All that glitters

Hi everyone!

Welcome back! Over at Anything But A Card we are focusing on -

Sparkle!

 I am not much of a glitter and sparkle person but I do LOVE Rock Candy glitter. I love that it adds a shimmer without being too sparkly. So for this tag I focused on Rock Candy glitter...a couple of times I was tempted to throw on some Distress Glitters in Pumice Stone and Antique Linen, but that would have been too much and ruined the subtle vintage style!

I started by using a brayer to roll some paint onto a tag. I started with Antarctic Fresco paint followed by Lake Wanaka and then Nougat Fresco paint. I had a lovely tag covered in rustic streaks and then I began to add some patterns through stencils using the same paints to get a lovely textured look....

Nougat Fresco Paint was dabbed through the Peacock Patterns stencil and then I dabbed some Lake Wanaka Fresco Paint and some Gesso through a flower stencil.

I used my favourite script stamp in Potting Soil Archival ink on the tag and then blended Vintage Photo DI all over the tag to warm the colours up a little.

Scissors were used to scrape along the edge of the tag to distress the edges...normally I would then ink the edges but I thought the bold white outline looked great so I left it alone.

I coloured several die cut flowers with Weathered Wood and Vintage Photo DI (love this combination of colours!) and then covered them with Rock Candy Distress stickles followed by a sprinkle of Rock Candy Glitter. When dry the flowers had some extra dabs of ink to add more colour. I love the fact that this glitter takes colour so well...

Rock Candy Stickles glue was brushed around the edges of the tag to add a subtle sparkle .

I chose some chit chat stickers and dabbed them very lightly with Vintage photo DI

A piece of white cord was attached so it could be hung up and a shimmering white organza ribbon used to decorate the tag.

    Put a little sparkle in your creations and shine with us over at Anything But A Card this month!

 

The gift of love

Hi everyone!

      I had made a lot of photo albums for my mother-in-law over the years...special occasions were celebrated with yet another little hand made book filled with photos of her grandchildren to show to her friends. This time I made one for my best friend who had her first child on the 3rd February...a beautiful little boy. I had already made a gift with her in mind (I had a hunch that she might be expecting back in late May when I made the Baby Steps creation for Our Creative Corner)....but I wanted to make something for her and her husband that featured the new arrival....

Luckily, like all proud parents my friend and her husband had loaded lots of gorgeous photos on FB, so I could take my pick and leave them unaware! I did some alterations on Paint Shop....I find colour distracting in some albums and my preference for a mini album like this is to keep the colours muted. I had an idea to keep the colours obviously pale baby blue but add some vintage-ness with some greys and browns. So making the photos a muted grey/brown sepia seemed the best thing.

       I constructed the book by folding a strip of card accordian style, and cutting two strong pieces of cardboard to form the front and back. Both sides of the accordian book were filled with photos.

     I began by stencilling some Antique Linen DP - Harlequin, Art is and Swirly Q's. Then I covered the pages with Weathered Wood, Frayed Burlap and Vintage Photo DI. I used a flourish stamp using a Colourbox dye ink in Raw Silk. I stamped some letters and numbers in Antique Linen DP and added some splatters and spray with white acrylic paint. A hedgerow stamp was stamped in Coffee Archival ink and then I randomly stamped my favourite script stamp everywhere using Coffee Archival ink. I kept the cover of the book deliberately plain as I wanted the focus to be on the photos - So the cover was just decorated with some of the same flourishes, numbers and letters and paint splatter - the front of the cover had a film strip stamp and the back had a flock of birds....

A little bit of Walnut Stain DI was dabbed around the edges to add a vintage look and then I was ready to add the photos.

After the photos were stuck into the album I stamped some quotes on tissue paper and stuck them into the book with Matte Multi-Medium. I also added some chit chat stickers that had been dabbed with Weathered Wood and edged with Walnut Stain.

Then I decorated the book with various embellishments...I used a lot of metal items, buttons and lace to keep a theme flowing throughout.

A glittery ribbon in gorgeous blue tones was wrapped around a page and attached to a pendant in which I had placed a photo of the sleeping little one and covered the picture with Glossy Accents glue.

