CHRIS'S CRAFT ROOM

P S

2011-04-04T01:31:00.005+01:00

By the way - I should have said - obviously this blog is not a shop but I intend to try and set up an Etsy shop or similar fairly soon, if I can work it out! has anyone tried it? Can you let me know how it went? Meanwhile all the jewellery is for sale and other stuff can be commissioned so if anyone is interested, please get in touch or put them in touch...

On another subject, I have finally finished some artwork I promised someone ages ago - sometimes I can get stuff done immediately and sometimes there's just no inspiration ... So Lou, if you read this, the journal pages are finally on their way! Perhaps because I have transferred my obsessiveness to jewellery, I am finding far more inspiration there - perhaps I should try to transfer jewellery design to papercraft, now there's a thought. Off to ponder on that one ...

I'm still here!!!

2011-04-03T19:47:00.005+01:00

Another post with this title. I can't believe how long it is since I posted. I have been having a very busy time and blogs and internet have been the last things on my mind I'm afraid.
Anyway here I am, I have taken up jewellery making, and am hoping I can sell some, I am at that stage in life where I desperately want to retire but still need some form of income! I guess a lot of people can relate to that. Anyway I will try not to leave it so long before I post again, thanks so much to those of you who are still following me, you have been very patient.

Altered Key Cabinet

2010-04-24T23:08:00.009+01:00

The other day, my friend Carol and I got together to have a play day and decided we would alter some key cabinets. We each had one from a well-known high street store with initials in its name, which I find is a good source of small mdf items to alter. In the past I've had mini chests of drawers, tool caddies and a key rack. (OK, it's T K Maxx)

Anyway, they both originally had rather lurid pictures of roses on them. For some reason I NEVER like images of roses. I love the flowers themselves, and I like other flower pictures, but I never ever like rose pictures, not even photographs. I forgot to photograph the cabinets before we started, but here is the front of another piece waiting to be altered, with the same dreadful rose on it:

Carol and I chose quite different approaches - she is a very tidy and classic designer, I tend more towards slap it on and see where it goes, and it ends up more grungy. I started by taking the door and the door knob off to give myself a blank canvas, then I cut a piece of corrugated board to fit. I distressed the board with a bit of brown emulsion paint and some gold acrylic paint, very roughly dry-brushed on, then I embossed the edges with some Cosmic Shimmer EP in a greeny-black colour. I stuck this on with PVA. I took 3 tags and decorated them, firstly by inking the edges and then stencilling with some of the new DI's then I stamped with my new Tim Holtz set "Purely Random" which has a gorgeous elephant among other things! I embossed the edges very roughly with more cosmic shimmer and an unknown EP that my friend Sue was chucking out before moving house. I then added some short ribbons and stuck them on, allowing for the door knob to go back! I had some new Marianne dies that I bought from Paddy's Stamping Place so I pinched a bit of K&Co paper that Carol had with her and chopped out some leaves and flowers with my trusty Cuttlebug, distressed them then stuck them on with Pinflair glue. (that stuff is brilliant!)

Carol painted hers a lovely dark red with some emulsion paint then stencilled swirls over it with Crushed Sapphire DI. She made a lovely 2 dimensional butterfly and added some gems to it and stuck that on the front. Hers is what I would call sophisticated and elegant! Quite a contrast to mine which I can only describe as "rustic" ! Forgot to take a pic of Carol's, sorry - if I get one I'll post it another time!
Here's mine anyway:

Stash Box workshop

2010-04-18T10:30:00.011+01:00

The Stash Box workshop went ahead yesterday as planned with three attendees including Paddy, who did finish the project, apart from the varnishing! For all who know her, this is amazing, as she is usually distracted and interrupted all day long by the shop, phone and visitors, or starts off doing the workshop project then goes off at a tangent.
Anne and Sharon, (hope I've spelt you right girls) were the other two, they are sisters-in-law from Blackburn and very talented and very funny! The day flew by. My worries about not finishing the project in the day were unfounded, we finished in plenty of time for them to have a good browse and pick up a few crafting essentials! Here are some pics - my apologies to Anne for lousy photography, but my pics of your pretty box were too blurred to use - even my photo editing s/w couldn't make a good job. For everyone else, Anne's box was a lovely riot of spring colours, just right for this time of year. You can see it part-finished in the last photo.
All the stamps used and inks are available from Paddy's Stamping Place:
www.paddystampingplace.co.uk

This is an extra sample I finished the night before - although it's not really finished, don't look at the back!!!!

These next two are Paddy's - gorgeous naturally, her colours are beautiful, my photograph hasn't really done them justice, they are more vibrant in real life AND she managed to incorporate her current fave product - velvet ricrac ribbon! She chose her box colours to go with the colours of ribbon that she had:

This is Sharon's box in progress - she chose a lovely warm colour scheme, using the new DI's, as Paddy had - there are some gorgeous colours as you can see. Sharon added a lot more detail to this before she had finished, and it looked really pretty - as we said, one can hide craft stash all over the house in boxes like this!

Finally here is everyone hard at work - I was obviously cracking the whip quite hard at this point!
Paddy:

Anne and Sharon:

If you want to come along and join in a workshop, ring Paddy on 0161 798 5115 or call in the shop and she will tell you what is coming up.

Workshop at Paddy's - Stash boxes

2010-04-15T22:52:00.005+01:00

I've been a bit absent from blogland for a while - lots of reasons, one of which is that I have been preparing stuff for a workshop I'm doing at Paddy's Stamping Place in Prestwich this Saturday 17th April and repeating the following Friday, 23rd.
These are a couple of "sneaky peeks" of the stash storage boxes we will be making from recycled packaging. There are still places available, if you would like to come along, phone Paddy on 0161 798 5115, she'll fit you in I'm sure! If you do, I'll "show and tell" the story of the disaster that happened to another sample (which was the girly one, if you are thinking these two are a bit macho)!!!
By the way, that reminds me, I am also going to be doing a "man cards" workshop there in a few weeks, no sneaky peeks of that one yet I'm afraid, but it's before Father's day, if anyone is stuck!

Play date cafe 17

2010-02-22T16:28:00.006Z

This weeks colours for the Play Date Cafe challenge were great I thought, until I tried to use them and found that nothing I did turned out right!

Meanwhile I had been making tags to cover art journals with, (see previous post if you would like to have a look at them) so I thought I might try one of those as they seemed to be coming together well, so here it is, mounted onto a card decorated with a Martha Stewart punch. BTW I met some people last week who did not know she had been to jail - how did they miss it?

I love putting little bits of things inside those Tim Holtz book plates and filling them with Glossy Accents to seal it all in.

Art Journals

2010-02-22T15:42:00.011Z

Lately I have been looking at my Art Journals and thinking that the covers were very dull, so I decided to bling them up a bit!

