Adorable

This is my heart coaster for this week's challenge at Gingersnap Creations.  It's a Blue Moon week so you can create anything from previous art exchange themes.  There's loads of choice - Party Postcards, Flower Forms, Soar ATC's, Paint Chip Scraplings, Winter 4x4, Coasting Hearts or Travel the World Bookmarks.  I chose to make a coaster and it was really fun to do.

I decided to make my whole coaster heart shaped (you can never have too many hearts!) and I embossed it an used a red stickle to emphasise the pattern.  The little butterfly boy is by Art Journal and the wings are by Tattered Angels.  I have had the wings in my stash for ages and have toyed with using them many times before but this project definitely needed to fly and so they have found their home!

Why not pop past Gingersnaps and join in the fun.  Have a crafty week whatever you do ...

x

Think Happy Thoughts!

The Joys of Childhood is our focus for this month at Gingersnap Creations and this week is a colour challenge of primary colours.  Stamping Boutique are sponsoring the whole month and the cute image has very kindly been donated by them.

I made the tree bough using grungeboard which I embossed and inked before adding some hand drawn knots.

I used floss to create the ropes which are extended over the bough. 

Thanks for visiting my blog ... hope you get chance to create your own primary colour layout and join in this week's fun!  x

Rabbit Hole

 

I've got a fascination with all things Alice and have been taking photos of rabbit burrows, leafy lanes and the like for some time in order to use some of my Alice stash!  

The cottage we rent in the Isle of Wight every October has a massive garden and if you venture to the very end where everything is rural and quiet, you will find hundreds of fabulous rabbit holes along the most exquisite leafy path.  Whilst the children play noisily on the trampoline, I venture down the garden to take photos of this secret world!

I made a frame for my old key from stampboard and backed it with music which I overstamped with flowers.  I used a clock mask and a botanicals mask to spritz my green paper with images using glimmer mists and dylysions ink sprays.  

The character cards are from Graphic45 paper and the  birdcage is by Dusty Attic.

Love

I did a tutorial over at Gingersnap Creations on making stampboard frames for little treasures and this page was the basis for adding this frame. 

I created a little secret love message for my husband and popped it in a bottle.  I then added a little Vintaj brass tag with the has the word imagine stamped into it.

I created the background paper using alcohol inks and blending solution and I inked some shells onto it using a Crafters Workshop mask.

I inked up some watercolour paper with distress inks and then spritzed it with water and sprinkled rock salt over it.  After the paper dried, I brushed of the salt and was left with lovely watery patterns over my paper.  I used this in the centre of my page.

The tag was inked with distress and then I used molding paste in green, brown and yellow over the shell mask to make my nautilus shells.  The starfish was clear embossed before I inked the paper and then the embossing was removed with a hot iron to leave a flat white image. 

 

A quick pop to the beach to find mussel shells actually turned up the lovely razor shell (for which I always feel very privileged to be given by the sea) and which was fantastic for this page. 

I am really pleased with this project as sometimes using very dark shades of inks can be a bit scary (!) so this layout did take me a few days to get it to come together.  It's another one for my Isles of Scilly album which is now nearing completion (about time too!!).

If you want to know how to make the frames, use the link above to my tuturial where you can also find an earlier tutorial on how to use masks to create 3D images using molding paste.

Have a crafty day everyone ...  x

Teen Queen

Another completely different style for me as this month at Gingersnap Creations, we are concentrating on the Joys of Childhood.  Stamping Boutique have very generously sponsored this entire month and my Whimsy Teenager is one of their fantastic images which they have provided for us to play with.

She certainly is a cute girl and to I decided to sit her on some paper covered in kisses and hugs and add  some fantastic lips from a paper by Rusty Pickle's Cherry Pucker range entitled 'Chocolate Covered Cherries'. 

I fixed her with 3D glue to give the card dimension but this doesn't come out when photographing her from above so I'll have to leave that bit to your imagination!

So for everyone out there who has experience of a teen why not see what you can come up with and get crafting!  :)

Max

This month at Gingersnap Creations, we are concentrating on the Joys of Childhood and this week's challenge is G113 Babes and Tots.

I had a great photo in mind for this challenge of all my tribe in the bath with squirty soap on their heads but I'm a bit lacking in bathroom themed stamps so instead, I've opted for some shots of my little boy (now aged 13) on the beach.  Funny how they don't really change isn't it?  Still happy to pose for the camera and still got a ready smile ... well at least some of the time anyway!

My background paper was white linen and I used a combination of glimmer sprays and a Crafter's Workshop template (mini seashells) to create the seaside effect.  The palm tree, stamp and crab are all from Tattered Angels beach screen prints stamps.

I created the title using a technique shown to me at the Tim Holtz workshop I went to back in February.  I painted grungeboard squares with black paint dabbers and inked the grungeboard latters with Vintage Photo.  I adhered the 2 parts to make faux ink blocks which I think look really cool.

A starfish in the corner completed the page along with a little dusty concord and faded jeans distress around the edge of the page.

This is a really great challenge to enter as it is a wide category giving you plenty of scope so I hope you feel inspired to dig out some old photos and head on up to the challenge!!!  

Happy crafting :)