Colour your world for Our Creative Corner

Hello everyone and thanks for dropping in. Happy April and happy April Fool's Day to you.

This is my second project for today, the first one can be seen HERE.

As it so happens, this will be my last project for OCC, as I have decided it is time for me to move on. But if you visit the blog there, you will see there are many amazing design team members, old and new left!

Well, there you are, - April already, and for us in the Northern Hemisphere that means Spring should be well and truly on it's way.

The lovely Laurie is our host at Our Creative Corner, and this is what she had to say about her challenge:

Here in the United States we are coming into spring - the season when nature comes forth with new life.

Soft green grasses grow in the fields and the trees bloom in glorious colors with the promise of fruit.
Tulips and daffodils emerge from the soil after a long winters nap.
The colors of spring, the sights and sounds of nature at this time of the year renews my soul.
In the spring time the colors of nature are different around the world.
For my challenge this month I want you to

Color Your World

For this challenge create a project with the colors of spring time where you live.

Show us what colors renew your soul

Well, for me the colours I associate with Spring are green and yellow with possibly a hint of blue and purple, and I decided to make colour the main focus of my project:

It's a large card for my best friend, whose birthday is on the 7th of April.

The background was created with a piece of watercolour paper and Tim Holtz Distress Stain Sprays, some Aquatint Gold and I used the clingfilm technique, a favourite of the moment.

The focal images are created with a scrap of a paper serviette, adhered with matte gel medium,

 and one of the two butterflies from Tim's new Butterfly Duo that come with their own embossing folder.

It too was cut from water colour paper treated with the same technique and then I darkened it a bit with Decoart Quin. Gold fluid acrylic paint.

What I like about the cling film technique is that it often creates leaf like patterns, and no two pieces are ever the same.

The sentiment was stamped on a scrap of scrapbook paper with the help of the new Ken Oliver peg stamps. These are so clever as they click together, making it much easier to get the spacing right.

Here in Scotland, April often only gives us promises of Spring to come, so it seemed like an apt sentiment.

Well, that's it for now, but I will be back later in the day with my third project. These firsts of the month are always busy with so many new challenges starting.....

Hope you will have a great month, and thank you for visiting!!

Junk in your trunk

Hello everyone and a very happy March to you all!!!
Here in the northern hemisphere this is the month Spring is meant to start, - well I for one can't wait!

It being the first of the month, there are new challenges everywhere. This is my second project for today, with a third one appearing still later in the day, - pfew.



At Our Creative Corner, the lovely Candice has chosen the theme Junk in your Trunk, and this is what she had to say:Create something out of any kind of junk and re-fashion it either into something useful, functional or beautiful for the JUNK IN YOUR TRUNK challenge this month.
Candice is leaving the challenge open to your interpretation of what constitutes “Junk”
It may mean a set of hideously patterned china that you want to smash up and a make a mosaic...
It may mean reams of patterned paper you have lying around that you turn into a collage masterpiece...
It may mean doing something with skeins of wool that you intended to make a a sweater with...
It may mean doing something with rusty keys,nuts and bolts and random pieces of wire that you pick up off the street...

Well, there you go, plenty of scope to be creative. As you can see, I decided to create a container to hold all of my brushes. It started life as a humble yoghurt pot:

I began by giving it a good coat of gesso and then started to play with a variety of acrylic paints and texture and crackle mediums.

I just spread them on with the help of s palette knife and a brush and had great fun messing about.

Here are some other views:

I used mostly Decoart Media Line products, spreading the crackle paste on in different thicknesses, to get different sized crackles and textures.

Next I cut a doily with a Cheery Lynne die, using packaging from a 7 Dots Studio stamp set, (another bit of recycling lol). I loved the colours and textures on the packaging and they fitted my colour scheme perfectly.

Finally a few flowers, a stamp from the Tim Holtz Mercantile set and a couple of die cuts, finished it all off.

 

As you can hopefully see, I added some crackle to the die cuts too and sprayed the flowers in similar colours.

Hope you like my paint brush holder; because of its shape it is pretty practical, as it does not take up too much space, yet holds a lot of brushes.

Do make sure to go over to the Our Creative Corner Blog to see the amazing projects my team mates have created, you will not be disappointed! And of course if you decide to play along, we will all love that!!!

