Friday 22 August 2008

Medallion Bell




I've had this stamp for a wee while now, but just only found the time to have a little play with it, and I must say I love it to bits!!! I think I will be doing some more of these for my Christmas tree this year.

It's stamped onto plain cream card and coloured with those gorgeous little Twinkling H20's.......I've added beads to wire in the centre to act as the 'clapper' for the bell and just finished off the 'hanger' with a matching bead.
Thanks for looking in,

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Fun decoupage,





Now these are fun! Some cute and amusing designs on these sets, they are Marij Rahder designs and this set is the Fifties Feeling, I bought these from Sharon Duncan a while ago and made these two cards up as soon as I received them, I just couldn't wait! I don't really do too much of the decoupage, but do enjoy it when I do......if that makes sense,..........I just thought these sets would be a nice change for me, and I think the 'Big Lady' would make a good card for a fella, the baby card says it all really,thanks for looking in,

Tuesday 19 August 2008

Jewellery.........




Well this is my first attempt at making some beaded jewellery. Nothing really elaborate though. For the necklace I just threaded three strings of seed beads and some mixed shapes, then added the pendant, I did two strands for the bracelet and the earrings were done using three different sizes of headpins attached to a jump ring then added to the earring findings. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, in fact it was quite therapeutic really, thanks for looking in.

Sunday 17 August 2008

Envelope keepsake book








This is a variation on the 'Victorian Romance Envelope Book' I made for the cardmaker of the year competition last year.

I made this as a gift for Glenda last year after I won the website competition!

I used double sided black card for this project, printed off some of the Artylicious Fantasy Floral cd rom backing papers and used the Dream unmounted stamp themeplate (which I chose as my prize), I used a Whispa's inkpad in blue to stamp the images, I also has a go at the fantastic Ten Second Studio metal art, which is amazing by the way, and you can get some stunning effects with this stuff!! I mounted some pictures that were taken with me 'showing off' my entry for the website competition when I visited her on the Opening day of her new 'shop', and then just finished things off with some little charms and punched out flowers.
Glenda was delighted with her little 'keepsake book, and I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out, Thanks for looking in,

p.s.................what were we laughing at?.........Glenda forgot to take off her 'pinny'........and had some crazy antics trying to 'get ready' before the picture was taken! It was funny really,

Tuesday 12 August 2008

Medallion Butterfly





Now this is my therapy! I love the Medallion stamping system, I find it very therapeutic indeed and if I had the time I would sit for hours and hours and hours......sadly it's not to be!

This card wasn't made for anyone in particular, I was just dying to use that stamp!

I have stamped the butterfly out three times,cut out three different sizes and then glittered using the Pee-Wee pastel glitter. I scored down the body of the smallest layer of the butterfly to make it look like the wings were 'moving' it just gives it a bit more dimension...it's stamped onto stardream ivory card and it's really pretty.....I used the cuttlebug Swirls embossing folder for the background and edged it with the pentouch Gold Calligraphy marker, I also added some glitter on the swirls just to finish it off slightly. The dragonfly is in fact a peel-off sticker, I added some glitter to the wings just to 'lift' it slightly......Thank you all for looking in......'till next time......I'm off to play with some more medallions!

Saturday 9 August 2008

Stampbord Jewellery.




I just adore this stuff!!! I've had a humongous big bag of it lying around for ages and thought it was time to practice and play a little, I have also just started to make my own jewellery too, so here's the end result! Nothing startling and the next time I try something like this I'll do things slightly differently, but it's not too bad for my first attempt!

Anyway, I used Glenda Waterworth's Paisley Elephant design sheet for this set, those little square designs were perfect for the mosaic size stampbord squares.

For the pendant I used a very pale blue inkpad for the background, then I edged in a pale lilac, I stamped the elephant in black Stazon, then coloured it in using Sakura stardust pens, I scraped off some of the colour to emphasise the tusks, I then gave the whole piece a gold edge using the Sakura pentouch calligraphy marker, but when I glazed the piece afterwards with UTEE (ultra thick embossing powder) it ran slightly, but it looks not too bad, it has a kind of 'worn' look to it, I then finished of the piece with some fancy 'dangly bits' using some odd shaped beads I had in my craft stash......I also coloured the back of the pieces with the gold marker, and also glazed over that, I felt it looked better than seeing it plain brown

I use exactly the same techniques on the Earrings, thought I'd best make them match up with the pendant! We girls must co-ordinate you know...lol...

Thanks for looking in.

Friday 8 August 2008

Another Enchanted Christmas......





I made this set for myself for my Christmas! All the decorations on my Christmas tree were handcrafted this time.

I used Joanna Sheen's Enchanted Christmas cd yet again, this one is so versatile, I've used it a lot!

The big one is a Medallion stamp, (I can put together a mini-workshop if you would like to see how it was made). The teardrops are just all the different sized toppers layered on top of one another and the 'pyramid' style one is a template I drew around to achieve the shape, I coloured some silver peel-off purple just to finish it off slightly, I did the card with the 'left-overs' and I must say I quite like it, I love this image though, so I'm kind of biased towards it anyway. Thanks for looking in,

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Penny Black Hedgehogs.