This first one is about 8" square, and is about half filled. A few pages have birds or other natural images on them so I wanted to follow on with that, without making the cover another journal page as such. I love adding 3D elements to artwork, but you can't do that too much inside the journal as the pages won't close if you do, so I contented myself with putting them on the cover. The tag was made a few weeks ago using one of TH's Distress Ink / Perfect Pearls techniques, also recently demo'd on C & C. Several bits move or dangle. You can see I am a fan of T. Holtz ideologies!

By contrast this one is very small, 4" approx, and I have kept the decoration very simple. I shall use this one for lettering. I love the beaded trim, (more movement) and the leaves were stencilled through a Stewart Gill stencil with Viva 3D Glitter Gel in Haematite.

I think this next one is my favourite! The journal is about DL size, and I have started using it. I stencilled a design on it with Brilliance Platinum then added some German Scrap. I Glimmer misted the tag, which was black, added a strip of GM'd text from a book in Polish (or it may be Czech I'm not sure as I don't know either language). Then I added a flower made from parts of several other flowers and various metal embellishments including part of an old earring and stuck it on. I stuck a few tiny bits together to make the 3 small pieces across the bottom. Again, a couple of the items move around as you handle the journal.

This last item is for "Stash Lists" as you can see from the front - this has lists of which colours I have in each kind of pad, Alcohol Inks, CB folders and dies I already have etc - with any luck, if I remember to take it with, I shall avoid duplications in future when I go craft shopping!! The book is about A6 size and was shocking pink so I toned it down with white acrylic paint, wrote out the title and added it along with some black lacy braid down the sides. Then I made a tag, using some more of the Polish text. I stuck on some black wired beads from a wedding shop, some T Holtz film strip, a couple of stamped images and some more moveable TH ideologies. And gems. Phew!

When I have finished using the books I shall add ribbons, beads, mini tags etc to the bindings, but it would make them too difficult to use if I did it at this stage!
Hope you like them.

Very big welcome to my new followers - It is very gratifying when people want to see my stuff, thank you so much! Please leave me comments or questions if you have time, I love to know people have been calling in.

Suze Weinberg Workshop

2010-02-22T15:24:00.005Z

Here are some pictures of a workshop I went to at Craftrange in Burnley recently, given by the world famous Suze Weinberg. It was all about melt art, naturally. Suze was very friendly and down to earth, seemed to be enjoying her trip to the UK. We started off by making wax collages, which unfortunately I don't have a decent photo of - I was not too happy with mine. I shall try and post one another time when I do a better one (if!!) Then we went on to work with UTEE which was great, and we made a lot of small items which are very pretty. Again, I shall post some photos another time. There are some good pics on Suze's blog : http://suzeweinberg.typepad.com/suzeblogz/2010/02/life-is-goooooood.html
except there is a dreadful one of me.

This is my mate Carol with Suze - Debbie, who owns the shop with her husband Michael is looking on:

Here is Suze mid-demo:

And for those of you with perpetually messy desks like me, here is Suze's - just as bad!!

Play Date Cafe 16

2010-02-15T13:45:00.010Z

I can't believe the is 16 weeks old! The colours this week are not often seen together - a very unusual and funky combination of red, lavender and silver -

and what a super photograph again! I'd love to be able to take pictures as well as that.
I sometimes find "lavender" a bit vague - is it pale blue or pale purple? - so having the photo helps. Anyway, I had got my hands on some new Martha Stewart border/corner punches this week, which chomped through the silver paper beautifully, and also had a play date with friend of mine who wanted to make some bookmarks as gifts. In a search for suitable (tall thin) stamps I found some lovely Elusive Images DL sets that hadn't seen ink for a while at the back of the box. They are now promoted to the front as they are so pretty. Having said that, I don't normally do "pretty" so this card is a bit outside the box for me, with bling, sparkle, silver, flowers and a fairly conventional design. I hope you like it. (After I said I wouldn't enter a card as well!)

Another Altered Box!

2010-02-08T17:12:00.006Z

Though not really altered as it's still a box. Never been too sure - to qualify as "altered art" does it have to change its function or only its appearance?

Anyway, this started off when my mate Carol and I got together at my house, me being post-operative and slightly delicate, for a play day. We decided to have a go at a box - I have done lots before but Carol hadn't ever done one. So we set to on the kitchen table with empty boxes which we checked over for rough bits. We selected some pretty paper, each picking a set to stick to so that they would blend well. We measured and cut the pieces we would need, saving the left-over bits. We stuck them on, wrapping a little on the front edges (with hindsight, I forgot that it's best also to wrap the sides slightly as well, so we didn't do that!)

Once dry we gave them a light coat of gesso, cheap variety! Not going for full coverage, I wanted the patterned paper to show through. While the gesso dried we stamped some images onto the scraps of patterned paper we had saved. When it was dry we stuck these on to our boxes. I also stamped direct onto the box here and there to "fill" and I outlined the stuck on bits with charcoal pencils and a blending stump to make them pop out a bit. You could also use Promarkers or similar and blend them in. I cut some small strips to cover my edges (should have done it earlier!) then I went over it all with rub-on wax, especially round all the edges to "distress" it. If it is likely to get handled a lot, sealing with a varnish (I prefer matte) would be a good idea. The handle can be anything you can get hold of easily - mine is a large glass bead which happened to match the colours - I fed some cord through and tied it to a smaller plain bead inside to keep it secure.

You can also paint the insides or line them with pretty paper or fabric, depending what you want to use it for.

Play Date Cafe No 15

2010-02-07T15:24:00.009Z

I love this week's Play Date Cafe challenge colours! and the image of the feathers is lovely - where can we get feathers on a roll in the UK? Anybody?
Anyway, one of the reasons I love these colours is that they can be either subtle or bright, depending on your mood, or a combination I guess!
I normally stamp stuff, but this time I used some images by Mary Engelbert to decorate a very small tag book - I was looking for something else and found this little pad of images that I had forgotten I had. They remind me of my favourite artist when I was a child - Mabel Lucie Atwell (though Mabel's little girls were never so stroppy as this lot!)

(Edit - photos changed for ones that are more in focus!)(I hope)

I don't know where I got the tag book, it's chipboard and about atc size. The paints were mostly match pots to start, overlaid with Distress Crackles, Precious Metal paints and Ferro, and the bits and pieces are from my embellishments drawer (yes I'm so sad, I have a whole drawer!)
Hope you like it!

Play date Cafe Challenge No 13

2010-01-26T18:14:00.005Z

This is the colour palette for this week's Play Date Cafe challenge - not colours I would ever have thought of putting together - so an excellent challenge. Very Retro look I think and a fab photo:

While I was thinking about it, my eye landed on a laundry tablet box in just the right colour. I use these boxes to make "treasure boxes" or storage for crafting stash, so the two ideas came together and this is the result:

The photo isn't that great, the tassel is actually a perfect shade of turquoise and the glitter on the flowers doesn't show at all! The stamps are all Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi by Stampers Anonymous, the plate is called Lower Case Art.

