Friday Freebie Postcards

Friday today and that of course means freebies, - though I am afraid to say, I will be rather busy in the next few weeks so I cannot promise a freebie every Friday from now on.
But for this week, here you are, a sheet of postcards and individual cards as well in case you just want to print one of them. Enjoy!

Images on the cards are from freebies here and there on the net, the lovely standing girl all in white came from the wonderful Terri of Pringle Hill Studios.

Well I hope you like them, thank you for visiting and see you next time.

This Ol' Chicken came into the Wood

Hello everyone, nice to have you visiting here today.
Ok, so what is with this weird title? Well, I did not know what to call this post and just wanted to do something slightly different.
The whole inspiration for both this post and the project came from the current challenge theme over at Simon Says Stamp and Show which is "into the wood."

At first this theme had me totally stumped, but then I came upon this old wooden container and I decided to alter it. For once I remembered to take a "before" picture, - so this is how it started out:

Once upon a time it was a nice weathered wood plant container, but it had become quite grotty as you can see.

I started by sanding it down, then I gave it a coat of Gesso and when that was dry I coloured it with dark brown acrylic paint. When that had dried I added a thin layer of crackle glaze, let that dry to the touch and then put a final coat of straw coloured acrylic paint on top with cut and dry foam because I wanted the crackle to become quite random, and if you use a brush the crackles tends to follow the direction of the brush strokes. The inside was painted with a glaze of Titan Buff paint. Next I added the chickens and roosters, carefully torn from the top layer of a paper serviette. I glued them on with Modge Podge, added some background stamping and coloured the edges with  various brown inks.

Here you can see one of the sides. I also added some charcoal pencil around one side of the roosters and chickens, to bring them out a bit more and add some depth.
The front and back were further decorated with some fussy cut bits of Graphics 45 French Country papers.

Finally I rubbed some Treasure Gold around all of the edges and covered the whole thing inside and out with two coats of Modge Podge.

Well, I hope you think it's an improvement.

I am adding this to this week's SSSS challenge

Thank you for visiting, much appreciated!

Out of my comfort zone

Hi everyone and welcome, thank you for dropping by!
Today I am sharing a project that took me out of my comfort zone, - it's a lay out, featuring my little granddaughter (of course...) The photo was taken a few months ago.

I hugely admire many of the scrapbookers out there, but somehow the 12 x 12 format always scares me off. However, I have so many lovely photos, that I thought it was high time I would scrap a few of them, so here is an attempt. I love the painterly scrapbooking style of many Australian scrapbookers, so that is the style I tried to follow. I used two paper collections for this, Pink Paisly Butterfly Garden and Prima Tea Thyme. I started with one of the 12 x 12 papers of the Butterfly Garden collection. I fussy cut roses from the 6 x 6 Tea Thyme collection and also some further scraps from the Butterfly Garden, arranged them around my photo and then started to play with Geso, paint, stencils, texture paste and stamps. Finally I added some highlights with water colour pencils and bits of treasure gold. Many layers later it was time to add the embellishments and do some spritzing, and voila a page...... I am not totally happy with it, the embellishments look too heavy and the photo looks somewhat strange with all that paint around, so I think I will need some more practice, but I did enjoy the process and I guess that is the main thing...

Here are a few close ups still:

Thank you for visiting today and I just want to let you know that I really appreciate your lovely comments!

I am entering this to the Zeus and Zoe May Challenge Mood Board

Hurray for blogging friendships!

A very warm welcome to you all this Tuesday morning! Lovely to have you visiting.
I have a fun little project to share with you, all thanks to a lovely blog friend....

A while back the talented Brenda Brown from Bumblebees and Butterflies, posted a lovely project that I really liked, you can see it HERE. I asked her which dies she had used for the caddy and the seed packets, and not only did she answer me straight away, she even offered to send me some die-cuts for the caddy, (a Sizzix die) and actually sent me the die for the seed packet (an old discontinued Spellbinder one) as well, how kind is that?? . I used Graphics 45  French Country papers for both the caddy and the seed packet, and then I made a card to go with it, also using the  G45 papers and stamps. This could be fun little gift for a gardening friend. Thank you Brenda, I had great fun with this!!

