I love Dusty Teal too... for JoFY at Paperartsy

JoFY - Jo Firth-Young - was back at Paperartsy this week, sharing some projects she'd made with her limited edition paints and her stencils... and when I got back from Kew Gardens this afternoon, I was straight down to the floor to have a go...

 I think Dusty Teal is one of my favourite shades full stop.  As Jo did, I mixed it with Chalk to cover both sides of the door hanger

 and stencilled some of the flowers from Jo's stencil - so glad I got this the other week!!

 what a mess on the craft sheet!

 used the same scratchy circle from the Ellen Vargo set that Jo used...
my outlining on the stencilled petals is a little heavy handed in some areas, but some of them I'm happy with! I used an outliner pencil from my Inktense pencil tin.

Thanks, Jo, this was great fun to do.

Entering the Paperartsy challenge here 

WOYWW 260 - the 5th anniversary!

So, we've cropped  which was fabulous fun - lots of you have stopped by and read all about it, and now we get to swap ATC's on this,the 260th week of this great desk hop. Just in case you're visiting from another planet, Julia has all the info here

Here's my desk this week - back to the floor, after the fun of working at a desk on Saturday!

the atc's I received on Saturday - from deskers there and deskers who sent them in advance care of Julia - thank you all, they are fabulous!

 My raffle prize - donated by the lovely Janet - love the mug she painted herself! - the other side says "mess is more" - yup!

 the fabulous tote I bought from LLJ - it's just beautiful!

This was my suitcase I took to crop - do you think I took enough?
I don't seem to have taken a picture of my desk at the crop, which is very remiss of me!  Suffice to say i spread out a lot (though most of the contents of the case stayed in there on the floor!)

My atc's - created from a few masterboards using JoFY Paperarsy stamps, and cut up. I kept them simple this year!

I'm looking forward to seeing lots more pictures of the crop and your desks too, so I'll be there as soon as I can!

Scribbly birds...and baby wipes

My gorgeous "secret santa" journal from 2013 is now nearly full - one double page and the final single page, left after this one... Virginia, this has been the best present ever!  Good job I've got a similar one to go onto soon...
I was using Eggplant Fresco on Saturday at the WOYWW crop, so this started as drybrushing the leftover ink onto the journal. I went diagonally for a change!

Didn't take any early shots!! I added stencilling also in Eggplant, with the'coffee splat' Crafters Workshop stencil, (added some of the splots in Squid Ink too) and the little squares (Carabelle stencil from Paris) in grunge paste

I stamped the bird to the page at the bottom, then glued a piece of trellis (the Tim Holtz one, I am sure you recognise it) to the journal,

The scribbly bird was stamped on a dried baby wipe in mostly Eggplant but a little South Pacific, I've been saving it for weeks for a perfect project - stamped the bird onto the baby wipe and cut it out, not bothering with the feet or wing, as that is on the page behind it.

 I dry brushed Bora Bora over the dried grunge paste and also the trellis behind the bird.

From my stash of die cut leaves that Sam sent me a "while" ago , before my die arrived, I took 3 white leaves and brayered Beach Hut over them, I wanted a patchy look with some of the white still peeking through.

 I used cut'n'dry foam to added Little Black Dress round the edges of the pages and black archival to stamp the "tweet chirp" from the scribbly birds set

and a Lin Brown text from ELB06

Really had fun with this one, thanks for looking.

The Craft Barn Q&L Challenge - 10 Music and/or Passion

Last week saw the latest Craft Barn challenge but as it was later than usual I couldn't get it done until today. I decided what to do, though during the week - and for the first time this challenge, I've gone for lyric.  Kiki Dee's "I've got the Music in me"

 I wanted to do something with the Dylusions silhouette stencils, since you get the positive and negatives - and my idea was born...
I used Peacock Feathers distress, for my background,

 and in the "space",  Shaded Lilac

 we'll fix the white gappy bits later...

