Circles

I've decided to participate in another July blog challenge, this time belonging to The Artistic Stamper and the theme this month is 'Circles'.  Talk about leaving it to the last minute, the challenge closes in a few hours so I'd better get typing and linking!!

I started by cutting the small and large Spellbinders Lacey circles and then cut full circles using the inside of the largest size as my template.  Next I used Stampin'Up seeing spots rubber stamps with black ink to create the circles on my background, and applied Tim Holtz summer seasonal distress inks.  Using the lid of my Adirondack acrylic paint dabber I applied 3 circles of Tim Holtz picket fence distress stain.  Finally I added a few circles of gold paint dabber and edged the background circle in gold.  Once I was happy with the finished piece, I put the circle into the Cuttlebug spots and dots embossing folder and ran it through my bigshot.

Next I stamped Creative Expressions tatty button and used a couple of Tim Holtz spring seasonal distress inks along with a couple of other shades to colour the girl with my water brush (I'm loving this technique at the moment).  I used Ranger glossy accents on her dress and a Sakura white gel pen to highlight her hair and shoes.

For the sentiment I used one of the Stampin'Up circle of friendship stamps, coloured the background in the same was as before and covered it in glossy accents.

I stuck everything together using silicone glue to give the circle some depth and added a couple of pins behind the sentiment and a piece of twine between the 2 sides so that I can hang the piece.

 I created the back of my circle hanging piece using the same techniques and products as the front.

I also decided to use the same idea to create a birthday card for one of the Bramford girls who I craft with, (hopefully Carol will receive the card in the morning before seeing my blog post!)

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

We're All Going On A Summer Holiday

The theme for the July Happy Daze Blog challenge is 'We're All Going On A Summer Holiday' and I've finally managed to get into my craft room to create something, this time I am going to enter a card.  I love the seaside and beach huts and always enjoy spending some time there during my holidays.

To create the card I started by stamping one of the Docrafts Michael Powell Stamps, I recently received a set as the subscription gift for Craft Stamper Magazine.  I used a number of different Tim Holtz distress inks and a water brush to colour the image, I then ripped around the image and inked the edges with brown.  Next I ripped a piece of white tissue paper just bigger than the image and again inked around the edges and mounted both pieces to the front of a card.  I used a gold glitter pen to highlight the sand and Ranger glossy accents on the beach huts (although these do not show on the photo).  Finally I stamped a Tim Holtz sentiment and attached some twine.

Thanks for looking!

Tracey x

Carol's Workshop - Cheese box

I've had a very busy week and only managed to get in my craft room once to make a couple of cards for birthday's this week.  As I can't show these until after the birthdays, today I am sharing an item from a workshop hosted by Carol last year.  I didn't actually attend the class but instead I had a kit to complete at home.

I started by painting the outside of the medium cheese box with white and black Adirondack acrylic paint dabbers, I kept the brush fairly dry for this.  I then added Tim Holtz tissue tape around the outside of the lid and a strip of lace to the top.  I made the flower from the stamped images in the kit leaving the dark stamp edge in place and added seed beads into the middle making sure they attached to the silicone glue.  I painted the hand embellishment in gold dabber, threaded the remaining beads onto wire and wound the string around the hand shape.  The Tando bookplate was coated with the black and gold dabbers and once dry covered with Tim Holtz distress crackle paint clear rock candy, then rubbed over with Tim Holtz distress ink brushed corduroy once dry.  Finally, I cut out the stamp sized image from Graphic 45 paper and assembled all of the elements.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

Art from the Heart

Once a month the Kesgrave Craft girls meet for a couple of hours but recently our group has been more about the chat than the craft, so for the June meeting Jacqui set us a project to alter an mdf heart.  I hadn't really thought about what to take until about 15 minutes before so I picked up my Tim Holtz cargo storage case and a parcel that had just arrived from Art from the Heart.  Now I have a love of all things Dylusions but as I want everything I needed to prioritise my purchases so the parcel contained the 6 5x8 stencils plus Stampotique twinkie stamp which I have been wanting to get my hands on for ages.  The content of the parcel was wrapped in red tissue paper, twine and a red and white spot wooden heart and so my idea was born.  I am going to enter this finished heart into the current Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge - Depth of Distress.