Hope you like it.

Back to Basics!

2010-01-23T18:03:00.010Z

These 2 little cards are a definite step back for me, almost to when I first started card-making! Although I wouldn't have used stamped images then - instead I would have cut something out and stuck it on. That phase lasted about 3 weeks I think! Then I discovered stamping via Glenda Waterworth on TV, then grunge, then Tim Holtz, Craft Stamper, Sue Roddis's wonderful Altered Art .... then I visited Paddy's Stamping Place and life was never quite the same again!
Anyway this week I wanted to make some cards for non-crafters who really don't appreciate anything too "out-there" so out came the glue and the pretty papers (these ones were free with a magazine) and the ribbon. I was pleased with the result - I think the colours work well. I may use the designs again, next time a bit more "from scratch" though. Let me know what you think? It would be easy enough to make the background paper with inks and stamps and get similar effects.

Workshop Samples

2010-01-22T16:47:00.005Z

These are two cards that I have prepared in advance for a workshop I will do some time at Paddy's. I was going to do it in a couple of weeks time but I have just been given a date for a "procedure" to be done on my shoulder next Thursday and I don't know how fit I will be afterwards so I've cancelled it. But if I can get more samples done beforehand I will be ready to "rock and roll" as soon as my shoulder settles down, whenever Paddy has a space in the diary!
These two have a bit of a theme don't they? Colours very similar, and good for "Man" cards, which is a bit outside my comfort zone. The stamps are Elusive Images or Creative Expressions and the inks used are mainly DI's. I love that long number stamp which I've used as a border. It occurred to me that if you picked out the relevant numbers in another colour, you could make it for any birthday - 26, 57, 93 etc!
Anyway I hope you like them.

Play Date Cafe No 11

2010-01-10T17:52:00.005Z

I've been lacking in inspiration lately, but when I saw the Design Team's and Sue's entries for The Play Date Cafe challenge, I felt I wanted to have a go. I have to say Sarah's bird particularly tickled me!
So here is my entry. The photo isn't brilliant - the orangy bit is just a reflection in the mirri board, it's gold in real life. A little scrap of embossed black paper was dusted with gold pearl powder and a scrap of text was brushed over with gesso. These two combined to form a base for the silver mirri which was cuttlebugged, then wiped with versamark and embossed with black UTEE, which gave the very rough effect I was looking for. The gold mirri was put through a cuttlebug then stained with black Stazon, then mounted on a black card which had had a wide gold ribbon attached. The small panel and a white flower highlighted with gold Krylon and a skeleton leaf were stuck on. Some tiny mosaic tiles and adhesive pearls finished it off. Hope you like it.

Dad

2009-11-25T16:41:00.003Z

Thank you all so much for your kind thoughts and prayers. Dad died peacefully last night, after a long time trapped in a body that would not work. He's at peace now and we are all grateful for that, though sad. I'll be back when I can.

Sorry

2009-11-22T22:59:00.002Z

Sorry but I don't think I'll be posting for a while. My dear, dear Dad, aged 87, who has been in a Nursing home in a very poor state for some years now was admitted to hospital last Thursday with a chest infection. They sent him back to the home for what they call "end of life" care, with all of our agreement, as there is nothing more they could do for him that would make any significant difference. We are now letting Nature take its course. I'll be back when I can.

Play Date Cafe 2

2009-11-02T23:53:00.003Z

Gosh, fancy it being a week since the last one! We've had Halloween, Terrible weather on 1st November, I've had major changes at work, everything happens at once doesn't it? Anyway, I have managed a journal page to enter for the Play Date Cafe . The colours this time were yellow, orange and chocolate or black. The stamp I used is a lovely one from Elusive Images, and I made my own masks with a die cut. I used Sticky Fingers and Glimmer Mist spray paints,and some yellow emulsion paint which I added with a noodle brush (silicone pastry brush!)then I added some leaves with distress ink and stuck the die cut leaves onto the page. The photo isn't brilliant I'm afraid, but here it is, I hope you like it:

Play Date Cafe

2009-10-26T01:27:00.008Z

This is a new challenge site, based on colours. It's run by Julie Ranae, and one of her design team is Sarah Anderson, who is a crafting friend of mine and a tutor at Paddy's Stamping Place where I am often to be found! You can see their excellent and inspiring blogs by clicking on their names. They have set up the Play Date Cafe and will run a new challenge every week. This week the colours were Black, Grey, Brown and Rust. Here is my entry, I hope it meets the criteria.

The patterned paper is from Basic Grey, as are the cobweb stamps, the dancing ladies are by Stampington, the music by Lost Coast Designs. I went to a friends house the other night and she was playing a Leonard Cohen CD, which took us back to our misspent youth, hanging around smoky bars listening to music like that. Brilliant! The little ladies with their parasols and ballet shoes made me think of "Dance me to the end of Love" which was one of my favourite L Cohen tracks.

RSS Challenge 8

2009-10-25T15:04:00.003Z

This Ready-Steady Stamp! challenge has got me to make my first Christmas card of 2009. That takes some doing as I'm a bit of a last minute merchant when it comes to Christmas. The colour palette was really appealing - anyway here are the criteria this time:

and here is my entry:

Sorry I forgot to "crop" the image so there's a bit more border than I would like.

The C for Christmas is obvious - done on an office labeller.

Colours, I limited myself to the three on the list and white.

Crackle - I stamped a crackle background over the whole of a tall black card, using a stamp from Stamp Camp that I got at Port Sunlight.

Snowflakes - I stamped and embossed some Elusive Images snowflakes onto white vellum with a mixture of white and sparkle powder, cut them out and stuck them on. The lilac paper is a print from an Artilicious CD with snowflakes on it.

Skinny - I cut a piece to "skinny" size and stamped part of an Elusive Images greeting on it, and added a line of stronger lilac and a line of silver with pens. I then doodled a black outline, punched a small bird using a McGill punch, coloured him lilac, stuck him on and doodled an olive branch for him to bring. I cut out a snowflake from another part of the paper and embellished it a bit with a starlight pen and added black fake stitches.

I stamped a "flying lady" by Lost Coast Designs - another Port Sunlight purchase - on another bit. I mounted these together so she looked like an angel floating down on a snowflake, and mounted these onto the skinny, stuck it together, added black ribbon and a few jewels. Hope you like it!

Enjoyed this challenge - I'm now off to try out another by the Play Date Cafe

RSS Challenge 7 (skipped 5 and 6!)

