Textured heart canvas for Countryview Crafts.

Hello everyone, welcome to friends and followers alike, today I am sharing a project created for Countryview Crafts where the challenge theme this month is "Add Some Texture"

I love an open kind of theme like that, there are so many possibilities to add texture. For my second project this month I decided to alter this little canvas. I'll show you some step by step photos below:

I started with a gessoed canvas and added texture paste through a variety of stencils. The heart was created with a home made heart mask with a stencil layered over the top.

Next I added some random bits of book paper to add more texture to the background.

Time to add colour, I used a variety of paints, both Distress and Decoart Media Fluid Acrylics in warm autumnal colours. I also used some burnt umber brown paint to create some splats around the heart to emphasise it more (not sure that was such a brilliant idea, but hey ho, once it's on it too late).

Here is a close up of the heart, I spent quite some time getting the colour in the recessed bits, (I mixed a variety of red and brown paints to get the shade I was after) and applied it with a small brush. I then dry brushed the raised bits with white paint to bring them out a bit more.

Some random background stamping and strips of tissue tape added another layer of texture, or if not texture then at least some further interest, I also added some white splatters to lighten it all up a bit.

Some words created with the help of Tim Holtz chit chat and small talk stickers and a few doodles with a white pen finished it all off.

I'll leave you with a few close ups:

Adding shadows always helps to create more depth, I used a Stabilo All pencil for this

Some of my favourite words coming straight from the heart :o)

Some rather messy highlights with a white pen around the numbers, just to bring them out a bit more.

The finished piece all done. Hope you like it.

There is still plenty of time to play along with our challenge, so if you have not done so yet, I hope you'll decide to play along. Apart from having fun with playing with texture, you could also win a £20 voucher from our generous sponsor Countryview Crafts.

Hope to see you there!

Have a great weekend

xxxxx

Shimmering Mixed Media fun and some news...

Hello all and welcome! Things are getting back to normal after my long absence, and today I have some projects as well as some news to share.

While I was away in Australia, I was contacted by the owner of Shimmerz Paints to ask if I wanted to be part of her design team..... Well, I nearly fell of my chair, - little old me on a team like that. It took me about 5 seconds to decide lol.

So today I am sharing some fun little experiments with their amazing paints and sprays, - mixed media bliss for sure.

Just to be clear, these little cards are not yet DT pieces, I was just having a play to get to know the products, but I thought I would share them with you anyway. My first proper DT piece will be due only in about 10 days time, and of course then I'll share a proper step by step over on their blog.
Meanwhile, here are some close ups of my play time :o)

If you don't know Shimmerz, - they do paints, sprays, coloured texture media, etc etc, both with mica and without. Both the background and the flower were coloured with a mix of their products.

Oh and they blend in with all my favourite Distress inks to perfection too!

I certainly loved creating these, the saying is from the Tim Holtz small talk collection stickers.

Love how the sprays seep into the crackled background. 

The butterfly is a Tim Holtz die cut from the Butterfly Duo.

Well, there you have it, just a little taster here, but if you do decide to check out the paints and make a purchase, mention my name (in the notes to merchant) and Stacey (the owner) will send you a sample for FREE!!!! Check out our Facebook page for more inspiration too, there is masses of inspiration there, give-aways and links to some super videos!

Thanks for visiting today and happy creating!

I am going to enter these into the following challenges:

Mixed Media World Gorgeous Textures

That Craft Place Anything Goes Mixed Media

A Little Touch of Tim for a Vintage Journey

Hello everyone and welcome!
Today the lovely Alison from Words and Pictures has set a new challenge over at A Vintage Journey. The theme is "A Little Touch of Tim". What she wants us to do is create an ATC, and of course as A Vintage Journey is a challenge blog inspired by the work and techniques of the one and only Tim, it should be in true Tim style.
Here is what I made:

To be honest, this theme made me feel really nostalgic, as it was making and swapping ATCs that first got me into blogging and paper crafting, now many moons ago. It has been years since I last made ATCs, but it was fun to return to it, and so I made a little set of 3.
Here's a quick run down of how I went about it:
I cut 3 bits of card to just a fraction smaller than the obligatory 2.5 by 3.5" because I like to mount my ATCs to make them a bit stronger.

