halloween tag

It's my sister in laws 60th birthday on halloween so I made a tag for her.  She's not yet into the weird and wonderful world of tags yet so I've kept it pretty "normal" as I dont think she'd appreciate me adding lots of odd things to it lol.

The base tag is coloured with ripe persimmon & dusty concord distress ink   I then used an imagination spiders web stencil and sponged more dusty concord through.  I only wanted a subtle detail so I went with a very light touch, so light I dont think the camera caught it but it was softened even more when it got splattered and misted.  Next step was 2nd generation versafine purple in my new bestest mate.. my kaiser crackle stamp.  Lavinia witch, mushrooms, cauldron & upside down seaweed stamped in black versafine.  Top right corner is a small spiders web stamp to echo the odd glimpses from the stencil, I used versamark & some black glint wow embossing powder.  Finally a  squirt of biscotti perfect pearls mist and a quick whizz around the outside with black soot distress ink.

I'm going to submit this one to

Haunted Design House  (Tracy, you want to go look at this blog, right up your street!!)

Imagination Craft Challenges

Stamp & Create

and finally the Pink Elephant Challenge

first prima doll tag

I was really lucky a couple of weeks ago and won a prima doll stamp & paper pad from CraftMojo thanks to their facebook giveaway.  I finally got around to inking her up and decided it had to be a tag.

Lots of things I'd do differently on this one but I'm sort of happy with it.

I started off with white dl card and a piece of old dcwv papers.  I liked the pattern but not the colours so gave it a few thin coats of gesso.. and here was problem number 1.. all the distress ink I added afterwards didnt want to stay dark.  This is actually blended with barn door, persimmon, wild honey, tea dye, vintage photo & forest moss!!  No matter what I did I couldnt keep the colours dark, it's as tho the colour was sinking below the gesso.   Once I'd given up trying to get more colour in I used barn door, forest moss & tea dye to random stamp some old leaf stamps then 3rd gen purple & green versafine with a SU french script background stamp.   I cut a small panel from the Prima pad, coloured with wild honey DI and punched along the bottom with a MS punch.

The window is hand embossed & cut from an old Marianne Design stencil, coloured with the same DI as before then covered with antique linen crackle paint which has gone a mucky green which looks pretty much a heritage colour iykwim.  The spellbinders bauble border was coloured using the same inks but I added some cream cosmic shimmer glue "pearls"

The prima doll is paper pieced with First Edition papers which have been covered with barn door di and her skin/hair is colour with copics.  Along the bottom of the skirt I cut into some threaded trim and used glossy accents to mold it around where I couldnt be bothered to cut the ruffles from the stamped image ;o)

In the top corner I've used 2 marianne design leaf dies and some wild orchid crafts flowers.  The leaves were cut from ooops I mucked up tags that had been marbled with distress paints.  Glad I chucked them back in the pot instead of throwing them as they really worked well with the colour scheme.

Next came another oops moment, I'd stuck everything down then decided it needed a pearl flourish.  I'm too tight to pay £2/3 for a one use flourish so carefully pricked a pattern ready to stick down some flatback pearls only to realise I've either ran out of cream ones or there's hiding from view somewhere in amongst the chaos that is my playroom.  Cosmic glue to the rescue.. not!  The pearls had to stay small for the pattern but look pretty naff that small.  I'll have to go shopping tomorrow and stick them down over the top.. well that will be my excuse to go shopping ;o)

Thinks I'll enter this one into Mariannes Design Divas blog challenge.

new tag

I havent forgotten the tut for the drawer unit, I've ran out of gummed tape and havent been able to get any locally :o(  Will try and get some tomorrow and finish it off.. it's already to go bar the drawers so shouldnt take long.

In the meantime I've been playing with some new goodies and a few old favourites.

Hubby doesnt know it but he bought me the angle corner chomper last week ;o)  so I turned a tall skinny (3*5) into a tag.  The base is picked raspberry, peacock feathers & dusty concord distress ink which has a kaisercraft crackle image randomly stamped in concord ink before being misted with water and biscotti perfect pearls.  Next I added diecuts from memory box, marianne designs & spellbinders coloured with the same 3 inks.  I cut 2 flowers with my favourite spellbinder bitty blossom die, inked again and stamped with concord ink and stampin ups french script before rolling and shaping the edges with a quilling tool.  There are a couple of gems inside the rolled flowers. I dont like the smaller flowers that the dies make so I painted some ready made ones from Wild Orchid, they took ages to dry.. wont be doing that again for a while.  I tied some turquoise & purple organza ribbon then shrivelled them with a heat gun.. my favourite technique at the moment.. I loove watching it shrivel up and twist lol.   Finally I added a couple of silver cones and hat pins and a smidge of white cosmic shimmer gilding wax.

