Art Journalling

I am still branching out slowly and getting into art journalling - here is my third attempt:

OK to me this doesn't look much different to the tags I make apart from the fact that it's bigger and has no ribbons on the top! 

Anyway for the background I used Melted Chocolate, Postbox Red and Pure Sunshine dylusion sprays, then Broken China distress ink through some sequin waste which I then added a white pen to.  I then used texture paste and puff paint through a Wendy Vecchi Brick Wall stencil and a Glitzcraft Santa_Sleigh stencil, heated it so it puffed up and then painted the house roofs with Angelic Teal Lustre Blonde Moments pearl pigment.  When dry I then painted the wall and snow with white acrylic paint to brighten it up a bit.

The reindeer is a T!m die and is coloured with Tarnished Brass metallic stain, edges inked with Vintage Photo distress ink and then a red seed bead for his nose.

The Snowman is also one of T!ms, cut from card covered with music paper, with the numbers 25 from the Reindeer die cut out from his tummy.  His hat is coloured with Black Soot distress stain, all his edges done with Vintage Photo ink and his nose with a Spiced Marmalade marker.  His scarf is some fibre called Let's Grow from Hobbycraft and his eye some black bling.  I finished with some black pen lines to ground the snowman and reindeer and an Inkylicious Santa's Sleigh stamp in Jet Black archival.

I have moved away slightly from a tag as the edges aren't inked or distressed but as you can see I haven't added any journalling! Oh well, small steps......

A big hello to my newest follower Joe whom I have actually met in real life as he used to work in a scrapbooking shop in California!

Thanks for looking - Cant believe it's December tomorrow from Solihull

WOYWW 182

Thought I would join in a trip around the world noseying at other desks again this week.  Here is mine:

I am having a play with texture pastes and puff paint at the moment so those are the two backgrounds you can see (one tag and one attempt at another art journal page!).  The snowflake tags are on the desk as I had a friend round yesterday and we had a play and made some (they were from a workshop I ran a few weeks ago).  Material on the bottom left with the blue mini on are a little pile of mug rugs that I am practising how to quilt on, the Dr Suess bright piece of material is a finished mug rug I made ages ago and the black and white one is one I won a few months ago in a blog hop.  Very tidy desk here for me! I am nipping out this morning for a coffee and a bit of Christmas shopping but then hopefully will be back playing later on - still no sign of Christmas card making mojo on the horizon though - oh well.

If you would like to visit other desks around the world then pop over to Julias and join in the fun - be warned though its very addictive but you do get to make lots of lovely new friends and get some great inspiration on the way.

Thanks for looking - Getting messy from Solihull

A Birthday Layout

Have done a layout! whoo hoo - those who know me know I haven't scrapped much this past year - seem to be having much more fun sewing or getting messy making tags so my photos are just left in a pile waiting for some inspiration to strike and this weekend it did!

Spent a lovely morning on Saturday with my good friends Morag and Jackie where we took a girls trip out to the grand opening of The Funky Farm Scrapbook Barn which is run by the lovely Hayley who regularly brings the shop to our crop, where amongst a few other goodies I treated myself to a new pack of Echo Park "A Boys Life" papers and when I got home I got the urge to play with them straight away (very unusual for me!):

These photos have been sitting in the pile for over two years now - they aren't the best but still deserve a showcase in DS2's album so I am pleased to have them finally done.  For this layout I used the following stamps: Creative  Expressions Vintage Aviation, 7 Gypsies Friends, My Minds Eye Union Square Perfect and Portobello Road Boy, Fiskars School Stamps and Stampers Anonymous Odds and Ends.  Papers used were Basic Grey Inventory, Echo Park A Boys Life - Hot Road and Suave, plain cream cardstock and some Echo Park A Boys Life stickers.  The butterfly is by Prima, the Prima flowers are Tiffany Teal Got Iced Flowers, Petal Palette Mix #7, Got Flowers #700232 and then the large blue flower is by Trico (bought in a 99c store in the States), the green felt vine is by Artemio.  Other embellishments are: Bazzill Just the Edge North Sea strips, a Prima Voila art strip, Prima Chipboard - Cherished Moments, 3 Bugs in a Rug Seeing Stars metal brads, Stash Panache Grey button, Basic Grey chipboard number which is covered with Fired Brick crackle glaze, Washi tape is from Paperchase and Basic Grey Archaic brads - as you can see a great mixture of new and old stash there!  Only a few light touches of Broken China distress ink was used (very unusual for me!) and also only a light bit of stamping and, if you notice, none on the background or any mists/paints either! so very minimillistic for me!

