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October 31, 2009

Meet George...


..which may be short for Georgina, I haven't quite decided yet.  I found this in Paperterie, the shop near where I work in Kingston that sells all things decopatch.  They sell all sorts of interesting things like this... lions, elephants, boxes, dishes, frames.  All blank and lovely and ready for altering.  Anyway, DD has a thing for giraffes.  Not quite as big a thing as for donkeys, but a thing all the same, so I thought I would pick this little one up and alter it for her.  They come in all sizes and this is one of the smaller ones.  They have one as tall as me (which isn't saying much, I suppose!)






I have some paper with a black background and bright pink lace images on it which I think I might use as a base for this, hence it may be Georgina.  We shall see.... watch this space.

October 25, 2009

Page 3

Not much crafting time this week :( but I did manage to get another not-a-tag done.  A recent issue of Craft Stamper had a project using Caught In Crystal which I thought looked really effective, so I decided to have a go.  I printed out one of my fave poems onto acetate (Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese 7 (you guys all thought I was going to say 43, didn't you?)). Then I poured on the Klear, dropped in some alcohol inks in caramel, terracotta and raisin and swirled it around, then sprinkled in some gold mica flakes and some microbeads in red and gold - sticking with the autumn colour theme, and finally added on the crumpled tissue paper to soak up the Klear.


This picture taken with flash shows the sparkle but the reflection of the flash on the acetate means you can't see the details too well.











This one taken without the flash shows the details better but you can't really see how sparkly it is!
I had fun with this technique, but don't try it if you don't do "messy" because it is a very messy process.  Also, that Klear stuff sure does pong!  Once it dries it's fine but when you first pour it out it is very stinky.  So only try this at home if you can cope with sticky and smelly!

Edited to add: A couple of people have said they have never heard of Klear. It's a floor polish, which is why nobody sensible has heard of it!

October 19, 2009

2010 Calendar

I decided to make my own calendar for next year so I printed off some calendar pages I found online and decorated the cardboard from the back of an A4 pad.


K & Co papers, flowers, lace, buttons and magic mesh from Bubbly Funk July kit.  Some grungeboard swirls sprayed up with glimmermist and some ice stickles.  I punched holes with a cropadile in the cardboard and the calendar pages then threaded string though buttons and then through the holes to attach the pages.

I think I like it.
 

October 17, 2009

Page 2

Before anyone mentions it, yes, I know it should be fruitfulness but, with all due respect to Keats, I didn't have room for the fulness so it will just have to be the season of fruit, ok!  It's more or less the same thing anyway and he can still be the close bosomed friend of the maturing sun!  By him I mean Arcimboldo's "Autumn" who is the star of this second tag-that-is-not-a-tag

Not much to this one really.  The background is mainly covered up but is some colourwash spray and glimmermist in butterscotch and raisin.  After the image and the lettering was stuck on I shimmered it up a bit with some autumn rose gilding flakes around the edge.  I love playing with the gilding flakes and one day I might even learn how to use them properly!! LOL
Off now to make a 2010 calendar for the fridge! 

October 15, 2009

Magic Boxes

Well here they are all finished, filled and tied up ready for Christmas!  How very organised of me.... scaaaary!


They are both slightly different for reasons of artistic merit and such like (actually because I didn't have enough of the same papers LOL)



I used my Cosmo Cricket TSV kit papers (another idea stolen from Ruth!) as these are sort of Christmassy colours and because the remains of the kit have been hanging around for ages waiting for me to find a use for them.  The lettering is from the same kit, the ribbons are from my huge box of anonymous ribbon and the flowers are, wait for it.... NOT prima *gasp*They are cannibalised from a couple of hair clips because they were nice and glittery and were sitting still for too long in my line of vision.  A few adhesive gems to bling it up a bit and voila!

October 14, 2009

Shhhhh....it's a secret!

I'm in the middle of making some Magic Boxes (see Ruth's blog post here ) to put some small gifts in for my DDs.  They saw me making the box part but I want them to be suprised on Chrismas morning when they open the outer part and find the little boxes inside, so I'm not posting any pics!  Besides, mine won't be anywhere near as beautiful as Ruth's so look at hers instead!