I'm going to enter the tag into a few challenges

Crafty Sentiments  Favourite technique/colours..  teal & purple are my favourite colours and playing with distress ink has to be my favourite technique.

Creative Card Crew  Tags..

Inky Chicks, would like to see 2 different diecuts.  I've used 4 so I hope I'm not disqualified lol.

Loves Rubberstamps  Anything goes.

distress stain, paint & marker storage part 1

 We're going to start off firstly with how I made the little boxes to hold the distress stains & paint.  There is a  slightly different sized step by step on my inkpad rack tut if you get a bit stuck and need different pictures. 

Start off by cutting decent weight a4 card into a piece 14cms by 25cms.  This will give you a column of 5 boxes when finished.  If making the exact same box as I did you will need 7 columns, plus 4 columns of 3 boxes (cut the card at 15cms not 25)
Holding the card in the same orientation as I have score down at 3, 6, 9 & 12cms
Rotate 1/4 turn and score at 5, 10, 15 & 20 cms.  Use a bone folder to burnish all the scores remembering that the side you scored on is the outside of the "box".
I find it easier to add the 2 long strips of dst now.  Try and get as close to the score line and outer edge as possible.
Now you need to use a sharp blade and cut where I've drawn the black lines.  If you're having trouble seeing them the boxes with the dst n shape are the only sections which you do not cut under.  Place dst as close to the cut edge and both score lines as possible.  It doesnt need to be super accurate and cover perfectly as long as you have most of the edges covered.


Remove the backing of the top n shaped dst and carefully fold the piece so that it lines up with the box below.  The more accurately you line the edges the tidier your finished box will look.  Repeat with each of the n shaped dst sections until you have something which looks like this.

Use the bone folder to burnish each of the folds and make sure the 2 pieces are firmly stuck together.

nb, this looks a lot more fiddly and difficult than it really is.


Now you need to bring all the sides in and one by one attach them.  Be careful to align the cut edge to the fold of the box otherwise you'll get very wonky boxes and they wont stack tidily.

You should end up with a column of boxes like this,

NB In my altered box I stuck 4 columns together to form a 4 * 5 group using a mixture of glue and dst.  I then made an outer box by cutting a piece of card 25.4cm by 22.4cms and scoring 5cms on each side.  And stuck the glued columns in place with a few dabs of glue before pulling up and attaching the box sides.
The 3*5 section was made in the same way but the outer box only needs cutting at 19.4 * 25.4  I would suggest you dont glue any together until you have the outer box and know what configuration you want to make.

If you dont have many stains/paints or you havent access to the large bought box laundry tablet boxes make great storage. The Bold and Persil 20 wash box is the exact size needed to hold 18 bottles.

Simply make 3 columns of 5, and 1 of 3 no need to stick together.
Cut the tablet box to 5.3cms high (cut at 5 and the dividers will poke out as in the pic below)
Paint the inside bottom of the tablet box and the outside.  There is no need to paint the 4 inner walls of the tablet box as the dividers will cover them and the paint may very well make it impossible to add the dividers.  These tablet boxes are just about long enough to fit distress markers so it's possible to make a drawer unit however I think I would be more inclined to make a single large drawer rather than fiddle about trying to add inner shelves to allow several drawers.  I will have a playaround during the week and see how much fiddling it is lol.













If I'm being honest if the box I'd bought had been the right size I would have filled it with these tablet boxes and if I hadnt been so gung ho about buying the box I could have made it myself, however to get the same size I would have needed a cutter capable of cutting a2 mountboard.


Next part will be the chest of drawers using mountboard & brown gummed tape.  You will need 2 a3 sheets.

Distress stain, paint & marker holder

This is the advance warning of a step by step coming up over the next few days.

You'll need
1 ready made box 10 * 14 * 3.5"  I bought mine at Homesense.  If you want to make your own box that'll be fine but you might have to adjust the sizes and layout of the cubby holes to suit.
2 a3 sheets of mountboard
14 a4 sheets of boxmaking weight cardstock.  I used Annamaries.
Brown gummed tape, tombow (or other strong quick drying glue) and strong dst
hougie,
score tool
bone folder
handles for drawers

This is how the box will look once you've finished the initial construction

Doesnt look good with the white boxes showing against the inside.

