Sunday, 31 July 2011

Sew Special - New challenge blog called Fashionable Stamping

Good morning everyone and what a great day to be telling you about the start of a new challenge blog dedicated to the rubber/clear stamper. Please go take a look at the new challenge blog and also my amazing teamies and their incredible DT pieces. Sorry those of you who love to work with your digis this one is about getting messy with inks and sprays and all that glorious mess one makes when using real stamps.

First though I must wish my dear hubbie Ken a Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary. Yes we got married on his birthday 37 years ago, I can't believe it is such a long time ago and we had been together 4 years before that !!!!

This is my piece to introduce this new challenge which for this fortnight is 'Anything Goes'. I am not going to give a blow by blow account of how I made this only through photos and captions, so pull up a coffee and take a look. I warn you though this is really photo heavy - but the detail has to be shown through the photos and can't be done in words.

This is a 40 x 15 cm canvas.

I stamped over a piece of dressmakers pattern and glued it to the canvas.

Love the crinkled look.

When the glue was dry I covered it in gesso.

Then added some neutral acrylic paint.

Then some darker acrylics. After this I sprayed with glimmer mists.

Woops - messy table, but started to position the elements I wanted to include.

There are 3 main sections and I used alot of DI.

The little tray was primed then painted with Leandra's Fresco Paint and I glued in some more of the paper pattern. The sewing machine and the mini dress form are some of my moulds. Notice the little bottle with beads in it?

The pins came from Mum's collection of bits and the scissors were a gift from Lisa - thanks Lisa. The background paper has been inked and glimmer misted.

Here are the four little individual sections of the tray. The little silver button is from Mum's box, I am so glad I kept it all when she passed away.

Moulded sewing machine and a charm given to me by Lucy - thanks Lucy.

The sewing machine spool came from my dear Mum's sewing box.

I got this little bird charm from Ebay this week. It was an old gold colour so I used inka gold on it - both haematite and gold.

The buckle is from a carboot and they told me it was vintage.

Wooden letters. Dress mould made in clay made when I went to Lucys.

An old(ish) button tab from Mum's box, as there were only 2 buttons left I glued on some snaps. The charm was given to me by my sister - thanks Chris.

The wings I made from clay using a mould of some jewellery I got last week at a carboot sale. Painted lightly with Haematite inka gold and the rubbed with gold inka gold - cor what a mouthful - I think it will be IG in future!!! The pink rose is off an earing.

The spool tops are courtesy of the duke of distress, Mr TH himself.
Supplies used -
Stamps - TH haberdashery
DIs - vintage photo, walnut stain
Paint - white acrylic, Fresco Finish vintage lace and london night.
Inka Gold - gold, rose, haematite
Glimmer Mists - coffee shop, vanilla breeze
Dressmaking pattern, small 4 section tray, sewing embellishments (including some of my moulds)
Lace and hessian.
Beads in a bottle.
Vintage buckle.
Paper and coloured dress form from Kanban.
Wings - more of my moulds.

I have now started putting a bee somewhere on my larger pieces - did you spot it?

We would love to see how you use stamps in your projects so please join in with us. You have until the 13th August for this challenge. So what are you waiting for? There are 2 prizes for this challenge - so will that spur you on more?

Enjoy some inky craft time.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Anything Goes
Just for Fun - Fabric or fiber

Photobucket

Friday, 29 July 2011

Show some stitching at The Stamp Man

Well this next challenge at The Stamp Man is hosted by the lovely Sue and she wants you to show us some stitching on your project. Sue makes some beautiful pieces and I was very lucky to meet up with her when we did the workshop at LB Crafts. Please pop over to the Stamp Man main challenge blog to see all the fabulous inspiration from the design team and don't forget if you enter you stand a chance of winning £10.00 to spend at the Stamp Man on-line store.

I have to say I have kept my piece a bit more simple this time as with the holidays looming fast I am trying to get ahead of myself with all my DT work. With work becoming full time in September even more reason to get well ahead if I can.

So this is a card for a change.


For this project I have used -
Die - Sewing Room by Tim Holtz.
Papers - Tim Holtz shabby vintage.
Distress Inks - vintage photo, victorian velvet
Shrink plastic.
The button is made of clay covered with rose inka gold and is from one of my moulds.
Hessian, fabric and threads.
Sentiment - my own.

 Tiny thread holders cut from the TH die in shrink plastic and then alcohol inked.

 Button made of clay with a mould made when I was at Lucy's. She has the most fabulous work including moulds she makes herself and is doing an on-line course if you are interested in how she makes them. Pop over to see her here. We had a great day together yesterday when she came to visit me and we made more moulds, cut dies and stamped images. Lucy also gave me a very special gift - a wonderful steampunk frame she had made. Pop HERE to see it. Isn't it fabulous?

 The sentiment is not mine, I found it on the internet and just loved it. But I typed and printed it onto inked paper using PE.

I hope you like something a bit different from me again. Sewing is definitely the theme I love best at the moment. (You wait till you see what comes up on Sunday!!!)

Take care and have fun.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox


Photobucket

Altered book for C4E

Today this is my last guest designer piece for Crafts4Eternity. I have had a great time being on the team, so thanks Michele for having me, I have really enjoyed this last month.

