Bundle Book Winner

It was such a surprise and a pleasure to have so many people enter my Give-Away for the little Bundle Book I made. A huge thank you to followers and readers for being with me on this journey and for sharing in the creative process.

I used Random Org to choose the winner who is .......

No:44 Marjie Kemper

Thanks Marjie for taking part in the fun and if you email me your address I will get it into the post for you.

brenda_brown25@hotmail.com

I hope you are having a good week everyone.

See you here tomorrow for my next post.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Summer Sizzler 3 at Country View Challenges

More summer garden fun from me for my last DT piece for our Summer Sizzler themed challenge at Country View Crafts. What a great challenge it has been. This is one of the samples I made at the PaperArtsy training day a couple of weeks back, once I got home I finished it off by making it into a card.

I used the crackle glaze and Jofy stamps – a simple design stamped over the crackle background and painted with FF paints.

I added the words when I got back, distressed the edges and added it to a tall kraft card which has been text stamped at the top and bottom. 

The paper bunting and pennants at the side were pieces of scrap design papers from my left overs box.

Don’t forget this challenge finishes soon, we would love to see any more of your entries before the end of the month.
Don't forget my Give-Away closes this wednesday, so this is the last chance to get your name on the Linky list if you want to try out for the little hand made book.

I hope you are able to take time to smell the flowers this week.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

PaperArtsy Tulip board

Using one of the layered painty backgrounds from the PaperArtsy day I attended a while ago, I have used Lin Brown’s tulip stamp to create the focal image. The stem is a chipboard piece provided by Leandra and the tulip was cut ready for us I just had to decorate it using FF paints and some stamping.

The background was made by a process Leandra calls ‘splat, splat rub’ using opaque Fresco Finish paints. Over this I randomly stamped some text using and the collaged word  ‘reflections’ using a set by Sara Naumann.

With the toad hall FF paint left over from the stamping I mixed in some grungepaste and used a new stencil which I think reflects Lin Brown’s stamps beautifully. I brushed white-fire treasure gold over the top when it was dry.

You can see the dimension created in the flower using TH grungepaper and some shine from the TG over the stencilling and around the edge of the board.

To finish off I stamped the sentiment from Lin’s art in bloom set and cut it up.
I mounted it onto some wire and made it into a hanging.

I am so glad I got this finished today so that I can enter it into the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge – ‘Good to be Green’.

I hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend. The sun came back out early afternoon and it’s been glorious again. Just like Lanzarote weather – which is where we usually go to guarantee some sun.

Take care and have a great week ahead.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Gridlocked Time

The title just popped into my head and made me wonder what it really meant. Can you have gridlocked time? I don’t know – gridlock usually refers to traffic that can’t move and came from the concept of it being in a grid. Wikipedia gives a description and also says – “the term has been applied to situations in other fields where flow is stalled by excess demand, or in which competing interests prevent progress”.

I wanted to find some time to join in SanDee and amelie’s RUST challenge, so oranges and rusty colours were in my head, rather grungy this time round.   So here is my gridlocked Time Traveller (Tim Holtz Time Traveller set), stamped onto gridded kraft card and painted with distress inks and a little picket fence distress paint. He looks quite white (more-so irl) where the flow of time has slowed him down and he is struggling with the need to move into the next point of time but has been caught in the geometry of space that prevents him moving on.

The tag is one from my box that was used to mop up inks from a previous project and I have added some coloured grunge paste through a mask and the stamped cogs.

The clock charm has been treated to dabs of metallic DPs and stains which were heated to bake them together, giving them a real rusty look..

The nib is one from my box of vintage nibs I collect and the little bottle had some black soot and spiced marmalade DPs dripped into it. The pennants are ribbed card inked and then clear embossed with bronzed mica fragments added

Seam binding was stamped with the cogs and inked and painted with DIs and DPs. Whoops didn't get a photo of that.

I wonder if this Time Traveller will get back into the spacetime he needs to.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, I hope you are having a great weekend, although I am missing the sunshine already in the UK, it’s really cloudy today here in Surrey. We are having a BBQ tonight, I just hope the weather holds, although rain isn’t forecast.

