Forgotten stamps

I was reading Lin Brown's blog the other day (and drooling over some new stencils she'd purchased!) and saw that she'd also bought some PaperBag Studios stamps which I happen to own, but haven't used for some time - but which got the cogs whirring for something, so when I got home from work, I put pen to paper - well, ink to journal page anyway!

I had used the page to mop up some Dylusions ink (London Blue) with Dyan's small alphabet stencil (I really need the large ones too!) so my colour scheme was set... I blurred the edges of the pages with Salty Ocean distress ink and some Snowflake Fresco paint (you didn't think I could go a whole post without using Fresco paint, did you?!)

I took the balloons from the PaperBag Studios set and stamped them randomly across both pages.  I was going to use Salty Ocean distress ink, thinking it would be a tone on tone effect, but it didn't show up as much as I wanted, so I switched to Cobalt archival which is a lovely deep blue (as you'd expect from the name!) .

The sentiment is from Tim Holtz's 'Garment District' set, and stamped on thin white card.  I stuck it all every which way so it looks like it's floating amongst the balloons.  Finally I flicked some Black Marble Dylusions spray, by tapping the end of the tube, over the page. So, thanks Lin for buying the stamps and reminding me I've got them!!

WOYWW 191

Please don't tell me it's the end of January already..... At least the snow has gone - it turned milder at the weekend, rained and - gone!  Thank goodness!  Hello and welcome to another Wednesday cyber travelling the desks of the world,thanks to Julia at the Stamping Ground

Today you find me in Paperartsy Fresco paint heaven (again!) with some new colours (new to me, though there are new colours in the works...)  They arrived on Tuesday, and luckily the postman left them with a neighbour, which is good as I get to share them with you today and try them out...

I had a play on Tuesday night with the Egg Plant (lush colour!) and you can see how it turned out in the previous post!!

The door hangers in the picture above are to use also with the Fresco paints - courtesy of some fab ideas by Leandra (Mrs Paperartsy) on her latest video - if you haven't seen it, check them out  on her you-tube channel  here - it is amazing!!

You'll likely be a while there, so you may want to finish the desks first..!!!  Hope to see you soon.

Metal Crackle

This week's Guest Designer for Paperartsy is Suzz - Suzanne Czosek - who is incredibly talented - and who has been using her Fresco paints on the Paperartsy metal card.  Today, she showed us the crackle glaze on the metal card - what a great look!

 I had to have a go - I don't have much metal card left, so I cut a piece to ATC size, and coated the ATC with the crackle glaze. Suzz warns us to let it dry naturally rather than with the heat gun, to avoid blistering the crackle and of course the metal would get very hot.  So I impatiently waited...

 Once it was 99.5% (!) dry I added my layer of Fresco paint - Egg Plant - I knew it would be a bit dark to do anything over the top of, but it's new, arrived only today, so I had to see what it was like... Look at those crackles with the metal showing through!

I took two of the smaller images from the Jo Firth-Young flower plate, and stamped them with Moon Light Fresco paint.... Because of the metal card and the flash, I have had a devil of a time getting a picture - but I hope you can see the crackles...


Do make sure you check out Suzanne's post at Paperartsy, it is SO worth a look!

Entering this to the Paperartsy "inspired by" challenge .

She was just...

... a lonely girl.

I was rooting through my scraps box earlier and came across an image of Lonely Girl (Dina Wakely) stamped and painted on fabric, so decided to make her a page in the journal.

I painted a double page with Mermaid Fresco paint, and stencilled a border (one of Dyan Reaveley's) in Pea Coat round the outer edges.

I did the fabric painting so long ago I don't know which colours I used, but it looks like Claret, Baltic Blue and Snowflake!

I used a set of alphabet stamps that I stamped in Pea Coat, (there is no maker on the box but I think they were from Hero Arts) to spell out 'she was just a lonely girl'.

Fresco Frenzy

I really enjoyed watching - and found so helpful Leandra's latest video showcasing Fresco opaque and translucent paints that I had to have (another) go...

