Happy Birthday Tiegan!

You have to love Sj's Little Musings, she has such a way of drawing people... and animals or objects for that matter. I made this lil beauty with her Layered Lillie kit of 36 images.

It went thru a few design changes - the wardrobe was originally twice the size and a different colour - but I eventually got it to work how I wanted. The outfits are all laminated with velcro added to the back and to Lillie herself and I added a title along the front edge to make it clear exactly what it was meant to be - I mean the recipient is only three! Wanna place your bets on how long it'll take her to trash it?!

WOYWW 107 - The Debris Of An Evil Tuesday!

Does anyone remember when I first joined WOYWW, how tidy I was? Well, you know its only polite when u've got guests coming round isnt it? On my desk is a nearly finished blue version of my previous post, the inkblot butterflies, on which I have managed to smudge the sentiment, crease the vellum and glue down upside down... r u feeling wot kind of Tuesday I was having?! You may just be able to see the other colours... I think I'll leave those til I've calmed down a bit!

Following on from the theme of my last couple of WOYWW posts, on the windowsill is yet another canvas that I have painted a seaside theme on, this time with Paperartsy Fresco paints. Then I tried the Mod Podge transfer technique I asked about last week... n it didnt work! I did it Monday night, left it dry and out-of-the-blue on Tuesday, at work, it hit me that applying the water to get the paper off was gonna degrade the paint underneath and I was right. So.... back to the drawing board for how I'm gonna make my huge canvas that lil bit more adventurous....

Simply The Best

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best and the easiest to execute. I decided to treat myself to a craft mag over the weekend and from the selection I chose one that had a sample version of Serif Craft Artist on CD as its free gift - only belatedly realising that its actually Crafts Beautiful magazine and not an exclusively card making title, oops - and with it a set of free digi kits. The first one I opened is called Inkblot Butterflies (already a winner just from the title!) and one of the backgrounds was this beautiful creation:

Don't u just love an image that you don't really have to do anything to? I printed it out on some vellum and cut around some of the wings to make them stand up. Mounted onto kraft then a cream card base, I first tried to use foam pads but found them difficult to disguise so I balled up some glue dots and made my own card candy (google it, its so easy!) to finish.

I'd like to enter this for St Lukes Challenge - Come Fly With Me! - but I intend to make more of these so not actually sure what style you guys will receive!

Rainbow Wreath

A week or so ago, when I was looking on Ebay for some Safmat, it seems a Big & Juicy ink pad accidentally fell in to my virtual basket and I was really excited when it arrived - its so pretty! I was thinking about the Less Is More challenge earlier today and it occured to me that this stamp  kind of fitted the bill and then when I sat down at my desk I remembered the ink pad and lo, a card was born. Quite chuffed with it, actually.

WOYWW 106 - Experimentation

Following on from last weeks plea and ongoing discussions between my first and second greatest critics, I have managed to decide my large canvas will involve a seaside theme as I just love the beach (yeah I know I'm in the midlands) and the colourscheme of my room is kinda aqua n shades of blue & green. I was also inspired by this gorgeousness from the incredibly talented Vinnie Pearce - not only is she a very talented mixed media artist, i very much approve of her surname, lol - so I spent the weekend experimenting with some small 20 x 20 cm canvases from Wilko's.

From left to right: 1) Cosmic Shimmer Mist 'blended' with rubbing alcohol - got the effect I wanted, after a fashion, but none of the mica survived so not sure its exactly a sucess. 2) Distress Ink Reinkers & water to create the blend with a Vinnie Pearce scrapbooking overlay printed onto a white T-shirt transfer - not really a sucess as the transfer doesn't melt effectively. Bits of  it looks good but then bits look awful and now theres a plasticky layer over the whole thing which isn't nice. 3) A Pink Petticoat Perfect design printed onto a dark T-shirt transfer which gives good coverage but again gives a kind of plasticky finish so I think it will depend on my final design choice. 4) The first attempt at a white t-shirt transfer which I peeled off while still hot so at least its a matt finish but it really didnt adhere well, leading me to PVA some coordinating paper to cover up the worst of it. The wording is on Safmat which I'm quite disappointed didn't work as well as I hoped, I guess its not really designed for textured surfaces.

