Dreamscape Journal page

This did NOT turn out as I intended... 

My journal page for our Country View Challenge, on the theme "Not a card",  was to be Vintage, soft colours, shabby chic... Somehow we ended up with this bright, colourful and fantasy scene. Go figure...

I started with a Gelatos background on Gesso'ed pages:

I then removed colour through stencils, above Fibres from Visible Image and Tim Holtz mini layering stencil set #43  below

Then I used the star stencil from the same TH set and the Strobes stencil by Visible Image to finish the background.

By now I was well on the way to a landscape, with strange colours, yes, but I could see river(s), sun and stars... I retrieved some stamps and set out to further that impression.

I stamped a forest with Lavinia's Tree scene set and some Dandelions.

The Moon and Mia the pushy fairy... I think she pushed the stars in a maelstrom...

And finally Mini Mushrooms, the Large Path and some foliage (Berry Leaves):

And to reward you if you have read so far... the finished page:

I do hope you like my page and will be inspired to enter the Country View Challenge. If you do, you might win a £20 voucher for the Country View Craft shop. And that ain't bad, is it!

Thanks for coming by,
I am entering the Allsorts challenge.

Around the globe

Today I am showing an inspiration make for Crafts U Love. With the Christmas cards made and sent, for the most part, time to think about the New Year.

Bouquet

Today I am guesting over at Rubber Dance blog, with a challenge inspiration piece.

The colours for the August challenge are Black & White plus your choice of another colour. It's easy to think of the white as the paper, the black as the stamping ink and reserve the colour, well for colouring... which is fine, but you know me I'm a bit of a contrarian... still I'm also a wuss so I didn't pick Black as my paper base, I settled on the 3rd option and chose Kraft as my base cardstock.

Stamps: Textured flowers and Da Vinci from Rubber Dance.
Supplies: White gel pen, black Dye Ink, Versafine Black, white pencil, white Embossing powder

Do come over to the Rubber Dance blog, to see more pics.

Thanks for coming by,
I am entering the WOW Embossing powders, Stamping Sensations and Inkychicks challenges

House and Gardens

Paper Arsty's blog theme is Houses this fortnight and we've been treated to House makes in all kind of materials and even in 3D!
Wanting to join the challenge, but without getting involved in paper engineering, I chose to create a whimsical house and garden not unlike that drawn by children.

My base is thick white cardstock prepared with Gesso.
I stamped with black dye ink all the elements, masking the house. The house is an old set by Polkadoodles (Gazebo Neighbours)and the flowers are from the Paper Artsy EKC02 set.
I coloured sky and grass with Gelatos, flowers with gel pens in iridescent colours (difficult to see in the picture but they do shine in a certain light...) and the house and bench with watercolour pencils.

Thanks for coming by,
I am also entering the SSS Monday Challenge challenge.

1st Christmas card of the year

Yep, had to happen at some point... the Christmas card production has started at Craftyfield Towers!

I have been playing with Brushos, as this is the theme at Paper Artsy this fortnight, so this was my starting point for this non traditional Christmas card. I initially took inspiration from Helen Chilton's post but as my piece turned into a disaster I abandoned the idea and let the Brushos do their thing!

I stamped numbers (the 24 days leading to Christmas and the 25th) and embossed them in clear before applying the Brushos in Blue, Purple and a little black around the 25.
I stamped in black Versafine the baubles and Christmas trees from a magazine freebie set.
I also stamped the sentiment from the same set with glue and silver foiled it.

To decorate I added white and silver gel pen accents as well as snowflake die-cuts which I silver foiled. Another photo to show the shine:

Thanks for coming by,

Also entering the Country View Crafts (Numbers), WOW Embossing Powder and Craft Barn challenges.

Looking back

This is the final challenge at Artful Times and the chosen theme is Party.
So, whilst Neet and Wendy are looking back at 3 years' worth of posts, challenges, online friendship and general crafty activities, it's time to celebrate in style before looking forward to the next adventures.
A door closes...

I first stamped my ladies (a magazine freebie) with Versafine black and embossed with clear powder, to get a detailed impression and a waterproof finish.
Alas, most of the Versafine sank into that paper and worse bled! [I used one side of an Amazon Kraft package as my base]
So... patchy embossing and not the best details, plus, without embossing, I couldn't get my background wet anymore!

The door (Crafty Individuals) was stamped with Versamark and embossed with a left over mix which appears to have a rustic gold EP and gold glitter. Again not what I though it was! Serves me right, next time I'll label my leftovers...

