PanPastel - By the Sea

Hi Everyone

It's been a different week this week, busy but also the end of the week has been filled with worry and then tinged with real sadness.

Some of you know my grandaughter was diagnosed with Crohns earlier in the year. She has been on steroids which got her through our holiday in California, but this week she has been in severe pain and was taken to A&E on Friday. Test showed not only had the Crohns flared again, but she has a perforated bowel as well. This resulted in her being quickly transferred to Southampton General and she underwent emergency surgery and has had part of her bowel and her appendix removed. She is currently in intensive care.

I also got an email tonight from a dear blogging buddy who lives in Canada. After contracting cancer earlier in the year, her husband sadly passed away recently. Ken and I had the great privilege of meeting them both last year when they visited England, so it was with real sorrow I read the news.

I dedicate this tag to my dear friend and her family.

*********************


My DT piece this week is a tag that uses PanPastels for the background

Firstly I blended phthalo blue, ultramarine and white for the sky, phthalo green, turquoise and white for the sea and yellow ochre, dairylide yellow and a tiny, tiny amount of raw umber for the sand. I used an eraser to rub out some white clouds and white tops on the water.

To vintage it up a bit I painted white gesso over the three different areas which makes it look more like a painting..

When dry I ran this through the Sizzix 'Rays' embossing folder which made me think of rays of light from the lighthouse and sanded it down, then blended vintage photo around the edges.

The lighthouse I blended with black and white pans, 

then painted over that with permanent red, yellow ochre and white pastels mixed with matte medium and water. The gel medium helps to mix the pastel with the water and gives a very smooth consistency.

To finish I added a stamped sentiment and other embellishments. I thought the lace was a complete contrast for the theme.

Looking forward to seeing your entries this week. Summer will soon be gone so it's almost your last chance to use those beach and sea themed stamps. Don't forget you don't have to use PanPastels to enter the challenge and the lucky winner receives a fabulous trial pack so I hope to see you there.

Have a wonderful Sunday.

hugs {brenda} xox

Challenges to have fun with -
Take a Word - Numbers
Simon Says Stamp - Use a stamp
Frilly and Funkie - The great outdoors
Cards and More - Maritime

Altered notebook for Crafty Individuals

I would like to share this altered notebook which uses a new stamp from Crafty Individuals 

(CI 357).

I made the background using distress inks and masks ............

...... then when dry I painted a thin layer of gesso over it to take out the depth of colour otherwise it 'argued' with the focal image, which was coloured with prismacolor pencils. 

Diecuts by CI and memorybox and I finished off with some lace and a button.

This little flower was made with the MBox Fancy Blossoms die and paper from Crafty Individuals background papers Book 1.

Do pop over to the Crafty Individuals blog where Jean has also made a fabulous card with this stamp using Transfer Artist Paper (TAP).

BUT ALSO there is 

BLOG CANDY from Jean 

with over £70 worth of Crafty Individuals goodies 

and will be given to one lucky person who leaves a comment on her post before the end of next Tuesday and if you can post it on your side-bar even better.

Good Luck.

hugs {brenda} xox

WOYWW and giveaway reminder

A very short post from me today as I am away from my desk and visiting my sister.

This was my desk last night after I had cleared everything away and then remembered WOYWW for the morning. So nothing interesting to see, but I gave a wider scan showing the drawers full of scrummy goodies besides the workbench.....

Also just a reminder that I have a Give-Away posted and you can link to it from HERE or from my sidebar, it is only for followers as I am celebrating yay.

Have a great WOYWW day, catch ya later when I get home.

hugs {brenda} xox

Crafty Individuals - Last days of summer

Today I am sharing my first design piece for Crafty Individuals and the September challenge theme is 'The last days of Summer'. For me that immediately evoked feelings of being in Swanage with my Mum and Dad when they were alive, being outside the beach-hut on warm September days and just taking in the last of the sea-air for the year.

So here is my chunky postcard using stamp plates 119, 272 and 278. The postcard backing is a downloaded image from the Graphics Fairy.