Well what can I say about these wee critters! Aren't they cute! I just adore these stamps! This was actually my first attempt at 'proper' water colouring and I'm really pleased with the results, I kept the cards quite simple, so I matted the images onto some rainbow paper, I thought they matched the colours in the stamped images quite well, I can see me buying some more of these stamps, they really are adorable.

I used Stone Grey Stazon for the stamps then I used the Marvy La Plume art markers for the colouring. I scribbled the colours onto an acrylic block then mixed them to acheive the colours I needed.

I must admit I was quite surprised with myself, they originally started out as a practice piece but I was so pleased with the end results that I made them into cards!

Thanks for looking in,

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Dragons galore!





My last entry for today.

I made these cards for Fathers Day using Glenda Waterworth's gorgeous Here be Dragons stamp set.

I coloured the Dragons using Twinkling H2Os, sadly I can't remember which set but I can find out if I need to. The background paper was sprayed with Antique Gold spray inks, the smaller layer was sprayed using the Glimmer Mists spray inks in green and a touch of Red to add some "special effects" I stamped the heads of the Dragons onto a small piece of paper also sprayed with Glimmer Mists, then I proceeded to set fire to the edges, to make it look like the Dragon burnt it! I then coloured some gold peel offs black to add my greeting. Thanks for looking in.

An Enchanted Christmas.





This was an experiment! I took one look at Joanna Sheen's Enchanted Christmas CDROM and made my mind up instantly! Those teardrops and ovals are just perfect for this kind of thing! a All I had to to do was figure out how to do the hanger. I ended up using the Eazi-Score box maker board and had a little play to find the best way of doing things...........if anyone would like to know how it was all constructed please drop me a comment and I'll see if I can put together a mini-workshop for you, thanks for looking,

A Rose by any other name..............






I'm sorry I don't have any more recent projects to share with you just now, but I'm still busy re-decorating my living room! Will it never end!

Anyway, I made this piece a couple of years ago when this stamp first came out and I must admit it is one of my all time favourites, such a versatile stamp and suits just about any occasion and person you can think of.

The stamp is by Glenda Waterworth and is called the Rose Script, I put this little mini-book together just to show off different ways of using the stamp.
One page was stamped using stambord, one page was done onto vellum using white embossing powder and embossed softly from behind, one page was done just using chalks, another page was done using Marvy La Plume art markers and then glazed , and yet another page was done onto vellum but this time coloured with coloured pencils from behind to give a very soft look. The cover was done using Antique Gold spray inks and an alphabet set of stamps that I'd had in my craft stash for ages, I just added some mini tags and a few buttons as a 'bookmark'.

I really enjoyed this stamp and making this mini-book, so much so that I sent it to Glenda and she featured it in her Gallery on her website, which blew me away!Never did I think my work would be shown off in such a way!

Thank you all for looking in, take care and bye for now.

Hopefully once I've finished re-decorating my living room I can start on some new project and share them with you.

Saturday 2 August 2008

A Victorian Love card......



















There are a few reasons why this piece of work means so much to me.
It was made for a competition for a National crafting magazine, The Joanna Sheen section of course, It's the first time I have entered a big competition like this, and I was a bit scared really, but I bit the bullet and went ahead with it anyway. It didn't win the competition, but I still came out a winner! Because after Joanna had judged the competition and the winner was picked, she then asked me to be on her design team., especially after seeing this piece 'up close and personal'. I don't usually get too sentimental about my work, but this was different. It is very special to me.


This project was taken from The EasiScore Cards and Tags DVD with Wendie Rhodes, and it's also featured in The Inside Secrets of a Scoreboard workbook.
It isn't as complicated as it looks, but it is a bit time consuming, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of making this. I used Joanna Sheen's Victorian Romance CDRom for the decoration and just went completely over the top with everything.


I must apologise for sharing some of my older with you, but I'm in the middle of redecorating my living room just now and don't really have the time to make anything at the moment, hopefully that will change soon.
Thank you for looking in and sharing my sentimentality with you, take care all......


Friday 1 August 2008

Modern Ephemera!




Here's something a wee bit different.
This was included in the batch of samples I made for Joanna Sheen using the Perfume Bottles and Dressing Table rubber stamps.


First off all the card.


I stamped the perfume bottles randomly onto thin white card , using silver a silver inkpad and heat embossed with silver detail embossing powder, I used this as a backing paper and then finished it off using some fancy border silver peel-offs. The main perfume bottles were stamped onto thicker card, coloured using Sakura startdust Gellyroll pens, then cut out and mounted using 3d foam pads.


The Brooch.

This is a kiltpin brooch I bought from one of the many jewellery sites on the internet. I chose the 3 ring one but you can buy ones with 6 ring attatchments.
I threaded some different coloured glass beads onto 2" headpins and attatched them to the broach using jumprings.
The charm is is made using the square perfume bottle, stamped onto white shrink plastic using dark grey Stazon, coloured using Sakura Stardust Gellyroll pens to match the main perfume bottles on the card. I just attatched the charm to the brooch using a jumpring.



The Brooch Attatchment.

I stamped the pillbox stamp onto thick white card, punched two holes and added eyelets using the crop-a-dile, threaded some white organza ribbon through the eyelets to attatch the brooch. That way the brooch can be removed easily.

This has turned out to be quite a popular piece and I have been asked to make quite a few of these, it can be adapted to suit any occasion and would make a lovey little gift for that someone special.
Thank you all for looking in.