Enchanted tags

The theme for the second tag swap over on Vix's facebook tag swap group is Enchanted. Here are my offerings, about to be posted off! We had to make a set of 8.

Mine are all variations on the same theme!

I started by sticking pages from a book to my card bases and then lightly gessoing them so that the text still showed through. I made a bit of a mess don't think I'll ever be a tidy crafter!!!

I then masked off a moon and painted each tag with some watered down Claudine Hellmuth Studio semi-gloss acrylic paints in Purple Palette and Classic Teal. Next the difficult bit.....waiting for them to dry......didn't take too long. I then used a gorgeous tree stamp from Lavinia which comes as the tree stump with door in and a dinky set of leaves for you to build the tree up as you want it. I stamped the first one in brown Versafine but it was a bit light so I went for a black Versafine base with a few added leaves in the brown for the other 7 tags. Can you spot the odd brown one out?

I used Lavinia fairies and toadstools and my favourite Stampin Up set ever- Pocket Silhouettes, for extra grasses. It's such a versatile set of little stamps, I couldn't do without it! A

Add a touch of black stickles and white gel pen (what else?) a doodled border, eyelet and ribbon, and they were ready to go. Hope the ladies in the swap like them!

I'm entering these tags in the challenge at the new Crafts and Me challenge blog, where the theme is Faeries or Wings. I've got both on here!!

It's also my entry for the new Sir Stampalot Challenge blog, where the prize is an amazing one- a Cricut!!! The there there is fantasy.

Purple and brown ATC.

I recently discovered the Fun with ATCs blog (thanks to Susi posting a lovely comment on one of my posts). The current challenge is to make an ATC in purple and brown, and the idea must have stuck in my brain because last night I dreamt about it and woke up knowing exactly what I wanted to make.

So, here's my entry into the Purple and brown challenge, pretty much exactly as I imagined it. The background is a book page watercoloured with Dusty Concord Distress Ink, and the moon is cut out of white card sponged with a little more purple ink. The trees are a lovely Lost Coast unmounted stamp and I stamped them in Sepia Versafine.

This is the original version which came out a little bit blurry - I wasn't happy with it, so I stamped the trees again onto tissue paper, ripped a section out and now it looks much crisper.

My tip for tissue paper is to use a glue stick to adhere it to your ATC, it sticks really well and you can usually see your background through it slightly. The bits I tore off will be used on something else! The little phrase just happened to jump out at me from the book page and it seemed quite apt, so on it went! I also sponged through some sequin waste for a little extra purple, I think I'm addicted to sequin waste!!!! All in all, I'm very pleased with it.

Loving Lavinia

OK, so if you're a stamp addict (like me.....) you'll understand what I mean when I say there's a stamp I need. Not just want, not just have to have, but NEED!!!! My friend Michelle has a gorgeous leaf branch stamp by Lavinia stamps. I used it on these ATCs last week when I visited for a crafty morning.

Lovely isn't it? I think that's on my hit list for the NEC show in March...... I love their secret garden gate as well. It started off as a bit of a problem session for me, I wasn't happy with anything I started to do. In the end, my mistakes made the browny yellowy backgrounds for these ATCs and a couple more.

As the quote goes- "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." Scott Adams.

Art Journal- I've started!!!!

Hurray!!!! My art journal is green for go!  I'm sooooo pleased with myself. I painted the base colours yesterday and finished it off this morning. It's now drying happily on the table. I used a sketchbook, as the pages were nice and thick, but the ring binding is at the top (short edge) of the page, so it was a bit tricky to set out. Well, you'll see that a bit later on........

First step- create a background.


I painted the pages with white gesso for a textured base, then smooshed around some acrylic paints until I was happy with the effect.

I chose blue and white paint to try to get a bit of a wintry sky feeling. Looking out of my indow right now, the sky is a gorgeous blue and the sun is shining, but I know it's freezing cold too. So I watered down the warmer blue with a lot of white. I wanted some sunshine in there too, as a reminder that sunnier days are on their way, and also because this is the month where I get blinded on my way to work in the morning when the sun is sooooo low it glares through my windscreen......




