Travel Pouch Grungeboard Extravaganza for Grungy Monday

Happy Grungy Monday everyone

I have been so excited as our lovely hostess Linda at Grungy Monday asked me to be a guest designer for this week and I have really thought hard as to what to make. This week we are focusing on a fabulous Tim Holtz product - Grungeboard or Grungepaper. You can use it in any way you like. Tim shows examples on his blog and there are videos on You Tube. Please go over and see the amazing contributions from both Linda and Dawn who is the other fab guest this week.

One of the things I have thought about making for a long while now is a travel pouch. It is an idea that has been mulling around in my head for a few years and what I mean is a small wallet that can hold postcards and journalling tabs for when I am visiting somewhere new or on my travels. Often when we go away to a new country I end up buying a small notebook to jot names of places and things we have seen, and end up keeping pictures and brochures etc. in the paper bags they were bought with.

So this is the sketch of the wallet I visualised with notes about it. I quite often start with a picture and ideas when embarking on a larger project. As you can see I wanted 2 pouches, a way to hold a pen or pencil, somewhere to keep some stamps (that got lost along the way), and some way to secure it.  I knew I was going to get the sewing machine out on this one as well as use the usual glues and eyelets or brads.

I made a paper one first and realised I needed to have gussets in the sides of the pouches to let them expand a bit so they would hold a reasonable amount if needed. I also found my own 'suggested' measurements needed adjusting too (hence the crossings out on my sketch). Once I had done all of that, I was off.

In making this I learnt that grungepaper shrinks when made wet and then heat dried so I lost some of the dimension - but everything still fits ok. I also learnt that this process buckles the paper too and I ended up ironing it with a damp cloth to get it flat(ish) again. My sewing machine found the double thickness difficult and also archival or stazon ink didn't like the finished surface. But saying all that this was an incredible project to make. At one or two points I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew but I am pleased with the end result.

I am not going to give a blow by blow account of how this was made but I hope the photos will give you a good idea.

The back of the travel pouch

A view showing the whole length of it.

A view of the front - you can see the fastener for the leather strap.

Inside - one pouch holds postcards, the other holds cut card for journalling.

A view inside - you can see the gussets and how much more room they give to the pouch.

I sewed on the little pieces to hold a pen.

A side on view again showing the gussets - they were very difficult to get sewn in.

The fastener is a leather strap and buckle from 7Gypsies. I bought a couple of these the last time I was in California - about 5 years ago and this is the first time I have used one and it worked a treat.

Main Products used
12 x 12 Grungepaper
Distress Inks - worn lipstick, fired brick, tumbled glass, vintage photo, black soot
Tim Holtz paper stash - shabby vintage
Distress staind - fired brick, vintage photo
Fresco paint - vintage lace
Tim Holtz stamps - the journey, lost and found
Dies - Tattered florals, Sizzix flower layers 8
I get most of my products on-line and and as I am DT member for the Stamp Man I tend to buy from their on-line shop.

 This feels so soft, I love holding it - just like sheep-skin leather.

We are so looking forward to seeing what you make with Tim's grungeboard or grungepaper. This is the only requirement for this challenge, anything else you use can be from your own stash. You might like to wander over to the All Things Tim discussion group at Yahoo. Gloria, the list mom, has a Grungy Monday file there where participants can upload their art for the group to admire. The address is:  groups.yahoo.com/group/allthingstim

Have a fabulous week.

Luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Edit - Sorry folks just realised Mr Blogger scheduling didn't work as I was out at work yesterday and didn't get back in till 11.00pm last night. Oh well here we are now xoxox

New beginnings, new stamp and COCC #26

Hello everyone and welcome

I have been itching to play with this new stamp that my husband bought me for Christmas. I had been looking at the Stampotique stamps all last year and wasn't sure how I would use them, yet they intrigued me and at last I have plucked up courage to experiment with them. I am pleased with the simplicity of this and the effect I have achieved. I had several challenges in mind,

Stampotique - to use punches/die cuts

Studio L3 - Rusted Grunge

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Your newest stamp

Unscripted Sketches -  old sketch #13     

Prom Queen by Jill Penney and Daniel Torrente has been stamped onto patterned paper and coloured using promarkers. Diecut and stamped pieces have been given the rusted grunge technique (see P45 of TH Compendium of Curiosities for how to do it) and stickles added to edges and crown. The sentiment is my own created in Word.

