Remember the Laughter

The theme at Make a Moo or Two this week is

Your Favourite Colour.

So now I have a dilemma as I have no outright favourite.

My favourite colour combination at the moment is blue & brown,

so I have made one of each, kind of.

The mountboard bases were created using Distress Inks

(weathered wood, broken china, antique linen & walnut stain).

Then delving into the leftover papers from making this week’s Skinny,

I added images to two of the tags, eyelets, ribbon & a couple of gems.

Swimming against the Tide

The Inchie challenge theme over on Inching Artists this week is Zodiac.

The inspiration for my inchie is taken from the current phase of the zodiac, which is Pisces.


The fish image is from a cdrom of copyright free vintage images. The background is made using Distress Inks (weathered wood & broken china).

As some of the visitors to my blog may not have come across inchies before & may not, therefore, be aware of their size, they are a one inch square. Here is a photograph of this inchie in between a £1 coin & a €1 coin.

A Thank You Card

The theme at My Time To Craft this week is

Things with Wings.

I watched Jill Tuck on television yesterday

demonstrating the Moonshadow Inks & Spray Mists,

so I decided to use mine for this challenge.

I still had the papers from this weeks Skinny challenge to hand,

so I combined the two to make a Thank You card.

I started by making the Moonshadow papers.

I took a piece of textured card & did a wash with Buccaneer Bronze

& then dabbed more splodges over the whole card.

This was left to dry.

Taking the wet brush, I used the leftover ink to cover a piece of plain white card.

I put this to one side to dry.

Once the textured card had dried, I sprayed it with a mist of Buccaneer Bay Blue.

I inked a script stamp from Crafty Individuals

with Archival Ink (Sepia) & stamped the image onto the dried plain card.

On a piece of watercolour card,

I stamped the large dragonfly stamp by Elusive Images (from Graphicus)

with Archival Ink (Jet Black).

Taking a fine brush, I then coloured the dragonfly,

again using Moonshadow.

Once dried, I cut the dragonfly out & covered the back with walnut stain Distress Ink

(as only the body & tail were to be attached to the script card).

The small dragonfly was stamped onto a small tag & set with a bronze eyelet.

I hope this image captures the magic of Moonshadow &

demonstrates the different effects that you can create using them. 

I have also used this card for the Arty Girlz challenge this week.

Time waits for no man

The theme for the Artist Trading Card challenge this week is Circles.



The mountboard base was covered in clock paper from Hot Off The Press. The stamp from Non Sequitur was stamped with watermark ink by Versamark & then Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls powder lightly brushed over the wet ink.

I stamped the image again & punch out two circles. The hands of the two clocks are the legs of two brads, which were attached through the centre of the circles & adhered to the main ATC with silicone glue. I used a clear stardust pen from Sukura to highlight the other clock faces.

The corner circle was cut from another piece of HOTP paper & an eyelet set in the middle. I twisted some craft wire & fed it through the hole.

And of course, the edges were inked using walnut stain Distress Ink.

Memory Frozen in Time

The theme for the Skinny Saturday challenge
this week is
Sitting Pretty.


The mountboard base is covered in card
from Crafts Beautiful.

I adore this colour combination.


I have added images
from an old family photograph,
wings from a butterfly stamp
from Crafty Individuals,
Crackle & Glossy Accents &
my old favourite, walnut stain Distress Ink.

Hummingbird Wishes

This is a birthday card for a male graphic designer.

The hummingbird stamp by Elusive Images from Graphicus,

is stamped three times.

Once onto basically black asterisks (1077)

& twice onto Beetle Black Sweet Stripes (035),

both by doodlebug design inc.

The asterisks image acts as the base onto which

the decoupaged pieces are overlaid, alternating the pieces from the striped images.

The bird is covered in Glossy Accents & a small clear gem added as the eye.

This is then mounted onto a circle of black card

& attached to the base card with black 3d foam pads.

A touch of ribbon, four large clear gems & it’s finished.

Pack up your Troubles

The theme this week at Make a Moo or Two is

Travel.

The background map is printed onto photographic paper

& put onto mountboard bases.

I decided what words to use, chose a font,

the colours & printed them off.

The car is covered in Glossy Accents.

The edges are inked with Distress Ink (walnut stain) & then distressed.

Jolly Guitar Boy

This is a birthday card for a ten year old boy. The decoupaged image is by Jolly Nation.


The sheet music was printed off & used as a background. The edges were coloured with black ink.

Tall, Dark & Handsome

The main theme for this week’s challenge at Inching Artists is Height.


I have used an image from Crafty Individuals & a little imagination.

Delicately Scented

Linda set two challenges this week on Inching Artists, so of course I did both. The second theme was Vintage Advertisement.