Of course like always there is a prize to be won too! This month our sponsor is

Meanwhile, thanks so much for dropping in here right now, and like I said, it's a busy day today, for I will be sharing yet another project later today.

Fairy houses for Our Creative Corner

Hello everyone and lovely to see you.
Today I am sharing a sponsor spotlight project over at Our Creative Corner. Our sponsor this month is Tando Creative.

Here is a little preview of my project, if you would like to see the rest and how I put it together, just click HERE

Hope you'll take the time to look as I would love to know what you think.

Thanks for coming by here anyway and have a great week ahead!

More Mixed Media fun for OCC

Hello dear friends and visitors, happy February to you all, this is my second post of the day, this time for the new challenge over at Our Creative Corner. You can see my earlier post HERE

At OCC it's the wonderful and super talented Julia who is our challenge host this time. Her theme is Tic Tac Toe and she has given us this grid:

This is what she had to say about it: For this challenge please choose one line from the grid shown. This can be a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line but you must select the middle square as one of your choices. What you make is your choice but please ensure that the three items you have chosen are clearly visible on your make. Please state in your post which line you have chosen. Inks, stains, sprays etc can be used as necessary on your project.

Our sponsor this month is:Tando Creative

 In fact if you come back on the 8th of February I will share a project I made with one of their super products

 Now to my project: I love challenges like this and could happily have chosen the entire grid, but, that's not the challenge right, so in the end I chose the middle column using paints, stamps and stencils and this is what I came up with:

It's a canvas board, using all of my favourite colours and mediums of the moment.

Here's a quick step by step:

I added some texture paste through the Memorybox Lathenay stencil and while the paste was still wet added some Stampendous Aged Pewter embossing powder and then dried (and melted the EP) with my heat gun.

Next I added some background stamping, using a favourite text stamp from the Artistic Outpost Birds of a Feather stamp set, I part inked it with a Faber Castell Big Brush pen. I also added some more stencilling, this time using Wateringcan Archival ink and a Tim Holtz layering stencil. I added colour with 3 different colours of both watered down  Distress paints and the new Distress Stain Sprays: Stormy Sky, Chipped Sapphire and a tiny bit of Weathered Wood.

A metal flower was added to the centre of the stencilled design, altered with a bit of gesso, some more EP and colour sprays.

I decided I really wanted a bit of crackling, so added some Decoart Crackle glaze to some of the stencilled design, after the crackle glaze had dried I also added some Decoart Antiquing cream, to bring out the crackling more.

I love the almost porcelain effect this gives, definitely something to use again on a larger scale....

 Finally I added a sentiment, stamped in Watering Can Archival and then clear embossed, using a Donna Downey stamp, I also edged my canvas with Wateringcan Archival.

I will probably use this canvas to make a mini book or journal cover, I love using these boards for that, as they are so sturdy.

Hope you liked my project, do make sure to check out what my talented teamies have created, and we would love it of course if you played along with our challenge.

Thank you for visiting like always and look after yourselves!

Christmas Leftovers

Hello everyone and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
Can you believe it is 2015 already, the turn of the millennium seems only weeks ago. Oh dear, how time flies when you grow older.....

Anyway, today sees the start of a new challenge over at Our Creative Corner. It's a new year and also a brand new challenge host, the amazing Pamellia Johnson, who only recently joined the team as you may have seen.
This is what she had to say about the challenge:
With the holidays merely a shadow behind us, my guess is you still have bits of Christmas leftovers stashed everywhere, not to mention bags of Christmas bits meant for the recycle bin. I am a hoarder of all things I think I might get around to using one day, and Holiday bits are no exception! Every closet, drawer and cupboard is overflowing with the little things I collected throughout the holidays. Things I think I might use and things heading to the curb.
Christmas wrapping, gift bags, tinsel, ribbon, gift boxes, tissue paper, Christmas crackers, wine boxes, empty gift wrap rolls, Christmas cookie tins, even the images from the fronts of cards I received...you name, I hoard it!
Let's put those bits to good use this month!
With that in mind, for my introductory challenge theme, I have chosen........CHRISTMAS LEFTOVERS

To be clear, your project does NOT have to have a Christmas theme, I only want you to recycle your Christmas scraps.

If it's not obvious what Christmas leftovers you used, make sure to tell us about it, somewhere in your post.

