Since its been a lot cooler this week there's a strong temptation to veg under a blanket on the sofa, so I've not done much crafting. I've been procrastinating starting on my printers tray - it needs a bit of a clean which would mean spending time in the kitchen where there's no radiator.
The good news is, if our house purchase goes through, we'll have a nice open plan kitchen diner and I won't have to put up with a cold dingy kitchen anymore. We're feeling a bit more hopeful about it working out although it's definitely not certain yet. Basically, the current owners took down the supporting wall between the kitchen and dining room and put in replacements supporting joists without getting building regulation approval. It's probably fine but, there's a risk that the beams aren't sufficient and the house could actually be structurally unsafe. Luckily they have agreed to get it checked and get the retrospective approval so we just have to keep our fingers tightly crossed that it turns out to be OK. 

So anyway, I just have a quick tag to show you today. I feel a bit like it needs something else, but I'm not sure what, so i'll leave it as it is for now. It might have worked better on smoother card too.
 Its been a while since I've done a tag or entered any challenges so I'm killing two birds with one stone here.

Challenges I'm entering this in are:
The Stampman - 'use red'
Simon Says Stamp and Show - 'anything but a card'

Right, next job - make an effort to start commenting again!

Sarah
xx

Making a mess

I have to admit that I have a slight obsession with aged mahogany distress ink - I love this colour!!
Playing around with some messy techniques yesterday, I came up with three ATCs that use this colour in different ways.

The background of the first two is a combination of wild honey distress stain and aged mahogany and dusty concord distress inks. Butterflies and birds were stamped in black archival. Flourishes were stamped using white paint and I also smeared some more white paint on with an old credit card.

I love the way the aged mahogany blends with the dusty concord and zings against the wild honey colours in these ATCs.

The final one was simply aged mahogany and white paint. I smeared paint roughly over the ATC using a credit card and added the ink over the top, blending with a wet paintbrush. It shows up as more intense colour where there is no paint, and turns a lovely pink shade over the paint. I then stamped some Hero Arts heart stamps in the paint and ink.

I think these techniques are great for making backgrounds, but I find it so hard to cover them up with anything - I just end up loving them just as they are. Is it just me that has a love affair with backgrounds?

Sarah
xx

Christmas cards at last

Inspiration had deserted me for a while, but last weekend I finally got my christmas cards finished. I had a go at playing with some kraft glassine paper and some reindeer die cuts I bought ages ago and I loved the results. I think I was at least a little inspired by Tim's Twelve Tags of Christmas  and I really am going to have to get the Tim Holtz reindeer die for myself for next year!


Here are a few samples:

The kraft glassine on this one was coloured with forest moss distress inks and gold perfect pearls. The camera hasn't picked up the shimmer too well, but it is gorgeous in real life. The patterned background paper is from Basic Grey.

For the next two cards I used some gorgeous deep purple card and aged mahogany DI which is just perfect with the glassine paper. This time I tried stamping on the glassine. I particularly like the effect with the torn strip at the bottom.

For this one I embossed the glassine as well as colouring it with perfect pearls and distress ink - such a stunning effect. 

One thing I wasn't sure of with the glassine paper was how to attach it since I'd read that glue doesn't work well due to the coating on the paper. I attached it to the card with brads then realised I still had to work out how to attach the reindeer to the glassine. Amazingly, my trusty double-sided tape seemed to work quite well.

I was really pleased with the little bell/baubly things I used on each of the reindeer - I think they were originally on some indian style trim I've had for years.

The stamps I used on all these cards were from Basic Grey (Winterland), Autumn leaves (?) and Debbi Moore.

A mirror for a wanderer

I'm aiming to make quite a few handmade christmas presents this year and one of the things I'm trying is jumping on the bandwagon of decorating Ikea mirror frames. I've seen so many people using them to make some fabulous art and they're an absolute bargain at £1.25 each!