The little shells have been stamped onto painted shrink plastic and to make the double sided beach huts I stamped and coloured then scanned my image into PSE. It was flipped horizontally before printing out and I added it back to back with the original, this made sure that the front and back matched for cutting out.

The sentiment on the stamped postcard image 'Wish you were here' was then followed up on the side where I added - 'for the last lazy days of summer'.

I am looking forward to seeing how you interpret this theme and I will be back with another postcard in a few days.

Please go take a look at Jean's amazing offer if you enter the challenge you can get a massive
25% off code
for the Crafty Individuals on-line store. Now there's a prize for everybody don't you think?

I hope you have some creative fun today.

hugs {brenda} xox

Challenges to have fun with -
Anything but a card Challenge - Anything Goes
Simon says Stamp and Show - Read all about it (Words and stamping)
Creative Stamp Friends - Distress
Everybody Art Challenge - Vintage

Celebration Give-Away

Hi Everyone

Gio has become my 400th Follower, so welcome Gio and all new bloggers who have joined since before my holiday. I am so happy you have become part of my creative journey, which has certainly taken a new turn in the last few weeks. As you know I have joined the Crafty Individuals DT, which is very exciting, so there is lots to celebrate which is a perfect reason to have a Give-Away.

This is what is on offer for my fabulous followers -

Halloween embossing folders by Tim Holtz

The jalopy stamp on wood, again by Tim Holtz

Papermania chipboard album

2 x Christmas dies

A tiny tin for altering

3 packets of decorative brads

If I find anything else before the end of September I will add it into the collection.

To be eligible please -

1. Post this picture on your sidebar.

2. Make sure you are a follower.

3. Link to this post using the inlinkz below.

4. Leave a comment telling me you have entered.

The Give-Away closes on the 30th September and I will draw the winner using Random Org soon after. Anyone who is not eligible will not be included. I will post worldwide.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to visit and to those who also leave fabulous comments, this is such an amazing and supportive community. I have made so many blogging friends and acquaintances and have been privileged to meet some of you in person.

Good luck with the draw and have a happy, creative September.

hugs {brenda} xox

Thanks for joining the Give-Away, please leave your link below. 

12 Tags of 2012

My second post for today and Tim's September's tag has been posted. I haven't managed to keep up with all of them but was determined to have a go at this one straight away. 

It features the faux riveted metal look and as I haven't tried this one before I had to experiment to see how it works. Well I will certainly be using this again, such an amazing look and a clever technique. Check out Tim's tag and tutorial  HERE.

So lovely to be playing and experimenting for a change.

I hope you have a creative Sunday.

hugs {brenda} xox

PanPastels #34 - All about stripes

This week at PanPastels UK the challenge theme is all about stripes, so make sure you show us your interpretation and remember you do NOT have to use PanPastels to be eligible to enter.

My sample today is rather different for me. Rather than make my own backing paper I have used DP from The Station paper pad by MME and added some PPs to it.

I have also used spellbinders labels 20 and stamps to create the focal piece and sentiment.

I hope you are having a great weekend, but before I go I thought I would share a few more holiday photos with you.

Me and Ella (aged 6) - photo taken by Maddison (aged 4)

Becca, Ella and Maddison

Ben (my son) and Bev and the girls

Pelicans everywhere waiting for the fishing boats to come in.

Couldn't resist the Coke truck!! At the outlet centre - well we had to shop sometime didn't we?

The outlet was very near the Mexican border. 

These two girls just love to play around - that's Maddie (my daughter) in the background.

More photos to come another day - hope you won't get bored with them lol.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} xox

UPA RAQ - Off to Collage

You can tell it's the first of the month, so much to show you this weekend and this is my second post for today.

Glue Book for Unruly PaperArts.

A glue book is whatever you want it to be, but generally it is a 'sketchbook' for mixed media work. It invariably includes glue and can be about practise runs, just letting your creative expression free, but there are no rules, just the ones you create for yourself.

I started a glue book some time ago, there isn't much in it, but I thoroughly enjoyed my free expression for this RAQ. So often I am designing for DT samples which confines me to specific themes or rules. Here there weren't any, other than I wanted to have some fun and try something different to my normal style.

