DragonsDream - TIO - A book, green, paint, stencils/masks

This fortnight, my wonderful friend Gabrielle is setting the receipe/theme for the DragonsDream TIO challenge - and she wants us to have a book of our choice, green, paint and stencils for our tag.  Don't forget you must use one real non digi stamp on the tag....

Confession time!  I had an inspiration the morning I was making this tag, and was done in record time... till I realised I hadn't used paint or stencils... back to the drawing board!!

My book is "Little House on the Prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, one of my favourites growing up as a child, a series of books telling the adventures of a family growing up on the Prairie in the Midwest  USA in the late 19th century. My tag captures their little house in the big woods (the first in the series) mixed with the prairie and their fears of harvest ruined by the birds in the fields....

I started with the stencil of the birds - my new Stencil Girls stencil, and used cut and dry foam to apply Mudsplat Fresco paint.

Then it was on to Stampscapes stamps, and distress inks for the winding path to the cabin, (which is archival ink) and the cloudy sky.

The girls on the path, are of course, Laura and Mary, the older sister.

Hope you enjoy this one, and come join in the fun at DragonsDream. We know you're busy getting ready for Christmas but would love to see you dream along with us... Me, I want to go re-read the books now!


(edit - sorry, got the scheduling wrong, it was ready, honest!)

WOYWW 234

Well we are here again... Ready to desk hop? Ok, let's get going...Julia's waiting for us at the Stamping Ground 
Shame I haven't got anything exciting to show you that I've been doing this week...oh hang on, I got some new stash a few days ago..

 Afraid this is a staged shot, I seem to have forgotten to take a picture when I opened the post! As you can see, I've already used the new Tim stamps (well one of them!)

and here's the full journal page.

the stamps are "put away" (well, this is as put away as things get round here...) the box to the left contains my Fresco paints (under the stencils, which I really need to find a better storage solution for...)
Please don't comment on the threadbare carpet... can you imagine how difficult it would be to empty this room to get a new carpet installed...

I hope to have something more interesting to share next week - I am away for the weekend in York at the Christmas market, so who knows what I'll find there!

Till then, have a good week, and happy WOYWW...

Another journal page..

A few days ago I received in the post a set of Tim's Classics 3 stamps... and so it was time to play.

I had some leftover paint on a left-hand journal page, but it looked a bit muddy (Squid Ink, Eggplant and very little Yellow Submarine), so lightened it with sage Fresco and made a matching one on the other side.

Did some stencilling in Little Black Dress and Snowflake, and the mini Roman Letters stencil, randomly

Went in with some of the new stamps and Seedless Preserves distress ink

 Then stamped the column (from Tim's Classics 2) in Watering Can archival - some upside down for a bit of variety









and finished it with a Tim sentiment stamp, cut into sections, edged with Walnut Stain distress.

Craft Barn - Alpha Challenge - S

The fortnightly Craft Barn Alpha Dictionary challenge is nearing the end - this time we are set "S" of which my dictionary had lots of options... so I've chosen one and used a few others along the way!

so my main word is "season" and I used a set of Hero Arts stamps and stamped each of them in distress ink on a piece of white card (bundled sage, mowed lawn, rusty hinge and iced spruce seasonally!)

 I painted the background with lilac Kaisacolour paint, and stencilled a border round the page using dusty concord distress ink.  I cut the images into squares with some squiggly scissors and setting some of them at a slant on my page... ok, it's getting silly now! (I did spare you the colours!)


close up of winter!

This was a quick, fun one to do!

Can't wait to see how many different S's there are!


*edit*  seeing your comments I thought I'd clarify things about these stamps - they are a set, of 4 all slightly different stamps - look closely and you'll see Spring just has leaves, Summer has flowers, Autumn the leaves are falling and Winter, it's snowing...

Inspired by Liz Borer - a Paperartsy challenge

This week, Liz has been back at Paperartsy with some fun projects blending Fresco paints and making some fabulous projects  - the background to this three part panel used clingfilm in wet Fresco and I had to have a go at that, and the blended blues on this one were gorgeous!

this is the first time I've used my MDF plaques -  the first coat of Frescos (Bora Bora and Antarctic I think) with the cling film were a bit faint

I did find some extender to make the drying time longer, (it's meant for fabric painting and is what I bought when I was painting the t-shirt Darcy style for an earlier in the year Paperartsy challenge!)

 so I went over with a mix of more paint, it was only an hour or so ago but I've forgotten which - think it must have been Beach Hut

better!

 I then stencilled some grunge paste snowflakes (Dylusions stencil)  and painted a layer of Satin Glaze over the mdf.  I painted the tree (Darcy's of course) on tissue... glued and sealed it with matte medium to the mdf.

blended some Beach Hut and Inky Pool round the edges to make them a bit darker and brushed some White Fire Treasure Gold over the top of the snow flakes and on the Tim Holtz charm.

