June's Tag Tuesdays

Can you tell me where June went? Half way through the year already and I don't feel like I have had a summer at all! I send my thoughts to all the poor folk deluged out a few days ago, what freak weather that was. Here as usual at the end of the month are my tags from the here, first put into my large sketch book and then one at a time for your perusal!!

My book is getting quite nice and chunky now!

The first week we were challenged to do something for the Jubilee,

So I found a street party image from the Coronation and then one from the daily paper of a rainless party from the weekend jubilations. Then I added dates, a made red rose to which I added rain drops to mark the weather! The second week was 'Camping'.

I took an image of Glastonbury the year it poured with rain and my second daughter went and had a most wonderful time! I added the stamped wellies and decoupaged the right book with sticky pads and then stamped out our favourite words we say before going on holiday! The third week was the colour Green.

I decided to make a green man and placed him on an embossed wood tag and added punched leaves and acrylic buttons. I made the head by sticking my painting onto clearly for art, heating it and then moulding it out to give the tag dimension. The last weeks challenge was Tales of the Riverbank.

I sprayed the background with my new Dylusions inks that I am having such fun with. Then I double stamped the specimen jar on blue painted card and acrylic and made the fishing net with a kebab stick, some tulle and a piece of rusty wire. then I stamped grasses on the front and onto acrylic to give more dimension. Memories of childhood days fishing for tiddlers in the river, such lovely days!
I'm still not sure whether I should be posting this again on my personal blog, but I rather like to see the months work all together, so I hope it isn't boring.
It is deluging down here, I hope you are all dry and not too warm! Have a lovely weekend one and all.

Sunday Stamper 211 Pockets.

I am attempting to try and tidy the craft room. Hubby says I should throw a grenade in and shut the door, now that's not very helpful is it? In the midst of this tidy-up I have lost/mislaid/thrownout/hoovered up the blank banners that I was using for my Sunday Stamper challenge, I  hope I find them again under all the heaps of stuff! So for this weeks challenge of pockets I have made a card.

In keeping with my messy everything else here is a messy card. I can only send it to a crafter who would understand! The backgrounds are made with Dylusion inks and a grand mess I made doing these, but oh so worth it as the colours are really bright. Then I used Studio 490 stamps for the pencils and discovered that the new limited distress inks go really well with the Dylusion colours. The pocket was off a small persons jeans that I picked up for a few pence in a car boot sale when I thought I would make a journal book (still might one day) and I messed it up nicely with some acrylic dabbers. The sentiment is stamped with a little alphabet set. Some of the mess on the card is made with Sir Tim's texture stamps. Back now to try and make sense of the heaps of stuff that are breeding in said craft room!

Playing Day!

I should be ironing and shopping and dusting and hoovering and such things but I keep getting called to the craft room, so what's a girl to do? To start off here is my second angel, she is my night angel I hope to make quite a few all under different themes.

I am getting very fond of these little angels, they are fun to pick up and add a bit to in the evening. If you missed my previous angel it's a few posts behind this one. I am not technically minded and don't know how to link it back without losing all I have written, I shall have to call on Beautiful daughter number 2 who set this blog up for me, she is so clever and will tell me how to do it in a trice! All made from bits and bobs from my stash. The stars were a challenge to find and so I punched out some from card and then punched a little hole in the centre so that I could sew them on.

I thought I would post my make from Hels workshop at the Stamp Attic last Saturday. I had such a good time, Hels is a great tutor and Wendy is a lovely hostess and owns one of the best shops in the world!

I am now in love with Art Parts and Wendy Vecchi stamps and bit and bobs, so had a bit of a spend, well it would be rude not to wouldn't it? So here is one I made at home all on my own for a very special friend, if she is reading this I wonder if she can guess it's for her?

I have parted with a little owl modelled from beeswax that I made in the last workshop I went to so I shall have to invest in some moulds I think! These art parts are great to use and fun to find toning pieces to put on the shelf. This photograph is not very good, the background could be better, please bear with me, the light is going as the sky is getting ready to drought down. I  think I shall have to set up a permanent backdrop thingy, thinking cap on now!

Well, the housework beckons, hmmm, on the other hand........... xx

Sunday Stamper 210: This Boy

Here is my Sunday Stamper contribution for this week. I decided to put my on-going banner to one side for this challenge as I thought you might all like a story about This boy!

Now, are you sitting comfortably?

Then I'll begin.......

Once upon a time there was a very ordinary little prince.

He wasn't tall and handsome. He needed a step ladder to mount a trusty steed and he had never fought a dragon in his life, but he was kind and thoughtful and good to his Mum and Dad and the palace servants. This however was not good enough for all the princesses that lived near and far to his little kingdom. It made the ordinary little prince very sad as he dearly wanted to marry and have a family.

One day he was out walking when he spied a young maiden kneeling by a pond. When she stood up he thought she was gorgeous despite her very strange cosmetic choice.

He asked her who she was and she replied that she was an ordinary little princess that really wanted to fall in love with a prince but none of the princes that she had met were interested in her.
'Could it be because you are wearing green lipstick?' he asked politely, falling instantly in love with her despite her verdant lips.
'Oh' she replied, blushing a fiery red, 'That is because I am trying to kiss all the frogs in this pond incase one of them is a prince!'
'Well,' said the ordinary little prince, 'I am an ordinary little prince but I should love to marry you!'
And so it came to pass that they were married very soon after.



