Words to live by

Hello all and thanks for your visit!
I found myself with a few hours to spare and a wonderful vintage paper collection from Indigo Blu, and so I decided to have a play and create a little 4 x 6 book, - always one of my favourite projects to do.....

The book itself is made from 1 sheet of 12 x 12 scrap card and then I covered each page with some of those yummy papers.

I have explained many times in the past how to construct these little books, so I won't go into much detail here. A more extensive step by step can be found HERE
I have kept this one quite simple, as time was limited, below is a quick run down through the pages:

The actual papers are totally vintage, so I have kept this whole project in monochrome. I sanded each paper a bit, to give the shiny surface more bite and then added stencilling and stamping.

I used a variety of stamps from Indigo Blu, La Blanche and Tim Holtz.

Oh the little typewriter is a little prima stamp, and all the words are from the Tim Holtz Small Talk stickers.

Here's the next double page, both stamps here are from La Blanche. I used mainly Ground Espresso for both my stenciling and stamping, though a few images were stamped with Archival, either in Black or Coffee.

Here is a close up, I just love this steampunky guy with his butterfly wings.....

By using the same stencils on both sides of the double page, they hang together better I think....

And here is the final double page, this time the main stamps are mostly from the Tim Holtz Mercantile set, though there are also a La Blanch and some Indigo Blu stamps in the background.

Making your book like that also gives you two pockets, so I created a couple of very quick tags....

I made a spine from a spare bit of the papers and made a little tag to enhance the front a bit further. The title was  stamped with a little letter set I happen to have.

Well, that's it, time keeps being short at the moment, so I keep hoping that soon I will have the time to create something a bit more elaborate again.....

Anyway, thanks for your visit like always and look after yourselves!

A Trio of Tinies for Calico Craft Parts

Hello everyone, thanks for dropping in.
Just a preview today, sorry....

It's an ATC mini book and you can get a low-down of how I made it by hopping over to the Calico Craft Part's Blog
Hope you'll take the time to have a look and if you do, thanks so much for doing so!!

Calico has the most amazing selection of Autumn and Halloween themed embellishments, perfect for any type of project, hope you'll check them out too.....

Have a Creative week everyone and look after yourselves!!

Art journalling with Tim

Hello lovely visitors, today I am sharing an art journal page created for our latest challenge over at A Vintage Journey.

The theme for this month is Art Journalling with Tim, chosen by the lovely Alison from Words and Pictures. Now I love art journalling, but "Journalling with Tim", proved a bit of a challenge, because really art journalling is not something I have seen Tim do a lot of.... So in the end I just did my own thing, used quite a few of Tim's products, and most importantly had fun in the process. If you decide to join in with the challenge, I hope you'll do the same.
Below is a quick step by step of how this page was created:

I covered a double page in my Moleskine journal with Tim's Tissue Wrap and gave it a thin coat of gesso.

Next I started to paint with a variety of Distress Paints, Antique Linen, Scattered Straw and Ground Espresso. It's great to have a truly dark brown colour now in the Distress Paint Range. I blended them with a baby wipe and my fingers until I was happy with the result. As you can see there are some wrinkles from the Tissue Wrap, but I did not mind that...

In fact, I decided I wanted some more texture so used some Ranger Clear Texture Paste through a Crafters Workshop stencil, and when that had dried gave it a few sprtitzes with Hickory Smoke Distress Stain Spray.

Love how it pools around the raised bits....
Time for some stamping, I used a La Blanche and a Tim Holtz stamp (I got that one on Ebay, so not sure what set it belongs too).

I stamped them on tissue paper in black Versafine and then adhered them to the page using gel medium. When dry I blended some more of the paints around to make them merge into the background and become part of the page. I also added some stencilling using my all time favourite Latticework layering stencil and some Ground Espresso Distress Ink. I was surprised how well it came out over the paint. I also added some subtle purple tones, using Dusty Concord over the flower (hard to see on the photo... To be honest, at this point I really did not like what I had done, it had all come out too dark, but it was too late to start over, so I decided to just continue and do some collage on the other side to balance it all out.

I cut some labels out of a gelli print that was flying around on my desk, added some stamping (mostly using the Correspondence set, and gathered some other bits and pieces.

I layered them all up, adding one or two other embellishments, including a photo from the Photobooth collection..

Well there you have it, I still don't really like the page, but too bad..... Some you like and some you don't, it's all part of the creative process.....
 If you want to see some really cool journaling inspiration, do head over to the Vintage Journey Blog. My teamies have out done themselves this month, I promise you will not be disappointed!!

Hope you will decide to play along with our challenge too, we would all love to see what you create, and of course like always, there is a prize to be won and 3 pinworthy projects to be chosen by the team, so hopefully see you there!

Happy journalling and thanks so much for your visit here!!

Mixed Media Word search

Hello lovely friends and visitors! Welcome on this fine October day!
This is my second post for today, you can find the first one HERE
For this post I am sharing a project for Mixed Media Monthly challenges.