Have a great evening yourself.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Other challenges to have fun with

Craft Room - Vintage Stamping

Decades at ‘Crafts-Too Challenge You’ week 3

Today sees a slight change to the challenge theme at C2CU, for the last 2 weeks it’s been choose your era or decade and anything goes, but from this week you still choose the decade/era but this time you need to have 3 or more layers on your projects.

To me this image reflects the Victorian age when young girls sat with their mothers and grandmothers and learned to sew.

From the tag to the image there are five layers on my tag and three of these have been painted, inked and/or stamped, I felt the arch gave a nice shape to mount the girl on.

She looks so comfortable doesn’t she, with her feet on the pouffe?

I had a flower left over from a previous project that fitted nicely and used some music paper and a Martha Stewart border. The sentiment is computer generated.

Hope you will be able to join us this week.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Pocket Card Workshop

I designed and created this card for a recent workshop, it can be used for a special occasion or as a little gift for someone.

When you open the card there are two pockets made to hold tags and these could be a greeting for a friend, messages for a special occasion or photos that can be given to someone as an unusual gift. In fact I made one for a very good friend and one her daughter who has just had a baby and inserted an M&S gift card.

I used a new (to me) Artistic Outpost stamp from the ‘Generation Redux’ plate and watercoloured it using distress inks and mounted this onto dark green card. A simple border and strip of patterned paper ground the image and some dip dyed DI string and a key charm are the only embellishments. The sentiment is computer generated.

Inside I used the same pattern paper for the background as I used on the front and two triangles of blue card make the pockets.

Again some simple embellishments using music score and cut out printed images.

The tags were given the wrinkle free distress treatment and some stamps added leaving spaces for messages and/or photos.
I'm entering this into the July Artistic Outpost Referral Program with an anything goes theme.

I hope you are enjoying this wonderful heat wave if you are in the UK. We have the BBQ on, the garden decorated and the umbrellas and gazebos up, the paddling pool is out for the little ones and now just awaiting family and friends to join us, including Joni and Leo from California.

Have a great day.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Decades at ‘Crafts-Too Challenge You’ Week 2

My contribution today over at C2CU is a tag pocket made from a Ranger size 12 manila tag. I so love the distress paints and this background has been made using victorian velvet, antique linen and walnut stain.

As you can see the tag was folded so I could see exactly where to do the next layers which included stencilling with gesso, stamping with distress inks, laying picket fence crackle paint over some of the edges and when fully dry spraying with dylusions white linen spray. With such a small amount of stamping I am entering this into the challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show called 'A little stamping'.

I put the pocket together and added various images and stamped ephemera.

Plus a small pair of scissors and thread card from Maya Road that were covered with antique linen DP, the scissors then given the Treasure Gold treatment and the card stamped with coffee archival.

The ladies are from the 1950’s paper pack by Marianne Designs.

This pocket is going to be a place for me to keep some of my sewing ephemera and left over stamped images from projects.

The word Treasure is a rub-on.

Hopefully you will have something you can link to the Decades theme at C2CU this week. It’s anything goes with any era or decade you like to choose, but the twist changes next week so beware.

Thanks for stopping by my post today. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Other challenges to have fun with -
Creative Stamp Friends - Tag
The Craft Room - Vintage Stamping

Summer Sizzler 2 at Country View Crafts Challenge

This is my second piece for the CVC Summer Sizzler challenge and again I have gone with ‘hot 'colours and a warm summer theme. Bees humming in the garden collecting the pollen couldn't be any more summery to me.

I started my tag  background today with picked raspberry, salty ocean, spun sugar and picket fence distress inks with mustard seed distress stain. I spritzed the paints and dipped the tag until I was happy with the blend of colours, heat dried it and added some of the same colour distress inks to it. The stamps are Invoke Bees set.