I have various ideas for what to do with the 6 I ended up buying. For the first one I was inspired by an article in this months Craft Stamper magazine where they used reinkers and craft glue to make a fantastic collaged mirror frame. Quite a few papers from my Tim Holtz paper stashes are travel related, so I thought I could do something similar on a travel theme for a globetrotting friend. However, what I ended up with was a much simpler piece than I originally planned...

I started off with a single sheet of map design paper from Tim's Lost and Found paper stash. I cut out the two halves of the globe to use as the main images and used the reverse of the leftover paper to make the background. I edged all the bits in vintage photo and stamped some splatters round the edges of the background pieces.

The mirror frame edges were stained with walnut stain distress stain.

Somehow, I managed to trim the papers so there was a hole in the right place for the mirror, then I glued down the images with matt multi medium.

Using vintage photo distress ink again, I stamped the birds at the top and used a a Tim Holtz mask to create the compass at the bottom, adding the game spinner as a compass pointer.

The strap down one side was made with grunge paper, stained with walnut stain and vintage photo, embossed with a texture fade and highlighted with black soot distress ink and some coppery rub on. I then gave it a coat of multi-medium. Hopefully it looks a bit like leather. The studs are the tops of some brads glued on. The word in the book plate came from the same sheet of paper as the rest of the design.

The final detail was the phrase at the bottom, which I think was perfect for theme of this piece - I used a left over scrap of paper, stamped in vintage photo and clear embossed.

So thats my Holtzian travel mirror and I'm so pleased with how it turned out.

Thanks for reading, I hope you like this as much as I do :0)

Sarah
xx

Grungy Halloween

Ok, so I don't do halloween, which is strange because I generally like the spooky side of things. Halloween for me usually means me and hubby buying sweets in case we get trick or treaters, then staying in with the curtains drawn tight and the lights off so no one thinks we're in (and eating the sweets ourselves). However, I remembered I had this lovely skeleton stamp from Kaycee Crafts and with the Grungy Monday theme being Halloween I couldn't really resist.

I started off making an ATC from a few bits of card left over from a botched attempt at a card, then thought the poor old skeleton deserved more of a background.

I used a lot of Tim Holtz products - distress inks and stains, ornate frame and crown stamps, background paper, on the edge and bird dies. I loved how the fired brick distress stain worked with walnut stain to give that lush dark blood red on the main image. The red background paper was from one of Tims paper stashes and, with a bit of extra black distress ink and stamped script, I though it made the perfect spooky background.

Enough from me for now, but check out Tim's website here for lots of fab inkiness.

Sarah
xx

Moonlight and sunset

It's been ages since I entered any challenges so today I've done two tags for two of my favourite ones. Firstly, the Dragons Dream Tag It On theme this week is the whole of the moon. This is what I came up with:

The background started off with baltic blue fresco finish paint, crackle glaze and a top coat of black with white for the moon. The tree (from a Kanban set) was stamped with embossing ink and heat embossed with Moon Glow midnight sapphire obsidian powder. This is such a gorgeous deep shimmery blue and very fitting for the moon theme. I used some blue patina perfect pearls to add shimmer and stamped the tim holtz birds in black archival ink.


Hels Sheridans Sunday Stampers theme is blue and orange so I decided to create a similar tag with more of a sunset theme. 

The tree is the same dark blue embossing powder as the moon tag, and the background detail is done with the same blue perfect pearls as before, brushed over the pattern stamped in clear embossing ink. The background is wild honey and fired brick distress stains and ink. I know the blue doesn't show up too well in the photo so this one shows it a wee bit better.

I really enjoyed doing these and I'm starting to remember why I like challenges - they're fantastic for giving a bit of focus to my work. And I love seeing everyone else's fab work :0)


While writing this post I came across a great quote from Allen Ginsberg which I will leave you with.


"Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness"


I like that sentiment


Sarah
xx

Endings or beginnings?

I've been badly neglecting my blog for a while. It's been a busy time with conferences, holidays and bathroom decorating. Also was coming up to the end of my contract at work. Sadly, it ended last friday, so after 5 years in the same place I have to move on... to what I don't yet know.

