Spring in fashion

Now I am not sure if this will be ok but I am thinking of entering it in the Crafty individuals April challenge...Spring in fashion. Well it is spring in my garden with all the lovely birds so as the only stamp I have from Crafty Individuals is all bird cages I thought I would give it a go. you can read about the challenge HERE

I inked a tag using bundled sage, tumbled glass and broken china distress inks. I stenciled the grass using peeled paint, and stamped text and wire stamp randomly using broken china on the top of the tag.

I stamped the bird cage and the birds from CI 329 using black archival and painted the bird with distress ink.
I stamped the sentiment 'fly my little songbird' from the same set, cut it out and used foam squares to attach to the tag. I distressed the tag and edged it with black soot, coloured some seam binding ribbon with ink to match. I mounted it onto black card to finish it off.

Thank you for stopping by....

Had some time to myself today so....

I had some time to myself today which doesn't happen very often!! So decided to go out to my workshop and shut myself in  for a couple of hours.
I sat down ...now what shall I do?? Got another new set of the Lynne Perrella stamps that I hadn't had the chance to open so out they came....



And here is the result. I started out with some greyboard 6x6. I used some grunge paste with a stencil around most of the edges. Painted the whole thing with vanilla, dried it and added a couple of coats of autunm fire and blood orange with a teensy bit of london bus,drying each layer in between.
Now as you know crackly tissue is no more :'( so I took some of the tissue Leandra had wrapped one of my orders in ran the iron over it and stamped the beautiful girl from LPC022 in black archival. I then coloured her from the back. The tanslucent colours didn't show through as well the crackly does but if you put the white all over the back you can see the colour and you could always add some to the front which is what I did with the london bus and south pacific on her face. I then ripped the tissue and stuck it to the background with matt medium.I  added green amber and white fire TG lightly over the grunge paste.
Next I squished some versamark onto my non stick craft mat and sprinkled some gold embossing powder and heated,then added more while it was still hot until I had a few layers, I took the round stamp from LPC022 and inked it with black archival and stamped into the gold. I left it to cool and scraped it off the mat tore it into a circle and stuck it to the back ground. I added some pearls down the side and some flowers from LPC023 along the bottom. Mounted the whole thing onto black card and edged it with a gold leaf pen. Lastly I added some metal corners painted black and brushed over with white fire...
Sorry about the glare on the picture..couldn't get it in the right light..

Thank you for stopping by....

The Secret is Out..

Well after all the #3upPATWITS over on the Paper Artsy blog, Leandra and Gillian concocted a game to keep everybody guessing for over a week...what was #3up.
Well some of us did know as we received a direct message challenging us to join in!! We were all sent 3 items which had to be crafted into one piece. None of us knew who the others were and if we all had the same supplies!

I received a box frame, 3 flowers and a wooden tag...when I saw the flowers I thought oh oh what am I going to do with these (not that much of a flower person)

You can read how I did it Here along with the other beautiful projects from Helen and Carol.


I enjoyed it and although it is not my most favorite piece I enjoyed the challenge!

So thank you Leandra and Gillian for inviting me..can't wait to see what the next #3upPATWITS come up with!! Go #PATWITS!!

Paper Artsy Challenge

Haven't had much time  for the challenge this week seemed to be forever running all over the place, two day's at hospital and work just about took all my time.....oh and the enormous pile of ironing that I had to catch up with!!

So last night seeing as I had the house to myself I made a quick little canvas..


I started off with a canvas board and covered in mermaid and guacamole, blending them in the middle.

Using grunge paste I stenciled the grass and flowers and dried it off before stamping flowers from Jofy 10 in black archival.

I made a glaze with  PA satin and south pacific and painted it all over the canvas then laid a piece of tissue over it squooshed it down. when that dried I rubbed some limelight over the grassy areas and some south pacific around the top of the canvas. With a black jelly roll pen I outlined the flowers and using a white pen went over the stenciled flowers, added some purple TG to the flowers and some tiny text in black using mini 61 and edged the canvas in black. I put a tiny bit of green amber  and indigo TG over the black.

We have been spoilt this month over at Paper Artsy, the inspiration for my canvas has come from all the lovely guest designers and their gorgeous projects.. so why don't you pop over and have a look you can find them here...

