Twelve Tags of 2013 - July

I've been enjoying following Tim's blog and drooling over all the new releases. I take comfort in the knowledge that as soon as I win the lottery they will all be mine!!!, until then I'll do what I normally do and just add some of my favourites to my already vast collection of craft supplies! I'm pretty excited about those tag shaped stencils. Still I digress, here is my July offering to the Twelve Tags of 2013 Challenge. As always, a fun tag to make. I really enjoyed making the flower as my substitute for the Old Glory die that Tim used. Here's a close up....

 I don't use this Distress Crackle technique often enough even though I love the great textural finish, so I've promised myself to use it again soon. Only Two more days of work until I break up for the 'Big One !' and I'll be in crafting heaven, in between getting my house in order, seeing friends and family, decorating the utility room, doing the garden, going on holiday..... etc. etc. watch this space ! Have fun x

Birds of a Feather

Good morning and welcome to visitors old and new. For my eclectic Paperie design team post today, Ive decorated a manilla gift bag as a container for a crafty friend's birthday present. I've used an idea from a tutorial on how to make a paper feather, which I found a while ago, on the amazing 'Todolwen's Old and New' blog, . If you wish to see her original post follow the link here.If you'd like to have a look at my interpretation of this idea, I've done a step by step post over on the eclectic Paperie blog which you can see by following the link here. Here are a few more feathers I made a while ago, using Dylusions  and Perfect Pearls inks and sprays. Have a lovely day! x

Happy 4th of July !

Happy 4th of July to all my American Blog buddies! I hope you all have a safe and happy day. I'm posting some pics of the Gelli prints I made on Tuesday afternoon. If you like getting down and dirty with paint then I suggest you get hold of of a Gelli Printing Plate, they are great fun. I made these prints by masking off areas of the plate with torn paper. The stripes and stars have been created by removing the paint by drawing onto the surface with rubber ended blending tools. the prints started off looking like this...........

In desperate need of some stamping and inking I thought ! After a bit of vintaging over the surface with Antique Linen Distress Ink, Gathered Twigs and Vintage Photo on the edges and scuffing with a distress tool, they became much more to my liking.

 I also tried out a technique I read about on the Gelli Arts Blog. This is where you lay down your design on the plate with acrylic paint leaving some ares of the plate clear. You leave the paint to dry ...thoroughly... or it won't work. You then 'pull' the print from the plate using the sticky side of sticky back plastic or clear packaging tape. Next up, you go over the sticky side where the paint is, with mica powders or gilding flakes or gilding foil sheets. This sticks to the clear areas where there is no paint. Very effective, you can see this and lots more ideas over on the Gelli Arts Blog Here's my first attempt.....

What's the stitching about? Well, a normal Gelli print comes out as a reverse image, a contact print is a WYSIWYG, I found this out when my flag came out in reverse, so not to be deterred, I didn't want to waste my gilding after all, I cut it up reassembled it and stitched back together! I was lucky enough to buy my Gelli Printing Plate with a gift token after I won one of the eclectic Paperie Get Altered Challenges. Kim stocks them in the eclectic Paperie shop, as well as a great selection of Golden Acrylic Paints. So if you're the type of crafter that likes getting their hands painty, you will love Gelli Printing. Clear your table, get a supply of paper and paints a few simple mark making tools and you'll be in heaven ! x

Gelli Arts - Gelli Plate 6x6"	Speedball 4" Pop-In Rubber Brayer	Golden - 1 oz Fluid Acrylic - Naphthol Red Medium	Golden - 1 oz Fluid Acrylic - Cobalt Blue	Distress Ink Pad - Vintage Photo
Distress Ink Pad - Gathered Twigs	Distress Ink Pad - Antique Linen	Inkssentials Foam Blending Tool

WOYWW #213

Good morning all, WOYWW #213 already! The weeks seem to be flying by faster than ever. As you can see, my table bears the remains of a rather messy crafty session, the results of which can be be found later. By the looks of what's on the table you may be able to guess the theme. Taking centre stage is my Gelli plate. For those of you that haven't seen one, that's what they look like. They are great fun to use but they should come with a warning as they are rather addictive. I'm trying hard to master the art of Gelli printing with mixed results so far. I'm quite pleased with the results of this last session, so pop back sometime if you'd  like to have a look. You may be totally confused at this point and wondering what all this desk showing is all about, if so, I suggest you pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground blog where you will be able to explore crafty desks from across the globe and if you like what you see, there's a very good chance I'll be seeing you here next week! Until then, Happy What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday! x