Journalling inspired by Alison Hall for Paperartsy

A few days ago my talented crafty buddy Alison shared a painty splatty journal page for Paperartsy and I love a good painty drippage so here's my version!

 I started over an already painted page - I can't recall what colour Frescos these are... I took my new "Art" stencil I bought at Ally Pally and Marlin Fresco, outlined the letters with a white Sharpie marker, repeated part of the stencilling at the bottom of the page.

added stamping with Sara Naumann stamps in Plum Fresco and Cornflower Blue archival, and the small background text is Watering Can,  and the quote is black.

 for my drips I used Bombay inks in Turquoise, White and Magenta.The white has gone a little thick, and even having shaken it well and spritzed with water, it hasn't dripped particularly well, the others have though!

Entering this to the Paperartsy monthly challenge for September here

A card for a Magpie...

It was my lovely friend Julie Ann of Magpieheaven's birthday this week and as she's received her card I can show it in a little more detail.
the finished card

 I started with a piece of Smoothy paper and brayered paints from the new Limited Edition Lin Brown set - Marlin, Evergreen, Hint of Mint, and also some Beach Hut for brightness

 Stamped the flower from ELB01 in Plum, which is a gorgeous colour, from the Limited Edition set, with some second generation stamping too, for contrast;  plus text and splatters, I also flicked some paint splatters at it too.  Once I was happy with the background, I tore it to fit a card blank (6x6) and edged it with Plum Fresco, and a touch of Hint of Mint, just to lighten it a tad.

 I spritzed a paper flower with some paint I'd already mixed up some time ago - so I think it was probably Claret! and added Snowflake dots to the centre of the flowers, with the end of a paintbrush.

time to assemble the card!

The happy birthday comes from a JoFY set. The butterfly is a metal one, I painted it and spritzed it with Sunshine Colour Bloom spray

 I like how some of the petals still show white

and finally I added some Fresco Flakes by Stewart Gill - I was rummaging in some drawers of "old" stash for something with texture and came across these in just the right shade. Don't think I've ever used them and I know I bought them from Lin Brown at a show many many years ago!!

Glad you liked it, Julie Ann, and hope you had a fabulous birthday

Quick journal page - with new stamps!

Last week at Ally Pally, Leandra had some new stamps designed by Ellen Vargo which although we were allowed to buy, we had to promise not to show until they'd been officially launched.  Well, when I was out at Kew today (see pics here!) I saw a tweet that said they were launched.. so I had a play tonight, in my A5 journal.

I did take a close up but even though it's rotated the right way round in my folder, when I upload it, it turns round...
I used Guacamole on the page first, then added some stencilled little circles in Hint of Mint, but they didn't show up well, so painted a thin layer of Sage over the whole page, then added some more stencilled circles, before stamping the flowers from the new stamp set (there is a third one, a tulip, too) and coloured them with translucent Frescos - Zesty Zing, Yellow Submarine,Tango and Cherry Red. I stamped the coneflower on tissue and coloured it with the same paints, then cut it out - just the petals - and glued the top only, over the image on the journal page.  The grasses at the foot are from JoFY25 and at the top, from ELB10 .  The sentiment is from the new Ellen Vargo set.

So pleased to have been able to share these flowers with you!

Craft Barn Q&L 19 - Patience/Better

Just before I left for my (second) day at Ally Pally on Sunday I saw the prompts for the latest Craft Barn Q&L challenge - Patience and/or Better.  I didn't have time to start looking for my quotes until a couple of days later, and of course my last entry used better quite by chance as well as that prompt of Easier, and there were lots using Patience that I liked;  but rather than just re-enter the previous page again (grin!) I went with "Positive anything is better than negative nothing" attributed to Elbert Hubbard.

I took a piece of 12x12 tissue bought from Paperartsy and brayered on some Frescos (no step by steps , oops) I used Vanilla, Pumpkin Soup, Zesty Zing, Chalk, Haystack, Autumn Fire, Cheesecake and Caramel... not necessarily in that order...
before stamping using Pumpkin Soup and Snowflake, using Sara Naumann and Ellen Vargo stamps for Paperartsy

the petal by Ellen Vargo,  in Potting Shed archival
- and then I cut it all up into strips...

 Gluing it to my journal as shown... I used matte medium, under and over the strips to seal it well.


Typed my quote on a piece of thin card and cut it into individual words and glued them to the left page.