Thanks for stopping by....

Ticket Strips

Good morning...it's quite a grey and dismal morning here today after such a lovely day yesterday, but then the weekend is approaching so what can you expect.

I got a little bit of time yesterday after running around all morning to spend in my workshop.Darcy had tweeted on Sunday I think it was about a video she had found on YT using Tim Holtz ticket die, and I thought I watched that video a looooong time ago,it's in my favourites HERE I had even bought the die to have a go and wondered where did those little tickets go.........
I started looking for them....couldn't find them and made a bit fat mess in the process!! So the first thing I did was try and tidy up the said mess and by the time I had got it reasonably tidy it was nearly time to cook dinner!!



I took a large manila tag and cut three strips of tickets and just had a very relaxing hour stamping and painting them, they are such fun to do...so thank you Darcy for the reminder!!

Inspired by Linda Cain..

Well it's Linda Cains last week on the Paper Artsy blog this week and  she has done some wonderful pieces. On day two she did a lovely tag...you can see it here. So as soon as I got the chance I was off out to my shed to have a go.


Although I do have the set of stamps Linda used I wanted to try out one of the new sets I got at AP at the weekend. Now I don't usually go for the oriental stamps but love this set...

I started off with a size 8 tag and slapped some grunge paste all over it...I then spritzed minis 22 and 27 and stamped into the paste, this left a really nice impression. Dried all of this off.
Next using cut and dry foam I used sage and bora bora to cover the tag...adding some inky pool here and there.

Next I did the background using butternut,haystack,pumpkin soup,limelight and a smidgen of London bus..just kept adding layers and drying in between. I stamped the oriental script from HPXT01 in black and the tiny splats in vermilion archival.

Then I stamped the girl and the flowers from LPC03 onto smoothy card, used frescos and copics to colour her and cut her out.

The pediments (a Tim Holtz die) were cut from greyboard and painted with guacamole,limelight and brown shed, then stamped with script from ID09. the create and 23 were also painted in brown shed and stamped in black, I then added a light coating of pearl glaze. finally I lightly dusted copper treasure gold over the raised bits of the tag.

Put everything together and mounted it on black card, added some pearls and string and finished...phew that was a long post! Thanks for stopping by.....

My favorite kind of weekend

What a lovely weekend I have just had...the long awaited craft show at Ally Pally!! I had a two day ticket so I could pop back on the sunday as well, also cadged a lift so I didn't have to drive, (well my feet were killing me from saturday!!!!


Arrived there bright and early so had to queue for a while but met Helen on the way in so had a nice chat while we waited in the queue. As soon as we got in we made our way straight to the Paper Artsy stand. Honestly it is so hard to get near Lin and Leandra while they are demoing and it quickly filled up! Leandra passed us a list of all the PATWITS who were all going to meet up at the stand...you know who you are...lol

I had a wonderful  day it was so nice to put faces to names or names to faces and lovely to meet so many new people.

Leandra and Lin worked their socks off all day it was so busy on that stand and poor Mark had to man the till with a massive queue all day..so big thanks to him too.Millie also worked her socks off as well keeping everything stocked, cos we were buying it quicker than she could get it on the shelves!!

Leandra kindly made me a lovely sample....isn't she gorgeous, thank you Leandra so glad I bought that set!





 So here's Lin doing her stuff..this was when we first got there before she was swamped and I mean swamped with crafty folks around her and Leandra all day!!

This was a bit later on in the day when Leandra and Lin got a little break away from demoing, but as you can see Leandra didn't take a break she just started filling the shelves...but to be fair the stock was disappearing fast!!

While they were having their break we had spot demos from Michelle and Darcy..thank you ladies they were great!!

This is Michelle with her masterpiece.....

And this is Darcy with hers!!














When the show finished we headed to the pub and had a well deserved drink...some of them of the alcohol type and some not lol.! Here is a picture of some of the lovely people who came along. I am not going to try and attempt all the names at the moment as I have got a couple of them mixed up so don't want to upset anyone..(I am sure Helen will help me out here:)) Not everyone is in this piccie but the others came out all blured...and no I wasn't drunk just hopeless at taking piccies when people are moving...

