Friday 29 May 2015

Tag Friday at AVJ

Moments Noted

There's five Fridays this month so we have a special Tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey with tags galore from the Creative Guides.

I wanted to remind myself of the techniques Tim has been using on his monthly tags and have pinned all the ones for 2014 and so far for 2015 on Pinterest. I have to say it is now really easy to find the correct post quickly for reference and go back over the process steps. 
For this tag I knew I wanted to use some of the new things I had brought back from California particularly the distress marker spritzer so I was able to find a background and Tim's tutorial to get me started.


I began with the tissue tape and distress paint background, Tim shows this on his tag in April 2014 .


I used some new tissue tapes with vintage photo and pumice stone distress paints followed with walnut stain distress ink.


I began designing,making and gathering embellishments to use ......


... with stained courtyard frameworks to add to the background. To finish it off I used my new distress marker spritzer with gathered twigs and splattered some antique linen distress paint over it.


I didn't use the memo pin and token embellishment from Tim's tag this month so I tried it out here and added aged mahogany distress paint to the word.


I finished off with some extra tissue tape and a couple of remnant rubs.



Thanks for stopping by, I can't believe it's Friday again but yay it's the weekend. Hopefully I will be going shopping with the girls - that will be five of us over three generations. The girls' birthdays are coming up soon and Ella wants some new clothes and shoes.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and don't forget to note those special moments.

hugs brenda xxx

Thursday 28 May 2015

A Visual Journey #22

Welcome to week 22 of my Visual Journey where I am exploring techniques, products and ideas but more importantly I am just freeing myself up to create whatever comes to me rather than be channelled by themes and other peoples' ideas. Even in the middle of long hours trying to meet deadlines (like this week) I am determined to give myself that space once a week and so far so good.

When I took out my journal today I had no idea where I was going to go. I opened the pages to find I had gessoed and textured the next double spread before I went away on holiday - but what to do? Aha I spotted bits on my desk.

You know when something sits on your desk long enough you'll eventually get round to using them? Well I knew if these birds sat on my desk long enough they'd eventually come out to play. Do you ever do that? Leave things lying around because you're not sure where to put them and then all of sudden you know exactly what you want them for.


These die-cut circle frames were on my desk - left overs from this mornings prepping for a workshop, so I glued one on each page to get me going.


The distress paints - why? - because again I had been using them earlier when making my tag for Fridays AVJ post - not these particular colours mind you. But I sploldged them on, spritzed them heavily with water and yay suddenly I could see where I was going.


The birds would sit perfectly, one in each frame. I took different coloured distress paints - daubed them on the birds, spritzed them with water and just like the backgrounds they came together, but when I heat dried them they looked rather pale.


So I took a cotton bud and 'painted' some more of the colours over the top.


They sat perfectly on the pages in their frames facing each other.



 I looked up a quote on the internet, found one I liked and wrote it in. For a moment I was going to type it out, print it and stick it in, but time is just not on my side this week, so hey ho handwritten it is.

 

Sorry if I have not been round to see what you are up to at the moment, but I promise I will soon.

As always if you would like to share the visual journey collection you will find the code to add to you post here -


... and I look forward to sharing in your pages through the linky below.

Take care and thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx











Tuesday 26 May 2015

Tim's May tag

Tim's tag this month is right up my street, vintage, ephemera and collage with hessian and some texture paste - a match made in heaven methinks.


Here's our little starlet, Nancy, who has travelled from England to the good ole US of A to find stardom. 


She arrived in New York but the small part she had in a short running play didn't lead to any further opportunities so she has decided to travel by train across to the west coast and to Los Angeles to see if she can get her name up in Hollywood lights. This is my good luck tag, hoping she will find the fame and fortune she is seeking.


I don't have Tim's adhesive backed canvas so I used watered down pva and adhered some to kraft card and then cut the tag using his tag and bookplates die. (I merged two photos together here).


The bookplate was cut at the same time as the tag from kraft card and sat calling me to use it, so I slathered over some rock candy crackle paint and when dry I dipped it in walnut stain distress stain, spritzed it with water and heat dried it. It now looks a bit like worn leather. As you can see I got the sewing machine out too. As I don't have the new thinlits mini flowers die I used my good old faithful tattered flower garland strip die.


Before I go I would like to share a couple of photos from our recent trip to California. One of our visits was to a wolf sanctuary out in the wilds of the desert. Here they have rescued a number of wolves over the years which are cared for and looked after and live happily away from man's harm. These were the wolves that were filmed and appeared in the movie and the series of Twilight. One particular one is very friendly and loves to be out of his pen, he is very happy to be rubbed and fussed and will lie down by your feet. Here are Ken and I enjoying some time with him with our friends Joni and Leo.


I also wanted to share a photo of my dear friend Terry and I. We were able to meet up again and go shopping together for crafty things and as we take our hubbies with us too we all had lunch together. It was such a special day with time to chat and catch up as well as spend some of those dollars I had taken with me lol.




Well I hope your day is going to be full of possibilities.

Take care.

hugs Brenda xxxx


Sunday 24 May 2015

Summer canvas

I am sharing the summer canvas we made at Pickwell Farm workshop yesterday. It is a mixed media canvas and perfect for teaching on a bright sunny day - we were so lucky with the weather.


We had fun with the layered butterfly .....


