CB Quote challenge Patience & Better

For the Craft Barn quote challenge I chose my quote on the basis that it involved the word love and I have plenty of heart imagery in the shape of dies, stamps, folders etc... to illustrate it.

The Background has been embossed with a heart folder (freebie) and I rubbed watercolour crayons on the raised areas.

The main image is stamped in Versafine (Paper Artsy Hot Pick 1111) I thought it appropriate since it is a very unlikely image!

The heart has been die-cut with a Tim Holtz Bigz die before penning my quote in ink.

3 colours of twine finish the page.

 

I am also entering  the Pan Pastels UK and That's Crafty challenges.

Back to the chores...

Autumnal tree

Yet another Autumnal card, I'm afraid... Still, we will be soon in Christmas mode so we should make the best of the lovely colours this season has to offer! Plus, I had to use that leaf I gilded for another project which got left out and I love tree stamps.

I gessoed my tag and applied Fired Brick, Forest Moss and scattered Straw Distress inks, then sprayed water. When dry I used Walnut stain to darken the sides and stamped stamped also in Distress inks a script stamp (Paper Artsy), then my tree (Crafty Individuals) in Versafine. The inks don't appear as dark as they did at first and I suspect they've been sinking into the Gesso.

Scraps of paper, cord and ribbon complete the tag with my gilded leaf, which looks so much better IRL!
I am entering the Rubber Dance and the Fashionable Stamping challenges.

Thanks for coming by,

Things with wings

As a rest from autumnal makes, I wanted to create something darker, a bit steampunk in atmosphere. The Stamping sensation challenge want to see Winged things, perfect occasion to use my winged lady.

Taunted by the Lisa.B. Designs challenge, I decided to have another go at crackle medium and this is my second attempt, the first one having produced a small crack in a whole 6"x6" piece of card.

For the main image I used off-white card and stamped the Winged lady (Paper Artsy ID02) in black, before applying inks. I whitened face, hands and wings  by brushing water and dabbing.

For embellishments I layered a Lime green and a black flourish die-cut and added lace to my main image. I didn't want to cover all my hard-to-get-crackle, so only added  a die-cut hole reinforcer in the same green cardstock and black ribbon.

The colours were inspired by the Sprinkle of Imagination challenge and I managed to use all of them!
I am also entering the Live & Love Crafts and Bunny Zoe's Crafts challenges.

Thanks for coming by,

Twofer with master board

I was inspired by Lelaina Lloyd who made a fun tag book for the Paper Artsy blog, you can see her creation here.

I produced my master board following her tutorial and, although I was concerned the water droplets were drying with no effect, I waited patiently as instructed and lo and behold awesome drips impressions appeared! I used the same stamps as Lelaina, from the Paper Artsy EEV06 set as the finishing touch.

However, instead of making a tag book I decided to replace a Post-It holder I made some time ago. I figured the paint on one side would make the construction more durable and I strengthened the inside with a piece of fabric tape. At the back I stuck a magnet so the holder lives on the fridge ready for action.

One of my favourite thing to make is embellishments so, instead of adding a bought metal tag, I made my own with embossing powders. This should have been fun but it turned into a nightmare!

I was using the Intaglio technique and used a piece of aluminium as a base (easier to heat up from underneath and not blow away all the powder) with WOW embossing Puff black. With just 2 layers of powder I stamped my "A few pencil notes" image (set ESN07 from Paper Artsy) into the EP.
This came out perfect: the stamp flattened the EP (Puff is grainy and doesn't "run" like standard EP) around the words ready for highlighting with a bit of silver. Sadly I took leave of my senses and when I die cut my tag I also embossed it which marred the depth I had achieved earlier.

I decided to do over... trying to salvage the EP by re-melting. BIG mistake... The Puff was now more gray than black, so I added a bit of black EP, this one is glossy unlike the Puff. The melted EP looked a mess, very uneven, and I hoped (to no avail) that it would sort itself out when stamping.
Well see the result for yourself... By this time I was so annoyed with myself I highlighted the raised areas with silver and called it Distressed & complete. On a positive note, I am entering my make in the WOW Embossing powders challenge.

