Christmas Again

I was in the mood for making Christmas cards when I got home from work tonight, and started this whilst dinner was cooking. Everything is from Craftwork Cards apart from the words - the squiggly ones are Heroarts and I think the small one is Hobby Art.   At the time I thought I would be on a real roll and get loads done but then I stopped for food and have slumped in front of the TV, LOL!

Probably won't get a chance to blog tomorrow as I have to go to work - we're having an office move and we have to move a load of files upstairs whilst the files already upstairs have to come downstairs - it will be a lot of hard work and I'm NOT looking forward to it!  I imagine when I get home I will just fall asleep.

Play Date Cafe Challenge

I think I am going to love the Play Date Cafe Challenge - it sounds such fun.  I didn't get to take part last week but have had a go for this week -  the challenge is to use yellow, orange and dark brown or black.  I've played with grungepaper, Studio 490 flowers/backgrounds and distress stickles/crackle paint.

Those fab 490's

I got sidetracked from the football tonight - we lost again but played a lot better - and ended up making this tag.  It started yesterday when I used the plain tag to mop up some glimmer mist from my craft sheet and thought it quite a nice pale glimmery blue!  You can't see a lot of it left here, I have overstamped with Studio 490 stamps of various sorts, and added metal and grungepaper flowers, with brads for the flower centres.  I have scooched (a Leandra term) the metal flower with some of my wheels and then coloured it with jazz blue glimmer and an alcohol ink - already put it back so I can't remember which one...

Although I haven't used that many of them, I shall link it for the Gingersnap Creation "brads" challenge.  

See you soon!

Back to Clocks

I know, I am meant to be doing Christmas cards!  But I couldn't resist playing with Ferro and Viva paints after reading such great things about the recent Paperartsy weekend - how I wish I could have gone to one of them; I really must try to get to one next year.

Anyhow, I used Ferro in Iron, Viva metallic paints in Pistachio and Blue Azure with a dash of Gold to accent, some glimmer mist (I think it was Jazz Blue and Iridescent Gold) on the arch chipboard.  The clock was stamped on pearl metal, sprayed with glimmer mist again and stuck to a piece of grungepaper, mainly because it happened to be handy, but which does mean I can tweak and shape the wings.  I added a prima flower with a black rainbow drop for the centre, but having stuck it on I'm now not convinced it's the right thing. 

One Down - Lots to go!

Hi.  I've had a cold all week which although not very bad has blocked my mojo!  Anyhow, I started this a few days ago without intending it to be a Christmas card, until I decided I really had to get cracking with this year's cards.  I have used terra, black dabber paint and brushed corduroy for Rudolph.  The glimmer effect is a minimister filled with bronze perfect pearl and mustard seed reinker; the snowflakes (Inkadinkadoo) are stamped in scattered straw, not a traditional colour but tone with the card better.

A is for Apple!

I saw these Maya Road apple chip shapes (available here) after I saw Linda doing some fab things with them and had to have some.  They arrived last week but for some reason I couldn't settle on what I wanted to do first.  In the end I coloured them with spiced marmalade distress ink, overstamped with a Studio 490 background (gingham) in the same colour, and stamped another Studio 490 stamp in brushed corduroy and then covered it with a thin layer of Rock Candy distress paint.  Once that was dry I added a Paperartsy bird stamped on metal, and some bits and bobs!  Looking at it now the crackle is dry, the gingham background doesn't show up any more...

It fits with the theme for the new Alphabet challenge here where this time round you have to use something starting with the letter as the main theme.  I had some trouble scanning and uploading it, it looks a bit wonky!

Squashed Metal

Yesterday I was just trying to remember how Lin did the metalwork on a demo she gave me at Ally Pally and was getting in a muddle with it, when lo and behold! Leandra posted a step by step guide to just that!  So I was able to have another go, here is the result.  It's not as neat as Leandra's but it's much better than what I'd managed before her post!

I've used another stamp from one of her Ding and Dong sets and sprayed it with glimmer mists - cinnamon, and a couple of gold ones.

I've also managed to clean off the leaking glossy accents from the scanner bed...thought it had stopped oozing, lol!

Tick Tock chip

Carrying on with the clocks here, have coloured the chipboard with walnut stain, brushed corduroy and vintage photo, a quick spritz of marshmallow glimmer spray. I stamped the clocks and then added the metal clock (from a Ding and Dong plate) and the four squares were left over from a previous project.

Mum's Birthday

It's my Mum's 86th birrhday on the 16th and whilst she won't want to be reminded of passing time, I couldn't resist using some more of the Paperartsy clocks stamps. I wanted to get the card done early to make sure it arrives in the post on time as I won't be able to get down to see her.
I've used Terra and Ferro and some glimmer mist again here.

