Craft Workshop Photos - Friday 10th May

Good Morning Friends!

Another quick post today as I am taking a day off from my craft room to meet a friend in Bath for a mooch around the shops and lunch..the wind is howling outside and it's become a bit of a joke between us, because we hardly ever get to just meet and mooch  and when we do, the weather has been appalling! Oh well never mind, it's been ages since I last saw her so it will be great to catch up.

Last night was another of our 'Out of the Blue' craft group workshops and following on from last time, when we made a card using stamps, gilding flakes and flitterglu, this time we used gilding flakes with double-sided tape. For my group I made a card in black and another in burgundy and let my ladies choose their colour theme, so we had a lovely mixture of cards. I already posted my black and white card last week, but I'll post my burgundy one separately in a few days time.

My camera battery packed up on me last night..I knew it was going but the last time I attempted a 'tidy' of my craft room, for some reason I moved the spare and charger to somewhere that I thought was a better place, well it was certainly a good hiding place, because could I find it before going out last night? NO!!

So not so many photos as usual, but these are the ones I managed to take before the power went..aren't they lovely?

Thanks for stopping by, I have been so busy at home and work again that if I haven't visited your blog lately, many apologies..I will be having a catch up later tonight!

Love and hugs,

Carole X

Butterfly trail - Thursday 9th May

Hello Friends,

Thank you for visiting my blog and (hopefully) leaving a comment! After the last two very long blogs, a very quick one today..this was one of the cards I made for the recent large order for an assortment of small cards and is a variation on a design by Sue Wilson in the second Creative Expressions design book, just adapted for a smaller card.

Apologies for the photograph, I didn't realise it was quite so dark until I just uploaded it..it's  a 6x6 card..the first white layer was pin pricked, then I matted and layered in black and white, using cosmic shimmer pearl PVA for the butterfly trail. The butterfly I used isn't a die, but a punch I have had for a very long time!

We have another workshop tonight and our ladies will be making the cards using the Indigo Blu BFF stamp that I featured in my post of 27th April, so photos here tomorrow!

Love,
Carole X

Secret Garden - Wednesday 8th May

Good Morning Friends,

Thank you for visiting my blog, I really mean that - it's so good to have you take a peek at my little corner of crafty blogland! Thanks for all your comments yesterday, I'm glad you liked the projects. I do enjoy design team work, there's always a challenge to come up with a card or other project that is quite specific, which can sometimes be difficult, but always fun. I am currently working on my next DT project for Fantastic Ribbons..and it's not a card, far from it and that's all I'm saying for now!

This is my little creation for Sunday Stampers this week, but I would also like to enter it in a few other challenges as well..details at the end. This time Hels set the time of diamonds and pearls..look carefully they are there!

I started creating this little plaque at the weekend and finished it last night. First of all I covered the whole plaque with Claudine Helmuth gesso and whilst that was drying off (not that it took long at all), I turned on my melt pot!

This time, instead of using dies,  I made the flowers using the stamp shown below, from Sam Poole's Button Florals stamp set and  followed Hels' tutorial to create  lovely paper blossoms like these. You can follow Hels tutorial here -  do take a look it's superb!

The paper I used is from the Fabrications pad by Teresa Collins, once I had stamped the flowers I inked the edges with Fired Brick distress ink and I also dusted over the edges again once I had made up the roses. The leaves are die cut using a Spellbinders die, it's the leaf from the Poinsettia set.

Having made up the roses, I dipped them in beeswax, which had been melting away in my pot. It leaves a sheen on the dipped item and the leaves are bendable - totally different to when you use UTEE, which gives a high gloss porcelain effect.

With the roses made I returned to the bare plaque - I used the Ali Reeves method of stamping with some string wrapped around wood all over the plaque, leaving streaks which look like weathered wood. I did this with Forest Moss distress paint.

I also added a tiny bit of  Kroma Crackle at the bottom of the plaque..it just gives a deep cracked effect. Once it had dried (it takes a few days but in the end I aided it a little with the heat tool!) I inked over it with a tiny amount of Wild Honey distress ink.

Next I stamped the sentiment on to tissue (one ply) and sealed it on to the plaque using 'slap it on'. I then added torn segments from Graphic 45's Secret Garden Range and sealed with some Modge Podge sealer, which I have had in craft room for years and it just keeps on going! I also dabbed all around the edge of the plaque with black acrylic paint, just to give a more aged effect.

I added the roses using my glue gun and also two stick pins, one with pearls and one with 'diamonds'(well I guess they are sapphire coloured really, let's call it 'artistic licence!'). To finish off I just placed a little key charm over a key on the paper.

Sorry it's such a long post today -I wanted to write down all that I had done to create this!

This is my project for the Sunday Stampers Challenge week 256 Diamonds and Pearls.  and I would also like to enter it into the following challenges:

Country View May Challenge -  #3 - How does you garden grow?

Our Creative Corner -  May - Anything Goes

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Love,
Carole X

Mabel Lucie Attwell - Tuesday 7th May

Good Morning Friends,

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and the sun shone for you! We had a super weekend, but I do admit to spending time in the craft room when I should  have been out enjoying the sun! However, it was a very fruitful weekend - I finished off my large order, managed to finish the plaque I was struggling with in Sunday's post... and ..we booked our flights to California for September, so I also spent a lot of time on line, excitedly emailing relatives to confirm we are coming and booking hotels for our drive down from San Francisco to San Diego..I am really looking forward to it now, but I won't wish the summer away!

More excellent news! I have been asked to join the design team for Nicecrane Designs, which is owned by a lovely guy called Ignacio. I was thrilled to be asked and am in the best company as my lovely blog friend Anne, Redanne has also just joined the team...