I still had some master board, enough for another holder, when I saw the Artful Times challenge for this fortnight is to make a small book. It occurred to me I could make an alternative version of a Post it holder to keep in my handbag.

This is the book closed:                         and opened showing the tab closure :

I hope I haven't bored you with my tales of woe...

Harvest Festival

Rather than make another "leaf" card in keeping with the Autumn theme, I thought about the Harvest Festival celebrated here in the UK.
I just had the stamp... a stylised wheatsheaf from Katzelkraft, part of a Christmas set!

Of course I wanted to stick to the warm autumnal colours and retrieved old freebie magazine papers and mica powders in golds, russets and a touch of green (Imagination Crafts).
I stamped the Wheatsheaf on black cardstock with Versamark and brushed the mica powders on, then embossed the borders with gold EP.
I die-cut several tags from the same cardstock and papers to use as a border and a corner which I covered with mica powders as well.

Plutôt que de faire une autre carte "feuilles" tout en restant dans le thème de l'automne, j'ai pensé à illustrer le Festival de la moisson célébré ici en Grande Bretagne. J'ai le tampon adéquat... une gerbe de blé stylisée de Katzelkraft, faisant partie d'une planche de Noël!

Bien sur j'ai gardé les riches couleurs de l'automne, et j'ai puisé dans ma réserve de vieux papiers provenant de magazines et mes poudres micas en nuances dorées, cuivrées avec un soupçon de vert (Imagination Crafts).

J'ai tamponné la gerbe sur un carton noir avec de la Versamark et appliqué les poudres mica, puis j'ai embossé les bords avec de la poudre dorée.
J'ai découpé  plusieurs tags dans les mêmes papiers et carton pour faire une bordure, et un coin que j'ai aussi décoré avec les poudres mica.

Merci de votre visite,
Thanks for coming by,

Challenges: Katzelkraft, Imagination Crafts, Ladybug Crafts.

Darcy Journalling Challenge

Time to tackle Darcy's 8th challenge, alas the last one.

Again I have followed fairly closely Darcy's step by step and I have only changed a few things such as the stamps if I didn't have them or using watercolours (tubes) instead of Fibralos.

The stamp I used to create my frame is from EEV06, I also used the bubble wrap stamp for one of my leaves.
I used Hot Pick 1204 for my quote.
Since I didn't have any stamp appropriate to make an impression in the tree's paste, I used my palette knife to draw the bark.

Unbelievably, my favourite bit turned out to be the apples! I was dreading tackling shading on such a small scale but I just love how they turned out .
The foliage isn't great and maybe I should have sponged my paint rather than using a stamp (an old grass stamp) that wasn't quite the appropriate motif.

My leaf techniques clockwise from the bottom left were: gilding wax on top of paste, stencilled paste, stamping with Fresco, brushing several strokes of colours, stippling (the middle leaf in red), stamping into paste, overlaying opaque layers, embossing with paint, overlaying translucent paints, and finally splattering diluted Fresco.

I am also entering the PanPastel UK challenge.

A big thank you to Darcy for writing these great tutorials which gave me the push I needed to try things I would not normally consider!

Childhood is...

Childhood is my choice of word for the latest Craft Barn Challenge. I haven't really tried to illustrate the quote as it is such a conceptual one, so I took my inspiration from using:

1. new stuff  (as in brand new)
2. old stuff  (very old, very very old & antique)
3. scraps.

 First, I wanted to play with my new embossing folder (Tartan by X-Cut), well new to me as I got it in the sales! I wanted to use my old watercolour crayons again and tested a few versions. In the end I first inked the folder with Distress ink in Tumbled Glass, embossed and highlighted the raised areas with the crayons.
The colours were inspired by my scraps, this time ribbon scraps, as this is the challenge at Lavinia Stamps. These had been lying around for ages waiting for a purge! (still have 2 drawers full of varying lengths though...)

Before stamping both in grey and black my Dandelions (Lavinia), I run the background in the label die and embossed, in order to flatten the panel.

I used my antique gel pens to write the quote and to colours the edge of the label.

Quite pleased with my purchase as I have the choice of which part to colour allowing for an infinite number of designs!

Thanks for coming by,

Sufragettes

I like to think my Twenties ladies have the Girl Power required by That's Crafty, but without losing their sense of fashion or feminity!

