WOYWW 172

Goodly morning all and welcome to Diane, my latest follower. I'm so glad you've chosen to come along for the ride. Bit of a milestone today - post 100!! Who knew those few short months ago when Hels Sheridan nagged encouraged me to create a blog that I would post so much!? And today sees another milestone as Son 2 reaches the age of 15 so we've already had the grand card/pressie opening session before the sun came up:) Now there's a quick window of opportunity to join in with the fun that is What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - please take a trip to Julia's HERE to find out what I am banging on about here as she is SO much better at explaining this phenomenon. And what is on my workdesk?

This was the scene in the dark at 5.30am today - oh yes, at least three projects mentally on the go (is it any wonder they take so long to materialise when they are all fighting for space/time?!) There's a failed blended stains tag that went WAY too dark and needs doing over. Aarrrrgh! My new TH stamps, courteousy of my August Tag win (yummy:)) need to be put through their paces, as does a dance set which I won from a recent Artistic Stamper Creative Team 2nd anniversary blog giveaway (yippee!!) Sioux Jenneys wants to see what I can do with them so my mind is currently in overdrive on that one. What else? Hmmm, could those be the new TH Sizzix diffusers? Oh yep! Another win over at Frilly & Funkie's Sunday Share meant I HAD to have a bit of a spree which included these, some yummy lace, embossing folders and archival ink. Finally, lurking in the shadows in the top left corner is my September TH Tag, waiting for its typewriter, but that's a whole other story and Julia likes us to keep it short and sweet. So I'll disappear at this point and add my name to the ever expanding list (are people linking a week in advance now, or do you all sit up 'til the wee hours of the morning to beat the rush?!:D I'll be seeing you at your places v. soon.

Hugs, Buttons x

An Inky Autumn

Hi everyone and welcome to my new followers. I really appreciate that you take the time to stop by and leave such lovely comments. I've been working on a couple of projects for the couple of days (including my Tim tag for this month) and for some reason they have taken ages to evolve. So this morning I set myself a challenge to use the pile of neutral embellies sat on the corner of the craft mat to make a tag by lunchtime.



It did start off neutral, promise! Lots of creams/browns and oodles of texture.

Then I went to town with my Jenni Bowlin inks - bottles of gorgeousness made from H2O and reinkers:))

As well as the ribbon there is a host of deliciousness from the Funky Junkie Boutique, including lace, seam binding, jute ribbon and a die cut white corrugated cardboard butterfly (some of which came as a complimentary gift from Linda Coughlin with my orders!) As well as stamping/hand cutting the various leaves the brown paper flower was stamped and clear embossed to provide some shine and resist.

So, this is going into Hels' Sunday Stamper challenge - ribbon (mine is yellow, + green + brown!!)

and the Anything But A Card challenge - texture (oh yes, there's plenty of that:)

and of course the Frilly & Funkie Sunday Share.

Thanks again for popping by. Hope you feel inspired to get soaked in ink:)

Crafty hugs, Buttons x

Rosepunk Bouquet

It's Friday already!!! That was my first thought this morning. My second thought was 'Oh ****, I've missed the deadline for Linda Ledbetter's enamelling challenge even though that part of my current card is done!' Hey ho missus, either start earlier or stop procrastinating. Hmm, so I got in this morning and got on with it (warning - sunglasses required!)...

Now I may have missed Linda's challenge, but this was made to experiment with a number of techniques and fits with the following challenges;

Our Creative Corner challenge - Kiss the Card With a Twist

Sunday Stamper challenge - I Predict a Riot (of colour)

The Stamp Man challenge -Summer Sizzlers (hot summer colours)

Apologies that this image is a little blurry - it is by far the best of a bad bunch as this part of the card seemed to move around of its own accord! The kiss technique has been used on the banner with cogs (DI Peeled Paint) kissed with a diamond pattern (DI Fired Brick) to give a more mottled look.