You can view the Nicecrane site here, but he specialises in vintage ephemera collage sheets for card-making and paper craft and also digital stamps. I will mostly be creating projects colouring the stamps and here are my first two projects:

These are digital stamps of images by the British artist/illustrator  Mabel Lucie Attwell (1879-1964). She  is most well known for her quirky, nostalgic drawings of babies and children, based on her own daughter Peggy. Her style is very much that of the  'British Postcard' and indeed many of her illustrations were used on postcards and advertisements.

For my first project I decided to make an easel card with a drawer and as the little girl is off to  do some painting, I thought it would make a good pencil or crayon box for  a child. I coloured this with Inktense pencils that I got at Ally Pally, they are superb and yes, very intense! I also stuck to the colours in the original artwork as much as possible. Mabel Lucie Attwell's work was used for illustration and posters so it was very much block coloured, with no shading, so quite easy in a way but very different to what I'm used to when colouring LOTV stamps, for example.

The box was made from a template (also an Ally Pally purchase) and the papers are vintage papers by Pink Petticoat.

My second project is a card with  Cinderella themed artwork and this time I used a different colouring medium again - drawing inks! I was given some for my birthday and hadn't had a chance to use them, so I decided to give them ago..wow they were lovely to use!

 Again I used a very similar colour theme as the original artwork. The papers are by Graphic 45 and the stamp, Sam Poole.

Here is the coloured artwork, which can be purchased from Nicecrane, or the digital stamps as shown below: view these and many other designs - and purchase them by clicking this link 

Thank you so much for stopping by and please leave a comment, I love to read them!

Happy Crafting,
Love,
Carole X

Gilded Bird - Sunday 5th May

Good Morning Friends,

I hope you are all enjoying the Holiday weekend?! We spent most of yesterday in Cirencester, just looking around the shops and the Arts Centre.

When we got back in the afternoon I headed for the craft room  to 'play'..plenty else to do, such as commissions and  kits for next week's craft work shop, but I just felt the need to try and make another plaque: of course it just kept going wrong, so I'll have to revisit over the weekend sometime.

Today I am sharing one of the cards I made for my large commission for small cards with no greetings..

The stamp is Crafty Individuals CI-180 and I just thought I'd give it a go with gilding flakes on black card. I backed a card blank with musical notes paper from stash and then cut a strip of craft card, used a Martha Stewart Edger punch and then inked with Vintage Photo distress ink. The only part of this card that took a little time was the gilding, but I've been using the flakes so much lately that I'm getting quite speedy.

After we got home and a little crafting was completed, I went out into the garden to check on our hens..now the weather is starting to improve and the days longer, they are getting into an evening routine...they have a couple of little plastic balls, which I fill with corn - they then knock them around the garden with their beaks and claws to make the corn come out, they seem to enjoy it! After that, I will sit on our bench and our Buff Orpington, Penny comes up for a cuddle - bless her, she's too big to just jump on my lap, so she comes over, acts all excited and I have to lift her up!

Speaking of the 'girls', as I was writing this post today Tom called me to look out of the window..I just had to share these photos of what three of them were up to...poor Penny, she SO wanted to jump up too, but she's just too big! When she thinks that Bella and Lacey (the two on the swing) are up to no good (which is quite usual!), our 'head hen' Cara, stays out of the way, whilst still keeping one eye on them - she's discreetly hiding behind the swing!

Happy Sunday!

Love Carole X

Circles! - Saturday 4th May

Hello Friends,

I hope the sun shone in your part of the Country/World this week and continues to do so! It's been a busy week here and not very successful from a crafting point of view, but hopefully I'll get some time in the craft room over the weekend!

Today's card is a simple card I made a little while ago, but hadn't got around to posting before..

This is a 6x6 square card  - I used the 'disco' circles mask from 'That Special Touch' and simply inked through it with a mixture of Peacock Feathers, Dusty Concord ad Broken China distress inks. Although it doesn't show in the photo, I also dusted over the top with Perfect Pearls to give the design a bit if a shimmer.

To finish I just tied a ribbon around the bottom of the card - simples!

Have  a good Saturday and thanks for stopping by!

Love,

Carole X

White Wedding - Thursday 2nd May

Hello Friends,

Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving your comments...I was relieved that I wasn't the only one who came into blogging not know what I was doing...it's been  a very steep learning curve over the last few years and I as I mentioned to someone at our social media surgery on Tuesday, it does get quite 'addictive' and you have to be careful it doesn't get in the way of the reason we're here..because we love to craft! However, where else could you really make so many lovely like-minded friends and share ideas and creations!

Talking of social media, Tuesday was a really good day at work, our expert Paul spent the day giving one to one advice about all types of social networking to local groups and I was doing a lot of tweeting from my desk to provide examples. It was a long and tiring day, but at the end of it, we felt as if we had accomplished a lot.

Today's card is my Design Team  card for this month's new Emergency Crafters Challenge, the theme for which is WEDDINGS, so if you would like to take part, just  hop over for the deets!

This is an 8x8 card, which I started by creating a background using one of Sue Wilson's new embossing folders from Creative Expressions. This is the heart lattice and was one of my purchases at Ally Pally. It really does give a defined, crisp impression and I've used it quite a bit over the past few weeks. 

The circle is from the Spellbinders Grand Stately Circles set and in the centre I stamped this pretty wreath from Stamps by Chloe. It's really hard to see in the photo, but I added little cosmic shimmer pearl drops to finish off. The greeting is also a stamp by Chloe, die cut on Spellbinders Standard Circles Large. Around the edges of the card I added snippets from a die in the Spellbinders Venetian Motifs set and again added pearl drops.

Aside from a DT card, this was also made as a commission, the only alteration being that I typed the names of the couple and die cut on the small circle on the front.

Thanks for stopping by,

Love, Carole X