Pssst....

Did I mention I'm running off this weekend to do some art journaling?  Maybe?  Ah well.  I just wanted to leave a short note to let you know that I'm working on a little freebie which I hope to have ready towards the middle of next week.   I'm quite excited about it!  Until then I wish you a lovely weekend.

Will I, won’t I?

I’ve been creating some backgrounds in the journal I shared with you here.  I’m love creating them, but wonder if I will be able to bring myself to stick and scribble.

So far I have two absolute favourites.  This first one was done with studio paints.  The idea is that I use the light circles for the journaling, just one or two lines on each.  Have to say I’m not sure about covering the pages up with anything else yet though.

Next, using Altered Originals ink sprays from AFTH.  Oh I just love these.  I’ve had so much fun with them so far.  The stamps are Tim Holtz and Paper Artsy.

 

A slightly more subdued page next.  If you’re looking hard you’ll notice that that’s the alphabet and yes, it is meant to be upside down.  I haven’t posted the photo the wrong way round…LOL.

For this one I stamped on the alphabet using some sassafras stamps, then painted over it.  After that I smooched some gesso across the whole page using an old credit card. Once dry I liberally sprayed the page with granite ink and let it soak into the area’s where the gesso hadn’t covered and then wiped it off.

And a few more.  I won’t talk you through all of them, but these pages use stencils, stamps, more ink, dabbers, studio paints and gesso, and a whole lotta fun.

View Full Album

When I get brave enough I’ll come back and show you the before and after (hoping that you’ll be interested to see them!)

Little silver beads….

Last weekend I spent another day at a silver clay workshop.  This time it was making beads and findings and I learnt so many new techniques.  My sketch book is filling up fast with projects now.

So here are some of the beads I made on the day. 

First up, my favourite of the day, a small lentil bead.  I just love lentil beads, and this one is tiny at 10mm in diameter.  

This textured tube is now on a snake chain as I think it makes a wonderful focal bead at just under 30mm long.

 

Lastly, my etched pillow bead. Two brilliant techniques, although I do need to refine this one but it’s not bad for a first attempt.

As always, now all I need is time!  Bit tricky with the school holidays in full flow as I won’t be getting my usual me time each week.

Window shopping….

I just love window shopping.  Don’t mind if it’s in real life or on the internet.  If I had the space and money I’m sure our house would be crammed full to the rafters with all manner of lovely things.  Even if I have the space and money it’s not very often I do buy as I worry about the cats or the kids wrecking stuff.

Are you a Monsoon fan?  I love the place, and am hoping when we finally get round to decorating our bedroom to make sure some of their homeware range is featured.  What I didn’t know until a few minutes ago is that they have a crockery range now by Denby. Denby, I am also a fan of! Double points.

It’s a shame I don’t have room for a second set.  I’d love to serve something swanky up on that platter and I’m desperately in need of a new teapot, but a small one as I hate making tea in the cup.

Did anyone hear my purse groan....

Yesterday I managed to create a couple of background pages in the journal I showed you, but I have a desire for some extra products to help make my pages.   Enter stage left....

A set of spray inks from Art from The Heart... what I love most is that there is a graphite one! Wonder how much of the house will end up, by accident, covered in these little beauties when they arrive.

And these gorgeous stamps from Paper Artsy.  Along with a new tub of gesso and some gel medium I should be able to art journal to my hearts content...or will I?  LOL.  Nah...there will always be something else.

Getting mucky fingers….

Ahhh, who can resist Paperchase?  Not me, that’s for sure.  Yesterday I had to go in to town for some last minute birthday shopping for Jamie (he’ll be a whole 5 years old at the weekend!). Inevitably I ended up popping into Paperchase, and found this…

Boring huh?  But with oh so many possibilities. It’s an A4 (which you may have guessed) sketch book. Grey board covers and fabric bound.  Simple with a simple price tag - £5.50!  Wouldn’t this make a great Art Journal? I thought so, and as I’m off on one of Dyan’s Beginners Art Journal courses at the end of this month, I just had to.