.... layered dragonfly .....


.... and layered bee. These were finished using oil pastels and distress stains.


Leaves and flowers were scrunched, spritzed and also coloured with distress stains ......



.... and the clock was shabbied and glazed with gesso, crackle paint and embossing powder.



All the elements were added to the mixed media background consisting of numerous layers of gesso, paint, stains and texture paste.



The group of attendees worked hard all day to finish their beautiful canvases and it was lovely to meet old friends and new participants to the workshops. 


Whilst demoing the stages and techniques I was able to get a second canvas finished which has been left at the shop.


You can see the similarities and the differences, mainly the flowers as I didn't take myself  a set and we found some in the workshop I could use.

The next date has already been put in the diary for the 3rd October and details will be available on the Pickwell Farm website later in the year.

I have two more workshops to prepare and prep for this week, but I'll see you soon. Have a great Band Holiday weekend.

hugs Brenda xxxxx

Friday 22 May 2015

Aged riveted metal tag - DecoArt technique - Board 4

I am pleased to show you this riveted tag which looks as though it's been lost and left outside for years. It has that decayed, aged and weathered look to it and would you believe there is no metal on it at all - it's just greyboard (chipboard). This is the fourth sample plaque I have made for my next Country View Crafts workshop and although we won't be making these boards I will be teaching six techniques for different corroded metal effects and workshop participants will use some of those techniques to alter a box in which they can keep their sample cards. I am also showed this on the Country View Crafts Project Blog on Monday.


 I made the riveted metal effect on a piece of greyboard before running it through the bigshot with Tim's small tabs and tags die.


I got so involved in the processes I forgot to take any more photos then till the end but the ATC has a three colour distress paint technique on it which many of you will know as it uses candle wax to create that chipped paint look.


The cabinet card has layers of gesso, cerulean and turquoise hue paint and washes with a splattering of the white shimmer mister before layering white crackle paste through a stencil and when dry applying a wash of raw sienna.


The background has been dipped in chipped sapphire and scattered straw distress inks and edged with walnut stain.



There are still two more techniques and boards to come in the series, so I hope you like what you see.

Have a great long weekend in England and the US.

hugs Brenda xxx

Thursday 21 May 2015

Visual Journey #21

Well it's so lovely to be home and back at my craft desk. We had a fabulous holiday visiting friends in California and catching up with my very dear friend Terry but this time we were waylaid by a few problems particularly a touch of food poisoning which we both had and I also got phlebitis in my right leg which was quite tender and sore as well as a bit worrying. But we're home safely and now catching up with the washing and shopping etc and I've now got to meet some vital deadlines for projects.


This was one of them. I had done the background before I went away using decoart media paints to create a very grungy and rusty effect .......


.....  but I had no idea how I was going to finish them - until today (wednesday) when putting things away I had bought back from America and clearing my desk again I found some butterflies I had been playing with a few weeks ago and some lovely white wings cut through the middle.


'Out of the shadows' was part of the original book page which I had left peering out of the background


As you can see I chose a found relative and isn't she the most cutest little girl and so suits a pair of angel wings .... and really only needed something to ground her on the page.


The other side I just added some collaged ephemera around the book words and stamped a quote.


Some simple pages although I love the white pigment ink stamping over the dark background - it makes for a very different deign and effect.....


.... and another double spread added to the altered book.

Before I go I thought you might like to see what I came back from America with -------


It's not quite everything I bought, there were some other bits as well that didn't make it into the photos but this is quite a large tote I bought in Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon, it measures 30 x 20 cms and is 18 cms deep.


You can see I packed it with new goodies .......


.... and loved getting a bargain or two lol.

As always if you would like to share the visual journey collection you will find the code to add to you post here -


... and I look forward to sharing in your pages through the linky below.

Take care and thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx



Saturday 16 May 2015

Cards for Crafty Individuals

The monthly theme of 'Music to my ears' continues over at Crafty Individuals and I have made some cards for my DT samples linking with the music theme.


My 'Thanks' card uses stamp sets CI-377 where I cut out the silhouette dancers and CI-194 for the music background. The music stave is a memory box die and the sentiment is Tim Holtz, although it's difficult to see the black background actually has music notation on it.



On my second card I have used the CI-366 stamp set and created layers with border dies and snippets from my scrap box. 



Now I am sure you can see the musical link to the previous two cards, but this next one it is more obtuse. Can you guess what it is?



I couldn't resist creating a card using this beautiful collaged stamp of the pretty girl advertising perfume (CI-148 and CI-335), but take a closer look at the name of the shop. Is that a big enough clue?
This card uses the beautiful Floradora girl stamp and the Woman's World tag set. I haven't added any overt references to music but as soon as I saw the stamp it resonated with me and I immediately saw a link to the challenge as the name of the shop where this perfume is sold is called Adele. I love Adele's music and have both her albums, so it fitted nicely in my brain lol.


Jean as always is very generous with her prizes and offers so do pop over to the challenge post to see more amazing samples from the DT and find the details of how you can enter.

A big welcome to all the new followers who have joined me recently, it's wonderful to have you aboard and to all my commenting and silent readers who stop by to see what I am up to, thanks for sharing in my creative journey.

Take care, have a great weekend. I will be travelling back from my holidays today so I will update with some photos on my return.

hugs Brenda xxx