Dreaming of Lilies

Two samples for Crafty Individuals today, don't you just love their vintage designs?

This beautiful Lily stamp just cried out to be watercoloured so I had fun playing with my distress markers and watercolour paper.

I was really only experimenting to see how the markers would work, but I finished with two images that I was quite pleased with and could work with.

This card shows the Lily image stamped with coffee archival and watercoloured from the craft mat and a waterbrush.  I just added some masking tape and other collage bits straight onto a craft card.

The second sample has the image stamped with Adirondack dye ink (pesto), given a blast of heat and then also watercoloured using the waterbrush with markers scribbled on the mat. I had to be very careful with this one though as the dye ink reacts with water, so the lines and patterns are not so well defined. I did use the fine end of the DM to draw the Lily back in, but in my style this time which is rather sketchy rather than distinct lines.

I love this simple detail.

These are the four experiments before I chose the two above to work with.

Hope your weekend was good and have a happy week ahead.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Tim Holtz Time Traveller - Destination the Future

I'm a bit late for the new FSC challenge and this is my second post for today, please scroll down to see my latest PanPastel contribution.

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I soon as I saw Tim's peeks for CHA I knew I wanted this set of Time Traveller stamps and couldn't wait to use them. This piece is a size 10 tag mounted onto card which has changed the dimensions completely and allowed me to use the 'Hanging Sign' die as well.

The challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges is 'paper piecing', which seems to have several interpretations, but for me, (using this stamp), it is about cutting and layering parts of the image. Having stamped it four times onto patterned papers and a piece of prepared card. I cut the bits out and once the cravat, waistcoat and jacket were adhered to the main image it created lots of depth and dimension.

The striped background is from Tim's new French Industrial paper stash and I used part of the washer strip die too.

What do you think? I just love that one small pop of red.

Lots of metal embellishments and elements to represent the idea of time travelling.

I look forward to seeing you over at FSC for the challenge and you stand a chance of winning $20 of stamps from Flonzcraft.

Happy Sunday. I will be out today at the last of my 5 days with Andy Skinner doing his techniques course. I so love what he has been doing I have joined up for his on-line Book of Ruination workshop as well.

Take care and thanks for visiting today.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Photo Inspiration at PanPastel UK

I found yet another new way (to me) to use PanPastels and thought I would make this into a tutorial soon as I can see it could be rather popular, that is if you haven't found this one out for yourself already.

It is a version of the Tim Holtz enamelled stamping technique.

This is a Darkroom Door background stamp with magenta and yellow pans to get the shade I wanted for this  photo inspiration challenge.

I covered the dress with pastels then embossed using a script stamp and glitter EP.

To enter all you have to do is take something from it that inspired you from the photo on the PP challenge blog post for today, I am using that fabulous orange colour and the dark greens. If you enter you could be in with a chance of winning a trial set of pans.

To catch up - it became a very busy end of the week when the school where I am governor got the Ofsted call. Consequently everyone galvanised into action ensuring everything was ready for them. It seemed to go positively so I am awaiting the final judgement.

I hope you'll pop back later when I will be showing you another vintage piece using the new Time Traveller stamps from Mr TH himself.

See you soon.

hugs {brenda} x0x

The voice of the sea

Simon Says Stamp and Show this week has been asking us to think about water and how we could represent it in our projects.

I made a tag where the background is a mixture of white acrylic paint and prussian blue decoart traditions paint, smooched together on the craft mat and the tag run through to get that lovely watery feel to it. Later I dipped in picket fence DS and water to acquire more depth.

Because this reminded me so much of the sea I used Crafty Individuals Seaside Treasures stamps and added sea themed embellishments.

The background for the sentiment is the wrinkle free distress technique using vintage photo, chipped sapphire and bundled sage DIs spritzed with blue patina perfect pearls mist.

The lady who has the voice of the sea is stamped from Crafty Individuals 'Beside the Seaside' plate, added to a little frame from eBay and covered with crackle accents - only it didn't crackle!!!!

And look what we woke up to this morning in Surrey. This is the view out of my workroom window with my conservatory below. This was most unexpected!!!

Have a wonderful weekend and I hope those of you further north in the UK are not being adversely affected by the blizzard conditions and snow drifts which seem to be causing much disruption.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Alice Palace at Crafty Individuals

Some more Alice Palace stamp cards from me today and these are new ones just released at the Crafty Individuals on-line store.

I love experimenting with the distress inks and images that are so far out of my comfort zone and these are all made with wrinkle free distress backgrounds.

I used a mixture of distress markers and Inktense watercolour pencils to colour the images in.

To finish I simply distressed the edges and mounted on some backing papers and onto white cards. no embellishments, I am going to let the images speak for themselves.

I love the bright colours  so different for me and they remind me of Spring coming, especially the Live, Lovely Life card.

Do pop over to the CI Blog to see lots of inspiration from the team using the whole range of CI stamps.

Thanks for visiting.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with -
Bloggers Challenge - Think Spring (Love lovely life card)
Stampotique - Spring (Love lovely life card)
Simon Says Stamp - Easter/ Spring

Speckled bunnies - Easter tag

Just wanted to post a little Easter tag today and to say thank you to lots of friends who have left me birthday wishes on Facebook or sent me cards. I have been spoilt with some gorgeous pressies too from my husband, family and close friends.

Anyway I wanted to share this tag as I have been playing with my PanPastels again and found another new technique to use, on here it is speckled bunnies, but I want to try this on eggs too, perfect for that I think.

A very easy effect to achieve - heat embossing powder on the image, have some pastels scraped into little containers ready and when the EP is molten sprinkle the PPs over the top and heat again so that they bake in. See I said it was easy.

I die-cut extra bunnies and popped them up at different levels.

Let me know if you try this technique I would love to come and see what you do.

Enjoy your day, we are out for a meal later which will finish my day perfectly.

Thanks for visiting and for so many lovely comments I receive,

hugs {brenda} x0x

Workshop make

Doing workshops are such great fun and last Saturday I had a group of lovely ladies who enjoyed getting very messy hands using lots of glue and paint. We altered one of those paper mache book boxes that has a drawer in it.

I took along the box we were making and some samples of possible other embossed backgrounds and colours they could use when they try it out for themselves another time.



 We managed to prep and paint the box in three and a bit hours and a few people stayed to finish off with another coat of sealer and some wax rubons.

These are some of the finished boxes made by the class.

The group learned a great deal about how to prepare card substrates for lots of layers of paints; the thickness of paints when wanting to add a coat or a wash and creating textures.

Thanks ladies you worked so hard and produced some magnificent results.

Quote for this week.

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint', then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.

Vincent Van Gogh

Have a creative week.

hugs {benda} x0x