I started by painting the edges of the mdf heart with a Ranger adirondack pitch black acrylic paint dabber.  I then cut two hearts from white card stock just smaller than the mdf heart.  For the front heart I covered the heart with Tim Holtz tissue tape then used Tim Holtz distress inks festive berries, barn door and picked raspberry to distress the background.  I used the Dylusions diamond of a boarder stencil with snow cap dabber, the dotted flowers stencil with the pitch black dabber and the letter jumble with festive berries distress ink.  Once dry I outlined the diamonds with a black pen and just inside added a line with a glitter pen, I added glossy accents over the dots and I used a white pen to highlight the letters.  I also made a dash line border around the edge of the heart and used the Tim Holtz tiny attacher to add film strip ribbon across the middle.  I added liquid pearls to the top right and black Ranger stickles to the top left of the heart.  I attached the heart from my AFTH packaging to the top centre with glossy accents.  Next I stamped twinkie on some white card stock and using my water brush coloured him with gathered twigs, faded jeans and mowed lawn distress inks before covering him with Tim Holtz Distress crackle paint rock candy and fixed in place using sticky pads.  Finally I added an appropriate hand written sentiment.

For the back of the heart I wanted to try a new technique and stamped the Prima brick wall, Kaisercraft bubble wrap and PaperArtsy mini 56 to the second white card stock heart.  I then covered the whole piece with Claudine Hellmuth multi-medium gloss and covered it with the red tissue tape that my AFTH package came wrapped in and then covered again with multi-medium.  Once dry I added perfect pearls powder to the top right corner.  Finally I used multi-medium to paste both card stock hearts to the mdf shape and added the twine from my package as the hanger.

Thanks for looking!

Tracey x

Altered Pencil Pot

Today has been one of those really lovely days when you close the front door and forget the day to day stuff whilst spending the day getting lost crafting with friends!!  I’ve been at Belstead House with the girls from the Kesgrave Craft Club and I always look forward to and thoroughly enjoy these days.  Jacqui had given us each an mdf pencil pot as a challenge for the day and I knew that I wanted to create something for the June Happy Daze Blog challenge.  The theme this month is ‘June Bug’ and needs to be insect inspired.  I won the £15:00 voucher last month and to say that I was thrilled to bits is an understatement!  I am also going to enter this into the Simon Says,,,,Anything BUT a Card challenge.

My first step was to add Ranger snowcap acrylic paint dabber to the rim of the box, once dry I added brushed corduroy distress ink over the top of the paint.  Next I cut 4 pieces of card from the Tim Holtz kraft resist paper stash and went about altering each piece with various colours of Tim Holtz distress inks and Dylusions stencils.  I also gave each piece a spritz of the Tattered Angels black cherry glimmer mist.  Once I was happy with the pieces, I attached the paper to each side of the pencil pot using Claudine Hellmuth multi-medium gloss and then painted it over the front of the paper as well to seal the inks in place.

I decided that I didn’t want to use my pot for pencils so instead I used some Jenni Bowlin journaling cards as templates to create butterfly, heart, flower and bird shapes from kraft card stock.  I used a mixture of distress inks, marshmallow glimmer mist, background stamps, stencils, pens, gems, pins, rock candy and stickles to cover the kraft card stock and embellish.  I used 2 Tim Holtz journaling tags and 2 different stamps for the sentiment (one each side).  Finally I attached the 2 sides of each shape to a kebab stick and placed each stick into the pot using some brown tissue paper and raffia to hold the sticks in place.

The pictures below are front, back and a couple of close ups:

Thanks for looking!

Tracey x

Altered Heart Frame

So I finally finished the Bramford Crop Girls Challenge piece for June this week. This month Nancy set the challenge item and had returned from a holiday to America with a wooden frame from Michaels (oh how I wish we had this store in the UK)!

First I covered the wooden frame with Tim Holtz gathered twigs distress ink. Next I cut out the individual pictures from the 12x12 valentine sheet of Tim Holtz paper stash and arranged them on the frame.  Once happy with the placement, I cut them down to size where required, used distress ink round the edges and clued them in place using the Claudine Hellmuth multi-medium gloss, which I now use for almost everything. Once everything had dried, I sprayed Tattered Angels glimmer mist in marshmallow and black cherry in the bottom right hand corner then once dry, added Ranger distress crackle paint rock candy over 4 of the pictures. Again once dry, I then pained every paper picture with the multi-medium. To finish the frame, I went round the outside edges and the aperture with my gold Ranger acrylic paint dabber.

For the middle of the frame, I made a kraft card stock background which I cut to match the aperture.  I used brushed corduroy distress ink around the edge and stamped a Tim Holtz image down on side.  I then went over the stamped image with a glaze pen. I spritzed the opposite side with the glimmer mists. Next I created a flower using the Tim Holtz tatter florals die and kraft glassine paper using a tutorial in the July Craft Stamper magazine. As in the article I brushed distress ink over the crumpled flower parts, spritzed with glimmer mist and attached the whole thing to the heart background using a brad.  To finish the centre piece off I attached 3 pins and 2 clear beads.