Using a honeycomb mask I sprayed Dylusions squeezed orange, but it didn't show up very well, so I stamped the bee hive and bees in black archival and then run the tag through the Tim Holtz honeycomb embossing folder with the oval diffuser over the top. This left the central part flat and I blended ripe persimmon distress ink over the raised areas to create the texture I wanted.

The extended part of the tag has been cut from a Papermania pad with the honey comb pattern and I dipped it in picked raspberry, wild honey, broken china, mustard seed, and peeled paint distress stains. The sentiments are from the Artistic Outpost' ‘Think and Wonder’ and ‘Paperboy’ sets.

I finished off with a ‘jar of honey’, metal bee and some chit-chat words from Tim Holtz.

I hope you are enjoying July.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Mail Train

My friends at FSC have a great challenge going on which is ‘Mail Time’ which is anything to do with postage, so I went off at a bit of a tangent and produced this tag.

The background started with dips into left over inks from my current give-away book and then I blended some milled lavender, victorian velvet and dusty concord distress inks through it. The background stamp is from the Tim Holtz Classic #3 set and has the word ‘Letters’ across the middle so I thought that would be very appropriate and as I was looking through my TH stamp sets I saw the train from the Travel Ways set and my brain made the connection – letters and trains = the Mail Train.

I had a small piece of glassine paper on my desk so I stamped it on, heated it to embed the ink into the paper and used distress markers to colour it up. I used pumice stone, antique linen and picket fence. At first the white was far too vibrant so painted water over it and dabbed it off with kitchen roll and it dried a lighter tone, much better this way.

Some tissue tape, the postage stamp from Tim’s Tiny Things set and some other embellishments to add design interest.

The attachment to the ribbon is a small button I picked up at a car boot sale some time ago. I was told by the stall holder it was a railway badge possibly given to the driver or staff. It was bright yellow so it’s been altered with distress paints and onyxite treasure gold – as was the metal number 8.

So no longer being a DT member at FSC means I can now enter their challenges. Thanks for this one girls.

Well the weather is just wonderful here in the UK, gorgeous sunshine, hot temperatures, at last a real summer and set to last for a few days. I hope it lasts past next weekend as our friends Joni and Leo from California are over and they are going down to Cornwall for a few days tomorrow. We are having a big BBQ for them on Sunday before they go off on a cruise.

Have a wonderful week wherever you are.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Choose a decade or era

The new challenges at ‘Crafts-Too Challenge You’ starts today and they are going to be a lot of fun. The theme for the month is ‘Choose your Decade or Era’ but for the first two weeks there is a twist, but because it’s a brand new challenge blog the twist is ‘Anything Goes’. So we are looking forward to seeing lots of lovely projects that link to some time in history.

I am showcasing a canvas depicting images from the 1950’s and used some stamps from Marianne Designs.

I started by sealing the canvas with gesso then stamped some vintage dressmaking pattern paper and glued it all over. When dry I added distress paints and spritzed over them causing them to bleed and blend together and heat dried.

I glued on the embellishments with tissue tape and stencilled numbers using walnut stain distress ink. When dry I washed over some white gesso making it thicker over the added elements, when this was dry I let some of the watery wash dribble down the canvas.

I stamped the ladies and child onto cream card and again on Marianne Designs patterned paper and paper-pieced the dresses. After cutting them out I inked the edges with walnut stain and glued them to the canvas.

To finish off added some more stencilling, the flowers, sentiment and the butterfly ….

I also watercoloured some vintage photo distress ink around the images to make them stand out a little more.

So if you are doing a project over the next two weeks that links to another era or decade we would love to see it over at ‘Crafts-Too Challenge You’.

Take care and have fun.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with -
Bloggers Challenge - create your own background
Crafts 4 eternity - sewing room
Crafts and Me - anything goes
Stampotique - recycle (dressmaking pattern and the sew letters are scrabble pieces)
Creative Card Crew - no designer paper
Try It On Tuesday - metal (scissors, hanger)
Cheerful Stamp Pad - from the past
Imagination Crafts - anything goes
Simon Says Stamp and Show - anything goes