Friday 29 April 2011

My last post as Guest Designer at The Craft Barn

Hi there everyone.
I can't believe my month as a guest designer at the Craft Barn is drawing to an end! I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. Thank you for your kind comments over the month, they meant a lot to me.
I have tried to do something different each time to hopefully inspire you to look at your stuff in a different light and see the possibilities...... So i've done a book, a canvas, a box and for my last project I decided to do a double spread 12 x 12 layout with fabulous Graphic 45 papers of a trip up to London to the V&A museum.


More pics and details are over at the Craft Barn Blog so I hope you'll pop over there and leave them some love!
Be Blessed in your art today

Wednesday 27 April 2011

WOYWW #99 Not a pretty sight!

Good day everyone wherever you are in the world; it's time to meet up at Julia's place for WOYWW! Well; let's be frank here, mine is an ABSOLUTE tip this week! So you may want to look away now if you are a neet freek.........
See what I mean? In my defence, we had visitors this weekend so everything got shoved in. The sunshine was glorious so most of the time was spent in the garden!
I can't even begin to explain what's what so I'm not going to try!
But on another note; if you follow my blog you will have seen the tin I made for Try it on Tuesday,


 Well I made this book to go inside....

And here are a couple of the pages.....
I gave this tin and book to my cousin, she will add her photos and then we may add bits next time she comes to visit so things were kept simple.
Have a gloriously creative day and be blessed.

Tuesday 26 April 2011

Altered Tin at Try it on Tuesday

Good morning everyone. Hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend and were as blessed as we were with glorious sunshine every day!
Over at Try it on Tuesday this week it's altered week and this week we are looking at tins, all shape and sizes and all altered!
My teamies have done some fabulous things to inspire you so do head on over to Try it on Tuesday and be inspired and show us what you can do too!
As always for altered week we are sponsered by those wonderful folk at the Craft Barn who are offerering a voucher to spend so what are you waiting for!
Here is my project in a bit more detail....
I started with a tin that originally had a grow a rose gift in it. I covered it with just about every shade of blue alcohol ink that I have! When it was dry I stamped various Tim Holtz sentiments in black stazon.

The flowers were plain chipboard shapes triple embossed with Moonglow two tone embossing powders (From The Stamp Man) which I love! and finished with a gem flower.

The bookplate, hinges and leaves were die cut from silver foil. The bookplate and hinges were textured with a TSS embossing wheel and the leaves with a cuttlebug og folder before aging with black acrylic paint. The sentiment for the plate was stamped in black onto white and after fixing covered with glossy accents.
Next I will be making a little accordian booklet to go into it.... so will show you when that is done.

Have a lovely day everyone and be blessed in your art.

Friday 22 April 2011

"Resistance" is not futile at The Stamp Man

Good afternoon everyone. I hope you are all well and having a blessed Good Friday. Over at
The Stamp Man The new challenge is RESIST. The design team has been having fun and there is plenty of inspiration on the blog.
This is my card for this week.
I covered a card with old book papers; did some free hand swirls with a resist medium ( I used Tex Podge)
And did the same on another piece of card but then stamped the King Crow stamp in resist.
When dry I inked with various Distress inks to reveal the images.
The edges were inked with Aged Mahogony DI. The rose was made with grunge, some friendly plastic was heated and stamped with Aspects of Design script stamp. Everything then assembled as seen.

Hope you all have a really lovely Easter weekend. I will be enjoying precious family time so I'll probably only be back tuesday.
God Bless

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Friendly plastic at the Craft Barn

Goodly day peeps
I trust that you are all well. Today has started well as Simon says stamp and Show have picked my clock as one of their top 3. Such a blessing to me.
Then, today is the day that one of my current favourite projects goes on at the Craft Barn!
I love boxes and containers and am really happy with how this came out. Full step by step instructions can be found HERE  so I do hope you will go over and take a look.
Be blessed in your art today as you create your special moments

