You may have noticed a new background to the blog? I was making Dad's Father's Day card and enjoyed it so much I wanted to make something similar for myself.

Here's Dad's card:

And here's the picture I made for myself:

The background to the main image is coloured gold with added gold leaf. The images are coloured with watercolour pencils, as is the inner mount The stamps I've used are all Chocolate Baroque: Peacock Parade, Paisley Elephant and Indian Elephant

Thanks for looking!

B is for Butterfly

The second set in the A to Z of ATC are Butterflies. These all use Elusive Images / Chocolate Baroque stamps, as well as a random background stamp I can't remember where from!

Keep 'em peeled for C - coming soon!

Steampunk Clock

Here's another one of those projects that has been a long time in the making! I bought a fairly naff looking clock from a charity shop for a fiver (if I remember!). It was 'mahogany' effect, looked a bit cheap and grim. Perfect for altering! I stripped back the varnish and gave it a coat of white primer before setting to work. I went for a rusted effect, I feel it has been salvaged from a shipwreck, it's gears are falling apart and there are bits of loose wire. Some of the objects that sunk with it have fused to it - I wonder who it belonged to?

Salvaged

Fused

Dial Close-up



Rust Close-up

The Rust effect is all done by stippling acrylics with a sponge, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out in the end!
Thanks for looking, back soon! xx

Hand Challenge - Joy in the Art of Creation

Glenda over at Chocolate Baroque set us a Hand challenge - anything goes. I immediately knew that I wanted to go all 3D, and decided to use rubber gloves as a mould for Plaster of Paris. There is a slight problem with this though, you get a big bulge where the palm should be:

So there was nothing for it but to carve them out!

So then I painted them (using acrylics) and added stamps from the CB Indian range. I stamped the designs onto white tissue then applied it using normal PVA. It was really fiddly (you have to cut the tissue really closely around the design - and there are a lot of elements here!) but I'm glad I persevered and I'm really pleased with the end result. I added a sentiment which says:

'There is such joy in the art of creation'

I'm looking forward to making more of these! Thanks for looking and I'll be back soon :-)

The A to Z of ATCs........ A is for ANIMATED

This year I have set myself a challenge - to work my way through the alphabet with ATCs. Now that probably sounds quite simple, right? Well, I also have to make three different ATCs for each theme. The idea is to try and find new ways of using my rubber stamps - I have some beautiful stamps which I don't seem to use much, and I hope this challenge will kick start some creativity.

So, the theme for A is Animated - the ATCs all have to 'move' in some way.

 For Fairyland Park I took inspiration from a moveable card in Craft Stamper Magazine - the fibres at the top are attached to a ticket which you pull. The boy's body folds up on itself and reveals a different image underneath.

Love Letters opens like a book, and even the scroll opens out.

Vintage is another book style, and I really like the faux leather effect. I used a dark brown embossing powder on a brown, lightly textured paper and I think it worked a treat :-) The book has six pages sewn into it.

I'll move onto B soon, but for now if anyone has any bright ideas for themes I could use for X, Y or Z I'd really appreciate it!
Thanks for looking :-)

Catch up?

So here we are, catching up with things I've been doing....but there is a slight problem. I don't seem to have many pictures to show you! Dang, I failed to keep proper records, but I do have a couple of gems for you.

 

Christmas ATC's, these designs are similar to the toppers I used for my cards last year.

 

Anniversary card, with a background made using a technique from Glenda Waterworth at Chocolate Baroque

 

Serenity ATC

 

Another Anniversary card!

 

In the next post I'll tell you what that ABC of ATCs is all about!

Oh Dear.....Has it really been that long?

Well, hello again fellow bloggers. It's been a long time since I posted here, life has a knack of just getting in the way doesn't it?
In truth, I haven't stopped making things, I've just (rather annoyingly I bet) stopped telling everyone about it!
Now, it turns out that I have more time to myself so I figured the time has come for me to reappear in Blogland :-)

So, what can you expect? To start off with I'll be catching up on some bits that I have created in my absence, and then we can crack on with some new projects. Including my on-going major project for the year: The A-Z of ATC's.                                     

Sound like a plan? I hope it does and I look forward to sharing my crafting journey with you all again my friends :-)

Keep crafting, and I will be back soon!

Home Sweet Home

This months challenge at Graphicus is "Home" and "Brick and Teal". I immediately thought of doing a bird house, but as I don't really have any Elusive Images bird stamps, what to do? Butterflies of course! I started off by making my background paper, using Glimmer Mists for the main colour, the over stamping with Distress Inks using stamps from EI's Butterfly Whimsy and Delightful Damask plates.
This is how that turned out:
Then I made the butterflies (from Just Butterflies and Butterfly Whimsy plates) colouring most of them with chalks. The swirls are cut from a Filigree Fusion paper, and the flowers are punched from leftover Glimmer Misting bits.
The whole thing turned out to be a bit of a Labour of Love, but I like the en masse butterflies and the unusual colour combination. My craft mojo had left me for a while, but it looks like it's back now!

