Friday 29 November 2013

Exciting News

I am just so excited …………
………… after a lot of hard work with Susan (Country View Crafts) and Chrissie (my fabulous techie sister) we are now able to announce a new venture -----


WORKSHOP140123_01d large

The first one is January 23rd 2014 with Yours Truly running a Tim Holtz style Tag Journal workshop. This is very similar to the tag book Tim taught this year when he came to Coventry, I was so inspired by his workshop and what I made I knew I wanted to use it as the inspiration to teach something similar. So those of you who didn’t go to Tim’s session might like to get inky and have fun creating something along the same lines.

P1150150a

This will be a no-stress workshop using distress inks and lots of idea-ology products, dies and Tim’s stamps. I will provide a set of vintage photos (mostly cabinet card portraits) or you can bring your own.

Full details are available from the workshop product page on the Country View Crafts web site where you can download a pdf that gives all the information you will need.

Now all I need are some participants lol.

Happy Friday and have a fabulous weekend.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Thursday 28 November 2013

The Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas #8

Still catching up but staying in sight so to speak, thank goodness. Tag #8 of Linda’s gorgeous set can be found on her blog The Funkie Junkie.
P1150095
The inspiration for my card comes from several ideas of Linda’s. Firstly using the Damask Background technique shown by Tammy Tutterow on one of her Tuesday Tutorial posts (Tammy has lots of wonderful inspiration to share every week – so worth a look if you haven’t seen her work). The other inspiration came from using a Santa image for the card, snowflakes and rusty bells, I rusted these weeks ago and this is the first time I’ve used some of them.
P1150099
The top border is a Marianne icicles die and I have edged them with walnut stain and covered them (and nearly everything else lol) with Antiquities Frosted Crystal, it is an almost clear embossing powder but has that faint vintage sparkle to it …..
P1150101
… which hopefully you can see better in this next photograph.
P1150109
Santa was inked up with Vermillion and Black Archival inks, starting with the red so that there is no contamination of colours on the pads.
P1150096
A few snowflakes and some washi tape to finish it off.
P1150110

Linda has the full details of this challenge on her tag 1 post but in essence make a tag or card etc. and take something as inspiration from Linda’s tag for your own make, link this up to her post and enter all 12 challenges by December 22nd to be eligible for the draw. Linda is very generous with her prizes so you could win a $50 or $25 voucher to her on-line store ‘The Funkie Junkie Boutique’ and even get 10% discount over January 2014.

I have just found some of the cards I made last year that didn’t get sent out so I now have a box full this year to use. The most ahead I have ever been.

Hope you are able to crack on with preparations, I am going to get some presents wrapped soon so that when the tree and decorations go up I will be almost ready.

Have fun.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Tuesday 26 November 2013

The Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas #7

Well I haven’t seen anything this year of Tim’s gorgeous toy soldier so I decided to use it on card 7 following Linda’s fabulous make which can be found HERE. (Still playing catch up but got a couple more ready to go)
P1150088
My inspiration this week was using some embossed texture on the background which you can see in the top right hand corner, using the word Joy and the beautiful inked and stamped poinsettia.
P1150089
I loved making the toy soldier and colouring him in iced spruce making a change to the reds he is normally seen in.
P1150090
The poinsettia is made from cream card with iced spruce, vintage photo and walnut stain distress inks, stamped over using the text stamp from Letter to Santa set.
P1150092
The background was embossed with a sparkly embossing powder and gives a lovely subtle effect.
P1150093
The word JOY was cut in kraft resist using the TH Word Play die. The snowflakes are a mix of Maya Road and TH inked in iced spruce and covered with rock candy distress glitter. Some little pieces of washi tape finish it off.


Linda has the full details of this challenge on her tag 1 post but in essence make a tag or card etc. and take something as inspiration from Linda’s tag for your own make, link this up to her post and enter all 12 challenges by December 22nd to be eligible for the draw. Linda is very generous with her prizes so you could win a $50 or $25 voucher to her on-line store ‘The Funkie Junkie Boutique’ and even get 10% discount over January 2014.

Look out for some special news over the coming week, something I am very excited about.


"Creativity is contagious, pass it on" - Albert Einstein


Hugs {brenda} x0x

Sunday 24 November 2013

Tim’s November Tag of 2013 and reverse chalkboard effect


Having learnt this chalkboard technique on the Creative Chemistry 102 course I was pleased to see Tim use it this month for his tag. He gets great effects, but this time I wanted to play a little more.
P1150125
This is my tag using the Sizzix Framelets Snowman Blueprint set. I followed Tim’s steps except I used pastels including coloured ones and black.
P1150127
The die-cut layers give fabulous dimension and there are so many pieces that can be cut easily.
P1150128
The hat, holly, nose and scarf were cut and layered and you can see where I used red, orange and green pastels. The berries are coloured with red stickles.
P1150132
The ice skate charm was painted with a dab of picket fence distress paint to make it look snowy and the snowflakes were inked with pumice stone DI and covered with frosted lace stickles. You can clearly see here how I added more contrast by using the black pastel.
P1150135
On this next snowman I used good old children’s chalk.
P1150137a
He came out quite well on the frosted crystal although some of the first ones I made I didn’t heat the EP enough and was too cautious with Tim’s warning.
P1150138
I used some of the bought embellishments I have in my Christmas box and Tim’s Merriment papers.
P1150140
This last piece shows a snowman in reverse, he is black and was as a result of playing with PanPastels rather than chalks. The pans are so fine they wouldn’t ‘stick’ to the tooth of the EP.
P1150142
You can see that they left a white residue on the black card and to get more of a chalkboard effect I added some lines using the white pastel again.
P1150141
Using more bought embellishments and Merriment paper I made another quick card with him.
P1150148
Tim showed the sizzix magnetic platform for cutting thin dies on his post, I thoroughly recommend it if you use a Big Shot or Vagabond, cutting all and especially small thin dies are so easy now, no taping them down. Susan has them in stock at Country View Crafts. 

