Second Blogaversary Give-away

Hi All

This is a sticky post and will remain at the top of my list until the
29th January.

I can't believe that two years ago on that date I decided to have a go at blogging to post some of my creations; what an incredible journey it has been. I never envisaged that I would continue this as a hobby and that my love of all things arty would grow and develop as it has,
and oh how I have, and still am, loving it.

So to celebrate I am having a give-away and the winners will be decided by Mr Random Org on the 29th January.
I will have three winners and prizes.
They are -

A brand new set of T!m's stamps for my current followers only up to number 284.

This is a thank you for being part of this incredible journey and giving me support and love.

The new distress inks brought out by Ranger for Christmas - but the colours are just gorgeous and 4 Promarkers.

This is for any follower old and new.

A new set of texture fades - Bingo and Collage, plus two of T!m's stamps that somehow are extra to requirements - again they are brand new.

This is also for any follower.

I am very near 300 followers and if I reach that amount before the 29th January I will add another prize.

All I ask is that you leave me a comment and tell me you have put the picture below on your sidebar. Thanks.

I feel so blessed that you are part of this amazing journey with me. 

When you leave a comment make sure I have a link to you so I can pop over to see you too.

Thank you and have fun with creating and making beautiful art.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

GIVE-AWAY NOW CLOSED

PanPastels - Glitter and Glitz

Hi Everyone, Sundays are full of fun when I post two DT pieces for you. This is my second post for today - please scroll down for my other one.

I just loved combining the PanPastel colours with glitter for the new challenge at

 Panpastel UK Challenge Blog.

I used T!m's patchwork embossing folder with white card and then laid PPs in the sections to give this pastel quilted effect. Rub a dry cloth over the whole card to get rid of any excess. To get the glitter on use cut and dry foam, dipped into Art Institute glitter glue, and rub across the raised areas, sprinkling glamour dust on before it dries. Lay a piece of clean paper over the top and brayer across it to get the glue to adhere more strongly.

To complete the card, add some shabby ribbon tied into a bow and a sentiment. I painted a chipboard frame with white acrylic paint and again sprinkled glamour dust over it. When it was dry I sprayed with a gloss sealer.

Please come over to the challenge blog to see all the other wonderful inspiration that the design team have made for you and if you take part this week you will be entering for a chance to win some PPs and tools for you to try out or add to your collection. If you go over to Your Creativity Store you will find all of the colours and tools that are available to buy and at really good prices. As you can see PanPastels are so versatile and can be used with all your other art and craft supplies.

Next week I will be using PPs to edge a card which makes several pieces of DP come together and look as though they all belong together.

Thanks for stopping by today and thank you if you leave me a comment, I so appreciate it.

Have another great Sunday.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes
Bloggers Challenge - Texturize it
Crafts and Me - Pink and Sparkly (it didn't say alot or a little pink??)
Deep Ocean Challenge - Sparkle

FSC - It's a guy thing

Another challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and this week it's gotta be something for the guys.

It's a special year for Ken and I this year, we both reach a milestone age bracket and if I tell you I retire next month then you'll easily guess what that is. His birthday is in July and we share our wedding anniversary on that day too. So I made this for him as a special little gift - it's ok he never looks on here to see what I am doing, I usually show him everything before I blog it but this time I will have to find a little place to hide it for a while.

I really enjoyed making this collage hanging piece and it all started with an experiment. I wanted to see how I could get a bleached image and what card would work well enough with this technique. I actually achieved several good stamped images and you will recognise it as T!m's old jalopy. Once it had cured, I cut out the rectangle and masked the image to stamp the crackle background, ink around the edges and then sprayed glimmer mist over it. 

I gessoed and painted the cardboard and stamped over that when it was dry then collected some bits and pieces together to make up the collage. 

The flower is T!m's tattered floral die and I used an old AA road atlas book and again inked and glimmer misted the parts before putting it together.

