SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT - SNOW

Pop over to the SCD blog for details of this week's challenge - Snow.
I missed the last couple of challenges but had this one in mind to do anyway, so it fits perfectly.

This is the last of the large cards that Sonia kindly gave me and I've loved using them.
The base is brown corrugated card generously smeared with gesso, fine glitter, white flower soft and some gorgeous Martha Stewart stars glitter. It took ages to dry though. The red card is simply torn and stamped with Tim's snowflake and snowman stamps in Brilliance moonlight white. The letters are coloured with gold dabber and are grungeboard in different fonts.
The gorgeous Tim pine tree was die cut and coloured with forest moss DI. I dried this with a heat gun before adding some gesso for snow. However, this morning was a shock because the snow had turned green! I started again and added some flower soft but that turned green too! As a last resort I lavishly applied frosted lace stickles. It's not quite dry yet but still looks green to me.
The picket fence is Tim's on the edge die as I adore this one. I cut it from grunge paper - as the tree - coloured it with brushed corduroy DI and gave it the gesso, flower soft and glitter treatment. This has stayed white!
An embellishment and aged mahogony DI round the edge finished it off.

SCD NOVEMBER CHALLENGE WEEK 1 - HOUSES

Pop over to the Something Completely Different challenge blog for details of this weeks challenge.
The theme is houses.
A good chance to use my new Tim Holtz on the edge townscape die. I tried it with mount board but it didn't cut through properly. The die is quite intricate, just like the scrollwork one, and that doesn't really like mount board either - but I make it have it!!!

In the end I cut the houses out of grunge paper.
This photo shows the sparkle in the stickles.

This one shows the reflection of light in the windows of the houses.
I used paint dabbers to colour each house and gesso for snow on the rooves and the 'ground' plus some glitter. I already had some off cuts of mirri card that I had previously coloured with Stazon, so used little pieces to stick behind the houses. The light shines on them and makes it look like lights are on in each one.
The base card is distressed over a clear embossed Santa which I ironed to get rid of the embossing. The stars are embossed with sparkly white powder and the 'ho, ho, ho' is simply stamped with Brilliance white.
It didn't turn out as effectively as I wanted, but in real life, it's not too bad.

YELLOW & GREEN at SCD

Another week, another colour combo over at SCD. This Friday's choice is yellow and green.
Some of you may remember how I tried and tried to purchase a back issue of Craft Stamper magazine just to get the free stamp. In the end they actually sent me the stamp but the magazine was no longer available. Well this little ATC is made with that very stamp.

I made some green miri card by dragging a green Stazon pad over some silver miri then once dry, I stamped the image using pearlescence lime Brilliance. I cannot take credit for the wonderful spun background though, as it was a little pressie from Heather as part of one of her monthly swaps.
I used some 3D foam pads to mount the image on top of some yellow fibres and finished it off with some green bugle beads, yellow and green gems and a memo pin - which looks like a wand from a bottle of childs bubbles - a few drops of green stickles on the image and yellow stickles on the spun art.

I know I made this a while ago, but I've never entered it in any challenges so I hope it's acceptable.

GIVE ME CREATIVE THOUGHTS

Blogger is playing up this morning so not sure when this post will appear.

I have just received the instructions for the Grungey Book Challenge being run by She. We each have to make 12 pages by March 15th - crumbs!!! All I need now is a plethora of crafty ideas in  order to achieve this.

Thank goodness I finished my ATC swap for Heather's challenge this month.

I'm currently trying to complete a piece for the Artistic Stamper Challenge blog - layers, and the SCD challenge, orange and black, which I really must do today. I haven't even started the dreaded Xmas cards, then I have a few birthdays, oh and not to forget, Tim's 12 tags of Christmas. Busy time coming up me thinks.

In the meantime, 'peg leg' took his hospital letter to the doctors yesterday and was given the option to have surgery on his knee first or to have his double hernia operated on !!!!!!!!! Where did that come from ???? He also has high blood pressure mainly caused by the pills he has been on since June. I knew those things were only short time, now look what's happened. Anyway, on advice, the knee will be done first. I wonder what his aka will be then. Any suggestions????

PURPLE AND GREEN

Purple and green is this weeks colour combination over at Something Completely Different. Not to everyone's taste but they are 2 colours I love.

As I haven't started any Christmas cards yet!!! I thought this may be an opportunity to make the first one.

