Dragons Dream Tag It On

Well as mentioned earlier today, this week I am thrilled to be a Guest Designer with the Dragon’s Dream Tag It On Team.

The challenge is ‘the letter ‘F’ and the colour Green, and you MUST use 1 real stamp’. This is a taq challenge so I started off with one of the gorgeous Julie Nutting tags that are designed to be used with her doll stamps (Now I wonder why I bought these……?). The ‘F’ was a no brainer really – it had to be a flower tag.

I used distress inks to add a green background, inking through masks to add some depth. I added a bit of gilding across the bottom, a bit of random background stamping and also lightly stamped some never-before-used flowers in the background and coloured them in very faintly with diluted watercolour pens.The rest was leaves and flowers.

Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you’ll pop in to see the Dragon’s Dream Team as well and enter their challenge.

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday #243

Wednesday again!!!! Bloghoppy day around the workstations of all and sundry – for full deets go here and our illustrious leader Julia (if that’s even her real name of course…..) will explain. Link your desk if you dare!! (Needless sensationalism – we are all quite friendly really).

Ooh, first of all I must apologise right from the off because I won’t be on the pc until lateish tonight as I am going to a focus group after work. It’s on cleaning products, which I’m sure I would buy more of if only they came with someone to do the cleaning. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to add to that conversation ………. but it might be interesting. (All right, I admit it, there is cold hard cash involved……)

To the desk……

To the left the detritus left from making a tag as guest designer for Dragons Dream Tag It On Challenge blog. Chuffed to be asked. Here’s a sneak peek, will be uploading the whole thing this  evening. Managed to use even more never-been-inked stamps.

At the back a card made from a couple of die cuts and the void left after cutting – I have a bit of an obsession with these!! On the right another DT project that I’m about to give another coat of paint before I go to bed (sorry, writing this Tuesday night as no time Weds morning!!). Bet you can’t guess what that is going to be. (Not entirely sure I know yet either). On the whole I have been keeping things rather tidy methinks.

Anyhoo that’s me for this week, hope you’ve enjoyed your visit and would love it if you have time to leave a comment but no pressure – I know how precious time is!!

Love London!!

The current challenge at Dragon Dream’s Tag It On is the letter L and script. For some reason I thought of L for London and then remembered I had an unused stamp set from Paper Artsy with some London place names and a london bus. I wasn’t sure the place names were technically script, but then I found another unused collage stamp with a bit of Big Ben and a tube map and also a little bit of script so I think it passes muster. When you count the scroll I used to fill in a bit of background and the ‘Leicester Square’ street sign that’s 5 previously unused stamps pressed  into service on this tag. Result!! Finished with a ribbon, an english coin charm and a little red heart for ‘Love’ London.

It’s actually a little scary how many unused stamps I can find – do you sense it’s a bit of a mission this year to try them all out at least once?

End of an era….

Feeling really sad this week as the current re-structure at work finally starts to kick in and lots of staff will be leaving in a week’s time. As this round of redundancies and retirements kick in, those of us who are left are wondering quite what the future holds. I fully expect more of us will go this summer.

In the normal run of things I make most of the leaving cards but there are just too many this time round. However I have made this one for a close colleague who actually started at the same time I did more years ago than I care to remember!! I did it in lilac as that is the colour of our absolutely disgusting uniform since we were outsourced – I hope she appreciates the joke lol. Inside it just says ‘but we will miss you lots’.

I love this digital image from Mo Manning (why oh why are there so few ‘ethnic’ images out there? A real gap in the market in my opinion – if I could draw I’d try to do some myself). I haven’t tried ethnic skin colouring before but followed this tutorial from Card Making Magic as I wasn’t sure where to start. It was really helpful and I’m quite pleased with the result given that I don’t do that much colouring. Words and background all done with Serif Craft Artist.

See you soon!!

Try It On Tuesday – CELEBRATIONS!!

Well then, I was so happy when I heard a friend had got engaged, not only because I was delighted at the news, but also because I really had something to celebrate for this fortnights challenge at Try It on Tuesday. I have chosen to make this engagement card, but it could equally be a wedding, valentine’s day, a new baby or even Chinese New Year. It’s up to you, and you can pop over to  the TIOT site to see what the other DT member’s have been up to and link your finished project.

