a little journal page

Doesn't she just look like she's contemplating something as she handles her spider like a yoyo?!  I wonder what it is!

I just love spider girl.  I've left the details on how I made this mini page over on the Stampotique Designer's Blog but thought people in the UK may be interested to see this little bargain from Hobbycraft

I made my own page as part of a little journal I'm making up myself, then went to Hobbycraft tonight, found these journals for just £1...and was surprised at how close in size it was to the pages I'd cut.

Of course, I had to buy one!

Stamps used:

Spider Girl by Jill Penney and Daniel Torrente

Alphabitties by Jill Penney and Daniel Torrente

Journey Collage by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

rejuvenating my art journal

This square journal has lots of my favourite pages in, but some pages that I didn't like so I decided to give one of the spreads a Stampotique revamp ('cos that's where you'll find me every Friday). This one started off covered with torn text paper over which I'd rolled a marble dipped in paint.  I was trying out different things!!

Not liking it I gessoed over most of it, leaving some of the page with the original paint, and gessoed over it again, and again!  Some splatters of blue ink (because the bottle was a bit clogged up) and some transfer letters and I was beginning to like it!

Now there's a reason why you must never work on an extremely tidy desk (well, that's my excuse anyway!).... I had this bright pink painted paper nearby so stamped up a few 'time square' and added them to my page, along with some hydrangea punched flowers and an apt quote!!

Stampotique stamps used

Time square

row of numbers

Ecclesiastes

SDC131: my Stars project step by step

I love stars, they're great images to work with, and they're this week's challenge theme over on the Stampotique Designers Challenge Blog.   I took step by step photos as I made this stitched piece so you could see how I got from this ...

to this...

I started with a piece of white fabric that I roughly painted with white acrylic paint then stamped Journey Collage with black ink.  To make this a bit lighter I first stamped it on paper then stamped on the fabric a number of times.

I then put Peacock Feather distress ink and some blue Dylusions ink onto the lid of a plastic box and smooshed my fabric through it.

Jo Capper-Sandon's text star is one of my favourite stamps (and I LoVe the miniature star on the side of the block, such a clever idea).  I stamped this over the fabric ...

... carefully cut out the larger stars with a very sharp pair of scissors ....

.... before laying a piece of white card underneath and stamping the star again through the star holes.  I decided to go for an approximate fit rather than matching the shape exactly...

A touch of free machining around each star ...

... and some more free machining after I found a quote I liked!

 Then a peaceful afternoon spent adding tiny silver beads around the edge of the fabric 'postcard' and some shimmery sequins amongst the stars.

If you're inspired by stars, you can join us here to read more about Sam's  challenge, then link it up here.  We'd love to see your interpretation of this challenge.

Stampotique stamps used:

Journey Collage

Text stars with tiny star on side

“Just above our terror, the stars painted this story

in perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too often

abused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.”

― Aberjhani, I Made My Boy Out of Poetry

a little stitching

I love to sew like this, using my sewing machine to draw with.  I've been wanting to sew for ages now - I go through phases in my art work, sometimes wanting to smoosh paint around in my journal, other times I fancy sitting and crocheting and others, to sit and stitch.  

My recent problem has been that I couldn't think what to sew.  After admiring some brooches over on the Hens Teeth blog I had a really good think about the images I like and remembered some blind contour drawings* I'd done of some penguins a few years ago...

... and decided to make an ATC sized fabric piece. 

I layered up some plain fabric then cut out a piece scrap painted paper to add some colour to the penguin's tummy.  I found a map scrap near my sewing machine, which I thought would make a nice base for the penguin to stand on, held it all down and stitched my penguin.

After adding the blue stitched doodling and the buttons I felt the piece still needed a bit of texture and liked the look of the chain I found in my bead box.  The bell?  I just love little silver bells :)

Thanks to Viv at Hens Teeth for the inspiration to finally get back to sewing!

*to do a blind contour drawing, you don't look at your paper as you work but look straight at what you're drawing and follow its shape all the way round.  I was introduced to this fab technique in Carla Sonheim's book 'Drawing Lab', which I would highly recommend.