 I found a crystal bead in my craft stash and attached it to the pendant along with a silver heart that says the word 'Love'

The album was secured by a ribbon that was glued to the front of the album with a piece of velcro...the rest of the ribbon was left unattached to the book. This ribbon was looped through a metal decoration at the other end with the connecting velcro piece.

Thanks so much for being here and I hope you like this little book that contains a LOT of love!

A very Happy Birthday!

Hi everyone!

   Over at Try it on Tuesday we are creating items about -

Birthdays - but with a twist!

You have to use a mask or stencil 

I made this birthday card by applying Gesso all over the card then applying some torn Melange tissue strips with Matte Multi-medium.  

Then I applied some texture paste through a harlequin stencil in opposite corners of the card.

When dry I dabbed some ink over the card - I chose Peeled Paint and Peacock Feathers DI. Then I dabbed around the edges in Walnut Stain DI to soften the effect slightly.

 The Dot Fade stencil was used with the Mowed Lawn DI.

Fern Green Archival ink was used with my favourite script stamp around the edge of the card.

 I used some die cut letters and inked them with Peacock Feathers DI and stuck them onto ivory card. 

 Then a flourish stamp was stamped around the edge using Fern Green Archival ink. 

 I blended some Walnut Stain DI on this to give a shabby effect. I mounted this onto a piece of card that was covered with Peeled Paint DI and had a bit of Cosmic Shimmer Patina spritzed over it.

    I blended some Peacock Feathers ink over two ivory roses and spritzed with water to blend the colour. These were attached to the card along with a leaf die cut that had been coloured with Peeled Paint DI

   Why not hop over to see what the rest of the TioT team have made to celebrate birthdays! Come and share your birthday creations with us - we would love to see them!

I'm a scrapaholic

Hi everyone!

Over at Our Creative Corner today there is a brand new challenge being hosted by Linda....

Lets get Scrappy! 

Use your scraps and left overs from previous projects, pieces of paper, scraps of ribbon, embellishments made and never used.  If you are like me and can't bear to discard all those yummy scraps, you'll have a variety of possibilities to use for this project.  Let's put some of them to use!

First of all I raided the 'save' drawer - and just selected all bits I liked the look of. This was during my recent 'neutrals' phase - as you can tell from the embellishments selected. They certainly indicated what colour scheme I followed.

I had a lot of wooden door hangers made for me a few years ago and so I used one of these I covered it with Chocolate Pudding Fresco Paint and then covered it with texture paste through a floral stencil. Then I applied some crackle glaze followed by Nougat Fresco paint. 

When this was dry I applied some small dollops of Mocha Mousse Fresco paint and spritzed with water. I let the paint run and then dried it with the heat gun.

I finished the decoration fo the door hanger by brushing some White Fire treasure Gold over the texture paste and stamping some script stamp around the edges

The embellishments were all from the scraps collection - pieces of rusted embellishment that never made it onto the Steampunk Christmas tree, 

......a butterfly collage that I intended for a tag once but then changed my mind.....

I always make too many flowers for my creations so always chuck them in the scraps collection.

    

Even the words were previously discarded from a project - the only 'new' thing about this creation is the door hanger!

And so there it is - a door hanger created from scraps - Why not raid your scraps collection and use some of it! Come and join us at Our Creative Corner and you could be our winner or Top 3! There is a also a prize for one lucky entrant from Tando Creative who are sponsoring us this month.

       Thanks so much for being here!  We are looking forward to seeing all the creations!

A place for everything....

Hi everyone!

Well, this is my last post as Guest Designer for February at The Artistic Stamper...it has been an honour to be invited to appear there alongside such talented designers.

I have had so much fun making these creations and I hope you have enjoyed seeing them - Thank you  for all the wonderful comments - they have meant so much to me...

     So here is the final sneak peek! If you want to find out what it is and see the entire creation and a step-by-step of how it was made then hop over to The Artistic Stamper - I'd love to know what you think of it!

 Thanks so much for being here!

 

Spotlight Sneak Peek!

Welcome to another 'Spotlight' at Our Creative Corner!

 Nicecrane Designs is sponsoring Our Creative corner this month - and the prize is $20 to spend on images from the Nicecrane store!

   I was thrilled to be able to do a creation with the Bessie Gutmann images....they are so adorable!

Here is a little sneak peek - but if you want you see more you will have to come over to Our Creative Corner!

   See you there!