2009-10-12T22:46:00.021+01:00

Have been very busy so absent from blogland for a while, though I've been having the odd late night catch-up with my favourites. I have had a go at the latest RSS challenge - I did actually make cards for the last two but never got round to posting them. I've included them here in case anyone is interested! The challenge this time is:

So anyway, here is my entry for this one. The base card is cream and has been stamped with Basic Grey cobweb stamps in suitable shades of Distress inks. Using the same inks, I swooshed them onto glossy card and overstamped it with Elusive Images "Nature's Peace" stamps. The tree in the centre has had little pearls added, which have been coloured with a gold Promarker pen. The hazelnuts (or maybe they are chestnuts?) were also coloured with Promarkers then glazed with Crystal Lacquer. "Autumn" was mounted onto a piece of brown fabric with staples - I'm not quite sure whether it's hessian or a rather open canvas so I hope it will do. The central panel was matted onto brown card and the right hand one onto a patterned ochre paper.

These are the cards that never got entered onto the challenge - ran out of time I guess! Looking at them all together, I realise that I have no consistency at all! They are all different and there's nothing to make them recognisable as mine. I'm sure that's not good - the work of designers I admire are usually instantly recognisable as theirs! I'll think I'll have to try and come up with something ....

Sue's Book

2009-09-17T11:55:00.012+01:00

OK so here is the card that I made using the Lindisfarne bricks as a background, sorry the picture is a bit blurry! It was for Sue Roddis, who had a book signing for her first book (of many I hope!) at Paddy's Stamping Place in Prestwich, Manchester yesterday. I went along and got my book signed - the book is published by Search Press and is called Handmade Decorative Books. (available from Paddy 0161 798 5115) It is absolutely brilliant, and I'm not just saying that because I consider Sue a friend, I would buy it even if I'd never met her! She had brought with her many of the actual books that she made to put in the book, and they are so great to see and to handle, if you get the chance, go and see them, and her, and buy the book! Even though it's about making books, the ideas would apply to cards, scrapbooks, altered art, mixed media work, all sorts of things.

For this card I started with a white card blank, and applied Vintage Photo and Black Soot Distress inks around the edges, then I overstamped with a gorgeous little border stamp from Elusive Images ATC plate in Black Soot. I dried this all off with a heat gun then gold embossed small EI flourishes in the corners. I used a Tim Holtz mask set called borderline, sponging the same inks over them onto heavyweight brown paper, then I embossed the calligraphic alphabet from the EI plate in black over the barbed wire part and tore a long strip out, then tore the border out and used that to attach to the edge of my photograph. I mounted both these onto my card. Then I took a black chipboard tag and edged it gold with a krylon pen, stamped 'congratulations' all over it (another EI stamp) and embossed in gold, then stamped the same onto scraps of the brown paper and embossed with black detail powder, chopped out rough shapes and stuck them on the tag. I finished the tag with a twist of wire from a bamboo fence panel, which is a bit of a "Sue" touch! Anyway I hope she liked it.

The last couple of days have been chaotic because I lost my diary on Monday and only found it last night - it was in the ironing basket, where it would have languished for months if it had not suddenly come into my mind that that was where I had put it! (After searching my house, work and car for the previous two days, driving everyone mad asking if they'd seen it!) Anyway, luckily I hadn't missed anything crucial, but it would have got nasty very soon as there was lots in there that I had not remembered!!! For example, I might not have realised that I've got a day off today, but as I have, I'm going to have a go at the latest RSS challenge now!

2009-09-15T23:35:00.003+01:00

Isn't this great? I was thrilled to little mint balls to be awarded this Blog award by my lovely friend Sarah Anderson, (http://sarahanderson1.blogspot.com) who I have met through crafting. She is a wonderful craft teacher, I have been to her workshops, we have been to the same ones with other tutors, and she has even been to mine, so there is a lot of sharing going on! She is single-handedly responsible for an awful lot of art journalling that is going on from Crewe north to Rossendale and Bolton! I want to pass this award on, but she and I share a few crafty friends, and she has passed it on to those who blog already, so I will just add one, (http://hickydorums.blogspot.com) and say to other crafting friends, who have not yet started blogging - you know who you are (Carol and others) - go on, go for it! You might even get a blogging award! And one day soon, I am going to remind myself how to type a person's name so that if you click it you go to their blog, instead of me having to paste the blog address in! I am not the most IT literate of people any more.

Unusual backgrounds

2009-09-15T23:02:00.004+01:00

Recently I took a working trip to Northumbria, and I visited various places of interest (my job has its perks!) including Lindisfarne, Alnwick, Bamburgh and Durham. On Lindisfarne, I spent an hour or two looking round the ruins of the Priory, which is lovely - even on a dull day, it just looked beautiful. I am not religious, but the sense of peace and tranquility is amazing. It was not even spoilt by the rudeness of one of the people who worked in the shop there - I've always kind of imagined that working in a place like that would have a mellowing effect on people, but this man was just downright lacking in manners! Anyway, in spite of him, I had a great time, and his colleague, who was working in the entrance 'hut' to the actual Priory made up for him in helpfulness, knowledgability and charm.

I noticed the effect of the years, or should I say centuries, on the brick and stone it was built from, and as well as taking photos of the buildings I took some close-ups of the walls, just because they were so striking. Later, I thought that they would make great background paper for scrapbooks or cards, or any artwork really! Especially as they can be manipulated digitally and printed out whatever size my printer will allow. Wish I could remember to remove the date stamp on the camera settings when I take this kind of pic though. Never mind, that's what the "crop" button is for I guess. I've already used the top one on a card for a friend on a very special occasion, but it's not till tomorrow and she reads my blog, so I can't post it yet!

Here are some of the photos, hope you like them:

RSS Challenge 4

2009-08-30T14:10:00.007+01:00

The latest challenge from Ready Steady Stamp! was very interesting again, this time the ingredients were these:

and of course, the usual no cute, no digital and at least one stamp.