The image is one I coloured whilst away recently using Copics. I used the snowflake punch from Martha Stewart down one side, then cut around the rest. The base card is 6"x6" white hammered card stock topped by a purple coloured Bazill card.
I cut 2 strips of patterned paper - the green is by Creative Imaginations and the lighter purple is from some papers given to me. The purple snowflake was saved from a previous Xmas card coloured with V09 Copic and stuck down with glossy accents together with the strips of lilac beading. The green swirls are from the same stock as the green paper. I stamped the words using peeled paint DI and matted it onto matching lilac paper before using 3D foam to add depth. Finally, I 'splodged' a lot of glossy accents in the bottom corner and added seed and bugle beads.

I struggled a bit to get going with this card, but after having trapped my mojo, finally succeeded.

AUTUMNAL LAYERS

I know a lot of people absolutely love the Autumn. The colours are simply amazing I do agree, but for me it's the end of so much. The summer - ok, I know we don't usually have one of those LOL - the beautiful flowers and their scent, birds singing and rushing about trying to bring up their young, holidays where there is some sun, being able to sit outside and to have the door open, long daylight hours - have I convinced you yet??

Anyway, there are a couple of challenges I thought I might just have a go at:

Something Completely Different - Oct. theme - anything with Colour
Week 1 - Outside colours - brown, orange etc.
and
Artistic Stamper Challenge - Oct. theme - Layers

I thought I would make a tag for a change and this one came directly from Sir Tim himself. After last year's 12 tags of Christmas, Tim had a few bundles of 20 tags for sale. As you can imagine, I was in there straight away and the handsome Mario sent me a pack.
I distressed the tag with a mixture of distress inks, then used one of the leaves I had just cut with my new tattered leaves die to act as a mask while I did a bit more inking and then a bit of spritzing with gold perfect pearls and water.
I covered pieces of grungepaper with some dictionary text and die cut some tattered flowers and tattered leaves. I also cut some from the retro grunge paper stack. Once dry I distressed some of them with fired brick and dried marigold inks and assembled the flowers together with a tiny Prima flower and one cut from inked mulberry paper with a tiny brad. They are all glued down with glossy accents. I then put a little bit of tea dye distress stickles on the leaves. The top 2 leaves are also Prima with a little butterfly charm on top.
I then stuck some more dictionary paper on a piece of thin card incorporating the word Autumn, and distressed it before punching out with a Martha Stewart oak leaf punch. I then added this to a memo pin, stuck it in the flower and hey presto - job done.

LOVELY BODIES!!

Today, we received our post at 9.15am instead of the usual 4.09pm!!!

Look what I got.

Left to right, top row, - wk 1, a bit of bling by Sue Taylor                                      wk 2, memories by CraftyDawn


Bottom row   -              wk 3, red & black by Janet
                                     wk 4, of the sea by Sioux











Thank you girls and thank you to SCD too.

I'm posting a couple of last months theme - Arches - today and will eagerly await 2 in return.

YESTERDAY

No not the song, the day. I waited so long for yesterday to arrive and 'poof', in a flash, it went.  However, not before I'd had a brilliant time.

I actually managed some sleep the  night before and as 'peg leg' wanted to come to see the girls, we went in the motorhome so he could be comfortable for the day and watch a DVD or 2 and have a little sleep!! We arrived just after 9am and almost at the same time as Lindsay and David. Amy came out to welcome them and invited us in aswell. How sweet of her. Anyway, we had a brew and David and Lindsay got really busy with the set up of the workshop allowing me to help a little. That first hour flew and before we knew it, the others had arrived and we were ready for the off.

A great big welcome was given to Sioux (ArtyJen) who had driven up from Brixham, Devon. For those of you who don't know her, have a look at her blog and the SCD blog of whom she is a DT member. Some fabulous stuff there.

The 1st workshop was to alter a picture frame using melt pot techniques together with my favourite, Tim Holtz techniques. Where the time went was no bodies guess so none of us actually finished. Work in progress for me here. A few photos then of what I did manage to do.

Basically, we made little frames using UTEE and pictures, embellishments using moulds and cookie cutters, shapes by pouring UTEE onto the craft sheet, alcohol inked foil, alcohol inked tile with negative stamping - I like this one the best, sticky backed canvas transfer, gesso relief and more.

We seemed to keep our area tidy looking at the photos, but I know mine wasn't and I ended up with both inks and gesso all over the place. Good fun.

We finally stopped for lunch and some of us took off into the motorhome for ours as the shop had become really busy and there wasn't much room left. We also had been given our chunky grunge books by Heather, and just couldn 't wait to open them. You can see mine at the end of this post.

So back to the 2nd workshop - mystical shrines. This time we used patterned paper to cover a base card and a large matchbox. We used, paint dabbers - even some may have used mushroom dabbers eh Gez??!! A little joke between us. Also, alcohol inks, beads, wire, multi-medium, guilding sheets, but  most of all, beeswax. This was new for me, not anymore though. I liked this a lot. I had been collecting 'little' treasures for weeks and even made some faux porcelain flowers and a beaded dragonfly I was lucky enough to use them too.