I've applied for lots of jobs and haven't even had an interview - I work in psychological research and I guess the university research funding cuts have made things a lot more competitive. It's especially difficult because my husbands job means I want to stay in the same part of the country. The academic career path seems to expect people to move around the country (or world!) for years before they can get a permanent job and settle somewhere. I'm not willing to do this and it frustrates me that I end up feeling like I have to apologise for putting my family and personal life before my career.
So I think it's time for plan B... however, having a PhD apparently qualifies me for absolutely nothing in the real world so it might prove a little tricky!

At least having no job means I can make the most of having some inky crafty time. I have endless projects I want to do and xmas cards to make, so I'll definitely be keeping myself busy.

For starters...

This photo frame was lurking in my husbands study. The frame was a faded green and the photo in it was an old and unflattering picture of the two of us from around 10 years ago. It was just crying out to be updated. I used one of my favourite photos from our wedding and the text is the poem (by e. e. cummings) that hubby and I read to each other in the ceremony.

i carry your heart with me 

i carry it in my heart 

i am never without it 

anywhere i go you go,my dear; 

and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling 

i fear no fate for you are my fate,my sweet 

i want no world  for beautiful you are my world, my true 

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant 

and whatever a sun will always sing is you 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows 

here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud 

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; 

 which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide 

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart 

I carry your heart 

i carry it in my heart

Will be back with some more crafty stuff soon

Sarah
xx

Don't panic

It was my husbands birthday today so that means I can finally show you the card I made for him. He's been  moaning about getting old (despite the fact he's slightly younger than me!) so I could help gently teasing - thus the 'don't panic' on the front of the card.

I used:
Tim Holtz papers to make the base of the card and the letters for don't panic.
Lots of distress inks (mostly vintage photo, forest moss and crushed olive) - I used the faux enamel technique (see here) for the inner panels and the key and keyhole.
Tim holtz dies  - cogs and gears, steampunk on the edge, and hardware findings
A mixture of clock themed stamps from Tim Holtz, PaperArtsy and Stampattack (free stamp with Craft Stamper magazine).

I borrowed the idea for the style of card from someone's blog, but I can't for the life of me find the link or remember who it was, so apologies to whoever it was and thanks so much for the inspiration.

Thanks for reading

xx

An experiment in vintage colours

I recently came across the work of Polish scrapbooker/artist Anna Dabrowska from the Prima design team (see her work here). I absolutely love the sense of colour and texture in her work - it's seriously gorgeous stuff!

Her work inspired me to try making a card using muted vintagey colours and layers of different textures.

The background was coloured with distress stains / inks (antique linen, vintage photo and victorian velvet) and then I built up a few layers of:

• vellum - coloured with antique linen, stamped with the Tim Holtz Papillon background in a brown archival ink, torn into strips and edged with victorian velvet
• Lace - stained with antique linen and swiped through a bit of victorian velvet on the craft sheet
• Lace effect cream paper ribbon edged with victorian velvet

I swiped a few brush fulls of rock candy crackle paint over parts of the whole thing for extra texture.

The butterflies were cut out of fabric using a Tim Holtz movers and shapers die. The fabric I used was some little squares (perfect size for the dies) that were actually samples of suede sofa fabric I kept from ages ago when we were choosing a new sofa (I new they'd come in handy eventually) - I love the feel of them :0)

I mounted the panel onto a book page distressed with vintage photo distress ink, and then onto a card blank. Finally, I stamped Happy Birthday onto some left over scraps of the book page, painted with a little cream acrylic paint first to lighten the text in the background.

It's a different style than other things I've done and about half way through I thought it was a disaster, but I persevered and now I hope you'll agree it's not actually turned out half bad  :0)

Thanks for stopping by.
xx

Shabby chic butterfly box

Just a quick post to show you the box I've decorated for the Slaley Show (see earlier post).

It started off as a wooden box that had chocolate coated gingers in. I painted it with Fresco Finish paints in baltic blue outside and in, then used a layer of crackle glaze on the outside and painted over with snowflake.

The butterfly stamp was one of the Craft Stamper magazine freebies and the other stamped elements are from a magnetic set from Making Memories. All stamped in black archival ink. 

