Friday 31 January 2014

Rebel Journal Page

I am teaching a whole weekend of workshops to a craft group in Wales at the beginning of April and on the Saturday I will be repeating my vintage tag book but on Sunday they would like a day of journaling, so I am preparing some things to take with me.
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This is a page made on card and then stuck into my large Dyan Reaveley journal book.
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I had fun using Dylusions sprays, Dyan’s masks …….
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….. and stamps ……
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I also used a large Pronty alphabet mask and picked out the letters to spell REBEL, painted them in with white paint and outlined them with black pen. Just the way I felt at the time I guess and I am a bit of a rebel at heart you know.


… oh and I added a Dina Wakely stamp for the focal image.


Well we've got more rain again today, the garden is saturated and boggy, I am so looking forward to some dry and sunny days. My dear friend Terry in California keeps teasing me by sending 'warm' hugs, which are lovely, but I need the sun to go with them lol.

It's my murder mystery party tomorrow, the one that couldn't go ahead on New Year's Eve because of illness. I am looking forward to hosting this as I have written it myself and have re-themed it for a Valentine party, so fingers crossed the murderer doesn't get recognised too early!!!

Hope you have a good weekend xx

Monday 27 January 2014

Tim’s Tags #1 January 2014

Taking Tim’s advice I have sat and created my January tag to just enjoy the creative process, not to think of how to do something completely different but to practice and hone the techniques I learn through joining in with these fabulous monthly doses of inspiration.
All of the details for making this tag can be found on Tim’s blog HERE so I am showing my photos only.
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Spring is on it’s way and I think that will be the theme of my next Country View Challenges workshop. I had such an amazing time on Thursday but I will give you more details and show you some photos when I get some off of Susan to add to my collection.

I hope you have got some creative time planned in the coming week.
Take care. xx

Sunday 26 January 2014

A new flexible journal

I am still loving creating journal pages and canvases Finnabair style and after making the fabulous journal at Finn’s workshop at the end of August I found a way to recreate my own journal covers that will bend over and around the pages allowing you to embellish with lots of metal and 3D trinkets.
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My journal is 18 x 15 cms and I used canvas and interfacing from the fabric shop. I stamped with matte medium and sprayed to get the colours then stamped over the top of that, I also sewed around the edges.
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Both for the front and back I created layers with canvas, lace and patterned card ….
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… and I adhered the embellishments over the top.
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I have made one set of pages of my youngest granddaughter…..
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… creating the photos within a collage ….
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…. using a glittery patterned paper for the background.
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Using a paperclip, stamped butterfly, ruler ribbon and other letters and ephemera, the pages came together.
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The colours I used reflected the colour of Maddison's jumper.

Just to let you know I will have been blogging for  four years on Wednesday and I think a giveaway will be in order, keep your eyes open.

Hope you've had a great weekend
Brenda x

Wednesday 22 January 2014

12 x 12 Layout – Family Memories


Before Christmas my friend Sue and I had another day together making a Finn inspired layout for a shadow box frame. These look lovely under glass and on the wall. I need to do a few more to get a collection together for the dining room.
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This is my beautiful Mother who sadly passed away 2 years ago on New Years Eve. She loved butterflies so of course I had to add one to this layout. The one you can see is metal and was silver but with some distress paints and treasure gold was transformed into something quite different.
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As in the Finnabair workshop I did last year, I used lots of metal embellishments mixed with paper flowers, card flourishes, lace and some wooden elements too, and I used several different sprays over the top.

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 My Mum was an inspiration to me in many ways, hence the choice of word to use.
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 These are very much her colours, she loved oranges and browns mainly so her autumn garden was a joy to see, but she also loved her fuchsias in the summer so some pinks and magentas were also evident too.
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Here you can see the dimension of the double wings on the butterfly and the conical silver bead that became it’s body.
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Just one little heart to represent my love for her.
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This is Sue’s finished frame. She used a photo of her and her sister when they were young and gave the finished frame to her sister for Christmas. It made a very lovely personal gift and was very well received.
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This frame holds the layout I did at Finn’s workshop last year but it held a vintage photo of someone I didn’t know. Luckily I was able to remove it and add one of me when I was about 9 or 10 years old.
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Thanks for looking, enjoy the rest of your week. I am teaching my Vintage Tag Journal at Flitwick in Bedfordshire tomorrow and looking forward to meeting a new group of people. Susan from Country View Crafts is coming along too so I am sure we will have a fun day.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Monday 20 January 2014

Vintage milk bottle caps

Good morning fellow bloggers, thank you so much for all the lovely comments you are leaving on my posts, it is such a pleasure to sit and read them and to visit you as well and see such amazing inspirational projects from around the globe.  
One of the things I love doing is going and mooching round antique markets now and again and we have a good monthly market near us in Farnham, Surrey (UK). Last year I was intrigued by some old milk bottle caps I saw on a stall and was told they would have been used by the dairy to seal old wide neck milk bottles in the 1940’s. You can just make out a circle indentation that could be pushed through which would be used to insert a straw, apparently children wouldn't just drink the milk they would use these caps to make those woolly fluffy balls, so they were a toy too.