Sorry, didn't get the chance to turn this photo round. Again, it's not finished. I still need to add an embellishment to the top part of the drawer plus a few little tweeks here and there AND my faux porcelain flowers have just dropped off!!!

The second challenge was to make a smaller version this time with opening doors. Time ran out completely so we all just took the parts away with us to complete at home. However, I managed to take a photo of Lindsay's which is just gorgeous.

The session ended with lots of hugs and smiles and Lindsay did the honour of taking group photos with everyone's cameras. Get ready for the line up then.

Left to right:  Me, Sioux, She, Gez and Heather.

Roll on the next time girls and a great big thank you for the lovely ATCs.

The first one is from She, cava queen is from Sioux, the torso is from Heather and the last one is from Gez.

Well, I know this is a marathon post but so was the day. I was so tired last night I fell asleep on the settee and didn't wake up 'til gone 1am. 'Peg leg' had gone to bed hours before!! Goodness knows how Lindsay felt being on her feet all day. But I got my book and here it is. Hope you enjoy it as much as I am.
For some reason Blogger won't upload my chunky book, so I'll try later on a separate post. Sozz..

SCD - 1950s

Well, a little bit of mojo came back this week, in between more jobs outside, and I managed to complete a very special birthday card for my eldest step-daughter who we haven't seen for around 8years. A lovely moment when we bumped into her a couple of weeks ago. I'll leave it there suffice to say we all appear to be contented and happy.

Anyway, this weeks challenge over at Something Completely Different, is 1950s.  Still using the monthly theme of ARCHES, I finally came up with this........

Unfortunately, I can actually remember some bits of the 50s. Having been born at the end of 1948, the 50s were my infant days and I lived with my parents and grandparents for the first 4 1/2yrs before moving to a new house for the next 7. The music of the day for me was probably more of the old 'uns like Bing Crosby, but I do remember Bill Haley and Rock Around the Clock. With that song in mind I made my arch!!!

The base is mount board cut to shape and distressed with pumice stone (another pun on rock there!!!) I then stamped the clock, outlined the edge in glossy accents and added a couple of spinners held with a long brad. Having cut a lot of flowers from grungepaper I was left with awkward bits, and not wanting to throw then away, I cut out 'rock' shapes and coloured them with - wait for it Gez - mushroom dabber. I stuck these around the clock with glossy accents and then added some flower soft to the cracks and a little ladybird. The words are created with a dymo, black on clear tape.

This technique was one I learnt on Lindsay Mason's fairy doors workshop. I had fun again.

SCD - ARCHES

This month, being a new one, also starts a new challenge over at Something Completely Different.

This months theme is ARCHES and week 1 is LACE.

The arches can be any shape and size making this challenge completely different to last month's, hence the meaning of the whole experience.  Now every time I hear or see the word 'lace, I immediately think of our CDs, Leather and Lace. It made life difficult for me, as if it wasn't hard enough!!!!, to come up with a way of interpreting those thoughts. Also, my mojo left me last week and only comes back for a few minutes at a time this week. Anyway, here is my arch.

I cut a piece of mountboard and then used Tim's plaque on the edge die to cut the top. That's my arch, for this week anyway. I then masked the middle and used pumice DI on the top splashed with water and stamped and clear embossed an Anna Griffin background on the lower half. I then used victorian velvet DI over this and ironed off the embossing. I struggled to photocopy the front of one of the CDs to print the words, but after 2 attempts managed to print words which would fit. I put glossy accents over the L to the word leather and rock candy stickles on the L on lace. The lace corner is an Anna Griffin one, the black lace is from my stash as are the black and heart brads. The little lines on the top part are from a Hero Arts frame stamp.

I'm not happy with the end result because I think the cut out words look just that, but for the life of me, I can't think what else to do. It's so annoying.

SCD - OF THE SEA

I have had a good time this month joining in with the SCD challenges.
All have had the basic theme - Torso - with a twist to it each week. This weeks is the last and is 'of the sea'.
I thought this may be easy until I started. Not one single stamp with anything like a sea theme in my drawers.
However, not to be beaten, I came up with this.

Again, my camera is not responding to close ups, sorry.

The wording at the top is covered in glossy accents ans a few beadazzles so is not easily made out but is a torn piece of dictionary definition re. ocean, a large section of sea.

