WOYWW 95

It's turning out to be a busy week for me but not too much to show you at the moment (Lots of secrets!) My desk today is full of stuff from last weekends amazing retreat and other bits and pieces that I am enjoying looking at so hopefully you will too!

See, all lovely things that I am loving looking at! There's my Tailor dummy, some buttons and flowers, all made this weekend, along with my notebook. Some atc's and gifts from some of the lovely people at the retreat.... let's take a closer look shall we....

Altered pins, buttons and flowers......

I just love this stamp from Tim Holtz (Umbrella man) though I do not have it so when I saw it at the retreat I just HAD to use it to do the cover of my notebook which was part of our kit. The purple flower pin was made by Linda for everyone to attach their name badge to. Next to that is a little booklet with chocolates made by Siobhon. And some atc's from Angela and Janet and Michelle.

I did this for the play date cafe challenge but was too late to post it.... darn time zones get me every time! I made the flower over the weekend using the Tattered florals die and denim. soaked in a weak pva glue solution and sprayed with shimmer so now it will keep it's shape nicely.
So that's my desk this week, more of a show and tell really but I hope you enjoy the peek!
So, head of over to Julia at Stamping Ground and join in the fun!
Be blessed in your art today!

Ferro at the Craft Barn

Hi there
Over at The Craft Barn there have been some inspirational projects using Ferro pastes and paints so of course I had to have a go this week.
I've kept it very simple and done a tag. No expensive metal stencils required for mine!

I started with a plain tag and using the "waste" section of a flourish cut out of mountboard I used a spatula and Ferro metal effect colour in Gold Iron to create the swirl and set aside for a few hours to dry.
I then used spiced marmalade and brushed corduroy distress inks to colour. Some perfect pearls in gold were brushed over everything and spritzed with water to set. The sentiment is stamped in stazon and the little flourishes were stamped in brushed corduroy around the edge.
The Kraft Glassine flower was the one I made over the weekend.

What I like about this is the texture and dimension the paste gives to a simple tag.
Anyway, I had better get sorted for work so i'll catch up with you later....... be blessed in your art today.

Guess What?!

Hi there.
Just a quick post, i'll be back later with some of my projects from the weekend.
I was thrilled to have been asked to become a member of the "Try it on Tuesday" design team over this last weekend. Obvoiusly it took ages to think about it and agree; well, a nanosecond if I'm honest!
So I'll be joining the talented team over there and hopefully inspire you a bit with my style of art!
Aren't I the lucky one! I am really looking forward to working with such a friendly bunch of ladies!
Hopefully I'll see you over there too.
There are weekly challenges, sometimes there'll be prizes sponsered by The Craft Barn and Lovin Ink but most of all it'll be a chance to have fun!
This week the theme is an altered frame.......
I was running out of time but this is my frame

I used silver card, ran through the cuttlebug and brushed with black acrylic paint to age before gluing to a wood frame.
Do pop over to see the rest of the DT's fab projects
Be blessed

An AMAZING weekend!

Hi there everyone.
Well it's been a chaotic monday after a fantastic weekend retreat, but more on that later! My wife was back at hospital this morning fully expecting that Dr would say all is well and the cast can come off..... that was not to be! Sent off for a CT scan and told to come back in 2 weeks. Oh well, we will have to see what happens then.

But this is MUCH more exciting! You will remember that a while ago I was lucky enough to win 2 places on the LOVIN INK  weekend retreat. (Pop over to their site and perhaps we'll meet you at the next one!)
So this weekend saw my wife and I up in beautiful North Yorkshire....
It was a fantastic weekend all round. We missed most of the first evening workshop as it was a 5 hour drive but we were made to feel very welcome when we arrived and dived straight in to begin catching up!

As you can see, the weekend was set around this box; on friday we were decorating it and on saturday and sunday we moved on to filling it!
I'll show you Susan's first as hers looks more like the sample. (I never can do what I'm told!)