I distressed the edges and then added some texture through  Tim's Speckles stencil.
I had selected 3 photographs (vintage freebies from the net, all depicting groups of 3 children, I had 3 on my brain for some strange reason).
I added some bits of old book pages, tore around the photo and then adhered it to my card:

Next I used paints and inks, little collage scraps and some stamping, mounted it onto inked Kraft card until it looked like this:

I love how these ATCs are just perfect for adding little off-cuts and other scraps we all have flying around.

The other two were done in pretty much the same way.

The little key on this one was a die cut, coloured with Antique Bronze Distress Paint and then, while the paint was still wet I added some Vintage Photo Distress embossing powder and some Ranger Antiquities Rust EP for the rust effect.

For this one I fussy-cut the children to show some more of the background, I gave the girl a little crown cut from a tiny bit of Tim's Industrious Stickers.

When I had completed all three I decided to create a Triptych with with the Sizzix/Tim Holtz Gothic Arch die, I love how it is just the right size to mount ATCs on. I cut 3 from...... guess what? The packaging of Tim's Stencils!. I then cut two strips of Kraft card to act as hinges and then cut three more from some Prima paper to act as backing and to hide the hinges.

It can fold together and be tied with a ribbon, the front was decorated with a smaller arch cut from another bit of Prima paper (all from the Time Travelers collection).

I did some faux stitching with a white pen and a butterfly cut with the new French Flight Framelits set; a couple of chit chat stickers finishes it all of.

Well hope you like this little touch of Tim. Make sure to hop over to A Vintage Journey to see the amazing ATCs my teamies have created, and we all hope you will play along. You could win a £10 voucher from Country View Crafts our wonderful sponsor or be selected as one of our "Pin Worthies".

Have a great weekend and stay inky!!

Home made flowers and hand dyed ribbon second installment.

Hello everyone, hope your month is going well. Today I am back to share a second little project with you for the challenge I am hosting at Our Creative Corner

As you can see it is a tag, the flowers are made with dies and stamps from the Heartfelt Creations Adriana Blooms collection. If you are into making your own flowers, you should check out their stamps and dies!
I started by making a background for my tag using Tim Holtz sprits and flick technique in soft green tones, mainly Iced Spruce and Bundled Sage. I also used the Brushed Pewter Distress Stain and edged with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I added some background stamping with Coffee Archival and then made my flowers. Here is a link to a video giving you loads of different flower shaping techniques with these stamps and dies, if you are interested.

I stamped my flowers in sage coloured pigment ink, then clear embossed them and coloured them with a tiny bit of Gathered Twigs Distress Ink, both in the centre and on the edges. The stamping does not really show up on the photo, but on the leaves below you can see the effect a lot better:

I cut a piece of trellis with a Cheery Lynne die and then layered up my tag as you can see below:

Here are some close ups still:

Hope you like this little project. The original challenge project can be seen HERE.

Hope you'll decide to play along in the challenge! And for those of you that have no flower dies or even punches, - there are so many different ways in which flowers can be created out of lace ribbon or just cut by hand. In a couple of days I will be back with a last project for the challenge, showing how flowers can be made just using stamps!

Thank you for visiting and hopefully see you next time!

Funkie Junkie Bonus Tag 1

Hello everyone and welcome! A special welcome also to new followers who have decided to join me here, it is so lovely to have you!

How is your year going so far? I have had a few sad days as my little grand daughter and her parents who had been with us over Christmas have just left again, back to Australia, so doing some crafting was a very welcome distraction. So today I am sharing my first of the Bonus Tags that are a part of the 12 tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge.