The base was made using Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabbers (lettuce & sandal) and edged with Distress Ink (dusty concord). A small eyelet with purple cotton thread was the finishing touch.

The vintage soap label image is decoupaged. There is the bottom image and then three layers on top. To give you an idea of the scale, the label is approx 1½ cm in diameter.


So the lesson for today is, decoupage on an inchie is not recommended.

Mad completely mad.

Sentiment of Flowers

The Artist Trading Card challenge this week is Hearts & Flowers.














The mountboard base was covered in paper from K&Co Brianna range. The heart stamp from Clarity Stamps was inked with Archival Ink (Jet Black) & each section was stamped onto a different paper from the Brianna paper pad.



The heart was placed on top of the base making sure the two Flower words were visible. Three flower brads, two flower punched shapes & a heart punched shape were added.

The edges were inked in black.

That feminine touch ...

The challenge this week from My Time To Craft is Lace it up.

I have made a greetings card, using a stamp from Clarity Stamps and mulberry paper. The corset is laced up with gold metallic thread. It is mounted on the card with 3D foam pads.

True Love & Friend

A Moo card challenge site launched two weeks ago

& I have now caught up with both challenges.

The first week was

Romance

& the theme this week is

Friendship.

I have used mountboard as the base,

added printed wording.

The images are from Crafty Individuals.

The rubber stamps used are from Non Sequitur and Sugarloaf.

You are only young once

The Skinny Saturday challenge this week is Growing Older.

The base is mountboard covered in paper from Hot Off The Press. I have used rubber stamps from 7 Gypsies and Non Sequitur. The gentlemen image is from Crafty Individuals and wording cut from K&Co paper.

I have added Glossy & Crackle Accents, clock hands, brown ribbon, drawn the three hats and added my own printed words.

Mothering Sunday

Mothers Day is just two weeks today here in the UK.

Using a template from Making Memories, I cut a standard blank card into a tag card and covered the front with paper from K&Co K-ology’s Hannah paper range.


Using a small tag template, I cut a tag from Hot Off The Press card, onto which I stamped the Erté image from Clarity Stamps, using Archival Ink (Sepia). I stamped the same image onto the K&Co paper and cut out just the feather boa and hat. These were glued onto the small tag. The tag was edged with my 18ct Gold Krylon pen and gold and burgundy ribbon tied through the top of the tag.

I punch three small flowers from the HOTP card and a further one from the K&Co paper. In the centre of each of the card flowers I added a blob of gold Stickles. In the centre of the paper flower I added a pearl.

Flights of Fancy

The domino was coloured with Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Ink (lettuce). The dragonfly stamp from Clarity Stamps, was stamped with Archival Ink (Sepia). The words were typed, the font selected, printed onto glossy card and inked over. The front of the domino was then covered with Glossy Accents.

Once dry, it was edged with 18kt Gold Leafing Krylon pen. The dragonfly image was stamped onto cream vellum and the wings cut out. Finally two gold coloured gems were added.

One, Two Three, Jump

A new challenge blog was launched this week called My Time to Craft, setting a new challenge each Monday.

The first theme chosen was Newspaper, so grabbing the Sunday papers from last weekend, I had a flick through to get my creative juices flowing and stumbled across this photograph in the Travel section. Because of it's size, I decided to make an Artist Trading Card. Words cut from the same section and just a touch of my walnut stain Distress Ink added around the edge.

Love & Kisses

This week’s challenge from Inching Artists is Holes. As today is Valentines Day I have made my inchie on Love.


I have used paper pricking on white textured card to create a heart shape. In each corner I made four holes and using silver metallic thread, I made them into kisses. The wording is a clear epoxy sticker by Tim Holtz.

The white inchie is then mounted onto silver card, so you see silver through the holes (I hope).

The Windows to my Soul

The theme for this week’s Artist Trading Card challenge is Windows.


I have used mountboard as the base and covered it in papers from Hot Off The Press.

The eyes stamp is by Non Sequitur and is stamped using Archival Ink (Sepia). The iris section of both eyes are coloured with Distress Ink (broken china) and then the whole eye is covered in Glossy Accents.

Three pearls were added for the finishing touch.

Love is in the Air ...

This is my skinny for this week’s Skinny Saturday challenge.

The base is made from burgundy mountboard (a gift from the craft show) and I have used cranberry Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabber over the top.

The central image is from a copyright free CD of Vintage Graphics, printed into glossy photographic paper and mounted with silicone glue.

Then there are a collection of oddments from my scraps pot; gold coloured paper, K&Co paper (with the butterfly covered in Glossy Accents), a small heart cut from Grungeboard (coloured with mahogany Distress Ink) and off cuts from my heart border punch.

Valentine

This is the Valentine card for my loved one.