 Isn't it gorgeous! Everything that is on the box has been made, inked, shaped etc etc over the course of the weekend. Don't you just love the Tin Holtz tailor dummy, and the cotton reel, and the.....well, everything!
Then of course, there was me. As expected I was the only male crafter there and decided that though I was quite happy to make all the buttons flowers etc over the weekend I wanted a more "manly" feel to my box.
Oops, just realised I have not taken a decent picture yet so I'll do a seperate post about mine! (Got to keep the suspense going!)
Over the course of the saturday we made buttons and flowers using clay, chipboard, shrink plastic, friendly plastic and material using all sorts of techniques including, triple embossing, colouring, shaping, stamping etc etc.
Our hosts, Michelle and Janet were always on hand to advise, encourage and a lot of experimentation was going on (Along with loads of chat and laughter) And Andy and Emma kept us going with amazing food all weekend! Thank you for that; your food was fantastic!

Here's me getting stuck in . Don't you love my name badge! The flower pins were made by the lovely Lynda (sorry if I spelt your name wrong!) before she knew that there would be a guy there! But I loved it; and why wait until you are old to wear purple!
After lunch on saturday I was blessed and touched when out came plates of chocolate cupcakes beautifully decorated and complete with candles and everyone sang happy birthday to me!

Thanks so much for that guys, and for the stunning card!
We also managed to pop into The Stamp Man that afternoon; it was lovely to meet Jill and have a look around and pick up some lovely goodies to play with!

Finishing off Sunday, we continued with our boxes, we altered pins and beads and I decorated my notebook which was part of the kit we got. (Still loads in there for me to play with this week!)

So there you can see some of my box and book. I'll carry on showing everything in much more detail over the week.
We had such a wonderful time, met some amazingly talented crafters; made some fantastic things and learn't so much from everyone. Fun friends and laughter, we were truly blessed to be able to be there and can't wait for the next one!
Be blessed everyone, whatever you are doing!

Thank you very much

Hi there.
Thank you so much for all you kind wishes yesterday. They are all appreciated very much! I have truly been blessed and spoilt.
Yes Hels; there was indeed cake! Chocolate won the day but I won't post any photo's of said confection as twould be awful cruel of me (especially after the columbion episode!)
Instead I thought I would show you two of my gifts and something I made very quickly with some of my new toys.......
First up; isn't this just crying out to be altered?

I love the depth of this frame from my wife and just know it will be great to do so watch this space!
Then from my daughters. This little sweet treat among other things; nougat

complete with "moustachio" nuts! Yep, she has a thing about moustaches, don't ask me why!
Then I had a quick little play with some of my stuff from yesterdays trip to the Craft Barn and made this ATC.

I used Tim's ATC die with the movers and shapers butterfly die. Flowers made with the new sizzix 3D die and a bit of embossing on the butterfly, some microbeads and the wood embellies....

Aren't those flowers brilliant! This is the small one (And to make the bottom flower even smaller I snipped the outer ring off. (Hels, I won't say that you NEED them; but they are really really easy to do and I think they look great with all the other flowers as they are a different style)

Whatever your plans; be blessed today and over the coming weekend.......

Birthday treat

Good afternoon all.
Seeing as today is my special day (21 and a bit- the bit just gets bigger!) and my family was off to work I decided I should have a little treat so off I went to visit The Craft Barn. I had a brilliant time chatting to the lovely staff and the owner Sandy. (Such a lovely bunch of people, thanks for making my visit so special) Well, to say I was spoilt for choice is an understatement as loads of stuff was being unpacked from the trade show........ In the end, with some birthday blessings and a voucher or two I trundled home with these little goodies to play with!

The New Tim Holtz ATC die and those amazingly wonderful butterflies, peeking out in the back is this new sizzix  3D flower die. I can tell you now that if you like flowers that is a must have (And I have not even begun to play properly with it yet!) Then some truly gorgeous wood birds and flowers that are the perfect size for the ATC!
Then it was a tough call with regards to the stamps; sholud I be loyal to Tim and get one of his sets that I am drooling over...... As you can see, the answer to that was no (But only because I know I am getting one of his sets over the weekend.) I got this set from Katzelkraft that I have been looking at for ages now. I first used these stamps at a class over at The Barn and they are really really great.
I feel really blessed to be able to have got all of this and look forward to some SERIOUS play time!
See you all later........

