Sunday Stamper: Happy Heart.

Here I am again folks with the last piece of my banner. Hels has invited us to do something that makes us happy. Well I have to say Autumn does that for me. I love the temperature 'cos I'm no good in the heat. I love the colours and the smell and how the trees turn into beautiful hues and stamping on scrunchy dried leaves and splashing in puddles and conkers and acorns and berries and hot soup and the smell of bonfires and I could go on and on. I decided to emboss my banner first with a leaf plate and then did it again and cut out some of the leaves for dimension. Then I put my hand to a few distress inks that are the right colour and splashed about with them!



I chose Dried Marigold, Ripe Persimmon. Rusty Hinge, Peeled Paint, Bundled Sage and Gathered Twigs. The sentiment is from elusive Images and the large leaf that has been  layered with sticky pads is from Tim's new blueprint set. I rubbed some viva gold paste here and there but it hasn't shown up in the photo.

Then I tried to photograph the whole banner, and what a job that was! In the end I laid it out on the carpet which has photographed very badly, but I hope you get the idea!

I love it when a project comes together! My next challenge is to climb over all the heaps stuff in the craftroom and find a space on the wall above the shelf to hang it. I shall photograph it when it is up but I guess that won't be today!

Hope you are all having a  lovely Sunday. x

 

My Little Man!

Just because I had to, here is a recent photo of my little grandson now aged 8 weeks and weighing nearly 13 and a half pounds! I absolutely love him to bits and am very proud of my dearest Jenni and Kevin and will be for ever grateful for him.



I'll be back shortly with my Sunday stamper Challenge and completed banner! x

Compendium of Curiosities 2 No 22.

Me again - getting to be a habit, but I have a lot going on in my world so crafting is an unwind! Wanted to have a go at Linda Leadbetters Compendium of Curiosities weekly challenge which can be found here and this week is about Tim's Rivetted Patchwork technique which he also used for this months tag.This week the challenge is being sponsored by The Funky Junkie who can be found here, so fingers crossed as there is a fandabolosy prize! I enjoyed doing Tim's tag so much I wanted to try for something different on this one. I have gone for a Halloween theme.

 

 

I made the background according to Tim's instructions in his book. Then out cut out the skull and bones from his Blueprint Stamps and coloured with various distress Markers. Then I used an old Top hat stamp and black embossed several and layered them up. I filled the eyes sockets in with red gems. Then I punched a tiny hole in his teeth to push a rose through which I coloured with Festive Berries distress re-inker as it is a glorious blood colour. Then from the same stamp set I cut out the large Tombstone and coloured with Pumice Stone distress marker and my watercolour brush. I had a lovely red cloisonne bead in the shape of a cross which I placed on top and punched out the railings from black card with my Martha Stewart punch. Finally the bat from the same blueprint set in the corner coloured with Black Soot distress pad and marker. I then dribbled some 'blood' from this mouth and added some red textured yarn at the top. Oooh didn't think I could be so blood-thirsty! Think I may have to try and do a Halloween card now! x

A plethora of clocks!

+Today over on Tag Tuesday the theme for the week is Clocks. I have been admiring the work of Anna Dabrowski who has a wonderful blog here and so I thought I would have a go at making an overloaded tag for the challenge.

I used Tim Holtz' enamelling technique for the base of the tag and then promptly covered it up with pieces of corrugated card, die cut clock pieces, doilies, and all my clock stamps. I used die cut cogs and minaturised some from shrink plastic. Then I hinged another piece for the bottom, gave it the same treatment and topped it with an idea-ology clock face. The  metal charm and word tab on the top went perfectly.

 

 

The scary bit came when I sprayed it with Dylusion brown ink and some made-up spray using various toned distress inks. Anna uses black ink on her pieces sometimes to great effect but I chickened out! I have a long way to go and a lot to practice but I did enjoy making this piece. Perhaps the next one I shall be able to use up someof my 'treasures' I have been keeping for a rainy day! What do you mean it's raining, surely not, this is England! Cheers peeps, keep warm and dry. Hugs x

 

Sunday Stampers: Masks.

I am nearly at the end of my banner of Sunday Stamper challenges. Just one more to go and then I shall have to figure out how to photograph it and then I shall have to figure out how to hang it in said craft room! It is quite difficult trying to get something balanced in the triangle shape, I much prefer to do tags, having said that this was a good challenge this week and I wasted a few pennants until I hit on this one. I used Dylusion inks in the background and then stamped Dina Wakley's lady stamp in black archival, then stamped her again on some spare card to cut out for the MASK. Then I was able to use one of Tim's mini grunge stamps in Pickled Raspberry distress around the right side and his sun rays in rusty hinge distress to her left over the mask without getting her all messed up!

 



The 'mirror frame' was from Tim's new mini stamp set and I used black embossing powder on it and coloured the center with silver acrylic dabber before adding her head. The words were from my stash, I mean a girl can't look beautiful all the time can she?  Then I realised that I had put always and almost  the wrong way round, but on reflection (get it?) perhaps that is a better saying! The roses were sprayed with Dylusion ink and the O is grunge board with silver dabber on. I wanted to use a figure towards the end of the banner to balance up with the start, hopefully it will all work out when I post it next week!

Sally and I do butterflies!

While I was in lovely Nantwich Sally and I made a pledge to resume sending a card to each other every month. We bought a lovely new butterfly die and decided we would have to use it on our next card. Here is the beauty Sally sent me:



 

She doesn't have a blog but I really feel she should do one and share her lovely creations, I hope you will all agree! Here is the one I have sent her:

 

 

And here is a side view of the stacked butterflies.

 

 

I used an asssortment of papers that were a freebie in a magazine and made the little flower on the side. I love the butterfly die from Marrianne Design and I'm sure I will find lots of uses for it. This was a layer of three with the addition of stickles on the last one for a bit of bling.

Two different cards from the same die, hope you have enjoyed! x

 

Stumped!

During my visit to Sally I paid a visit to the lovely church in Nantwich while Sal went to an important meeting nearby. I fell in love with the fabulous West Wall curtain and when I got talking to a lovely lady doing some beautiful flowers she told me the tale of the black knickers!

 



This fabulous couple are part of the rich stump work on the curtain and she told me that when the lady who created them found out that they would be place above eye level she put a pair of black knickers with a red lacy trim on the lady! Now I didn't peep, but what a delicious story! The curtain is full of wonderful characters and it inspired me to try my tag for the tag tuesday challenge in said stump work which I have not tried before. The theme this week is Owls, so here he is:

  

 

 

Having tried this I am more in awe of the fabulous work on the curtain. Owly was made out of pieces of Harris tweed and lots of buttons from my stash. The branch was tissue tape wrapped around wire with a distressed stained punched leaf and a glass pebble for the moon. I tried for a Barn Owl and so his heart shaped face was cut from muslin, frayed and stained around the edge with distress and a little felt beak. My stitching needs working on but fun to do. Have a good day everyone! x