A bit of this and that.....

Hi everyone and lovely to have you drop in today.
I am sharing a few little projects today.
First up is my tag no 5 for the 12 tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie style. You can find all the details for this challenge by clicking the link.

This time, my tag is rather different from Linda's original, and as you can see, I have made it into a card again. Thank you Linda, this is just perfect for me to get my CCs done.... Though mine is different in colour, I liked the way Linda had used the corrugated card and I took inspiration from that. You can see her original here. Her tag is much longer, so she could fit much more on, but I also used some lace and a poinsettia flower. The central image is one of the beautiful designs from Nicecrane, Happy Christmas by Bowley DSC, love this vintage black and white image. I cut it with a Spellbinder die.
Here are some details still.

 I just love the beautiful vintage feel of these images and it seemed perfect for this card, which I further embellished with the little key and wing charms you can see below, altered with some verdigris gilding wax.

The tag challenge is sponsored by the Funkie Junkie Boutique and doesn't close until December 22, so there is still plenty of time to play, even though Linda is up to tag 6 already.

While playing with the Nicecrane images I decided to also make a couple of little gift bags, using one of my new Sizzix Tim Holtz dies

I used images from the Vintage Christmas Cards set, mounted them on a Spellbinder die cut and then attached them to the bags with a little tag.

Quick, easy and fun to do, and a great little gift to have on hand (filled with a few cookies) for little visitors at Christmas time.

Well, that's it. Hope everyone is having a good week. I'm rather busy right now, so it will be quiet here for a few days, but I'll try and get around to see what you are all up to.

Thanks for visiting like always

The Writing on the Wall....

Hi everyone and lovely to have you drop by! Welcome to all followers,  old and new.

Today I am sharing my final Halloween piece for this year:

I created this piece just for fun and to participate the the latest challenge over on the Ranger Blog.
I used a chipboard photo frame for my piece and started by adding texture to the frame with bits of tissue paper. I also added some hot glue squiggles, something that a few people have been using lately and is inspired by the work of the amazing Contadina K. It's not a new technique really, but it was great to re-visit it..

After the tissue had dried and the glue hardened, I gave it a coat of Gesso and when that was dry painted it with Antique Linen, Weathered Wood, Peeled Paint and Frayed Burlap Distress Paints, Spritzing with water to get the marbled effect we all love so much.

Next I added some  Distress Crackle Paint in Clear Rock Candy and then put the whole thing aside to air dry while working on the central panel.
I cut a piece of 5 x 7 Kraft Card and covered it with pre-crinkled Kraft Glassine paper. I then painted that with Antique Linen, Ripe Persimmon and Aged Mahogany Distress Paint, deepened it with the same colours of Distress Ink and added some Walnut Stain Distress Ink around the edges. When it had dried I stamped a script stamp in Vintage Linen DP.

I also prepared the other elements I wanted to add to my piece. Sadly I don't actually own the fabulous skull stamp by Tim Holtz, but my lovely friend Annie let me stamp it while visiting her recently, so I fussy cut that stamped image and coloured it with some Pumice Stone Distress Ink, to make it look more 3D.

I also die cut the bottle and feather with  the Tim Holtz Alterations Writing Desk set, first in white card and then the bottle again out of some acrylic packaging. This last piece was treated with some Rock Candy Crackle again, using a fabulous technique Tim shows in Creative Chemistry 102. I gave it a greenish tone with some alcohol ink. I added the little poison label, also stamped while I was with Annie and then adhered that coloured bottle to the white card one to make it more visible.

I love how it pretty much looks like old glass now.
Time to return to the frame. I deepened the colours with some home made sprays, made with Distress Ink re-inkers. I used a whole mix of colours, Pine Needle, Chipped Sapphire, a bit of Peacock Feathers and some Walnut Stain.

