Wish you were here for FSC

We are taking inspiration for the new theme over at Fashionable Stamping Challenges from, ' Water, sea, river etc. You will find all the information here, and be able to see what my design team sisters have made.

The background layers for this card are all Graphics 45.  But as we are a stamping challenge, my main image is this Crafty Individuals stamp.
  I stamped it using Coffee archival ink  three times to get the look of a pile of post cards.  Aged them all  with Distress inks, vintage photo and tea dye to get the sepia effect, then splashed them with some water I clean my brushes in.  I had an accident a while ago when I spilled  this pot of water on some work in progress, this turned out okay so, I was happy to try it for real.
 The flower corner  is a group of fussy cut stamped flowers and leaves. I used water colour paints on these.,

Thank you for stopping by, the comments you leave are always appreciated.

A journey begins.

There is a new Challenge blog to tempt us all who love the work and products of  Tim Holtz.
Its called A Vintage Journey and it has an amazing group of talented designers to inspire us all.
The very first challenge is  'Anything Tim'.
Well I  ask you, who needs an excuse to get  grungy and revisit some  all time favourite  products, that in my case apart from the distress inks and stamps , have gathered a bit of dust recently.
I chose to make a tag  using  all Tim's products. The list would be too long . I got so involved creating it that the end product is the only photo. However, it included, papers [yes, I did use a small piece of stroking paper]  stamps, distress inks, die cuts, distress glitter.

Thank you for stopping by to take a look, your comments are always appreciated.

Love beyond words.

Been using up scraps of paper in my journal over the past couple of days. Like a lot of folk I even keep the smallest pieces that I tore off when using a larger piece for a project. The page is bodged together with book print, tissue strips, home made patterned backgrounds. The words should have been together from one stamped image, but somehow these look better separated for this page. The main image is from a print out sheet and has lain around in the bits box for ages, I even topped this with a scrap from a die cut frame.
So lots of paper scraps used,  the box is still jammed full, when will I ever learn to throw bits away.
 I did over stamp a few places so it joined things together. Shading was Vintage Photo distress ink.
I would like to join these challenges-
Artful Times - Challenge 50 --Anything Goes
Country View Challenges --Paper Chase..

Thank you for calling in to see me, I always appreciate your comments.

Journal 52-- Mary's secret Garden

We are up to Week 9, at Journal 52. This weeks prompt was  Colour swatch inspiration.
We could choose 3 colours to work with.
For me this was shades of Blue, Peach and Cream.
I chose to call this page Mary's secret garden because all my journalling was the names of flowers that I would love to have growing in my garden. I do have a few of them, including a few that some gardeners would call weeds. These are  the  wild flowers and  just as pretty as they encourage the butterflies to visit.

Thank you for stopping by, the comments you leave are very much appreciated..

Its an age thing.

'Birthdays with a Twist', is the new theme at Try it on Tuesdays............
......and  the TWIST is to use a mask or stencil.
You can see the stencil  [Memory Box] I used on the left. I used grunge paste and when it was dry painted it with linen acrylic paint to give the effect of  sun rays.

This card is layered up on  a Kraft card base.  The main layer was coloured with, Antique linen, Mustard seed and Spiced marmalade distress inks. The stamps are from  Indigo Blu stamped with Potting soil and Fern Green Arcival ink. I used water colour for the flowers and butterfly. I quite likes these words, and had a good chuckle as I edges them with  gold Frantage embossing powder.

Thank you for stopping by, I always appreciate the comments you leave me.

Live every Moment

 At Crafty Cardmakers and More we are holding our first Mixed Media Challenge.  As its our first please pop over for all the details here.  Our sponsor is Woodware Craft Collection
I am hosting this first  challenge and we have chosen a very loose theme, with lots of choice for this first one--
'Winter and/or Slap it on. There is some fantastic inspiration from the D.T.

I chose to alter a 7 x 7 inch canvas.
Including a bit slap it on , with colours that suggest winter, blues, white a bit of sparkle for the frost.
But as we are leaving winter soon in the UK I am adding a couple of flowers. So you get the idea, mixed media can mean all kinds of things/effects/ depending on how you choose to go with the theme.
On the left is the base canvas, painted with  Linen coloured acrylic paint.  I used a couple of stencils and grunge paste for a bit of texture.

After painting the canvas over with  a mixture of Mermaid  fresco paint, picket fence distress stain, I stamped out the quote I wanted to use on tissue and played around with  flowers and feathers to get the idea of what I may end up with.

I added some random stamping to the canvas using Stormy skies distress ink.
The tissue quote was layered up on die cuts.  I used  Chunky White Frantage  and silver embossing powder round the edges .
All the stamps I used were from Indigo Blu.
Next came the flowers, these were also die cuts from Craftwork cards.
A sprinkle of glitter in the canvas and of course myself and I decided that I quite like the result.

Thank you for stopping by  to see what I have made for this challenge.

Your comments are always appreciated.

I will also be entering these challenges-

Crafts 4 Eternity  - Texture

Altered Eclectics -March, Always anything goes.

Cats

'Cats',  is this weeks theme over at Tag Along.  This caused me quite a rummage to find the Lost Coast  'big cat' images for my background. But as I managed a bit of a tidy up as well, they were worth looking for.
First of all I made myself an inner and outer stencil  for my' Ginger Tom' cat, the wild cats may be looking at him,  but he is sure staring back.
I used Coffee Achival ink for the stamping. Spiced Marmalade, Vintage photo for all the extra colouring.

Thank you for stopping by, your comments are always appreciated.