Stamp Man floral Challenge

Back again. I just realised that over at The Stamp Man the theme is florals for mothers day, and time runs out tomorrow!
I thought I'd therefore use the flowers I made to create a memory album to fill with memories for my mother.
So here it is

The colours aren't too good. That's what happens when the sun is shining so brightly! I embossed and sanded 4 pieces of navy blue card and cut out using a cuttlebug puzzle die. These were arranged onto burgundy card, loosely so the edges are not flat. The flowers attached as shown and tattered leaves in gold and copper were inked with AI before adding.
I will probably add more to this but time has run away from me again and I did not want to miss the challenge.
The pages inside are all black so will show up photos and tags really well I think.
See you later, I had better get ready for work.

WOYWW 94

Hi there everyone. It's that time of the week again where everyone downs tools and heads over to
Stamping Ground to be nosey! I missed last week as I was up in Liverpool so I'm glad to be back. Here's my desk this week.....

No room to move really. Well, I returned from Liverpool with a few bits that I am still trying to find homes for. So, what have we here? On the left I have some new additions for my tray, some brilliant metal flowers (I LOVE charity shops!) and some other bits of jewellery from the lovely Anita.

Then in the middle is some card (just a small bit of what Janet blessed me with - TWO WHOLE BOXES!) because I could not carry it all on the train. Along with that is this amazing collection of ribbons from a shop that was closing down - at 25pence for 3 rolls a real bargain. Gorgeous colours and textures aren't they.

Then, last but not least; some flowers I made. One thing I learn't early on was that when inking and stamping was to use a good quality card underneath what I was working on. Then when the project is finished I generally end up with an interestingly colouired and textured piece of card that I then just add some more random stamping and a colour over it all and I have a piece ready to use. These flowers were done with such a scrap (Glossy paper, with glittered bits, glue blobs and some half stamped images! I added a script stamp and then inked over it all with DI) These are great to die cut with. So I cut some tattered florals and assembled them, then I made a rose and the spikey flower.

So, can anyone guess what the spiky flower is made from?  No? ok, it's made from the "waste" bits from Tim Holtz' bird cage die! (I hate wasting things!) If you want a step by step doing then just tell me in a comment and I'll do one for you!
Enjoy your wednesday and be blessed in your creativity!

FOLLOW.....

Me again. Over at Simon Says Stamp and Show this week the theme is a word...... Well this immediately spung to mind; strictly speaking it is a sentance but the main word for me is FOLLOW, so that's the theme!
I found this in a charity shop about a month ago and I had just not got round to doing it though I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I guess these were very popular when people first started visiting the Maldives but the colours are rather bright aren't they?
I started by covering everything with old Wordsworth poetry, nice and messy!

At this stage I was wondering whether I should have left well alone, but too late........
Anyway I then took each fish and inked in a different colour distress ink (I used forest moss, aged mahogony, faded jeans, spiced marmalade and dusty concord) and a combination of all the colours on the main fish. I added highlights with a silver krylon leafing pen and a black marker.
I then stamped each fish with the same stampers anonymous stamp in the same colour. The end product ended up like this.....

It looks like it is taking a nose dive but I have done it to hang at an angle but this way you see the whole frame! The verse is written by hand and stamped with a little dotty texture stamp (also stampers anonymous)

A couple of close ups so you get to see more of the detail......
Enjoy your day and be blessed......

spring has sprung

Good morning; before I get down to the serious business of creating I thought I would share some of my garden pics....
Spring has definately sprung and in my garden at this time of the year there is a decidedly yellow tint to my garden that I just love.
The photo's don't really do justice to the space but I tried

Hope this cheers you up a bit..... be blessed in your art today.

Habedashery......

Morning, oops, actually afternoon! Where has the morning gone? Oh well, time flies when fun is being had....
I am sure that I am not alone in noticing a bit of a habedashery trend emerging here in blogland. Now I don't have any of those lovely tailor dummy stamps and dies (yet) so I thought I'd have to wait a bit to join in the trend..... no, not going to do that so I improvised and made this tag.

I'm pretty pleased with the result. I started with a tag cut on yellow card and inked with bundled sage, vintage photo, frayed burlap and forest moss distress ink I then stamped a script stamp and a grunge texture stamp(both Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz) in Frayed burlap before over stamping the sentiment, crown and flowers in forest moss.

 To make the tailor dummy I cut the top shape out of thin cork; I took a birdcage in black card and cut the two outer sides off and the top of the cage. I stamped the flowers onto the cork in frayed burlap and forest moss and then attached the cage as seen. The top of the cage became the top of the dummy. Some ribbon in gold and green around the waist and some little gems around the neck (Thanks Janet, they are perfect!) and et voila, one custom dummy! Some old lace at the bottom and a metal flower to finish....

