Just a quick post.....

on this wet and miserable Sunday morning. Sounds like a good excuse for staying in my craft room to me.

Anyhoo, just needed to post my entry for Tuesday Taggers, which this week asked us to use bursts of colour on our work. This ATC was quite simple to make, I just painted a cream card with the brightest colours in my box and after they had dried found a couple of 'starburst' type stamps (I think one is supposed to be a snowflake!) and clear heat embossed them over the coloured background. Covered with black paint and when dry removed the embossed bits with an iron to reveal the colours.I also distressed the rest of the black a bit with an emery board to reduce the constrast which was very stark. I have to admit my first attempt did not work that well, but it is a very quick and easy technique - the only thing that takes time is the drying!!



There is also sponsorship this week from the Craft Barn with a prize so join in, there's still time.

Wow, that rain is really driving against the windows, think I'm staying put lol.

and F is for Fairies...

in a rather more fanciful mood this week (it'll never last), this first little fairy is my entry to this week's ACF background challenge. I do like challenges, whatever the format, but find my time is getting so restricted I can only do a few and I refuse to agonise over them - if I can't conjure up an immediate response or see an opportunity to try out a technique I have to pass. But this week's background was very pretty and this little guy was cut out on my desk so - voila lol.



I have to say, I was quite overwhelmed with the response to my first journal page - you guys say such nice encouraging things, I love and thank you all!! But keep it coming, I need all the encouragement I can get - lol. This second page started out as a single page but then I decided to extend it - I do have a bit of a thing about two adjacent pages 'matching' in some way visually, it's why I can only ever do scrapbooking in double page spreads. Just another of my strange little foibles. But I digress,... well, there are elements of this page that I really like and some I really don't but it's all part of the learning curve. Overall it has the atmosphere I was aiming for but I really screwed up the little fairy and my attempts to rescue it made it worse (IMO). What I really did like though was the effect I got by adding a layer of clear acrylic gel medium over the top - something about the way the whole thing has reacted the page has a real heavy duty almost leathery feel to it - brilliant for handling which I hope it will be. One day. Two years from now. Right, next letter is S..... off we go

At last, a journal journey begins...

I have been threatening for some time to try out an art journal and have finally taken the plunge. For inspiration I am following Trish Bee's Alphabet Discovery Workshop although the group has now been running for a while. Just to make it as challenging as possible (!) I am using an altered book which is another project I have had on my to do list and old books are certainly something I can get my hands on pretty easily!!

So I spent some time randomly doing things to the book, removing pages, adding pull outs, creating niches, layers and pockets, in fact generally getting pretty handy with a craft knife. The workshop is going through the letters in a random order, which is kinda cool, because it means the finished book (because I will be having them in normal alphabetical order) should be quite random as well. The first letter is N, so after all the prep the time comes to actually put colour to the page and ..........

I am struck the artistic equivalent of dumb. Two days of staring blankly at the empty page and wondering if I really can do this. Things weren't helped by a crappy home and work week and I tell you this, not to elicit sympathy, but to explain my final choice of theme for the first page.



So, 'Nil desperandum' it became, and well, nothing is ever as bad as it seems is it? Even though this is just the first page in this book I have already become aware of a few technical difficulties of working in an altered book

- it is hard to stamp!! especially if you've cut holes in it everywhere, but have resolved that one.

- the paper in this book is very porous. Will prep better in future.
- distress inks and colour washes are very difficult to heat set!!! Didn't really think that one through lol. This is important if you want to add layers of colour without ending up with just mud. Or even use a white gel pen lol.

I could go on, but it's just one page. I did think I might write something on it (journal, get it?) along the lines of 'because you can't always see the way ahead', but didn't want to risk messing the whole thing up. Might do it later when I feel a bit more confident. Having got started, I have also nearly finished the next page but am not sure if I'm happy with it yet. It might need a little more work.

That's all for now!

Congratulations......

Genie!! You have won my halloween themed giveaway. Goodness knows when you'll get it with the post the way it is but I am getting to the PO tomorrow come hell or high water!! Have to say have had no problems here so far.

Thanks everyone for taking part, there will be another upload around the 9th November but at the moment I am dithering a bit about what to use..... oh well, you'll have to stay in suspenders until then.

October giveaway.......is here!!

It's been a busy month, lots of trips away from home, plus extra hours at the library, a garden to plant, decks to scrub, a wedding to go to (aargh, just remembered - no card!!!!!!) ..... will be quite glad to get to the end of October when it should be a bit quieter!!

So, hadn't had any inspiration for a little something to do for this month until I went to a craft meet in Horsham last week. A lovely exploding box was demo'd by my friend Joan (under the watchful eye of the wonderful Trudy lol) and it gave me an idea for something a bit different.

Here it is 'unexploded'.



Now Joan's original was wonderfully elegant, but I had half an idea that I should do something Halloweeney (original I know). However, I'm not a great fan of all things creepy and I don't have much relevant stuff in my stash - but did find a few good images that must have been donated as 'goodies' with a trade at some stage (thanks whoever it was!!), managed to scrape up a cobweb stamp and a bat's wings stamp and I was off. Joan's original has a decorative central feature inside the open box, with grasses, pretty miniature flowers and butterflies - mine has a slightly more macabre looking fire complete with witches cauldron. Here it is opened up:



So this is the giveaway for October, and so that it has a chance to get to the poor recipient before Halloween(post strikes permitting), the giveaway will close on Sunday 25th at 8.00 pm. If you want to be included in the draw then leave a message to that effect on this post before then - as usual will try to pop round to see anyone who visits but apologies if I don't make it!!



HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

The Colours of Autumn....

are around us this week as the summer draws to a close. It is also the them for Tuesday Taggers this week.

I am off for a craft meet in Horsham tomorrow, and we have the option to take something crafty to exchange with another crafter. Having had the usual blank mind syndrome, I suddenly decided that I wanted to try and paint another little 'Kelly Rae Roberts' figure and use an old frame I had. My intention was to do a kind of shadow box effect sans glass, but when it came to deconstructing the frame I could not remove the glass without breaking it so it had to stay. Here is the result.



I decided to use a piece of waste from a bit of resist embossing for the lady's skirt - it had been in my spray box and had nice autumnal colours, which is why I thought it could do for my TT entry this week. The leaves were stamped and cut out from another bit of paper in the box (!) and the seed bits were liberated from a bowl of pot pourri. My OH says its a bit twee, but what does he know!!

Here it is in the box frame (I wonder if I should have painted it black? mmm too late now):-



This is something else I am taking with me...



Can you tell what it is? Well these are the RAKS I have made for the meet, to have a look go here.

Well all I have to do now is sort out something crafty with me to do tomorrow. At the moment I don't have the first idea. I suppose there's always christmas cards....

And the winner is.........

Sussie a fellow crafter from Sweden. Hi Susan!! Looks like it was first time lucky for you after all, I hope that you enjoy your 'prize'. I have your addy so will pop it in the post for you some time this week.

Have a good day everyone whatever you are doing. I hope to be spending a few happy hours in my little craft room today. Thanks for taking part in my giveaway - October's will be uploaded around the 11th October so keep a look out!!