PanPastels - make an embellishment

Back to making Christmas cards for this DT piece and I have made 4 of these.

  

Welcome to the PanPastel UK make an embellishment challenge, we hope you will join us this time around and be in with a chance to win your own set of pans from our regular sponsor Your Creativity Store.

My focal image is from the Christmas Chic collage sheet available at Gecko Galz. If you haven't visited their shop or blog I do recommend you take a look, especially if you love vintage images you can print out yourself.

The background for this card was made with PanPastels and the freebie snowflake stamp from the Craft Stamper magazine this month. Two A4 sheets were enough to make my four cards.

The snowflake is my hand made embellishment, die cut from offcuts of the backing paper with a movers and shapers die, heat embossed with sparkly ep and a shrink plastic snowflake for the additional layer. All sparkly bits are diamond Stickles.

A memory box frosty border die-cut, music paper and a computer generated sentiment complete the card.

Another update about my GD, when I visited Friday she was in the hospital classroom, helping a younger boy make a model pirate ship. She was bright and chirpy and is now eating solid foods, a very bland diet though and just small amounts. 

I took lots of cards with me that had arrived over the past week and she was delighted with them and loved looking at the different styles, patterns and colours. I have to say a huge thank you to Sue (Scrumplescrunch), Lynn (Trash to Treasure art), Silvia (BarniesBaustelle), Yvonne (Journey into Artistry), Joyce (Gram's Treasures), Karin (Creativity), Marjie (She who stamps and scraps), Rebekah (Berrylicious), and Trace (Inkypinkycraft). Thank you all for brightening her day and her room.

Happy Sunday.

hugs {brenda} xox

Christmas collage stamp - Crafty individuals

This is one of the new stamps from Crafty Individuals and as soon as it arrived I couldn't wait to play with it. Jean has put it up on the CI blog along with some amazing pieces from her and others from the team.
There are a whole set of new stamps and other products just out and if you enter our Festive Sparkle challenge you can get a whopping 25% discount on everything in the on-line shop. That's a Christmas present in itself isn't it?

So onto my card. A distress ink background, flicked with water and edged with a CI flourish stamp and then snowflakes, (another CI plate), stamped over the top. 

The image was coloured with prismacolors. The greeting was computer generated and stickles added to give some sparkle.

This is simple and totally flat and perfect for posting for Christmas - guess I need to make more of these then lol.

I am going to see my grandaughter today, I haven't seen her for a week but the news is she is making good progress (again!!!), lets hope this will be sustained progress this time, I just pray there are no more relapses. Apparently she got out of bed yesterday, got dressed and felt good enough to put some make-up on, now that sounds so good to me. I am taking a whole batch of cards that have arrived for her in the past week, so I will be back soon with my thank you's. I so appreciate all the support and love you have been sending our way.

Take care, be creative and have a happy Friday.

hugs {brenda} xox

Tag 6 for Funkie Junkie

I am playing catch-up with Linda’s tags, but here is #6 and my inspiration was taken from preparing the tag with the book paper first (although you can hardly see it now). I also used the iced spruce and added a bow, flower and tag similar to Linda’s.

The gorgeous stamp is from Tim’s Christmas Blueprint stamped straight onto the tag which has been covered with picket fence and brushed pewter distress stains and then given a coating of white acrylic paint. I punched out some snowflakes in white, adhered them to the tag and covered them with the brushed pewter DS and then painted some white acrylic paint over.

I masked the snowman and inked further with the iced spruce then highlighted him with a white pen to make him pop more.

By providing a backing tag I have extended the space to use which I love doing and I have added a corner, lace and flower embellishment from the Funkie Junkie Boutique, and will enter this into the Frilly and Funkie Sunday Share. Thanks to Alison I popped over to find I have won a 25% off voucher at the Funkie Junkie Boutique. Thank you Linda. 

Both tags have been distressed along the edges and inked with walnut stain.

I am really quite pleased with the outcome of this. Thanks again for inspiring me Linda.

Linda's 12 Tags of Christmas is an inspiration challenge and there will be a winner drawn at the end of the 12 weeks for those who have entered each one. There is plenty of time to take part as each tag challenge will remain open until the 17th December, so no excuses if you miss any. The sponsor is The Funkie Junkie Boutique, which is Linda's fantastic on-line store where she stocks lots of fabulous products to produce vintage, shabby chic projects.