I used the back of the frame I painted for one of the Linda Cain challenges earlier this week
This is how it ended up....

 I used Very Berry and Vintage Lace to cover the base. Then I stamped the text from the Jo Firth-Young set, in Snowflake across the top half of the base.
Stamped the leaves in archival.

Added the flowers

and added some scribbled grass to fill the gaps along the base.  Then it was time to start colouring with various shades of paint - a lot - I used Beach Hut, Claret, Autumn Fire, Smoked Paprika, Zesty Zing, Limelight, Hey Pesto and Inky Pool... I think that's it..

It is very along the lines of Leandra's video but I had such fun I wanted to share it.

I can't wait to see who is the next Guest Designer (announced tomorrow!)

Inspired by Linda - Tagtastic!

Earlier this week, the lovely Linda Cain shared a gorgeous Valentine tag trio for Paperartsy  - I tried at the time and had to give up as for some reason (I know now where I was going wrong!) I couldn't get the colours blended how I wanted.... So tonight I had another go - but have only done one tag....

I had the same set of Paperartsy stamps that Linda used, but the base colour on my tag was Moon Light (not used that for ages!) with Claret over the top, and just a tiny smidge of Baltic Blue.

I decided to stamp two of the hearts on my metal on card (don't have much left now, there was just enough to do these..) - sorry about the flash bouncing off them for the picture.

The background stamping is done with coffee archival.  I had to go over the white dots as they didn't show up first time (and after I had gone back to read Linda's details, had forgotten the Old Gold edge to the tag - that helped the white show up more too!

After my first attempt with the colour for these tags on Tuesday, I am much happier with this one.
Thanks, Linda for a great week's inspiration!!

If you fancy being inspired, get your Fresco paints out and have a go - there are prizes on offer. Thanks Leandra! Details are here 

Steampunk Birds

Yesterday, for her next Paperartsy piece, Linda wowed us with a Steampunk canvas and urged us to have a go..... well I have had a go but am not too happy with the results, I may just paint over the whole thing in a minute and start again... but first I am going to show you anyway!

I used similar colours to Linda but had different stamps and stencils in my supplies.  I have used Mermaid, Snowflake, Nougat, Claret, Chocolate Pudding and Baltic Blue - just look at the mess on the craft mat!

 

I applied the texture paste (I only have Ferro, the lightest I have is Sahara, then covered with Snowflake paint) The stencil is the border from one of my Dylusion stencils. I then coloured it with claret, taking care to mainly hit the high spots.

Steampunk Peter and Paul (HP1107) were stamped on the Paperartsy Crackly paper and glued to the canvas, blending it into the canvas with more paint, and then I coloured some of the clock parts in the birds with Pewter fresco paint, and a mix of honey dew and mermaid (too opaque, so I wiped as much off as I could) Their crowns were painted with Old Gold.
I don't have the metallic glaze, so mixed satin glaze with old gold to highlight the textured area.

If you haven't seen Linda's, do go and see it, because that is beautiful!  Still, it's all about trying new ideas, so I had a go.....!! Wonder what tomorrow's challenge will bring!

TIO - DragonsDream - Dress to Impress

Time for another recipe challenge from us at Dragons Dream Team - this fortnight, Trace wants us to use "a dress or a dressform ; an embossed impression and some bling"

I put the tag through Tim's sewing embossing folder and hit the highspots with distress ink (wild honey) I diecut the dress form from thin cardboard and also sticky back canvas (of course I should have stuck one to the other first for ease!) and sprayed the dress part with Dylusions spray. Painted the leg with distress stain (walnut stain)  Threaded some pearls from an old necklace onto thin wire for the belt and necklace. The stamp is by Hero Arts.  Finally, some ribbon.

Check out what the rest of the team have done - there are some real beauties - and please come and join in!

WOYWW? 190

Well, here we are - covered in snow for large parts of the UK. It started on Friday and is still here!

This was my poor little rose struggling on, on Monday!