So here is my entry:

It's a small canvas, 7" x 5". I stamped the "A" (Elusive Images, Classic Alphabet) at the bottom left with Golden's white Gesso quite thickly - it has a lovely consistency. When it was dry I coloured the canvas with various brown and cream Promarker pens, and brown and cream shades of Distress inks, wiping colour off the "A" if I got it on there and leaving part of the canvas white. I shadow outlined the "A" with darker pens. Meanwhile I made some clear dewdrops with Golden Clear Tar gel and put three small ones next to the "A". I used a Paper Artsy Mini script stamp on cream paper with a Distress ink which I then tore and distressed and stuck over a brown patch top right. The "A" on the scallopped circle was also stamped with Gesso onto cream paper and sprayed with Tattered Leather glimmer mist, which I rubbed off the gesso which had partly resisted it. This was mounted onto a larger scallopped circle and fixed as shown. The oblong of brown and blue cloth was cut from my paint rag (a clean corner) as it just seemed to fit and I like the contrast of textures and colours. Then I punched lots of little squares from brown, cream and white vellum and paper, stamped "A" on some of them (Hampton Arts Old Book mini's) and stuck them on randomly as shown. The remaining dew drops were stuck on last. Hope you like it! You can see the challenge here:

http://www.readysteadystamp.blogspot.com/

Art Journalling yet again

2009-08-19T23:04:00.003+01:00

Here is another pair of pages, on the subject of the sea and ships. I am a seasider, or to be more accurate, a sangrownun. Seasider refers to anyone from the Fylde coast, sangrownun is more specifically someone from St. Annes - literally some one ('un) grown on the sand. St. Annes is probably one of the sandiest places outside of an actual desert! Anyway, although there's not a lot of sea there, I spent lots of time in my teens (long ago) in Blackpool where there's loads! At the same time, my dear dear Dad, who is a very gifted artist and sea-lover and ex Royal Navy (WW2) was filling my life and home with pictures and tales of tall ships, my English teacher was filling my head with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and John Masefield and Fleetwood Mac had a hit called Albatross. All the above references can by found in these pages I think. I'm a bit more pleased with the colours here than I tend to be with most of my work. Hope you like them.

Art Journalling

2009-08-19T22:49:00.005+01:00

This is another page from my Art journal, which I completed over the last few days. Like others I have become a bit addicted to this, not all pages are OK to share, but I kind of liked this pair, even though the colours are a bit fierce. Somehow they look even fiercer on here than they do in life, which may be something to do with me being an incompetent photographer. The left hand page is just coloured with spray inks, mainly Glimmer Mists but ther are some Sticky Fingers inks in there too. I sprayed a couple of colours then dried them with a heat gun before spraying any more, to try and avoid either muddiness, or the page becoming soggy! Then when completely dry I added a few splodges of yellow emulsion paint to provide a contrast in texture. The frilly ribbon was aquired in a strange shop somewhere I know not where - I think it was an ironmongers, somewhere in Yorkshire. It's actually elastic with coloured organza and the colours were just right for my page! The facing page has a stamp from Tim Holtz about creativity, and the images tell the story that he tells in the words - the stuck on embroidered flowers represent the safety of the comfort zone, and the wierd flowers stamped and stencilled around the edge are supposed to be the wilderness where you find yourself. I am represented in there somewhere!

Hope you like them.

Monumentally Blue

2009-08-17T23:24:00.008+01:00

No, I'm not feeling particularly miserable! The RSS challenge this time, which you will find here: http://www.readysteadystamp.blogspot.com

has ingredients which include a monument and the colour blue. Also required is at least one stamp, no cute, cuttlewax technique, (see their website for a tutorial) a metal embellishment and cork. I made two pieces this time, the atc was completed first, and I was trying to make a larger item with the same elements, but it wouldn't come out right. I stopped and went off to make a journal page or two, which turned out to be about the sea - they aren't quite finished yet, I may post them when I'm happier with them. So when I came back to the challenge the sea and seaside was in my mind. I love the seaside particularly in cold winter weather - I was brought up there - in summer it always seemed to belong to the visitors, and we all had to work in our holidays anyway. I was a waitress, assistant cook, chambermaid, shop assistant, but one of my schoolfriends, Jane, had a fabulous job (I thought) looking after the donkey ride! But in the winter it was given back to us - we had more free time and there was more room. Anyway, this Crafty Individuals stamp appealed to me immensely and reminded me of Jane so here it is on this little wall plaque. Yes it was near Blackpool where I lived as a teenager! The crown on the donkey's head is metal, the lettering is cork and mounted onto a cuttlewax piece. I hope Blackpool Tower counts as a monument - it's certainly monumental! The Big Wheel is there also. On the atc, the only cork is a picture of a cork in a bottle - but we were told cork in any shape or form!

RSS Challenge 2

2009-08-08T14:26:00.009+01:00

Time for another Ready-Steady-Stamp challenge. This time the recipe is as follows:

1: Sun

2: Yellow

3: Ribbon

4: Shape - Triangle

5: Acetate

and of course, use at least one stamp, no digital and no cute!

Here is my entry - it's the second attempt, as the first ended up looking very messy and almost impossible to photograph - too many dangly bits and far too many colours! When I was doing my Art "O" level (that dates me) my art teacher banned me from using colour as she said if I added colour I was guaranteed to fail as I had no sense of restraint. Hopefully I've improved a bit since then, but I can still get a bit carried away with colour sometimes.

Anyway, this is a small square cream card, the front has been chopped off to make a reverse-opening triangle. Back and front have been stamped in shades of yellow and orange with small stamps from Impression Obsession and Paper Artsy.The back has been overlaid with an acetate panel, which was run through the Cuttlebug with a floral folder and coloured in with Promarkers. The front has grosgrain and floral ribbons stuck on to represent sun rays and a garden respectively, and the sun image was made with Nestabilites shapes cut from different yellow / orange cards and attached with a sun shaped yellow eyelet. Hope you like it!

Graphicus July Challenge

2009-07-28T14:16:00.012+01:00

This Card is for the Graphicus July Challenge, the theme is "Inspired by the Sea" and the colour scheme "harmonious".

I started off meaning to cover both theme and colour scheme, but somehow my harmonious green and yellow morphed into a very unharmonious turquoise and orange. I still like them together, but it shows you don't have to stray far to lose the harmony. Gosh - that sounds like an answer to the meaning of life as well as a comment on colour theory - I must be in touch with my inner philosopher today.

I started by painting he background in greens and a bit of yellow, then I overstamped it with the seaweed and shells stamp from Elusive Images Underwater plate in 2 shades of teal. The panel is a piece of core'dinations whitewash board, cuttlebugged and sanded, I then stamped some more images from "Underwater" and "Seashell Collage" onto yellow paper using brownish and greeny-yellow inks, and cut them out and stuck them on. These ended up looking orange. I might have another go though and try to stick to harmonious colours next time! Oh, and if any more meanings of life occur to me I'll pass them on, but I doubt they'd be very reliable...

Art journals again- my new addiction...

2009-07-26T21:23:00.008+01:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had also started a journal at the Mixed Media course at Graphicus back in April. It didn't need much doing to it, and I have now been spurred on to finish it. Here it is, not all the pages photographed very well, particularly the darker ones, so this is just a selection. The thing with this one is, a lot of it is about texture and dimension, hard to capture in a 2D medium like photos!

And can ayone tell me why on earth these photos come out in a column like this? I'm sure I've got them to spread around a bit better before! Very frustrating ....

Oh Sarah! Part two.