I inked acetate with Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Inks (cranberry and wild plum). I stamped the heart (by Crafty Individuals) onto white textured card. The bottom layer of pink textured card was cut to size and then edged with my border punch.

I hope he likes it.

Butterfly Art

This is an altered domino.

I coloured the domino with Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Inks(cranberry & wild plum).

I inked up the Art stamp, by Elusive Images from Graphicus,
with black Archival ink.

I then pressed the stamp onto the domino & then wiped the wet ink off.

The archival ink removes some of the alcohol ink to leave a ghost of the original stamped image.

I drew around the outline of the letters with an embossing pen
then heat embossed with gold embossing powder.

Finally I coated the domino with Glossy Accents & added my butterfly.

Creative Stitches & Hobbycrafts Brighton 2008

I went to the Creative Stitches & Hobbycrafts show in Brighton, East Sussex today.

It was a lovely sunny day and very mild. I managed to get there before it opened so was one of the first in.



With over 100 stands, it was well laid out; although I did manage to lose my sense of direction several times.



I found myself at the Clarity Stamps stand, which as you all know is a favourite of mine. I was delighted to find Barbara doing demonstrations. We had a good ole natter and she did a demo using one of her fabulous stamps and Art Glitter’s Fantasy Fiber.

Watch out for some cards using this technique in the near future.

I have many of her miniature stamps and am now the proud owner of a few of her normal sized ones too. Thank you Barbara.

I also found the Molton Designs stand and watched the demonstrations again. I obviously wasn’t paying full attention at Farnborough so picked up a few more tips on how to use Friendly Plastic.

My thanks also go to the kind man on the Home Workshop Ltd stand who gave me some scraps of mountboard. Crafters never turn a freebie down.

I purchased some ribbon, which I can never resist, book rings and some gorgeous material.

There were some lovely embroidery exhibits there, loads of demonstrations and free lectures throughout the day. I will remember Margaret Beal fusing material using a soldering iron and Diane Doward (Create & Craft TV) using paste through stencils then covering the image with glitter.

All in all a lovely day out and well worth putting in the diary for next year.

Across the Miles

This is my Travel skinny for this week’s Skinny Saturday challenge.

The background is created using Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabbers (Hazelnut, Lake Mist & Sandal).

I have also used papers from Crafty Individuals, rubber stamps from Non Sequitur and 7gypsies and my faithful walnut stain Distress Ink. The suitcase is covered with Crackle Accents for that battered and well worn look. The acetate image was from The Crafthouse Press.

Enjoy the journey.

Summer Days

This is my inchie for this weeks Inching Artists challenge, which is Shadows.


I printed out an image onto glossy photo paper. I then inked over the image with Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Ink (butterscotch) and used a drop or two of the Alcohol Blending Solution.

The wording was backed with black card to add further shadows. Finally I have inked around the edge of the inchie with black ink.

A Skinny Zentangle

A skinny is 3" x 5" in dimension and a zentangle is an abstract drawing, well ok then, a doodle.

This is my first official zentangle, although you will find many more throughout my notebooks, diaries and especially my puzzle books.

I have used mountboard as the base and it is drawn using both ends of my Emboss Dual Pen by Tsukineko.

Songs from the Heart

An altered domino using Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Ink (stream) and the sing your Heart songs rubber stamp from his Kids Cube.

Embellished using a clear stardust pen from Sukura, gold paper for the crown, blue gems and Glossy Accents.

Sunday Floral Swirls

I'm aware that I'm getting predictable. Images and words from just one leaflet, which came with the Sunday papers. It may look simple, but it's good practice to put your inchies glasses on and see how things look in Inchie World.

Our Year

This week’s Artist Trading Card challenge was set with the Chinese New Year in mind. February 7th sees the start of the year of the Rat. So here is my ATC, which reveals my somewhat quirky sense of humour.

The images have been decoupaged and a touch of Glossy Accents added.

I hope it makes you smile.

Fat Book Page Recipe

The challenge was to make a fat book page (4"x4")

using the following ingredients:-

3 different colours

2 brads

a handmade embellishment

something shiny

1 word of text

I used Tim Holtz’s Distress Inks to colour the mountboard background.

My 3 colours were green (pine needles), red (fired brick) & blue (broken china).

The same inks were then used to stamp the images.

The cyclists rubber stamp is by Elusive Images from Graphicus

& the friends word stamp is from Crafty Individuals.

I used 2 green brads to secure my friends text.

I made an embellishment by using a small punch to cut out three flowers

from the leftover stamped images,

which were then overlaid & topped with a shiny clear gem.

A drink or two!

Altered bottle caps, using items from my scraps pot, Glossy Accents, Crackle Accents and gold glitter.