The bookplate is a Tim Holtz ideology one smudged with some more baltic blue paint. The butterfly image in the centre is from the Tim Holtz Papillon stamp set -  I happened to have it stamped on acetate left over from a previous piece. I covered it with diamond glaze for a glassy effect.

I quite like the finished box, although there are definitely things I would change if I was doing it over, including stamping the butterflies inside the box in white, and generally making a neater job of the painting.  Also I think I would have tried to use the papillon stamps for all the butterflies - it's just a bit fiddly to ink up a single butterfly from that set.

That all for now. Thanks for reading  :0)

Sarah
xx

Dark dreams

Just a quick post tonight to share a card I've made for Sunday Stampers at Hels Sheridans fabulous blog. The theme is 'back to black' in tribute to Amy Winehouse and also seems very fitting with the tragic events in Norway.

I guess what I'm trying to say with this card is that if things seem dark right now,  you have to keep dreaming of a brighter tomorrow.

The main panel on the card is three strips of grunge paper embossed with Tim Holtz texture fades, coloured with distress inks (broken china, victorian velvet and dusty concord), and swiped over with black soot distress ink to cover the raised bits. The colour scheme was chosen to match the variegated thread I used to stitch the three pieces together. I then sprayed with some heirloom gold perfect pearls mist.

The book plate was cut from black card using the Tim Holtz tag die and painted with rock candy crackle paint which seems to have given it a bit of a leathery look. The white card in the centre was coloured lightly with the same three distress inks then stamped with 'Dream' in black archival. The finished book plate was fixed to the main panel with foam pads and some more of the pretty thread.
The butterfly and bird were cut using Tim Holtz movers and shapers dies and again painted with the rock candy crackle glaze. This time I added a little bit of colour with some metallic rub-ons.

Not sure if there is enough rock candy to really qualify this for this weeks Grungy Monday ('rock candy stickles or paint'), and it'snot come out very glossy, but I'll enter it in anyway. Would have been better for last weeks theme of grungepaper/board :-( but nevermind. Check out Tim Holtz's rock candy how to  here.

That's enough for now, thanks for visiting.

Sarah
xx

Blooming gorgeous!

I'd put aside sunday afternoon for crafting time, but my mojo appeared to have slunk off into a corner, so I ended up watching most of the Grand Prix with my husband instead. What a cataloge of pit stop errors it was - I feel really sorry for Jenson Button and Paul Di Resta.

Anyway, eventually I put my mind to making a flower card for the Try it on Tuesday challenge and this is what I came up with:

Lots of wild honey, fired brick and vintage photo distress ink, Tim Holtz Papillon background stamp (and butterflies on acetate) and a big grungepaper flower. I like the contrast of the orange shades and the black background. Having nicely red and orange stained finger-tips for the rest of the day was quite cheering too.

I do like the finished card, but it's less original than I'd like. It's definitely been strongly inspired by all the gorgeous things I've seen other people doing - guess that can't be a bad thing really.

xx

Where flowers bloom

When we got back from holiday last weekend our front lawn was a sea of beautiful flowers - white clover, daisies, and what my Dad tells me is birdsfoot trefoil. Unfortunately our neighbours are very keen gardeners whose lawns are always perfect - literally they go round the edges with scissors! - and have been known to moan to our landlord when we don't keep the garden as neat as they'd like. So the pretty flowers had to be mown :-( It was almost heartbreaking, but I'm sure they'll grow back pretty quickly.

I took this photo before we got the lawnmower out (sorry for the quality - I don't think photography is really my strong point):

Anyway, this inspired me to make a flowery tag. I coloured an ATC sized piece of white card with butterscotch and stream alcohol inks, edged it in vintage photo distress ink and stamped 'Where flowers bloom...' a few times also in vintage photo. The stamp was from the flower fairies lavender set by Crafters Companion, which I got as part of some blog candy from Craft Stamping Magazine. When I first saw it I didn't think I'd use it as cutesy isn't really my style, but I've ended using it a few times now.