I'm entering the Paperartsy challenge (here)   and Anita's Artyinklings challenge ("Christmas") here

WOYWW 233

Well, here we are again. Wednesday. WOYWW day...

No Christmas cards on my floor this week, I've finished... woop woop! Here they are in the box waiting to be written and posted.

Straight after I said I hadn't been crafty shopping for 2 weeks, I saw on twitter that Leandra at Paperartsy had got some new stencils in... well you know me and stencils!  (and then I saw details of a sale at Craft Emporium and splurged again...on some stamps - but they're not here yet)








They're by Stencil Girl and are from the States, but Leandra has got some in to see how they do.  You may have seen I tried them out at the weekend...


I found it quite hard to work on something that wasn't a Christmas card, when I did this journal page - so I am hoping to get back in the swing of non festive crafting soon!  

Journal - I am so pleased to see you again...

Hello -  I sat down this morning to make some more Christmas cards, but before I did, wrote out the list of how I need to send them to, and then counted up how many I had done - and promptly was able to pack away the Christmas stamps - I've got enough!!  (well I will have one "special" one to do for my brother and sister-in-law, but that can wait) so, instead I was able to craft for me....

..... and didn't know what to do!! It's not that long since I did anything other than a Christmas card, surely??

So, as ever I took to my journal... and the new stencils that I bought last week..

 Love them!

 I had some blue paint on a double spread in the Moleskin journal... and used the church stencil with a mixture of Caramel and Toffee Fresco paints...

Added the  crow from a Crafty Individuals stamp and a Stampotique on tissue paper, some Paperartsy script/blobs

and on the left hand page used the birds in bush stencil and Little Black Dress... this got a bit splodgy, so I am not too happy with this page, and left it as it was...(it looks better in the photo funnily enough!)

and then as I wasn't too keen on the blue background, I did another one... using Caramel and Toffee on the background

 and a mix of Toffee and Chocolate Pudding for the stencilling of the church. The I was stumped!

 but thought about the bats (die, by Memory Box) that I bought just before Halloween and hadn't used... the meadow grasses are on a clear Inkadinkadoo set I bought a couple of years ago at the Newbury art show and haven't used this one before... stamped that in black all along the bottom of the pages, (I had to use the stamp without a block in the middle, trying to flatten the book as much as possible... hence the imperfect stamping!)

I do like these bats though, and how they look like they are flying out of the page at you..

 the text is a Judikins stamp I bought at Stevenage in August, one of the ones I got for £1 from a sale bin.

It means wisdom, having googled for a Latin dictionary, so I thought that was quite good for a church-y type page!!  I stamped it on white card and painted it with a watered down Caramel and then used Walnut Stain distress over it, spritzing and blotting some of the ink away.

oh journal!! it is nice to be back playing again!

Christmas cards with Joanne Wardle

This week, Joanne has been making some stunning clean and simple cards with Paperartsy stamps. I don't have the same ones Joanne used but quite by chance the Jo Firth-Young mini JM03 arrived on my door mat yesterday...

Here are my versions based on Joanne's bauble cards

Loved the white shading on the Kraft cardstock...

 or should stars be yellow?! (sorry it's a bit blurry!)

 and the bauble version of Joanne's

and I also did this one, left it mostly white apart from some edging with Evergreen Bough distress ink (had forgotten how much I love this colour!)

I painted the bauble with a couple of layers of Fresco Gloss Glaze, (that also happened to arrive yesterday...) though it doesn't show up in the photo...

Thanks Joanne for some great ideas and another 4 cards ready for me, yay!!  Check out the other fab entries to the Paperartsy Challenge here 

Dragons Dream - Tag It On - with a song...

So May's theme this fortnight, for DragonsDream is to have a Song of your choice, to use blue, bird and a crown on your tag.

I scoured my memory banks (and Google, lol!) for songs with birds in the title... and chose one I love, (there's a bit of a Rock Chick in me!!) - Free Bird, by Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1975.

I painted my tag with a mixture of Baltic Blue, Mermaid and South Pacific, Fresco paints.

Then stamped the grasses from Tim Holtz Urban Tapestry in the Fern Green archival ink (Wendy Vecchi for Ranger) .  The bird is Wendy's too, from Let Your Art Have Wings set, stamped on white card and coloured with Squeezed Lemonade, Rusty Hinge and Black Soot distress inks.  The crown is from my stash and is tied into some fibres at the top of the tag.

Hope you have fun with this challenge, good luck!

What's on your Workdesk Wednesday? Episode 232

Well, here we are again, Wednesday has come round and shown it's face again... Time for another gathering of the desks at Auntie Julia's here for all the info and linky.

You'll be amazed that for the second week in a row, there is no new stash to show you - how good am I?!
Instead, my desk workspace on the floor shows some more Christmas cards that I made the other day and which haven't made it to the box yet. The one with the quartered poinsettia was sparked after I used the same idea for the Craft Barn Alpha challenge last weekend  and I did the same on a black card blank.