They had a very small wedding because no-one thought they were important enough to bother with, but all the servants came and a great time was had by one and all. No good fairies attended the bash but then no wicked fairies came either and so they went to live in their little kingdom.
There they raised a large loving family and despite being economically challenged they were rich in love. They all grew into well rounded human beings despite the general lack of the x factor and loved and looked after their parents for many many years. And so they all lived happily ever after.

This all goes to show that you don't need to kiss a frog to find a loving prince.


The end.

Stamps curtesy of Stampotique with distress marker pens to colour. Frog from a long time ago hidden in my craftroom.
Hope this bit of daftness qualifies for Sunday Stamper, you did say it could be anything Hels!

Tims Tags of 2012: June

I love Tim's tag for June. I found an old black and white photograph of my mum when she was 4 with her big sister Barbara who I was named after. I only got to meet her in the latter part of her life as she met an American soldier during the war and became a G I bride and settled in California. Some of Tim's stash I had, some I had to improvise, like the tab on the side which I had in card so I brushed pewter distress paint over and then rubbed with black acrylic, I added the little Union Jack button as  the photograph was taken in England. The star shaped shell at the top was a find and went with the photo.

Tim's eye for detail is amazing. I try not to look at his tag too much when I am making mine, just note down what he uses and how. When I had finished I saw that he had lined up his stamp on the base so that it read 'Photograph', see I never thought of that, he is so clever! However I had stuck mine down so here it is warts and all. Thanks tim, another great one! 

My first angel

Hi peeps. I have two favourite magazines, The Craft Stamper and Stitch. In the latest issue of Stitch there is an article by Annette Emms - 'A Fluttering of Angels' where she shows you how to make little Angels using embellishing, embroidery and bits and bobs. Quite taken with them I am, so here is my first one, I hope that I will be able to make some more and have a Flutterings  of Angels for my craft room. I'm not sure how to mount or display them, anyone got any ideas? On a canvas perhaps, or put loops on them to hang as Annette has in the article?

Lots of room for improvement, I will try chiffon embellished over the felt instead of dyed scrim, so watch this space! See you soon, hugs xx

Sunday Stamper 208. Her Majesty.

I have just enjoyed the Thames Pageant, what a display. I loved the war horse and the royal barge looked amazing. Those poor drowned singers at the end. A true piece of British grit! Thought I would end the day by posting my next piece of banner to commemorate the day.

Like Hels I had purchased some of the Papermania papers and so I covered the base of the banner with the blue crown one and distressed the edges with Faded Jeans Distress  ink. Then I edged around the triangle with pieces of Union Jack streamer and then added the little bows to each corner. I had a Papermania set of toppers from ages ago and so I subtituted a photo of the Queen at the start of her reign in the middle. I found the crown shape in my stash, it was black flock edging and had a sticky back and so I drowned it in gold glitter and added bling pieces at the top. I die cut a tattered banner and stamped Diamond Jubilee in festive berry D.I. then edged with more of the faded jeans. I then stamped out a red rose from more of the paper pack and made a 3D rose, then added glossy accent drops to commemorate the days' rain! The little flags were cake toppers that I saved. If you look closely you can just make out the red white and blue 'r' at the bottom, I didn't want to upstage her Majesty now did I?
I have dressed the front of my house for the weekend and even planted my hanging baskets and window box with red, white and blue. Thought you might enjoy a peek?

Two more days to enjoy and sun to come - happy  jubilee to you all! xx

A month of Tuesdays.

Happy bank holiday everyone, hope you are all having a fab time. I thought I would post my month of Tag Tuesday challenges for the month of May as I have now put them into my large sketch book that I am saving them in. I love taking part in the group and I am trying out different mixed media techniques as far as possible, although often stray back to my beloved stamps!

 

There are quite a mixture of different styles this month. The first one was 'Sewing' and so I had to use my Tim Holtz die cut didn't  I? I dressed it in pieces of material and tissue paper and white paper as if the dressmaker was in the process of cutting and fitting out a dress for herself.

The second one was labelled baking, and so I recycled an old card I had received that made me laugh, added a cotton hankie pinny and some epoxy wine bottles!

The third week was about gardening. Now my favourite garden (after my own of course) has to be Monet's garden at Giverney that I was lucky enough to visit about 20 years ago. I did three simple tags, one with a painting of his garden by the man himself, another with a photograph of Monet standing in his garden and the third of my younger and so much slimmer self standing on the same bridge. I copied them onto canvas paper and sewed them onto calico that I coloured with acrylic paints and then glued them onto recycled cardboard packing.

The fourth week was entitled 'Found Objects' and so I needle felted my impression of the sea in Cornwall with pieces of felt, chiffon, sari silk lace and roving and used a found shell and piece of bleached rope that I found on the shore at Hayle, just down the road from St Ives. This really was the colour of the sea when we were there, it was magic!

The last week was to incorporate bunting in some form, and still full of salty tang and seagull cry I used a lovely little stamp by Docrafts that I had recently brought. I watercoloured it and then painstakingly cut out little bits of streamer for the bunting - the first lot ended up on the floor and I had to recut before I quickly glued it down! Very fiddly, why do bits like that always end up on the floor where I can't find them until I have made another lot?

Thank you very much if you have managed to stay through this lot! Never sure whether to post the same thing on both blogs but thought I would continue with my months worth in one go on my own blog. Have a most splendid bank holiday whatever you are doing. I shall play again if the sun continues to play hide and seek. Hugs to all xx