Follow your Heart

Remember those Grunge Paste hearts I made the other week and then couldn't peel them off the plastic backing because it was too stiff?  Well, they've been lying around the living room (craft room) ever since and I got sick of moving them... so I used them up on a journal page.

I started by using Bora Bora Fresco paint in the wrinkle free distress method, by puddling it with water to thin it on the craft mat and laying the journal on it, and then the same with Claret, drying in between and repeating to fill the page.  

 I glued the hearts onto some mesh and glued that to the journal page. The hearts had already been brushed with Treasure Gold (white fire)

I rummaged through my stamp drawers and found this one (by Paper Inspirations) and then edged the page with Vintage Photo distress ink to give it some definition.

Patterns in Paint

After getting such lovely patterns in the olive green journal page I did the other day (here) I decided to have another go.

I dripped some Fresco paint onto one side of a journal double spread - Squid Ink and South Pacific, which I partly spread with a paintbrush.  I then used the comb (it's meant for use on a Gelli Plate) and dragged it through the paint (you can see it just above the journal)

It was a bit dark, so I added some drips of Snowflake and repeated.  The right hand page started with swiping the comb onto the page to remove the excess paint, then I added some more South Pacific and combed through.

I used each edge of the comb to get different widths of patterns.

When I got the backgrounds how I wanted, it was time to decorate.  I was using this flower stamp (ELB01) for something else, at the time and stamped it repeatedly in black archival over both pages.

I had one fabric flower left (after the "kimono mannekin" in the last post) and added that to the bottom corner, but it needed words...

So I took the words from two of the Lin Brown sets  for Paperartsy and stamped them on watercolour paper, using Peacock Feathers on one to double stamp, and Ripe Persimmon on the other, and left two just in black.  Trimmed them and edged them all with the same distress ink.

More Darcy inspired "magic"

Well, I had no hope of emulating Darcy's Geisha Kitty  which I think was one of the most extraordinary and gorgeous things I've seen for ages.... but I did like the idea of gesso-ing fabric for strength and took it from there...

I remembered in my stash I had a little pose-able mannekin (from the Works) and decided to make him/her a little outfit.  It looks a bit more like a bandit's blanket robe thing than a kimono, but hey ho!!

I have some poly-cotton fabric I got last year at the Craft Barn (no fabric shops near me!) and cut it in rough kimono/wrap shape, with slits for arms and head, then painted it with gesso.  (couple of coats)

Once dry, I stamped the harlequin background from Letters 5 in black archival. and a couple of flourishes (HP1006) in aquamarine archival.

When that was all dry, I watered down some Bora Bora Fresco paint to create a thin enough wash not to obliterate the stamping (Bora Bora being opaque)  and then painted some white satin ribbon in Bora Bora too, for the edging (and to hide my rough cutting!)
Looking back again at Darcy's I should have cut the fabric to fit it to the mannekin better, but there we go! Rough and ready, that's me....

I wanted to try and make a hat or umbrella thing too, I had already stamped in paint, onto fabric, the large flower from ELB01 and decided to use that. I added a couple of coats of gesso to this too, to stiffen the fabric first.  Much fiddling then ensued... tried matches, had no cocktail sticks, or bamboo skewers or anything thin enough... cut the ends of a cotton bud in the end and tried to fix it to the fabric.. I tried glossy accents. kept falling over... tried grunge paste (would have worked,if I hadn't kept picking it up to stage it, and it wasn't set enough..)

 in the end I went back to glossy accents and used lots, waiting impatiently for it to dry..

Well, it is an attempt at Geisha Mannekin lol!! Thanks for another fab week of projects, Darcy, I loved them all.

Linking it here for Paperartsy 

If I had wings...

After a fabulous twitter party last night for my birthday, I have been very lazy all day today (too much food, none of it the virtual kind, lol) but this evening I've recovered and started work in a new journal - a little Moleskine notebook.   Now, I know I call my other journal my moleskine but I don't think it is a proper one, just has a nice soft cover.... this is a proper one.

Anyhow, you may remember that a few weeks ago on Darcy's last guest spot at Paperartsy, she had us making our own patterned paper and I covered one of the notebooks here 



So tonight I opened it and started playing - with bits of leftovers from various projects and some fibres that came on a tag with an online order....

 Stamps are by Paperartsy, inks are a mixture of Distress and archival.

The mesh was the left behind bit of the diecut bird I used on this project  that I knew I'd use one day, I crumpled some Paperartsy crackly paper and brushed on some Treasure Gold (Renaissance) before gluing the mesh to it. The TG was carefully placed to become the bird's body.

A quick bit of fun!

Daisy, Daisy....

The other day I treated myself to another one of the new Jo Firth-Young stamp plates for Paperartsy... and this is about the first time I've had to play with it...

I also used the Green Olives Fresco paint which I also bought the other day.. you get the idea!