And a bit of an arty shot through my Escallonia (it's pretty in spring/summer!)  We have had a partial thaw since then, so the rose is now bare again!


But, you came for my desk....this is meant to be What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday, after all!

This is a reject tag background for a Paperartsy challenge - it was all right till I stamped on it!!!

This was me on Tuesday afternoon (got home early, before dark and the snow came back!!) - tweeting as usual!

So, I hope you are all ok in the snow if you have it - it always causes havoc in the UK because we don't cope - not having much regularly, there is no real money put aside to plan for it and everything seems to grind to a halt!  Anyhow, I hope you are safe! Enjoy desk hopping instead...

(Come back later for a new Dragons Dream Tag it On challenge!)

Inspired by Linda Cain

This week's Guest Designer at Paperartsy is the uber-talented Linda Cain who has been blending her Fresco paints to good effect!  I have followed Linda's blog almost since I discovered the world of blogs and was delighted when I saw that she was to work with the Paperartsy team.

Today she shows us how to blend Fresco paints with cut and dry foam and I had to have another play!

I had decorated a small frame during Michelle's week on the blog but not found anything to go inside it, until today. (as this isn't the piece that was inspired by Linda I hope I'm allowed to use it!

I took a piece of black card - yes, this is done on black card - I've not used my Fresco's on black card before - but what fabulous coverage you get!!

I used a mixture of Nougat, Mermaid, Beach Hut (my new favourite!) and Baltic Blue to achieve this
(oops, my knee's in the way...



And then I took the female figure from what I think must be one of their oldest plates "One Penny"  (she's since been re-sized on a Vintage plate, but this was perfect for the whole in the frame!

From memory, the frame was painted with more or less the same colours, knocking back with baby wipes and sanding etc,! The leafy vine (stencil) was applied using Little Black Dress Fresco.

Hope you like it, and get time to play along - Leandra has prizes on offer again!!!

Crafty Boots - "NEW"

Welcome back for another Crafty Boots challenge. It's my first choice of theme for the team this fortnight and because it's still relatively new in the year, my choice is for "new" - it could be something new you've had for Christmas, new stamps, inks, a new technique - or something for a 'new' arrival or house for instance - the world is your oyster!

I had a bumper selection of new crafty things at Christmas and have used some of them here - a new alphabet mask (Creative Expressions if you're interested) and a new stamp set (Prima 'build a swirl').  I used my (still fairly new) Dylusions journal.

I started by laying the mask (it fills the page) on the journal (having misted with water) and spraying with the Dylusion sprays in Vibrant Turquoise and Pure Sunshine.  Blotted the mask with the other page before removing and drying. I left it deliberately 'misty' rather than solid colour.  (I'l do something with the other page sometime...)

Stamped some of the swirls and other images from the stamp set, then took a paint brush and 'painted' the stamped designs, to block out the colour. Hope you can see what I mean from the top photo!

It's still snowing so....

....I'm still playing!

I wanted to do something with the textured tag from the other day, rather than just put it on the pile of other tags I do nothing with...so I made a matching (though without the texture) tag and incorporated them into a journal page...

I used Claret on the journal pages, and a smidgeon of Snowflake on a dry brush, and the same script stamp from the tag, on the background.

As there is no texture on the second tag I outlined part of the stencilled vine with a white gel pen. I used black ink on this one rather than blue.

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - C

The second letter in the Craft Barn Alpha challenge, is C.

I was going to use 'circle' but the page from my dictionary has already been torn out (I am using one I bought cheaply to use for torn book pages!!) so I decided for 'Clock'.

I painted the page with Limelight Fresco paint and die cut the Weathered Clock (Tim Holtz) from a piece of 7 Gypsies paper (decorated with clocks but I decided to paint it black so it stood out more on the dictionary page, so the pattern has been obliterated!)

I stamped the weathered clock image (I have this in various sizes!) randomly over the page and the "time is a companion" which is also by Tim Holtz on a spare piece of paper, coloured with bundled sage distress ink.