In hope your week has started well.

take care.

hugs {brenda} xox

Challenges to have fun with -
Sunday Stamper - Blue Velvet
The Crafty Bloggers Network - Christmas Anything Goes
Crafty Ribbons - Christmas
The Artistic Stamper - Anything Goes

Musical challenge at FSC

I am taking the chance to build my Christmas card collection by another one this week with my DT piece for the musical challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges.

A music paper from MME for the background stamped with holly from Tim's mini holidays, a La Blanche stamp with musical notation and a music score die from Memory Box. Add to them some red Stickles for the holly berries, papers for the collage layers and some embellishments and sentiment.

Looking forward to seeing you over at the FSC challenge blog for a fortnight of musical fun. Even if you can't enter this time round, it is always worth taking a peek at the fabulous inspiration from the most amazing team.

Have a great Sunday, hopefully there is some crafty time available to you to have some creative moments.

hugs {brenda} xox

 

Bonfire Night - PanPastels

Well this challenge really got me thinking about representing fireworks and using PanPastels as well. Remember though if you enter the challenge you can use any medium you like.

 I decided on a small 6 x 6 scrap page.

I stamped the row of houses (Crafty Individuals CI-271) using black archival and coloured them with Graph'it alcohol based markers. I love the way these blend together and move around with the clear blender. If you fancy having a try with them they are available from our regular sponsor Your Creativity Store. The colours I used were Mocha, Pink Grey, Caramel and Light Caramel.

Using dazzle versamark I stamped the firework design and went over with pastel shades of PanPastels. I also use some Sakura sparkle pens over the top.

A vintage Brocks Fireworks poster or box lid and a couple of embellishments finished it off.

The photo? My youngest grandaughter last year.

Looking forward to seeing your interpretation of the challenge. Please pop over and seeing the fabulous variety from the team.

hugs {brenda} xox

Festive Sparkle at Crafty Individuals

A festive sparkle canvas - snow storm

Welcome to the Crafty Individuals November challenge and I have been lucky enough to choose the theme for November, so I'm really hoping you are going to join our amazing team in showing some sparkly, festive projects.

Christmas Sparkle

I loved making this project this month. I always wish for snow at Christmas and this was the inspiration for my piece.

Firstly I stamped plate CI - 138 with Versamark dazzle embossing ink and used sparkly EP on it. Luckily found a punch that almost fitted the snowflake and good enough to use. To get variations on a theme, I inked the snowflake part of the stamp with walnut stain DI and the Versamark ink, again using the sparkly EP, and this gave me a very different look. Using this technique I made quite a number of snowflakes for embellishments.

A Tando frame was painted white, when dry it was sanded, painted in places with picket fence distress crackle paint and inked with vintage photo. I also added some Stickles to it. The background for the frame is paper from the CI background papers Bk 2 for Christmas.

The canvas is 30 x 30 cms. I gave it a cover of gesso creating some texture in it, when dry I used PanPastels and a mask to create the background. At the same time I gessoed some chipboard snowflakes and added PPs to them too when they were dry.

I also set about making a large snowflake as the backdrop to the coloured centre. This took me a while as I cut piece of card with an angle of 30 degrees to make a template for the snowflake arms then cut 6 of these and stuck them together. This was also covered with gesso creating rough texture in it. When dry I added PPs and then more gesso over the top sprinkling glamour dust all over it to dry in. Again when dry I inked the edges with walnut stain to create a border so that it would stand out more on the canvas.

When put together I added some gems to the snowflakes and eh voila my own festive sparkle snowstorm.

I think this will look good in my conservatory or dining room this Christmas.

Have fun making your own festive sparkle project and join us in the challenge. 

There is some fabulous inspiration already on the post and more will be coming over the next few days/weeks.

Jean is again offering a massive 25% discount on shop products if you enter the challenge this month, that's everything on the website, including the stamps. 

Woo hoo gotta be worth a look don't you think?

Yay it's Friday, the weekend starts here.

Positive thoughts to everyone who has been affected by hurricane Sandy, I am so thankful that my UPA teamies who live in the area are safe.

Have a great weekend.

hugs {brenda} xox

WOYWW #178

Sorry, missed last week again due to grandaughter still being in hospital and I went to visit her again today. This week is half term so I am looking after the two younger ones so that Dad can still work and Mum can have a week at the hospital and give GD some quality time. So with the story coming up here for WOYWW you will see I am busy, busy, busy.

This is a picture of my desk today, I have got no projects in the making, but have just completed my DT piece for the new Crafty Individuals challenge coming up for November. But why is the Sky box on my stamp tubs? And look at the floor and just outside the door - it's a complete mess. 