The flowers were cut from grungepaper using the Tim Holtz tattered florals die and coloured using alcohol inks (butterscotch, and wild plum) and distress inks (wild honey and vintage photo). I also stamped a Hero Arts script stamp over them using various different inks. The letters spelling flower were stamped in black in the center of each one.

I curled the petals a little and mounted them to the background card using foam pads. The whole thing was added to a plain kraft tag and to finish it off I added some ribbon and an acetate butterfly (stamped from the Tim Holtz Papillon set in black stazon and coloured with wild plum alcohol ink).

I think this tag fits the new Sunday Stampers challenge over at Hels Sheridans blog. The theme is writing and this tag has both the script stamp on the flowers and the phrase stamped on the background.
And the current challenge at the Stamp Man is alcohol inks so I'm going to enter it in that too.
Oooh and not to forget the Grungy Monday Challenge at Studio L3 where the theme is also Alcohol Inks - check out Tim Holtz's demo here!
...And finally Simon Says Stamp and Show - A word!

Thanks for reading and I hope you're having a good Sunday

Sarah
xx

Altered tin

After tea the other night I spotted the empty tin of moroccan spice mix we'd used and thought it would be perfect for altering. After soaking it for a while to get rid of the spice smell (not entirely sure I succeeded) I set about to prettify it.

I used some Anna Griffin paper to cover the sides of the tin, distressing the edges with vintage photo distress ink. The flower on top used some of the same paper plus some grunge paper, cut with the Tim Holtz tattered florals die, again inked with vintage photo.  Before attaching the flower with the a decorative brad I stamped a flourish in black stazon on the plastic center.
Finally, I stamped some flower images in black stazon round the edge of the tin lid and added some brown ribbon to finish it off. 

Simple but pretty.

Thought I'd enter it in the Try It On Tuesday challenge which is altered boxes this week.

xx

A tale of two tags

Ooops, realised yesterday that I could have entered my winged things tag into the Simon Says Stamp and Show ('a tag') and Sunday Stampers challenges! The Sunday Stampers theme is 'stash that makes you happy' - steampunk and the Tim Holtz papillon stamps definitely do that (what more could I want!)

Question is, is it ok to edit posts to add in challenges I'd forgotten about and will Blogger mess up my links if I do? Not knowing the answers, I just had to make something new (as if I need an excuse ;-))

I started off making one background by adding stormy sky and dusty concord distress inks to my craft sheet and smooching a cream coloured tag through them. It gave it a wonderful grungy distressed look that I really liked. I then stamped the papillon background stamp in stormy sky. Looked okay but I wanted a crisper look for the butterflies so I used a Whispers dye ink pad in fresh eggplant. That didn't show up very well so I stamped the butterflies again in Whispers azure seas ink, which made it look like it should be viewed through 3d glasses :-( ...  gave up and started again!

the original background

Did pretty much the same thing again, but only stamping the butterflies once. I wrapped some multi-coloured thread around the tag and added a flower made from die cutting Tim Holtz tattered florals from metal and colouring with alcohol inks (my first attempt with alcohol inks!). Then I stamped and cut out the butterflies, distressed with a bit more dusty concord and stormy sky, and attached them with sticky pads.

I tried and failed miserably to take a decent photo as it was getting dark so I decided to leave it til the morning. Glad I did... when I looked at it this afternoon I didn't really like it. So I moved the metal flower onto the original tag (having decided I actually like the slight offset of the two lots of butterflies) and added a sentiment. On the other tag I replaced the flower with another cut-out butterfly and added a few crystals for interest.

So, I've ended up with two simple tags, both of which I like better than the original one :0)

I'd like to enter these in the following challenges:
Grungy monday - 'distress-o-rama' (a homage to the king of distress, Tim Holtz - check out his website here!)
Simon Says Stamp and Show - 'a tag'
Sunday stampers - 'stash that makes you happy'

Hope everyone's having an enjoyable and inky weekend!

Sarah
xx

Time piece

The Dragons Dream Tag It On challenge theme this week is 'Time Piece' and, having plenty of clock related bits and bobs at the moment I jumped at the opportunity.

