Thursday, December 31, 2009

Resolutions anyone?

I'm not a huge fan of New Year's Eve. I find it makes me quite melancholy, so I'm usually asleep way before midnight. New Year's Day, on the other hand, it a time for optimism and feeling positive about the clean sheet of a year stretching before us.

I'm also not really one for making resolutions, apart from a few half hearted ones that I've never kept. So this year, I'm making resolutions that I want to keep, and in crafting terms, that is making a stab at Art Journalling. It may not work for me, but I'm looing forward to having a decent bash at it. Oh, and I intend to sort my stamps out into some sort of order- bit of a cheat this one, as I've already got my husband working on building me a storage unit for them!!

So,any interesting resolutions out there in blogland?

Sunday, December 27, 2009

The Stampman's blog hop

I've been reading the Stampman's blog, and have started doing their Blog hop. Well worth a look, some fabulous candy on offer!! They also have an award to post on your own blog next to your favourite piece of crafting of the year. Soooo, here's mine!!!











Big surprise, it's an ATC!!! It was one of my first attempts at collage using lots of inks. It's so bright and vibrant and I love the lady's snooty expression.It's also got a bit of 3D with the little beads in the corner. It's the first ATC I ever kept for myself.

I'm quite surprised that this is my favourite- there were a few close runners up. the majority of my work is stamped. Looking back through my gallery though, this one stood out to me. I keep a gallery of my work on the Docrafts site- click here for a look.Search for Lisa Sparkle.

I'm off to continue my blog hop- take a look if you have time! Stampman blog.

Monday, December 21, 2009

In love with Gorjuss.....

I'm not normally one for really cute stamps, but I do love my Gorjuss girl holding a star...... whilst I had her out to make some Christmas cards, I thought I'd stamp a few extra images for birthdays I have coming up this month. Take a look, it's great to see how different one stamp can look just with different colours.







Of course, I have made a couple more Christmas cards too, but the Christmas stash is now firmly packed away until next year.






OK, so the last one was just to make sure you were paying attention. She's one of my Stampotique girls with a swirly background and a Christmas hat brad.

I think that may be my cutesy phase over for a while. I promise more arty stuff to come once Christmas is over and done......

Happy Christmas!!!!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Christmas!!!!

Ok, OK, I know I said I wouldn't be making any Christmas cards this year, but I caved..... I really didn't enjoy making so many last year, and laying off making them this year seems to have helped! Inspiration has struck and here's the results.



The stamp is a Gorjuss girl called Little Star-I picked it up from my favourite local craft shop Lora Crafts - it's well worth a visit if you live near Wolverhampton. It's coloured with Promarkers and Stickles glitter. The background paper is taken from a book and aged using Tea dye Distress ink. The swirly stamp is one I picked up for a couple of pounds at the NEC craft show. It's a lovely acrylic stamp with a couple of little flowers on it, but I have no idea who makes it. Some sparkly swirly card, flowers and fluffy wool and you have yourself a card.


I've made it in some other colour ways. I particularly like this green and gold version. She looks like a fairy I'd like on the top of my tree. Being a crafty scavenger.... the ribbon is from a box of chocs = D

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Angel ATCs and another stroppy Miss

OK, so here's the ATCs I worked on yesterday. I've looked at them again today and I'm very pleased with how they've worked out.



Both of these are paper pieced. That's where you stamp the image (this one's from Paperartsy) onto different pieces of patterned paper, cut different elements of the stamp out from each one, then layer them up to form the whole image again. In both cases I layered onto an image stamped on white, where I'd coloured in the legs and face with Promarkers. I like Saffron Promarker round the face edges, coral for the rosy cheeks, then an overall covering of vanilla. The backgrounds are drops of cosmic shimmer mists picked up from my craft mat onto white card, then cut to ATC size and stamped over- waste not, want not! The word life on the first ATC is heat embossed. The background stamps are from Heidi Swapp and Crafty Individuals (1st ATC) and Paperartsy (2nd ATC).

I also made a  BRAK (a Birthday Random Act of Kindness) for a teenager, so I wanted something with attitude. Cue my beloved Stampendous girls.....





This one is stamped in Archival ink onto a background of acrylic paints. It sort of helps to make the area where your focal image will end up a bit lighter than the rest of the background, to help it stand out. I usually make the backgrounds on these ATCs very busy, so I decided to use a couple of BIG words for a change and keep it simple. The words are big foam stamps, and they worked brilliantly. The twill "It's mine" at the top is a 7 Gypsies sticker. I wanted her to look a bit ill and eerie for some reason, so she's coloured in with white gel pen for that never seen the sun look..... I use white gel pen a lot for accents and highlights, they don't cost much, but can add a real depth to an image.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Feeling warm and getting inky :)

Whew, what a week! We've had some problems with our heating, finally sorted out today, and as a result my house is very topsy turvy. I've not been able to see my desk, let alone get to it, besides it being too cold to consider sitting to craft for any length of time! However, today the plumber gave us heat again, and I got to my desk to get crafting! Hurray!!!

I owed a couple of ATCs, so I had a lovely time stamping and paper piecing with a lovely little Paperartsy angel stamp. I also worked on a little canvas for a Christmas present. I'll take some photos tomorrow and post them up to show you my work. I really enjoyed myself and can't wait to get back in thecrafting swing of things.....