Saturday 16 April 2011

"Distressing" Time

Good evening folks
It's been one of those staple themes over at Simon say Stamp and Show - Distressing.... well distress ink is standard issue for me so this project fits the bill.
Step one; take one tired charity shop bargain clock
Cover with shabby vintage style papers
Sand all the edges and stamp some dragonflies in forest moss and faded jeans distress ink over the face randomly (These are from The Stamp Man)

and ink the edges and over the clock face using the same Distress inks.
Then take some boring (to me anyway!) chipboard numbers

Triple emboss with utee and stamp a script on the last layer and silver age them with rub n buff; add to clock face along with a metal distressed bird cage and some flowers

Highlight the dragonflies with glossy accents and ultra fine glitter

 and et voila: one distressed vintage clock for my daughter's room
Hope you enjoy it!
Enjoy the rest of the evening!

Friday 15 April 2011

Stamp Man ATC swap - reminder

Hi there,
Just thought 'i'd share my ATC for the ATC swap over at the Stamp Man's ATC blog. There's still time to enter so what are you waiting for?
Here's mine

I made 4 of these, 3 for the swap and this one to keep! Using all Tim Holtz stamps I had fun. I have had that sentimen t in my head for a while now so was pleased when my mini man arrived so I could finally get my idea down!
Be blessed in your art today, i'm off to do the more mundane reality of replacing a tyre!

New project for The Craft Barn - Canvas

Good morning everyone. Hope you are all well.
This is my latest project for the Craft Barn. All the details of how I made it with plenty more pictures can be found on their blog page HERE. I hope you pop over and take a look.
(Don't forget to leave us a comment while you are over there and let us know what you think!)
See you later today; be blessed as you create your special moments......

Thursday 14 April 2011

ATC

Hi there.
Just wanted to share this little ATC with you that I made with a rose stamp from The Stamp Man. I really like this stamp. Here I inked a standard ATC with various distress inks and pefect pearls then overstamped the top with a script stamp.
The rose was stamped onto white card and coloured with Copics, cut and shaped and mounted with foam pads for dimension. Some glossy accents on the focal rose to finish.
Hope you enjoy it. If you like this stamp it is currently on special offer at the Stamp Man here.
Have a lovely day. If I get time to finish my colourwash, I'll be back later!
May you all be blessed as you create today's special moments

Wednesday 13 April 2011

WOYWW #97

Time sure is whizzing past at a rate of knots at the moment. I can't believe it's WOYWW again. So time to head off over to Julia at Stamping Ground for the weekly round up of what's happening on the desks of the world!
Here's mine
The most exciting addition this week is my new Tim stamps!!!!! I have wanted them for ages and theyarrived yesterday!

Next to them is a tag made the other day and in the front you can just see some of the triple embossed butterflies from the other day.

There's a better view. as well as some flowers made too. I really love the moonglow embossing powders.

Then there's some ATC's in progress and i'm fiddling in my mind still with this layout for my album, the flowers are metal but not coloured yet!
So there's mine, busy with bit's and bobs as usual but what's yours like?
Be blessed in your art today

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Try it on Tuesday Challenge

Good morning everyone, hope you are all well and excited for another weekly challenge on
Try it on Tuesday. This week is Tag week so we want to see your tags please; using Red, Black and Cream!
The design Team has been busy making amazing tags to inspire you so do go over and take a look and join in the fun with us. This week we are sponsered by Emma who is offering a prize of £15.00 to spend in the Stamping up catalogue.

This is my tag in a bit more detail
I used  red card as my dase tag, stamped a script in black and the umbrella man in the same. The main image was highlighted with glossy accents too. I used a bit of D Ink to define the edges.
I cut a black border using a Martha Stewart punch for the bottom, added cream flower filigree papers to the sides with jewels in the centres

Some cream and black ribbons to finish. Nice and simple but a classy colour scheme I think.
Be blessed in your art today......