So for my Prince Charming, with warm kisses and many more years together where we can cherish the moments. (I know you are all saying ahhhhhh - but it will be 38 years married this year!!!!)

Do come on over and take a look at what my fabulous teamies have made to inspire you and have a go yourself as you could win a great stamp from our sponsor, Marina at Cottage Crafts.

Have a wonderful day whatever you have planned and thanks for stopping by to see my work.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Song Title - Cherish by Madonna
Gingersnap Creations - Spicy Supply Challenge - Ribbon
Anything Goes - To the one I love
Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes
Simply Create too - Love is in the air
The butterfly effect - making layers
Bloggers Challenge - Texturize it
The Artistic Stamper - Vintage

The Stamp Man - Embellish it

Good morning, it's Friday and it's ........................ - oh gosh do you know what came into my head????

Those of a certain age will perhaps have had the same phrase in mind!! ........... anyway it's Friday and iiiiiiiit'ssssss .......... Crackerjack 

- no sorry I mean it's another fabulous challenge at The Stamp Man.

I had planned to make a different piece for this, but when it came to it, the mojo and magic wouldn't work, so this is what I came up with instead. Not how I would normally think of embellishing something, but I enjoyed making it all the same. As you can see my main embellishing technique is to use TH fragments and papers - on the top and on the sides of this box.

I think it will be perfect to hold my small white button collection.

Supplies

Tim Holtz paper stash - crowded attic

Tim Holtz stamps - haberdashery, shabby french, urban tapestry

Distress inks - old paper, bundled sage, fired brick, vintage photo.

Tim Holtz - fragments

Glossy Accents

White household paint

lace, buttons, pin, snaps from stash

Jill, Mrs StampMan, is generously giving the winner of the challenge a £10.00 voucher for her on-line store, and as usual the other design team members have some amazing projects to inspire you. 

Come on over and take a look.

Have a great Friday and a fabulous weekend.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Altered coaster

Hi Everyone

At last I have found a bit of time to make some bits just because I wanted to. A week or so ago, my daughter-in-law bought some coasters - look only 5p each at Wilkinsons. 

So I had to have a go at altering one - a nice small piece of art. I had great fun by glueing a piece of basic grey DP on it first and a wrinkled piece of dress pattern tissue paper (that started my thoughts veering towards some fabulous cotton reel labels that I had scanned and printed off). 

Then layering over that my ever favourite PPs with masks - no inks or sprays - just pure velvety colour from my little pots of pastel.

I decided I didn't need anything else and for some reason chose 3 of the cotton reel labels and started to play around with them. For some reason the challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show came into mind - a song title. 

Ha - 3 reels, one - two - three or should I write 1 - 2 - 3 a song by Len Barry back in the hmmm, 

dare I say it ----------- 1960's - there I did. 

And lo and behold this design was born.

1 bird, 2 string flowers and 3 flying cotton reel butterflies. 

Journal style with added 3 buttons and drawing in the stems, leaves and message.

What do you think?

For me? - Great, I loved playing and doing something different.

Well I hope you are having a good week and are able to have a play with some craft materials.

Take care.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -

Simon Says Stamp and Show - A song title

Make My Monday - Flowers and leaves

BasisGrey - Favourite things

So Artful Challenges - Colours and image given

PanPastels - Use two of something

Good morning.

This is my second DT challenge piece for PanPastel UK Challenge Blog, where we are asking you to use two of something on your project. Just tell us in your post what those two things are and you could be in for a chance of winning a PanPastel trial pack if you are chosen as the winner this week, courtesy of Your Creativity Store.

This week I have used PPs on designer paper, which gives another way of creating depth to your backgrounds. I used three different masks (bird cage, birds and dots) and permanent green and magenta colours.

I have used two butterflies and two ribbons to fit in with the challenge. The bird cage was die-cut in DP which was painted with gesso and then stamped over. The bird has flown, but the butterflies love flitting in and out.

