Woodland Bird House

 

I bought this MDF birdhouse last week at The Big Stamp Show held at Alexandra Palace in London.  It is actually a money box with a slot in the roof, but as I have no use for that, I covered the slot when I made my new roof!

The roof is covered with Ten Second Studio metal which I have embossed and sanded.  I wanted to add a decorative roof edging so I used Art Parts by Studio 490 which I painted and stamped.

I altered the entire birdhouse to look like white peeling weathered wood and I stamped leaves and flowers in chalk ink using some gorgeous new stamps by Differentcolors who are based in The Netherlands.  A few Lost Coast butterflies finished the background.  The picket fence is an alterations die which I painted with dabbers in two shades.

The birds and branch are by Maya road.  I painted the branch with acrylic paint and covered the birds in old text before tinting them using distress markers.  I added a small crystal for an eye and part embossed the larger bird with some Golden Sparkle embossing powder by Cosmic Shimmer which I got at the Show.  The little nest is from The Range;  it came in a pack of 6 around Easter time and I tinted the eggs with alcohol ink.  The butterfly is a download from Divas D'Este.

The final addition was the sentiment which is a Unity Stamp by Donna Downey. 

On this side, I cut some tattered florals in grungeboard and coloured them with distress inks before overstamping them with patterns.  The stems are made from a coffee spatula (thanks to Costa Coffee!) which I tinted with Walnut Stain distress.

The bee is  Stampotique stamp by Jo Capper-Sandon.

For the other side I stamped and cut out a tree by Stampotique and sat my crows, also Stampotique, on its branches.

It was really fun making this house, which is for my new studio.  I'm entering it into 'Lots of Layers' challenge on Try it on Tuesday, into 'Birds, Butterflies & Bees' challenge with The Stamp Man and also Challenge 3 on Anything But a Card

Have a happy day ...  x

 

Fairy Time

I have made this page for the Challenge #20 Things with Wings over at The Cheerful Stamp Pad. 

Last October, I went to a scrapbook retreat in Cornwall and we had a day with a professional photographer in the beautiful grounds of the hotel.  She gave us each a gorgeous little fairy to play with and we had to pose her in the foliage and experiment with setting up a shot and capturing it.  My friend and I had great fun with 'Miss Whippy' as we called her, due to her hair being like a whippy ice-cream!!

I love these red hot pokers (knifolia) and when I saw the challenge, I knew that this was the page I wanted to scrap for it.

I created the orange background using old sheet music which I sealed with Viva Croco before using acrylic paint and stamps over it.  The 'Giant Shroom' is by Stampotique and I made it in Ten Second Studio metal.

The fairy stamps and leaves are by Lavinia Stamps.  I tore the squashed fairy plate from an old book and I stamped script over it.  The large flower is by Prima and the smaller ones are by Petaloo.  These come plain white for you to alter as you choose so I stamped mine with music and spritzed them to match the layout colours.

Hope you like my entry and make sure you have a magical day :)  x

Look East

This page is for the Red & Gold Challenge at Gingersnap Creations.

I wanted the gold to be really bold and so I used gold leaf and beadazzles around the edge of page.  I embossed the backing paper for the photograph with gold bamboo images.

The cherry blossom was created using a stencil by Crafters Workshop. 

The lanterns were folded from very thin gold paper which I splodged with alcohol inks.  They are hanging on gold crystal chains from the cherry blossom.

I used some oriental newspaper to back the photos which I had printed onto a transparency and for my embossed 'E'. 

If you would like to know more about how to create this kind of texture on a page, I will be posting a tutorial on Gingersnap Creations blog - why not hop by and take a peek!!

Faces of the Orient

This is a small canvas I have made for the Geishas Challenge at Gingersnap Creations.  

I started by painting the canvas with gesso (as it started life as a picture of a camper van!).  I used gel medium to apply oriental paper to the background and once this was dry, I used acrylic paint in layers to build up the colours to match my main photograph.

I printed the monochrome geisha image onto a transparency and painted the other image with Croco basecoat to seal it.   The temple was made using a stamped image onto Ten Second Studio metal.  I used other oriental stamps and completed the canvas with some K&Co lanterns.

(Images courtesy of http://www.art-e-zine.co.uk/vie4jap.html)

Bags of Style

I had an idea to make a patchwork element from the leftover squares which were snipped out of all the pre-folded papers I used to infill the configurations box.  I glued them all randomly and gave them a coat of croco basecoat and the end result was really pleasing.  This was where the fun began as I felt as if I was in free fall after that, trying to get the layout to work!  