The 'sea angel mermaid' is stamped with teal Stazon onto card and then cut out. (and you thought she was just a fairy didn't you?) The whole of the base mountboard is coloured with various alcohol inks which I tapped on. I then went to town with sticking my gorgeous Brixham mini shells, moss, seed beads, beadazzles and stickles to the base. The little 'mermaid' is sitting amongst them trying to have a rest!!

I had my jiffy bag ready to send off my swaps after having completed this one, but will have to look for a box now 'cos this won't fit. Thank you SCD for this months fun. I wonder what September will bring.

SCD TORSO - RED AND BLACK

I've joined in again this week over at Something Completely Different challenge blog.

Week 3 and the theme is Red and Black. Here is my version.

I had to get 'peg leg' to photo it with his camera because for some reason, mine won't take a clear picture any more!

I sorted out my red and black beads to make the dragonfly, one of Heather's again from her book, only to find that I was short of seed beads in either colour. So off to Hobbycraft to buy some - any excuse to go craft hunting. My stash of dagger beads has grown over the last few weeks, thanks to Ebay! Anyway, once I had the required type and number I proceeded to throw them about the floor in a bid to make the little critter. I finally managed it in between both episodes of Corrie last night.

I had no idea what to do with the background so it came about after much phaffing about. I gessod the base and when dry I used fired brick and barn door DI to cover it all. I then smudged some black soot DI over parts of it where I inteded to put the red net and dragonfly. The little areas that remained red were then stamped in black archival on little dragonfly stamps. I trimmed the net and added both red and black stickles to the edges to stick it down. I then stuck the dragonfly in place using glossy accents.

In the end I had fun and that's all that matters eh?

SCD AUGUST WEEK 2

 I am entering this card with much trepidation.

When I think 'memories' I really have to think hard for some good ones before I was 40. My sons are the most precious as is my dad, but I don't have holiday ones or sibling memories - I'm an only child.

This challenge therefore, was a hard one, unless I went down the road of old papers etc. I am biting the bullet and entering this card but would not be surprised at it not being accepted.

WOYWW #62

I'm really late this morning despite my overboard enthusiasm for Julia's WOYWW. I've been so busy this past week it all caught up with me last night and I've slept for England.
Anyway, I'm up now and on the worksdesk trail.
'Peg Leg' made me a little present yesterday, well actually it will hold all sizes of card. What do you think?

Hopefully, when I start to join in some challenges over the winter, this will come in really handy to photograph them better.

I've completed Heather's August ATC swap cards this week and will post those today, and I had a go at the Something Completely Different challenge, so at least I've done some crafting.

I made a tattered flower last night and hope to faux porcelain it today. Doesn't that sound posh? All I'm going to do is dunk it in some clear UTEE in the hopes that last night's effort doesn't fall apart!

I also finally assembled all the net, grunge and material flower pieces I cut out a couple of weeks ago.

If I get chance I want to make the tag you see with Tim's bird and cage. Not made one yet so I think it's about time I did.

I bought some mini canvasses this week. So many of the mind-blowing creations I see on blogs are altered art and many are on these mini canvasses. I don't have any art in my little room, apart from a birthday card from someone special that I framed, so thought I could have a go at these over the weeks and, because they are tiny, hang them on the wall 'cos tiny is all I can fit.
Some of you may remember me telling you that I was going to learn to fly model aircraft - only the easy ones though, not helicopters. 'Peg Leg' bought a 'wing' when we were away and built it up. When we came home he put £50 worth of lights on it!!!! However, due to the complexity of soldering all the joints it took an age. The bummer to this is one of the lights has a break in the wire somewhere, so they are all off again and he still hasn't been able to test fly it. That's why I haven't had a go. Never mind, it will soon be dark all day so the lights will show up better!!!!!!!!!

TORSO BLING

Well, I'm still tired out, so much so that I am 'almost' wide awake. Not much point going to bed in that state so I decided to get in 'me' craft room and have a go at the Something Completely Different challenge for this month, week 1, which is Torso/bling.

I like the idea of having one main theme for the whole of the month then 'twiddling' it by having a different slant on it each week.

After my tea I tried and tried to think of what I could do and in the end came up with this,

Not sure whether the photo shows the bling properly, but I embossed the scroll with Stamp-n Stuff disco black embossing powder giving it a real sparkle. I managed to print off some copies of the torso provided by SCD and cut it out from mountboard to ATC measurements. Using all 4 lovely orange DIs, wild honey, rusty hinge, spiced marmalade and dried marigold, I inked all the card adding more colour to the right hand side. I then stamped the eyes in black archival and the words in aged mahogany before adding the sparkle swirl.

Hope this is ok and the photo is not too blurred - bad light. Just off to let them know I've done it and enter the challenge.