Let me tell you why.

Well it was the early hours of Saturday morning, around 12.30 am, the house was still and quiet as a mouse, when all of a sudden I sat bolt upright in bed and hubby, who hadn't come to bed yet, ran up the stairs in panic. Why? Due to an enormously loud crash, it sounded as if half the house had fallen down. Oh my gosh, what was going on? Indeed what?

I ran to the landing and put the light on, only to find I couldn't see the floor in the office/craft room. 

Oh my goodness ........................  

I bet you can see what's coming next .................... 

The shelves above my workspace had completely come away from the wall and everything, yes everything, had slid off and fallen over the workbench and onto the floor. I couldn't believe the mound it had created - at least four foot tall.

I had to smile about it or else I think I would have cried. Paper, card, boxes, tubs, brushes, markers, glue, paint, yes you name it, it all came a tumbling down. Oh well no more to do than clear the floor so that hubby could get to the shelves and make them safe before going to bed. 

Of course I did get told that I had far too much stuff on the shelves and things that were far too heavy too. Yeah I knew that.

So this is what my landing and spare bedroom looked like the next morning. I have almost cleared it, filling tubs and boxes and stacking them in the garage for now. The room will have to be completely gutted and I am going to design a new layout from scratch.
See there is an opportunity in everything if you look for it.

I hope you are having a better time than me at the moment, but we will keep smiling, no use crying over spilt milk.

Happy WOYWW.

hugs {brenda} xox

Eclectic Elements column - UPA

Today I have a new column up at Unruly PaperArts showing how I made a canvas using texture and dimension. 

This new canvas shows my gorgeous daughter when we were at The Grand Canyon in the summer. I love the silhouette photograph. 

Scrapping on canvas is something I now love and will be making more of these to hang on the wall. The previous one you can find here, which is of my grandaughter who is having all the medical difficulties and who has now been in hospital for over a month.

hugs {brenda} xox

PanPastels Halloween and Thank You

A fun tag from me today for the PanPastel UK Halloween challenge.

I picked up a bag of spooky plastic pieces from Wilkinsons recently and having seen lots of skeletons and pieces painted up and used on projects I thought I would see if I could use my PPs on them.
Easy.
I gave them a coating of acrylic gesso and then when dry the PPs blended beautifully over them. I also added some Treasure Gold on the eerie half skeleton.

For the background I ran the tag through a cobweb texture fade then covered with purple, green and orange PPs, blending them where they overlapped, then using a Sofft tool I gently added black PP to the cobwebs so that they stood out more.

The black plastic spider was painted with the gesso then I rubbed black PP over with my finger and it picked out all the texture, love it.

The numbers and letters are die-cut from the Typeset strip die.

Don't forget you don't have to use PanPastels to enter the challenge and the lucky winner will receive a trial set from our sponsors "Your Creativity Store".


When I went to see my grandaughter yesterday I was so pleased to see her sitting up in bed, alert and joining in conversations etc. She is still hooked up to numerous tubes and is nil-by-mouth for a fortnight, getting her sustenance via a tube into one of her veins. I just hope and pray her insides are healing as well as she is on the outside.
I also want to add a huge THANK YOU to you wonderful blogging friends who have offered to make and send my dear grandaughter a card. Already the first ones have arrived, thanks Alison, Margreet and Julia. She loved looking at them, such colourful and varying designs. She was so surprised and it was lovely to see her interest in them.

Enjoy your Sunday.

hugs {brenda} xox

Maddie's Skydive

Just a quickie from me today to show you some pictures taken when Maddie, my daughter, did her skydive which was only 10 days ago.

She is a youth worker in the evenings and in the budget cuts Hampshire council have dropped the funding for youth clubs across the county. Her manager with the support of the other youth workers, including Maddie, have set up a charitable trust and have got funding to continue the Youth Club and outreach work they do. They are very focussed on education as well as support and guidance for the young people of the Fleet area. Five of them raised over £2500 for Fleet Phoenix.

 Getting kitted up - Maddie is furthest to the right.

Out of the plane and parachute open.

Getting nearer the ground - another of her group can be seen in the background.

Getting nearer still.

Touchdown.

Landed.

Her comments? "It's certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience".

Don't think she'll be doing that again in a hurry then lol.

Well done Maddie, I am very proud of you.

Hope you all have a great weekend. 

I am looking forward to going to see my grandaughter tomorrow. 

I just hope she's making some progress again now. I will update you on Sunday.

Happy Friday.

hugs {brenda} xox