I needed the right sort of image to go with the paper so I decided on some of my daughter after an evening at guides making an outfit from old bags and images from magazines.  The  colours and grunge feeling seemed to match, particularly in their original format with our wooden front door as a backdrop.  However, as the day progressed, ideas kept changing the style of the page;  I decided to cut her out, stamp the background and dress the dummy with relevant newspaper clippings.  I added a metal ruler, a corrugated cardboard heart, buttons and a newpaper rosette flower.

As a result, I don't think the page is typical of my usual style and I keep looking at it to make sure it works.  Anyway, it's done now and I hope you like it  :)

Step Back in Time

The Prima Botanicals papers are just lovely and so flexible as they feature cogs, birds, insects and scrolls as well as flowers.  They can easily be used for vintage layouts and this picture of the Old Post Office in Tintagel needed an aged feel.

I printed the photograph onto acetate and then selected various other shots from our visit.  I converted some into black and white before arranging them on the page.

I used Ten Second Studio metal to create the time plaque and an old clock face to emphasise my theme.  The buttons were made by pouring UTEE into a mould with a circular button of time themed ephemera at the bottom.

The wording at the top was mounted onto old sheet music which had been coated with Croco Base Coat.

Spring Time

This is my second layout of the weekend.  Here I used masks, ink sprays and Ten Second Studio metal.  The glorious foxgloves were captured last Easter at Tintagel.  I used a melt pot to coat the clock and the birds and give then a high gloss finish.

The bird is by Prima.  I have inked it a little and drawn its legs so that it sits on the masked image of barbed wire.  The acetate postcard was made with a Crafty Individuals stamp.

The title letters are a combination of stamped and inked for the word Spring and the new Ideology Alphaparts for Time.

Really had fun creating a layout to show off this image and I love the result.

Spring

This is the first of two layouts I completed at the weekend.  I went to St Ives in Cornwall and spent Saturday with Just Scrapbooking.  I love being able to play with so many different materials and the best bit is having a whole day to indulge in my favourite activity without having to break off to prepare lunch or help with homework!  Also met a bunch of lovely ladies which I hope I will meet up with again.

I took the photo of the children in amongst the daffodils in a Trevarno Gardens last year.  There were so many varieties and they were all busy with their cameras and videos.  I have aged the picture which gives is a nostalgic feeling.

The layout incorporated lots of techniques including using Ten Second Studio alpha set and metal, ferro paints, water colours and stamps.

I used 'Jasmine' and daisies by Jo Capper-Sandon along the bottom of the page.  The background paper is from the new Botanicals range by Prima.

Scilly Isles

I did this layout at a recent retreat I went to with Just Scrapbooking in Cornwall - so credit again to Linda for the original inspiration.

I used Ten Second Studio metal and dies for the dragonfly.  The bird is stamped onto Stampboard and coated in glossy accents.  I used ferro onto heavy cardstock and stamped the alium head into it before rubbing it over with a contrasting colour.

I tore pages from an old book and used Masquepen to highlight some of the words.  Once the masking fluid had dried, the page was inked to bring out the words and I used the alium stamp again on the page edges.  I used hooks and eyes to link both sides of the book together.

This page was great fun to produce- I definitely like the use of the book pages so watch out for them in my other layouts!

Love

I took these photos of two of my sons and they absolutely capture the relationship between them.  I knew that I wanted to create a page based on them and as there were several good shots in the series, I hit upon the idea of the oversized filmstrip.

However, when I created the strip, it just didn’t work and so my idea had not translated onto the page.  I fiddled with it for ages before I decided that what was lacking was the little square punched holes in the sides that filmstrip has.  However, I don’t possess a small square punch so it was back to the drawing board.

I left the filmstrip and created the metal ‘Love’ embellishment using Ten Second Studio tools and plates.  Once this was done, the layout started to take shape. 

My original idea had been to leave part of the filmstrip blank as if it were a piece of a length of filmstrip but as this didn’t look right, I extended it to go across the whole page and put pictures in all the apertures.

I inked the edge of paper with distress ink and used a rub-on to capture the mood of the pictures.

A funky arrow and a line of journalling completed the page - Phew!

This layout has far less steps than many I do but it has taken me ages to complete as I got stuck in how to transfer my idea to the paper.  Just goes to show that you should always persevere!