Monday 11 April 2011

Sunday Stampers and The Artistic Stamper

Good evening peeps, can't quite believe how the day has flown! This morning we were back at hospital.. All plaster off!!! Susan was VERY happy about that as you can imagine!  However, I think she is also realising that it is not there yet as by this evening, everything is sore and swollen! Still, there is progress ... So after that we picked up the girls and headed off to Standon house for a picnic (Standon was the home of William Morris)
After a day of wandering merrily among the flowers in the sun I finally have a moment to show you this tag. Made for Sunday Stampers where the theme is BLUE and for the Artistic Stamper where it's all about LAYERS
I used blues and browns distress inks on the tag and some perfect pearls too. The sentiment is in brown Stazon.

Some of the detail so you can also see the birds stamped in blue DI.

Then the rosette is made using Tim's rosette die which I bought on Saturday. I cut it twice out of a sheet of crumpled and inked paper which I had made with moonshadow ink (Gorgeous blue shimmer!!!!!)
The bottom rosette is just as the standard, then I trimmed some off the second one. (remembering to trim the bottom too!) and made the second smaller rosette and the third dinky rosette is the "waste" trim off the second; isn't it cute?!
So you can see the layers nicely from this view! The clock is made from stamped friendly plastic.
Some charms and ribbon to finish.....
I'm pleased with the end result and i'm really glad I bought the rosette!
Be blessed and I'll see you tomorrow with a new Try it on Tuesday challenge

Sunday 10 April 2011

Ally Pally and beyond

Hi there, been a busy weekend so grabbing a bit of time now after church to quickly post this.


Hope you are all having, or have had, a good weekend. We have. On Saturday we were off to Ally Pally and had a wonderful time. There's always so much inspiration there.
We did a make n take with Donna Downey (She's wearing the tag, and this is mine.....



Now we did not actually buy much, honestly but still had a great time but we did pick up Tim's Rosette die, double sided A4 sheets, a really nice MDF album tape, button cutters and one (yes, just the one!) distress stain.........
Still, really enjoyed the day. Spent a fair bit of time chatting to people (Probably bored them to tears) and watching demos etc. I even got a stunning tag from Hels; you know, the lady off to Ranger Uni...........
One day, i'll be able to say, oh this, this is an early Hels, before her certification!
Isn't it brill? Thanks Hels.
Too tired to do anything last night when we got back so this morning I had a bit of a play and made this ATC



I also made a tag but more on that later, probably tomorrow morning, make that later actually as we are back at hospital in the morning! Hopefully things will go well.
Anyway, see you later, be blessed.......

Friday 8 April 2011

AN EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT!!!! (Well, to me anyway!)

Hi there everyone; I told you I had an announcement, didn't I? So, there it is, I was asked by Jill at The Stamp Man a little while ago, if I would consider joining their Design Team; well what's there to consider really?  So of course I said YES and they responded by tossing me in at the deep end by telling me I would start by hosting this weeks challenge! So I am now officially on the design team!
So, here's to working with you guys...... I am looking forward to it and just hope I can keep up!
Onto this week then where we are talking embossing, now I love embossing so had fun with this. I could not make my mind up so I used both dry and triple embossing to alter this memo block, taking it from this.....

to this
Much more ME, don't you agree?

Firstly I took a sheet of paper that I had altered with Moonshadow inks in beautiful gold,walnut and emerald, cut to size and ran through the Tim Holtz Embossing folder (Circles) and attached to the sides.
For the top I stamped the old world globe image onto a piece of the paper and embossed with Hollyberry red embossing powder. I then attached to the lid . All the edges were painted with black acrylic paint and some drybrushed over the raised embossing on the sides.
I then used clear UTEE on the top twice (And on the second one sprinked a bit of the red powder on too)
before stamping the old world stamp into it while still hot.

Don't you just love the texture?
I stamped the ship from the same Nautical set onto frosted clear shrink plastic, lightly coloured with aged mahogony Distress ink and heat shrank it and attached to the front.

So, there's my first piece for The stamp Man, hope it inspires you to emboss and enter the challenge.
The other design team members  have done some amazing work so there's loads to inspire.........
See you there
Be blessed in your art today