 I painted the pages with the green olives paint, then dragged a scraper through it to make a design (this is a plastic tool for use on the Gelli plate which I don't have) and although I bought it some time ago, I've not used it before.

Stamped the flowers in black archival and painted them in with watered down Honey Dew Fresco trying to keep the words visible in the petals.

 I've used some of the home-made tape that I created after Darcy's Paperartsy post earlier this week, as it tones colourwise and uses the little flowers from this same stamp set.

 I really really love this dragonfly stamp!! I highlighted the wings with sparkly gel pens
and also outlined the flower petals with one too.

This is my third post today... crikey!

Dragons Dream- Tag It On

Welcome back to another Dragons Dream Tag It On challenge - Elizabeth would like you to incorporate on your tag, the theme Coastal, Mica and  a Flourish. Mica comes in many forms, from the flakes, to mica powders and sprays. Don't forget to use one real stamp on your tag.

I took a square tag and stamps by Art Impressions.

I used scattered straw and tumbled glass distress for the sand and sky, and salty ocean for the sea.  Stamped the lighthouse/clifftop scene and the gulls on rocks and coloured them with distress markers.

I found my pack of long neglected mica flakes and separated a thin layer on which I stamped the single gull.  Added some seashells to the bottom corner of the tag and some fibres...

At this stage I was writing up the instructions and realised I had missed the flourish element... hmmm

So I cheated. I took a Stampscapes cloud image and using Snowflake Fresco paint, stamped part of it in the sky. Then I took a flourish stencil and using Grunge Paste added part of a flourish in an attempt to emphasise the clouds... doesn't really work does it....!!   I tried to sand it off but just wrecked the tag... good job I'd already got this photo... Sorry, Elizabeth, I am sure our contestants will do much better!!

WOYWW 212 - the birthday edition!

Happy WOYWW to you all - week 212. Today happens to be my birthday and I am off work - the redundancy finally got sorted out (not that I've received the settlement money yet) and I finished last week - well, technically on 30th June but I had some holiday owed to me.   Luckily, I start a new job next Monday and I can't wait.

As several of you know, the last year has been somewhat stressful for a variety of work-related issues but I feel sure that the path ahead will be a happy one! To those of you that have offered support in a variety of ways, (emotional mainly) I thank you.

Anyway, you've come to see my desk.. Well, I had to treat myself to a few little presents... yes??

some stencils, stamps paper paint and stickers. (for journalling)

I have been spending this week mainly watching the tennis from Wimbledon - it's only a few miles from where I live, but apart from the fact that tickets are so hard to come by, this way I can see loads of matches at once!!   But I have also had a bit of a tidy up!!!!!!  Made some more space at the computer (still not got a satisfactory seat, but you can't have it all) by moving some magazines to the other room and pushing back the boxes that used to crowd me in.  It looks very different to me anyway!

I really need a proper height table for my computer, then I could have a normal chair to sit on it at, instead of this silly stool with cushions!

I've been working on home-made tapes for a Paperartsy challenge (see yesterday's post)

and this was the arial view on Monday night (Craft Barn Alpha challenge in progress)

I could get used to this being at home lark, I have had a really relaxing time so far this week.

I'll do my best, in between cake and celebrating, to get round as many of you as I can!!

Tissue tape - Darcy Style

Darcy's second project for Paperartsy this week, was home-made tissue/Washi tapes. She made loads and today a fabulous storage chest for them.  I have had a play, but only done some shorter lengths so don't think I'll be making the storage unit!

Here are mine - I used double sided tape -( I only have a narrow one) - one strip of masking tape (the red one) and the rest are microporous tape from the supermarket.

 
Because I didn't take the backing off the double sided tape when I coloured them (I knew I'd never get it back on again) they've curled up badly.  I am not so fond of these but the rest are ok!


I really like the bluey-green one with the dragonfly (from a JoFY plate I just got yesterday!) I think that's my favourite. Mainly because of the two-tone colour on the tape - an accident through me using cut and dry that had some blue on it from one of the others. Lucky accident indeed!

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - B

This fortnight the letter from our dictionary chosen by the Craft Barn, is B.   Now, it's my birthday this week  (tomorrow in fact), do I choose birthday?  Nearly did.. or butterfly, or bird or.... but in the end I decided on "bulb" I have some really old stamps by PSX (Personal Stamp Exchange) who sadly are no longer around.... and luckily 3 of them are of pictures of flowers that happen to grow from bulbs.

Here is my page.

I stamped each image on watercolour paper and coloured them with pencils and a waterbrush.

The background of the dictionary page is painted with Paperartsy Fresco paint in Sage (love this colour!!)

 The close ups were taken before I flicked some Tea Dye distress re-inker over the page (trying to make them look more like aged botanical prints)

the flourish stamp is a Hero Arts stamp, in olive archival.