Here are a couple of close ups of the crackle and texture

:

Time to put the whole thing together: I  stamped and cut a couple of leaves out of Kraft Glassine paper with the Leaf Blueprint stamp and dies set by Sizzix and coloured them with Aged Mahogany, Rusty Hinge and Walnut Stain Distress Stains. I also added a stamped Halloween ticket and a flower cluster and then computer generated the sentiment. The final bits were to colour the feather with some Pumice Stone, to add a few bits of tissue tape to the frame and a few highlights with some inevitable Treasure Gold White Fire.

Oh, I also added some shadow with a black charcoal pencil still, to give a bit more depth to it all.
As the theme over at Simon Says Stamp and Show Monday challenge is anything goes, I will add this there also.

Hope you like it, I had great fun making it and thank you so much for visiting once again. I really, really appreciate the lovely comments you always leave me!
Hope everyone will have a creative week and look after yourselves!

Oh No, not another tag.....

Ehrm, well yes, yet another tag I'm afraid to say....
But before I carry on, please let me start by saying thank you for dropping by today!

So today's tag is my version of Tim's Tag for October. Now my big confession is that I have NEVER played in any of Tim's tag challenges before, but after having done the recent Creative Chemistry 102 classes I enjoyed myself so much that I finally decided to play along.....
Of course as most of you will know, all of the details can be found on Tim's blog HERE.
This months it is all about using the new Distress Glitters. Now I am not really a glitter girl and the only Distress Glitter I own is the Clear Rock Candy that came out last year already. But as Tim explained in his October tag of 2012 (yes, I do usually read all about them), you can colour Clear Rock Candy glitter with Alcohol Inks, so that's what I did.
The background to this tag was done with Distress Paints, spritzt and marbled as Tim explains on the first video of CC 102. I used Salty Ocean, Broken China and Frayed Burlap. Then I added various Distress Inks, edged with Black Soot, added a few squirts of home made gold mica spray. For the rest I am going to let the pictures do the talking as we are all busy people and you have probably better things to do than read my detailed descriptions. If you have any questions, just email me.

Here you can see some of my home made Distress Glitter (so hard to photograph decently). I coloured the little book-plate with Adirondack Espresso ink and then mixed my Rock Candy Glitter with some drops of Espresso Alcohol Ink. Have to say, love the result, NOTHING like any other kind of glitter. Also added a few touches to my die cut leaves.

Added another few touches of glitter to the top of the bottle which is of course a Blue Print one.

Here you can see a bit of the embossing and background stamping and stencilling I did and that is basically it.

Well, there you have it, my October tag complete. Quite a lot different from Tim's original, but I did use the techniques, so I hope it counts.
Thanks for visiting like always and hope you will have a creative inky time yourself.

Now what's that crackle???

Hello everyone and lovely to have you drop in here.
Today is my day to post over on the Artistic Stamper Creative Team blog
Now just for once I am going to have you guessing.... what's that crackle???

To see what the crackle is, just click HERE
Thanks for stopping by and have a great creative weekend!

12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style # 4

Welcome everyone and thank you for dropping in here.

Well, it's busy here this week but I have just managed to fit in another tag for the Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas Challenge. If you click the link you can read all the details about this challenge, great fun to do and I have now nearly managed to catch up...
Here's my version of no 4

You can see Linda's original HERE. Once again, there were many of her ideas that inspired me, - the use of Burlap, her background and the whole home spun country feel of her tag.

I don't have the paper Linda used, so created my own ephemera paper with the help of stamps

My letters were also stamped, punched and mounted on some die cuts.

I just added one poinsettia only, mine was made using Spellbinder dies.

Like I did with earlier ones I made it into a Christmas card again.
The challenge is sponsored by the Funkie Junkie Boutique and is great fun to do.

One more to do and I'll be all caught up and I will have a good start on my Christmas cards. As it's not even Halloween yet, I'm feeling quite pleased with myself about that.