I based the layout on a October 2011 Page Map - you have got to love sketches to speed up the process of scrapping haven't you - this whole layout took me about four hours (admittedly an hour was probably still spent faffing with the papers even though I was using a sketch - but hey ho still very fast for me!).

Hope you like it - DS2 does :)

A big hello to my latest follower Ronda - thank you for following me.  That's it from me today but I have finally caught up with all my projects and crafting commitments for this month so am hoping to have a bit of free time for just playing this week - I have signed up for an old Christy Tomlinson class - The Art of Wild Abandonment and am also hoping to check out the 12 Tags of Christmas on the Funkie Junkie website - we shall see.....

Thanks for looking - Feeling Scrappy from Solihull

Holiday Lane Blog Hop

It's my day! yay

I knew I would be busy when I signed up for this hop but I just couldn't resist doing a cushion with a street full of houses on it - I am sucker for houses!

Here is my take:

Apologies for the poor picture it's a rainy dull day here in England! Also I forgot to ask my OH to get some Christmas props down from the loft yesterday (he is in the office today and I am too short to reach up to get the loft ladders down!) so I have showcased this with my turkey which I sewed up from a pattern last weekend (he was supposed to have his own post this week! oh well).

Anyway I have made the cushion a lot smaller than the original so that I could fit one of my 12" x 18" cushions in - I did plan to make three seperate covers but time seems to have flown by so quickly this month (that and I spent far too long on my Wicked blog hop stuff too - tee hee!) so I have only managed to complete one.  Also I didn't realise that the original cushion had a flange on it (not until the hop started anyway - I obviously didn't read the instructions properly!) and I have made mine into a cushion cover with two pieces of material at the back so I can slip a cushion in and out easily.  The next one I make will have a flange on though!

For the snow I have appliqued on some white wadding - gives a lovely furry feel to the cushion.

Here is a closeup of the snowman:

and the street sign (which I hand embroidered):

I would like to say a big Thank you to Mdm Samm at http://www.sewwequilt.com/ and Pauline at http://quiltnqueen.blogspot.com/ for organising this hop and also a big thanks to Jill from http://www.jillilystudio.com/ for supplying the instructions (sorry I didn't follow them exactly!).

Please also check out everyone else who is taking part in this blog hop today:

Friday November 23
 

Sunshine Reflections  (this is me)

Free Motion by the River
Sew Mollie Sue, Quilt Much?
I Like to Quilt Blog
Briarside Lane
Ariane's Quilts
Meadowbrook
Buzzing and Bumbling
Mice in the Mix
Kwilty Pleasures
Cherry Blossoms

The hop runs from 21st - 30th November and the full schedule can be found on Jills blog.

 

Thanks for looking - Feeling Christmassy from Solihull

WOYWW 181

Hi everyone, well what can I say it just seems to be chaos here:

I did do some sewing yesterday so that pile of stuff immediately behind DS's homework at the front (bought from the Range at the weekend and not yet put away!) wasn't there but my cutting mat was which made the table look a whole lot tidier!  Just cut off to the right is the pile of fabrics I was using - it's for another blog hop I am in on Friday for a Christmas pillow.  Under that is my Windows Phone 8 table runner that I really should tidy away whilst sewing but am very proud of it so it's staying there for a while (it was tweeted by Microsoft! isn't that cool!). Sticking out just behind my machine is a turkey I have made from a pattern bought at the NEC - haven't showcased him yet but will soon (that's why he is still on the table as I need a nice day to photograph him - guess it won't be today eh!).  PC is there so I can join in the fun today on WOYWW and a pillow blog hop I am in that's here if you are interested (starts today), the other pile of stuff is just stuff! and the brown twine is there as I wrapped up a couple of presents of Sunday.  No inks or paints insight this week! Thats it from me - now I have showed you my desk I think you should show me yours!

Join in the fun over at Julias where today she is explaining all the goings on and why we are doing this.