The ones I bought are all the same and are in mint condition and at last I have had an idea for a tag using one.
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I had a corrugated tag part finished so I started with that …….
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……. adding some stamping and I gathered various elements that I thought would go together to create a design. The 17 plaquette reminded me of a bottle chain, the mini number made me think of milk deliveries and house numbers, hessian for texture, a small shrink plastic bird in my box of bits reminded me of when I was milk monitor at school, we had foil tops then and the birds would peck through them to get at the milk. Some of Tim’s words stamped from the Little Labels set seemed appropriate and I needed a bottle.
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Die-cut from the Apothecary set in white card, I dipped the bottle in a little watered walnut stain DI, dried it and then covered it in clear embossing powder.
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Here you can see the shine and texture it created. In hindsight perhaps I should have added more layers of EP to make it smoother, but I quite like the way it ended up.
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I really like the collage design too, I always look to create a balance between my elements and to 'bridge' some of them to create a flow that allows the eye to move easily around the design.
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I hope your week goes well and that you have time to find some creative time.



hugs {brenda} x0x

Friday 17 January 2014

Live Everyday

My project for the Country View Crafts updates blog today is an altered shadow box frame and more of those scrummy Tim Holtz goodies – I am so looking forward to when Susan gets the new CHA releases into the shop – but I feel a huge spending spree coming on lol.
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The full details of how I put this together are over on the updates blog but here are some of the photos of the process.
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I collected various items that might work together, but ended up changing things in and out before I was happy with the finished design.
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Flowers made from crinoline.
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If you have time I will be happy to see you at the CVC Updates blog, but thank you for stopping by today and sharing in my creative journey.

Thursday is our first Country View Crafts workshop date where I will be teaching my Vintage Tag Journal. There are still a couple of places if you are interested. Full details can be found HERE. We have specifically chosen a venue close to the M1 easily accessible from London and the South, the Midlands, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and most of Essex. I am looking forward to a fun day full of inky goodness and lots of Tim Holtz goodies.

Have a wonderful weekend and happy crafting.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Monday 13 January 2014

Monochromatic #2 for CVC

 Firstly I want to extend a warm welcome to new followers who have joined me lately, thank you so much for taking the time to look at what I create, I will visit you too if the setup in blogger gives me a link to your site. I love to come and see what people are making.


This tag is my second DT piece at Country View Crafts Challenges and I kept to the monochromatic theme for this month.
For the purposes of this challenge 'monochromatic' means hues of one colour but as black and white are at the opposing ends of the spectrum you can use them too. We will also allow a skin-tone colour for anyone using images where flesh needs to be coloured. (I have found in my browser that my black archival looks blue on some of the photos, but that must be the light conditions when I used the camera as well as monitor colours - hope that makes sense).

I started by choosing flourish stamp from a Tim Holtz set and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I then blended pumice stone and a little frayed burlap distress inks over the tag, flicked it with water and heat dried it carefully. I then used black archival ink and stamped the gorgeous TH butterfly off the edges in two places.
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Next I gathered all the elements I wanted to use and as I am at my sisters for a few days, I raided her supplies and found this gorgeous B-Line stamp called Rebecca.
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After I stamped her on a spare tag and cut her out I watercolored using a range of browns, black soot and pumice stone and added a bit of antique linen for the flesh tones.
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I also added some of the inks to the little bit of lace to bring it in line with the monochromatic palette I have chosen.
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I used a TH ticket strip die and his chit-chat stickers for the sentiment.
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I hope to see you over at the CVC Challenge blog and even if you can’t make an entry (or two) this month you will get lots of inspiration from the fabulous design team samples.

I went to my sister's for a few days but had to come home early because I have caught this horrible chest complaint that seems to be doing the rounds. I am trying to keep up to date with commenting but apologise if I miss something as I really am not on top of it at the moment. Hope you are all ok.

Thanks for stopping by ................

Dream your artistic dreams and fulfil your creative desires.

hugs {brenda} x0x