I put the outline back over the page and stamped my music background in the silhouette ("I've got the music IN me", being the lyric)
I used Ranger Watering Can archival ink so there wasn't too much heavy black because my next step, was to..

write the lyrics round the silhouette.  I used the Dylusion stamp block to draw wavy lines in pencil on my page, but having to keep the pencil lines faint so they could be erased, also meant I couldn't see where they were, so my writing still went a bit astray.. I wrote the lyrics with a medium nibbed Pitt Artist Pen, then drew the lines in, in bold, and went over the lettering again to make them more prominent.

All in all (apart from one mistake which I've almost managed to get away with) I'm quite pleased with this...

Entering the Craft Barn Q&L challenge here 

Journal page - inspired by Helen M for Paperartsy

Hello again, this is amazingly my third post of the day!!
I have been loving once again the Paperartsy GD projects this week but only had time for one... Somewhat unsurprisingly for me, it's a journal page, inspired by Helen Mazengarb

Helen's page used Lynne Perrella stamps, but I went for Paperartsy and some sunny buttery-yellow and orange tones of Frescos.

 Over my gesso'd layer (which I don't normally bother with, but did this time) I used first Vanilla, then Haystack, Pumpkin Soup and Tango.  However as you'll see, I got distracted from taking pictures after this one...
The tissue paper I used was very thin and tended to disintegrate under the matte medium, so I added a couple more layers.

until here!!  I stamped my main image from the new Hot Pick (HP1301) in black on the journal page (mainly because I didn't read thoroughly enough to do it in an orangey colour, but I like it!)

the single flower comes from HP1009 and the single butterfly HP1203, I've used Saffron and Orange Blossom archival inks.

the butterfly on the collage stamp was as Helen M did, stamped on paper (I used Smoothy) and coloured with Tango Fresco, then when dry added some Yellow Submarine.  Once cut out, I added a couple of layers of Satin Glaze.

Had great fun, and am entering this to the Paperartsy challenge here 

A new journal - work from the Crop

So, I did do some crafting yesterday at the WOYWW crop, in between all the eating (including the most delicious lemon drizzle cake ever..) talking - old and new friends; and taking pictures - there was time to "work" too.

I finished this page that I'd been faffing with for a while - it started life as the mop up colours from my Darcy Month 4 journal page - JoFY limited edition colours, mainly. This was my "warm up"

Added stencilling and stamping to the background and some stencilled grunge paste through the JoFY stencil which I then coloured and outlined

Stencilled some of the Dreamweaver crackle paste through another JoFY stencil and dried overnight (this is where it was left before Crop..

added some bottle-top circles and tissue flowers, and some words...

 - with some Dina Wakley words from the collaged hearts set.










So, onto my main aim for the Crop - to start recording some of my Paris trip in journal format!

 It's an A4 spiral bound journal I got in Rymans stationers and has quite thick paper.

The first page - I used the bluey Frescos I took - Antarctic, Bora Bora and Dusty Teal.
I used torn pages from a French magazine I picked up in the Hotel foyer, and grunge paste through the "art is" stencil, which I dry-brushed with Yellow Submarine.

 the Paperartsy Mini stamp in the top corner got covered up in the end, the placement was wrong..

I used a map from a guide brochure (it opens out, thanks to Julia's suggestion for that, it was brilliant, don't know why I didn't think of it myself...)
some Metro tickets and one of my photos from Notre Dame (again, thanks to Julia for the printing!!

The sentiment is one I took on purpose, from the Paperartsy HP1204 plate. - it says it all really, grasp the moment - especially with fab friends that I went with!

So, that page I finished yesterday, then on to the next two... which I finished this morning at home.