2009-07-19T22:43:00.011+01:00

My friend Neet posted earlier about her new addiction - Art Journalling. This is me on the same subject. Oh Sarah! You have led me into a new way of moodling my time away!

We were at a workshop at Paddy's yesterday, and under Sarah Anderson's expert guidance, six of us, i.e. Neet, Sue, Cynthia, Sylvia, Lynne and myself, started to create art journals. This is something I have wanted to do and have been dipping my toe into for ages, partly inspired by seeing one of Sarah's journals before and partly by seeing some of Glenda Waterworth's when I was on the Mixed media course at Graphicus. Both very different, both lovely and inspiring. When I was on the course at Graphicus, I started one which I'm very pleased with, the emphasis being on materials and techniques, naturally, as the course was about just that! I think this type of journal is sometimes called a studio journal.

I also started another one a while ago in which I put pieces of work I've done that illustrate a technique, or combination of materials, colours etc, with a full description or "recipe" so that I can reproduce it later if I want. This is probably a studio journal also.

At Sarah's workshop yesterday she got us to take a more playful approach and cover pages with what we liked, what inspired us etc. We made lists - birds trees dogs chocolate etc - then we started by playing like five-year-olds with big splodges of colour on several pages, using Stewart Gill True Colours which have a lovely matte finish and bright strong colour. Then we stamped over them, added doodles, written journalling, swirls, bits of paper, whatever we liked, in other words collage. I absolutely LOVED it! The freedom Sarah gave us was inspiring, and brought out some gorgeous work in all of us. Pop over to Neet's blog for hers (Hickydorums, see left panel). The main thing is (both Glenda and Sarah said this) - there is no need to finish it now! Just start. Put stuff on pages. One day you'll feel like painting, one day stamping, one day cutting out. One day you'll want to journal about the weather, another day it might be chocolate. So What? Just Do It! The feeling of no need to finish today, or even to have an end in sight, is very liberating.

Anyway, here are pics of a couple of pages of the one done at Sarah's workshop. I have just realised that I didn't post about this aspect of Glenda's, so I'll try and get some pics done tomorrow and post them.

This first one is a double page as you can see, the subject is leaves. Sarah cut some out on her Cricut, I Cuttlebugged some, you can see the leftovers at the top, then I used some as masks to spray paint over. I stamped with some Stamp Bug stamps and some Stamp Man ones, a Tim Holtz one and I doodled a bit. I journalled in some words from a poem I wrote years and years ago about the word "leaves" and it's different meanings and here is the page:-

This single page is about birds as you can see. The little bird that is walking across the bottom is one of the first stamps I ever bought, I have no idea who made it or where I got it, it was in one of those bins where everything is unwrapped and cheap. I loved him then and I still do. The rest of the stamps are from my extensive collection of stamps aquired since featuring birds! The postage stamps were provided by Sarah, originally from a car boot sale apparently!

Anyway I hope you like these pages, I'm opff to bed now as I have akshually been wrkg today between jurnalling, modling and bloging, so am pretty tyred, therefore plz xcs splg!

Neet's Clay Mirror

2009-07-19T21:05:00.005+01:00

Last week I was at a workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place run by Neet Hickson, a very clever and talented mixed media artist, who is very generous at sharing her knowledge and skills with us all. We had a great time, playing with Makins clay - Plasticene for grown-ups! We used a cheap mirror from that well known swedish shop as a base and made loads of little clay tiles to stick on it. You can also remove the mirror (or just not put it back, as it's easier to work with it with the mirror out of the way) and put in a picture. The clay tiles were imprinted with stamps then coloured over with pearlex or perfect pearls before being attached to the frame. No adhesive was needed, except a little water. I added the beaded fringe myself when I got home, to tie the piece in with other items in the room where it will be hung. I may add some more beads yet. Anyway I hope you like it. Pop over to Neet's blog for pictures of other's work (Hickydorums, link to your left). If you look back many many posts, you will see another mirror frame which I made at a workshop of Neet's, called a palooza, which was made in a very different way, both as beautiful and fun to do as each other.

Ready Steady Stamp challenge

2009-07-16T01:52:00.006+01:00

This is something I haven't attempted before - an online challenge - I think they are a brilliant way of getting the creative juices flowing, but I have never dared enter one before! Anyway, here goes. The challenge is on Ready-Steady-Stamp! and here is the link: http://www.readysteadystamp.blogspot.com/

The challenge is an interesting one - there is a list of "ingredients" and they all must be included, along with at least one stamp, but how you include them is open to interpretation. They are: Cats or dogs; black and gold; three different brads; faux-batik technique and a book or newspaper page. Anyway, go and have a look, I'm sure you'll find it intriguing and fun. Oh and they have a rule - no cute. Suits me!

Little Houses

2009-06-01T23:55:00.005+01:00

These are some houses I made at a recent Workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place in Prestwich, Manchester. The workshop was called "Down Our Street" and the tutor was Sue Roddis - I just love her quirky approach. She never does cute, but often does whimsical, which is something I aspire to myself but never succeed as well as she does! Have a look at her blog - Jabberwocky - by clicking on the link down the left of this blog. I'm sure you'll love it. We had a great time playing with these houses, everyone did something completely different. Sue had brought in lots of samples to inspire us, and they did. I managed to finish one on the day, and have been finishing off the second and working on the last today - it ended up being a boathouse, inspired by the heron! The door is made of broken up coffee stirrers, thank you Subway, Starbucks et al. There is a tiny drawing of a boat on the horizon - thats as near as I get to freehand! I couldn't find a boat stamp small enough. It's hidden by a reed, just as well!

The dangly key and lock are Tim Holtz's idealogies, most of the stamps are Elusive Images or Paper Artsy, but I also used a Tanda one designed by Jane Daffern which is polka dots, and the image is designed to be variable according to the amount of pressure applied - uneven pressure gives a fabulous uneven result. Clever Jane!

The last one has a little story attached - (for you Paddy) - the big bird is a cuckoo and she has just laid her egg (the top one) in the other two's bird house (nest house?). She's hiding on the roof so they don't know! the trim across the bottom is a little row of beaks, waiting to be filled. Sorry about that, but I like my little rationales.

Keep It Simple Sequins!

2009-05-21T13:12:00.005+01:00

By complete contrast to my last two posts, here is a very simple card I made recently. I just love these little fantasy flower stamps from Impression Obsession! The ribbon has black sequins down the middle, which are a bit iridescent, but don't show up too well. I think my next course to go on should be photography - I seem to keep blaming the subject for not photographing well, but I think it might be me who's a rotten photographer.