Obviously I won't be putting away the Christmas stamps I've been using lots this year, until I have finished with them for this year...

So that's it for me today, short and sweet for once, as Julia likes!  (but if you're around in the early afternoon  you may catch another post with the new DragonsDream Tag it On challenge...)

Crafty Boots - Remembrance

Hello, welcome back to another challenge from Crafty Boots - it was my own choice of theme for this fortnight, and coming a day after Remembrance Sunday, and on Armistice Day itself, I couldn't have anything else.... you can make whatever you choose, but it must be in Remembrance of something or someone.

I decided on a card, and a Stamp in the Hand poppies stamp, which I coloured with Festive Berries and Mowed Lawn distress inks, and Black Soot for the centres.

I typed part a line of the poem The Fallen that is always read at Remembrance services on a piece of thin card and 3d mounted it to the card, adding my poppy too.

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - Q is for...

This morning saw another letter announced in the Craft Barn's dictionary Alpha challenge.... Q... My dictionary doesn't have many 'q' words in it but my eye alighted on one I thought I could do reasonably well... Quarter..

I started by dividing the page into four,  and began blocking the quarters in different shades of purple Fresco paints. I was going to leave the definition where it was and colour round it, but decided that looked odd so went to a spare dictionary and cut the word out from there! So, back to the painting...

 top row - Spanish Mulberry, Moonlight
bottom - Pansy, Eggplant

the spare dictionary paper is really really thin so I glued it to a scrap of white card and edged it with distress ink - don't ask me which brown it is, as it's just what was left on the brown blender 

I then took one of my favourite (this year anyway) Christmas stamps - the poinsettia by Penny Black (the stamp is actually called Winter Glow, for some reason) and stamped it onto a piece of card. I kept to the purple theme and used Seedless Preserves distress for this. Cut the flower into quarters and fixed as shown.

I hope the link to the challenge will continue to work, as I understand that the Craft Barn are moving their blog to Wordpress soon, but it should be ok for today at least!

Now, I should get back to Christmas cards.....

Inspired by Alison at Paperartsy

The oh-so talented Alison has been back at Paperartsy wowing us with some amazing projects again this week.  I am trying to make my Christmas cards as well, so have borrowed the ideas (some of them) from her tags on day one (here)  and put them on some cards.

 I used the starry Dylusion stencil, and Space Cadet, Antarctic and Ice Blue Frescos. Rather than flip the stencil over onto the second square of card, I put the card on top and lightly pressed it.

Added distress inks, Shaded Lilac, Tumbled Glass and Chipped Sapphire

 some stamping - a couple of Christmas greetings in Antarctic and Pea Coat fresco, and some snowflakes in black archival.

Glittered round the three largest stars and stamped a greeting on a scrap of card and used 3d foam pads to mount it to the card.

Thanks to Alison's great tags, I've got another 2 cards made!
Linking it here for the Paperartsy challenge.

A Darcy Challenge

Happy Saturday to you - I am listening to my  beloved Liverpool thrash Fulham in the league, on the radio, and making Christmas cards... Darcy recently set a challenge to win a set of her stamps, by asking us to make as many different cards as possible using one stamp. So....

I didn't quite make it to 6 completely different ones, here are the 4 that I did...

 Stamped on watercolour paper and coloured with watercolour pencils. Edged with distress ink (iced spruce)

Sprayed Dylusions ink on dampened watercolour paper (funky fuschia and white linen) , fussy cut out (I am only doing one of these I hate fussy cutting!)  Stamp a large Christmas greetings background stamp on a card, edge in picked raspberry distress ink and added glitter.

Coloured with Inktense watercolour pencils.

 variation on a theme (I've done several in this colour combination as you will see below..)

Loved doing this, (to be honest I haven't done them all today, but I haven't blogged them before so I am allowed to enter them into Darcy's challenge!) but I think I'll go onto something that doesn't need so much colouring in now....!!

You have till noon tomorrow if you fancy taking up Darcy's challenge.

WOYWW - Christmas comes to Craft Club

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another day of desk hopping round the world, thanks to Julia at the Stamping Ground for WOYWW. 

Tuesday saw me at my sister-in-law's Craft Club for the first time in months - the first time since I started my new job in fact. I don't normally get home from work in time to eat and get back out again for Craft Club, but this month I happened to have the afternoon off work so along I went.

It was Christmas-themed so I took along supplies to make some more Christmas cards. I also forgot to take many pictures whilst I was there, so took these of my output, when I got home.

 in the foreground is some of my stamping stuff, I was spreading out as usual! Lots of sewing going on, and some other ladies were also making cards.

Thanks for the lift home, BJ - hope you made it home before you fell asleep!!

 I got 7 done....

and I now have quite a pile ready - all the insides stamped too! I will probably need to write out the list soon, so I know how many more to go - I usually get somewhere towards 70 made!

Hope you all enjoy your Wednesday, and I'll catch your desk soon.