another fairy for The Stamp Attic

This one's a sleepy one, welcoming you to dreamland!  The lovely thing about this set of stamps is it has a number of different words to use with the images:  Birthday, Best Wishes, Dream, Imagine, Fairy, Enchanting, To Fairyland.  I love adding snippets to my cards and these little words are ideal!

I stamped the fairy image with a black inkpad then coloured the image with my Inktense pencils.  I layered the main image with a variety of papers and used glitter paper and Stickles to add sparkle.

This beautiful stamp set is available from Wendy at The Stamp Attic.

can you hear Spring awakening?

...it means there'll soon be fairies in your garden, ready to play.

I'm sure they've been tucked up warm in their fairy houses over the cold winter months.

This card is a shop sample for Wendy at The Stamp Attic.  It has a simple black and white theme on the front using The Black Market Paper Society Ebony and Alabaster papers. 

I used the Fairyland collection of Clear Art Stamps to create this image on the front of the card, stamping the lily of the valley flowers close together.  I wanted a simple, yet elegant card that opened up to reveal a hint of fairyland...

[sorry about the shadow, the sun was shining - yes, the sun :) ]

I inked up sections of the toadstool stamp to create the idea of a beautiful garden, and stamped extra flowers, small toadstools and the happy fairy separately, adding them afterwards with silicone glue.

I left space at the bottom of the card to write a birthday message!

Another fairy card tomorrow for you fairy lovers out there!!

Edit:  hmmm, maybe I spoke too soon, it's now snowing!!

pdcc#14: colours of summer

What I love about the play date colour challenge is that, through using images of the world around us, we can be inspired and challenged to try new colours in our artwork. This week's image is of flowers in my sister's garden which won a silver gilt medal at the Royal Horticultural Society's annual show at Tatton Park in Cheshire. I can spend hours photographing sections of her gardens, they are so amazingly put together.

I love this photograph, what I didn't think about was how easy [or hard!!]  it would be to make a project using these colours!!   These aren't colours I'm used to using together so it was a proper challenge this week!!

I needed some journal time this week so decided to play with these colours. My other option was an ATC with this month's free stamp from Craft Stamper.  That may still happen, we'll see!!

Anyway, I put the orange, dusty pink and lilac down on the paper in patches.  They were all acrylic paints although the lilac is a lumiere, which reacted quite differently when I sprayed Sticky Fingers Grass Green Summer ink over the top and let it drip down.

I then added stamping, again using the paints, before embossing the flowers and adding the flying stopwatch and the quotes.  My sakura white souffle pen didn't like the ink either and turned green as I wrote on the page!

I am particularly pleased that I finally managed to add some stitching to my journal ... hurray!!  The clock image was stitched before I glued it to the page.

Good luck with the colours.  I can't wait to see what you do with them.  :)

GPP Street Team Crusade No 36 - Braving the Elements

I chuckled to myself writing that title as although it really refers to the recent cold weather, I do feel I braved, or even battled, with one of the elements we had to use in this challenge!

Michelle Ward's challenge was to gesso a journal page, paint it with acrylics, splash it with water and wipe (I forgot to wipe...ooops!) then stencil with homemade snowflakes before adding them to the page. 

It was the paint on the gesso I battled with!  I'm used to splooshing my paint around, dabbing and blending it, leaving some areas dark and making other areas lighter by watering down the paint.  Acrylic paint does not behave itself when it's on top of gesso....aaaarrrgh!

Having said that, I LOVE the result!!

I meant to take a couple of photos as I went along but I got a bit engrossed and forgot!!  I used Adirondack paint dabbers [stream, pool, eggplant, snowcap] and then highlighted areas with my new Inktense colouring pencils.  This was soooooooo relaxing, and the gesso base gives a great 'tooth' for the pencil. 