Altered Frame

This is my first altered piece!  I started yesterday by covering the frame in white gesso then 3 coats of Claudine Hellmuth paint (sky blue) .  The stamp is from a Tim Holtz plate and the sentiment Wendy Vecchi.  The paper flowers are prima , I went for this lime green for contrast as all the other colours I tried looked wrong, and I found a brad the right colour blue in my stash.  The dragonfly was in a pack I've had for years and found last week when I was having a sort out.  I have sprayed it with glimmer mists, using jazz blue, irridescent gold and then moss green to try and get the shade I was looking for.  As I haven't found a little photo for the middle yet, I cuttlebugged a piece of metal with "tiny bubbles" to fill the centre.

Christmas Fairy

This is a version of the card I made for my friend Michelle (she did love it!) on the more tradiitonal Christmas theme.  The ink is dusty concord and her wings are coloured with a 3d gel pen and then Rock Candy distress stickles, the dress with a pink gel pen.  The snowflake is from Inkadinkado's Snowflakes-a-plenty set which I think I am going to love this year...  I will put it on a card later and it will be my first of this year's Christmas cards.

I think it may qualify for the Gingersnap Creations "bling" challenge which is just about to close. I just hope the glitter dries quickly enough for me to load the image! I'm going to go and try to prise the glitter off my fingers from where I "tested" whether it was dry yet - it wasn't LOL.

EDIT - Sunday 11th - Hels has a new Sunday Stampers challenge - circles - so I've put it forward there too.

Time Flies tag

I had a chance to play a bit this afternoon, this tag is using images from various of the Ding and Dong plates I got from Leandra yesterday. 

The "time flies" stamp is on copper metal and I used a wheel to decorate the clock face from the reverse and just defined a couple of the circles on the wings, I stuck it to a piece of card (made the schoolboy - or girl - error of cutting it out before I thought about mounting it, very hard to cut the tape backing after that, lol!)

I coloured the bird with water colour pencils and added some background stamps before spritzing with walnut gold glimmer mist. I didn't think the black archival would blur, so it looks a bit messier than I wanted (so don't look too closely!!) Off to play some more now...

Ding and Dong!

No artwork tonight, as I ordered  - lots - of the new Ding and Dong stamps (and some more Clocks) from Paperartsy 2 days ago and when I got home they were here!!  Fantastic service, given the postal disruptions going on.  Anyhow, I have spent all evening mounting them on EZ Mount (hate hate hate that task as I've said before, but buying them unmounted meant I could spend more on the stamps.... LOL)

Hope to have something to show you tomorrow after I've been playing. TTFN.

Happy Birthday, Michelle!

On Friday it's the birthday of a good friend at work, and this is the card I have made her - using the Paperartsy Christmas Fairy!  I've blinged her up - or should that be blung?! lol, with some glitter (of course!) and some little silver sticker balls on the edge of her drress.  The corner edges are glimmer chips lightly brushed in fired brick (the same ink I used for the circle) and they've been sprayed with candy apple red and walnut gold glimmer mists, with just a touch of marshmallow in between as the red was too red!  The background paper is from a new Craftwork Cards pack "Joy" some of which are Christmassy, this one is very universal.

It has been some time since I made a birthday card, rather than tags and bits and pieces, and I've really enjoyed it. I've got a few more birthdays coming up this month, so more time to play!

Another Tag

I had some pieces of the Paperartsy clock left over on the pearl metal and was wondering how to use them - I took a tag, splodged some dusty concord and faded jeans distress ink on my craft mat, spritzed them and pressed the tag around in the ink. After I dried the ink, I stamped the numbers (Tim Holtz, new from Ally Pally) down one side and then stuck the clock pieces onto the other side of the tag.  The flower is grunge paper (Wendy V of course!) and painted with dusty concord crackle paint - although I've a few of these paints, I think this is the first time I've used any - it's very thick in the bottle but I don't know if it should have been painted on thicker - it doesn't seem to have crackled much; I will need to play more with it I think.  The smaller flower is the inner part of the same stamp, but stamped again on grungepaper and cut out for the centre.  I got in a bit of a mess with the colour for this, its ended up as faded jeans ink, and over painted lightly in picket fence crackle paint - the blue has come through to sort of match the colour on the tag, and to tie it all in I wafted a versamagic chalk ink (Pretty Petunia) over the top. The flower is stuck together and on the tag with pvc glue.

Arches - Archie

I have done a couple of similar arches here, one with my friend Archie!! Both use a variety of copper metal patterned on a new mold I got last week, and using a variety of Terra, Ferro, Viva paints, and glimmer mists. 

Unfortuntely whilst I have been posting this and not concentrating on the football, we have gone behind... damn!!

I also added a few more bits and bobs to the circle piece I wasn't happy with last week, have overlaid a Maya Road frame, and some clock pieces, the round clock fits perfectly inside the frame (which in turn hides the ink smudges... joy!) it is on pearl metal and sprayed with Wine and Roses glimmer and a peftect pearl/worn lipstick reinker mix.  The prima flower is a better colour match in real life than it seems here. 


Now, come on Liverpool!

Finally, I went to Kew again yesterday - trees turning nicely, but very overcast so the photos are ok-ish, (I may post some later) but here is the Ally Pally stash!!