Most of the pieces have been edged with white acrylic paint and lots of flowers added to give it a very shabby chic look.

I hope you will come back again next week as I have another great way for you to use PPs with an embossing folder and will show you how to make it sparkle.

I just love experimenting with these amazing colours and if you pop over to the challenge blog you will be able to see lots of inspiration from my great team mates.

Have a wonderful Sunday. Thanks for taking the time to come and see me.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Shabby Chic card - Art of Craft Workshop

Hi Everyone

I though I would show you my sample card and tag for a workshop I am doing on the 15th of February at The Art of Craft. The girls who made the mini album with me before Christmas wanted more vintage shabby things to make. Hope they like them.

This is a 6 x 6 ins card and I have used 12 x 12 papers from the shop, one of which has these gorgeous vintage images which are beautiful and ethereal. We are going to use gesso, acrylic paint and DIs to make this shabby collage style effect.

If you are not too far away and want to come, please ring the shop for a booking and who knows I might see some of you there.

Thanks for stopping by today.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

PanPastels Anything Goes

Hi Everyone, this is my second post for today, scroll down to see my altered frame.

I am back with my first DT piece for the PanPastel UK Challenge and as the title says it is anything goes. So what do you fancy making for this week?

I have used my fabulous PPs and made a tag - one of my favourite ways of producing a small(ish) piece of art, knowing that it can be made into a card to give to someone or hang on display.

The background on this one started with some small areas of multi-medium matte brushed straight onto the tag and dried. This acts as a bit of a resist and givers some texture to it. Then I covered the tag with violet PP and then used embossing ink through masks and again violet PP to create the next 3 layers. Next I stuck on a dress form stamped on tissue paper and over that there are two more layers with stamps and embossing ink and this time I used the turquoise shade to bring out the designs. To prevent the pastels coming off I sprayed with an acrylic gloss sealer.

I love finishing off with bits and pieces to add texture and interest.

Stamps - Claudine Hellmuth, Wendy Vecchi, Katy Fox.

The prize each week for the Challenge Blog winner is a sample set of PanPastels which can be found at the sponsor's website Your Creativity Store, they do a whole range of materials for the crafter and artist and especially these wonderful PanPastels. You have until 8.00 pm Friday night to submit your entry, so what ya waiting for?

Over the coming weeks and months I am going to show you how to use PanPastels with other mediums that you would use in your card and project making. Next week tune in to see how they can be used with DPs to create depth on your backgrounds.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Try It On - Resist
Gingersnap Creations - set or line of stamps (Claudine Hellmuth)
Sugar Creek Hollow - Embossing (Does emboss resist count?)
Challenge up your life - Bingo - purple, lace, flowers
Just Us Girls - Collage stamping technique

FSC - Butterflies and Bugs

Hi Everyone

I hope you will join me in another great challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges, where today we want you to show us your butterflies or bugs of any sort. Just remember please that this is a stamping challenge and we do need to be able to see what you stamped as part of your project.

My contribution to the design team today is an altered frame. I just loved making this and had great messy fun with the gesso and acrylic paints as well as inks.

The frame has 2 layers of gesso, 2 layers of white acrylic paint and some picket fence crackle paint. when completely dried I sanded some of the edges and added vintage photo DI and some stamped tissue paper.

The inside of the frame is a piece from T!m's crowded attic paper stash but if you look closely you will see I stamped and painted butterflies from his Papillon set and adhered these and a downloaded vintage bee to it.

I decorated the frame by using more of the stamped butterflies, painted and heat embossed and one of my Charlotte dolls, a vintage pen nib, an old key, some buttons and a vintage moth and small butterfly (again both downloaded and heat embossed like the others).

Don't forget to come over to the challenge blog to see what incredible inspiration awaits you from my fabulous team mates and to see what stamp is on offer to the winner from Marina at Cottage Crafts.