The final task was to add some journalling, which I did, but may paint over as I'm not happy with it.  I preferred the page without it and imagine it would look better with white gel pen handwriting across areas.  I was trying not to write in and out of the snowflakes, don't know why, just thought I ought to try something different!!

This is my first time at entering this challenge, although I've often looked and drooled over entries.  If you look at my snowflakes, they have little hearts in there, an idea I stole from Julie Prichard!  I've always put straight cuts into homemade snowflakes before!!

Going to leave you with a couple of images of the pages I did yesterday to demonstrate how I layer acrylic paint onto my journal page, and later add stamping and images.  It's still a page in progress.

The page on the right, below, was one from a previous demo which I added to with a baby wipe and green true colours paint to co-ordinate a little better with the page on the left.

didn't we have a lovely time, the day we went to Paddy's!

Look! I don't think there's an inch of clear space on that table!!

I spent the day teaching my Art Journalling 1 workshop at Paddy's and some great art was made by all, with lots of laughter along the way :)

I love the contrast Emma's green leaves have against the rest of the page.  Her friend made some beautiful pages in autumn colours...

Love that punched hand!

Amy, Paddy's daughter, made this fab page using the artful stamper stamp I used for this week's pdcc. She made some other gorgeous pages using torn paper circles.

Carol used the same stamp with a completely different effect. And look how those leaves in the background shine! Audrey used the same paint [Stewart Gill Byzantia Illuminata] in her journal. It made me think of illuminated manuscripts when the light caught it...

Audrey and Glo both made beautiful 'girly' pages:

Audrey

Glo

Then we all had a bit of a chuckle when they both produced these pages:

Audrey

Glo

What a contrast!! What deep meaning do these dark black and red pages reveal? Especially with those praying skeletons! LOL

This is what is so great at taking time to play in an art journal. You produce art that you probably never would in any other place, and enjoy it! Just like children play with new colours and just have fun, so should we! It's good for you you know :)

Repeat of this workshop:  Thursday 28th January 2010
2 spaces remaining
Contact Paddy on 0161 798 5115 to book.

Art Journalling 2 coming March 2010!

pdcc#13 black n white with hints of colour

I just love the vintage pieces in this photo.  Wouldn't you just love a typewriter that colour?  I would, and the phone would just be ace to use.  Anyway, I digress.  Jules, the lucky thing, is getting ready to go to CHA, but she did leave us with yummy colours to play with :)

As promised, this is the stamp I got from The Cubby Hole yesterday.  It's by the Artful Stamper and I just love it. I got the turquoise stickles and red spotty ribbon there too :)

The background papers are the Black Market Paper Society papers from the Stamp Attic that I used in the 50 memory book project I made the other week.  I had a handful of sheets left over.

And I just love sewing little bits n pieces together as embellishments :)

play date with a fab friend

You can't get much better than a day spent with a crafting friend, shopping in new craft shops (new to me anyway) then playing with the new purchases together.  Not forgetting a chip barm for lunch...yummy!!

Sue took me to Craft Addicts first where I bought these yummy flower stamps by Autumn Leaves.  Craft Addicts sell  E-Z Walnut Ink Tintz which come in a variety of colours in dabber bottles.  I'd not seen these before so when we got back to Sue's we both played with Sue's collection of these inks in our journals.  Having just returned from Wendy's Stamp Attic, Sue had new stamps to play with too...Tattered Angels Clear Stamps of owls and butterflies [Graceful Journey].

I stamped the butterfly on the bag Tracy had put my goodies in at Craft Addicts, as well as some of the flowers :)  The page isn't finished yet, want to work on the leaves!

We visited Carol at the Cubby Hole before going back to Sue's, arriving just in time for a chip barm :)  I won't show you my purchases from there just yet, I want to use them for this week's play date cafe challenge.  :)

art calendar 2010 365 challenge: half way through january!

I think I've passed my record for keeping a diary!!  Some days I've done retrospectively, but I am up to date!  I only have one inch squares so can't fit much writing in there, but that seems to be helping me keep it up!  It's funny though, it's hard some days trying to decide what to write. 

