Playtime!! Bee Happy...

Morning, all.  Was itching to get playing with some of my new purchase from yesterday - so despite a late night (was crafting at 11pm which I never do - you'll have to wait till Wednesday for that!)  and the F1 Grand Prix, I got started.

I took to a journal - the A5 one. The page had been used to use up various blues/purply colours from something or other but I added a touch of Buff (from the JoFY limited edition set I picked up yesterday) - I applied this with a brayer

 then I took the Prawn from the same set, and the Emma Godfrey stencil

 I stamped the honeycomb/circle stamp from JoFY32, in Cornflower Blue, and coloured the shapes with a light yellow and slightly darker yellow, gelato, which I blended with a barely damp paintbrush.

I planned to stamp over the top of this, so I sealed the page with the clear gesso (Prima, from Finnabair's line) - I obviously hadn't completely heat sealed the gelatos as the yellow smudged a little, or maybe I applied the gesso too vigorously, but it wiped off ok.

 in the end though, I stamped the beehive from JoFY30 on tissue, and painted it with watered down Pumpkin Soup to make it more translucent, and the roof with Snowflake.  Painted the reverse with a light coat of Snowflake to make the colours pop.  Stamped the bees and the texts, from the Beehive set.  I know beehives are traditionally white, but allow me some artistic licence!


I was doing this just for fun, but I happened to see that the Craft Barn weekly challenge is Quintessentially English - and I don't think there's much more English than a beehive, so entering this here


Now, what shall I play with next...?

Dragons Dream - TIO

It's nice to be back dreaming with the Dragons again for a new year of tag challenges...We hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year and are ready to find time to join in with the challenges again.

This year, we're starting with a colour plus "x"  theme. My teamie Elizabeth is first up with Turquoise and Bling...
I decided to do something a little different this time, although obviously I've still used tags! I also went with another kind of theme of my own, that of time - what with the years galloping by and this being the start of a New Year.

I took my tiny journal (A6 size) and painted both pages with Turquoise Fresco paint. used the mini Bee on Time stencil and South Pacific Fresco in the middle of the pages.
Stamped a clock from  Paperartsy Clocks 2 plate, randomly round the stencilled clock, in Forget-me-not archival ink.

Took 3 tags (size 1, 2 and 3) and stamped the texts from the Clocks 3 plate, on two of them and using a turquoise Sharpie marker, wrote "happy new year" on the smallest. Scuffed the edges and added Gelatos to colour the tags, and stamped some little clocks from Paperartsy Ding and Dong 2 plate in black archival ink.

Tied some blue twine through the tags and stuck them to the journal, then added the bling.. Structure Glass Bead Gel, and some pearls.

Please come and see what my talented teamies have done with this theme, and we'd love to see more people joining in - you need to make a tag, and use at least one real stamp, following the theme!

Dream...

Good Morning and welcome to 2015!  You find me playing in my journal for the first time in ages - I was bored yesterday evening waiting for the firework display from the banks of the River Thames in London - which were fantastic - and so I got out some sprays..

I had some daubs of black paint on a journal page, and took the Deco Art Media sprays - a red, and a turquoise shimmer (which really does catch the light now I can see properly this morning!) and white shimmer too.

 lots of drips and runs - these media paint sprays drip so well!

Cracked open my box of Gelatos and used a red and a turquoise round the edges, blending with a barely damp paintbrush

 Stencilled Little Black Dress Fresco paint through a Crafters Workshop stencil (Mini xoxo) round the edges and spine.

Stamped two of the images from TH Winged Things II on white Smoothy card (Paperartsy) and cut them out, coloured the wings and crown with gelatos and fixed to the page.

 Outlined the stamped images with a black Sharpie pen, then added some white shimmer splatters by just flicking the end of the mister spray (now need to clear up the stray splatters...)

Determined to play more in my journal(s) again this year - this is a good start
I'm entering this to the Country View Challenge - new things - as there are lots of new things here (sprays, stencils, stamps gelatos )

cheep cheep....

Been playing in my new soft covered journal with this and that... and the new JoFY paints and Darcy stamps...

 my first page is my two gelatos, in  a sky blue and brightish green, over stencilled grunge paste.

 I stamped one of Dina's scribbly birds at the bottom,in forget-me-not archival ink (Wendy Vecchi's) and whilst the ink was still wet, I blended the edges a little with a damp brush.

Had a die cut leaf from the Tim Holtz die which I painted green and edged with a green Portfolio pencil, stamped words from the Scribbly Birds set.

and at the bottom, used some glass bead structure gel . (had this ages, never used it before!)

 the right page I started after the new Limited Edition JoFY paints and the Darcy EDY10 set arrived yesterday...
painted the page turquoise, stamped the flowers, painted the centre of the hearts with Chalk Fresco so I could the translucent Cherry Red over the top, and the stems I painted in Sage

 some not too careful painting caused me to re-outline the hearts with a black micro pen, added the birds and text from the same stamp set.

Projects from the weekend crafting

Morning (oh, it's afternoon...) all...

Here are some more pics of the projects from the weekend.

Saturday we made a Lynne Perrella book full of stamped and stencilled fun.

 Lin had prepped some of the shapes with Chatsworth papers, some were left plain and we painted with Frescos
Back and Front covers, tied with beaded thread

 some of the smaller pieces were glued to the bigger ones

 and one left to form a smaller page

 so you can see both sides
Some of us "may" have done a little online shopping for some of the Technique Tuesday stamps we used (the set that these diamonds came from was gorgeous)

and the finished book.


Sunday was a day of techniques... as I said in the post yesterday, we tried loads of different things - tags galore!

 we tried gelatos (gone on the list!)
Love the one on the left, removing the gelato through a stencil with a babywipe, great resist!
the red one is gelato over a clear embossed stencilled image and the gelato removed, the drippage on the bottom one is great, and the other is just blended.

 silks - hmm not bad, may resist buying these, but I did like the detail painting with them!

 Colour Bloom sprays (got to have these!)

Love the pastel shimmer of the bluey/purple one (over gesso, but it does dry a bit sticky)

 oh, this should be rotated..colour bloom over fabric on a tag.

 and some silk screen printing - this was fabulous!!

 and on some journal pages, ready to play further with!

 we were a bit dubious about the black, but it looks fantastic!

these are in my big A4 journal so you can get an idea of the size a bit more.

We also stamped and stencilled over fabric covered tags, (left) and used Inktense pencils (already hav those, phew!) over grunge paste
You'll have to forgive my big blobby stems, when I painted over the grunge paste my stencil wasn't placed back accurately!

We also tried crackle glaze on fabric, but I've not got a picture of that as my crackle wasn't great - my top layer of paint wasn't thick enough - and brushos - but I mixed mud due to my poor colour choice so you're not seeing that either!
So a big thanks again to Lin B for her trouble with these workshops, and to Lin, Lesley, Karen, Emma and Sam for the fun.

I'm looking forward to some shopping (ahem) and playing with these tags and pages I started!