And the journey continues....

Welcome all and thanks for your visit.
Today I am sharing the next few pages of my altered file folder.

My aim for this little folder (earlier pages can be seen here) was just to play, have fun, ink up some stamps that don't often get inked and show you some more of the gorgeous Calico Craft Parts. I also used further papers from the Megs Garden Sherlock collection.
On this double page I used two Paper Whimsy girls from a collage sheet I have had in my stash like forever.

I altered the papers throughout with inking, background stamping, mostly using a new favourite from Andy Skinner and adding quotes from the Tim Holtz Small Talk stickers.

I also used the keys and butterflies from Calico Craft parts, they have so many choices, just check out the link above.

Here is the next double page, using different elements from the paper collection, stamps by Tim Holtz etc. The pocket on the right side, is actually a little book, here it is open:

Place for some journaling and to hold further notes in the pocket underneath.

This gorgeous candelabra that I have used as an embellishment here, is of course another Calico Craftpart. (A dedicated blog should be up and running in the next couple of weeks, look out for more news on that)...

A little tag to also fit inside the pocket. I may well make a few more as a sheet of tags comes with the paper collection.

The final double page and probably my personal favourite, using the same techniques as before. The beautiful Leonardo stamp on the left is one I have had in my stash like forever, it may have been an Oxford Impressions. The one on the right is by Lost Coast Design and is called Chloe Face.

Well, that's it for today, only the cover and one more double page to do. And for those of you who are interested: I have now ordered 100 manila folders, anyone in the UK who is still interested,, please be in touch by emailing me! They will come to 30p per folder plus postage. Irene, if you see this, please be in touch, I can't find a way to contact you!

Thanks for visiting like always, - I will be back on the first of May with 3 projects at different times during the day. Hope to see you then and stay crafty!!

Tag Time

Hi all and happy Sunday. This is for once a non scheduled post, I am going to hit the publish button as soon as I have finished writing this.....

Just sharing my version of Tim Holtz's April tag. I am sorry to say mine turned out very differently indeed, for various reasons....

So I followed the first part of his technique pretty much to the letter, even using the same stamp set (though not the same stamp in the set). You can of course read all about the technique on Tim's blog HERE.
I had decided though from the start that I would do mine differently, as, though I loved the water colouring technique he showed, I did not like the blockiness of the design, so instead of using just a piece of water colour card and adding it to the Kraft, I cut my whole tag from water colour card.

This meant of course that I totally missed out the second part of his technique....
Anyway, once I had stamped and coloured the flowers and done the background, I felt there was too much white space (because I had used a much bigger area of course), so I added stenciling and some background stamping to the background, so this is how it ended up.

I then turned my hand to the pages of the little book I created back in January to keep my tags in. (If you want to see how I did that, just follow the link).

I decided to make my pages quite bright and colourful. I recently did an online course with my blog friend Marjie Kemper and decided to incorporate some of her brilliant techniques (I am still learning lol...). The butterfly is from the Tim Holtz watercolour set, it turned out a bit dark so I added some doodles with my white pen, but I now wished I hadn't, as I think it looks silly, but hey ho, too late now.
Here is the other side:

As April is very much a month of rain and shine in the part of the world where I live, I decided to add some of the wonderful rain drop stamps from Designs by Ryn.

Well, that's it for now, - wishing you all a very happy Sunday and I hope you get some creative time in the week ahead.

Thanks for visiting and of course I am adding this to Tim's April challenge.

More craftpart fun

Hello everyone and thanks so much for dropping by here today!

I admit it freely, I am a "little book" addict, I just love creating them and they have so many uses. So today I am sharing a couple of pages in another one made from a file folder, a buff coloured one this time.

Here are the two double pages I will show today, more will follow later:

First double page

second double page

Now because I know some of you might want to know how I made it, - here is a link to the tutorial I followed, though I slightly adapted the size.

I did not use a manila folder for this one but a much thinner buff coloured folder, they are readily available in the UK and worked fine for this rather masculine project.

Here are some closeups:

The paper I used is a download from Megs Garden, it's a paper collection called Sherlock and is full of yummy masculine papers, tags and ephemera. The old car stamp is a collage stamp from La Blanche. Also did some background stamping and stenciling to add more texture and interest.

Here is the other side:

This side has a pocket made from an envelope image that comes with the collection of papers, the feather stamp is another one from La Blanche and inside is a tag and a tiny little note book made with off cuts from the file folder.

I decided to embellish with some Calico Craft Parts, just perfect for this project.

A corner wood shape, they have the most amazing selection;

And a little butterfly, again there is a wide choice. For this kind you could push out the darker bits, but I decided I rather liked the texture it gave, so I left them in. I did not do much altering on them this time, just darkened them with a mix of brown paint and ink, though the first one has some Decoart crackle glaze on it too.

Here is a quick look at the next two pages still, a Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous stamp, some background stamping and a quote, digitally created as was the steam punk bee stamp. That's the great thing with downloadable papers, you can add text etc before printing them. And of course another Calico Flourish, again they have a stunning collection of them and you can expect to see many more.