Our theme this month is a fun Halloween word search. Just pick one or more words from the graphic below and create your project around that in mixed media style.

You can find words by reading horizontally, vertically, left to right and right to left. Just make sure to read all the challenge rules on the blog.
Our wonderful sponsor this month is the art firm GRUMBACHER

Here is a quick step by step of how I put my project together:
I used some fabulous Grumbacher acrylic paints on my gelli plate and pulled a number of prints. Here is the one I used:

I used various stencils on the plate and red, yellow and black acrylic paint.

Next I used the red and the black paint to do further stencilling and stamping. As these paints are quite thick and rich in pigments, this worked like a dream.

I added a few strips of Tim Holtz tissue tape and then stamped and fussy-cut my focal image on a separate bit of card (the stamp is a collage stamp from La Blanche).

I coloured the image with a wonderful set of woodless coloured pencils also by Grumbacher. They blend to perfection!
As the gent has a sort of steampunk feel to him, I decided to add a few gears and sprockets as embellishments, altered with a mix of embossing powders and more of the acrylic paint.

Here's a close up still of the finished card

As you can see, my card is not purely Halloween themed but it certainly uses several words I found in the word search. Can you guess which ones they are?

Well that's it for now, hope you will check out the challenge and see the fantastic projects my teamies have created, and of course we would love it if you played along with the challenge. Like always there is a fab prize to be won, all the details are on the Mixed Media Monthly Blog

Hope you'll have a super creative month and happy crafting!

Thanks for your visit like always

Texture with a gelli plate....

Hello all and welcome! Can you believe it's October already? Well I actually can, as there are coloured leaves all around and there is definitely an autumnal feel to the air.

I am sharing 2 cards today, both created for our new October challenge over at Countryview Crafts. Our theme this month is Add Some Texture, chosen by the lovely Jennie.
Now when thinking of texture, my guess is most people think of texture paste, or other textural stuff, but of course there is much more than that. Texture can also be created through multiple layers, and I decided to make some cards with that in mind.
My background was started with the help of a gelli plate:

Now, no two backgrounds from a gelli are ever the same, so I won't do a full step by step, just to say, this was probably a second print after I had added a stencil for a first print and then removed it for this one.

Here is a further step, after more paint was added to the plate, including some golden paint and then I added further stencilling with the same folder, some dark brown paint and  using a make up sponge to stencil.

Here is a close up where you can see the effect of the gold paint a bit better.

Here finally the finished card, adding some tissue tape, a Tim Holtz embossed butterfly from the Butterfly Duo die and matching embossing folder and a stamped sentiment, stamped on book paper.

I added some glitter and background stamping still for more interest.

The crackle was achieved with a crackle stamp. stamped in white paint and then I blended some Archival Ink in Orange Blossom over it to tone the white down a bit.

The second card was done in a very similar way, but using a different stencil and some Autumnal dies. A Tim Holtz Ideaology wordband and some tissue tape finish it all off.

The pumpkin and the leaf were both coloured with Distress Markers and then I added some Distress Clear Rock Candy crackle paint for some additional texture.

Well, that's it, hope you like my cards, and if you have a moment check out the other projects that my team mates have created, you won't be disappointed. All you need to do is click HERE
Most of the products used for this project are available from Countryview Crafts, and if you decide to play in our challenge, you could even win a £20 voucher to the shop!
Thanks for visiting like always and happy October!!

Vintage canvas for Shimmerz

Hi everyone and thanks for dropping in.
Just a preview day today as my full project can be seen on the Shimmerz blog.

Hope you'll take the time to hop over to take a look, but before I sign off, remember, you can order Shimmerz products directly from the Shimmerz Paints Store. If you do, don't forget to mention my name (Astrid Maclean) in the «Instruction to Merchant/seller» part of your order form (just below your name and address). After clicking «add», you'll get a FREE product in the color of your choice. And for people from outside the US, Shimmerz do a really good deal on postage!

Well, have a creative week and thanks so much for visiting today!

Autumnal splendour

Hello everyone and thanks for dropping in today.
My poor old blog has been rather neglected these last few days as my day job has kept me otherwise occupied, but today I have a card to show you:

It's my daughter's birthday in a few days time, so I just had to make a card.
I basically used whatever was flying around on my desk.
The background was made with Brushos, a number of different sprays and some stamping.

The leaves were die cut  with some Spellbinder leaf dies, I used one of my gelli plate prints.
I then added some ribbon, twine and a little metal leaf, mounted it on black and a piece of scrapbook paper and that was pretty much it....

I added some gilding flakes from Indigo Blu around the edges.

The sentiment was stamped with Flitterglu and gilded with the same flakes. As it was getting a bit lost against the background, I added some shadows around the letters.

Here's a final close up of the whole card. Of course I was messy in my usual way and some of the gilding flakes landed up where they were not meant to be, but I quite liked the effect so decided not to worry...

Well, there you have it. Thanks for visiting like always and I hope you will have a creative week.