[Just to give a bit of background to the entries, I'm on a change of meds for anxiety/depression and I've found things REALLY hard to cope with the last couple of weeks.  But I'm ok, and praying that 2010 is the year I see the breakthrough.  I know I'm making some progress, there was absolutely no way I could have written about this when it all first happened a year ago!]

memory book

I was asked at the weekend to make a memory book which could contain photographs and comments from friends.  It was via a friend of a friend so I didn't know the person, but what a lovely surprise gift - a book full of photographs and nice things written about you!!

Apparently the recipient loves black and white films, wears black a lot, and likes pierrot clowns so I hope she likes this book which I made using my bind-it-all.  I alternated five pages of white card with five pages of black and decorated each page with collage elements, papers and Tim's film strip ribbon [which comes in the cutest tin!!].

When I phoned Wendy at the Stamp Attic to order the film strip ribbon I asked her for suggestions of any suitable papers and she sent me some yummy, yummy papers by the Black Market Paper Society.  I rarely do books like this, usually for gifts for close friends getting married, but this was very relaxing - lots of cutting and sticking :)

pdcc#12 - shades of blue

I have a feeling that these shades of blue are going to look different on different people's computers, and to different people ( blue is one of those colours we seem to see differently, ever had that argument with your other half!!).  But that's what's great about the Play Date Cafe, you don't need to worry!

Whilst out shopping last week I came across a ball of wool that was three shades of blue twisted together.  And since I was in a crocheting mood, I invented this little wooly owl!  He's the first creature I've designed myself and I'm very pleased with him.

His eyes are made from old buttons from my button tin :)

And he loves to be outside in the branches of trees, but it was a little bit cold today so he came back in!  He is so nesh!!

Thanks for these colours Alison, love what they got me to produce :)

fancy a bargain?

Paddy's Stamping Place

146 Butterstile Lane, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 9TJ

0161 798 5115

have their January Sale starting

WEDNESDAY  13TH JANUARY 2010

10am

I know there are lots of bargains as I did lots of sorting out today with my friend Helen!! All Christmas craft and stamp items are half price, Elusive Image stamps are half price, there are many punches less than half price and much more.  Paddy's making space for new stock so get down there if you can and grab a true bargain :)

taking it easy

Alcoholinky left me a link to the demo version of this game, knowing I love the steampunk style.  What she didn't know is I also love logic games so this computer game is just PERFECT for me!!    I'm not a great game player, but this is FAB!  :)  After playing the demo version I just HAD to pitch in and get the full blown version :)   It's called Machinarium and has the cutest little robot and is fabulously illustrated :)

Right, off to do what I should be doing this afternoon!  Don't tell Wendy I was skiving ;)

first Play Date Colour Challenge of 2010!

Gold   Silver   Black   White

These colours from Sandi have sooooooooo much potential.  I LOVED the challenge of this one as I would normally pair black or white with silver, but put gold with cream.  I love jewellery with both silver (or white gold) and gold together but have never used them together in my artwork.  Black and white I love, as regular readers will know.  So what did I make?

....Something I've had in my head for a while!!  I decided a bird would be perfect as he/she could have a black and white body with metallic feathers.

I cut the body shape out in card and covered it with a retro scrapbook paper of black squares on white.  I stamped over this, and added peeloff (yep!!!  don't forget, they have their uses sometimes!!)  dots.   

Each tail feather is different.  There is a silver piece of card covered in sticky backed ribbon, cuttlebugged foil leftover from a workshop I took from Sue Roddis [she's teaching it at The Stamp Attic on and they have a few places left on the second day if you're quick!!], and cuttlebugged gold card embossed with white EP and dipped in glitter whilst still hot.

Have fun playing with these metallics, plus black and white.  I think they'll be some amazing interpretations as the colour combo is so amazing