I would highly recommend you get in a good supply of gesso and a 1" brush ready to decorate.










This is my first bodge job..

I came across a couple of issues decorating that I should have thought of... Not all of the surfaces were going to react to the paint in the same way.. the gesso on the drawers took the docrafts metallic black paint fine, the cubby holes are only 300gsm card and if you add too much paint they start to cockle & warp... paint in a checkerboard fashion, let dry for a few hours then paint the rest.

I also found that drawers that were quite smooth when first made started to become very stiff once the gesso & paint had dried.   I'm going to try turtle wax on them tomorrow to see if that helps (it's supposed to stop acrylic painted surfaces sticking together) if not I'll amend the sizes for the drawers down by about 2mm when I write up the how to..  But the worst disaster was the drop down front...  I'd originally wanted the red to show through thin layers of metallic black and adding lots of guilding waxes to create an oriental feel.  All was working great until I touched the dry paint with a damp thumb.. off came the paint.. right back to the original red design.  Not even a hint of colour staining. Change of plans.. I sprayed it all with various cosmic shimmer mists hoping that the biner would help.. didnt like the colours as the ones I really wanted to use were bunged up lol..  Plan c time lol  alchi inked (stream, raspberry, melon & pearl) over the drawer unit and lid, straight over the dried mists.  If I'm honest I'm really liking the way it looks irl but the ink is only sitting on the paint and although it now seems waterproof it's not scratch proof... hence the couple on pink scratches you can see.  I'm going to call it quits on the rest of the decorating until I have some black gesso then I'll redo the lid and not even attempt to do anything with the outside of the box (poppy paper) until it's been well gessoed.

more tags

Bit of a mixed bag with these 3 tags but I was determined to use some of my new stash.

Lots of distress ink (frayed burlap, dried marigold & black soot) and distress markers with the Jofy flower & sentiment & a small section of Dylusions vine border cut, coloured with brass distress paint mixed with some scribbled forest moss ink and mounted with pinflair gel glue.  The centre of the flower has been covered with glossy accents.  In real life there are lots of rolled stamped sections of the vine border stamp which have been mildly bleached with water.




Another of the Jofy stamps,  This time I distressed with tumbled glass, evergreen bough & dusty concord.

Stamped image with versafine and used the picket fence marker, several copics & some watered down silver distress paint to colour in the baubles.

The motif at the bottom has vivas silver pearl pen "pearls"

The ribbon is inch wide organza which has been shrivelled with the heatgun.






This one is thanks to a pma quote that came over my fb feed...  " Life begins at the end of your comfort zone"

Seeing as it was a pma quote I had the bright (ok cheating) idea of finding another quote to theme the tag on.

The tag base was coloured by slodging distress paint on my craft mat, spritzed with water the squidged around. I've then inked through Tims clock stencil in the top right to simulate sun rays and in the bottom left to add texture to the "bush".
 Next up came Dylusions stencil again and some texture paste.. coloured when dry with brass distress paint mixed with forest moss.

I had the base now I had to think of how the heck I could draw a caterpillar.. ding.. hungry caterpillar.. dead easy as it does matter if it's a mess and the colours suited the base.  I trimmed a couple of pieces of cut n dry into thin ovals and played about with mixing different green acrylic paints then dabbing them into a vague semblence of the body.  A thumb print in some bright red chroma paint formed his head and I added eyes, feet and antennae when it had dried.  Next I printed the quote onto card, cut into sections, distressed with old paper & black soot before sticking down with pva.  The butterfly is one of Tims stamps, coloured with markers and huff stamped onto card which doesnt like blending.  Cut, shaped and triple embossed before sticking to the tag with glossy accents.  Really not sure on it as it's gone way beyond my comfort zone and into outer space lol

12 tags of 2013 September

Not quite sure what happened to this one I filled my bag for playday this morning with the intent of doing summery and bright...

As per Tims September tag I started off using embossing paste and a few of Tims new stencils to add a bit of texture to the blank tag, dried them off then used some picket fence distress paint with another of his yummy stencils to create the resist.  Quick mist before adding picked raspberry, peacock feathers and bundled sage distress stain.

