I am a Winner .......... yayyyyyyy

A very good morning/afternoon/evening to you all. Are you all sitting comfortably? This is going to be a loooooooong post.

If you have been following any of my latest projects on this blog, you will have seen that a number of projects were aimed at the Illusionary Artists challenge being staged, The task was, using either France Papillon's or Andy Skinner's stamps in the Chocolate Baroque Illusionary Artists range, create a project (or seven). Link the project into one of several spots and be judged by both artists. The prize was a feature blog post on the respective artists blogs. No mean prize considering the bragging rights this affords as both are amazing professional artists (as well as being lovely people) and I have had the greatest pleasure in meeting them both and taking more than one class in the Ministry of Mixology weekends.

Well I am ecstatic, to say the least. France loved my little mini book featuring Auntie Margo and co and it was this project that secured this fabulous prize for me.

Please click the link above to read more about this project.

So what new projects to feature in this post on France's blog? 

I made a few, trying to feature not only the stamps but also the fabulous stencils designed by France and produced by Tando Creative. The first two projects because I wanted some storage for some of my goodies.
First was a little book case to house the mini books I'd already made. 

Decorated with crackle paste through the "Rockformation" stencil on the outsides before painting and inside paint through the "crackled" stencil on back and shelves and paint through the "torned circle" on the insides and stamped with crackle stamp from "Rock'n Rust" plate.

Next storage for those stencils.....or for the journals that France both encourages, teaches and inspires with the help of her special team of butterflies both on facebook and her blog.

Purely functional with just the moths from the "Creepers and Crawlers" plate. Stamped onto some brusho-coloured watercolour paper and cut out, with a bit of interest inside with heat embossed owls from Stampendous.

The purely functional projects done - some real playtime.

This acrylic tag went in the box of some very special items to France. I must give a shout out to Nikki Killinger for the backwards crackle technique. Such an awesome way to decorate any clear substrate.
On my tag I used the boy from "Auntie Maud & co." and the little hearts and sentiment from the "perfect words" plate. 

Another tag - just because

From the Tando kit "France Papillon Tags and embellishments", and using "Rock formation" and "Rusted rivets" stencils with crackle paint before painting. A dusting of stampendous embossing enamel. The newt was cut out from tissue paper and adhered with matt medium. The moth was stamped into hot glue, cut out and coloured with mica powders. Both stamps on the “creepers and crawlers” plate. The sentiment is from the "Perfect words" plate stamped onto part of the embellishments kit that was painted, treated with one step crackle and then English red oxide antiquing cream applied and wiped back. Rusty wire "holds" it all together with a little help from some 3D glue.

Finally 

as previously mentioned, France is very inspirational in the Art Journaling field as well as Mixed Media. It is because of her that I actually started my very first art journal after all these years of not understanding "WHY". Anyone who has not done any art journaling and is still dithering really needs to go and get stuck in. The “A layer a day, a spread a week” approach is really working for me and I know I'm not alone. I won't bore you here with my spreads done so far but one of the prompts was "Shadow of the morning". This next piece evolved whilst playing with decoart sosoft fabric paint with this prompt in mind.

You can see the "rusted rivets", "circles", "torned circle", "crackle" and "rectangles" stencils all being used before stamps from "Rock'n Rust", "Perfect Words" and Auntie Margot and co" make an appearance. This piece of fabric has been used to cover a 3x3 signature booklet made from A4 envelopes I have, that were bound, coptic style.

the fabric adhered to the envelopes and machine stitched round the outside

I hope you enjoyed looking at these projects almost as much as I enjoyed making them and I thank you for your endurance.

Once again, I want to thank France for not only choosing me as her guest on her blog but for being such a wonderful and inspiring lady.

All the paints/mediums are from Decoart 

(except the brushos and mica powders)

All the stamps, stencils and more can be found in France's shop

Broken Time

Morning all
Managed to escape the kisses and cuddles from our dog Nala for 5 mins. As much as I love them, it's hard to type a blog post or craft when 20kg of staffie is needing her fix of her hoooomans on a lap.

Soooooo, what have I got today?
A little plaque. Substrate and bits from Tando Creative with the stamped words from the Andy Skinner side of Illusionary Artists stamps from the Word Up plate made by Chocolate Baroque and the background stamp of the Clock Collage from Stampendous as is the Aged Ochre embossing enamel on the word frame. Decoart paints/mediums used.

The base and frame were first painted with black chalk paint then crackle then vintage and timeless paints respectively.  A little bit of rubbing back to show that black a bit more before stamping the clock collage in sepia archival ink.

The cogs and "clock hands" given various coats of paynes grey and quin. gold media paints. The clock hands started life as keys but as I had no clock hands, I improvised.

The clock dials had texture paste used before the paints.

The word plate - the frame was triple embossed then Andy's word stamp from the stampendous "steampunk" set pressed into the hot enamel with versamark.

To get those words to fit nicely with more control , I pressed the painted greyboard piece onto the stamp as opposed to stamping onto substrate. A couple of brads to complete then all glued together.

Thanks for looking

A Toxic Plaque

Good afternoon and a Happy Easter to those that celebrate it.
Crafting is not only enjoyable for me, it also forms part of my own pain management. Drying time can be made to fall into those periods when I need to lie down so I have a win win situation most of the time. For those out there, and I know there are many, BIG gentle hugs to you all.