 I did wonder about putting a focal image on the right page, but can't decide what, so for now, it's blank!

entering the Craft Barn challenge here 

Dragons Dream TIO - W and Lace

Hi, it's time for another DragonsDream challenge, and my turn to set the theme this fortnight.  I chose W and lace.... couldn't tell you why, I had nothing in my mind when I did so... anyhow, when I sat down to make my tag, I knew kind of what I wanted to do, but wasn't sure how to bring it into being.. I wanted a Window.

After a false start or two, a rummage through an envelope of die cuts however, set me on my path  (thanks, Lin!)I completely forgot to take any step by step photos, though.

I spritzed the tag with Dylusions spray - I thought I'd used the Turquoise, but looking at the finished tag, it may be Calypso Teal... Anyhow, once the tag was dry, I added a good spritzing of White Linen and let that dry naturally.  I added some Potting Soil archival ink round the edges and stamped the Paperartsy Mini 95, the brick wall on my tag for the background.

 I glued two strips of lace to the main frame of the Window and then put the arches in place over the top.  I used matte medium to glue the die to the lace, and glossy accents to glue the frame to the tag; implemented a few heavy bottles of gesso and suchlike, to weigh the structure down while the glue dried...

I spritzed some flowers from my stash, with the Sunshine Prima Colour Bloom and let them dry before adding them to the tag, and a ribbon to finish.

Hope to see some great lace with your W words, on your tag - don't forget to use at least one real stamp too.

WOYWW 277 - a "little" pile of shopping..

Hi, welcome back for another Wednesday's snooping round  visiting the world's workdesks... Head Desk Monitor Julia has all the info here 

Well as some of my regular visitors have already seen, I spend both Saturday AND Sunday at Alexandra Palace (Ally Pally) filling bags with crafty goodies.. and catching up with friends and watching cool demonstrations... and doing some more shopping... The previous 2 posts give full details and a close look at what I got... but just for you, here's another view!

ha ha! all in a - very big - pile!  Flowers seem to have featured quite large in my buys, but there were trims and paints, canvases, stencils and stamps and.... duplicates!  I managed to buy a stencil I already have and a stamp set too...however, both are already sorted, the stencil I am selling to a friend and the stamp set I will swap for a replacement... I really must start taking the ring binder "catalogue" with me again!

I will be home part of this afternoon waiting for the Virgin telephone engineer to come and fix my home phone line - which I discovered on Friday wasn't working... Depending on how early I get sorted in the morning before work, I may update my desk (floor) shot with all the stuff I will have had to move to give him space to get to the phone socket on the wall in the corner!

(EDIT - here it is!  will remove all the dust this afternoon!)
It does also mean I may get some time to visit more desks than for a few weeks, as I won't be able to craft until he's been, as where I work is where he'll need access round!
In the meantime, have a great week, and happy WOYWW!

Ally Pally - day two... you know I said I wasn't spending????

Best laid plans of mice and men... it had to be done! "found" a few extra goodies I needed today, on day 2 of Ally Pally...

 the lovely Lin Brown was there today demo'ing with Leandra as Mark was at the trade show and JoFY has gone to the Handmade Fair at Hampton Court (may give that a go next year!)
Here are some of Lin's gorgeous backgrounds

 just scrummy aren't they?

 Cazz was there too today, lovely to see you again.

 we had the obligatory #patwit group shot, although Cazz had disappeared!  Millie, Leandra's daughter was there again today, manning the tills with Karen this time
L-R, Millie, Leandra, Lucy, Lin and Lin, with Julie Ann and Alison in front.
I also met Cindy, a fellow WOYWWer who was there today, and seemed to be having fun every time I bumped into her.

 more of Lin's masterwork

and - erm... a "little" pile of new goodies...some of them were bargains, honestly!!

Ally Pally - Day 1

Evening all... had a great day at Ally Pally for the autumn Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show - great company, great demos and great shopping...

 First stop as always is Paperartsy - Jo Firth-Young and Leandra demonstrating

looks like Jo's doing a Tommy Cooper impression "just like that" ... but was making some fab things with her stamps and paints

 and Leandra was rocking the backgrounds

 this was really fab IRL

 Jo crackling an MDF J...

 We did look elsewhere. This stand always has fabulously decorated mdf piecess,

 and the lady was demonstrating how to make this gorgeous flower... may be going back for supplies tomorrow!
Overall impressions, where there were less stalls there, certainly less people - although it was quite crowded early on - and nothing spectacularly new, apart from some new Hot Picks..!!

 but shop I did... various sizes of flat canvases, one of the new Hot Picks,some Prima bits and another Paperartsy stamp... that's the Paperartsy haul!

 some chip frames and shapes, lots of stencils (although I find I have the 12x12 numbers already, lol!!

some MDF letters (going to decorate them soon.. "create" they spell.  more stencils (bargains) pad of paper (standing behind the Clarity word strip stamps - got them Sam!!) mdf shapes, some Tim stamps and other bits and bobs.