Another quick blast of the heat tool then I used frayed burlap over another couple of his stencils, stamped with a crackle and wood edge background in frayed burlap, his drippy butterfly in black archival before going in with the blending tool, more frayed burlap and some black soot.   Then I used the same distress ink & frayed burlap on some of his crinkle ribbon,  originally it had stencilled black soot dots but I forgot that DI isnt waterproof and went in with the mister to crinkle the ribbon.  Ooops I waited til it dried and redid the dots.  This was attached with a word pin and charm.  Finally I used some of those wonderful word stickers, they read encourage, imagination, possibility which totally described Tims fab class at Coventry.   These were outlined with a black soot marker.  Oddly the texture is showing more in the photo than it does in real life.



Not sure if I'm going to add anything to this one or not as I quite like it as is.

I started off by glueing a poppy diecut from Memory box before covering the tag with embossing paste.  While the paste was wet I used a serated plastic knife to scrape off the excess and gouge wavy patterns.  Quick blast with the heat gun (then a quick dash to the shops)  I chopped the flower heads from another diecut and glued them in place to raise the flower detail.  I then used 3 distress paints, seedless preserves, spun sugar and chipped sapphire and blobbed them over the dried paste, massive mist with some water and I tipped the tag this way and that to allow the paints to run into each other.  Lots of heatgunning later I managed to bubble and blister the paint in a few places for a bit more texture.  I then used blue, pink, teal & white gilding waxes and rubbed over the flower and a few small patches of the wavy pattern to highlight the textures and went in with some black soot distress ink.  Time to test my new white Dylusions ink spray because it was getting a bit too dark, yay I like the way this ink gives a nice spatter instead of heavy centred splodge.

It was really fun spending playday actually playing lol

Lantern gift box

2 posts in a few hours, it is me posting honestly lol.

 I made this one last week to hold a bag of cadburys choccie buttons for Martine at Oysterstamps.  Sadly the bag of buttons was just a wee bit too big for the lid to stay put properly, I did tell Martine it meant she needed to munch a few ;o)

White stardream with holo mirri.

Mesh die from spellbinders
Frostyville border, and Precious snowflakes
Pine branch from Cheery Lynn
and tattered pinecones from Tim Holtz
Couture Creations embossing folder
Wooden knob painted with silver distress paint.

Shedloads of glamour dust glitter on the pinecones & snowflakes because I know Martine likes her bling.

what an amazing 3 days

I bless the day I found the docrafts forum, nope I'm not keen on their products but I have made the most incredible friends and I have had 3 days of absolute fun and laughs thanks to some of them.

Friday morning was road trip day and after a few
hiccups (thanks Ade.. not lol)  me, Jackie & Tracy set off from Bristol at just gone 9 to pick up Noreen from the south coast then it was a up to one of my very favorite show & internet shops... Oysterstamps for about 2pm.  We were met at the door by the man who thinks he's boss.. Graham, he must have recognised us from the Sincerely Yours shows in Taunton as he instantly said.. "you must be the docraft Bristol ladies on a road trip to Brighton" and proceeded to escort us in and bellow for the real boss, the lovely Tracy.  Kettle on and I was whisked upstairs to say hello to my absolutely fabulous buddy Martine.  It was really great to see them again, havent seen them since Taunton in March and they're such a hoot to be with.  Then it was back downstairs into the shop where I have to be honest I just stood and stared... omg there was way too much to choose from, which first.. ink or rubber??  rubber or ink??  The ladies that work there are soo friendly and the other customers were very chatty as well.  You can tell how chatty they were... it was quarter of an hour past their closing time and we were still teasing each other.  Tracy, next time just say bugger off we're closed lol.   I'm not going to tittle tattle on what anyone bought other than Kay.. who'd kept sending texts asking if we'd remembered to get her dies.. yes Kay.. they were the first thing in my sticky mitts lol.

Me, at Oyster Stamps.. I'm totally befuddled by the choice and really cant make my mind up lol.

I havent got the foggiest about which motorway we hopped on then for the quick trip down to our hotel at Burgess Hill, just like the rest of the day it had been nonstop chat and laughs in the car but I will admit to being pleased to see it when we got there, 6+ hours of driving and I was knackered.

Booking into the hotel was pretty quick and we soon sorted out who was sharing with who and even more importantly which had the big bed and which had the lil one under the window.  Quick head down to the restaurant where we spent the next few hours eating and drinking.  We were quite good and only had 1 proper drink.. the rest was tea or water.  It was decided that we'd have a little wander to let our dinner go down and at 10.30 we headed off out.. to Tesco!  If anyone had seen us messing about they'd have thought we were drunk or high!!  Tracy wanted to climb into one of the kiddie rides then we were all screeching at a headline in one of the trashy gossip mags...  something about leeches and multiple orgasms!!  How who wouldnt have laughed at that!  I bet Tesco were glad to see the back of us when we left.  Back to our rooms we went and I was asleep within minutes.

