WOYWW 213

So here we are again!! Thank you all for your kind birthday wishes last week, I had a lovely day. In fact I had a lovely week not working.  This week I started my new job and it's pretty full on, I am in training at the moment (it's a job I've done before but need to learn their way of doing things and their computer systems) so am shattered!

Thought I'd share with you my hand made birthday cards I got last week as the post comes too late in the day to have included them on last week's post.  Aren't they fab!! I have some very talented friends for sure.
Some of these are from fellow WOYWWers, others I know from twitter!
































The first Tuesday in each month is my sister-in-law's craft club so that's where I was Tuesday night, we were doing cross stitch this time - been ages since I did any of that! Not sure if I will have stayed awake - will let you know (I wrote that before I went, I did stay awake but my eyes ache from counting teeny stitches now, lol!)
This is what I've done so far...2 hours worth!! with some chatting of course!

and this (the H) is what it should look like when I finish...!! Like I say, it's been years since I stitched, I used to do quite a lot before I got into papercrafting.



I will apologise now, that I won't be able to get round as many of you as normal, with my new job - there is no personal blog hopping during the day for sure now!! So it'll be what I can get in before I leave, and manage later. Hope you all have a lovely week...

Follow your Heart

Remember those Grunge Paste hearts I made the other week and then couldn't peel them off the plastic backing because it was too stiff?  Well, they've been lying around the living room (craft room) ever since and I got sick of moving them... so I used them up on a journal page.

I started by using Bora Bora Fresco paint in the wrinkle free distress method, by puddling it with water to thin it on the craft mat and laying the journal on it, and then the same with Claret, drying in between and repeating to fill the page.  

 I glued the hearts onto some mesh and glued that to the journal page. The hearts had already been brushed with Treasure Gold (white fire)

I rummaged through my stamp drawers and found this one (by Paper Inspirations) and then edged the page with Vintage Photo distress ink to give it some definition.

Patterns in Paint

After getting such lovely patterns in the olive green journal page I did the other day (here) I decided to have another go.

I dripped some Fresco paint onto one side of a journal double spread - Squid Ink and South Pacific, which I partly spread with a paintbrush.  I then used the comb (it's meant for use on a Gelli Plate) and dragged it through the paint (you can see it just above the journal)

It was a bit dark, so I added some drips of Snowflake and repeated.  The right hand page started with swiping the comb onto the page to remove the excess paint, then I added some more South Pacific and combed through.

I used each edge of the comb to get different widths of patterns.

When I got the backgrounds how I wanted, it was time to decorate.  I was using this flower stamp (ELB01) for something else, at the time and stamped it repeatedly in black archival over both pages.

I had one fabric flower left (after the "kimono mannekin" in the last post) and added that to the bottom corner, but it needed words...

So I took the words from two of the Lin Brown sets  for Paperartsy and stamped them on watercolour paper, using Peacock Feathers on one to double stamp, and Ripe Persimmon on the other, and left two just in black.  Trimmed them and edged them all with the same distress ink.

More Darcy inspired "magic"

Well, I had no hope of emulating Darcy's Geisha Kitty  which I think was one of the most extraordinary and gorgeous things I've seen for ages.... but I did like the idea of gesso-ing fabric for strength and took it from there...

I remembered in my stash I had a little pose-able mannekin (from the Works) and decided to make him/her a little outfit.  It looks a bit more like a bandit's blanket robe thing than a kimono, but hey ho!!

I have some poly-cotton fabric I got last year at the Craft Barn (no fabric shops near me!) and cut it in rough kimono/wrap shape, with slits for arms and head, then painted it with gesso.  (couple of coats)

Once dry, I stamped the harlequin background from Letters 5 in black archival. and a couple of flourishes (HP1006) in aquamarine archival.