Umm, not entirely sure it went very well....

I started off with a tag cut from some lovely diamond patterned paper which I embossed with the Tim Holtz pocket watches embossing folder.  I lightly inked the raised areas with brushed corduroy and black soot distress inks. At this point I really liked the look of the tag but wasn't really sure where to go with it.

After I while I thought along the 'time flies' route and stamped some Tim Holtz birds onto acetate with black stazon.  This really started to give me a feel for the way I wanted the tag to go - a dark 'gotham cityesque' feel (the tags are darker than they look in the photos)- but it needed a focus point... Umbrella man seemed perfect and the phrase 'no time to stand and stare' came to mind.

So... finished tag no.1:

But I didn't like it - the phrase was too messy and took up too much space, it just looked too busy. So I tried again - this time doing all the stamping onto acetate which was overlaid onto the clock pattern tag. Unfortunately, I couldn't get as clear and crisp an image onto the acetate as I had before (any tips will be gratefully received), so as a quick fix I coloured the faint images with permanent marker (??). I wrote the phrase freehand onto the acetate.

Finished tag no 2:

I do sort of like this one better, but it's still not right (and I'm sure permanent marker was not the best tool for the job!).  Think I'm going to give up on this one - nice idea, poor execution!

Hopefully, today will go better :0)

One for sorrow, two for joy

It's taken me all afternoon and a few odd hours here and there during the week, but I have finally finished my entry for the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week. It's the first time I've entered this challenge, but I really liked the theme and one idea just got stuck in my head. The theme was 'Old Wives Tales' so after some thought I remembered the rhyme about the meaning of seeing different numbers of magpies.

One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl

For for a boy

Five for silver 

Six for gold

Seven for a secret never to be told

I think maybe what brought this to mind was seeing magpies in our garden a lot the last few weeks, usually one at a time so I really hope the rhyme isn't right :0)

Anyway, I think it fits the theme quite well and was perfect inspiration for a mini ATC sized album thingie.

  


Here's each page individually:



The skeleton image I used on the first page is from a fantastic stamp by Kaycee crafts. They have a great range of clear stamps with some more unusual images. I discovered them through their Ebay shop, but they have their own website too which is slightly cheaper (although the prices are very reasonable anyway).



The small lettering I used on all of these was from a little wooded alphabet stamp set from Hampton Arts I've had for ages. I'd never used them because I thought they'd be too fiddly - sort of true if you want the letters perfectly aligned, but for a more grungy look they are actually great. I'd been intending to  get rid of them in my next clear out, but I'll be hanging onto them now.


I love the background for the silver page This was white card coloured with dusty concord and vintage photo distress inks, embossed with a Tim Holtz texture fade, then silver ink swiped over and clear heat embossed. It looks so much better in real life than in my rubbishy photo.

I'm sure there are more lines to the rhyme, but this will have to do for now.

Sarah
xx

Time flies...when you're having fun!

My birthday is in a few weeks and my present from my husband was delivered on friday - a Big Shot and some Tim Holtz alterations dies and embossing folders to go with it! I was so stupidly excited that he, very kindly, let me open it early, so I've spent the weekend playing about with it.

My favourite things so far are the pocket watches embossing folder and the fanciful flight die. After a few test runs with cardstock I tried cutting butterfly wings from some of the plastic packaging  and embossing them. Here they are (some detail coloured with a promarker):

I rather like the effect. Not entirely sure what I'll do with them yet, although I have an idea ;0)

Next I found some thick speckly brown card which embosses brilliantly. I swiped the raised bits with clear embossing ink and brushed over gold perfect pearls. I absolutely love this effect - might be doing this a lot! I also tried spraying some copper mist on as well - even better - it gives a wonderful rusty effect. It'll be perfect for the steampunk cogs and gears too!

Finally, I cut some butterfly wings from script patterned paper and made a butterfly using a Tim Holtz spinner to make up the body. I added this to a piece of the pocket watches embossed card and placed them on a distress inked background to create this final piece:

I think I may have a new addiction :0)