Next morning we were up bright and early, quick shower and dressed before spending a leisurely hour eating brekkie then heading off to meet some of our docraft friends, Alex, Avril, Pauline and Peter at the Glitterpot.  We'd already met Alex before so I knew (and liked) at least one person... sometimes when you meet folk off the net they really arent the fun people you thought they were, instead they're miserable old buggers who you can't wait to see the back of but this certainly wasnt true this time. 
Within just a couple of moments of meeting it was just like being with best mates that you've known for years.  I dont know what glitterpot were expecting but I bet it wasnt a bunch of grownups screeching and howling with laughter or the smutty remarks about Noreen holding Peters "bits" for him, or his remarks to Avril that it's been so long the she wouldn't know what to do with it!  Poor Vickie from Docrafts was supposed to be demoing that day but with us lot stood by her table I dont think she had a cat in hells chance as we were scaring the other customers away lol.  All too soon it was time to say cheerio, amidst hugs and kisses.. and a few damp eyes.


 Alex, Tracy & me.


Jackie texting Kay back for the gazillionth time lol

Noreen, we're not sure what's tickling her fancy but a lovely candid shot.

Avril with her jar of lemon curd.


Avril chatting with Vickie while Pauline is laughing at something.. not sure what but chances are it was nawty lol












Alex had to go home to hubby and her boys (who I met a few years ago and Alex assures me are still as incredibly nice & well behaved).  Peter & Avril went off for lunch, not sure if Pauline joined them or not and we headed off for the CraftBarn.

I must now publicly apologise again to the lovely lady demoing the Tando range....  I was sat by the table.. leaned over and a huge box of teeny shapes went flying through the air!  Thankfully most landed in my lap and I very carefully, to avoid flashing my knickers, managed to tip them from my skirt back into the box on the desk while Jackie got the rest from the floor.  It did break the ice tho and there was a lot of laughing going on at the table. Once we'd made our choices from the vast array of inks, paints & stamps we headed over the road for a much needed cuppa befo
re heading back home.

This wasnt the end of the trip though as we had playday today... homage to sir timmy where we were due to play about with inks & tags while regaling (making jealous) the others with our tales from the class with Sir Tim and our road trip.  Jackie has a handy little gadget on her phone that measures noise... 74 decibels wasnt uncommon today!!  We hooted and hollered all day long, and get this... I made 2 tags!! I never make anything at playday as I'm always making sure everyone is managing to do the project ok but today.. stuff it.. I had new inks, paints, pastes, stencils and stamps to play with and by gawd I was going to play lol.

From 9am on Friday until I said my final cheerios at 4.30 today I have laughed all day and evening and the only time it's been quiet has been while we were sleeping!  I can honestly say this has been an amazing 3 days, roll on next spring when not only do we do it all again but this time it's going to be a convey with most of the other playday ladies coming to join in the fun. Once Jackie lets me have the incriminating photos I'll edit this post so everyone can see.

Huge huge thanks to you all.

a class with Sir Tim

What a day yesterday was, a class with none other than Sir Tim Holtz and some of my best buddies.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera, grrr but thanks to Kay for passing on the group photo.

We got to the class all hot and bothered, stupid sat nav took me the wrong side of the dual carriage way and the hotel wasnt signposted at all.  But all that was forgotten once Tim stood up and started the class.  Now I've seen some vitriol in a few places online about the upcoming class, about it all being a money machine, being Tim'd out and the classes being craft by numbers but that's not what we found.  Tim himself was a lovely fella, patient, fun and the class was all about us doing it how we wanted.  Tickets werent cheap at £65 but compared to the prices I've seen for some watercolour classes they were very well priced, specially when we got their and found each of us had a kit crammed with goodies to use.  We  had an action packed 3 1/2hrs of getting inky and playing with markers, stamps, stains, paints and embellies.  Tim was very patient with Sandra who suddenly developed stripes in her blending and had to call him over for a bit of one on one tuition.. yeah right Sandra.. odd how that was timed.. you've been blending inks fine for years lol.  Tim did smile when I tattled on her for shamming ;o)

No way we had time to decorate the pages of the tagbook in class and sadly it was soon time to down tools, pay for shopping and say our cheerios to everyone. 