Getting from A to B...

Carolyn has set a new challenge, " A to B". I suspect we are supposed to go for the travel aspect, but I don't have that many travel stash, so I thought I would go a little more literal in my interpretation. So here is my A to B card. Hope you like it!

Stone the Crows!

The theme at Awfully Big Art Adventure this week is Crows, and this is my entry. I only had the little crow stamp ( Paper Artsy?) and felt I wanted to use a bigger one, so I made one! Funky Foam. Draw. Cut. Glue Stick. Acrylic block. Done!
The background is Glimmer Mists and the stamping and edging is, you guessed it, Distress Inks.

New Zutter Project!

Lookee what we have here! Finally a new project over at Zutter Diaries. Head over there to see how I made this using my Zutter, Glimmer Mists and some lovely fairy stamps from Dovecraft!

In My House There Is.....

This is the first time I have taken part in a challenge over at In My House, and I admit I struggled with the shape. The theme was Doll, so I used the Russian Doll stamp that I made and stuck it onto a background made with Glimmer Mists and Distress Inks. The dolls are painted using Distress Inks too. The flowers are punched.

2x4 for Theme Thursday!

Ha! Thought I would be defeated eh? No! I pulled out the stops and had another go for Theme Thursday. This piece is 2" x 4", which was the theme for this week. All Elusive Images stamps except for the seals which are Non Sequitur. And again, all stamped and coloured using Distress Inks.

Couples...

This weeks challenge over at Theme Thursday is "Couples". Well, here's a Non Sequitur couple, and they don't look too happy, do they?! They are painted with distress inks, and guess what? Yes, there is that Elusive Images stamp in the background again!This is an ATC, I hope you like it!

Edit: I just realised that that was last weeks challenge, they changed it as I was making the thing! Oh well, maybe it will fit somewhere else soon :: SIGH ::

ATC Swap

I've decided to take part in the ATC swap over at Crafts by Carolyn, this month's theme is "Women" The stamps here are all Non Sequitur, although you can see my current Elusive Images favourite has just sneaked into the background of the second card!
I think I will make it a New Year's Resolution to take part in more swaps, challenges and competitions, just to keep my creative juices flowing!

Happy (Chinese) New Year!

January 26th sees in the year of the Ox, so Happy New Year to those of you who observe Chinese New Year. Graphicus have set a challenge for this month - Celebrate / Purple & Gold. I chose Chinese New Year as the celebration, used my new Christmas & Birthday pressie Glimmer mists, and an Elusive Images stamp or two. The Chrysanthemum is embossed in gold, then coloured the embossing with alcohol inks, a new idea from me, and one I know I will explore again! I'm posting this for a challenge on Crafts by Carolyn too!

Eaty Days

The second project out of the box...I started but couldn't finish because my copper ink ran out :( so I have put it to one side for now and will finish it as soon as I can. So I picked another. Now, the other half and I like to try different food from different countries, but again it is quite difficult choosing where we "go" next on our foodie journey. So we had been picking names from a bowl, which was fine, but, well, not really ideal. Cue my next project.... a box for the country names to go in! This is now my second altered box, and I think it looks kind of cool!

Playing with Plastic

The first project I pulled out of the box (see the previous post!) was "pendant". The idea was to make a pendant to match a pink top I recently bought in the sales. I just ended up having so much fun with shrink plastic it got a bit silly! The pink pendant actually turned out pretty well, but I like the orange ones too. It is a shame the picture is a bit blurry, I will take proper photos when I have threaded them. And yes, that is the same Elusive Images stamp you see before you. I just love it!

Sooo Many Ideas!

Have you ever found that you have sooo many ideas for crafting projects that you just don't know what to do first? I have, and the thought of trying to choose made me a bit less inclined to actually do anything! So I decided to write them all down and draw them out of a hat, so as to speak. I have had this plain wooden box in my stash for a very long time, so I decided to finally put it to good use. It has been coloured and stamped with my old favourite Distress Inks, with a bit of extra stamping in Stazon and some embossing for good measure. The metal dragonfly was alcohol inked then covered with dimentional glaze. The little scrolls each have an idea written on them, hidden so I don't know what I'm making next! Then I realised that I might not remember properly what some of the ideas were all about, so I decorated the book to match and am writing more detailed descriptions of each project in that. This project sees the first outing of my new X-Cut alphabet dies, which I think is going to be really useful! Now, I wonder what my next project will be....?

Christmas Already?

This is the very first year I have ever had time off over Christmas! A week and a half of pure crafting time. As I was still feeling very Christmassy, I thought I might as well make a start on cards for 2009......
I didn't just make a start, I practically finished! I made 36 cards over the course of about 3 days. Some of them need a bit of embellishing, but that's the fun part and something for me to look forward to when I really start thinking about Christmas again.
Here's a selection anyway!