Thanks for looking - Busy Sewing from Solihull

T!ms November Tag

Well after all the excitement in our house on Monday evening when my now infamous windows phone quilt (on previous post) was retweeted/commented on by non other than Microsoft staff and various others and then also caught a journalists attention - how cool is all of that! My little blog also had over a thousand hits! whoo hoo, I have come down from cloud nine and have got on with some of my other crafty bits and pieces.

Here is my take on T!ms November tag:

To be honest its not much different from T!ms but it was difficult to incorporate a British theme without using a Union Flag, but I went ahead with the English Telephone Box and although you can't make it out too well on this photo it looks fab in real life.  Thank goodness it is set back in the distance too, could you imagine if there was a spider that big hanging down near a telephone box if you needed to use one? I for one wouldn't go near it I assure you!

Anyway I have used:  Hampton Arts spiders web and spider stamps, Artistic Outpost Telephone Box stamp and an old Banana Frog alphabet for the word Autumn.  Inks and stains in Fired Brick, Vintage Photo, Wild Honey and Black Soot, a Versamark ink pad and a Coffee Archival ink.  I then used the Autumn Gatherings sizzix die along with T!ms fence die - I didn't use the pinecone as it would have looked far too big (bit like that spider!) next to the fence.  For the rest of my quote I used a Vintage Photo distress marker and then added some turquoise and burgundy hemp to my home dyed ribbon.

Have now got to get organised for the crop tomorrow and also get a busy on with my Holiday Lane pillow for the blog hop that starts next Wednesday - my showcase day is next Friday - the pillow is half done - just needs embellishing now.

A big hello to my new two new followers Trisha and Victoria - thank you both for following me.

Thanks for looking - a new Twitter fan from Solihull

Do you think he will get the message?

For the past two weeks I have been busy working away on my new phone - not texting, surfing or talking though - sewing!

Have had sew much fun creating this table runner in the hopes that my OH will realise that I really need to change my old android phone and get with the times, so on my Christmas list this year is a brand spanking new Windows phone 8!  You just can't beat Windows in my mind (having worked on it during my early years as a Personal Assistant at Apricot Computers Limited and then through all my university and programming years thereafter). I love windows, am comfortable with windows and will really be able to sink my teeth in some new apps that I want to write.......

Here it is in situ:

Do you think he will know what colour I want?

Thanks for looking - Feeling chatty from Solihull

WOYWW 179

Bit of an untidy desk again but not too bad as I am still in serious sewing mode - I have four projects on the go at the moment - so I need a relatively clear desk to lie it all out particularly when cutting. 

That pile of material at the front is what I bought at the Malvern Quilt show two weeks ago which still hasn't been put away - it just keeps moving from chair to table whenever/wherever someone sits down!  The pile on the front left is what I was working on and designing/cutting templates yesterday, the blue pile in the middle of the table was going to be a London quilt but I think is now going to be placemats instead.  The other bits and bobs are left out from my class on Monday they just need popping on the bookcase at the back but I haven't done that yet either!

That's it from my desk today - not much but I still fancied joining in the fun!  If you would like to too then pop over to Julias and show your desk to the world - it doesnt matter whether its neat or cluttered or what projects you are working on we are all too happy to come and have a nose at your workspace!

So who is going to the big show tomorrow then?  Morag and I are going first thing and meeting up with Hettie when her bus gets in - anyone else? 

Thanks for looking - Busy Making Hobbycraft Lists from Solihull

Tag workshop

Oooh tomorrow I have my first workshop in about 18 months - it feels really good to be getting back into the swing of crafting and teaching.  I will be teaching the fabulous marbled stains technique to make this beautiful tag:

Thanks for looking - Working Girl from Solihull

Gratitude day 2

Today the technique is to use circles and squares.  Well as soon as saw circles I couldn't get the thought of a snowman out of my mind so before my art class I handcut (I know!) out two circles, covered them with crackle glaze and then as an afterthought sprayed them with Jazz Blue glimmer mist whilst still wet and went off on my merry way to my art class. 

When I got there we all got back our pastel pictures nicely mounted - here's mine:

just need a frame for it now.  When I got home I decided I didn't like my circles:

as they didn't suit the page I had created, so instead of using the circles I used squares instead and still had a snowman Christmassy theme going on:

not sure where this came from as the prompt was today - but hey its a page and I actually like this one! whoo hoo - bonus!