When that was all dry, I watered down some Bora Bora Fresco paint to create a thin enough wash not to obliterate the stamping (Bora Bora being opaque)  and then painted some white satin ribbon in Bora Bora too, for the edging (and to hide my rough cutting!)
Looking back again at Darcy's I should have cut the fabric to fit it to the mannekin better, but there we go! Rough and ready, that's me....

I wanted to try and make a hat or umbrella thing too, I had already stamped in paint, onto fabric, the large flower from ELB01 and decided to use that. I added a couple of coats of gesso to this too, to stiffen the fabric first.  Much fiddling then ensued... tried matches, had no cocktail sticks, or bamboo skewers or anything thin enough... cut the ends of a cotton bud in the end and tried to fix it to the fabric.. I tried glossy accents. kept falling over... tried grunge paste (would have worked,if I hadn't kept picking it up to stage it, and it wasn't set enough..)

 in the end I went back to glossy accents and used lots, waiting impatiently for it to dry..

Well, it is an attempt at Geisha Mannekin lol!! Thanks for another fab week of projects, Darcy, I loved them all.

Linking it here for Paperartsy 

If I had wings...

After a fabulous twitter party last night for my birthday, I have been very lazy all day today (too much food, none of it the virtual kind, lol) but this evening I've recovered and started work in a new journal - a little Moleskine notebook.   Now, I know I call my other journal my moleskine but I don't think it is a proper one, just has a nice soft cover.... this is a proper one.

Anyhow, you may remember that a few weeks ago on Darcy's last guest spot at Paperartsy, she had us making our own patterned paper and I covered one of the notebooks here 



So tonight I opened it and started playing - with bits of leftovers from various projects and some fibres that came on a tag with an online order....

 Stamps are by Paperartsy, inks are a mixture of Distress and archival.

The mesh was the left behind bit of the diecut bird I used on this project  that I knew I'd use one day, I crumpled some Paperartsy crackly paper and brushed on some Treasure Gold (Renaissance) before gluing the mesh to it. The TG was carefully placed to become the bird's body.

A quick bit of fun!

Daisy, Daisy....

The other day I treated myself to another one of the new Jo Firth-Young stamp plates for Paperartsy... and this is about the first time I've had to play with it...

I also used the Green Olives Fresco paint which I also bought the other day.. you get the idea!

 I painted the pages with the green olives paint, then dragged a scraper through it to make a design (this is a plastic tool for use on the Gelli plate which I don't have) and although I bought it some time ago, I've not used it before.

Stamped the flowers in black archival and painted them in with watered down Honey Dew Fresco trying to keep the words visible in the petals.

 I've used some of the home-made tape that I created after Darcy's Paperartsy post earlier this week, as it tones colourwise and uses the little flowers from this same stamp set.

 I really really love this dragonfly stamp!! I highlighted the wings with sparkly gel pens
and also outlined the flower petals with one too.

This is my third post today... crikey!

Dragons Dream- Tag It On

Welcome back to another Dragons Dream Tag It On challenge - Elizabeth would like you to incorporate on your tag, the theme Coastal, Mica and  a Flourish. Mica comes in many forms, from the flakes, to mica powders and sprays. Don't forget to use one real stamp on your tag.

I took a square tag and stamps by Art Impressions.

I used scattered straw and tumbled glass distress for the sand and sky, and salty ocean for the sea.  Stamped the lighthouse/clifftop scene and the gulls on rocks and coloured them with distress markers.

I found my pack of long neglected mica flakes and separated a thin layer on which I stamped the single gull.  Added some seashells to the bottom corner of the tag and some fibres...

At this stage I was writing up the instructions and realised I had missed the flourish element... hmmm

So I cheated. I took a Stampscapes cloud image and using Snowflake Fresco paint, stamped part of it in the sky. Then I took a flourish stencil and using Grunge Paste added part of a flourish in an attempt to emphasise the clouds... doesn't really work does it....!!   I tried to sand it off but just wrecked the tag... good job I'd already got this photo... Sorry, Elizabeth, I am sure our contestants will do much better!!