So here is what I created:

Any regular to my blog know that I am a paper hoarder, I also LOVE altering papers, and this project was made with the leftovers from some Prima pads of paper that I used for several of my Christmas cards.

I made another little paper wallet to keep memorabilia in, as I am away on a trip to Australia right now, and wanted something small enough to fit in a handbag, and yet have plenty of room for photos, tickets, journaling notes etc.

HERE is a link to a brilliant video tutorial that shows you how to make one, all it uses is 3 sheets of 12 by 12, plus other scraps of paper to line all the different sides.

I made my base out of 3 pieces of 12 x 12 Kraft card.

As the project has so many flaps and pockets, it is hard to photograph, but here you can see the inside:

Above is the inside of the wallet with all the panels open. As you can hopefully see, I covered each side and pocket with different, but matching bits of paper. Adding some texture with the help of stencils and some paste too here and there. Below are some more close ups:

Here you see the two sided flaps folded in, more bits of paper on the back of the flaps, these are meant as photo mats.

A close up of one of the pockets. As the whole little wallet needs to be quite flat in order to close, I did not want to add bulky embellishments to the inside, so decorated with fussy cut elements from the papers.

This is the central panel, I made a belly band to keep journal notes etc in place.

Here you can see the side flaps completely closed, again these panels are for photos. Below it is a bigger pocket for tickets and other bits, it can hold smaller photos too.
Here is the front:

I added a flower cluster here and as you can see there is also some stencilling with paste and high lighted with treasure gold.

As the wallet is specifically to hold my journey's keepsakes, I die cut the word journey from one of the papers stuck on some Kraft card for strength and altered it a bit with some gesso.

Here is a close up of the flowers still, as you can see, I tucked some cheese cloth underneath to soften it a bit.

Well, that's pretty much it. A quick and fun project to make and great to use up all those bits of paper that most of us will have plenty of after Christmas.

Please make sure to check out the projects of my amazing teamies new and old, I promise you, you will be stunned and inspired, all you need to do is click HERE. And of course we hope you will play in the challenge too!

Thank you for visiting like always and may 2015 be your best year ever!!!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas

Hello all and welcome. Thanks so much for dropping in here during this busy time of the year.
Just a quick post from me to wish you all the most wonderful festive season!

I am doing a sponsor spotlight for Tando Creative today, over on the Our Creative Corner blog. If you want to see how I put this together, all you need to do is click HERE

Hope your festivities are going well and that you will have some time to be creative too!

Thank you so much for dropping by here, peace joy, good will! and HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Hello everyone and happy first of December!!
I know, I know, it's scary with Christmas coming ever closer, but I for one am hugely looking forward to it!
Here is a Christmas project I created for the latest challenge at Our Creative Corner.

The lovely Alison chose the theme "Have Yourself  a Merry LITTLE Christmas". She would like us to make ATCs, chunky ATCs or ATBs. Well as you can see, I chose to make an ATB (Artist Trading Block) and turned it into a little lantern.

I started by cutting the largest of the Eileen Hull ATBs out of thick (480 grms) white card and cut circular openings with the Sizzix circle die.

Next I added texture to the sides with the help of some memory box stencils and texture paste, and  when that had dried,coloured with a mix of sprays, inks and some treasure gold over the raised bits. I cut 4 squares of parchment paper, and stamped some snowflakes and script on to them and then embossed with copper embossing powder. I glued those on the inside behind the circular openings. I also found a vintage snow angel online, re-sized it and then printed two of them, one reversed so I could glue them together and it would look alright from both sides.

Hope you can see from the photo how I folded the bottom of the angel, so that she would be able to stand on the top.
Next I made a little stand from a scrap bit of card to rest the rest of my embellishments against and give the box some backing.

I cut a decorative circle with a Spellbinders die, inked it with a mix of Vintage photo and Victorian Velvet, to pick up some of the colours in the snow angel and then embellished my box as you can see from the photos below with some greenery cut with the new Tim Holtz greenery die and a Johanna Sheen die.

I also made a little book with the Spellbinders labels 9 die and some coffee stained book pages and added a bit of cheese cloth to soften it all a bit.

I used a Stampendous Christmas Greeting on the background circle, one of the stamps I also used on the vellum.

Some little bits of Diamond Stickles here and there finished it all off.

Hope you are all well ahead with your Christmas preparations! Have a creative week and thanks for visiting!