It's been a week since my last visit. I've been busy but can't share my makes just yet as they have not been received by the people they are intended for.
The piece I am going to share with you came about by chance really. I was searching for a particular roll of ribbon that I need for another project and came across a little package of MDF and grey board that was in a goody bag at one of the Ministry of Mixology retreats that I love going on. This bit donated by Tando Creative. It seemed to good an opportunity to put it to some use as this ribbon has still not come to light.


I started off by damping the edges of the greyboard and distressing thoroughly. Then left to dry.
All four pieces were painted with Decoart black chalk paint and when dry some crackle medium applied to some areas. Lighter coloured chalk paint in different colours applied to all pieces.
Rust effect - more paints. The stamp set I used is from Andy Skinner's stampendous range - "Toxic". It felt good to go back to some older stamps for a change. Why buy stamps if they are going to be used a few times then put away, never to be seen again, just because newer toys are at hand?
Some close ups of those distressed edges - they are solid now because I've sealed with ultra matt varnish.

The scratch and "toxic" stamps used here can be clearly seen.

The rivets are just aged brads. 

The finished plaque can be hung up with the rusted wire. The smallest piece is going to hang funny because it's already lost two rivets so no - I didn't mis-stamp.

Thanks for looking 

Another Tando Creative Mini Book - third of three

Good morning from a wet and dreary Scotland. This is going to be one of the worst days this week apparently following two days of relatively warm sunshine. That's the way the weather flows at this time of year.
Anyway, enough of the weather even though the bad days give me more time in my cubbyhole, onto the third and final little mini book in the set from Tando Creative. This one, again, is different. I tried to use different techniques on all three. 

This time I have dry embossed the cover first then applied crackle paint (Decoart), scraping back over the raised sections so that the size of crackle would vary. When dry a layer of phthalo blue paint applied, slightly diluted, to both sides. Quinacridone violet added to the edges with water towards the centre.  The larger crackled areas had  raw umber antiquing cream applied and wiped back when dry. All then sealed with ultra matt varnish. The embellishments on the front are from the Tando Thins range - Scribbles. These were triple heat embossed with stampendous aged ochre embossing enamel, also available from Tando. The words from Illusionary Artists (France Papillon) Perfect words.

outside cover

inside before pages added

close up of title and crackle

Spine

Once the pages had been made and attached, some beads from stash added as decoration

pages showing inserted tags

Thanks for looking

Catch Up

So here I sit, yet another project finished and sitting waiting on paint drying on another and it suddenly dawn on me that, although I was sharing the majority of my makes on facebook, this little corner of my crafty world has been sadly overlooked since I don't belong to any design teams now. I let them all go last year whilst moving house twice and adopting a rescue dog. Nala is now well and truly one of the family and loved by all that meet her.
I had to have a piccy of her in my craft room

A Tando Creative frame painted with Decoart paints and stamped with a few Andy Skinner stamps from Stampendous.

I have been busy also making a few "mini books". These are so relaxing and I am getting to use some of my designer papers that seem to have multiplied. Most already given away but still a couple left to complete. I love decorating the fronts to make then totally unique. These two are the last in a long series but I find it hard to take all the photos needed to show all the intricacies of all the folded pocket pages without it being a marathon photo shoot. Maybe need to think of getting a little tripod for my camera.  These are the front covers

Lots of different elements used as you can see.

There is also a collection of Tando Creative shadow frames that I have been working on.

All slightly different and using different techniques. These are now hanging up in my craft room.
Just another couple of pics - again Tando products - seem to have done a run on these - but they are such great fun to work with

Again Decoart paints and mediums

A little trip through my creative world over the last few months. More to see when I next visit.

Hugs to all

Gone Rusty

OMGoodness! So long since I visited this little corner of my life!!! Let's see if I can remember how to work this platform.

I have been making the odd bit here and there for friends but forgetting to take photos before hurrying them out of the door. Seems there have been more demands on my time outside my little cubbyhole since we moved house and adopted a gorgeous little Staffie - Nala.

All that is, hopefully, going to change slightly and I'll be back in my inner sanctum playing with the stamps, inks, paints etc more often.
Today's offering was inspired by the challenge over at Country View Challenges - Rust. I love the different ways that the illusion of rust can be created with paints and powders and have used two ways here on my little Tando mini printer tray.
The kit pieces were all sealed with Decoart tinting base after gluing the aperture pieces together. Then the cover was edge painted with Decoart Quin gold.

The front cover

Paper from Prima, Epiphany pad, stamped with a Stampendous bird gears stamp in sepia archival.
Then using Stampendous' gorgeous aged ochre embossing enamel, heat set this to frame the image.
The words were computer generated and wild honey distress ink added, edged with black pencil before being stuck down with matte medium (decoart again)

Inside Left

 More Prima paper from the same pad. I have acquired so many papers that I really ought to use some up! The remaining words from the computer adhered after distressing the edges of the paper with both scissors and ink. Two Tando hearts, One coloured gold with ink the other, paint.

Inside right

More Prima paper and more distress ink on the base.
The frame, after the gluing and priming was given a coat of Decoart Yellow oxide mixed with a touch of gold. Then given a coat of Decoart Patina antiquing cream, wiped back slightly before stamping with an Andy Skinner crackle stamp using sepia archival. Then sealed with satin varnish.
The birdcage and hearts are also from Tando.
The painted rust effect here was created by mixing burnt umber paint with texturizing medium before painting with red oxide, yellow oxide and quin gold paints.

My head says this needs more but I can't quite put my finger on what that is just yet. Oh well! I'll just keep looking at it until inspiration strikes.

I'd like to enter this into the challenge at
Country View - Rust