Gosh I hope that shows up - it is one of those days when it feels like it would be so much better to physically send this to the various challenge teams so they could really see it!!!

And the vase? Ha ha! The crafting genius that it Anita Houston did a tutorial HERE - I didn't have a spare plastic bottle cover so I cut and shrank a bottle shape from shrink plastic, carefully moulding it slightly around an candle when it was still hot!

The enamelled plaque (see Tim Holtz' Compendium of Curiosities 2 page 44) was done with some Stampendous cogs. The background got my fingers in a right state (Jenni Bowlin Chili Pepper/Chicken Feed and DI Fired Brick/Spiced Marmalade).

Believe it or not the cogs stamped on those flowers was also done using the kissing method and a Vintage Sewing cloth stamp but again, I need to build Dr Who's Tardis to whip round and show you all!!

OK, that covers the card. Now a couple of photos of those scones and homemade blackcurrant jam I mentioned a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post... needless to say these didn't last the night!

Are you hungry now? Time to fly (not literally, although it would be a helpful skill!) Stuff to do as ever. Hope this finds you as it leaves me, ideas a'bubblin and covered in ink:)

Hugs, Buttons x

Small but perfectly(ish) formed

Welcome to my new and longer established followers (always feel bad calling you old for some reason!) It is half past one and I seem to have done nothing other than blog and complete one of the projects on my desk before time runs out. GOT to get this done and get something or another cleaned before guilt sets in even further! (so that does mean this will be short and sweet - everyone breath a sigh of relief:)

Never made 'Inchies' before but that was a challenge set by Neet at Artful Times, so who am I to refuse? especially when it dovetails nicely with the Fashionable Stamping Challenge which is currently Good Things Come in Small Packages. These used the Indigo Blu 'Take the Time' stamp set.

This took forever because I went to town on each inchie. Who knew something so small could involve so much work? And so for a quick run through of each one...

Top left - pocket watch on shrink plastic on a gold card background with blown alcohol inks.

Top middle - flittered cogs with soft gold pva centres.

Top right -watch centre using the coloured angelina fibres technique from previous posts.

Middle left - 'caught in crystal' embossed and highlighted with archival black ink.

Middle - sentiment on shrink plastic (trimmed carefully!)

Middle right - a random stash bead 'set' with a black Promarker.

Bottom left - die cut cog covered in Morris Dance mega flakes and set on an embossed background.

Bottom middle - cogs set into black UTEE coloured with mica powders (faux cloisonne).

Bottom right - embossed vellum coloured with copper and gold pigment inks.

Time to pull my underwear over my clothing (in a phone box of course!) and give the house a good going over so OH thinks I've been busy!!! Hugs to you all, Buttons x

WOYWW 171

Good morning everyone. I know you WOYWWers are out there because you appear to sit up 'til the wee hours on a Wednesday waiting to pounce on Julia Dunnit's Stamping Ground blog in order to link your crafty areas. If you have no idea what I am on about at this stage, we WOYWWers take a nosey round the World (quite literally) of fellow crafters' workspaces areas - for more deets go HERE.



You can tell the autumn is well and truly underway - my daylight lamp becomes more essential! Now (in your head imagine a David Attenborough voice at this point) you join me in the natural environment of a muddle-headed crafter. Oh, it may look fairly tidy, but there area at least two projects on the go here - one more inchie and the background to go - and a lot of it is experimentation. Does anyone else find they start with a bit of an idea in their head but no clear direction? That would be ok if, like the wonderous Julie Short I could just go for it and produce three projects at one sitting, but thinking seems to get in the way and everything takes days instead of hours! Then there are those ever-looming deadlines to meet so it starts to get slightly pressured, which is ridiculous really as this is supposed to be a relaxing hobby! Hmmm, a change of approach is required in this craftroom methinks...

OK, I know Julia likes us to keep it short and sweet, and the school run creeps ever closer so I'll be away and dropping in to see as many of you as poss later on. Hugs, Buttons x

A Chili Heart!