You can read all about the challenge HERE. I have had great fun making all of the 12 tags for which Linda provided such great inspiration and then to my joy she extended the deadline and added a couple of bonus tags, which are really thank you cards. You can see Linda's version here
Mine is very different, but I was inspired by her folded tag shape and the strips of metal tape along the side.

I made mine with a specific purpose in mind. I received some stunning Stampendous stamps from my nephew who lives in America and who was over here for Christmas. So I made this thank you card for him, using the stamps he gave me.
Here you can see the inside:

I started by adding some texture with Grungepaste and a couple of Tim Holtz stencils. I then covered it all with a coat of Gesso and then coloured with a mix of Distress Paints and Gelatos. I then did some background stamping and finally stamped my vocal images on smooth stamping paper and coloured with a mix of Faber Castell Big Brush pens and Distress Markers. The vocal image on the front was done in the same way.

Here are some close ups still

The sentiment is from the Tim Holtz simple saying set.
The card closes with a little magnet and I added a ribbon to cover the hole in the tag.

This wonderful challenge is sponsored by the Funkie Junkie Boutique and there are some fabulous prizes to be won.
I have made a start on my next bonus tag already, so should manage to get it done just before the deadline on the 8th.

Thank you so much for visiting today and enjoy your own creative journey.

I will be posting an update on my positivity journal very soon too, so stay tuned....

Autumn Gift Set

Hello everyone, welcome and lovely to see you here. Can you believe it is nearly the end of the month?
It is my turn to create a project for Spellbinders as one for their international Blog Ambassadors.

I decided to create a gift set, a card and a box, featuring their wonderful 3D M-Bossabilities. If you don't know these yet, you are in for a treat, you have never seen anything like it. The embossed impression with these folders, truly is 3D!
The folders I used were:
Rustic Wreath and Persian Splendor
I also used a number of dies:
Font One Upper Case
Orchard Harvest Tags and Accents
Ribbon Banners
Blossoms Five
Splendid Circles
Here is a quick step by step of how I put it all together, lets start with the card:
I cut a piece of 5 x 7 smooth white card stock, put it in the Rustic Wreath folder and ran it through the Grand Calibur using the Pink and the Raspberry Plates. This folder is actually a Christmas one, but by using Autumnal colours the wreath was easily transformed. Here you can see how I coloured it with Distress Inks: Wild Honey, Peeled Paint, Crushed Olive, a tiny bit of Pine Needles, Rusty Hinge, Aged Mahogany and finally Gathered Twigs.

A lot of colours, but I love how the blending of them just brings out the embossing. Here is a close up of the wreath:

I coloured the berries with a bit of Treasure Gold Renaissance Gold.

Next I stamped by sentiment and then cut and embossed it with the number 3 (3rd smallest) of the Splendid Circles dies.

As you can see, I added a bit of string and a brad.

I also stamped a greeting (Tim Holtz Simple Sayings) and cut and embossed it with one of the Ribbon Banner dies, these dies fit the Tim Holtz sayings just perfectly.

For further decoration of my card I stamped a few leaves (Artistic Stamper), cut them out by hand and coloured them to match the rest of my card

I made a flower, using the Blossoms 5 die and then matted and layered it all up with some other little leaves from the Orchard Harvest set and a few bits and pieces from my stash

The box was done in a very similar way. I made a 5 x 7" sized box out of Kraftcard and then  I embossed a piece of 5 x 7 card, this time with the Persian Splendour folder, This made the topper of the box. I then cut and embossed 2 further pieces which I trimmed to fit on the sides of the box, colouring everything with the same colours.

As you can see I cut and embossed the word Art with the Alphabet dies (love these, the fact you can emboss them really makes them pop), and then embellished in a similar way.

And finally the completed project:

Well, hope you like it, thank you for visiting and happy October when it comes to you all. Can't wait to show you some Halloween projects soon.