I stamped my image with a mixture of distress ink pad (Tattered Rose) and water based pens, aiming for a no line colouring effect. I had difficulties hitting the right spot: whilst inking, the stamp is a mirror image and it's quite hard to tell apart dress from bag or umbrella...

My base is embossed Cored'ination (Flourish folder by Die'sire) to which I added a strip of Mulberry paper (yep still have oodles of the stuff), a die-cut border and corner (Spellbinders).
To frame the image I used a Martha Stewart PATP punch and backed it with a remnant of a masterboard (as old as the mulberry if I recall).
I made the flower with stamped tissue paper, die-cut with a Spellbinders Flower Nesties set, and sprayed it with a shimmer mist before scrunching it up.

I am also entering the Fashionable Stamping, Vintage Stamping and Wedodoobadoo challenges.

Zigazig ah! (cause all I can think about is the Spice Girls, not that I liked them much)

Autumn Leaves

The Craft Room challenge this fortnight is Something old, something new. Lots of choices lurking in my stash!

Have you noticed how watercolour has become popular in card making and scrapbooking these days? It's just as well, as I have lots of water colours, purchased a long time ago and begging to be used!
For my something new, no contest, it has to be a brand new  Memory Box die.
Since this die is a leaf and we are quickly running into autumn I picked autumnal colours for my make.

The card base is watercolour paper and I stamped it with a Harlequin stamp (Artistic Stamper). I used watercolour crayons as inks, mixing several colours on the stamp before spritzing and stamping. I love the distressed look of the stamped image.

I decided to splatter some more watercolour on the background, also quite trendy.

I die-cut the leaves from watercolour paper and rubbed watercolour crayons on the "inside" leaves and used a dark brown pen for the outlines. I intended my 3rd leaf to be gilded but in the end I thought it didn't gel with the natural, haphazard look of the rest of the card.

To finish the card I tried several arrangements of smaller die-cut leaves, twine, button etc.. but nothing worked so I added the sentiment and declared it complete.

I am also entering the Artistic Stamper and My mum's craft shop challenges.

Thanks for coming by,

CB Quote challenge Peaceful & Grace

For the latest Craft Barn challenge I found lots of serious quotes with either religious (grace) or political (peaceful) connotations, and it was hard to find a quote that was neither. I settled on this William Shakespeare quote, it turns out this is part of a play he wrote.

For the design, I started with the resolution to use scraps, and all of the paper & cardstock are scraps (except the background piece). I should be pleased but it's such a drop in the ocean!

For the background I used my rock paper, which is water resistant, and applied watercolour on top.
With a stencil I added sand texture coloured in green, and whilst I add the India Ink out after penning the quote, I decided to do some splatters....
I stamped some texture with a Muslin stamp (Impression Obsession), then decided the stencilled motifs were too green so I rubbed some gold oil pastels to knock them back and, hopefully, make them more interesting.

The papers are from Crafty Individuals (Summer), HOTP (Home Grown)  and PaperArtsy (Chatsworth), the latter has sprays and stamping from a previous make.
The ticket (I cut it in 2) is from a 6"x6"Docrafts stamp.

Thanks for coming by,

Birthday card for someone special

That is the latest Fashionable Stamping challenge. I made a special card for a special someone's special birthday!!! It's got to tick the box, right?

I have kept the front fairly simple as the "special bit" is the inside of the card. I have stamped the car and the hand from PaperArtsy (Hot pick 1207) in black and applied distress inks all around.

For the inside I took inspiration from scrapbooking and gathered some old photos of the recipient. A banner unfolds when opening the card and I have a bottom where my banner was to stand but now is just there for effect( and to stop the card from opening and ripping off the banner).

I used a 12"x12" paper from Graphic45 and regular cardstock that I inked/distressed.

The banner is made from letters cut out of stamped cardstock (Cover a Card - Rose Lace from Impression  Obsession).

The barely seen gold embossing on the "platform" is also a stamp from Impression Obsession, a large Flourish. I also embossed the top corners with a Personal Impression flourish.

Hope the birthday boy will like it, but I doubt I will know if he doesn't as no one dares criticise hand made offerings for fear of offending...

This is where you come in and tell me the truth in your comments!