Bank Holiday Spiritual Uplift.

It was such a glorious day here in the UK yesterday that I forsook the craft room for a day out at one of my favourite places in all the world. We packed a picnic and our canvas chairs and headed to Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire. It is a beautiful ruin of the second Cistercian foundation in Britain and the first in Wales. It dates back to 1131 and must have been the most fantasic sight before it was dissolutioned by Henry V111 in 1536. It still feels like entering a sacred church even though the roof has long gone. I thought I would share just a few of the many photographs I took.



This is the scene  as you enter through the shop.

 

 

Many beautiful doorways, this is looking out through the warming room where the monks used to have a fire from November through to April, bet it was much used!

 

Can you imagine these windows filled with magnificent Medieval stain glass?

 

So high! It must have been awesome.

 

View from the South Transcript. If you listen very carefully you can hear the echoes of the white robed monks filling the space with their singing.

Hope you didn't mind me sharing, I just love this place.Hope you all had a great Monday too! x

Sunday Stampers: Titanium..plus some etc's!

I have been a bit lapse in my postings recently so wanted to get on and do one of my favourite challenges which is Hel's Sunday Stamper, click here to be transported to her blog! Hel's asks us this week to do something metal so I challenged myself to do steampunk as I am not very good at it. I restricted myself to a tag (nothing new there then!) and this is my offering.



Firstly I embossed the tag with the cogs folder and using weathered wood distress and then Pewter distress paint I 'metalised it a tadge. The stamp at the bottom and the robotic human are from a Paperartsy Hot Pick and I layered him for extra dimension.

 

Then I die cut some cogs out of shrink plastic and shrunk them, then coloured them with black archival and Pewter Paint and also added a watch face for interest. Then I used Tim's rub-ons over an enamel tag and finished it off with some tape ribbon.

The next thing I played with was my new Brenda Walton die of paper cups and here are my first offerings, I hoping for grungy tea set eventually!

 

I found them just a lttle fiddly to begin with but I'm sure I will improve as they are quite simple really. I used some Tilda double sided paper for this practice run, but want to make some that I have stamped on next. There is a Blue Moon Scrapbooking video on You tube that show case some of these pretty cups. I wish my girls were still little, they would have loved them!

I think they have possibilities for Christmas filled with sweeties or a sachet of hot chocolate! I love the little tea bags don't you?

Just to prove I have done other things here are my Tag Tuesday tags so far for this month.

 



This one was for the theme of doors, windows, portals and Gates. I used some Graphic 45 papers from their Secret Garden collection and added a die cut Ivy , brick embossing folder and a rusted grungeboard key.

 

Here is the view inside the door.

The next tag was for the Wedding theme.

 

It shows a pair of hands trying to catch the Bride's thrown bouquet which was decoupaged flowers that I coloured with distress markers and sprayed with gold for a touch of glitz. I popped some dangly crystals on the bottom and drew in the floating ribbons from the flowers.

Finally here is the tag for the theme 'Complimentary Colours'.

 

I used a Dina Wakley stamp and Mowed Lawn and Festive Berry distress ink plus a pair of punched hearts and crinkle ribbon dyed to match.

I layered up the green image to give it a bit more body ha ha no pun intended!

 

Hope I haven't bored you all senseless, but it was good to post a bit extra! I haven't finished in the craft room yet either, another day off to go - hope I get back, happy days everyone. x

Tim's Tag for August 2013

I'm hoping to be able to spend some time playing crafting this bank holiday and so have started by making my August Tim Tag  as I have managed to get some masking film to try layering up. I always used post it paper before but the film makes it so easy!



I used an assortment of stamps and Tim's car but used Spiced Marmalade and Wild Honey stains for the background. The one thing I love about doing Tim's challenge is that as well as using new products he reminds us about some old techniques as well and I had forgotten how effective this masking could be. He also asks us to say what our ideal journey could be. I have many but I've got to say I would love, love, love to go to America and attend one of Tim's workshops and visit CHA. How good would that be?

If there is anyone on the face of this earth that has not seen Tim's blog (ha ha I joke) then click the link above and have a wonderful journey!

Hope you are all having a great bank holiday in the UK and if you are journeying then be safe. Hopefully will return later this weekend with another make!

Sunday Stamper: Diamonds are Forever.

Hi everyone, I seem to be a bit remiss with my posts, it's the weather and the holidays but I've managed to produce a tag for Hels challenge over at her blog this week.  She asks us to incoporate diamonds into our offering so here is mine.

 

I've taken a diamond stamp from Paperbag Studios and used it as the background against a distressed tag using Mustard Seed and Squeezed Lemonade. then I water coloured my Diva stamp that was stamped onto watercolour paper (can't find the maker - sorry!) and edged it with Walnut Ink and added the sentiment which I treated to match. Then I did another image of the girl and added her with sticky fixers.

 I stained the ribbon at the top and left it there. I feel I need to add something but can't think what, any ideas anyone? I hope to find some more in depth time to craft this weekend, fingers crossed! Thanks for looking xx