Looking forward to seeing how many different C words are used this fortnight! I may even dream up another one...

Texture on a tag

Good afternoon - tis mighty chilly still everywhere and I am not going out till I have to! So I have been playing on a tag (it's a small one, size 5 I think), and of course, Paperartsy Fresco paints...

 I started by painting the tag with Mermaid, and then applied some Ferro paste through the leafy vine stencil (also available from Paperartsy) with a palette knife.  By the time I had cleaned off the stencil, the Ferro was more or less dry, just a quick zap with the heat gun.

Then time to play with more Fresco's - all sorts blended here, but Beach Hut, Snowflake, Guacamole and Claret.  I used a brush for the tag but cut and dry to apply Claret over the stencilled area so I could control it more, just hitting the high spots.  I did however blend a little claret to the edges for a bit of contrast.

I used a Mini script stamp (can't have too many of these) in Faded Jeans distress ink, but additional brushing has softened that a bit, so have also used some blue archival ink too.

The finishing touch was some yarn - last time I went to craft club, my sister in law had bought some balls of knitting wool (not that I could imagine knitting with this, it's a bit bobbly!) to cut up into lengths and I grabbed one! You can't really see from the photo due to the appalling light, meaning I have had to use flash, but it does have bluey tones to some of it, so it does match the tag!

This was great fun...off to play some more now!  It is high time I did something productive with my day!

Snow Day = Play Day

So with the 'Big Freeze' being widely forecast for today and into the weekend, I was told I could stay home from work today...time to play!

I would have loved to take a trip to Kew Gardens as I have always wanted to capture it in the snow, but took advice from the train operators (who seem to grind to a halt at the merest flake of snow) and didn't... instead I played a little in my new journal - the small one from Secret Santa, not the large Dylusions one (so far anyway!)

Both of these pages I had been faffing about with for a few days...

The opening page had a bit of bumping...

Background is Beach Hut Fresco mixed with a little Mermaid.  Bubbles (stencil) are Autumn Fire mixed with Smoked Paprika Bumping is done with Snowflake.

 Laid the stencil back over the page, added some splatters (paperartsy mini 72 ) and script (mini 75) and the long row of numbers on the background (from ID08) in black.

the sentiment is by Wendy Vecchi.

These next two pages used the leftover paint from the bumping, today I added some more stencilling (nougat and french roast for the numbers, claret for the harlequin)

and some stamping - script, mini dots and the wings.  All Paperartsy. I have sanded this several times so I don't know why it looks so shiny...I definitely haven't used any glaze! It's not only the flash bouncing off the paint, it is shiny anyway...




It started snowing this morning when I was out buying some bread, around 8.30 and it's just about stopped now. Despite that, there isn't a huge amount that's settled - but plenty!

 This is from my window of a tree at the end of the road.

and my neighbour's garden.

Back to the journal now...!

Paperartsy - Portfolios Day 4

Today Helen Chilton's tags here feature scraping back through the pastel to reveal the original white layer as an accent, and it is fun (would have been better if I could have found the right tool, of course!  I used the tip of a palette knife.....which worked ok-ish)

Still it was fun having a go, and I like the idea, so will hopefully try it again

I don't have much in the way of coloured Stazon in, which is best for stamping on these pastels, only brown and black, and a pastel pink which I don't think shows up at all...so I am not completely happy with these.  What I do like though, is the scraping away at the pastel to highlight areas.

It is good to try something different, so thanks to Helen again for this challenge!!

WOYWW 189

Welcome to What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday - week 189. Julia is our gracious host as ever and will welcome you with smiles and - probably - a busy desk!!

I have had a busy week, craftwise and amazingly have blogged about 7 times since you were here last! I finally finished up my original journal and even decorated the cover.  It is still propped on my desk-on-the-floor today, along with my Dylusions one which is seeing some action too! And there's a chunky frame partly decorated too...