Thanks for visiting like always

Gather a Harvest of Love gift bag

Hello everyone and thank you for dropping in. Today it is my turn to show a project over at Sin City Stamps

To see the full project and a step by step on how I made it, all you need to do is click HERE.
Last time some of you had problems commenting there, but that has been sorted now, all you need to do is click on the title of the post, so I hope you'll take the time to have a look.
Thanks for visiting like always

12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie style tag 3

Hi everyone, welcome and thank you for dropping in again.
I am busy trying to catch up with The Funkie Junkie's tags of Christmas, so here is my tag no 3...

Linda's original can be seen here, and though mine was definitely inspired by hers, mine is quite different as I had none of the stuff she uses. I was inspired by her colour scheme again and how she used texture at the bottom of her tag. I also really liked some of her background techniques and adopted something similar. I also liked the use of the word Noel, but as I don't have the lovely Tim Holtz die, I had to use what I had.

The N was a wooden letter, the others were die cut with Spellbinder dies. Coloured with white Distress Crackle paint, swiped over with Walnut Stain Distress Stain and then bits highlighted with Treasure gold.

 Stamps are Tim Holtz and the texture at the bottom was created with the help of a Crafty Individuals stencil and Paper Artsy Grunge Paste, mixed with gold paint and while still wet sprinkled with Distress Rock Candy Glitter.

As I did not have the little stars Linda used I finished the top of my tag with a rusty heart and punched star instead.

You can read all the rules for the challenge HERE  and it is well worth playing as the challenge is sponsored by the Funkie Junkie Boutique and there are fab prizes to be won.

I decided to turn my tags into Christmas Cards as Tim Holtz describes in his bonus video of Creative Chemistry 102. Here you can see both my tag no 2 and no 3 turned into cards.

Well, that's it, hope you like my version and thank you for visiting!!

The Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas tag 2

Hello everyone and lovely to see you here.
A quick post from me today, sharing my second tag for the Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas Challenge.

I joined this challenge last year already, (it's great fun) but of course in my usual way I am way behind yet again, but I am determined to catch up. (Linda is on to tag 5 already)
You can read all about the challenge HERE. Great examples and fabulous prizes to be won, so if you don't know about this challenge yet, do check it out!

I loved Linda's second tag, you can see her original here. I was inspired by both the colours she used and some of the design elements, but because I did not have the things she used I had to adapt quite a bit.
I used Picket Fence and Frayed Burlap Distress Staines and also added some Perfect Pearls Gold powder. It all turned a bit brownish, so I added some Picket Fence Distress Paint to the centre part of the tag.
My background stamp is from La Blanche.

 The deer is from the Tim Holtz Holiday Joy stamp and die set, which is available from the Funkie Junkie boutique, though currently out of stock. I stamped a background script stamp in Picket Fence DP, then stamped the deer in Gather Twigs and subsequently cut it out with the matching die.

The stamp is from another Tim Holtz set, Mini Holidays 5.

And as I don't own the star dies that Linda used I used some Rusty Stars instead

A flower and piece of ribbon finishes it all off.

Well, that's it, on to tag number three......
Thank you for visiting and until next time.

Friday Freebie Note Cards

Hello everyone, lovely to have you dropping in and welcome to all, specially new followers, thank you for joining me on my creative journey.

Today I am sharing a sheet of note cards. I think we all know that the art of letter writing is somewhat an activity of the past, - who still writes letters? I know I hardly ever do, after all an email is just so much quicker (and cheaper). But..... sometimes it is handy to have a note card ready to send someone a quick thank you or whatever it might be. I always like to have some of these to hand, so this week I thought I would share some vintage note cards with you. They are designed to be printed at 3.5 by 5" and that is how they will come out if you print the whole sheet, but below I will also put some individual cards that if you want you can print in a different size.

Here you can see how I made a couple of mine up, just by inking around the edges a bit and mounting on some Kraft Card. Of course you could add stamping and embellishments too, but I don't really need to tell you that....

Well, hope you like them, my TOUs are like usual, you are free to use these in whatever way you like as long as you don't sell the files unaltered.
Have a great and creative weekend and thank you for visiting!