Mixed Media course

2009-05-21T12:53:00.005+01:00

I haven't posted about this wonderful course at Graphicus in Barnard Castle until today. The tutor was the very gifted Glenda Waterworth, and it was every Thursday in April. I really enjoyed it, and my fellow students were great! The travelling was tiring though it was through some of the most beautiful countryside - Rossendale, Ribble valley, North Yorks, Teesdale etc - gorgeous, particularly when the sun shines. I have some photos but they are on my phone and at present I can't get my phone pics to upload!
Anyway, here is a photo (camera) of a piece of work I did on the course - it's Mixed Media of course, it includes various techniques like data transfer, and various media like gels and metallic paints. the subject matter is about an artist who is actually my Dad. He can no longer paint due to illness, but he loved to paint birds among other things. I stuck some objects from his art box onto the piece, and a notebook sketch, a bit of a poem which mentions birds and a father talking to his children, a little metal owl, all things relevant. The black splodge below the kingfisher is a bright blue feather but it will not photograph!

A bit of a change

2009-05-19T00:56:00.003+01:00

This is a card I made today before work, inspired by one in Craft Stamper by Kim Costello. I loved her card, but not particularly the main image which was of a little child gardening. This whacky bird house is more my style, I bought it at HSNW. All the mats and layers and the main image are on pre-patterned paper, stamped, distressed, ripped up etc. It's coloured in with Promarkers, which I LOVE - the colours are so clear and no pen marks!

Workshops, May 2009

2009-05-19T00:37:00.009+01:00

Here are some of the industrious crafters who came along to my workshops last week, you can see Rita's left eye, Freda and Paddy, Sarah A, Brenda's hands, Sarah C and Moira - apologies to those of you whose photos came out too blurred or who were not there when I took them (Jackie, Lynn and Chris). I think we all enjoyed ourselves, I certainly did, and everyone did some lovely work. Particular thanks to the Thursday group for sharing my birthday and singing to me so beautifully! But thanks to all of you for coming along and being so willing to have a go. There were lots of lovely moments including Brenda shrinking plastic for the first time ever - shrieks of excitement, and a new addiction I feel!

2009-05-13T11:22:00.006+01:00

Still here! I've been preparing for a workshop for the last few days, here are some samples:

2009-02-05T23:19:00.004Z

This is a card I have made for the Graphicus Challenge this month, the theme is Teal and Brick. The teal cardstock and brick red pearl paper were from my stash, I printed a page from Peacock Summer Party CD and cut out the pattern for the left hand corner. I stamped the peacock from the Peacock Glory stamp set, coloured him in with Derwent Inktense pencils and lifted the colour with a water brush, then matted him onto a bit of silver mirri. Then I added a bit of sparkly pen here and there on his tail and some silver peel off corners and strips. The colour added to the background was Ranger Archival Teal and Distress Brick. I am not 100% sure what Teal is, it seems to be several shades of green or blue! So I hope this meets the criteria....

More workshop samples

2009-01-28T19:00:00.006Z

Here are a couple more samples of cards made for my up-coming workshop. Again, using mostly Elusive Images stamps for all of them, and my fave kit, the cuttlebug, for the green number. Also an attempt to rehabilitate the skeleton leaf, which I'm sure anyone who has been crafting for more than a year or two has in their stash. I still love them! Any size, any colour, bring them back I say! Must go, have some minutes of a local group meeting to type up and email out. More blogging soon!

My First Workshop!

2009-01-20T23:20:00.004Z

This is a card I have made for a workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place in a couple of weeks. Interesting to do as I had to restrict myself to stuff that Paddy sells, and not just dip into my stash in the usual way! As it happens the stamps are all Elusive Images, and from the botanicals set. Apart from the words which are from Damask Squares I think. I'm not good at keeping words with their "sets" I just chuck them all in a box together and root through when I need words, which to be honest isn't that often. I originally made a card like this with a Lavinia Stamp, the idea being to try and make it look 3 dimensional without resorting to decoupage. No particular objections to decoupage but its not a big thing with me. The darkest flowers are also highlighted with red Sakura Glaze pen, which isn't very obvious on the photo but looks quite good in life. I LOVE Sakura pens. The rest of the colour is Distress ink pads tapped onto an acrylic block and picked up with a water pen to use as water colour. I have made about four other samples so far and need a couple more I think to give people a choice. It will be my first workshop. Ooer. If any of my potential workshoppees are reading this, please be gentle with me! I've done a lot of training before and partly trained as a teacher, but that was vocational training, not fun! Looking forward to it though. Will post some more pics when I get the chance.

Gosh, two in one day!

2008-12-24T01:02:00.009Z

Following my last post, I remembered that I had photographed some follow-up work I have done. The first is a bound notebook which I made as a small gift for my neighbour Gill. She likes quirky stuff and is quite arty, so I hope she will like this! It was bound with my Zutter bind-it-all which is a very useful and easy bit of kit. The panels are all embossed with cuttlebug folders as before, and the inks are stazon again.

The others are as yet only panels, waiting to have something done with them, but I was pleased with the look of them and will definitely use them soon. I really like the red / gold one and will use that for someone special, perhaps on the front of a card.

Metal Magic

2008-12-24T00:38:00.006Z

Well as promised here is a write up on one of the workshops I have been to in the last few weeks. This is an accordion book I made at a Sue Roddis Workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place. It was probably one of the best I've been to, the technique gives amazing results. There were about 5 of us there on the day, and we were all delighted with the end result. Sue has repeated the workshop, and is repeating it again in the New Year at Paddy's. The best example is on Sue's own blog, but here is mine. Both sides are decorated as you can see. We used Cuttlebug embossing folders and Elusive Images Stamps. The inks used were Stazon. We got very messy - great! Not great photos though I hope you can see what is going on

I'm still here!!!

2008-12-19T22:29:00.008Z

Well I don't seem to have had anything worth posting for ages, or have I just been too busy? Too busy I think 'cos I have done some workshops, been to some shows, done some (a lot) of crafting and been to work (a lot) !! Have been making Christmas cards for what seems like a decade (sound familiar?). I took part in a card swap on a forum, which was great fun, and lovely to see all the work done, on the forum album. Here are the cards I received (pink) which is so perfectly made and lovely! and the one I sent (blue). Strange we both picked un-christmassy colours. Was a bit scary because the other members are all avid crafters and expert card makers.

On another topic, several posts ago I mentioned that my friend Eddie had commissioned me to make some jewellery for various of her relatives as stocking fillers for Christmas. Well I finally got them finished and she seems to like them. I hope her relatives do as well. Here they are, three pendants and a bracelet. The pendants are all on stampbord bases, coloured, stamped, sanded, scratched, embellished and finished with beeswax or glossy accents. The bracelet links are stamped and coloured shrink plastic, joined together with spandex thread and finished with silver fixings. Here are pictures:

That's all for now folks, as I have exhausted my limited supply of energy! and my ability / such as it is, to spel and puntuate;

Next time, more about workshops, been to some superb ones at Paddy's.

