A New Home For Neville

The challenge at PaperArtsy this fortnight is Autumn Leaves. I do think Autumn is a beautiful time of the year, though I do miss the light nights. I decided to channel my inner Darcy and made a new home for Neville.

I started by painting the wooden birdhouse with lots of Autumn coloured Fresco paints. 

Then I mad the background for the 'roof tiles' and stamped with Darcy's hearts

This is the back

and the side

and Neville and friends.

This may not be a work of art, but it was fun to make!

Have a great week, and thanks very much for looking x

Clean and Simple - Yikes

Yes it's those words that strike terror to your heart, even worse than Christmas in July, it's Clean & Simple. Come on, why were inks and paints invented if not to cover the full page (and fingerprints). Anyway Crafty Individuals want C&S, and this is the best I can do.

It's madness that I can stitch a border but I can't doodle one. Giving me a black pen and something to doodle is like giving a 3 year old a bright red lipstick - it isn't going to end well, so I've sewn mine.
Right, it's time to screw down a few floorboards in my craft room, I'm now perfectly insulated (for a room made of glass) and ready for my new roof in a couple of weeks.
Have a happy Sunday, and thanks very much for looking x

Flying High

Good Morning and happy Wednesday. It's a very grey day here, but hopefully the sun will come out later. Over the weekend I bought myself a little pocket (if you have big pockets) sized journal. I love to see other peoples journals and have tried it myself but I can't take to it. The white space scares me, and if I do a bad page I'm like 'that's it, it's ruined' and either throw the journal in the corner till the end of eternity or tear the offending page out, and altogether make things worse lol. 
Sooo I now have a small journal, so not as much white space, and I just need to lighten up!! Here's the first page (which is not on the 1st page so that took the pressure off)

My rainbow dancer is from Lost Coast Designs and I'm entering her into their 'anything goes' challenge. 
Things in my craft room/conservatory are going well - ish. It's having a new roof fitted to make it cooler in Summer and warmer in Winter, so the first thing they do is take the floor up!! I know, it didn't make much sense to me either, but I'm having my pipes re-lagged - women of a certain age uh....
Have a great day whatever you are doing, and thanks very much for looking x

Good Times!

Good morning and a very Happy Tuesday. Today I'm the new girl on the block on the Visible Image design team, and for my first piece I've made a monolith.

I love these monoliths, they are so smooth and take whatever you care to throw at them. In this case lots of paint, embossing paste, and embossing powders.

I started by working out where my main image was going to go (Behind Every Mask) then adding some texture paste through a stencil.

I've made my own high tech stencil ;-) and added lots of Dina Wakley paints.

and more paint, it's looking really bad now isn't it!

Stamped my Behind Every Mask stamp, and started with the stencilling.

In the end I stamped it 3 times, with a Frantage layer in the middle. I've found with these stamps that black embossing powder gives a much better effect than black ink with clear embossing .
There's also lots of stamping in the background. I've used the text from Revolution and the small stamp from Rays of Light.

Had to add the obligatory sequins...

And because it's a monolith you can just turn it over and play on the other side too!

You can see the base better on this one. They are a fabulous fit, you just slot the monolith in and it stands up perfectly.

There are squillions of stamps on this one - I LOVE a good background stamp, they are my unsung hero's lol.

I've used
No Regrets
Flower Inkognito
Glimmer of Light - for the words
Rays of Light
How Fragile We Are - for the words
Universal
The Ripple Effect

I am so happy to be part of the team, these are such fabulous stamps to work with.
Here are some links for you to check out some wonderful inspiration from the DT
Website and blog
Facebook group
Facebook page

Have a great day, and thanks very much for looking x

London Calling

Hi, and welcome back to my second 'travel' themed piece for Country View Crafts. London is one of my favourite places to visit, and I think it hosted the Olympics really well, but wow those 4 years have passed so quickly. Seeing the Olympics again, but in Rio this time has made me think of London.

This is made with lots of PaperArtsy stamps and paints, along with Artistic Outpost, and even a bit of Kanban.

I started by painting my box white, then adding a red stripe for the cross of Saint George. This isn't as bad as it looks, there's a gap in the magic tape for the paint.

