WOYWW 211

This week my desk is a bit of a mess - well the mat on the floor - I've been making my first ever tag book (inspired by Carol Quance for Paperartsy  which is now finished (if you want to see, check the post yesterday 

 oops...

Whilst I was taking the photos for the tag book post, I saw a beautiful sky - shame about the electricity cables!!

So that's it for me, short and sweet today. I hope to be able to visit lots of you today, as it will be quiet at work (hope to have some more news on that front next week - when it's my birthday in fact!)

Just realised I haven't told you why I'm sharing my messy floor space - check out Julia's WOYWW here

Tag Book - inspired by Carol Quance for Paperartsy

This week, it's Carol back at Paperartsy with a fabulous tag book - and I had to have a go. I have admired handmade books for ages, got a couple of books telling me how to do it - but this was the push I needed to actually DO one.

First of all, make sure you check Carol's posts for Paperartsy here and here telling you how it should be done.

I had a few problems (my fault, not Carol's step by step guide at all!) but I got there... There are lots of photos - but I won't tell you how I did it, as it's all in Carol's posts.

 inside covers - stone and blood orange applied while stone still wet.

 outside covers - baltic blue, limelight over the grunge paste stencilling, and quacamole, Renaissance Treasure Gold.

 covered one tag with one of the wrongly scored/folded pieces

 used up remnants of the papers. painted the edges with shaded lilac distress ink

 Next tag - both sides painted with claret and nougat paint, grunge paste through the reverse chicken wire stencil.

 fibres and ribbon, JoFy stamps - although I prefer the other side... stamped the head of the spiky flower on some painted manilla card and layered it over.

next tag - a steampunky feel with this scrap of paper

 and on the other side, coloured with portfolio pastels.

 tried to crackle this side (very berry and stone on top) but the crackle didn't very well, so sanded it back instead.

 this side is ok though! Very Berry again.

 the finished book

 due to my sticking error, I ended up with 4 pockets instead of 5. still don't know where I went wrong!!

Thanks so much Carol, this was an absolute joy to do - I am sure the next one will be much easier!!!

The cotton fibres saved it...

I've been faffing about with a journal page this afternoon, and it got to the stage where I nearly painted all over it and started again...

I tore some book pages randomly and glued them to the journal, then spread Inky Pool Fresco paint over it, inked the edges with Salty Ocean distress inks.

 Using an empty 35mm film canister, I stamped some circles over both pages, using Cobalt archival ink.  Added some black stamping with the Paperartsy mini 24, rolling the stamp to get partial images.  I used a babywipe over the inking to smudge it a little to distress it.

 Decided to add some crackle - (this time I definitely used crackle glaze) - spread it over the page, with a palette knife, not too worried to get total coverage.  Once that was dry, I used Stone Fresco paint.

This obliterated most of my background stamping, so I added some more over the top of the crackle layer.






However, it then felt I had gone too far, so I used a watered down sparingly applied layer of Ice Blue Fresco.

and added some more stamping using various of the Sara Naumann stamps for Paperartsy.   I edged the page with some Vintage Photo distress ink, knocking it back a bit with a babywipe.

Now it needed a final focal image.... I decided to go for one of the Lin Brown flowers for Paperartsy and stamped them on black card, using Bora Bora and Beach Hut (or maybe South Pacific, I've forgotten...!)
However, I felt the page needed something white too so found some cotton fibres that I'd saved since Christmas when I was fraying the edges of the cotton on which I'd stamped some of my Christmas cards... and glued it behind the cut out flowers.

At this point I thought it may have been easier to just stamp with the paint straight onto the cotton - so had to have a go to see what that looked like - as you can see I didn't bother to find a piece that wasn't all crumpled up in the packet!


I like this a lot, so think I'll be doing more of that very soon!! (Once I can find a way to stop it fraying,,, my sewing not being up to stitching round the edges, and I don't have a machine!!)