What would have been a sad few minutes got better when Tim told us all that we could keep everything bar the tools we'd shared.. markers.. stain, ink, paint, embellies.. all ours to take home with the apron we'd been given at the beginning.  Then to add it all Tim gave each of us a signed book and tote bag, talk about being dead chuffed, woohoo. 

Absolutely amazing day with some amazing friends.

If you want to be really jealous of the goodies one of the ladies that attended the class posted on her blog, not sure she photoed it all but judging by her post she had as good a time as us,  http://newlycreative.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/wow-what-amazing-time.html

After 8 choccie dispenser

I'm hoping that After Eight mint choccies are available world wide.. serious serious yummyness.. oooh.. wafer thin dark choccie and a mint fondant middle.. I loooves them.. until my lot have been at them and the box is full of empty lil sleeves... grr I could kill em for making me think I had lots more to munch.

While wandering through blogland trying to keep mr mojo at least pretending to live in the house I found a fabby template for an After Eight dispenser on Jokes blog.  Many thanks Joke, yay no more empty sleeves.  nb, I did change the base a teeny bit but not noticeably.

I decided to keep the front fairly simple because I wanted to add a stamped image to one side and lots of decos on the lid. Cream stardream base card,  papers are last years First Editions Festive Treats.  Pic doesnt show it but they're all glittery and lush, I didnt really want to use them but they seemed to be just right for what will be a gift of choccie.  Wee bit of frayed burlap, red stardream and my faithful corner chomper for the panels.  Add in a spellbinders bauble die, lil sweetie jar image cut from a paper in the same pad as the heart paper.  Teeniest weeniest bow and a red pearl in the middle.


I might take a pic again in the morning as the stamped tree isnt showing very well under the task lamp.  Copic r20s, g 40s, assortments of Es and a gold sakura to create the polka dots. Lots of glamour dust over her muff.

An old Magnolia tree stamped in olive versafine then cut is hiding the lil girl.  Crafty Notions red & gold rainbow drops added as baubles.

I went a bit mad on the lid, gold & cream pearl chain looped with pinecones cut with Tim Holtz tattered pinecone die from ochre Canson MiTientes, inked with frayed burlap, shaped then Wow high puff white embossing powder to simulate snow.  The green sprigs are also on the tattered pinecone die, I cut them in olive cardstock but the light has made them a bit bright.  The gold and black pearls on wire are from year before lasts Christmas crackers.. they all knew not to bin the crackers after lunch ;o) 

I think I'm going to enter this one into the following challenges

CraftinDesertDivas        Anything Goes
                                                                                     Fashionista Challenge    Christmas
                                                                                     Lexis Creations             Sparkle and Shine
                                                                                     My Craft Spot              3d Items

2 firsts on this one

Not sure whether this one has photoed properly or not, 10.30pm in a dark room under a day lamp isnt the best way but I'm going to be busy tomorrow :o(

Couple of firsts for me today, colouring on kraft and frantage.   It was nice to play with my polychromos (bought 4 or 5 years ago and used a couple of times) but crikey it's a lot more fuss than watercolouring with distress inks or using copics.. thought I was never going to finish and I'm still not happy with her boots.. or face.. or jacket lol.  I suppose I could have used a blending solution to make it quicker & easier but I wasnt sure how the stampinup card would react.





Fair few colours used, light & medium flesh, juniper green, earth green, chromium green opaque, dark naples ochre, burnt ochre, bistre (? teeny gold writing late at night after a few ports and glasses left in the car isnt a good idea lol) walnut brown, deep scarlet red, light purple pink, pink carmine, middle cadmium red, pink madder lake, cream and white (under the glamour dust) 

Once Miss Anya was coloured I cut with a nesty and added some shabby white frontage.  Think next time I'll try resting the topper in a melting pot on top of some heatproof paper because all the crystals near the edges blew away. Or of course I could look in the loft for my old and less powerful one.. who am I kidding.. I'll buy a new 2 speed lol.

Layout is from Sketch & Stash blog,

Papers are from last years Christmas Village by First Edition, matted onto deep brown stardream and edged with tea dye distress ink.  I dont know if you can see it but there's a few pearls made with Golden Pearl coloured pva glue from Cosmic shimmer.  One of the leaf dies from Marianne Designs cut from sage green card then rubbed with Cosmic Shimmer Pearl Moon gilding wax.  Pine cones from Tim Holtz, cut on pale beige Canson Mi-Tientes art paper before being dusted with Wow high puff white embossing powder.

get me being organised!!

