Stamp Man - Precious Medals/Metals

My 'Precious Metals' DT piece this week for the Stamp Man is a bound journal with the theme of gold to it. I have stayed away from the Olympic medals, just because I didn't have any inspiration for it. But any metals will be fabulous to see on your projects. The lovely Angela is hosting this week so do pop over and see the amazing samples from the team.

The frame on the front of my book was cut from gold metal sheet, put through an embossing folder. painted with brown acrylic paint, sanded down and gold inka gold rubbed into it. I then added some aged gold embossing enamel on the edge and some on the front and back cover too.

The inspire phrase was cut from gold mirri board stuck onto greyboard and die cut.

I found the words to Spandau Ballet's song and printed out onto paper for the opening of the book and of course other gold can be added when the book is made up.

Just some of the pages 

Jill is offering the winner a £10 voucher to spend at the Stamp Man On-line Store, you never know this could be you!

Supplies -

Mixed papers for pages and front cover

Bind It All

Sizzix dies - Ornate frame back #3, phrase inspire

Stampendous aged gold embossing enamel

Chocolate acrylic paint, inka gold

Distress inks, aged mahogany, walnut stain, gathered twigs

Metal sheet

Cracked embossing folder

A selection of masks

Have a great weekend.

hugs {brenda} xox

PanPastel UK - Summer Fun

Remember last week I showed you the cover for a book I am making? Well here are a couple of the pages.

I have used some more of that A4 PanPastel background, stamps and burlap. The beach huts have been cut from a piece of freebie paper from a magazine and the sun on the second page is just made from card.

Tune in next week for the last instalment of the book and see it completed.

If you join in the PanPastel challenge this week, you could be the lucky person chosen to win a fabulous set of pans from Your Creativity Store. And remember you don't have to use PPs to link up.

Hope your weekend is going well.

hugs {brenda} xox

UPA RAQ - Journal It

A hybrid scrapbook page.

Unruly PaperArt's theme this month is 'Journal It', focusing on scrapbook pages. I love scrap-booking and tend to make my own books, although saying that I haven't made any recently but I have been wanting to 'scrap' some photos of our trip to Paris back in April (you know the one Ken treated me to for my birthday).

This Moulin Rouge paper from Graphic 45 fitted the bill perfectly and has been sitting there waiting to be used for such a project. The graphics are fabulous and with so many lovely images I didn't want to cover too much of it up PLUS I needed to get the journalling in, so I have reverted to the classroom when I used to make books with my pupils and we would make lots of flaps and things to do our writing on. I just love secret places to explore on pages don't you?

Whilst in Paris I just had to find the Moulin Rouge as my final dissertation at college was on Toulouse Lautrec and of course this featured strongly in his work.

I have used PSE 7 to change my colour photos to sepia and to print some digital elements that I have added to the page. As this will go in a 12 x 12 plastic pocket it needs to be kept fairly flat and the paper is very busy anyway. The lampost I created myself from one of our Paris photos, the other bits come from DigitalCrea. I wanted a bit more of a 'girly' look to this so added the mannequin.

I also wanted the photos to have an aged and slightly distressed look so I used Antique Linen and Walnut Stain DIs on them before mounting onto brown card.

Beneath the photos you can see the little journalling mounts I have made to provide the details of the trip.

I hope you will enter some scrapbook journalling this month, it would be fabulous to see you on UPA and of course if you would like to be a guest contributor then see Shar's article here.

Crafty salutations.

hugs {brenda} xox

PanPastel UK - School's Out or Buttons and Bows. and a PUBLISHED CARD

Guess what I chose for my PanPastel DT piece this week? 

Yay school's out for summer.

Using an Oxford Impressions stamp set I have made a book cover depicting a girl with her satchel and a report book cover. The background (originally an A4 size) was made in summer colours using PanPastels and masks and a portion cut for this piece.

Here are some more pieces cut from that original A4 background. You will see these come alive over the next couple of weeks.

And here are the first two pages in the book.

All the things we love to do when on holiday when we have time for friends.

If you come and join in the challenge you could be the lucky winner of a set of pans from Your Creativity Store. You don't have to use PPs to be eligible for the draw though.

Have a great day and enjoy whatever you have planned.

hugs {brenda} xox

UPDATE (later that morning......)

I am sooooo excited.

I have just seen the Papercraft Inspirations website which shows a card I made for their PanPastel Masterclass.
You can see the card HERE, but will have to see the new magazine for the full Masterclass details of the design team. I will go searching for it today.  See my sidebar for the published card and click on the photo to be transported to my tutorial on the Papercraft Inspirations blog. Woo hoo. xox

Anything Goes at FSC

Well we all love the anything goes theme don't we? So as long as you have used real stamping on your project come and join us and enter it into the Fashionable Stamping Challenge for this fortnight and please pop over to see what the amazing Stampettes have provided for your inspiration. There is also a DT call that you might be interested in.

I have been making some 'Thank You' cards for the lovely friends and family who came to our BBQ last weekend and have kept them simple because they have to be posted.

