A Grand Day Out

Good morning and happy Monday. I'm over at Ink Art Designs today together with Morty, Matilda, and Betsy Bottoms from Just A Girl And Her Imagination.

 A little while ago I was lucky enough to attend a Tracy Easson class at Which Craft? in Doncaster. It was my gift to myself for turning 60 a couple of days later. It was a brilliant day and we made the 'Little Book of Wishes'

This is my front cover. Everything was provided by Tracy, even the sewing thread! I'm not going to go into details about how this was made as Tracy is still teaching the class, and I can't recommend it highly enough, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

And here's the back cover. I even made a fabric badge, something I wouldn't dream of doing before Tracy's class, I've never worked with fabric before, but I really loved putting my book together (over many many hours lol).

Please pop over and visit Dot's group, everyone is welcome, and join in with our challenge. It's always 'anything goes' as long as stamping is the main focus using any of the many brands of stamps that's in the store. Just click on the link to be taken there. https://www.facebook.com/groups/InkArtDesigns/ 

Have a very happy week, and thanks so much for looking x

Craftascope One Day Special Cards

Good morning and happy Thursday.  Today I'm back sharing some cards that I made for the recent Craftascope One Day Special on Hochanda.

This was made with the Build A Man set.

And this is Lush Landscapes and Splinters in Time.

Finally I couldn't resist making a shaker card - this is using Lush Landscapes again.

This is our last day in Spain, we fly home tomorrow, so I'm really looking forward to watching the shows on a TV rather than my phone lol.
I'm linking my man to the current Dream In Darkness challenge. 

Have a very happy day, and thanks so much for looking xx

Craftascope One Day Special - Your Journey Never Ends

Good morning and happy Sunday, I hope the weather is being kind to you. At the moment we are in Spain, so life is very good! 

The lovely Nick has had a Craftascope One Day Special over on Hochanda on Friday and Saturday with his 'Splinters In Time' collection, so people on facebook will have seen sneak peeks of my samples. I'll be blogging some on here too as this is my own personal record of my makes 'cos I really will have to start deleting some photo's from my phone.

First up is an A4 album.

This is a bit of an 'everything but the kitchen sink' cover. It's made from a Zutter A4 size chipboard cover, so it's taken all the paints and mediums perfectly. I've used lots of Decoart Media paints and texture paste here, together with Craftascope stencils. The man's face is from the Build a Man stamp set to which I've added some Day of the Dead features as the ODS ran into the 2nd November. The die cut leaves are from a set that Nick will be bringing to Hochanda on Monday, so be sure to watch. 

 I've kept the inside of the covers very simple - I've just used the Retro Rounds strip die on black and white card.

Page one has been made on hessian and uses the Eastern Delight and Fantasy Fields stencils, together with lots more DecoArt paint. The trees are from the Lush Landscapes sheet and have been stamped into UTEE. Although these are clear stamps you can treat them as rubber, so it's not a problem stamping into melted UTEE.

 This is another fabric page, together with lots of handmade papers. The brick wall is from the Splinters In Time sheet, and the scene is from 'Scenes In Time'

This page again has been made using lots of fabric and the Scenes in Time stamps.

And finally the back cover using stamps from the Build A Man and Helping Hands set. Both of the sentiments are from Lush Landscapes.

I'm entering my journal into this month's Mini Album Makers challenge, and the cover into the ongoing Dream In Darkness challenge. 

I hope you like it, I'll be back later in the month with some more of my samples. 

Have a very happy week, and thanks so much for looking x

Feelin' Groovy

Good morning and happy Friday, welcome to November and the weekend. There's a fab new challenge over at Country View Crafts which is 'hand stamped'. I'm really happy with this as I can't remember the last thing I did that wasn't based around a stamped image.

 Stamping has always been my first love, and since I got my stamping platform I love it even more. You can't beat the magic of watching embossing powder heat up, and as my drawing would have to improve loads just to be rubbish, I have quite a collection of stamps. 

Neil if you're reading this they are all really old, I've not bought any for years - honest!

Who am I kidding, I don't think he even knows what a blog is, to him it's all just 'messing about on the computer' after I've finished 'messing about with bits of paper' lol.

 I started by making my background. I've used some retro Craftascope stamps. I really like these as you get the outline and the 'solid' stamps so it's really easy to add colour straight from the inkpad. I've used Ranger Archival as they dry really quickly.

 They also have really groovy words - did you see what I did there...

So that's my background all done and trimmed to fit an 8x8 card.

 I wanted to background to stand out and be interesting, and also to let a much smaller focal point stand out, so I die cut some shapes out of a piece of black card.