Chinese Windmills, Peacocks, chips and burgers!

2008-09-23T21:36:00.010+01:00

This was a lovely workshop I went to at Paddy's Stamping Place a little while ago, the tutor was Sarah Anderson. It's a lovely idea, Sarah had researched it and gave us a lot of info about the history of these books, which predate bound books. Ours were made with different types of paper, including silk paper which we made on the day from silk coccoon and coloured with spray lustre paints. We also used Glitterati and hand made papers, which were coloured and stamped and glittered and embellished! We added coloured text pages, sparkly chips of plastic and I used Elusive Images Peacock stamps, from at least two of the unmounted plates. Then all the pages were put together, cut or torn to different lengths, and bound with the aid of sticks and ribbons. The finished item was rolled for storage and transportation, as it would have been in ancient times. Then ribbons are added to hold it in its roll and make it look even more glam. Mine is shown in the pictures pinned to the beam in my attic bedroom, where it catches the light and breeze, and spins colourfully and soothingly above my bed. I love it. If anything the back is as pretty as the front! We all enjoyed the workshop, Sarah is very cheerful and knowledgable and we all had lots of laughs as well as learning lots. It was a lovely day, even down to a burger from the sandwich shop and chips from the chippy! And of course, Paddy's shop to browse and buy stuff we NEED at the end of the day.

If we frame Nature, can we call it Art?

2008-09-10T11:56:00.010+01:00

This is a thing I've been working on for ages on and off, and have now finally decided that it's finished! Or at least as finished as it ever will be. The idea was to look at images and artwork that reflected nature - who is the artist, us or nature? It's about 50 x 35 cm. The background was made with spray lustre paints, and each of the four larger panels were stamped, embossed, coloured and embellished over Basic Grey papers, using various stamps with a natural theme, then they were mounted on cream card and glimmer paper. The Stampbord pieces down the middle were mounted onto a pre-coloured strip that was printed with a leafy Rollagraph stamp and mounted onto glimmer paper. The Stampbord pieces themselves were pre-coloured, stamped amd triple embossed. Various small items were used to embellish the larger panels, such as ornate brads, die-cut corners, and a small epoxy frame and matching corner stickers. Crystal laquer was applied over various images for emphasis. I'm quite pleased with it, for a first attempt at "Wall art". My Dad is a brilliant artist, so I have a lot to live up to, which has always been a bit daunting, though this is nothing like his work. I shall definitely have another go though! I have just won a Unicorn stamp set from Elusive Images, so maybe I shall use it to make a picture for my little cousin's sixth birthday in December! (Sue, don't read this to Em, it will spoil the surprise!). Anyway, here it is! I'd be delighted to get any feedback.

On another subject, I have a commission to make 3 pieces if Stampbord or shrink plastic jewellery for Christmas presents, so will be putting in some thought about those over the next few days (between working of course) - it's nice to be able to earn a little cash from this expensive hobby of mine!

Manchester Central

2008-09-01T21:41:00.003+01:00

I went to the Stitch and Creative Crafts exhibition last Friday, along with lots of other people. I went with Freda and we bumped into several people we knew, and got talking to quite a few others that we didn't know! Crafters are always friendly, especially over a cup of tea! Most people seemed to be enjoying themselves. I'm not at all into needle crafts - neither my eyesight nor my patience are good enough, so there was too much of that and not enough stamping for me, but it was still good fun, and great for embellishments and equipment. I did get some stamps from one of my favourite companies, Invoke Arts. Also picked up a kit to try to make a "paverpol" picture. If it turns out any good, I'll put the result on here! Also picked up some molds for friendly plastic faces, never had much success with that stuff, so I hope the molds will improve my technique. Neet, the demonstrator, was very helpful & encouraging. I'd love to know what other people thought of the show anyway. My biggest bugbear is the cost of parking, travelling there by public transport is just not an option from the out-of-the way place where I live! There's the Happy Stampers show to look forward to soon as well.

Another Artylicious Comp entry!

2008-08-20T22:03:00.000+01:00

I don't know whether we can enter the Stampbord Challenge more than once!! If we can, here is another attempt, this time a card. As well as Stampbord, I have been playing with my new Cuttlebug. The Stampbord has been coloured with pumpkin & mustard Stazon, then stamped with a Filigree Fusion stamp and clear embossed before being sprayed with black lustre paint. It is mounted on a piece of gunmetal mirri, then on a Black Magic core'dinations board which is black with a gold or mustard core and has been embossed with the paisley cuttlebug folder and sanded. This in turn is mounted on a backing paper from Filigree Fusion, with the same design as that stamped on the stampbord, then the bottom piece is gunmetal mirri again with a cuttlebug-embossed corner. The ribbons and stampbord have been decorated with a few stick-on jewels for a bit of bling. Hope you like it!

Workshop

2008-08-19T22:28:00.000+01:00

Well today has been loads of fun, but a bit exhausting. I was at a workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place, the tutor was Sue Roddis, and there were six of us workshopees! We made a fab folded book, using a paint technique which looked like faded beach huts, which is one of my favourite looks, maybe because I grew up by the sea (lol). The stamps are all Tanda in this instance though people used different ones, Elusive Images in particular. The paints were Stewart Gill and the inks were Distress. One lady made one with african animals and images, which was beautiful. They were all lovely and very different from each other. Sue was fantastic, friendly, encouraging and informative and everyone left happy I think.

Artylicious Competition entry

2008-08-16T17:05:00.000+01:00

This is a booklet I made, which I think is appropriate as an entry for Glenda's competition. The photos show the cover, the back and front covers and all the pages laid out in order before being assembled. The front cover is decorated with a stampbord panel, stamped with a recent Graphicus guild Limited Edition stamp, and four tiny tiles made with mountboard and glazed with Crystal Laquer. The pages are made from lots of different papers, mulberry, parchment, handmade and papyrus. Many are torn and the edges inked, then stamped in various ways with the Wild Meadow set. The overall size is 4 inches square.

Palooza

2008-08-15T19:40:00.000+01:00

I was at a workshop yesterday and made a palooza which was loads of fun. We used Crackle paints which are great, but are best left to air-dry. We had to apply the heat gun, which was a bit dodgy, caused the paint to lift a bit, but it could be squashed back with your finger and none the worse. All the objects are "found" items, and mine came from many sources - bits of old jewellery, part of a belt buckle from when I was slim enough to wear a belt, some pen nibs of my father's and a broken watch, shells, buttons, anything interesting.

(thanks to Neet for the photo)

Initial thoughts!

2008-08-15T19:26:00.000+01:00

Well I seem to be creating a blog of my own, having read a few others'! Time to jump in the water, no more prevaricating. I shall mainly use this blog to share craftwork and ideas, comment on products and shows, all craft related, though occasionally something else of interest to me may creep in!