 

Other challenges to have fun with -

Creative Inspirations - Use something new

Mark's finest papers - Use something new

One Stop Craft - New beginnings

Paper Sundaes - Something new

Pile It On - Brand spankin' new

Creative Card Crew - New beginnings

Try it on Tuesday - New beginnings

Creative Cottage - Something new

Simon Says Stamp - New beginnings

Dutch Dare Card Challenges - Something New

Hope your week is going well - take care and have fun.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

For Mum

Those of you who know me have been aware that Mum (Mary) has been in hospital since the end of November and I have been visiting her every day, (except for a couple that couldn't be helped).

I started making this heart the day before yesterday - inspired by Claudine Hellmuth - as I had seen Mum's Consultant in the morning and knew that she was very poorly and deteriorating. I went up to the hospital again at 4 pm because she was being moved ward and she sadly passed away very peacefully just after 6.00 pm on New Year's Eve. Ken and I were with her.

I will miss her dreadfully as will my sister, my husband and my children - she was a wonderfully warm and giving person and there is now a big gap in my life but her place in my heart and my memories will always be there.

For Mum.

Her favourite colours were always the autumn colours of orange, yellow, beige and brown with some lilac, mauves and blues.

I used stamps and elements that have real meaning for her. Flowers because she loved her garden and growing flowers in the summer. Butterflies - these always remind me of her. Music paper because she loved listening to the radio and musicals on CD. Text print to show her love of reading. I secured the heart as a pouch and have started to print onto a piece of muslin and will go on and embellish it as I feel like it. I hope to use this as a book cover and add photos of her.

Supplies
Grungepaper
Claudine Hellmuth sticky back canvas
Basic Grey paper
Text, flowers and dots background stamps
Distress inks - Rusty Hinge, spiced marmalade
Distress stickles - antique linen
shabby ribbon

Thanks for stopping by to read this.

Big hugs and love to you all. {brenda} xoxox

Happy Birthday

Today is my sister's birthday. Happy birthday Chris, I hope you have a good day. This post is just for you. I hope you got your cards in the post, the one I sent you was made in early January when I started on this venture of getting back into creating works of art. But as you will see it was an early example that helped me back on the path of inspiration and design. As my skills have been improving and as my style has been changing and as I have been experimenting with different things, I wanted to make you a new card to show how my craft is varying and how I am modifying my ideas. I have to say finding the world of blogging has helped me too, but the biggest influence has been you. So this is it. I will bring it up to you when I come and visit.

I started with a colour picture from a book of Victorian illustrations and used it as the backing. I wanted to use grungepaper (another new material for me) and used some dies to get the flower shapes.

 I glued some paper from an old copy of Dickens "A tale of two cities" for one of the shapes and used DIs and glimmers on them, putting them together with a vintage brad. For the birthday wishes sentiment I used the frontage of the book and a rub on, I then printed and heat embossed some swirls round the edges which started to melt the rub-on giving it an older look. I didn't have a 'sister' embellishment to fit the bill so I printed this one off on the PC (using Word), used a scalloped punch and, as before, printed and heat embossed some swirls round the edge, again giving it a more vintage feel. The butterfly is one in a collection I have on the PC that I print off when needed and I cut it out, glimmered it and added some sparkle using the glitter pens. Apart from the other little embellishments, I cut out the word inspire on the Cricut, inked the edges and added to dots for the letter 'i' from the grungepaper and bookprint. I wanted this on it to show how much you have inspired me over the years in many ways and particularly with the art and design.  Your creativity is unending, it really is an inspiration to everyone.

Have a wonderful day, lots of love and hugs from both Ken and I and I hope to see you soon.

Brenda xxxx

PS I don't know if this will fit any challenge sites, it wasn't made with that in mind. I will have a look, but haven't seen anything recently.

Well in my search I have discovered -

Practical Scrappers - Rub-ons

Your next stamp challenges - Distressing

My Grafico challenge - Paper piecing

Fab 'n' funky - It's all in the technique  - my favourite at the moment is adding sparkle

Cute card Thursday - Dimensions

Lots to do - Vintage

If the shoe fits - Going green
Creative Card Crew - Vintage/Aged