DragonsDream - #Tag It On

Well done for rising to the yellow, lightbulb and wires challenge last time round!
This fortnight, the DragonsDream Tag it On challenge is set by my lovely friend Gabrielle, who sadly came off her bicycle in early May and broke her elbow, so won't be able to play along... but her recipe for your tag, is to use White, Metal and Transport. Somewhere on your tag you must use at least one real stamp.

I started by painting my tag white (Snowcap Fresco paint) - it was a pale tag, but I gave it a couple of coats nonetheless.

I stamped the New York Central ticket (Tim Holtz) in grey archival ink (because my white ink is dry and didn't show up...)

Stamped 'enjoy the journey' (also Tim Holtz) in black this time, on the tag

I took some metal and stamped the Tim Holtz hot air balloon onto it, then stuck it to some card and cut it out.  I painted the balloon "fabric" lightly, with the Snowcap paint. I took the Tim Holtz aeroplane and stamped it on some shrink plastic and if you ignore the bubble it came out ok... So that's my transport - modern and old.

 Added some white fibres to the tag to finish it off.

Hope the rest of my DT think I've used enough white!! Do come and have a play - we love to see how you interpret our recipes!

WOYWW 208 - 4 years old - Happy Birthday!

Finally we are here! Today is the day - or at least 4 years ago, today was the day the lovely lovely Julia decided to share a picture of her workspace and invited other bloggers to join in - little did she know what she started....What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday..

Thanks Nikki for the badge!

So here we are, 4 years on, and over 150 of us regularly share all. I don't know exactly when I started joining in - it wasn't right at the beginning - but I can't miss a week now!! So, Julia, thank you for making Wednesdays fun and long may WOYWW continue.

I have made 5 (only 5, I am sorry!!) ATC's for the swap - so that is one for the next person to me on the list and 4 more... who'd like to swap? Without wishing to presume, if there are more than 4 of you I will have to draw names out of a hat!!  I realise I should have organised this earlier, it would have been easier!! **

Do you want to see them? That may put you off... lol!!

This was nearly the view you were going to see - or at least wouldn't have seen - because when I got home from work on Tuesday I had no internet.. NOOOOO not on a Tuesday for WOYWW post writing day!!

I am still debating about what (how much) to take with me on Saturday for the Crop -

as you can see by the list propped up at the back of my craft mat!  The coaster is a work in progress from this week's Paperartsy guest designer, Darcy (if you have time, to check out their blog to see what she's been doing!)

Thanks for stopping by, I will try and visit as many of you as possible.

**Oh, and if you'd like to be up for a swap, let me know in your comment and please make sure your email address is available in your profile (or in your comment itself) somewhere so I can get hold of you.  To ensure that the ATC's are sent out as soon as possible, I will contact you on Thursday for your address, so I will say the cut off for comments for an atc is midnight Wednesday, (UK BST  time)

To those of you going to the crop on Saturday - see you there!! I'll be the one with a suitcase...lol!!

Coasters - Darcy Style (kind of!)

The latest guest designer at Paperartsy is Darcy Wilkinson and boy has she already wowed us with some amazing projects.

The first one, is some shabby chic coasters... I didn't have any cork ones, which Darcy used - and would have been much more suited, and sturdy. I will get some and try again, as this was fun!

 this is my end result...check Darcy's for how it should look!!!!

 I forgot to take a picture at stage one after the original painting... this is after the stencilling.

and then after the stamping, before the "wipe back". You do have to rub quite hard... but not so hard to rub the cardboard away at the edges... see I told you cork would have been better!

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge week 11 - Fe-Fr - FROG

The new letter from the Craft Barn Alpha Challenge was announced on Sunday but despite it being a UK bank holiday weekend I couldn't drum up the energy to get started - I came down with a bad head cold on Saturday - typical!!  However I am on the mend now and so got cracking.

The twist this time, as you see from the heading, is to use a word starting between Fe and Fr.... I thought about fish... but decided on frog - I have several stamps for both, and haven't used any of either for years!! Time to get out the green!!  I always did like Kermit...

I started by highlighting round the definition in my dictionary so I didn't paint over it, and painted the double page with Guacamole Fresco paint by Paperartsy.  This is a light green, and opaque so it covered the rest of the dictionary page nicely.  