In the meantime, I am under strict instructions not to buy any stash because I gave DDs a wish list and they tell me they have bought some stuff from it... only some though.... so I need to know what they haven't got!!!!!

Anyway, I should be finished with the boxes tonight, hopefully, so then I can get back to my tags that aren't tags!

October 12, 2009

Page 1 (of 12, apparently!)

I've never made tags, but I have got Sir T!m's Christmas tags, all 2 years worth, printed off and saved, along with his technique tags!!
Anyway,  I bought a Maya Road Mailbox to alter oooh, must be about 18 months ago now, and it came with a postage stamp shaped chipboard book.  There are 6 of the chipboard shapes which gives me 12 sides to decorate in total.  Here is the first one:

Background is a combination of scattered straw, spiced marmalade and aged mahogany distress inks with a Sir T!m flourish mask for interest.  Teapot and cup stamps are Prima and the text is Paperartsy.  Added Prima flowerage, of course!  I've decided the theme will be autumn colours but other than that, who knows.  Of course, even that is subject to change but then, life would be pretty boring if we all knew what we were doing all the time.  Me, I have no idea what I am doing most of the time so life is somewhat exciting!!
So, what does this have to do with tags?  Well, nothing really, except it's sort of tag size (largeish tags) and it's a sort of similar principle and.... well, I don't know, ok!

October 10, 2009

What a week!!

I've had a crazy week at work.  Insanely busy!  Anyway, it's the weekend now and I have managed to get some crafting done.. YAY!!!  I've altered a tissue box holder for my other DD who has a brown colour scheme in her bedroom:


I took two pics, one with and one without flash (the one on the right is without flash) as it is very sparkly so some of the detail is lost with the flash on.  The background gave me a bit of trouble.  The expresso paint dabber was too dark and the hazlenut was too light.  So I mixed some expresso with titanium white acrylic, but that was a bit flat, so I threw in some quinacridone crimson to warm it up a bit.  Once I had painted that all over I still wasn't happy so I gave the whole thing a generous spritz of Golden Fish cosmic shimmer mist which sparkled it up nicely!
Next I got to play with some of my new stamps from my Ally Pally haul all stamped with versamark and then embossed with gold for the border and each end:

The border stamp is from Circa Designs and the crown is a Paper Artsy mini.









The chandelliers are Prima stamps and the butterflies are a haberdashery find.
The stamps on the front are Crafty Individuals.  I inked the stamps up with black and then used the second impression to get a lighter effect.  Then I went over some areas with metallic gel pens to colour the birds, leaves and the cage.  The flower and the word are rub ons and bling it ons and the top has more bling and, of course, prima flowerage. The large flower has some stickles to sparkle it a bit because I thought maybe I didn't have quite enough bling in there!!



October 03, 2009

I'm ba-ack

Southampton was busy and I was exhausted by the time I got home last night.  Anyway, I have been playing hard today and have managed to finish the canvas for DD.
Archie is making his debut appearance down the left hand side near the bottom. Doesn't he look cute all cut out in pink metal?  More pink metal in the bottom left hand corner embossed with my new Big Daddy mould, background all sorts of things... glimmer mists, paynes gray golden acrylic glazed to within an inch of it's life, crafty individuals background papers, tattered rose distress ink, pearl pigments and some silver adirondack paint dabber applied through a stencilThe top left is blackberry ferro dabbed over with pink viva and there are also some pink micro beads stuck in it here and there.  I finally managed to make a paper rose (yay me!!!) and surrounded it with some lace in the middle.  The tickets in the top right corner are made with some pink mulberry paper and a Craft Stamper free stamp and there is a grungeboard key up there sprayed with pink glimmer mistI then chucked pink bling and glitter at it until I felt it was done. Oh and, of course, Prima flowerage in the form of a vine.

Suppose I had better go and unpack and put a wash on now.... booooring!