I was delighted last week to see that I had won some blog candy from the delightful fellow WOYWWer, Caz, and a huge box of goodies duly arrived - it was so lovingly packed, and there was so much inside; it was like Christmas all over again - look -

Of course I had to spread it all out... A lot of it was carefully packed inside the tissue box cover - ingenious.

So, once again Caz, thank you - and if ever you see that Caz has candy on offer, sign up for it, because you won't be disappointed!

I'm off to hop round some desks now, catch you later!

Paperartsy Challenge with Portfoleo Pastels

This week, the Guest Designer at Paperartsy is the wonderfully talented Helen Chilton and she is playing with Portfoleo Pastels as well as Fresco paints and Paperartsy stamps.... Her tags yesterday were wonderful, but tonight the technique she used really spoke to me and I could barely get to the end of this blog post before I was digging out my pastels.

Helen did two tags, but I just went for one (such was my hurry, lol!) and I didn't take step by step photos as Helen has at Paperartsy (oh, OK, then I forgot....)

I'll let you read Helen's instructions, but basically you blend the pastels, sand back, add some stencilling and then stamping. I love how this looks and intend to use this again and again!  Thanks, Helen, this is so clever!!

Journal cover

Having finished the journal, I decided to play on the cover - it had got a bit mucky anyway!

I started by sanding it down so the paint would stick - I used Paperartsy Frescos, of course!! I went with various layers, starting with Nougat, then partly drying that, but added French Roast, Brown Shed and Chocolate Pudding, wiping away and sanding and mixing. Dried all that, and then painted it Baltic Blue...
Painted a section to enable me to stamp the title, went with Nougat, crackle glaze and Sky.

Using cut and dry foam, added some white to go behind the eyes, and wiped random splotches of white around the rest of the cover.  Added some stamping in black, some stencilling (the harlequin) in Guacamole before covering the whole book with a layer of satin glaze (also Fresco)
Finally, added some ideaology to finish it off.

Getting Dylusional

It was time for another play in my new Dyan Reaveley art journal today. I used mainly postbox red, but also the pure sunshine, lemon zest and a little fresh lime.

Then for some stencilling - used water through the dotty stencil (I only have the small size) to get the ghosting effect, then black marble through the alphabet (again, I only have the smaller one)

 I stamped Lucy from 'Love Struck Lucy' on white card and cut her out, along with several of one of the images from 'Doodle Parts', cut them all out and sprayed them with the postbox red ink. Dried them, and stuck them together to form Lucy's head-dress and stuck the whole lot in the album. Outlined some of the head-dress in white pen (it actually shows up more in the photo than IRL, must be the flash!)

The corner arrows are from 'Doodle Parts' also.

Used the checker board border from 'Around the Edge' and then the leaves from 'Doodle Parts' (I love this set!) and finally doodled some veins on the larger of the leaves in white gelly pen.

it's the first time I've done a page so much in Dyan's style, I only one Lucy from her character range, and think it would be best with one of the bigger faces, but there you go, you use what you have!!

Fabric + Frescos = Fun

I had a sudden idea this afternoon about fabric and JoFY's new stamps for Paperartsy....and had to put it immediately into action.

I cut a piece of cotton fabric, and sprayed it with some watered down Fresco paint (about 75% water to paint) I used a mixture of Hey Pesto and Guacamole, and at the top of the fabric, a watered down Sky.

Then came the stamps, stamped in archival black.

 and a paintbrush! I spent quite a while trying to get some shading and depth of colour on the images, with varying degrees of success...

Truth be told, I really only like the leaves.

To finish it, I took a piece of thick cardboard, and spread some Ferro paste (Iron) around the edges, far enough in so that the fabric would hide the cardboard underneath.









Once the Ferro was dried, I fixed the fabric to the cardboard with some spray mount (taking it downstairs by the front door, to avoid the fumes in the living room).  Finally, I used some Treasure Gold to highlight some of the raised parts of the Ferro.  (I only have 3 of these, I used Aquamarine and Spanish Topaz because they kind of blend with the rest of the colours in the piece but ideally I would have used other colours!).

Hope you like it!