Avian

This is my newly completed page for my Isles of Scilly album.  The wildlife on the islands is far less timid than at home so I got some really close-up shots which was fantastic as I could capture just how lovely these birds are.

I scrapped the picture of the young thrush previously but wasn't happy with my layout so decided to start again.  The Islands are absolutely incredible and there are photo opportunities around every corner so of course, I just kept snapping.  I am trying to get my album finished so that all my shots of our trip are ready for us to re-visit but it's quite a big task!

I'm really pleased with this page now so that's another one closer to a finished album!

The City That Never Sleeps

This is my tag for Grungy Monday Challenge 12 over at Studio L3.

The technique for the challenge was absolutely that ... a Challenge ... well for me at least!  This was tag number 4!   The difficultly I had was getting the paint off the embossed areas once dry.  Either it refused to budge or the paper started to fall apart as I rubbed over the area - I just couldn't seem to master it.  I gave up yesterday and returned this morning to have another shot but this time I barely left the paint to dry before removing it.  Hey presto!  the images came through and the paper stayed intact - phew!  

Once the background was complete with the New York skyline at the bottom and the clock at the top, I had a wrestle with my Dymo machine.  Sir Tim insists that these machines will take normal paper but my little gadget had other ideas.  It took me ages to get my paper strip through the feeder and then it wouldn't move the paper on after each letter.  I got around this problem by manually pulling it through each time I printed a letter.  Obviously, this was hard to judge exactly, but it turned out OK and I like the idea of being able to use media other than dymo tape.

I've used a variety of other things on this tag - a glimmer chip wing which I inked with distress and spritzed with glacier glimmer mist; a small piece of film strip into which I punched a washer, an ideology pen nib wound with embroidery silk, an idealogoy hinged clip and an ideology philosphy tag.

The old pocket watch was re-glazed with UTEE into which some small watch bits and pieces were dropped. 

Hope you like it!

Money is the Root of all Evil

Over at Gingersnap Creations, the challenge for this week is the Colour of Money. The challenges this month are very kindly being sponsored by Altered Pages and some of my images have been provided by them. 

I dressed my mannequin with money - although this is hard to see as the stamp is so detailed. 

I wanted to tie this element in to the quote so I converted some tree branches (Maya Road) into roots.  I embossed them with clear powder before inking them with distress.

I backed this onto a collage of currency printed in black and white. 

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

For You

House move over - thank goodness!! - so back to a little time to be creative in between sorting the new house out.  

I made this little card for the Stampotique Designers Challenge SDC32: Clean and Simple. 

This challenge involves creating a clean layout with plenty of free space ie minimalistic.  I always admire this look as it seems so simple, but I actually found that it was quite a challenging to create.  Either my layout looked unfinished or I added one more touch and ruined the whole thing!  Trust me when I say that my new bin is testament to this (Uh Oh!)


Several attempts later, I finally got it right and this is the result.  

My little Gog Lin stamp was a present from my children on Mother's Day so it's really got a special place in my collection and this was his first outing!


Hope you all like him ...  x

Off With Their Heads

How fabulous is this?  This dropped through my letterbox in the middle of my house move and it was a such a welcome diversion. 

This was the work I received as part of the art swap run in the April edition of the Craft Stamper magazine.  The theme was Fun and Games with a colour scheme is olive, rust and cream, up to  5" square and it had to include a game piece.

The quality of the card is amazing.  Absolutely incredible amount of detail and beautifully put together.  It was made by Franka Benjaminsen whose blog I am going to try and locate to see some of her other work.  So Franka, if you ever come to see my blog - a big thankyou for making such a fantastic card - it's got pride of place on my desk!  lol xx

Happy Birthday

 

I wanted to share this beautiful card I received for my birthday from a lovely friend of mine.  I think this is the best handmade card I have ever received as it's Alice (so major points scored already!) and it's absolutely gorgeous.  

How lucky am I to have someone to take the time to create this me?  

The only downside to having such a talented friend, is keeping up with her when we go to retreats together -  she's not only uber talented but also super fast!! lol x

Ooh La La

This is my piece for GC105: From the Mall Challenge at Gingersnap Creations.  

When I saw the challenge theme, my lovely shopping diva stamp came to mind straight away.  I wanted to combine this with the use of old photos as this is becoming my favourite technique of the moment!!

I decided to transfer my background photo image to my card so I painted it with matte soft gel and applied it face down to my card before leaving it to dry thoroughly.  Patience is the key but once it was fully dry, I rubbed off the backing leaving just the image.  I used acrylic paints to frame it into the page.

