Coronation Book

Here's a little book I've entered into the Fashionable Stamping Challenges 'Play Bingo' A great challenge to take part in as there's so much scope. I chose ... 'show some metal, distress and vintage' As it is the queen's diamond jubilee year, I decided to choose this as my theme and try to create a surface that looks as though it's been around since then.  For the cover,  I've used  Tim Holtz's  'faux enamelling' technique, this really appeals to me as it reminds me of the tins of toffees I used to get as a child. I firstly embossed the Union Flag, using my foil sticky tape attached to card. The embossing folder is from Papermania. I then painted it with acrylic paint and left  it to dry. Once completely dry I sanded the surface to reveal some of the metal. I then stamped some 'rust' spots and heat embossed with frayed burlap distress embossing powder. I rubbed in some DI in black soot and Vintage photo and then gave the whole surface a coat of versa mark before clear embossing. The Lion and Crown were stamped onto painted foil tape and embossed with gold and clear powders. I then attached these using glossy accents.

A close up showing the faux rust .

Here's what the inside of the book looks like. I've stamped each page with a flourish using Antique Linen DI.

WOYWW 146

Just a quickie as I should be getting ready for work, busy day ahead! I guess there'll be a lot of desks on Julia's WOYWW over at Stamping Ground, looking a bit like mine, lots of distress inks tags etc... yes that's it CC101 started this week, can't wait to have a snoop around some desks this week. Thankyou Julia for hosting this fascinating site. Have a good day everyone

Grungey Monday 39

I've made this card for The Grungey Monday Challenge over at Studio L3. This weeks prize has been sponsored by Simon Says Stamp who I'd like to thank for the prompt delivery of my 100 tags. The Challenge was to use Tim's alcohol technique from his 12 tags of Christmas day 3 2009. I spent most of the afternoon playing with this technique and had some difficulty marrying the technique to the stamps I have. As the effects are quite bold, I felt it needed an equally bold image so I've returned to an old favourite  and used this fish stamp. I , like many others I suspect, had quite a fad on using oriental images, it seems they're a bit out of fashion at the moment, but I think I might just start a one woman revival! I've kept it simple as it's such a strong image and I didn't feel it needed any further embellishment. Below are some of my other attempts using different stamps and colour ways.

  

Twelve Tags March

Well I thought I'd better get on with Tim's March tag for The Twelve Tags Challenge, as I won't have much time after CC 101 starts TOMORROW! I'm still not sure how I'm going to keep up, it's a good job that the content is there forever. For this tag I decided to go with birds as I've been using a lot of butterflies in my work lately and I've hardly used the 'Bird Cage' die I bought a while ago. Although the mosaic technique is a bit fiddly I am quite pleased with the results. I've used Kay and Co paper off cuts and I think it looks a bit like vintage china, I'd quite like to have a go at a larger piece. I used a little wood graining stamp I bought some time ago from De Stempelwinkel for the background with acrylic paint. The flowers and birds nest were punched out from my favourite ASBO tape, and coloured with alcohol inks. They're not the same flowers I featured in an earlier post as I thought the colours were a bit bright, so this time I used a mixture of brown and raisin with a touch of gold mixative, to create a kind of copper effect.  

WOYWW 145

Just got time for a quick post to Sarah's WOYWW, over at her Stamping Ground blog. I traded an evening of crafting in the attic, with an evening at the Symphony Hall watching and listening to the great Joan Baez. She still has a beautiful voice and her musicians were also wonderful really chilled and mellow. In fact yesterday turned out to be a most enjoyable day! I started the day by finding out that I had won The FSC Make it for a Child Challenge, my very first challenge win. Many thanks to the design team for choosing my work xxx, and apart from going to work in between, ending the day with the lovely Joan and a delicious meal of Spanish Tapas made the day just perfect!

For those of you with an interest in the ASBO tape, here's a close up of some flowers I've made to add to my Tim' 12 Tags March entry. I followed Anneliese Bates instructions on her L'Atelier Blog. Great fun to make. I must seek out some more flower punches. x

Feeling Puzzled

 I used to love doing jigsaws as a child and there was always one in my Christmas stocking. I'm not sure how keen today's youngsters are, as their attention is taken up in so many other ways, however I decided to enter this one into Fashionable Stamping Challenge, 'Make it for a Child' and just maybe one of my nieces or nephews will enjoy it ! I bought the blank puzzles from the children's craft section in our local Wilkinsons shop. A bargain for £1 for a pack of  two. I coloured the backgrounds with alcohol inks and the stamping was done with Archival ink and clear embossed. The butterflies have been painted with metallic water colours and distress inks also applied with a brush. They are great fun to make. Below are some others I made using similar techniques.

I also made this one with the FSC in mind but after messing around for ages, I haven't been able to upload it to their site, Hey Ho such is the life of a computer novice. Now that's really got me puzzled ! LOL x

WOYWW

Well its that time again and I've not posted anything since last week! Still I couldnt miss joining in Julia's WOYWW over at her Stamping Ground blog ,even though I've not had much time for crafting this week. We had a lovely time with our friends who were over from Spain at the weekend, as well as my doing a children's workshop on Saturday, printing bunting with a group of visually impaired children and their brothers and sisters. It was a fun day but I think I've been recovering ever since. So it's been a quiet week in the attic with just a little time to peruse my signed copy of THE BOOK which arrived yesterday. Lots of good ideas contained within and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in. At the top right, you can see my roll of ASBO tape, Its sticky backed aluminium foil and there's a great idea in Tim's book which I shall be using this for watch this space.

Here's a closeup of the ASBO tape. I got this from my local hardware shop, only £4.99! Because it's sticky backed you can attach it to any surface really easily, it can then be embossed and painted.