpretations and the start of many more to come.

Clare's Garland

I was fascinated and very impressed with the garland that Clare made. Using spools and flowers and combining them with Ellens stamps made me smile. So…..I hunted for my spools, and hunted …and the next day hunted. Could only find a great big humdinger one so I sent for some.
You know how scale is totally lost in photos, well the spools arrived and you need a microscope to see them. So my garland had to scale down.
I painted the spools with Fresco Little Black Dress and stamped onto small flowers with Black Archival using Ellen's stamps.

I stamped some different Ellen stamps and selected some beads to fill out my garland.

As you can see, I stuck to green colour scheme because I was restricted in my choice of small flowers.

I threaded a small needle with fine nylon thread….NIGHTMARE…don't normally do fiddly stuff.

Began to thread beads, flowers, spools, beads, etc……aaaagggghhhhhhhhh……..just waiting for it to get all tangled up……..and it didn't???????

I found a necklace fastener in my stash of stuff from when Leandra did the boxes of goodies. Can't remember what she called them. Was it monster boxes ?

Anyway. somehow attached the thread to the fasteners and …..MADE A NECKLACE!!!!!DAH DAH….never made a necklace before.

Trickiest bit was taking a photo and leaving out the turkey neck!!!!!

Thanks Clare for the inspiration!