Light it Up for Autism Awareness

Hello and welcome to the Light It Up Blue For Autism Awareness Blog Hop!  It's World Autism Awareness Day today and having friends with autism, friends with children with autism, and teaching kids with autism I was honoured to be asked to take part in this blog hop.

The National Autistic Society describes what autism is here.  

Lots of fantastic sponsors  have shown their support for Autism Awareness and you can see the complete list here: http://lk2thestarz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-light-it-up-blue-for-autism.html

If you would like a chance to win a prize from one of these fabulous companies leave a comment on this blog, and any of the other blogs participating in today's hop! You can find the other blogs taking part in the hop here.  Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced on Monday April 6. 

The theme for this campaign is 'blue' so I used as much blue as possible, plus my new stamps from Fred B Mullet

After smooshing my tag through some blue brusho inks I stamped some Stampotique numerals, lightening the intensity of the ink by stamping it onto my underpaper before stamping my tag.

I applied a couple of blue distress inks to the fern stamp and spritzed it with water before stamping it on my tag.

It didn't come out as clearly as I thought (but oooo, love the effect at the bottom of the tag!) so I added some stenciling...

..and some sprinkles of water, which I dabbed off - love that effect!

Spraying White Dylusions ink through my circles stencil added this gorgeous splash of pink 'cos I rarely clean my stencils.  It adds a great contrast!  You can tell I got carried away here and forgot to take my step by step photos - I also stamped a fern by Fred B Mullet.

It still needed a little something so I used my fern die with a security envelope and love the contrast of the black and white paper against the blues.

I'm going to give this tag, along with a little collection of blues, as blog candy to someone who leaves a comment on this blog; I'll use random.org to pick a winner.  Other blogs in the hop also have their own individual blog candy.

It's a shame I can't include the matches, they have cute blue heads!!

So head on over to http://lk2thestarz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-light-it-up-blue-for-autism.html  and have fun blog hopping!  And don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win, the draws will take place on Monday April 6th :)  Happy Hopping!

15 min art journal challenge

I've seen the idea of a 15 minute creative challenge on a few blogs so decided to give it a go.

I'm not great at planning out an idea for my journal pages; I journal intuitively... but all my inks, stencils and favourite stamps are within easy reach of my desk so I figured I'd see what happened!

I even managed an action shot within the time!

Time's up!  I was pleased with how much I got done - which included cutting out a couple of stars from underpaper that I ended up not using so they'll go in another project.  Have you tried giving yourself a 15min time limit when working in your journal?

tags of truth

Sometimes, no matter how well you know a friend, it can be tricky to know what to give them as a birthday gift, especially when you are housebound with a nasty, nasty cough and can't nip out to the shops for a bit of a mooch!

I did find a small gift on Etsy but wanted to add to it.  Having rummaged around my friend's pinterest boards, and blog hopped from some of her links, I decided to make a gift inspired by Rebecca Sower's autumn inspiration board..... 

....and created a framed collection of tags that declare truth about my friend.

I started off thinking I'd make 4 or 5 tags but once I laid them out within the frame I realised I'd need lots!

I chose colours, fabrics and buttons that I was pretty sure she'd like and added words and truths from the Bible.  The music fabric was created by another talented mutual friend.

I stamped some words but added others after cutting them out of an old prayer book.  I can't bring myself to cut up a Bible (there are too many people in the world who can't afford them so it just seems wrong) but second hand bookshops often have cheap copies of the book of common prayer which contains great words, sometimes hymns, and usually some Psalms.

My friend loves to crochet and sew, and shares my love of buttons, so these all feature!

She's also a fan of hens teeth art (as am I!), which inspired the stitching on this button card.  I adore making tags and have a little box full of them; think I might make myself a little board to hang them on!  Tomorrow, though, I'm off to Harrogate ... to a workshop with Dina Wakley ..... so excited!! (and so glad I'm well enough!!!!)

creative wrapping

 It was one of my very best friend's birthdays last weekend and although I'd bought part of her present, I made the rest.  It was a handmade present that grew and grew and I'll share it in another post, but today I'm sharing the fun I also had gift wrapping it!

After splashing paint and ink around on some paper along with some doodles and rubber stamps I added some double sided adhesive sheet to the back of part of it, punched some circles in the style of Roben-Marie Smith and used the circular stickers I created to hold down the tissue wrapping paper.

I then added some more to a tag, added some collage and a declaration of truth, punched a hole and added some thread.  Now, can you guess what the present was?!!

stitching fun with celtic dream dies

I was thrilled to discover that the Celtic Dream dies from Lavinia Stamps cut felt so for this month's article on the Lavinia Stamps website I did some sewing :)

I turned my cloth piece into a needlecase but I could easily have used it on a journal cover.

Step by step photos and instructions are available HERE.

Thanks for visiting :)

huge demand for cards this week!

March is one of my busiest months for birthdays, and my Mum's birthday is also always very close to Mothering Sunday, so this week I needed LoTs of cards!  I've had a very nasty cough and although I could do bits and pieces of arty stuff, they were little bits at a time ...

 ... so I decided to scan some of my journal pages and use them to create some cards :)

I added a stamped 'happy birthday' greeting and re-highlighted the gold accents from the journal page.  On the back of each card I added a punched heart alongside my 'created by' stamp.

This next card is from a journal page that features a crocheted flower (apologies for the lighting in the next two photos!)...

... so I added another real crochet flower to the card, laying it over the scanned image, as well as stamping a birthday greeting and adding some punched hydrangeas and tiny pearls.

 My third card was for my Mum, who loves this journal page so I scanned it ...

 ...and added some stickles glitter glue on the fairy wings.

 My sister asked me to make a card for her to give Mum on Mother's Day so I had to make sure both cards were quite different.

 They do both feature free machining though ;)  I raided my scraps box to create both cards and used a dried out baby wipe (from art journaling) to create the heart on my card...

...and made a flowery card for my sister to give Mum as she's a gardening type!  She writes beautifully too and I love reading her blog 'Living a life of Flavour.

I have loads to share as I have been absent from this blog for too long!  More to come later in the week.  Thanks so much for visiting :)

Valentine's Day preparations

My monthly article has been published on the Lavinia Stamps website :) [well, it was published a couple of weeks ago but OFSTED came to visit us at school which has impacted on my time and energy so apologies for not letting you know earlier!!]

With Valentine's Day just around the corner I designed a card suitable for my husband (so no fairies appear on this card!), although he's probably seen it on facebook so maybe I'd better make another one ;)

You can find the step by step photos and instructions for this card HERE if you're interested :)