Well, as Chris was away last night I sat up until midnight doing “something” with that cover.  I have to stress I hadn’t intended to stay up that late, I was ready to go to bed at eight o’clock, but I lost track of time once my fingers got stuck in pots of gel medium, gesso and paint, not to mention sprayed on.

Front cover ,

And the back cover….

 

 

I used 7 Gypsies patterned paper for the back cover, and cosmo cricket for the front, then smeared them with a rangers paint dabber in espresso and given them a quick spray with some “Smooch” (I think that’s what it’s called – it was in a gogo kit recently).

I then cover the edges and the spine, not that I didn’t mind the purple fabric binding, with 7 Gypsies gaffer tapes, which were then given the paint treatment to mucky them up a bit.

The front cover stamp is from Sir Tim, and the circle have been made using gesso and a glue stick lid. I then stencilled spots on using Studio paints in dash of red and sable brown.  To finish I applied some crafty individuals butterflies and words from a 7 gypsies sticker sheet.

I am in love with this book, and the feeling and smell of gel medium.

Now all I need to Chris to be away again so I can spend the evening creating some background pages!! 

Another one bites the dust…..

 

Earlier this week I got an email from Szilvi at the Scrapbook Kit Club letting myself and the other members of the design team know that they have decided to close down.  Sad isn’t it when a store closes, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day sometimes.

I’d already finished a layout for the next kit that was due out so I thought I would share it with you.   The papers in the kit screamed wedding to me and having scrapped my wedding when I first started scrapping I’ve been itching to scrap some of them again.

The papers are Websters Pages, beautiful to cut out as it’s such good quality.  I have a confession – these are the first Websters Pages I’ve had my hands on.  This could be the start of something good!
 

SBK are having a 50% off closing down sale so it may well be worth a look around to see if you can pick yourself up a bargain.

My floppy flips

A couple of weeks ago Rosie and I went shopping for some new shorts for Jamie, and being girls we also took a peep at some shoes.  Rosie only has little leather baseball type shoes and really could do with some sandals of some description.  Enter Next, and these fabulous flip flops.  As soon as she saw them she wanted them.  It’s all I can do now to stop her sleeping in them.

Summer photo's

Having been a bad blogger recently, as in I've not been posting, I've also not been reading blogs, even the one's I truely love.  So tonight whilst having a hop around I came across this...

It's basically a list of things to do that create great photo opportunities, ideal for the summer holidays. You can find a link to download the page here  at Willette Designs. I know I'll be dipping into it especially as this summer is my first "school summer holiday" and I'm worried about keeping the kids occupied and not at each others throats!  I can't be on my own, hence sharing the link with you.

Enjoy and I hope you find it useful as a parent, photographer or scrapper.

Oh the stress….

  I don’t know about you, but when I’m making something and it starts to go wrong, everything gets worse.  I mentally put myself into a place of failure and struggle to pull myself back out of it.  This is what happened to me a few days ago after trying to make this ring.  Oh the frustration!! I got there in the end, and as this is the first ring I’ve made, it’s not too bad, although it could be better. 

The stone is made from dichroic glass, with a snake of silver wrapped around it, finished with a tiny silver ball.

And here’s the band – the bane of my life!  There were moment where I wasn’t sure who was going to survive, me or it. Luckily we both did in the end.  Rings are definitely something I need to practice.

Ring number two, far less trouble than the last one.

I just love how delicate this one is with the flower balanced on top of the band and the way the leaves drape around it.

I have some more silver jewellery to share with you, but I’ll leave that for another post. 

Thanks for stopping by!

"Celebration time"

Like buses today my posts.  Here to share with you are my designs for the Celebration Time kit from the Scrapbook Kit Club.

The kit contains 2 textured Bazzill cardstock (vanilla and pink), 1 Striped patterned paper by Junkitz, 2 double sided patterned papers by Fancy Pants, 1 sheet full of rub-ons (Fancy Pants Celebrate line), half sheet of Celebrate die cuts, 1 pack of colourful buttons (Yabo) and 6 paper flowers by SBK.