Next I brayered a background with Fresco paints.

Then I stamped lots of London themed images by Artistic Outpost and PaperArtsy, and layered them onto the background.

I added some more stamps to the front of the box, and sewed some Kanban bunting then stuck my pigeon on top!

Different brands of stamps, but they all work so well together.

There's still lots of time for you to join in with our challenge, so get into the travel mood and play along.

I'm also entering this into the Craft Stamper TIMI challenge, which has an 'anything goes' theme this month.

Have a great week, and thanks very much for looking x

Be Happy

Hello and happy Thursday. It's a really quick post from me today as we have builders in and apparently that's not a good time for me to 'sit playing on the computer' lol. My craft room (conservatory) is having a new roof, so everything has been moved out. The car has lost it's garage and my stuff is everywhere. I just need to win the lottery, buy next doors house and have myself a craft house! 

Funnily enough I had an e-mail this morning that a long lost relative wanted to give me millions of dollars, so if I just send $120.00 I can claim that! Job done ;-)

I made this with lots of PaperArtsy paints and stencils for the 'mark making' challenge. There's also credit card scrapes,  sequin waste, and stitching marks as well as stamping.
I'm entering this into the That's Crafty 'all square' challenge too.

Have a great day whatever you are doing, and thanks very much for looking x

It's A Cracker...

Well actually it's the best gift that you can find in a cracker, the Fortune Telling Fish!

Every year I get the tape measure while someone else gets the wonderful floppy fish lol.

I've made this for the Rubber Dance challenge. Their challenges are 2 years old, and we have a choice of mood boards. I've chosen Nov/Dec 2015.
The fish were part of my fab prize for winning the July challenge and I love them! For some reason I love fish stamps, and I must admit I have quite a collection lol.
Have a great week, and thanks very much for looking xx

Unleash The Dark Side

Yes I've been watching Star Wars films again lol. I watched Andy Skinner on TV last week, so I had to have a play with all things Skinneresque (is that even a word??) anyway here it is.

All of the stamps, paints, and mediums are by Andy Skinner and DecoArt. This is the front of my slide mailer. There's a bit of the old peeled paint technique going on here.

The inside - rusted and crackled to within an inch of its cardboard!

And the back - this is an old clear stamp set of AS's, not one of the newer Stampendous sets.
This was fun to make, but I was glad when I finished 'cos the board wouldn't have stood another coat of paint.
I'm entering this into the Dream In Darkness challenge.

Have a great week, and thanks very much for looking x

Some Exciting News

I'm really please and proud to say that I'm now a member of the awesome Visible Image design team. To say I'm thrilled is an understatement!

This is a piece I have made using the Revolution and the Flower INKognito sets with lots of DecoArt paints and mediums.
Thank you so much to Helen and Mark for the chance to play with these amazing stamps, I can't wait to get started!

Have a fun weekend, and thanks very much for looking xx

Wish You Were Here

Hi and welcome to September. This year is going so quickly now, I'm sure I still have some things on my 'to do list' from May! The challenge this month at Country View Crafts has been chosen by the lovely Jennie, and it's Travel. Here's mine

 Do you remember when we used to send and receive postcards? It was the part of the holiday that I dreaded, I never knew what to put, and my writing just go bigger and bigger to fill the space lol. Nowadays it's just a quick text or phone call - sooo much better.
Of course if you received a post card it had to go on the fridge door for at least a week after the sender came home, so this is celebrating the Great British postcard!

I started by stamping some very old Tanda stamps onto glossy card, with black Stazon, and coloured with Tim's Distress Markers

I also found a sheet in my Tim Holtz  Menagerie stack, and cut a couple of these out.

Next I cut a piece of cork for my clipboard, and a clip with the TH mini clipboard die.

Then it was just a matter of sticking them down with push pins. I now had a cork board pinned to my stamping mat. Doh!

This was fun to make, I have so many old stamps that don't get used any more and it's such a shame, but I bet I'm not the only one.
I hope you join in with our challenge this month, there's the chance to win £20 to spend in the Country View Crafts shop.
Have a great week, and thanks very much for looking xx