I stamped one page entirely with my leaping frog, loads of times, and coloured them in with the crushed olive distress marker.  

On the other page I coloured two frogs that I stamped on white card and stuck onto the page, plus a little frog in a pond over the definition.

The reeds at the foot of the page are a Stampscapes stamp.

Despite what initially seemed quite a tough choice, this page came together really quickly! 

Crafty Boots - Rainbows

If it's Bank Holiday where you are, I hope you are having a lovely time...

The new Crafty Boots challenge, set by Emma M, is "rainbows".   I decided that I would make a rainbow coloured tag and reached for my Dylusions sprays as they are such bright lovely colours and ideal for this.

I knew I couldn't spray a proper rainbow so I went for random sprays filling the tag. I tried to stick vaguely to proper rainbow colours!

After the base colours on the tag were dry, I took the Roman Letters stencil (crafters workshop) and the White Linen Dylusion spray, and then stamped the border stitching (from Inbetweenies by Dylusion stamps) in black ink.

I had some pre-stamped hearts (I Love Lucy set by Dylusions) which I cut out and sprayed with the  Funky Fuschia spray.
I threaded them on some thin fusewire, bending them to fit the tag and used double sided tape to both hold the hearts together and fix them to the tag.

I stamped the text (from Quintessential Quotes by Dylusions) on white card, sprayed it with Calypso Teal Dylusion and cut out, then stuck onto scrap white card.  Finished it off with a piece of fuschia ribbon tied in a bow.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your Monday and have a play along with the challenge.

A non-oriental oriental tag

Carol's second Paperartsy project was an Oriental themed tag using one of the new Lynne Perrella stamps. I don't have any of these, to be honest they are not totally my style, although the one Carol used is gorgeous... so I had to adapt the theme more than somewhat!!

I did use a size 10 tag and a variety of similar coloured paints to Carol's choice - I kept slapping them on, so not 100% sure which ones - nougat, mermaid, beach hut, guacamole I think.

I had to do this twice as the first layer was too regimented and also the wet nougat puddling that looked so good on Carol's, didn't - but I figured it was because I dried the first load of colours, and you need it to blend... second time round it looks ok.

Next to decide on the main image....










I decided to use the 'dream' girl from ID02 and stamped her on the Paperartsy smoothy card.   I have just bought 5 of Tim's Distress Markers and used them to colour the script on her dress.

The gold UTEE that Carol used, I don't have - I did try to colour some of my clear UTEE with a normal gold embossing powder, but wasn't too happy with the results, to in the end used gold ink and the clear UTEE.  I don't know what happened but I didn't get the bubbling effect that Carol did, when trying to leave the powder not fully melted... anyhow, I edged the tag all round and stamped a script stamp in the top left corner (this is the one with the home-made mix of powder.)

I used the small splatter stamp in gold ink, randomly over the tag before embossing that with the UTEE too.

I stamped some butterflies (Stamp-It Australia) and coloured them with my distress markers and then gold embossed them (it was a hologram powder, bit too much sparkle, so I went over them again with the distress markers)

to finish, I found some gold edged bluey-green ribbon (and a piece of black) and some black rik-rak.

I stamped 'wisdom' on a scrap of painted tag and edged it with a mix of beach hut paint, gold krylon pen and black ink

What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday - week 207

So one week to go before the big anniversary!  Time to meet up at Julia's for another world-wide jaunt. Are you messy? Are you tidy?

I am definitely of the messy persuasion, though I have dreams of being tidy... I was looking for a ribbon yesterday... look what happened...

Why is it the roll you want is always at the bottom...
Last week Julia asked me what I did with the things I make (apart from the several dozen that just pile up on the box next to my computer)... so I thought I'd show you.

 This is the window cill at the top of my stairs as I come up into my flat.. they are lovely wide ledges, and some months ago I decided - derrr!!!  I could put some of my "makes" on them...
You've probably seen all of these before, they've all been blogged about at one time or another!

now obviously I don't do bronze casting, I found this beauty in a box when I was "clearing up" the other week - I bought her at the Hampton Court Flower Show a few years ago. She is meant, obviously, to be sat on a stick in the garden but she fits my window ledge nicely!

and these are in my living (craft) room.

Now, I've kept you long enough, and you have other desks to visit... see you next time, for the big anniversary party!!