Next step- decorations!

One must have element- the month! I love this See D alphabet- Typewriter font in Stazon Teal.

I stamped some bare trees across the bottom of the pages (Crafty Individuals stamps), in Stazon black and Teal, and added some spots by sponging through sequin waste in Distress Inks (Scattered straw and Faded jeans).

Excuse the 2 little squares, I'd started sticking them on before I remembered to take a photo.

I decided on a bit of ripped up book to accentuate the sun rays, and then added a couple more random sections- they're sponged with a little bit more of the Distress Inks.









Step 3 - Journal space

Like most crafters I have lots of odd bits of offcuts that I'm saving to use on something- well now I've used lots of them!! I ended up with 1.5" squares. i'd have liked larger, but they wouldn't fit......

So there are squares with cosmic shimmer mist on, squares that have been watercoloured with Distress inks and overstamped, all sorts of bits and bobs. I tried to use the same ones several times, to give a little bit of continuity, and chose a lot of the yellow and bluey green squares to tie in to the background. That said, it needed the splashes of purple and red to lift it.




So..... that's it. What do you think? I just need to fill in the 31 squares now. Next thing is to number them, and fill in yesterday's square.....can't wait!

Believe!!! Altered canvas

This is my latest canvas- and one I'm not so sure of. It's not made with anyone in mind, I just had acrylic paints out and painted the base, and it stemmed from there. I sprayed sections with Cosmic Shimmer mists, but the glimmery effect doesn't show up well on camera. The letters are stamped with some fab stencil letter foam stamps. The owl stamp is Personal Impressions, the gate is Paperartsy and the branches in the background are from a Basic Grey set. There's also tissue paper, beads and mesh, all painted over with modge podge yet again.

In the corner here you can justabout make out where I sponged ink (Adirondack Lettuce) through some sequin waste to make a gorgeous dotty/honeycomb effect. I'm loving doing that technique at the moment, it's on lots of my ATCs!!! There are always a couple of techniques that are favourites at any one time, and I tend to use them to death then get fed up of them!! What's your favourite trick at the moment?

I'm liking the canvas more as time goes on...... :)

Autumn colours

This month's Pass It Forward swap on Do Crafts had to have the word Autumn on. I made two in my crafty day with Kay yesterday, but the first one shown here is the one I'm using for the swap. The background is made with a shaving foam technique (I promise to blog on how to do it at a later date), and I thought that this one was lighter and looked like a sunset. The trees are a Lost Coast designs unmounted stamp, that I just HAD to have after trying Kay's out!!




This second one was actually my first attempt. Again, it uses a shaving foam technique background but this time I'd stamped over it with a leaf outline stamp before adding the trees. I stamped the trees first in a chocolate brown Impress ink....argh!!! Disaster, it was blurry and patchy and just awful!! I wiped most of it off with a wet wipe, but it darkened the whole piece. I restamped in Stazon but I still wasn't happy, so out came the trusty Cosmic Shimmer misters. A quick squirt of Mango Blaze and it looked all warm and glowing!!! Amazing what comes out of a mistake isn't it?

A little bit of faux stiching and a word stamped onto an offcut of cosmic shimmered card, and I'm happy with it!!

I made a couple more ATCs yesterday using shaving foam technique backgrounds.


Queenie is heat embossed round the edges with a pale shimmery golden powder that's just gorgeous. She's from a Paperartsy set with some quite rude ladies in it!!



On Creative Thoughts, I stamped the flower over the swirly background for a nice warm orangeyred effect, then restamped onto white card and cut out. Spot my favourite, some Stickles glitter glue in the centre :) This is a See D's mini stamp, great because it's unmounted with the image printed on the reverse, so you can work out where you're stamping it.

Roll on next week's crafty sesh with Kay!