 I've added some kraft cardstock, my little shoebox and american crafts letters to complete this layout along with a couple of puffy stickers from my favourite shop - paperchase.

Thanks for looking!

Caterpillars, fingerprints and hearts….

Life seems to be throwing some interesting turns at us at the moment and that means that I’ve had an abandoned blog, again.  It’s about time I shared a few things with you, don’t you think.

This wee beastie, along with a few of his pals, has taken up residence in a “bush” outside my front door.  Absolutely beautiful to look at and has a liking for the flowers, as you can see from the photo, he’s quite happily munching them away. It’s become a ritual with Rosie to look for them whenever we go out.  After searching around I’ve discovered that he doesn’t stay so exotic looking….   Such a waste don’t you think, all that finery and you get a plain brown Vapourer Moth at the end. 

In a total change of direction now, silver jewellery.  I’ve had no where near as much time to work making more jewellery as I would like, but here are two pieces to share with you.  

This one has Jamie’s fingerprint on it, with his name and date the fingerprint was taken inscribed on the reverse.  I just love to touch it.   I have one with Rosie’s fingerprint on still waiting to be finished.  I will get to it.  If you’re interested in me doing one for you, drop me an email and I can let you have the details.

And here is a pendant that I have made.  I wear this such a lot.

  I’m off in a couple of weeks learning some new techniques and hopefully, if all goes well will have a couple of rings to share with you.

As for scrapping, I’ll be back again when I get a mo to take some more photo’s. I recently completed another week in the life project.  This time I thought about it much more and did loads of prep first.  I’ve also got a couple of layouts to share from up coming SBK kits.

In case you hadn't heard...

...the lovely Steph over at Indigo Mill is taking a well earned long summer break and closing the shop down from July until the end of September.  There will be a sale at the beginning of July so keep your eyes peeled.  You can find more information here on the Mill Pond.

I'm busy scrapping another "Week In The Life" at the moment, and if I do say so myself it looks better than the first one I did. I hope to be back soon with some photo's of that, but first Chris & I have a kid free weekend to enjoy as the kids are off to Grandma's for the weekend. Can't wait....

It's not often....

I get excited, but an email from Waterstones this afternoon made me hot foot it to their website and place a preorder, for this book....

The eagerly awaited 4th novel in the bestselling Conqueror series, continuing the life and adventures of the mighty Khan dynasty. Genghis Khan is dead, but his legend and his legacy live on. His son Ogedai has built a white city on a great plain and made a capital for the new nation. Now the armies have gathered to see which of Genghis' sons has the strength to be khan. The Mongol empire has been at peace for two years, but whoever survives will face the formidable might of their great enemy, China's Song dynasty. The great leader Tsubodai sweeps into the west: through Russia, over the Carpathian mountains and into Hungary. The Templar knights have been broken and there is no king or army to stop him reaching France. But at the moment of Tsubodai's greatest triumph, as his furthest scouts reach the northern mountains of Italy, Tsubodai must make a decision that will change the course of history forever.

Roll on the 2nd September when it's published!  Sorry, did I mention I'm a tad excited!

Sometimes things just take over….

I realised the other day that I hadn’t blogged for a while. Quite a while in fact, coming from someone who used to blog virtually every day.    I blog when I craft, take photo’s or have moments to share. 

The reason I haven’t blogged this time is down to these…

….yep, my current obsession, running.  My way of getting fit before I turn 40.  I run three times a week and it leaves me shattered in a good way.  The feeling of tired legs is something I am becoming addicted to.  I’m even getting twitchy legs when I don’t go for a run.  Who’d have thought it.

All this running and thinking about running has left me little free time for crafting.  That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been any at all, as the smell of rotten eggs in my house will testify to that fact.  I’m in the process of making some silver jewellery and tonight I have oxidised a piece, hence the smell. 

I’m waiting on a CJ at the moment, and have a box containing four months worth of kits from the Scrapbook Kit Club that need my attention.  That lot should get me scrapping again and give me something to share with you.

Until then…..thanks for stopping by!