Off to link this to Tim’s November tag, I can’t believe there is only one more for the year.

“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”
Franklin D Roosevelt
 
Hope you are having a great weekend.

hugs {brenda} x0x


Friday 22 November 2013

Victorian Carolers for CVC

Good morning everyone

My post is a little late this morning because I forgot to schedule this with the shop post duh!!!!!
P1150084a
Anyhow just a sneak peek for my card which is on full view with instructions at the Country View Crafts Updates blog.

Hope you have time to take a look.

Have a great Friday and a happy weekend with hopefully some crafty time for you.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Updated with full instructions -

I just love the silhouette shapes of the Victorian Carolers and have used the Tim Holtz die with distress stains and remnant rubs for my card today
Starting with the rub-ons I rubbed some over my background card leaving a space where the silhouettes were going to be placed.
I dispensed the colours of stains I wanted to use onto my craft mat and followed the wrinkle free distress technique by Tim Holtz.
When dry I added the silhouettes and used a white drawing pencil to go round the edges and make the silhouettes 'pop' more from the background.
However the silhouettes looked rather stark so I cut another set and stamped them with a Tim Holtz Christmas script (use could use any text or music score if you haven't got this one)  .....
..... and adhered them using foam pads to create some depth and dimension.
Three stars cut in chipboard from the Crescent Moon and Stars die were covered with Stickles glitter and I made the poinsettia using crinoline fabric. I was rather please with the quite colourful outcome.

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Country Kitchen for Country View Challenges

I had a fabulous crafty day with my friend Shirley recently and we decided to get the melt pots out and play with beeswax. With my theme of ‘Letters’ this month at Country View Challenges I decided to use some Italian dictionary paper (gifted to me by the wonderful Gio), A napkin that had fabulous images and also text on it, a text stamp on the background and then die-cut letters for the title.
P1140928
This is a small (ish) chipboard home decor piece I created for my kitchen.
P1140929
One thing I learned playing with napkin images and other papers is that layering of pieces is crucial. The cockerel layered over the dictionary paper only just works, the dictionary text shows through and became so translucent with the wax on it.
P1140931
Here you can see the text from the napkin as well as the die-cut letters.
P1140932
The Italian dictionary paper.
P1140933
The stamped text can just be seen behind the cockerel’s head.
P1140935
You can also see how I highlighted the die-cut letters with a white posca pen to make them stand out more and I painted some detail over the cockerel to ensure he stood out as much as possible too.
P1140936
And at this angle you can just see the shine of the surface after I buffed the wax. I also sanded the edges and inked then with walnut stain DI.
Have you entered our challenge yet? There’s always a great prize for the lucky winner as well as Winner and Top 3 Guest Designer spots. Hope we see you there
hugs {brenda} x0x

Sunday 17 November 2013

Christmas Tag Card

I made this tag card for a workshop that I taught at The Art of Craft recently.
P1140839
The shop has recently got in Distress Paints and we focused on mastering the ‘Marbling’ technique. My fabulous group of lovely ladies practised using different colour combination to see what they would like to use on their tag but also to experiment with how much paint and how much water they should use. They loved getting all painty.
P1140840
The stamps are Graphic 45
P1140844
The 25 was cut in metal sheet from the Christmas Noel die by Tim Holtz.

P1140845
A snowflake charm painted with antique linen distress paint.
P1140846
And the inside covered with Christmas papers and some washi tape and rub-ons added.
P1140847a
The Merry Christmas was from the G45 set we used.
P1140848a
We added a small panel on which to write a greeting .......
P1140852
..... and a punched border and Crafts-Too holly die with a computed generated sentiment finished it off.

I hope you had a great weekend. Thanks for stopping by, Have a wonderful week ahead.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Saturday 16 November 2013

Christmas Decor

I am sharing a workshop piece using three 4x4 canvas boards to produce this wall hanging.
P1150011
Black, white, cream and gold are the colours used with each board joined with ribbon.
P1150003
I began by gluing scrumpled gold tissue paper over each board and then dabbing cream acrylic paint around the edges of the boards getting lighter towards the middle so that the gold still showed through.
P1150009
P1150013
When the cream paint was dry I used a palette knife to daub white acrylic paint around the edges to give an artsy look.
P1150008
Each board was stamped with black archival ink and I used two Indigoblu and one woodware stamps. They didn’t come out perfectly because of the textured background so I used a black pen to smarten the images up a bit.
P1150006
The edges were wiped with embossing ink and I sprinkled vintage gold Frantage embossing chunks over (I was a bit too heavy handed on this one)
P1150007
To finish the backgrounds I added some gold and star dust stickles to each one.
Whilst these were drying I die-cut and punched the large and small stars, the holly and the reindeer from mat gold card and edged them with the black archival.
Finally I adhered the embellishments and added the ribbon to connect them altogether and to hang them up.

These are the makes from my great group of ladies who enjoyed the session and were very pleased with their project. We aim to please lol.
IMG_0710IMG_0711IMG_0712
IMG_0713IMG_0715IMG_0716

IMG_0714

Have a wonderful weekend, the sun is shining and it’s a glorious day here in the south of the UK, hope you are as lucky.

hugs {brenda} x0x