And another pocket page, using the Tim Holtz gentlemen as focal images. I fussy cut two of them for the pocket and the third one on the tag that fits inside:

The cogs are from another wonderful collection of Craft Parts

Well, that's the first two double pages. The little book has 6 double pages in all and is made from 3 file folders.

Oh and for those of you who are interested, I found a source for manila folders in the UK. I'll be in touch with those of you who indicated you might be interested in sharing a box with me.

That's it for now, thank you for your visit and stay crafty!!

A Box for my Craft Parts

Hello dear blogfriends, thanks for dropping by here.
Today I am super exited to share not just a new project with you but also to announce the starting of a new and exciting venture.

Some of you may have heard this already, but I am just so happy to tell you that after the sad destruction by fire of the wonderful Calico Crafts shop, they have now re-started under a new name and are concentrating on making their wonderful Calico Craft Parts. There are new and exciting designs appearing almost every day, you can check them out HERE

I was lucky enough to be invited back on their Design Team, and here is my first project, showing some of these fantastic new designs (and using some old ones too):

With so many new designs, of course I needed a place to keep them, so decided to alter a box for my first project to keep them all in.
The parts I used in this project were: Ornate Keys (set of two) and the Fleur de Lis Decorative Woodshapes. I also used the frame in which the adorable little hearts come. Of course I used the hearts themselves too, but those will be shown in a future project.

Now I'll give you a quick step by step on how I altered my box and rusted up the craft parts:
I started with a plain paper mache book box and covered it with strips of tissue paper for texture:

Next I added a layer of Gesso, added some Decoart Crackle paint and then coated everything with a coat of Decoart Chalky Finish Paint in the colour Serene (light blue).

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The spine of my box had some strips added already, but I decided to add some more decorative elements to them, so I added some hessian ribbon:

Then the aging process began. First some different colours of Blue Decoart Media fluid acrylics

Then some Burnt Umber and Paines Grey Media fluid acrylics

And finally several layers of Antiquing Creams, both in white and Verdigris. I also highlighted the raised bits with Treasure Gold in the colour Onyxite, which looks great in real life, but was impossible to capture properly in my photos.

Here is what the spine looks like now:

Now to the Craft Part. They come looking like this:

Pretty gorgeous already, I love the burnt edges, and of course could have left them like this. But I wanted a rust effect for this project. So I first coated them with Decoart Media Texture Sand Paste, followed by Quin. Gold and Quin Burnt Orange applied in patches.
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Next they were darkened with Burnt Umber and then Antiques with Antiquing Cream in Verdigris:

Here is a close up of one of the keys:

The heart backing and the little hearts were all given the same treatment and then adhered to the box:

I fastened the keys to their backing with a bit of rusty wire:

The back and inside were all done in a similar way also, but as this post is long enough as it is already, I'll leave it with that.

For the moment Calico Craft Parts does not have a blog yet, so the DT are showing projects on their own blogs, but you may want to check out their Facebook page  and Pinterest Boards, to see many inspiring examples of how these Craft Parts can be used.
Thank you for visiting like always and have a wonderful week!!

Simplicity

Hello all, welcome and thanks so much for dropping by here today. The other day I was lucky enough to find an amazing leather hand bound journal for a really reasonable price, and even though I really have no need for a new journal, I could not resist it....

It's quite small (about 4 3/4 by 5 3/4), and really fat. The pages are made from what looks like a kind of thick mulberry paper with some lovely textures to it, so I thought it would be perfect to do some simple journal pages without any fat embellishments or anything, and as it's not too big, individual pages should not take too long.
So here are just a few pages of what I am going to call, my simplicity journal.....

I gave the pages a quick wash of gesso, slapped on some paints, did some background stamping and then stamped various focal stamps  mostlyfrom  Tim Holtz  straight onto the page or on a separate bit of card first..

For this one I stamped the Butterfly from the Perspectives set straight onto the page. Then I stamped it again, inking up the stamp this time with a few different colours of Faber Castel Big Brush pens and stamped it on smooth card and then immediately clear embossed it. I cut it out, covered it with Ranger Glue and Seal and when that had dried coloured it further with the Big Brush pens. The Glue and Seal makes it possible to blend the pens with your fingers and when it has dried it is totally permanent.

The sentiment is from the Tim Holtz Small Talk collection stickers.

So many wise words in there. I think all the pages in this journal will have quotes to go with them.

A few splatters with watered down gesso finished this page and there you have it, - quick and simple, that's journaling how I like it best......

Here are the next two pages:

More Butterfly imagery, background done in a similar way, paints, background stamping (Indigo Blue and Prima) The butterfly was cut and embossed with the Tim Holtz Butterfly Duo die and embossing folder and coloured with Decoart Media paints. The text was stamped with the Ken Oliver letter stamps.

I also added some Crackle Glaze (Decoart), hard to see on the photo. This is actually a little page I inserted into the journal, below you can see the other side:

The pears are a Stampendous stamp and the little envelope and journaling tags were made using some Prima Cartographer papers.

Well, that's it for today...Thanks so much for your visit today like always, very much appreciated whether you leave a comment or not.

Look after yourselves and stay creative!!