TIO - Red, book pages/text, embellishment

Welcome to another challenge from the Dragons Dream Team - it's my turn to pick this fortnight. I am asking you to use the colour red (as your main colour) an embellishment, and book pages or text.

I started with a kraft tag which I painted with black Fresco Paint then a layer of claret, and old gold, before adding the crackle glaze. The top layer is vintage lace, and then after it cracked, I dry brushed claret and old gold sparingly over it.  Lightly inked the edges with black soot distress ink.

The book is from some old book pages, cut in half, sprayed red, and sewn together with some sparkly red thread.










I painted an art part lady's face with vintage lace paint, and stamped the corresponding image on top, before colouring her with distress inks. (hair - wild honey, gathered twigs and frayed burlap; lips festive berries) (no close up due to camera shortcomings!)  Added some glasses (Blossom Bucket embellishment)

 I covered the front and middle of the book with rock candy crackle paint for some added texture (I wasn't sure how I'd display the book on the tag at this time!)

 the sentiment is from the Wendy Vecchi set 'Tales of Art' that the face comes from.

WOYWW 210

Hello, happy Wednesday - time for another What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday...Hope you are all well and crafty...

I've received another atc for the swap from BJ (don't worry, BJ I won't tell them the story...)

The crochet flower is a bit of a joke because last week at craft club BJ was trying to teach us crochet - most of the ladies picked it up but I was all fingers and thumbs and failed miserably, so I gave up....
(edit) BJ sent me the flower, it's not my work!

 Sorry, Mary-Anne but I went shopping...

 and this is some stencilled Grunge Paste (see Previous post for the Paperartsy challenge)

where I showed this journal page.


and if you come back later today, there's a new challenge for Dragons Dream Tag it On....

Journal page - inspired by France for Paperartsy

This week we  welcome France back to the Paperartsy blog and already she has stunned us again.

Her second project yesterday was a journal page - you have to watch her video here 

There was a fabulous technique stencilling grunge paste through a stencil to create an embellishment... you have to try this it is fantastic (even though my results are a little - mixed!)

 I used Eggplant on the base under the crackle glaze (although it may be I picked up satin glaze by mistake as it didn't crackle....) and Moonlight on top

 after sanding this is what the page looked like (used Tim's sanding grip like France did, and it's new paper in it, but it didn't sand back too well...

I don't have any butterfly stencils so went for the city skyline - I used cling film to set it on as I forgot that France used a bag from a stamp set... I had thrown mine all out..  It looked as if it would be too flimsy, so I found a Craftwork Cards petal/heart template and used that - I put this on the plastic cover from some idea-ology but having let it dry, it is too inflexible to peel off the GP so that won't come free without breaking!! Not having a good day...
I used eggplant mixed with the GP

 BUT the buildings worked (kind of) I edged them with vintage photo distress ink to make them stand out from the background and stuck them with pva glue...

 Made a little pocket like France in her video

and decided Tim's birds would be suitable to be flying around the city!

I found a little sentiment to stick onto some black card to finish the page.

it's not as pretty as France's butterfly page, but it's ok... ish!!
I am also entering this to Hels' Sunday Stamper challenge which is "purple"

New stamps

At the weekend I collected a parcel from the Post Office that contained a couple of the new Jo Firth-Young stamps and this afternoon was the first chance I've had to play with some of them.

The set I got is JoFY14 and the mini with the love birds (not used that yet) I took to my journal and also a tag.

 First off I applied ice blue and sage to the background and stamped various JoFY stamps including some from the new set (love those spiky flowers!  I coloured all the images with water colour pencils. The sentiment is also from JoFY14.

Then I made a tag - I covered a tag with a piece of dictionary page and applied a colour wash of Mushroom Fresco paint (i.e watered down to make it more translucent) and again used the spiky flowers and one from JoFY12.  These I coloured with distress markers.  I added some white hightlights with my sharpie pen.

I used Renaissance Treasure Gold round the edge of the tag cos I just got that too!