And here are some close ups of the card still:

Hope you like my little paper play project, I just love the country feel of the G45 papers.

Thank you for visiting!

Playing Favourites

Hello everyone and welcome.It's not often that I post two project in one day, so hope I am not overwhelming you....

I alo hope you are all having a good week. I have been thinking all week about "favourites", favourite colours, favourite techniques, favourite blogs, favourite products, the list is endless.
Anyway, all of this was started when I noticed the theme at my favourite challenge blog Simon Says Stamp And Show which is Favourite Ink

Well I finally came up with an answer, just in the nick of time. From the word go I knew that my favourite Ink without a doubt was Distress Ink.  I don't think I ever do a project without using it somewhere and I cannot imagine what crafting would be like without it anymore. But which colour? Well, I think many of us have had the same problem, I've read this over and over again this week, and in the end, like many of you, I couldn't decide on just one, so I chose a colour combination of Blue, Green and Brown, with the emphasis on Peacock Feathers. Ok, but that's not the end of this story, because, like I said, my thoughts kept going to other favourites, and the answer was often the same. Favourite technique? I like many, but I think blending inks and stamping came out top. Favourite product? Same story, but I think at the moment it is embossing folders and stencils (oops, that's two, see how hard this is....) Favourite blog? Impossible, I have tons of favourites, just see how long my bloglist is and I get inspiration from all of them, but the one I want to mention right now, because this project was inspired by her, is Anne Kristine from Anne's Paper Fun.

So there you have it, playing favourites was fun, and I hope you like what I came up with, - another favourite, a giant tag turned into a little folder.

Stamps used were from Artistic Outpost and Indigo Blue, and the colours I used were Peacock Feathers, Wild Honey, Shappy Shutters, Gathered Twigs and a littlebit of Rusty Hinge.

Thanks for visiting and have a creative week!

I am putting this in for Simon Says Stamp and Show

For the love of sewing

Hello everyone welcome and happy Sunday to you all!
Today it is my turn to post a project on the Artistic Stamper Creative Team blog.

Another gift bag I'm afraid to say, this time created with stamps and on a sewing theme.

Here is a sneak peek, you can see the full project by clicking HERE

Have a creative day and thank you for visiting!

For the love of reading

Hello everyone and happy Saturday to you all. A very warm welcome specially to new followers, thanks so much for joining me here.
Today I am showing three bookmarks I made with the help of wonderful images from Nicecrane Designs

After crafting and messing about with paper and paints, reading is probably my most favourite past time, and at anyone time I will always have a number of books on the go, so I'm always looking for more bookmarks.
I made some not that long ago here, but someone bought them, so I was delighted when Ignacio, Nicecranes wonderful designer created some new book marks. You can find them HERE.
The way they are designed you could just print them straight onto card, cut them out and be done with it, because they are all beautifully digitally matted already, but me being me, I wanted to play with them a bit more.

For each of them I created a couple of mats, one of plain card painted with two colours of acrylic paint with a layer of crackle glaze in between (hard to see on the photos) and one of matching card stock. I then mounted them onto craft card, which had been stamped, embossed and inked first. The embellishment on the one above was a Spellbinder die cut from thin metal send to me as a RAK by my wonderful blog friend Cathy. The piece I used for this was bright green, - I painted it with Antique Linen Distress Paint and then went over it with Juniper and Stonewashed Alcohol Inks. The central bit is a decorative brad, also dabbed a bit with the inks plus some Baroque Art gilders paste.

Number two was created in a very similar way, only this time I used a brass filigree bit at the top rubbed over with some of the Gilders Paste. The little heart at the bottom was wood, treated with Copper Mixative and Pitch Black Alcohol Inks.

And finally, Number three, very similar to number one, just different colours:

There is still a 4th image in the pack, as of course the wonderful images Nicecrane used came originally from the famous Four Seasons paintings by Alphonse Mucha, but I reckoned three bookmarks was enough for the time being.

Anyway hope you liked them, and thank you so much for visiting.

Have a great weekend!!