Today the theme is 'Anything but a card' and I warned you last week it was right up my street. But this is my first altered book. It is a mini book and one from a set of children's stories, it is one of those with the thick pages. The girls don't really look at them any more so I decided to use one and see how it came out as a photo album so that I can give it to my youngest grandaughter Maddison.


These are photos of her. She is only just 3 but likes to try and keep up with her sisters so she is loud, but very funny. She speaks very clearly and has a wide vocabulary putting good sentences together and she is such a lovable character.

 This is a set of books the children keep here at our house.

 As you can see 2 are missing - one has been altered so I have no idea where the other one is.
In one of their boxes of toys no doubt.


To make my book, I cut sections out of some of the pages to frame the photos and then gessoed and painted them including the cover. It took several coats of paint to coverup the pictures underneath and even now a little shows through but it all adds to the collage look.

 

Once dried I added some glimmer mist, shimmer and texture spray to get different effects.


Then I added inks by masking and stamping. 





I stuck in the pictures, glued two pages together through the book and then added the embellishments and journalling.


It sounds simple doesn't it, but actually took quite a long time as there are so many different sections to the making of it. But I am very pleased with the outcome.

Although I had started to make this book when my friend Kathy at Purple Princess Diaries was inspired to start some collage work, I took inspiration from her posts as she made some ATCs after watching Kate Crane's DVD. Thanks Kathy.

I have another post coming up later today for the Stamp Man so I hope you'll come back and see my card for that challenge.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Sugar Creek Hollow - Let's Play Tag
Try It On Tuesday - Alter something for a gift
Deep Ocean Challenge - Ribbon

Photobucket

Tuesday, 26 July 2011

Wedding Book pages for the bride and groom

Hi All

Did you like my Frozen Charlotte Dolls - scroll down to the previous post if you haven't seen them yet.

A big welcome to Debbi who has joined in this creative journey with me - welcome Debbi hope you like my eclectic styles.

I have made another 2 pages for the wedding book I am making. If you have seen the other pages you will know that this is a wooden book and the idea is to make lots of tags for the wedding guests to sign and for the bride and groom to add some photos and journalling later. I am using Graphic 45 Le Romantique papers and Hampton Art stamps to match.

This page is specifically for Helen and Jamie as the B&G to write something to each other on the special day. They have a tag each and a mini tag for them to write something to each other on. These will be tied together with some ribbon when they have been completed.

The images were downloaded from the internet and cut out and stuck to tags on which I had used distress stains, starburst stains and perfect pearls, then stamped over the top with a TH stamp.

The flower was made by Suzanne Klezcar and I used the butterfly wings from the fanciful flight die and embossed it with glittery embossing powder.


Do you like the idea of the mini tags to match the larger ones - I thought that was quite neat?


The second page is very simple - A sheet from the Le Romantique paper pad.

I hope you can see some subtle colouring.

I used white pencil, coloured watercolour pencils, pearl pen and inka gold. I think it lifts it a bit and maintains that vintage look.

Inside are two blank pages for photographs to be added.

Slotted behind the pages are 2 tags.

One for the parents of the bride to write something and one for the parents of the groom.


Off to get some more of this done, still only about half way through it.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox
Photobucket

Frozen Charlotte Dolls

Hi All

I have been bitten by the bug. I have totally fallen in love with the little Frozen Charlotte Dolls. Tim Holtz calls them Fractured Dolls. I have used a couple lately, made by myself from a mould - but guess what????

Look..........................



I have been and bought myself some real ones, all the way from Germany where they have been dug up from the grounds of an old factory - you can see some still have dirt on them. Aren't they amazing?


The largest is 3 1/4 ins and the smallest is 1 1/4 ins tall.

Wikipaedia describes them as -

Frozen Charlotte is a name used to describe a specific form of china doll made from ca. 1850 to ca. 1920. The name comes from the American folk ballad Fair Charlotte, which tells of a young girl called Charlotte who refused to wrap up warmly to go on a sleigh ride and froze to death during the journey.

The Frozen Charlotte doll is made in the form of a standing, naked figure moulded all in one piece. These dolls may also be seen described as pillar dolls, solid chinas or bathing babies. The dolls ranged in size from under an inch to 18 inches plus. The smallest dolls were sometimes used as charms in Christmas puddings. Smaller sizes were very popular for putting in doll's houses. Occasionally versions are seen with a glazed china front and an unglazed stoneware back. This enabled the doll to float on its back when placed in a bath.
They are also made in bisque, and can come in white, pink-tinted, or, more rarely, painted black. Some rare examples have moulded chemises. Male dolls (identified by their boyish hairstyles) are called Frozen Charlies.

Other places describe the dolls being used by ladies to stir and cool their hot tea and after they would be given to little girls to play with. Some historical articles say they are called 'frozen' because they are unjointed, with no moving parts to them.

So there is a real history to these little things. Of course the painted and unbroken ones are worth quite alot of money but these ones have not been sold before and would have been thrown away at the factory, so probably were classed as seconds, but even so I think the fact that they are broken adds to their character. (My husband thinks I am mad!!!)

I have also purchased some vintage pen nibs and I am waiting for some little glass bottles to arrive - I think my altered art is going to increase don't you.

Hope you are having a good day. I will be back later with another wedding book page.

TTFN.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox



Photobucket