I painted the ladies' dresses with Fresco paints in Blueberry and Claret, the door with Graphitint (Derwent) pencils in Cool Brown and Chestnut. I love the Chestnut to do brickwork but on this occasion it looks a lot redder and darker than anticipated, also the embossing is gritty and I couldn't move the pigment around as I wanted.

I used Gelatos around the ladies instead of the Neocolours II I had lined up because they can be blended dry. Although the left hand side looks a bit pink I used Lavender and over-layed  the darker violet.

Finally I used a gold oil pastel to highlight the frame.

Good luck to Neet and Wendy and also Sam, Von and Chrissie, previous members of the DT.

Also entering the A Sprinkle of Imagination and Polka Doodle challenges.

Rock Paper (No scissors)

The Craft Barn Quote challenge this week is Flower and/or Travel. I went with the latter and intended  to use Rock Paper (yes you read correctly rock paper, paper made from rocks!). This is a paper designed with inkjet printing in mind but I saw someone trying out several mediums with it in a YouTube video. The brand looked different so I couldn't be sure I would get the same results, but I was curious to try... The quote is by Voltaire "Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am", awfully optimist...

I tried watercolours first, in this case I used Neocolor crayons, and applied water with a brush, the wet paint dripped slightly when I stood up the card to produce an interesting effect. The paper doesn't absorb water like standard card does but does not damage it either.
I stamped my world map with Versafine black and painted the countries with a small brush and Neocolors. Further images were stamped with glue and I applied foils in several colours for metallic touches.

I penned the quote in silver gel pen and created shadows with a black pen.

I tried water based and alcohol based markers on this surface and the paper absorbed the ink so fast any blending was impossible. Curiously, I was able, by brushing vigorously, to shift and blend the Faber Castell PITT pen (India ink).
I also tried pastels but they just glided on the surface.
I had fun and discovered interesting properties about this paper that might come in handy...

A quick look at the shine :
I am also entering my page in the Pan Pastel UK challenge.

Thanks for coming by,

Inspired by Ellen Vargo (2)

Ellen was back this week on the Paper Artsy blog to show us what she made with the newly released stamps she designed. The cards she created have a very graphic feel which remind me of tribal art. But of course I don't have any of the new stamps!

I followed Ellen's instructions here to produce not cards but a box for my inks & bits. It has to be flat in order to be stacked so I have eschewed any kind of dimensional embellishments.

I have used Fresco paints on my background, initially with a brayer but I switched to a baby wipe when having produced something that looked like "an explosion in a paint factory" (my son's words) I applied more paint to tone down and bring together the offending layers.

For the fine lines stamping I substituted a stamp by a piece of plastic packaging inked with Versamagic.
I selected a stamp set, freebie from a magazine, that I thought would produce the closest look to what Ellen did. I had never used it before so that's a bonus!
I used white paint for the white and Archival for the black and filled in the dots with black marker and white gel pen.
The chevrons were stencilled with paint and I drew the borders with a black marker. The eagle eyed among you will notice a bit of a crackle were the chevron meets the wax paper strips, that's because I run out of matt medium and used PVA instead!

I am also entering the Artful Times and Pan Pastels UK challenges.

Thanks for coming by,

Inspired by Sue Carrington (3)

I saw this project by Sue and I just had to try it. I think my canvas is smaller than Sue and I ran out of space around my image to fit in all the stencilled areas.

The main image is from Hot Pick 1208.
In the bottom left corner I have used my latest "found" stencil - from an ad in a mail shot - with texture paste and drew some of the windows in yellow gel pen.
For the 3 stamped mats, I used a specialty paper with inclusion that has been lurking for years in my stash... and I just didn't know how good it actually was: it stamped very well, it's sturdy enough to be used with waterbased mediums, so glad I re-discovered it !

I added a strip of washi at the top and bottom as I had nowhere else to fit it in.

You can join this week's Paper Artsy challenge here.

Thanks for coming by,

Flower Power

This is the theme for this week's Impression Obsession challenge. I have decided to put the power into the flower by choosing  "power" colors for my flower, i.e the metallics. My initial idea was to use metallic flakes but technically it was a no go. Wet glue is incredibly difficult to work with for flakes and I couldn't use a glue pad or stamp & bond embossing powder since I wanted the inside of the flower gilded not the outline. For my plan B I decided to use gel pens, reserving the flakes for the die-cut.

I have used a pale gold pen for the "top" flowers, a deeper gold for the flowers which would be in the shade and silver for the leaves. The photo doesn't show how shiny the silver pen really is, one of the best gel pens I have used (Uniball Signo). The image was stamped on an iridescent pinkish card and I used some gold patterned paper to layer. The die-cut (Die-namics) and some twine finish off the design.

Thanks for coming by,