I think I'm just gonna have to - what is it Kath says? pull up me big girl pants! - swallow my misgivings n self-doubt and just put brush to canvas. Its not like I've not done it before and its not like a seaside has to be particularly detailed... I just wish I didn't have a burning desire to include text in the equation... eep :S

Edited to add: I noticed last night that the Safmat is now curling up at the edges that are in contact with the textured part (the lighter bit) - has anyone tried the mod podge transfer thing and/or on a large scale?

Finishing Post

So here we are at the end of the marathon, I've broken the tape and got my silver space banket thing and bottle of water... do I get a biscuit or is that jus for giving blood? Here are the final examples of the 2 scrap ladies creativity and my assembly skills:

I can only apologise for my appalling photography skills, but I have just run a marthon y'know! Who would've thought kraft and plum (it is more plum in real life, I promise) would go so well together. In fact so well I was inspired to do this one all by very own self:

Final Furlong

9, 10 & 11 are some of my faves, this owl punch from Stampin' Up is just ace isnt it? And the amount of different things u can turn it into (including an alien!) is pretty cool too! Not to mention  the book pages, which makes this a real winner!

This cow parsley (?) stamp is very me, I keep saying I'm not much of a stamper but I love both of these. I added my own touch with the lace and ribbon just to give it more dimension. The bird stamp is just gorgeous, I've admired since I saw it on Julia's blog a while back and I enjoyed playing with the twinkling H20's too, all my fave colours. Not 100% sure but I think the bird is embossed with cosmic shimmer EP which is just lovely, can see some of my pennies going in their direction. I didn't get around to stamping the sentiment on the day so I copied the wording from one of the earlier cards and applied it with Safmat.

Middle Ground

No's 6, 7 & 8 (for those of you who r counting - Loraine!) of the Marathon haul... so wierd to think this time last week I was panicking about getting lost, being late or all of the above! The smile one was on of those simple to put together ones that just looks so great, the pink one was my first play with a Martha Stewart punch (I didnt kno the sides folded up!) and this top right one took me a while to remember how u rolled the roses up but I got there in the end! I also added the hat pin things in - hope u dont mind Julia! - cos I have no idea wot I'm meant to do with em otherwise!!

Grandson

(Not mine, I hasten to add!) My first attempt at a hmm, what are they called double slanted easel card! Man, the positioning of the brads was tough! Think I moved them three times!

WOYWW 105 - The Week After The, Um Week Before...

After telling a whole bunch of people on Saturday that I'd met Julia thru WOYWW - without admitting quite how long it had been since I'd joined in - it seemed only right and proper that I should join in this week.

But as I suspect the majority of you (UK dwellers neway) will probly be showing ur PIF gifts off, I thought I would also buck the trend and play Whats On My Wall Wednesday. You see I've had this rather large canvas tucked away for quite some time and having moved my room around found I had wall space on which to hang it... but now I don't know what to do with it! I have considered painting some kind of scene on it but then I have considered a lot of things including a mural of Graphics Fairy goodies so I'd like to pick your considerable collective brain WOYWW - can u inspire me?

Pootling

I do enjoy pootling along to other peoples homes/towns and abusing their stash! At the Marathon, I learned about embossing ink in a bottle, I touched my first piece of cut and dry foam and I got to use this fantastic stamp (right) which is just gorgeous but v old I understand so I'm v unlikely I'll ever get my mitts on one! My stamp collection is definitely growing but I still don't consider myself a stamper!

 

My First Marathon...

...and the only kind I will ever take part in! Theres a line in 'The Faculty' about only running when somebody is chasing ya but I'm not sure I'd do it even then! So this Saturday I took myself off to Tidworth, Hampshire (just a few miles away from home, like) to take part in the 2 Scrap Ladies Midsummer Madness Card Marathon, and met the incomparable Julia & Ally and their team of elves who all helped the make the day run smoothly (cracking cous cous, Jan!) and managed to make fourteen cards - which I think is the most I've made in a month! 25 fabulous designs to choose from and - who'd've thought it - not enough hours in the day. but I'm chuffed with the ones I did manage to complete and maybe you'll let me share a few of em with y'here...