I have listed my new class schedule for The Art of Craft in Farnborough at the top of my blog,
but they are not yet on their web-site.
It would be great if you come along and join me though.

Have a wonderful day and have fun whatever you have planned.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Blogger's Challenge - Wings and Things
Fabulous Friday Challenge - Paint
PolkaDoodles - Vintage//Retro
Everybody Art Challenge - Shabby
Little Claire's - Anything but a card
CES - Vintage

Steampunk in red - The Stamp Man

It's Friday and the weekend starts here everyone. Hope all is well with you today.

When Jill told us that Vixx had chosen the colour red for the Stamp Man challenge this fortnight, my attention immediately turned to Valentine's,  but I have been hankering to go back to T!m's tags of Christmas to try the techniques as I didn't get to make them (maybe 2??) - and Grungy Monday this week is about his fabulous tags, so I knew this would fit perfectly - sorry I have been awol Linda, but here I am and hope to take part more often again.

So off I go to T!m's blog, find the tags and start at number one. But of course Christmas is over, I don't want to replicate them so I get the little grey cells working (do you like the touch of Poirot here?), and gather a new embossing folder - steampunk, gadget gears die and tattered leaves die. An embryo of an idea starts to emerge.

Tag 1 used embossing resist - a fabulous technique. 

I've got coredinations but no kraft core for the tag, so having used red card, the steampunk embossing folder and after the silver satin pearl ep has cooled I sand the top and then rub walnut stain over it. I die cut the word 'treasure' and tattered leaves from different red coredinations and the gears from silver embossed card. 

 I sanded the word treasure then added a glittery ep and I alcohol inked the gears. The leaves didn't look right at all, so out came the ideaology sprockets and gears, some beads and a heart, so more a 

Valentine feel after all eh?

So what are you making with the colour red at the moment? Come join us at The Stamp Man challenge to show us and you could be in with that chance of a £10.00 voucher for Jill's on-line store. What are you waiting for? - Let's go and I will see you there.

Supplies used -

Tim Holtz dies - tag, gadget gears

Sissiz die - treasure
Embossing folder - steampunk

Idealogy - sprokets and gears, heart, pin

Beads and ribbons from stash

Coredinations red card

Alcohol inks - raisin and cranberry

Have a wonderful weekend.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Try it on Tuesday - Resistance
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Red letter day - I am focused on the colour red
Stampalot - Monochrome
Grungy Monday - Tim's Christmas tags

New Year Cards

Happy Sunday All

I have seen a number of blogging friends who are talking about new year resolutions and not buying any more craft materials for 6 months unless they are staple basics that are needed. Now I don't think I will be able to make that sort of resolution but there are a couple of things I would like to try and do.

1. Is make more family scrapbook pages for a couple of albums that I have got on the go, 

and need to do more to. 

These will need to be 12 x 12 and will therefore use up some of my supplies that I have got lots of!!!!

2. Is use even more of my endless boxes of supplies and make some quick cards.

So with this in mind I decided to make a start whilst I was sitting in my craft room New Years Day evening. Here are some quick(ish) cards, they have been completed over the past week when I have been able to catch a bit of time in the evenings.

 Whilst I was collecting paper pads and images together I thought that I would make 2 of the same design, that way using even more of my bits and not taking that much longer. You know with me it is always the thinking and designing time that I spend hours on.

What did I decide to make?  Happy New Year cards!! Only because I found the images in a box and they looked so appealing.

These next two are not the same design.

No stamping, just images from a pack and collage backgrounds. But I soooooo loved making them all for a change. There is ink and acrylic paint on them, buttons, gems, corners and torn paper.

Very simple designs, but I am happy with them.

Hope you like them too.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with.

Paper Play - Happy New Year

Papertake Weekly - 'New' theme

By the Cute and Girly - Happy New Year

Joanna Sheen - Celebrations

Truly Scrumptious - shabby pastels and paint

The Shabby Tea Room - Time Flies - something with wings