I used: Dylusions Melted Chocolate spray, Creme de Cocoa and Jazz Blue glimmer mists for the background.  Then I stamped on T!ms new Christmas stamps with Vintage Photo distress ink.  I coloured the snowman with Barn Door, Pine Needles, Broken China, Spiced Marmalade and Black Soot markers.  Then I used a Creative Expressions holly mask which I won in a blog giveaway - thanks Helen with Vintage Photo distress ink and edged the holly pieces with the Pine Needles marker and coloured the berries with the Barn Door marker.

I then used three of T!ms new snowflakes from his sizzlet dies, coloured them with Broken China and Frayed Burlap distress stains, edged them with the matching distress inks and finished with a spray of Old Lace glimmer mist for a bit of sparkle.

The parcels are handcut squares (using a ruler though!) inked with Broken China, Evergreen Bough, Barn Door and Mustard Seed and I edged the Broken China one with Vintage Photo, finished them all with a light green twine and a little tag inked with Vintage Photo (can you all spot my favourite colour ink here?????).  The whole page is edged with Vintage Photo too.

I used the same cardstock as yesterday which is in a Pink Pig notebook but I have ripped the page out this time and trimmed it.  I did the same with yesterdays and took Elizas advice and edged it with Vintage Photo (yet again!) and I much prefer the page now - thanks Eliza :)  also thanks for your advice Buttons I will look at the page again tomorrow and if I need to I will see if I can stragetically add extra spray to the heart and bird without removing them off the page as they are stuck down firmly.

The starting point for the gratitude journal today is what 3 things are you thankful for today - well this had nothing to do with my finished page but today I am thankful for the mobility of a car which let me go to Sainsburys and Toys R Us so my little boy could have the free lego given away in the Sun, also it got me to my art class which is such a good laugh and such a relaxing morning and also let me go in a mad rush to get the wine on extra offer at Tescos (3 for £12 plus an extra 25% off) although I succummed and bought 18 bottles (£2.30 each for bottles of Hardys!) although I am sure I won't be thankful when I stand on the scales after drinking all that!  I am also thankful for having the money to be able to have and run the car and also buy all the treats today, and my third thankful thing is for the friends and family I have around me to be able to share these things with (yes even including the wine!).

Hope you have all kept up with this super long post again (it must be because even though its half term I have had the house to myself most of the week so have not been chatting to people in real life!) that or I am just naturally chatty?  surely not.

Anyway a big hello to my two new followers Susie and Anne - thank you for following me.

Thanks for looking - All crafted out and off to play Lego Star Wars with DS2 from Solihull
x

Well I have had a go....

My friend Bernice is doing a month long Gratitude journal starting today - details are here.  So I thought I would support her and finally give art journalling a go.  Here is my attempt!

It's so not me!  Didn't come out at all how I visualised it in my head and I am so not keen on my writing with that white pen around it (how come everyone else's looks fantastic??).  Anyway I am not moaning - it's a first attempt and, I think, unfinished.  Just not sure where else to go with it but I am showcasing it today and will relook at it again tomorrow.  Think it would have been better in colours I am comfortable with - today's prompt was to use a colour you don't like or don't use regularly.  Mine is pink! I like pink but just don't use it very often (or that lime green either!).

Stuff I have used is:  Vintage Photo (couldn't not use this as that would be way tooooooo far out of my comfort zone!), Picked Raspberry and Worn Lipstick distress inks, Old Lace and Cranberry Zing Glimmer Mists, Fresh Lime dylusions spray, a Nestability heart, corrugated card, Mini Time Travel Mask by Crafters Workshop, and two Cog masks from Creative Expressions, T!ms Life's Possibilities stamps, Coffee Archival Ink, T!ms cog (the bird's nest) which is feathered with tissue tape and also one of his tickets and stamps, T!ms Bird from the birdcage die and also some of his sizzlet Flowers coloured with various distress stains, Brown Bazzill cardstock, Picket Fence and Vintage Photo Distress markers and brown twine.  I have to confess it does look a lot better since I added the birds and flowers and removed the gravestones and buttons (don't ask where I was going with those!).

If you can think of anything I can add to this to pep it up a bit I would grateful for any feedback!

I would also like to say a big hello to my new followers: Kathy, Charlotte, Eva, Denise, Kendra and Carla - I hope I haven't frightened you all off with this piece but don't worry I am off now to do some sewing - sew much more in my comfort zone!

Thanks for looking - not sure I am an art journaller yet from Solihull.