Snail Pace

Hello crafters, 

There's slow and there is snail pace... Last year I signed up for Care December, a free course offered by Kasia from Everything Art. I didn't get around to start until after the event finished and completed it in February.... Care December it wasn't!! It is now May and I still  haven't got around to publish any of the projects, although most of my efforts don't merit a public viewing...

But today is the day... so here's my favourite page of the journal from the course:

 

The page is constructed of snippets from book, clothing and lace, even the heart is recycled from packaging.

I am not a sewist and I do not do embroidery and fully intended to skip that project but then I thought it wasn't in the spirit of things, and I am glad I did.

I used a stamp (from the "Lentement mais surement" stamp and die set by French brand 4enscrap) to guide my stitching, one given by a dear crafty friend.  A closer look at these cute gastropodes:

Heads up: 

We Love Stamping challenge is celebrating its 15 years and there will be a special prize bundle for June's challenge on the 2nd of June.

This week is also the 15th anniversary of the Allsorts challenge, which of course my snails will be joining, 

Thanks for coming by,

 Craftyfield             I am also entering the SSS Monday challenge

Spring Bunny

Welcome to my second inspiration piece for our Country View Challenge on the 

Theme of "Spring is coming! 

I stamped the bunny from the AALL & Create Stamp Set In the Wild (#529) with water based markers and my trusty stamping platform. There is so many stamps in the set I haven't even used all them yet, and I love this slightly grunged up but realistic look of the images. [Yes this is my stamp set of the moment!]

I coloured the flowers and leaves with watercolour but the bunny's colours are just stamping. I should add that some of the details of the image has been lost because of the texture of the paper.

The background is stencilled in Distress inks with one of the stencil from the Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz Mini Layering Stencil set #35.

As was mulling over how to finish and mat my card, I had to use my sewing machine for some repairs and decided I should take the opportunity to sew a border.

The sentiment is stamped on a die-cut tag (Impression Obsession IO Flags Die Set DIE015-F)

You still have 2 weeks to link up your project to the challenge for the chance to win a £20 voucher for the Country View Craft shop, so hop on over to the Country View Challenge blog for more inspiration and details on how to enter.

Thanks for coming by,

 Craftyfield      I am entering the Paperbabe, Stamping Sensations, 

                                                           We love stamping, challenges

Phone cover #4

Although my sewing is not up to much, I do like giving my phones a DIY soft cover to protect them. It's cheaper than shop bought hard cases and I have the opportunity of decorating my cover as I wish...

Following my last upgrade I needed a new cover... This time I went with stencilling and used the Visible Image Fibres stencil with some So Soft fabric paints, mixing my purples as I went, aiming for a dark to light ombré effect.  I used calico fabric as my outer layer and re-cycled a piece of ironing board cover for the inside.

I am glad I managed to stencil with limited seepage under the stencil and the dimensions are correct so I am still pleased despite the wonky stitching!

Thanks for coming by,

Tropical heat

Hot, hot, hot... a taste of the tropics!

Make a wish

My method of scrapbooking is so slow I haven't done much recently and I am glad I finally managed one layout to add to my Vintage album.

If you want to read how I made it please go by the Craft Barn blog where I have written a step by step. I will share here some of the ideas behind my choices.

The photo is one of the rare photos we have of a great aunt. The story goes that she was a seamstress and this influenced my choice of paper and embellishments (buttons, lace, fabric, thread etc...) but was a frustrated actress. I believe this photo was taken on the occasion of a village play and is the only one where my great aunt shows her fun side.

I don't often do single pages layout as I have too many pictures but she deserved a full page to herself, her 5 minutes of fame at last...
Thanks for coming by,

I am entering the Craft Stamper TIMI challenge.

Patina and alcohol resist techniques

In September Tim Holtz is revisiting Paint Patina and alcohol ink resist techniques. I love the look of patina but never tried Tim's technique so this was the time to experiment!

As usual I won't describe the step by step as Tim has done it better than I ever could HERE.