It was great to put faces to names for some more twitter followers (Lynnette and Christine - Craftyfield) and meet up again with Alison, Lin, Jo V, and I've probably forgotten some more, sorry!!

Sorry about the photos, it was very dark when I took these and had to turn the light off to avoid the glare from the flash.

I am going back tomorrow, but apart from restocking some Frescos once I have checked which I need, and maybe some of those flower/seed bits won't be spending a lot!

WOYWW 276 - not a lot to see..

So here we are. Wednesday again already! This week's desk fest - well mine anyhow - is a little bare. and a little staged...

but it's as the result of a request!

Someone suggested a while ago, I should line up my journals (that I'd referred to as being like Goldilocks) so you could get an idea of the size... so here they are. With a 12 inch ruler for scale.

But that's quite a boring workspace to share and makes for a very very short post... so what else can I share? hmmm.

a bit of a show and shame photo - you can just make out the back of the chair under the pile of crafty goodies... all sorts on that chair (there is a box holding it all, honest!  the pile is getting higher and higher..

at the front, the blue box contains all manner of things - some sprays that don't see the light of day these days - buttons, flowers, all kinds.. and under that is another of the same boxes with more stamps in...

Maybe one week I'll open the lid for you. On the box, to the right is my pile of "made things" - tags mostly, for the Dragons Dream DT that I'm on - and to the left, another box with little bits in - Prima stuff mostly..
so that's me this week... hope you've had a good look round. Next week, there will undoubtedly, be new stuff to show, as this weekend sees the stamp show at Alexandra Palace (Ally Pally to it's friends) so........  Have a good week. and happy desking! Here's the link in case you need it!

Mop Ups and Leftovers..

When I was making the cards in the previous post, I spread the leftover paint in two of my journals that I am working in - my little A6 one and the A5 one I used in my late night crafting yesterday.
Here's the results - no step by step photos as I forgot!

 this is the A6 journal, stamps are Kaisercraft and I've accented some of the images with Plum, Hint of Mint and (for a change) Marlin - all watered down to add translucency.

this is the A5 journal, added some grunge paste through the Roman Numerals stencil, and Sara Naumann stamps by Paperartsy in Plum and Library Green archival ink.  Sorry about the photo, the daylight bulb wasn't angled right!

I stamped the "creativity" text on tissue in black archival and glued it with matte medium.

They're not just for Christmas...

... the Lin Brown new Limited Edition paints, that is.... I've been inspired by Wanda Hentges 's Christmas cards using Lin's new stamps and paints to make a couple of birthday cards that I need for this week coming...

I love Lin's new paint colours, so used the same three that Wanda did, and followed her method to make my background on a piece of Paperartsy Smoothy paper - Plum, Wintergreen and Hint of Mint (lush, all of them!)

 

 I was going to make two cards using a 6 inch square card blank as my base, so cut two squares that measured 5 and a half inches square, which left some handy offcuts, as we'll see!

 For the first card, I used the large flower from JoFY14 and the grass from JoFY25, the words are from JoFY26, stamped onto some of the offcuts.  I coloured the flowers with Inktense pencils and edged all the edges with a black chisel-nibbed pen.

I used foam pads to mount the words on the card before fixing the whole square to my card blank with double sided tape.










on the second square, I stamped the delicate script background from ESN11 in Library Green archival ink, before adding another scraping of Hint of Mint to knock it back into the background.

 the flowers on this one, come from JoFY10 and the butterfly - also on a piece of the leftover background - from JoFY9. I spritzed the cut out butterfly with Prima Colour Bloom Glistening Waves to add some shimmer

and words from JoFY11.

Entering the Paperartsy September challenge (inspired by Wanda) here

Artful Blooms journal page

After a very lazy evening and a discussion on twitter with some fellow #patwits about how little we'd all done this evening, I got my second wind and decided to finish a journal page I'd started sploshing some paint on a few days ago.

 I'd been using the new Lin Brown Limited Edition and Chalk  Frescos...

 and took out some of the Ellen Vargo scratchy stamps and more of the Plum and Chalk paints stamped randomly to start with, only it kind of ended up a border!

 and some lighter stamping in the middle

 I decided for my focal point I'd stamp the Lin Brown flower on tissue - I used Library Green and Plum archival inks...

 and painted the back, trying to keep to the painted bits only

before gluing it to the page with matte medium, and then stamped the artful blooms on tissue in black archival .

What was quite a quick page has turned into a late night so I'm off to bed now!!