In other news; the excitement is beginning to build in the Walker household, my birthday on thursday so that means CAKE!!!!!!! and then on friday the missus and I are off to the Lovin Ink craft retreat that I won, what a birthday gift that was! They have been posting some sneaky peeks over the weekend and it is looking fabulous so I can't wait!!!!!!!

I have been busy with some other things lately that I can't share yet but we ARE getting closer to the reveal date........
Till later, be blessed in your art

Just a tag.....

Hi there. I';ve been busy all day but I have nothing to share with you yet; isn't that frustrating! So I thought that I would play a bit while I was waiting for stuff to dry and made this tag.

The base is Crafty Individuals paper. I stamped one of their new stamps in black on the lower half of the tag, and coloured in the flowers with copics. I crinkled the top and bottom of the tag and used distress ink to highlight and stamped some random dots.

The flowers were stamped on acetate with an Artistic Stamper flower, glittered and coloured with Alcohol ink before shaping and adding the buttons to the centres.

The butterfly was cut out of the left over paper from the same sheet and gems in the centre. Some ribbon and old earrings to finish. Didn't take long but I DO feel much better! Hope you like it.
Enjoy what is left of your day!

Toothless

Hi there again. Still not been able to do any crafting today ( trying to sort out the aftermath of my trip and the chaos I left behind!) but I thought I would show you something that myself and my daughter made for a gift......
Say hi to

 Toothless (him of How to Train your Dragon fame!)
Now, i'll be honest here; said daughter has not really EVER sewn before; myself was NEVER supposed to get involved in the creating of Toothless, that was to be mother's job. Yep, she who conveniently broke her hand prior to this........
Still, it soon became apparent that some of the sewing was not really geared to a first timer so I had to manfully step up to the plate and help out where needed!

Still, between us, we managed to get him done (Some colourful language, raised blood pressure etc etc later)
He only got his eyes last night when we returned home so as well as being toothless; which anyone who has seen the film, will know is a lie; he has been blind all week!

 I am sure that the recipient of this gift, who is an avid fan, will appreciate it very much..... and if my daughter wants one for herself; she can jolly well wait until her mother has her hand back!
Be blessed everyone!

I'm back!

Hi there everyone; just a quick hello to say I'm back! Had a very busy week but a good one. My wife's plaster cast has been changed for a material one which makes it easier for her and we are back in a couple of weeks.
Then my daughter's college interview went well. and the end result is that after being introduced to the course leader for the course (that she originally wanted to do but could not apply for as she did not have A level art) she has been offered an unconditional acceptance for the pre degree foundation course in Art and Design based on the standard of her own work! I am thrilled for her, as so is she!
So all in all a very productive week though no crafting time!
Then when I returned home I discovered that my charms from the charm swap had arrived. They are fab so will post photo's later.

So. I'll be back later with some photo's.......

Not much action this week

Hi there,
Just a quick post; I won't be around much this week as I am taking my daughter up to Liverpool for her college interview so will be out and about. So between that and getting my wife back to hospital I am not going to have much time and access to create, let alone post so I will hopefully speak to you again later this week when I am back. Until then, be blessed.......

Anniversary "card" as promised

Hi there everyone. As I said earlier; i am back to show the "card" I made for Susan to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary ..... you'll understand why i used ""
Here it is

I suppose you could say that this is the envelope!
Inside is the card

Which is in fact a small booklet!

I like the way it came out; especially since I was not sure what I was going to do when I began!
Now I just need to write it and wrap the pressie then tidy up the mess I made........

Just in case you want to know; the box is painted in bronze paint, sides are covered in Crafty Individuals Paper and inked in aged mahogony. Gold and copper leaves (Well, plastic metal!) embossed and coloured with Alcohol inks. Burgundy roses and gold chain to finish.
I made the card with colourwash a while ago, accordian folded and cut to size and glued to make the pages. The cover is copper embossed (Plastic) and inked with AI. The metal letters inked too and attached with brads.
Just a bit of random stamping on the pages, some adage sentiments, old book paper (from Wordsworth's poems- an old book I picked up)
I'm sure she'll like it so cheerio for now.
Be blessed