*EDIT* I have been given the names by Helen..so I can now fill in the gaps, from left..Hazel..Alison..Nicky..Gillian..Emma..Leandra..Millie..Sam and Carol...if this is wrong blame Helen lol

Got home and emptied all my bags and wow there is a lot of stuff there...but I needed it lol!!

This will keep me going for ages and ages!!! well until Stevenage lol...










So as I don't go back to work until tomorrow I got time this afternoon to have play in my shed.
Taking inspiration from Lin's post last night..you can see it Here I had a painty afternoon and this is the result!

So thank you again for a fantastic weekend shame I have to go back to work tomorrow...thanks for stopping by....

Another page in my book

What a lovely chilled Sunday I have had for once..(apart from having to do some cooking and cleaning). I got to spend most of the afternoon in my workshop and the sun was shining all day!!

 So I sat at my desk and thought what shall I do...picked up my altered book and opened a new page. I used butternut, haystack, nougat and vintage lace and smeared them all over the pages with a scraper, drying in between colours..

 I then stamped a few minis using tinned peas and sky frescos. when this was dry I used the large ledger stencil from crafters workshop with dreamweaver paste. When this was dry I brushed lightly over it with crimson archival ink, trying to hit just the raised areas....well tried to lol.

Next I printed out a quote from Mother Teresa.'There is no key to happiness, the door is always open'....I love this quote. I cut it out and distressed the edges a bit, went around with black archival and stuck it to my page. I lightly went around the edged with a black pencil and smudged it a bit, added some text and dots in black to balance the page. When it was all dry I sanded it in places just to knock some of the colour back.

I hope you all had a happy Sunday...back to work tomorrow!!

*edit* I have taken another piccie in the daylight..shows the colours better..

Michelle Webb's most memorable experiance..

Sad to say it was Michelle's last project over on the Paper Artsy blog this week and she made the most beautiful journal page...it is lovely, you can see it Here...

So out came my altered book which I am still working on, and when I got home from work I got a chance to have a play...

I used the same technique as Michelle with masking tape and lots of little stamps. I just kept adding layers until I thought STOP...that's enough lol...After adding a few layer's of  paint I used some dreamweaver translucent paste mixed with smoked paprika, I tapped the paste while the stencil was still in place to add a bit more texture

When it was dry I added some white fresco over the top to knock it back a bit. I had left some 'white space' for my stamping and chose 'London the only place from which to begin my journey' I continued to stamp small text stamps in different colours archival to fill some of the blank spaces.

Lastly I stamped some Jofy flowers along the bottom using archival inks and painting in with frecos. I got out my white pen and just added a few highlights here and there..
Stamps used:Minis 22 27 46 48 56 57 62 and 72...Jofy 10 ESN03 and 08 and finally clocks 1
Frescos..snowflake, beach hut, south pacific, smoked paprika and tinned peas.
Archivals..olive, black, venetian orange, cobalt, vermillion and mangenese blue...phew what a list.

I enjoyed every minute of this project..so thank you again Michelle for sharing your art with us!!

Tag Box

On day two Michelle made a lovely box for her seeds..well I don't do seeds so I decided to paint a box for my tags. I bought this bag/box at Stevenage and it has just been sitting on my desk.

 I painted it very much like Michelle's...you can read about it here. I used the same set of stamps and stamped the bird on crackly tissue and tore it out. I coloured the rope handles with watered down sky and ice blue and dried them off with my heat gun.

So here is the finished box with some of my tags in...thank you Michelle for the inspiration...

Michelle is back

Well Michelle is back over on the Paper Artsy blog..and day 1 was the bluebird tag, and very nice it was too.

I more or less followed Michelle's instructions so won't go into it again, you can read it all Here. I don't have the birdcage that Michelle used so I used one from Kaisercraft.

I used a background stamp from MON1, and stamped in Vermillion and French ultramarine archival.
I then stamped the whole tag with tim holtz slight alterations in gold paint.

The verse is from Nature 1 plate. I then edged the tag with black archival and put it onto the black tag which I distressed and edged with a gold leaf pen.


Lastly I watered down some london bus and smoked paprika with a tiny bit of zesty zing, mopped it all up with some seam binding, scrunched it up and dried with my heat gun, then added it to the top of the tag.