Welcome back to my cyberworld, and thank you to all those who have been kind enough to follow me and leave such lovely comments. Today's offering is rather colourful! I mentioned last WOYWWednesday that Anne had tempted me with her talk of 50% off crafty stuff (and from the comments I wasn't alone in that!) Some Jenni Bowlin inks somehow found their way in the post to my door and once here it would have been rude not to play. I'm also starting to have fun with the Indigo Blu stamps I was lucky enough to win (Trace's blog candy) recently. All this seemed to be ideal for a challenge set by Trace herself over at Dragons Dream Tag It On - a beating heart, a weathered timepiece and a bit of grunge.

The stamp set? 'Take The Time'. The inks? Jenni Bowlin Chili Powder and Chicken Feed with water sprayed on white (would you believe it!) card - these are INTENSE and everything got covered - whoops, there's always a washing machine.

That heart needed to take centre stage so the pocket watch was kept deliberately 'weathered' through gentle stamping and flat (layered over the original image). A beating heart? Oh! I thought Trace said a beading heart! It was made from shrink plastic covered in Rock Candy and coloured with Promarkers.

I love using Mega Flakes with Flitter Glu although sometimes it seems to work better than at other times - maybe it has to do with the amount of glu applied to the stamp. It also seems to work well when overstamped or highlighted with black archival ink. Adding pearly dots using Cosmic Shimmer PVA is also a favourite idea as it adds enough detail to make things pop more without overshadowing the original stamping.  Hopefully the whole tag is 'slightly grungy' enough for the challenge.

Be prepared for more of this colourway and these stamps as their potential is more fully explored (and the house slowly turns a lovely shade of crimson!!!)

Hugs to you all, Buttons x

Crossing that ocean...

Welcome back one and all. I'm like a bus! You don't see me for a quite a while and then I appear in rapid succession! Hope you think this is worth it though.

Well here is the project I was asked to show by so many of you on Wednesday, and it has taken all that time to get done. Now that could be my incompetence (but Hels would tell me off for saying that:) or my attention to detail, or the fact that I kept going back to it and messing a bit more - still not totally sure the frame is right but we are rarely truly satisfied with our own work here in blogland it would seem from reading your posts (thank goodness I'm not alone in that one!)

Just to warn you there are going to be some more close-ups in this post (oh, not another long one woman!) but many of you have mentioned that you really like to see the details.

Some details as I progress through this gallery - the stamp is a Michael Powell one that has been coloured with Promarkers (and lots of blending - gosh I enjoyed this SO MUCH!) It has also been decoupaged (stamped/coloured twice for this) so the lighthouse and foreground stood out more.

Think you may be able to make out that both image layers were covered in Rock Candy when completed too as this protects them and brings the colours to life even more.

The frame is white card with shells glued in place which has then had more of that kitchen roll (I used to mop up some Peeled Paint/Stormy Sky/Picket Fence Distress inks with) torn and Glue n Sealed over the top. That too got a healthy dose of Rock Candy for extra texture.

The shells were rubbed over with taupe and silver pigment inks (little finger required!) The 'driftwood' sentiment is waste cardboard, run through the Grand Calibur to flatten it somewhat, covered in Gingerbread/Aspen Mist VersaMagic and highlighted with DI Walnut Stain before the phrase was added with Black Archival ink.

This one is being entered into the Frilly and Funkie challenge - The Great Outdoors. If you haven't seen this one I highly recommend you take a look as the DT are sublime - led by Linda Coughlin who never fails to amaze me with her work and has one of the best stores, the Funkie Junkie Boutique.

Now I am away to do all that domestic stuff that won't go away by itself before hopefully putting together something that has been rattling around in my head for a while. It's noisy in there! Thanks for stopping by and for all your wonderful comments. I promise wherever possible to return the compliment.

Huge hugs, Buttons x