April Tag

This is the first time I have entered the Tim Holtz 12 tags..but after seeing the board my lovely friend Kirsten did...I thought I'm going to have a go at this!! I absolutely love the new frameworks dies and knew I'd be buying them the minute I saw them on the CHA previews!! You can pop over and see Kirstens here. So off I went to Tim's blog..and wow what a lovely tag!! You can see it here.
Seeing as I was short on time (what's new) I followed along with what Tim did. I don't have the pine cone die so used my mini tattered flowers and leaves instead.

I Absoloutely loved doing this tag and it gave me a chance to use one of my frameworks!! Just have to wait for the rest of the great new releases to hit the UK!!..

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Wise Woman

Happy Mothers's day to all the mums out there..hope you all get spoilt rotton! and if like me you no longer have your mum with you I hope the day is full of lovely memories...

I was up bright and early ths morning to finish a tag I have been playing around with..inspiration from Brenda Brown over on the Paper Artsy blog...you can pop over and see it here. I haven't made a tag for a while so really enjoyed it. I more or less did the same as Brenda..starting with old book pages and adding layers of fresco paints and distress ink. I stamped one of my new Lynn Perella stamps and coloured it with promakers and copics and cut her out..

After I had painted, inked and stamped the tag I stuck the image on along with a pieces of torn card. I used the same card to mount my tag on and inked the edeges with aged mahogony and walnut stain distress ink. I stamped 'wise woman' on another piece of card and inked that to blend in with the rest of the tag. The stamp is from an Ink the Dog plate..one penny 4.

I cut a fleur de lis from a movers and shapers die..painted it with some frescos and topped it off with copper treasure gold. then some trim (given to me by my friend Sam) on the top and finished!!

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Inspiration from Julie Ann Lee

Over on the paper artsy blog this week we welcomed our friend and fellow #patwit Julie Anne Lee. I love her oldy worldy vintage kind of crafting and she didn't let us down with her first project 'a casket'. Pop over here and have a looksie...it's gorgeous.

I had a little box I had got from Leandra at Ally Pally in september to put some embellishments in...but it was too small (or I have too many embellishments!! I more or less followed along with what Julie Ann did so won't go into a step by step..

So here we are.......first up the lid....I used a mixture of blush,haystack,egg plant and claret frescos. I added florentine and brass treasure gold to the finished piece.

This is the inside of the lid...

The bottom of the box....


















And all of it together......

We had some good inspiration this week from Julis Ann so thank you!

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Sculptered Book

I have been seeing these books in blog land and also on you tube..they are also called book art or origami book art....you should check them out as some of them are amazing!! So I thought I would like to have a go.

I used an old Dickens book which had nicely discolored pages and set about folding them back on each other into the centre. You don't have to glue them they will stay in place. I then very lightly inked the edges with some walnut stain distress ink.

Next I chose some paper to line the insides...I believe it is my minds eye from a Christmas stack. I distressed the edges and inked them and stuck them in leaving the edges curled slightly.





On to decorating..I used some lovely green velvet ribbon to hold the book at the angle I wanted it to sit. I coloured some lace with watered down green olives fresco and stuck that onto the edges of the pages.







From a selection of movers and shapers dies I cut three reindeer and the number 25.I painted the reindeer with a combination of brown frecos and the 25 with claret and london bus.


I then used antiquities from ranger to give them a slight frosted look. I stamped the holly leaves onto some christmas paper, heat embossed them and cut them out. These were shaped and placed onto the book with silicone glue and some pearl beads coloured with red pepper alcohol ink were placed in the middle.The reindeer were stuck in.






I found the poem 'Twas the night before Christmas' online and printed it out onto parchment in as small a font as I could. I distressed it and concertina folded it into a little book I had made from grey board and grunge paper. This had a filgree wrap cut in half with a metal bead spacer as a closure with some wired thread.






This was stuck securely on the bottom of the book.











I had bought some really cute wooden tags and stars from Ally Pally in September and thought they would finish it off. I stamped joy with crimson archival onto the tag and put some red wire through the top.
The stars had the antiquities on them and were put along the bottom of the book





                               So here it is finished........

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*What I didn't write in this post at the time was that the book was going to my sister in the USA!! I posted it off on the 14th December..paid a whole lot more to have it delivered in 4 days and did it arrive?? NO!! It finally arrived on boxing day..which happens to be her birthday and I was talking to her on Skype when the postie knocked on the door...so saw her open it too which was nice :D she loved it!! so all went well in the end and she has something I made out of something that belonged to our beautiful mum to bring out every Christmas!!! Hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and a happy new year to you all xxx*

A couple of tags

Alison Bomber was back this week over at Paper Artsy with some stunning projects as always..you can pop over and see them here. On day one she did some gorgeous tags which is where my inspiration came from..

I used the same techniques as Alison..using frescos with stencils and stamps for the back ground. I cut the arches from a die I bought at Stevenage from once upon a stamp and painted,crackled and distressed them. I didn't have rusting powder for my embellishments so used distress embossing powder instead. Once everything was assembled on the tag I used rafia and string to tie the top. I really enjoyed this project so thank you Alison for a great week!!

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A couple of bookmarks

Well I have had a very enjoyable day spent mostly in my shed just playing around doing this and that.
Two of the things I made were these two book marks inspired by Sue Harrington over on the Paper Artsy blog, you pop over and see how Sue did it here.
So here are my book marks..they are a lot of fun to do..

The first one I used distress inks to colour the grunge paper, old paper,bundled sage and peeled paint.
The image came from LP010, the swirls from HP1005 and the script is mini 61..all Paper Artsy stamps.
I finished off by cutting the fringe at the bottom and edging it with balck archival to draw the eye in...

The second one was painted using Stone.Irish cream and Cinnamon frescos..just blending them until I was happy with it. I used the same stamps as the green one but instead of a fringe I shaped the bottom using an on the edge die. I used black archival for the edge and the lighly brushed ruby treasure gold over the black..

they were quick and easy to make so thank you Sue for the inspiration!!





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It started as a T!mmy Tag...

As I had the day off today I thought I would have a go at the May tag over on the Tim Holtz blog. I haven't used my distress inks for a while so was looking forward to having a play..then realized I didn't really have a stamp suitable. Never mind I can still use my inks. Then I remembered my Andy Skinner stencils that arrived late last week, I had already used the children one so now was the time to try out the Baroque one....it is gorgeous!!

 I started off with a size 8 tag and used picked raspberry, broken china,wild honey and evergreen bough distress inks, just randomly covering the tag. I then used black soot through the stencil..

I stamped some small script and numbers minis from paper artsy in vermillion archival all over the tag,
then Dream from a T!m set and coloured it in with an orange pitt pen..also added some of the orange around the numbers.

I edged the tag with black soot and added some white dots with a white gel pen, a few bits of white to highlight the face.

I coloured a piece of seam binding in distress inks and tied it to the top..I do love this stencil..


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