I used stamps by Kanban and Martha Stewart and added some ribbon, pearls, a metal corner and one of my downloaded butterflies.

I hope you are having a good weekend. We are away visiting friends in Birmingham and also having my eyes tested, I bet I need a new prescription and glasses!!

Have a great day.

hugs {brenda} xox

Lucky Me

I just had to post these fabulous pressies that came in the post to me from Lee - CraftyLoops.

I was lucky enough to be one of Lee's winners for her blogaversary candy and oh my goodness she has been so generous, just take a look at what she sent me. It was a huge parcel.

Here it all is. 

I just took everything out and had to photo it even though it was till on the breadboard in the kitchen. LOL

The most amazing book that Lee made which is going to California with me when I go. It will make a fabulous ideas journal for future projects and I hope to get some inspiration when I am over there.

At first I thought these were Prima flowers - but no they have been handmade by Lee herself. They are beautiful and will be kept for special projects.

Lots of embellishments as you can see.

And more embellishments and bits for altering.

papers, diecuts and a cosmic shimmer spray. (love that stuff)

And here is the inside of that magnificent book and the closure Lee made of elastic and lots of lace and feathers and another of her wonderful flowers.

Lee thank you so much for your generosity and for being a wonderful crafter that I have been lucky to meet in blogland.

I truly have been blessed this week as I have received another package with goodies in including some new PanPastel colours and secret bits to play with. Will let you know more about these when I get to post something I have made using them. But thanks also go to Berni and Paul at Your Creativity Store for their generosity too.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

hugs {brenda} xox

Celebrations at The Stamp Man

I have a number of birthdays coming up so need to get a wiggle on and get cards made. This was the ideal opportunity to do just that and it is one of those that just seemed to come together so well. Even though I say it myself, I really like this card, and it does look better irl.

I think what made this was the partial colouring in of the flourish. I used Caran D'Ache aquarelle pencils but didn't use the water on them.

Collage style cards have to be my favourite, so I hope you like too.

Come and join the celebrations at The Stamp Man this fortnight and be in with a chance to win a £10 voucher for the on-line store, generously given by Jill (Mrs Stamp Man herself).

Supplies -

Artemio stamps - sewing and butterfly collage

Stampendous Music Score stamp

Tim Holtz - Shabby French stamp set

Sizzix Book cover 2 embossing folder

Adirondack dye inks - Cranberry, Terracotta, Espresso, Caramel

TH Distress Ink - Walnut Stain

Downloaded butterfly

Vintage ribbon

Computer generated sentiment

Lace, button, burlap

Hope your Friday and weekend have started well.

Enjoy yourself and take care.

hugs {brenda} xox

PanPastel UK - Magical and Mystical

It's amazing what you can come up with when you think you don't have anything to fit a challenge. As I found with this DT contribution for PanPastel UK this week.

I had forgotten I had a few Lili of the Valley stamps and found this beautiful fairy, stamped and coloured with promarkers and I used gilding flakes for stamping the wings twice more to create this 3D effect. The Stampotique mushrooms were coloured with PPs and touched up with a white pen.

The background was created with PPs mixed with a little gel medium and water and I used Tim Holtz's wrinkle free distress technique, it works really well with the pastels and you get a more rugged effect. I stamped foliage over the top and spayed with spray and shine. When it was dry I covered with watery gesso and dabbed it dry to get that mottled effect.

I finished by stamping the beautiful flower border (Prima) and used zig water colour pens just to add a touch of colour then made the grass and added one of my downloaded butterflies sprayed with gold sparkle.

There are a number of pieces of art that I have created lately that don't lend themselves to a card or an art journal so I have started a book to house my own little art collection. It's a large Reeves sketchbook and will take larger than A4.

Hopefully we will see something magical and mystical from you this week at PanPastel UK where you are in with a chance of winning a set of pans and tools from Your Creativity Store.

Enjoy your Sunday and the new week ahead.

hugs {brenda} xox

Workshop card and Air Show

Apologies to those of you who have been following my Tuesday Treasures, but unfortunately I am not going to be able to do it for a few weeks. My eldest granddaughter has been diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and is currently in hospital with it, so time is needed to help look after the younger girls etc. and to visit. We are also getting ready to go on holiday soon, but I will start TT again at the beginning of September once the summer's drawing to a close (Summer? I hear you say. What summer? It just hasn't happened in the UK has it?).

I would like to show you a few photos today. On Saturday we had our big BBQ but the weather didn't hold and we had to go inside in the evening. Do you know nobody took a photograph! Not one! But I have got some gorgeous earrings to show you that the lovely Sue, Miriam and Lynne gave me. I used to work with them a few years ago and we stay in touch and meet up for coffee and meals when we can.

Aren't these fabulous?

I also did a workshop on Saturday at The Art of Craft in Farnborough and the group made this card.

Lastly we were able to go to the Airshow in Farnborough on Sunday and I did take a few pics but won't bore you with too many. The Airbus A380 came over the house when it did it's demonstration just above our roof, what a beast.

The Vulcan

The Lancaster and Spitfire?

I hope you are having a good week. Take care.

hugs {brenda} xox