Nooooooooooo! Not peach!!! PDCC148

I know I've said it before, but I am highly allergic to the colour peach!  I can't stand it!  Yet rename it 'Wild Honey' and I'm fine.  This week's play date cafe colours are navy blue, peach and stone and look so elegant together in the colour story (and in the DT samples!)

So, not to be beaten by a mere colour, and as useful procrastination (I should be typing out my planning), I set too with a tag.

I dabbed my wild honey distress ink on the back of a plastic wallet (I think I own a bit of teflon sheet but this works just as well and there's usually something plastic to hand!) and spritzed it before picking up the colour on some white paper.

I repeated this with some Dr Ph. Martins Hydrus watercolour, creating some dark blue paper to cut out on my Big Shot. It's not my favourite tag, but I'm happy with that peach  wild honey so I'll tick it off as a success :)

drawing with scissors PDCC147

 How have I not cottoned on to this idea before?  I get too precise and 'tight' when I'm drawing with conventional materials which is one of the reasons I love drawing with my sewing machine!  To add that dimension to this page though meant doing it on separate paper then adding it to the page so I just thought, "why not cut out shapes and add black ink around the edges instead?!"  Voila!

This journal page, and a tag, emerged from this week's colour combo over at the Play Date Cafe.  It's an unusual colour combo that I know I'd never have discovered myself, which is why I love these challenges!

And isn't that bird stunning?! (although my daughter says he looks like a pigeon - an artistic one though!)

 That 'evergreen' varies depending on which screen I'm using to view the image but I stuck with the labelled colours of evergreen, olive, smoke (grey) and cherry blossom.  Having happily unearthed my Dylusion sprays I started with my favourite ink of all time, the grey one!

 ...followed by some olive green watercolour straight from the tube.  I added some water and let it run then squidged it with a piece of paper over the top which produced a lovely secondary piece!

 A bit of stencilling next with the pink (an acrylic dabber) through some card cut with Tim Holtz' typeset die but what to do for a main image?

I was going to add some large letters so had a little nosy along the bookshelf for some inspiration.  I came across my Lotta Jansdotter book (LoVe her designs!)

... and spotted some nice shapes that I could cut out.  I didn't draw them first, just went straight in with the scissors before spraying them pink, and creating another nice effect on separate paper!

I added some stamped text and am very happy with the result!  Can't believe I'm finally feeling like I'm back in the 'flow' as it were, only to go back to work next week!

Finally (sorry, long post!), I made a tag with some of the background paper created during the making of this page!

And here it is alongside the inspiration image.  I added a couple more stamens as it made me think of lilies, a flower I LoVe.

Thanks so much for taking the time to visit!

Happy, I'm so happy!

... not only did the postman bring some goodies I ordered earlier this week, but we have a new Hobbycraft store that's opened just down the road!  Ten minutes drive from my house, and one the way home from work (if necessary!)  And the best thing?  They had a 25% off coupon in the local paper :)  I'm AlwAys envious of you guys in the US with your Michael's coupons and I've never seen anything like this for Hobbycraft.

My Cuttlebug hasn't been well for a long time and I'm pretty sure it's rollers have 'gone'!  So although I love the look of the V2 Cuttlebug I invested in a Big Shot with my coupon.  I figured it'd cope better with the Bigz sizzix dies, it being made by Sizzix!

by Angeline Yong Jeet Leen

for http://thecreationofcreativity.blogspot.co.uk/

http://thecreationofcreativity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/jay-gees-nook-dt-thanks.html

After a bit of blog browsing over the weekend, and seeing this (see above) fabulous card, I ordered the gorgeous Chloe Stem die by Memory Box and had a bit of a play with it.

It's the perfect size for shipping tags and after cutting a flower from some scrap, inky paper I had lying around I used the negative first as a stencil (see above)...

...  then on another tag.  I can't resist sketchbooks in art shops so, having bought a new little one at Hobbycraft, I resolved to at least finish one of my most recent ones so this page is in a small A5 moleskine...

I'm finding lots of inspiration over on Jane Davies' blog at the minute and the block of orange stemmed from there (sorry, pun unintended but then it made me chuckle :)  )

There's some background Chloe Stems cut from book pages..

which then stand out beautifully against the orange.  I'm off to learn leaded stained glass tomorrow so they'll be something different to share here over the weekend :)

mixed media mini stitched book

I think I'm going through a bit of a mini book phase - I finished this one in the week and another one (for a magazine challenge) yesterday!

The cover is made from an old wool blanket that I've added felt too with that wonderful 'dumphing' machine!  Then some free machining and snippets of lace.

Inside the page sizes vary.  I used pre painted papers that have been hanging around my studio forever, tags,  old book pages, envelopes...

I got to use two new toys in this project - Tim's washer border and Typeset Alphabet dies which I ordered from the lovely Wendy at The Stamp Attic.  I love the umbrella man die too but decided these had more uses, and they'll make great stencils!

I particularly LoVe the effect I got when I put three sets of papers through my Cuttlebug - the text paper got stuck into the coloured paper one underneath (the stitching's there to keep it altogether, I couldn't be bothered taking each tiny letter out to glue it back in lol)