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Dream Wheels

Is this taking a brief a bit literally? I didn't start out making this card to fit a challenge but decided as I realised yet another week had passed and I hadn't entered any challenges, it couldn't hurt to enter it for Daring Cardmakers - Chasing Cars as the theory behind it is pretending the recipent has got a Lamborghini... believe me when I tell u I dont move in those circles!

I'd wanted to make a version of this card by Funky Hand's Jules for absolutley ages and in an attempt to make it more masculine, I combined the design with this card from Martha Stewart. And by way of apology to the challenge host, I was listening to the Final Straw album while I was working!!

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Man Friday

Is it just me or do there seem to be a lot of masculine products in the ranges that r being released at the mo? I bought this ace woodgrain patterned card from the NEC n now I'm wishing I'd bought more cos I used half the sheet to cover this a5 card. I knew I'd have to make this a large card cos of the size of the tree stamp that I wanted to use in a repeated pattern. The vellum strip was an afterthought as I had a load of strips left over from the wedding invites.

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Scraps & Stripes

I'm a hoarder. I freely admit it, I hate throwing things away and when I do have a fit and have a clear out I usually regret it mere days later. So I decided to have a lil sort thru my scraps drawer and use up some of lovely papers I couldn't bear to throw away at the time in an attempt to emulate the wonderful designers that seem have made this stripes approach their own and I must say I'm fairly proud of all three of these. I think the green example will end up having something else added to it but the for the mo, I'm jus gonna admire its spotty-ness!

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Short & Sweet

This was a really simple card that came about by me printing one of the Pink Petticoat Organics 'Kraft' papers onto cream card and thinking it looked like sand, so I used an offcut, added a beach themed chipboard topper (magazine freebie), some ribbon n a random shell I had lying around. The corners are stamped with part of the Madeline set from Prima Marketing - bargainous stamps or wot?

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Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! I just quickly wanted to share this birdhouse that I purchased the pattern for from the Silhouette store
	And this basket which I copied from Jacquis template blog. Both were to store choccies for my mom to pass to her grandkids.

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Tuscany

	This is a blatant rob from a design that was on Create & Craft on Sunday morning - altho in my defence I never saw them show it off but I did see it in the corner of the screen. Sunflowers r just great rnt they? I got the template for the base card from here.

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Type Right?

I spend a lot of time browsing the web for inspiration in the dark, dreary hours when I am confined just 2.3 miles away from my craft desk and unable to actually craft. I just love stumbling across a new blog and spending ages workimg my way thru years of posts and inspiration.  One of the places I've been visiting recently is the Hero Arts blog. The gallery isnt the easiest thing to navigate but with a bit of patience there are some amazing projects on there. I particularly loved this example and decided to recreate it for my cousins 40 birthday.
	And when I went to upload the above picture I remembered I'd already used this amazing SJ image on a card I hadn't posted. I was amazed how well the paper combination worked on this. You have no idea how long it took me to pick a suitable quote, I settled for "Birthdays are good for you, the more you have the longer you live!"

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Gifted

	Ordinarily a water mark on an image I'm trying to ahem, 'recycle' would annoy me but when it comes to pinching inspiration from peoples blogs, water marks come in useful weeks later when I have to confess that I can't remember where I got this image from (left).
Anyway, it inspired me to head to the veritable treasure trove that is B&M Homestores to track down a cheap clock. I managed to find a reduced one that was basically a round plank of wood with the clock screen printed on it. So I covered it and added some Robo Cop'd shapes to the theme of the little boys bedroom who was about to turn three and hey presto!
	His Grandma, on seeing this (Her: "You are clever, aren't you?" Me: "Yep!") promptly asked me to make one for her other grandson who's birthday is this week, to the theme of Toy Story. Apologies if this is breaking a million copyright rules but you can't sue me, I aint worth anything!!

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Offensive Material?

Why is this clean and simple lark so difficult? You'd think it would equal quick n we'd all be rejoicing! I hope the clash of patterns doesn't offend anyone too much, the fairy needed some kind of... mount n I was gettin desperate, ok?!