What's not to love about this fabulous Tim Holtz goat! He's been stamped, coloured, and then cut out with the matching 'hipster' dies.

I cut the black card to exactly(ish) the same size as the background, then stitched it all to my base card. And we're all done, a guy card too, so that's definitely worth double points right?

I hope you like my 'groovy' card, and join in with the fun challenge. Just put your best stamping foot forward and hit the linky.

Have a fun month, and thanks very much for looking x

Out of Chaos...

Good morning and happy Monday, I hope you had a great weekend.  I'm over at Ink Art Designs again today with a journal page using Visible Image stamps.

This has been made in my small Art By Marlene watercolour journal.

I started by making a rainbow of Brusho drips for my background.

Then added some spatters and circles.

I added some Satin Glaze to the Brusho's to make a shiny glaze.

I always keep the dried up bits from tubes of acrylic paint. Mmm shiny....

And we're all done. I stamped the circles again on black card and book paper to layer up, and stamped the quote directly onto the page - something I never would have done before stamping platforms.

I hope you are joining in with our challenge this month, there are stamps to be won, and it's so easy to join in through our facebook page.

Have a very happy day and thanks so much for looking xx

A Memorydex Trio for Ink Art Designs

Good morning and happy Friday. Today I'm over at Ink Art Designs with my trio of Memorydex cards.

Don't you just love these Katzelkraft animals, they always make me laugh.

I started by brayering some backgrounds with DecoArt Premium Acrylics, then adding some stencilling and stamping with the Rubber Dance  Grungy Borders, and Grungy Stuff.

 Just look at that face, who could resist this Katzelkraft guy.

And here's his friend. The quotes are from Tim Holtz's Snarky set, and as always say just the right thing!

 This is Horace, and he comes complete with his own quote. He can be found here in Dot's store.

And here they are all together again.

Please pop across to the Ink Art Designs facebook page, and enter our challenge. Its always Anything Goes with any brand of stamp that Dot sells in the store.

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

A Bokeh Birthday

Good morning and happy Thursday. I'm back over at Country View Crafts with my second piece for the Bokeh challenge and this time it's a girlie birthday card.

 I started with my go to background of a mixture of Tim's Distress and Distress Oxides.

 Then I added some more water and sprinkled with Brusho Sprinkle It in iridescent purple - Love It!

 Time for my good old stencil and white gesso to make the bokeh background - it only takes a few minutes to dry then on with the stamping. I've used a couple of sets from PaperArtsy.

 I liked the background, but decided that it needed something else, so I chopped some out of the top with a die from the Tim Holtz Mixed Media 4 set, and also added some book page flowers over the originals.

 So now we just needed something for the top corner. I used the dragonfly and stamped it onto some Barbara Gray paper, that way I didn't need to colour it lol.

 These are the lovely stamps that I've used. There's a Jofy, a Tracy Scott and a Kay Carley, so lots of choice there.

And here's my finished card again. I hope that you like it and join in with our challenge.
I'm entering my card into this weeks Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge, which is 'think pink'

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

Beat It!

Good morning and happy Tuesday. It's my turn to host the challenge this month over at Country View Crafts, so I've chosen a theme that I love, which is bokeh. This is the Wiki definition

In photography, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light". Wikipedia

Well I'm glad we cleared that up! Here's my first piece.

 I made my background piece using a mixture of Distress and Distress Oxides in blues with a little bit of Twisted Citron just because it's my favourite colour at the moment. The twinkly bits are from Brusho 'Sprinkle It's' which are my VERY favourite thing right now. Then I used white gesso and my home made circle stencil to add the bokeh effect.

Then  I chopped a piece out 'cos I decided to make another shaker card, I think I've got that out of my system now for a while thank goodness.

 My nephew plays the drums in a band so I used this very old Sheena set in the cut out piece. The embossing has been done with Moon Glow embossing powders. These must be 15 years old if they're a day but they are still going strong!

 The stencilling has also been done with a Sheena stencil.

 And the Happy birthday sentiment with one of my top three birthday stamps from the man himself.

 I'm almost embarrassed to say, but these are the only 2 stamps I've used from the set. But I don't care, it's been worth every penny just for these 2, they are just so usable and stamp perfectly every time. They just work!

 I though we were all done, but it did look a bit bare, so I added some musical notes from a die that I've had since time began.

So now we're all done! I think I've used this stamp on his card before, but as there will be hard cash enclosed I'm sure he won't mind ;-).

I hope you enjoy our challenge, and join in with us this month. Just make sure to follow the theme and you could win £20 to spend in the store, and also guest design with us for a month.

Have a very happy October and thanks so much for looking x