Not organised enough to blog on a regular basis but I have at least been in the playroom prepping samples for future playdays. I havent got samples for next month because I'm off to a class at the end of the month with wait for it.... Sir Tim of Holtz... woohoo yippee yay.   I missed out on a spot in his class a couple of years ago and it's taken that long for him to teach another class over here :o(   On the upside to it tho... I'm going with some of my mates from playdays,  Gawd help Tim, he is sooo going to regret us lot going... Trouble with a capital T and that's being polite.. Kay has nefarious plans about kidnapping him then stowing him away in her playroom ;o)

Anyways, next months theme is Homage to Sir Timmy.  Not sure what we'll be doing but it's going to be based on whatever techniques we learn in class then translated to tags.  Be prepared to get inky ladies.

Going back to samples, all 3 are from stampelmiens blog.. I just lurves it there lol.

 Odd, just typed a paragraph and it's disappeared!  CC stamp coloured with copics.  2011 first edition xmas papers, teal cardstock, spellbinders labels 4 dies, memory box frosty border die and shedloads of glamour dust glitter.

Not sure whether we'll be doing this one in October or not, I have vague recollections of having something else planned.  Oh well if I think of it before then I'll let everyone chose.

This is a year round calendar.  Nowt but cream and pewter card stock.  Lots of diecutting with spellbinders dies, asian motifs, the heartfelt gift box & retired bottle cap font.  My absolutest favourite kimmie stamp coloured with copics and a paper pieced dress (first edition papers).

This is the project planned for November

and finally Decembers project. A lantern gift box.

This is one of those rare times when something looks better on the pc screen.  In real life even though I've only used faded jeans ink on everything it's reacted differently on the papers and looks plain wrong to me now.

White card, chipboard, thin d blue card, snowflake embossing folder, cherry lyn (?) barbed wire die, spellbinders bauble die, sugar nellie(?) stamp, azure blue gilding wax, acetate, white su ink, snowflake stamps, various papers and a wee lil wooden knob courtesy of my mate Angie. 

Took me hours to make and it's the decorating that's ruined it, grrrrr.  Will make life easier on myself next time & use patterned cardstock and more traditional colours.

Fiskars stamp press

Have had a fab day with a fair few of my buddies at the Sincerely Yours craft show in Taunton.

Spent a few pennies and did a couple of make and takes and came back knackered.  Not so knackered that I couldnt have a play with a few of my new toys even though I ought really to be tidying up ready to head out for an adults only holiday tomorrow.  Ooops lol.

I bought, the large fiskars stamp press, got to admit I've done a 180 turn on this little (or not so little treasure).  Not wishing to sound as though I'm blowing my own trumpet I consider myself a technically good stamper.. not the most imaginative, not the best with colours or originality but I rarely misstamp an image, or get smudges and even sentiments are rarely stamped wonky.. so I didnt see that I'd get much benefit from it.  I even said to Martine at Oyster that I couldnt find a reason to buy one... ok, fast forward an hour.. alchie ink tag make & take and out comes the glossy card and a warning from teach about being careful not to slide the stamp.  I stamped ok, I usually do on gloss card but  Ding, one excuse found.. that most evil of surfaces.. the one that can have even the most experienced stamper trembling in their boots... acetate!!  I'd hate to say how many times my stamps have skidded or I havent got a full impression because I've been worried about it slipping.  Cant see that happening with the stamp press, you're not touching the stamp or card and there's only one way the stamp can go.. down.  Sold, so I hurtled off to Oysters stand and got the large one, reason for the large one is those large 6*6 background stamps that I love but rarely use.  Pita getting out a big shot plate to use as a block and you have to be so careful to get all of the areas pressed down, I bought the special rocker mount but have never really got on with it.. wish I'd had the stamp press then.  Woohoo, talk about making it easy to use.  Impressed or what lol. I'm not going to get rid of my blocks and I doubt I'll use the press for tildas/bellas/kimmies but I can see it being used quite a bit for the really small stamps that are easy to catch the edge of the rubber.

I also bought the new envelope punch board, still cant see me using it to make envies because I find it easy enough to make boxes or for 6*6 a pack of 50 for a few quid at the range will suffice.  But going to find it really handy for making file tab pages for mini albums and I'm seriously thinking of making some desktop stamp storage for my most used sentiment & worker (grasses/flourishes etc) ums.