My  resist isn't as defined as I would have wanted it (did I leave it to dry too much?) but up close you can recognise the stamp, Family values from The Artistic Stamper.

I had to replace the alpha part by a die-cut, I used one of Sizzix/Tim Holtz Thinlits (Sentiments words) and decided to add a die-cut corner, also a Sizzix/TH thinlits (Mixed Media) on the upper left.
A hinge die-cut from black shrink plastic (Hardware findings Bigz - Sizzix) and a Tando arrow chipboard have been given the patina treatment to tie in.

For stencils I used Tim Holtz Layering stencil set 10 and TCW Mini Ledger.

As techniques goes, I really enjoyed the patina and love the effect, especially on the arrow:

but I'm less enamoured of the resist as it is more difficult to control!

Thanks for coming by,
Also entering the Stamps & Stencils, We Love To Create and Sandy & Amelie Steampunk  challenges.

My first ATC

It seems I am always late to the party...
Last year I made a tag for the first time and, this year, spurred on by the Vintage Journey challenge, it was time to try ATCs.

Rather obvious, but, I didn't quite grasp, until I had one in front of me, how small ATCs are. Since I started card making, I have been working on increasingly bigger, not smaller, "canvases" and I found the exercise quite difficult.
And some people do Twinchies and Inchies....

My starting inspiration was this stamp by Tim Holtz  (C0M004 - Time) which is ATC size!
I love vellum and thinking about his latest Vellum Paper Stash I wanted to add some to my panels. I substituted TH's by a British sourced version (Papermania - Mme Payraud) - cheapskate that I am... Sadly it doesn't show very well.

I made my background following a TH demo where he overlays several stencils, using Distress Inks.
As TH uses lots of metal embellishments, so I die-cut corners pieces which I embossed (Frantage Aged rose for the left ATC and WOW Pomegranate for the right one).
Small pieces of Tissue tape were added, just 'cause... and an altered paperclip that was lying around.

I am also entering That's Crafty challenge.

I apologise to my loyal followers if I am overwhelming their feeds, I just wanted to squeeze these projects before school starts again!

Challenged By Jo Myhill

Time for another Paper Artsy challenge ! This week I was inspired by Jo Mayhill project here.

For the background I used Claret, Limelight and London Bus Frescos and a beige acrylic paint.
I used several ticket die-cuts stamped with a selection from Hot Picks 1206, 1207 and 1208 as well as from ESN07.
For the image transfer I used an image from a magazine instead of my own photo.
I added some green embossing powder on the sides.

I am now thinking the white border around the image is just too white and I might take a marker and change that!

Let me know what you think...

Inspired By France Papillon

This week the Paper Artsy blog welcomes France Papillon for some inspiration. I really wanted to make a spool key ring but could I find a suitable spool... I will keep that idea in mind, but in the meantime I had a go at France's journal cover.

This will not be a cover, but a page inside my samples book, so I made a number of adjustments to make it functional. For instance I have flipped the position of the vellum and didn't stitch the top to create a pocket. The string between the brads will also help keeping pieces of paper on the page, a thin elastic would be ideal.
The vellum is an old piece of printed envelope liner, hence the shape, and I used some scraps of handmade paper, yeah using up some old stash !
For the words, I used bits from the Eclectica Lin Brown 3 set, which I won last week - thank you Paper Artsy - as I haven't had time to play with it yet but still HAD to crack it open...

Thanks for coming by,

Time for Summer Challenge

Another summer card for another challenge... this time for the Crafty Individuals challenge.
For the main image, I have used CI - 294 with brown ink and applied distress inks on top.

I have machine stitched quite a bit and  managed to keep the stitching almost straight for once ! The pink background layer is a piece of material (used to be white but I painted it pink), overstamped with small stamps or parts of stamps (mainly from CI).
The clock is a replica of a Tim Holtz Ideology clock (home made), I used the flowers' stalks to create a heart and a squiggle.

And then... I realised how heavy the front was going to be and I decided to make this into an easel card, and decorate the inside (die-cuts by Spellbinders and Memory Box) to balance the weight.









Hope you will like,