My favourite artist for experimenting with collage effects is Claudine Hellmuth (I did her creative collage course last year), so I thought I would do some "Beyond the Expected" techniques from her book (same name). Creating Poppets as she calls them.

This is me playing and just having fun. Nothing like Claudine's Poppets really, but even so I have had to think about form, shape, colour, perspective and some journalling using the actual pages from my Glue Book itself - see a wondrous novel indeed.

The journalling reads - 'Luckily the Uphams sent her out into the garden and there sat the poor thing all alone in the arbour. I spoke to her over the fence. She is such a delicate child, poor Amy.' The words and phrases were all chosen from the text of the book before I painted the pages with gesso and then acrylic paint.

Do you use a glue book? What have you been 'playing' and experimenting with lately? Do pop over to Unruly PaperArts and see how your work could be featured on the blogozine.

If you haven't seen my exciting news please pop two posts back to see how lucky I am to be part of a new design team. Woo hoo, excitement or what?

Have creative fun.

hugs {brenda} xox

Challenges for a change

Lots to show you today, this is post 1 and a tag I made just for me. Of course it has a dress form and a kinda sewing theme, but then it would wouldn't it????

It is ages since I entered any challenges, so I thought I would do something for just that purpose today and I chose Frilly and Funkie - now how could I resist that one lol; Simon Says Stamp and Show - Summer distress colours and Rogue Redhead Designs - use a circle, square and rectangle.

The tag was stamped with embossing ink which resists the summer distress colours that I blended over the top. I added a square of circles (does that make sense?) and rectangles of tissue paper which I blended with the DIs, the chicken wire and a piece of netting beneath it are also rectangular. To those I added a Crafty Individuals dress form (plate CI-306), also stamped with embossing ink and again the DIs blended over.

Other bits and pieces finish it off. I would like to thank dear Terry for the fibre card and tiny cotton reel as they were in a package of goodies she gave me when I visited her a few weeks ago. Thanks Terry, all my lovely bits are now in my 'sewing' box.

If you haven't seen my exciting news, then please scroll down to the last post. I am still in shock and can't believe my luck.

Wishing you happy times this weekend. Post 2 coming up soon.

hugs {brenda} xox

My News - Crafty Individuals - Altered Frame

Hi Everyone, I have some amazing news today, Jean at Crafty Individuals has asked me to be on her design team. You can imagine how excited I was when I received the email and of course I said 'yes' straight away, what an honour and how fabulous to be working with such a brilliant, versatile and vintage range of stamps. I have collected a number of their stamps together and I hope to be using some new ones to the range soon as well.

So this is my first piece to introduce myself to the team and the blog. I chose to use some images from the ephemera sheets and make this textured, altered frame. I would love it if you popped over to the CI Blog to leave me a message there.

I began by giving this paper substrate triple frame a coat of household undercoat paint and once dry I used a range of cream, beige and blue paints, applying them with different utensils and stippling with a brush to get a textured feel to it. Into the paint I added some torn tissue tape and torn pieces of paper - just cheap copy paper blended with some PanPastels then stamped with CI 161 text, CI 308 and CI 307 ticket stamps. This also was used for the frame backing papers. After that I mixed white acrylic and rock candy crackle paint and stippled over in various places to get more texture.

The CI 'Life's Journey 1' images were adhered to brown painted mini canvases with some stamping, lace and buttons.

The sides and insides of the frames were covered with tissue tape and the bookplate, banner and other embellishments finish it off.

Thanks for looking today. I look forward to showing you more pieces using those fabulous Crafty Individuals stamps and products that can be found at the on-line store.

Have yourself a creative day.

hugs {brenda} xox

Thought I would look for a few challenges this fits -
Out of a Hat Creations - Favourite technique or product (This includes several favourite techniques and of course my most fave products at the moment are from Crafty Individuals) Good one girls.

Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes

Everybody Art Challenge - Anything Goes

Try it on Tuesday - Travel

The Shabby Tea Room - Summer Cottage