Also lurking in my shopping bags were a baby vest die from MFT, a really unusual congratulations background stamp from AnnaMarie.. it has gaps where you can then stamp words.. like new baby, on your special day, passing your exams etc.  Worked quite well to make a background panel for a baby card I made this evening, only gripe is it has a definite left margin but not a right one so it's not great for making full backgrounds.  Maybe I can convince Annamarie to make a much larger version lol.

I also got a woodware tag & sentiment set, it was in the reduced bin and had a couple of nice sentiments but nothing special.  As always a few more nestie dies, they werent all in stock so Oyster are going to post out the ones oos but I did manage to get the border one I've been after for ages, yay.  That naughty Tracey went on to show me a new sparkly ink paint that comes in a Koi waterbrush and dries pretty much instantly.   Oooh, really sparkly so just for the sake of my buddies I had to buy one so I could report back after my holiday ;o) 

Just heard Ade's car pull up so going to dash and start doing a bit of tidying,  ttfn

one layer sketch cards

Not sure why but when I saw the sketch I've used for this card I wanted to see if it would work as a one layer card using nothing but ink & a stencil/mask to create the pattern blocks.

1 week later and I still cant find where I've put my box of masks so instead I created paper ones and got out a few stamps I havent played with for a long time (ever with the dandelion fluff lol)

Using from back to front, frayed burlap, gathered twig & walnut stain ink.  With hindsight I should have blotted the gathered twig and used the 2nd generation ink rather than pure as it's a bit too dark.

2 background stamps are ones I bought from Stampsandmemories a year (ok 2) ago and I think the dandelion is from Lavinia Stamps but I cant swear to it.  Sentiment is from SU and I used one of my new spellbinder dies to create the tag for it to sit on.  Matted on to dark brown stardream and a cream card blank.   Sketch and Stash where I got the sketch from has a lot to answer to as I then went on to try with a few other sketches, masks and the same inks & card lol.  Barely made a card all year and now I've done 3 in less than 24hrs!  Hopefully Sandra, Lorrs & Jackie wont be reading this seeing as it's their bdays this month ;o)

take 2

Another take on a sketch using nowt but ink & rubber.

Layout is from CAS(E) this Sketch and I've taken a bit of liberty with it.

Masked panel primarily inked with frayed burlap, gathered twig, walnut stain, and a touch of chipped sapphire, forest moss and dusty concord. 

Over stamped with a SU image and sentiment in choc chip ink.  Matted onto dark brown stardream and a cream card blank.

Photo doesnt show it but the panel has been edged with a gold krylon pen.  I'm still not sure if the sentiment is in the right place or not but Ade likes it.. and it's not often he says that lol

take 3

This is the 3rd card made when I was playing about with sketches.

Again playing using frayed burlap & walnut stain distress inks.  Photo doesnt show it but there are tiny hints of tumbled glass, worn lipstick, bundled sage & dried marigold on the main panel.

Layout is from Sketch Saturday
Flower & sentiment stamp - StampinUp, flourish stamp is one of the stamp a page I bought from stampsandmemories.

I started by cutting 2 masks, one for the thin panels and one for the central panel. 

Central panel was stamped first, masked, then the masks for the thin panels were laid over the top.  Everything but the panel was masked off and I had fun with all of the distress inks mentioned. Bit of a booboo, I used tombow repo on the masks and a tiny bit of it must have stuck to the card and this really went dark when inked over.  Voila, one small sentiment cut out and stuck over the top and all is well.  Does mean that I'm going to have to stop being a tightwad and buy some ready tacky masking paper if I want to play around with this style again but I suppose I can find something else to buy at the same time ;o)

 Finally all the panels were drawn around for definition, krylon gold on the panel, crumb cake marker on thin panels.  Matted onto deep brown stardream then a plain cream cardblank.  This isnt my favourite of the 3 cards but it was fun playing around with nothing but ink & rubber.

yay my mojo is back

It's a friends birthday next week and while showing hubby how to use copics I started colouring in this lil Whimsy fairy for her card.  I'd picked up a few random colours for the hair and to my surprise they came out quite well for when you want a coppery red E15, 18, 35 and Y38.  Stickles on her wings are still wet so I've been wafting it with the heat gun like crazy as I've got to post it tonight.  Oops.

papers are a random mix from first edition pads, dies from Spellbinders, sentiment, and punches from SU and the layout is from Sketch Saturday.