Crafty Individuals on Hochanda

Crafty Individuals are over on Hochanda on Monday 4th February at 4pm  and Tuesday 5th February at 10am with a lovely bird theme that brings a mixture of favourite stamps and new designs.

I had a wonderful time playing with alcohol ink in a variety of ways for these two cards.  I particularly liked using the alcohol lift ink for the Four Little Songbirds.  The bold stamps really lend themselves to this technique so I'll be having a go with Venezia Bird in the same way!

Four Little Songbirds

Venezia Bird

Four Postmarks

French Script

Vintage Postmarks Background

Just the ticket

This collage stamp was perfect for making a card for a friend who is leaving the country to live in Australia!

I love how, even though it is a long thin stamp, you can combine the elements to make a square card.

I've joined the Crafty Individuals Design Team

I am truly honoured to have been invited onto the Crafty Individuals' design team, along with my good friend Chris of Pearshaped Crafting blog.  As a full-time special needs teacher the time I have available to 'make' is limited, and I am thankful for Jean and Malcolm's understanding of this.  It is wonderful though to be back blogging; and I am hoping that this will keep me on my blog a bit more regularly rather than just on Instagram!

I recently made some cards using the new designs and snapped some step by step photos along the way.

I am taking part in a challenge over on Instagram, set by the amazing Birgit Koopsen, to use a different product every day in October.  This day's product was my poor neglected distress markers.   After creating a Distress Oxide background with Picked Raspberry and Salted Ocean, I stamped text in the background, part of the 'Noel Border' then used the distress marker to stamp the snowflakes from the main stamp image.

I use parts of the stamp by inking up the required area then removing the ink with a baby wipe from the areas I don't want to stamp with.  Here I selected one of those tiny stars...

...which I then stamped on the inked background, along with some of the larger text stars.

I stamped the image onto white copier paper a few times and cut out the areas shown.

I love those stitchy marks and emphasised them using my sewing machine.

A gold confetti star on top of the tree..

...and some snowy effects added using Stickles completed my card.

I really love the collage stamps that Crafty Individuals design.  They have sooo many little elements that you can use in so many different ways.  The stamps used in this project were:

And then, because I was having so much fun,  I made a little tag too!

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope nobody collapsed in shock when they spotted I'd blogged lol

Craft Stamper 3d Challenge: Altoid Tin

I finally got my hands on a copy of Craft Stamper yesterday and the day before, my project had been returned to me in the post so I thought I'd share some more detailed photos of the project.

We were sent an altoid tin (complete with mints!) to alter and I had it a while before I could decide what to do with it.  Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy, wanting to do something a bit different and not what you'd expect. 

The Happy Stampers show at Port Sunlight was coming up so I decided to look out for inspiration there; stamps or embellishments etc.  I adore old typewriters so when I came across the 'chunky vintage typewriter tag' by Crafty Individuals, which was surrounded by telephone and postcard theme stamps on the stand, I decided on my theme.

I didn't have the tin with me but was pretty sure the image would fit.  When it didn't, it gave me the opportunity to layer postage stamps, bits of envelope and other ephemera underneath a 'fussy cut' image of the typewriter (and the telephone inside the tin).

Inside the tin I added more collage, this time from the 'Chunky Vintage Telephone Tag'.  I stamped the pretty edge of the stamp with distress ink and tore it off to use in the collage - I just love bits and pieces like that.

The tin was hammered, painted with layers of paint, and sanded with a sanding tool to get the distressed look.  I loved the idea of a battered old tin storing typewriter ribbons (although I think they're round!).  I love tiny collage so much I even added some to the back of the tin.

The tin stores a tiny collection of tags and cards of encouragement that can be slipped in some happy mail or tucked in a friend's bag for encouragement.  Most of these use 'Paisley Script Background' and distress inks.  Crafty Individuals have a great range of postcard stamps too and they look amazing just stamped with black ink on white card!

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.

a waddle of penguins

Well, you learn a new thing everyday!  I googled the collective term for a group of penguins and discovered that there is no generally accepted term, but that
"At the 4^th International Penguin Conference in Chile in September 2000, it was agreed by penguin researchers that they would try to refer to a group of penguins on the land as a "waddle" of penguins and a group in the water as a "raft" of penguins. We hope that these collective nouns will become widely accepted in the near future."

http://www.adelie.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/FAQs/collective_name.htm

Don't you just love that there was even a penguin conference?!!!  I love penguins.  I would love to see them in their natural habitat one day, and have decided New Zealand is the place to go - they have little blue ones!! (also sometimes known as fairy penguins).  Until that time I make do with visits to the zoo and things like my favourite mugs

Crafty Individuals had made some of 'Alice Palace's' drawings into stamps and after seeing her puffin I wrote and asked if she'd done any penguins.  She had, and promptly contacted CI to suggest penguins stamps...

... and now I have a set  :)  I was going to give them coloured tummies, as in the design on my Anna Wright mug above, but the journal page I made was too busy so I'll save that idea for another day.

Instead I added them to a page in my little paperback journal, including stars (by Stampotique) and some home made bunting, all in true Alice Palace style!

a Crafty Individual Play Date Cafe

This week Crafty Individuals, a favourite stamp company of many of us here in the UK, is sponsoring the Play Date Cafe.  They very kindly supplied the design team with a stamp of their choice, and a wonderful prize package for this week's challenge winner.

Julie's chosen this week's photo inspiration.  I love this image.  I had a lilac and deep blue kitchen once, and love this combo with lime green, but there's too much metal to clean in this one lol!  

I chose to work with a deep blue and used Chipped Sapphire distress ink, with Peeled Paint providing the green.  My silver comes in via the diamantés.   I was tempted to use a grey inkpad somewhere,  I just couldn't decide how!

Head on over to the Play Date Cafe to check out this week's prize, and to see the other designers' stunning pieces using this week's colours.

 Julie Ranae

Suzanne Czosek

Andrea Ewen
Savannah O'Gwynn
Lisa Somerville