Another Stampotique scrapling ....

 ... although this one's not a mini book.  I trimmed this one in the end and think I'll add it to a journal page.

Just not sure where yet!!  This page has been hanging around my desk for a while.  It was an old page that had orange drips on so I added some more warm colours to it, then some stencilling with black and white acrylic paint.

There are various places on the pages that this scrapling would work...

... just need to work out where, and what else this page needs :)  Maybe 'Midge' x3 in a line.... hmmm

Stampotique Stamps used

Midge

giggle

journey collage

Happy Birthday Kay!

There's a very special birthday happening in our Stampotique team...

Kay is 70 today, and generously sharing gifts with others over on her blog.  I'm sure she'd love a visit!  Happy Birthday Kay!

It was Carol's birthday this week too so while I was in card making mode ...

I have my TH distresser for a couple of years I'm guessing, and never used it!  How bad is that!!  So I gave it a workout on both these cards :)

Hope you had a happy birthday Carol!!

PS Good to hear I'm not the only one who hadn't heard of scraplings!  That made me feel better :)  They are cute though aren't they?

Stampotique Scraplings

I just discovered scraplings!!  They seem to have been around a long time but they'd passed me by until now.  I'm sharing them over on the Stampotique Designers' blog today.

If you've not come across them either, they are the by-product of turning an A5 card into a square.  I love working 'small' so these were right up my street, especially since I added some pages using pamphlet stitch and turned them into mini books :)

Stampotique Stamps used

Carrot

Happy, happy

Abstract foliage

If you head on over to the Stampotique blog you'll find an extra scrapling on that post!!  Here's a sneek peak!

Are scraplings new to you too or am I the only one who missed them?

art calendar challenge 2014

I did a fair bit of umming and ahhing about whether to join in with this year's calendar challenge.  I LoVe the idea of it but am absolutely rubbish at keeping a diary.  In theory having an art journal slant to it should make it easier but I don't have a great record - although better than keeping an actual diary!!

Whilst tidying my craft room I found the book I made for the art calendar challenge 2010.  It was great reading back some of the things I noted about that month.

I can't believe I did all that work for February but didn't fill it in!!

I LoVe the folder I decorated for 2011.....

..... although I didn't get much filled in that month/year!

So this year I reckoned that even if I only completed January, I could put all the Januarys together in a book and maybe, over the years, collect snippets of my life notes!!!  I've bound a few pages together that will fit January and February in, and we'll see where it goes from here :)

I even have an extra page that I'm planning on using to list the books I read this month (I'd love to be able to keep a record of the books I read but never get around to it!)

This is the fifth year of the art calendar challenge.  Head on over to Kate Crane's blog, the Kathryn Wheel, if you'd like to read more about it or join in.

Hello Stampotique!

I LoVe this image of 'Midge' but was a bit worried that it would be hard to use differently to Dina Wakley whose work I love and who uses it so distinctively.

But I just worry too much!!  Playing around with an image, with your own collection of stamps and inks, means you end up using it in your own style!  After making a few tags recently I decide on an envelope as a base.  It may end up as a page in a newly created journal,

... or on a journal page!  I quite like it with all that white background :)

Stampotique Stamps Used

Midge

Text Stars

Upward Bound (I used the balloon string behind Midge)
Journey Collage
Tall Word Collage

Papillon postcard

Happy new year!!
I've been sorting out my craft room and came across a colour copy of the back of an old postcard so I decided to use it as the base of a tag.

There came a point in it's making when I really didn't like this tag!  I'd coloured the middle moth but re-stamping it onto plain white paper and gluing it over the top retrieved it for me.  I repeated this for the other butterfly and moth too.

 The green at the top was still a little too green but a smudge of cream paint through a stencil here and there knocked it back a little and now I like it :)

I seem to have a theme going in my journals at the moment, but I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with these brightly coloured backgrounds!  Although I do quite like this tag on there ....