I stamped my diva onto a transparency and coloured her in suitable shades for such a fabulous shopper!  Both the striped fabric and the pink ric-rac are from garment tags which also tie they in nicely with the challenge theme.

Two Little Boys

This month is Wild West over at Gingersnap Creations and we've all been busy creating art which includes cowboys, cactuses and carts!!  

I've posted a tutorial to show how to create perspective background using a brayer.  If you've got a few minutes, pop over and take a look at it and get rollering!!

I've made this scene using the technique and put my two little cowboys in it to play.  Hope you like it and feel inspired to give it a try.  I'd love to see what fantastic art you come up with. x

Earth Laughs in Flowers

Over at the Play Date Cafe the challenge is based on a photograph and it's really interesting to see what this sparks in everyone's mind.  For some people, it's clearly the colour palette, whereas for me, it was the fencing that stood out and all I could think of was country cottage.

So, that's what I did ... I covered some card with Panduro fabric and let it dry before running it through my lovely Vagabond (thankyou QVC for offering easy-pay!).  I also used it to cut my fencing from Colour Core Cardstock (Whitewash Collection) which, if you are not familiar with this, is coloured cardstock with a linen finish and whitewashed.  If you sand it, the core colour shows through.  I love it as it comes in all different core colours and is really versatile, especially when embossed.

I then set about altering some existing embellishments I had to make my little house bloom.  The background card was painted with watercolour from pale green to pale blue.  A couple of stalks painted in for my sunflowers and it's finished.

Tag Thursday

 

What is it about today?  I've got the tag bug and cant stop making them!!

A couple of days ago I received parcel from Art Journey with some GORGEOUS stamps.  Normally, I'd get them straight out of the packet, mount them up and start stamping but creativity is running low (and time to create even lower) due to our imminent housemove :(  It'll be OK once it's done, but at the moment I'm the wrong side of done (if you know what I mean!).

Anyway, I decided that these stamps were too lovely to wait, so I've made these tags.   The backgrounds were created with Dylusions inks and I misted two of them with Marshmallow Glimmer Mist just to set off my stamps.

The shells are all stamped and painted with watercolours and are from Art Journey.  I love the urchins as they can be cut up into sections so are really interesting. 

The tag on the left has fish which I cut from the packaging of a fancy box of chocs I was given as a gift. The fatter fish are Art Journey.

My mermaids are, of course, Stampotique.

I will be mounting these onto cards tomorrow to use for some thankyou notes I need to send.

Hope you like my efforts ... I'm off to bed as it's late ... must remember to shut the cat in the Laundry Room or I'll be back here at 5.30am LOL!!

Grungy Monday 07

I've finally found time to enter Linda's Grungy Monday challenge ... having gained an extra hour in my day today, due to being woken by a naughty cat at 5.30 (trust me ... he's not so cute when he's pulling the carpet outside my door!) and decided to use the time to make my tag. 

The challenge this week was to use Tim Holtz's  Distress Colour Ink Blocking technique.

I inked the background using the technique and then spritzed it with water and removed some of the ink to soften the effect.  I stamped the music on the side with a Versamark ink pad and painted violet mica powder over it. 

The birds and nest are from the Artful Flight CMS 069 set and the sentiment from Stuff to Say CMS110.

I sprayed the lace lightly with Dylusions inks and added a stitched heart button and fibres. Not a bad job just as the kids start to emerge for breakfast ... must diary another 5.30 slot!!

Ye Ha!

This is my submission for the GC103 Scene Stamping Challenge at Gingersnap Creations. The theme for May is the Wild West which certainly got me thinking as my stash is a little lacking in cactuses and wagons!

Knowing this theme was coming up, I tasked my kids to find me some material on the Wild West in the old book shops in Cornwall!  After some rather unsuccessful time, we enlised the help of the bookshop owner and he found me an old magazine called Wagon Road North which had loads of great black and white photos - perfect!

I started my piece by creating a simple two colour background with acrylics.  I stamped some small circles in the same colour as the sky.  I used acrylics to stamp the buildings which are from the "Dwelling" clear stamp collection by Claudine Hellmuth.  These stamps come in two parts - a background foam stamp (which I used) and an overlay clear stamp to add detail.

I cut some of the signs from the old photos to turn my buildings into shops and stamped the title above using Prima No.6 stamps by Christina Renee. 