For this card I decided to use an 8 x 8 stepper blank so this card would make quite a statement. I found a set of scrapbook papers that were given to me a couple of years ago and liked the funky style. I am ashamed to say I have never used the LOV stamp that is the main image before (another box ticked!!) and I also used 7 dies in total, none of which have had much of an outing. I opted for ready made flowers as the colour matched so well and printed my sentiments on the pc. I still felt it looked a bit flat so I added lots of red jewels – well, I do like a bit of bling. The flowers are quite large so I made up a flap card box from Chloe’s Creative Cards (a really neat design this, much better than boxes and lids!!) ready to put in  the post. In fact I hope it’s arrived by now!

So what are you celebrating that you can commemorate with a card or piece of artwork? Can’t wait to see!

Crafty Card Makers Challenge – Black & White

The second challenge of the year is Black and White, always a classic combo. Here is my DT piece, Sorry about the photo, it is very sunny in here today casting shadows and the bulb has just gone in my lamp. Excuses, excuses!!

Because I’ve been thinking about using some of my older craft stuff, I dug out this medallion stamp which I have had for yonks, stamping and embossing it several times in black and white (obviously). 

I fussy cut the layers and piled it up to make the main topper for my card. The corner stamp is an old one as well (I’m on a roll).

I also need to tell you that Crafty Cardmakers has had a bit of a makeover – pop over to this post to read about the changes – and is now called CRAFTY CARDMAKERS AND MORE to reflect the new direction that some of the challenges will be taking. 

Although I am still on the DT I will be concentrating mainly on producing pieces for our new Mixed Media Challenges which will be running every 8 weeks. We are all very excited about this and hope that you will join in. You will however still see an occasional card from me (like today!).

For now though we want to see your cards and creations in the theme of Black and White – for inspiration pop over to the CCM blog to catch the rest of the DT’s wonderful work and add your link.

Challenges: Country View Crafts - monochromatic

Just a quickie…

 

I made this little tag the other night because I saw a challenge to use something you had owned for over a year. Can’t for the life of me remember where the challenge was but here’s the tag!!

The tag itself, the stamp set ( A Tim Holtz one), the Distress inks, and the mica powders I used to give it a bit of sparkle are all well over a year old. The shaggy fibres are from a never ending ball of wool – probably had that nearer 5 than 1 year! Not so sure about the archival ink pad I stamped with but I do have more than one on the go and I’m sure at least one meets the criteria.

Nice to dust something off – now feel suitably virtuous though it is a drop in the ocean really. May do it again next week (although I have so much new stuff to play with it’s hard to decide what to use first).

Oh well, that’s all for now, Happy Friday!!

Tags of 2014 - January

hmmmm. Tim’s tag is here. I didn’t think I could CASE this tag, I don’t have the die or the embossing folder to make the main element. It is however themed about TIME. So what exactly have we got this month?

Distress bg.Stencilling. Rub ons (scuffed). Metal tape on grungeboard. Die Cutting. Embossing. Lots of detail!! ‘Time’ to get my thinking cap on.

Basic b/ g pretty simple, but although I found a mahoosive stash of rub ons I had completely forgotten about none of them were suitable. Then I came across (yes, it really is a bit of an aladdin’s cave in here) a set of alpha decals (well I suppose they are technically rub ons) and tried them out. They were soooo old I wasn’t sure about ‘scuffing’ them up - but it worked OK, maybe more a patchy end result than scuffed but a neat effect – me likey Tim, thanks for that idea!.

I decided to try and make a pocket watch even though I don’t have the die. I don’t have a small cog or clock embossing folder either so I used this charm and put it through the cuttlebug with some metal. Kinda worked. Here are all the bits after painting and ‘stressing’'’ as my mum calls it.

 

 

 

 

The cogs I have are all a bit big for this project but I did stick some real watch bits on later – can hardly see them though. I really like the idea of cutting the ideaology chit chat stickers at the end to look like a flag – a typical little detail I wouldn’t have thought of but makes all the difference. Which is why it is so useful tagging along with Tim.

