Another Altered Box!

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!)

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!