I'd like to enter this for:
Less Is More - Sketch
Ribbon Girl - Green & Yellow
LOTV - Punch It (the fairy was punched out with my new MS punch!)
Get Funky - Zing Into Spring (utilising the beautiful freebie paper)

For Once I'm not late!

My mom told me I was born earlier than I was due... the first & last time I'd ever be early! Punctuality ain't my strong point but thanks to the freebie from Design House Digital and Wonderland's White Rabbit I've actually managed to produce a card on time for the Daring Cardmakers challenge!

Not sure the coloured card blank exactly enhances the design but T minus 3 days til I can empty my bank account at the NEC n stock up!

Daring Cardmakers - Going Postal

Showing My Drawers!

I've been thinking about making one of these for a while but Create & Craft were showcasing a Hunky Dory Kit this morning which spurred me on to google for a tutorial and find this. I did look at others but as I'm essentially an impatient soul, the fact that the drawers in this one don't have to be glued really appealed to me!

I'm not that good at matching papers (again with the impatience?) so I reached for a freebie Kate Knight stack to satisfy the matching elements and the '6" or smaller' element of the materials needed. The magazine I got the paper from also did a chipboard kit that coordinated so I used one of those for the stopper and cut into another sheet to decoupage some of the flower heads to add a bit of interest.

Fly Me To The Moon

Gotta love a bit of Frank, huh? Paula at Pollycraft set the theme of 'Fly Me To The Moon' for the Monday Challenge and altho it sounds strange at first, she did say it could incorporate flight so when I finally used up this image thats been sitting round my desk, I thought it might just fit:

This was one of those cards that very much evolved as it went along! I had the idea of printing one of the Pink Petticoat Perfect papers over one of their Kraft designs but forgot to set the borderless printing up but then decided I quite liked the border. Like I said the Hero Arts Vintage Skyland image was in my half finished basket but I didnt like what I'd started so I cut it off n then trimmed some birds off to make it fit the dims of this card. The large bow came about by me trying to disguise my printer blobbing on the card blank - don't u just love technology?

I Won't Be Defeated!

After my complete failure in meeting the Less Is More rules, I was invited to try again and as usual I've left it til the last minute! Hopefully, this will be more successful tho...

Can u tell the card is pearlescent pastel blue?! Its from a create and craft pad I bought in the end of year sale...

WOYWW 92 - The Big Reveal!

Morning WOWWYers! Not a lot of anything interesting on my desk at the mo but I did want to share this with you:

This is the final design for those wedding invites, I was talking about what seems like an age ago. People were giving me some great suggestions for ways to decorate the giant cupcake shape we were working with but unfortunately the bride & I both lost our nerve and went for a square design with nine appertures and foiled vellum cupcakes... you can't really see on this pic but the insert is a pearlised pale blue colour which peeks thru the vellum... Hope u like it!

To find out more about WOYWW, visit the denizen of the desks Miss Julia

Show Us Your Heart!

The challenge over at Funky Hand this month, is "Show Us Your Heart". My entry uses papers and a digi stamp from the Colour Me Happy collection.
The text is cut out from Create & Craft pastel shimmer card by Robo Cop in my fave font at the moment Mr & Mrs Popsicle. Not sure if its quite clean & simple but I'll enter it for the Less Is More challenge too, if thats ok with you...

Alcohol Addiction?

On her WOYWW post yday Nicky announced that she'd succumbed to peer pressure and treated herself to some alcohol inks. I could easily empathise with her as I did the same after seeing King Tim on QVC last week and bought the set of 12 Brights, an applicator & some blending solution from Artists Trading Post - for a very reasonable price in my humble opinion and it was delivered within two days.

What followed was big brownie points for the push back/pile high crowd (an method adopted by many WOYWWers) cos I sat at my desk and thought "what can I try this out on?" I tried vellum scraps, the remains of a laminating pouch and then I found an offcut of mirri card.... WOW is all I can say

These pictures dont even do it a little bit of justice, the first one looked like a sheet of copper, its amazing! The butterfly on the green card is stamped on inked laminating pouch and I dyed the lace on the other card to match my attempts on glossy photo paper (not such a success).