Anyhoo, these are my finished tags for January, hope you like.

(And if you do like tags Tim’s style check out my January Art Draw!!)

‘Together’ with a simple white ‘T’…….

I don’t suppose that title makes a lot of sense but it’s a little tag I knocked up this evening for the current Dragon’s Dream Tag It On Challenge.

The challenge is the letter T and a stencil. And at least one stamp.

I used two stencils (actually masks but what’s in a word?) a really nice text one by the crafters workshop which I bought at Ally Pally after the equally nice one from Paper Artsy was sold out. The second mask is ‘poppies’ by That Special Touch.They looked a little flat so I added some white gel pen along one side although it doesn’t show up much. I also highlighted the t-shirt.

Coloured with distress inks. The main stamp is by inkadinkadoo.

Feel like I’m just easing myself back into some inky crafting as I’ve done so little lately. It was nice to spend an hour this evening just looking through some stamps (an hour? Who am I kidding!!) and playing. Good for the soul and a respite from all the rubbish going on at work. Day off tomorrow – I will be back!!

January Art Draw – Tim Holtz Tags

Time for the first Art Draw of the year which, personally, I think is a bit of a doozy.

It’s a complete set of 12 Tags inspired by the techniques featured in what is becoming Tim’s annual inspiration fest. Some are a direct CASE of Tim’s tags, but others are my interpretation of the techniques shown, often using some creative alternatives as contrary to what my husband might say, I do not possess every craft product invented! Tim’s original tags can be found here.

Here are the tags you will receive laid out in order.

I will include a large ring so that you can do this with them (should you wish to do so!)

How do you enter? Really simple. Leave a comment on this blog post before 9.00 pm on Friday 31st January and I will put you in the draw. Make sure I will be able to contact you. Feel free to link from your own blog, if you do, let me know and I will put you in the draw twice. International players welcome.  That’s it.

Right, now what has Mr Holtz got in store for 2014?

What’s on Your Work Desk? Wednesday # I really do not have a clue……

I’ve been away so long I think I need a note for teacher. But new year, new resolutions to break so here I am to share my desk with you this week.

Here’s what I have been working on, my final tag for the Timmy 2013 challenge, the November one, delayed because I couldn’t…… er,…. find the chalk. Still can’t, but finally brought some home from work.

I do not like this technique. I couldn’t get it to work properly (yes I was improvising with materials) and more importantly I have discovered I really don’t like the feel of chalk on my fingers. I wasn’t having fun so I went off piste rather as my attempt at this ‘chalkboard’ effect was very boring. So that’s that. I have made the one tag for my January giveaway but not one for myself as I don’t think I will ever be doing this again.

Here are the other  22 tags where I have been sorting them into the ones I am keeping and the ones I am giving away. (I shall upload Thursday evening if you want to come back and play, will be up till the end of the month).

And finally a boring picture of a box. A box of 60 Christmas cards ready for next year. Smug or what? I had some time after Christmas but no burning desire to do anything much, all the Christmas stuff was still out and I thought – why not just do it now? I might share a few another day but at least I know there won’t be a panic about that next year. 

So that’s me, I’ve shown you mine, will you show me yours? Full details over at Stamping Ground – see you there and Happy (Belated) New Year everyone!!

Cindy

Try It On Tuesday - In with the New….

Well here we are everyone and the first week of the New Year has flown by already and Christmas was a fortnight ago….. undoubtedly ‘time flying’ is a topic we will revisit many times during 2014!!

For the first challenge of the year at Try It On Tuesday we are asking for a project that tries out a new technique or a new product – I’m sure we all had one or two of those in our stockings!!

For me, no sooner have I finished with Christmas than the birthday card making begins – January is quite a busy month. This particular card was made for a family friend who is 23 this year – and yes I have known her since she was born, and yes, it does make me feel rather old!!

A suitably glamorous if simple card for a young lady and I was able to use a new Tattered Lace Large Flourish die as an accent on my card. The large flower was from a set by C &C (a gift to myself!!) and the image is a dc magazine freebie that I’ve coloured with promarkers. Now let’s see what you’ve been up to, don’t forget to pop over to Try It On Tuesday to check out the DT inspiration and link your project.