Finally I stamped the 3 words using a Tim Holtz stamp on to a piece of kraft, covered the letters with the glaze pen, distressed the edges, layered onto another slightly larger piece of kraft and attached it to the bottom corner of the frame using double sided foam tape.

Thanks for looking
Tracey x

Feeling Patriotic

A few months ago I ordered the Artistic Outpost London Underground Stamp set from Happy Daze.  I have to say that I absolutely love these stamps and with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and London 2012 just around the corner this theme remains on trend.  My first project was an altered frame for the Bramford Crop challenge, (see 26 February post).

Looking on the Happy Daze website a couple of weeks ago I noticed that the May blog challenge is 'May Queen'.  The instructions for taking part said: 'As it's the Diamond Jubilee next month for the may challenge we have a queenly theme. Think Maypole to welcome in the season of new growth, go patriotic and be Red, White and Blue, or just add a simple crown. Interpret the theme as you see it and what it means to you. But the main thing is to enjoy yourself and make something lovely to share with us for the challenge this month.  So I have decided to go patriotic with my mini easel. 

To create my background canvas colours I used Tim Holtz distress inks blue jeans and barn door.  Next I stamped the flag using a black archival ink pad and lastly added gold Ariondack acrylic paint dabber in the top corner.

I used the same colour ink pads on a smaller piece of card and stamped the sentiment, again in black.  I then used Ranger distress crackle paint - clear rock candy to cover the whole card.  I matted it onto white card stock and attached it to the canvas using double sided sticky foam.  Finally I attached a silver crown charm also from Happy Daze using Glossy Accents.

This is my first time participating in an online challenge, so now to work out how to upload my blog post to the website.  Hopefully I'll manage to join in each month going forward.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

T for Tracey

The May Bramford Crop Challenge was set by Janet and consisted of a 3-d paper mache letter.  We each received our initial and I chose to alter my own although some of the girls decided to swap and alter each others shape.  I started the challenge almost immediately but after cutting the paper out didn't get a chance to finish it until today, hence this blog post is very late as is the challenge itself. 

First I covered each surface of the letter with Basic Grey basics paper, distressing the edges before fixing in place with glossy accents.  For the front of the 'T' I wrapped 2 different sized bands of ribbon, the smaller through a buckle round the trunk, I then placed some pearl bead swirls all over the surface and finally attached 3 tiny butterflies which were punched out of corrugated cardboard using a Martha Stewart punch.

 For the top I pierced a Tim Holtz memo pin through the shape and attached 2 larger punched butterflies with glossy accents, below this I placed 3 small flowers which I inked in brown.  I also placed 3 clear beads close by.  I then used small letters on a piece of brown card stock to create my name plate, covered it with Glossy accents and again adhered to the letter with more glossy accents.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

Sorry You're Leaving

Today I spent a very enjoyable time with crafting friends at Belstead House.  Unfortunately I can't locate my challenge piece which was to be altered (a wooden plague set by Jacqui), so instead I did my own thing and made a 'Sorry you're leaving' card for someone in my office who finishes at the end of this week.  Normally I wouldn't post anything on my blog prior to the challenge date or handing over the project but I know the recipient doesn't use social networking so think it's safe in this instance.
As with most of the cards I make for work, I used an A4 card as my base and then used cream, brown and Kraft card stock plus some Stampin'Up papers.  I created the sentiment background using a Spellbinders labels die and used the Tim Holtz tattered florals and swirl dies for the embellishment.  I also used glossy accents, crackle glaze and gems.  Finally I added a swirl stamp to the edges of the sentiment.

Sometimes I'm not very pleased with the photos I take and this is one of those instances as it doesn't show the warmth of colours very well but you get the idea. 

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

Wedding Anniversary Card

Recently I was asked to make a 20th Wedding Anniversary card for the wife of someone at work.  We discussed ideas which included using the colours of the Wedding flowers (dusky pink).  He asked for something with not too many love hearts, nothing too over the top and something completely bespoke which wouldn't be found in a high street shop.

I used some left over BoBunny papers from a Papermaze Crop as I thought these would represent the Wedding colours plus craft and Bazzill cardstock.  I also used the Martha Stewart love heart border punch, the Spellbinder labels and Tim Holtz tattered floral garland dies.  The alphabet is QuicKutz moxie.  To finish the card I applied rock candy, glossy accents, Stampin'Up twine, brads, clear gems and a love heart pin.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x