The horse and wagon was cut from an old photograph in the magazine and coloured lightly with pastels.  I created a shadow underneath the wagon with acrylics and pastels and adhered it with 3D tape.  Somethings else was needed and the embossed silver stars were the final touch - Voila!! (or should I say Ye Ha!) LOL

Not Everything That Dives ...

The new mermaid stamps from Stampotique are really detailed (as you would expect) and I just had a play with one when I had a few minutes to spare.

Quick Cards

Had 45 mins to get two cards done so I knew I would have to abandon my usual style, which involves drying time and a range of processes in favour of clean and simple.

The great thing with these two old cronies (who I love) is that I've got an assortment of great quotes that match them perfectly.  

Job done ... off on school run with card delivery en route!

Travel Bookmarks

Oh dear ... they still looked slightly wonky in the photo!!  Spent ages trying to line them up, but they wouldn't behave!! Never mind ...

I have made these bookmarks for the AE7 Travel The World Art Exchange at Gingersnap Creations Yahoo Group.  If you fancy this swap, why not join the group and have a go ...  this swap is really good fun.

I decided to collage different images from 4 different places around the world.  I printed the images onto transparencies, paper and parchment and layered them in a combination.  Each one has a different method of travel and focuses on a different pat of the world.

I used Claudine Hellmuth matte medium to fix the elements and was rather worried when my parchment started to wrinkle up VERY badly.  However, I kept smoothing it out and as it dried it did flatten (phew!).  I then applied a coat of Gloss Decoupage medium followed by Crackle Glaze.  

Off to the mailbox they go; can't wait to see what drops through my letterbox soon ...

Hold On ...

I decided to scrap Max's cake photo today and as I started to get the photo ready to print, it really hit me that he is already 13 and yet it seems like only yesterday that he arrived.  With that as the focus of my page, I spent enjoying a trip down memory lane looking at all the photos of his younger years.

Having been an extremely challenging child throughout most of his early years, it is an absolute pleasure to be with him now and this is why I feel that time is racing on when we are only just beginning to have fun together.  I know the teens are yet to come, but I'm optimistic (and keeping my fingers crossed) ...

I selected a bright background to match the dolly mixtures and then I layered the other elements to create a loose collage.  I cut Max out from a photograph of him aged about 2 and slid him into the little red wagon.

The clock is stamped and UTEE'd onto stampboard.  I used only one layer of UTEE so that it kept a texture and then I rubbed some gold rub-on into the gaps.  I made the word stop from an alterations fragment and attached it onto the chain along with a metal word stick.  I attached my 'pocket watch' to the title which is made from Alterations Alphaparts.

I stamped the details tag using Bebe Chic stamps and made the journalling slip from a cream tag which I stamped lightly with script before adding the spiral bound stamped edge (Paperbag Studio).

I finished the page with some stapled ribbon, some clock stamps and misted images, some faux sweets and a large star brad.

Hope you like it - and hope the star of the page does too!

 

Cake

A big success - just what every boy loves ... a big cake and loads of sweets!!

Be Bold

I have entered this card into the sketch challenge at Stampotique Designers Challenge.  This is my first use of this stamp and I really love how beautifully it stamps up.  

I have used the rickety house die from Tim Holtz as my background layer.  I thought hard before buying this die as I didn't want something just for halloween (despite my love of halloween ...  it is only once a year).  I have found that it can be altered quite easily to suite other occasions which justifies its place in my stash!  On this card, I put it into a script embossing folder then painted and sanded it.  Some black glitter and more black paint finished it off. 

I used paint dabbers and white ink to create the background and I painted my Queen with watercolours.

Just hope the Stampotique Team like it!!

The Mount

St Michael's Mount is one of the most iconic landmarks of Cornwall.  We visited it last year and it really is an amazing place.  The island is connected to the mainland by a causeway at low tide but once the tide comes in, it becomes an island again and is accessible only by boat or amphibious vehicle.  

On my recent visit to Cornwall, I was rummaging around some old curiosity shops when I came across some old cigarette cards with images of Cornwall from days gone by.  One of them was of The Mount which inspired to get scrap my photos of it.

I converted the smaller images to black and white and gave them a slight blue tint and then I boosted and tinted out the main image to contrast it.  I used Dylusions inks and a mask to create the bottom area of the page.  The title was printed from old printer's blocks which I also sourced during trip to Cornwall.  A couple of shells from the beach and a starfish complete the page.