 I was working on two at once, I had 2 more photos I definitely wanted to use... and the colours in the photos dictated my backgrounds.  I seem to have only taken a picture of this one, before I added the photos... Chartreuse green as the background, some French stamps and more stencilling (Guacamole), and another torn page from the magazine.  I used the LB bubbles stencil and the circles stamp we got in the class we took in Parish.

 the left page, I used my Eurostar checkin confirmation as my background and watered down Eggplant, and some stencilling with Spanish Mulberry

My favourite photo, the zoomed in one of Sacre Couer from theArc de Triomphe, the sky was greyish due to the foreclosing of the zoom, it was actually bluer in real life, but the zoom enhances the clouds.

The sweet wrapper is a lovely musky pinky colour that just goes, and I used some of the acetate butterflies from class (let's be honest, I am not going to finish the tags now!!)

 on the right, we have Lin (hence the colour choice of background, from her top), Emma and Sam

The hotel welcome leaflet, the ticket from the Arc and more acetate leftovers!

Hope to do some more, soon!

WOYWW - The Crop

I can't wait until Wednesday for this post and as it certainly ain't gonna be short and sweet it wouldn't be "allowed" anyhow!!
Our beloved leader, Queen Julia of the Desks was kind enough to ask me to stay over on Friday night, and I took a day's leave to go down early - I offered my services for last minute help prepping in return. Sadly British Rail (or whoever they are these days!) had other ideas.

Safe to say that a fatality on the line at one of the stations I have to travel through, and then later (much later as it turned out) a tree on the line right outside the station Julia collects me from, caused cancellations, diversions, delays and woop woop, eventually a train to Andover...2 hours late. Hey ho. I'm laughing now... kind of.

 8.30 Saturday morning saw me at "home" - working on the floor - making a banner for the door - hope you all appreciated the pretty decorated border (ha ha)

 Deskers start to arrive - Maggie (Silvercrafter) and behind her, Debbie and Ali.

 Jan already at work in the kitchen, making tea and coffee - Di (in pink) and MaryAnne collecting orders!!

 sitting is one of the hubbies... sorry, can't remember whose, or his name! In the hat is Dianne (Morti)'s daughter (whose name I also didn't catch.. Dianne just visible behind her, Shaz,, MaryAnne and Kyla

Christine, Chris and Cindy

 Lynda (checking out the sale table) Kyla and Shaz

 our camera-shy leader Julia making the "welcome" speech

 and Jan (LLJ) receiving a thank you gift - she does all the hard work (cooking) for the day. Love you, Jan!!

Group shot - Mr LLJ, Gordon, comes to take group shots - there will be lots more on lots of your own blogs too, I know.

 Jan showing off her pinny, as she lays out lunch (wonderful as always, Jan..)

Ali and Lynda  tucking in..

MaryAnne, Dianne and Shaz

 back to work - at the table next to Dianne and MaryAnne are Lisa-Jane and Fiona

 Kyla's well protected workspace - at last, someone else who makes as much mess as I do!

 Ali and Jan - Jan is helping Ali with some crafting - scissors at the ready!

the lovely Zoe and Lisa who came to help her. Love the blue wheels, Zoe!

 Lisa-Jane and Fiona, hard at work

Nicky (Minxy) working so hard, concentrating!
SO glad you made it, Nicky, well done you!

 Maggie Debbie and Cindy

 Debbie and Julia deep in conversayion (lots of that going on all day)

MaryAnne, Cindy and Chris

 ooh, here we are, home again... case not quite as tidily packed this way, but it did all fit without me having to use the spare bag!!

 I kept the banner - Julia didn't want  to keep it till next year, can you imagine?! and my gorgeous tote I bought, made by Jan, with the money going to their chosen charity this year, the Alzheimers Society, and my raffle prize..I'll show it properly on Wednesday (if I remember!)

close up of the tote, and Jan's "ATC" - a lavender bag..

Photos of the crafting I did (because I did do something other than chat, eat and take photos) to come in a separate post...

Thank you to Julia and Jan especially for all your hard work this year again, and to all of you fellow deskers who came - it was lovely to see those of you who've been before, and those who came from far and wide this time. Now I have made more friends!