Painting on Fabric - inspired by Darcy Wilkinson for Paperartsy

Yesterday, Darcy was welcomed back to the Paperartsy blog for another week of designs - with what she laughingly described as a "simple" project... an apron, that not only did she decorate beautifully but she made from scratch too..... No way could I do that, and I didn't think I'd find one in time to enter the challenge.

So I decided that it would be possible to decorate instead the over-sized man's tshirt that I wear for painting and stuff down at Mum's - though maybe not in future!!

First I had to buy some fabric medium which helps make the paint fast on fabric and can be washed once heat set (iron or tumble dry, Leandra suggests)   That done, I got to work - had to cut a stencil for some lettering as the largest alphabet stencil I had wasn't big enough.

Shock horrors, I decided that the best place to work, was on the ironing board... I laid the tshirt over my larger craft sheets, to stop any paint getting through to the ironing board cover, (heaven forbid that anything I next ironed (!!!) should be contaminated by paint) - and of course to protect the back of the tshirt.

 I used the cardboard backing to a writing pad to draw my stencil and cut it with a craft knife.  I used a pencil and then a Faber Castell Pitt artist pen (which says it is permanent and waterproof) to outline the letters.  I started with just ART and then thought I'd add to it..

 well, that's me, Stamping by H - or Art by H this time!  (I can dream!)

 then I chose my stamps - went for JoFY stamps

 and set to work painting them.

 I mixed the paint/fabric medium on my spare craft sheet, which is the right size to work from on the ironing board (who knew how handy the ironing board could be...)

Then once it was all finished I had to try and photograph it...

which was easier said than done.. so I went for the bathroom mirror....

 ah, back to front of course...

 turned the camera round, trying to line up the tshirt in the view finder/mirror (won't tell you how many I took to try and get this!!)

It's not as elaborate as Darcy's beautiful apron, but it is stamping/painting on fabric!!
Entering this to the Paperartsy blog challenge (which I was a random winner of last week, thanks Leandra and Gillian!!)

Crafty Boots - Anything But a Square

The delightful Faye sets the theme for the Crafty Boots challenge this fortnight, "anything but a square" and I decided to go for something a little different (certainly for a while)

I took a giant jigsaw shape and painted it with Paperartsy Fresco paints, firstly in Stone to give it a base coat, and then stencilled some Grunge Paste through the reverse chickenwire stencil (the crafters workshop) - this is still one of my favourites, and it takes the Grunge Paste so well.

 I then covered the whole piece with Pansy using a brush and once that was dry, added a little Eggplant over the stencilled areas

before highlighting it further with Moonlight.

I took a fabric flower which just happened to be white edged with purple and painted a bottle cap (first Little Black Dress, then Moonlight, then a very light layer of Eggplant) and made a hole through it for the game spinners.

Added the sentiment (Wendy Vecchi) and some toning Prima flowers.

Hope you like it and don't forget to see what my DT buddies have been doing too.

Pale and (almost) Interesting?

Having been in a bit of a crafty non-space this week, I'm back with another post.  A few days ago the uber-talented Lin (Yoursartfully) shared a delightful frame she'd made using pale neutral colours. This afternoon whilst not watching the cricket (rain delays play) I came up with this journal page in similar neutral colours, as I thought Lin's frame was absolutely gorgeous.

I had already got a double spread in my journal painted with Mushroom Fresco paint, and simply went from there

Today, I added Grunge Paste through the Mini Ledger stencil that came on Friday (not sure how I existed so long without this one!!)

and then using cut and dry foam, blended Vanilla and Sage Fresco paints softly , mainly over the Grunge Paste, but not exclusively.

 Added some splatters (Mini 72) using Mud Splat and stencilled Snowflake through the reverse chickenwire, randomly.

 Mini 29 (postmark) stamped randomly without a block, in Olive archival ink.

and then stamped the owl (ID02) twice on watercolour paper (it was out from my Tim tag in the last post... ) using Pumice Stone distress ink, edging lightly with Walnut Stain , spritzing the stamp before stamping onto the paper, to aid the watercolour effect.

Added the text (HP1204) in black archival.

All stamps are by Paperartsy

Tim's 12 Tags of 2013 - June

Well, finally three quarters of the way through June (how, already?!) I have a chance to try Tim's tag for June - all things distress - paint (don't have any) stains, inks and markers.  Tim's version is gorgeous (of course) and can be seen here 

I don't have any of the blue-print style stamps that Tim used, so I found one that was closest in style that I could use.  This is my version of the tag.

As I say, I don't have any of Tim's Distress paints, so I used the Pewter stain as well as Spiced Marmalade and Bundled Sage on my tag background, and for the water-colouring on the paper, I used Bundled Sage, Broken China, Wild Honey and Barn Door distress markers.

Thanks for another great tag Tim.