Finn Journal Pages

I hope everyone has had an amazing Christmas. We have. Becca came out of hospital a couple of weeks ago after her op which seems to have been very successful. We were so happy to see her home and to know that she finally can eat normally again.
We had a family meal (9 of us) at our house on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and then went to our son's on Boxing Day. There were lots of presents round the tress and we all enjoyed opening our gifts together and sharing our excitement. What a lovely time we have had.


I still have some seasonal things to finish and show but for now here are more pages I am adding to my Finnabair Journal as I want to get all three grandchildren in it, this is the youngest.

I am creating all these pages as a double page spread.

These have a gesso base on coloured/patterned cardstock.

After adding torn card and trims I added more gesso through stencils.

Added more bits and pieces, gesso and then the photo and sprays.

Then came embellishments, some stamping, dripped tea, doodling and metallic wax.

Love these photos, they say so such about this special little girl.

Have a great weekend.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Merry Christmas

I join you today to wish all my followers and readers a very

Merry Christmas

and hope you have a day filled with merriment and love surrounded by those who mean so much to you and have a special place in your heart.

I am sharing this lantern over at Country View Crafts today where you can read the details of how I made it. But for here at Bumblebees and Butterflies may it provide you with a feeling of love and joy at this special time of year.

Thank you for being here.

Christmas hugs

{brenda}

x0x

Festive Spirit at Crafty Individuals

I hope your Christmas Eve is filled with satisfaction as you finish any preparations for the big day tomorrow.

 I have made a card using a new Alice Palace stamp called ‘Jolly Owl’, for the Crafty Individuals challenge.

A festive card in red and green with the background mount from my supplies.

The image was stamped onto a gelli print made sometime ago and the letters were coloured in with Graph’It markers. Mr Owl was given some distress paint and ink markings, a gold grown and a green bowtie.

The flowers and star are from Hobby Craft and I used a CI text stamp on the star to add some texture to it.

I shall be back tomorrow with a scheduled piece for Country View Challenges.

My family are arriving soon and we will sit down for a Christmas Eve meal together to begin our festivities and all meet again tomorrow to share our gifts. I so love this time of year.

Have fun whatever you have planned for the next few days.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Snowy Owl at Crafty Individuals

The weather here didn’t start to turn colder until mid November then cold nights made me feel like winter was really on the way and that is what inspired my snowy owl tag. Since I made this tag a couple of weeks ago the wind and rain have set in and it's been quite miserable. Hope it's dry and brighter on Christmas day.

The background was made using a mix of the spritz and flick and the wrinkle free distress techniques with Tim Holtz snowflakes stamped in Chipped Sapphire over the top. This was then given a spray of Dylusions White Linen ink.

I stamped Mr Owl onto a piece of leftover card where I had also used the wrinkle free distress technique and I painted his bowtie in red.

I made the snow myself using snow dust, glitter, white acrylic paint and some glue and painted it on various places including over the word band.

I painted the silver bells with festive berries distress paint and added some of the snow to them, pinning them onto a gold bow.

This tag really makes me feel quite chilly lol.

Materials

Stamp – CI-400 from Crafty Individuals

CI-241 – Snowflakes background

Holiday Lampost die – Tim Holtz for Sizzix

Dylusions White Linen ink

Tim Holtz Christmas word band

Distress Inks – tumbled glass, chipped sapphire

You still have time to enter the festive challenge at Crafty Individuals, do pop over to read the rules and see some fabulous inspiration on the CI blog.

If you have managed to stop by to see this post, thank you so much for taking the time to do so at this busy time of the year. I still have at least one post for early next week and I shall also have one for Christmas day.

 I have completed the bulk of all my Christmas preparations and just have some last minute little bits of wrapping to do. Today we have been down to Winchester to walk around the Christmas market and tomorrow we are off to London to see Winter Wonderland, Covent Garden and the lights. It's so lovely to have a bit of time to do this.

I hope you are nearly there with all your preparations and able to have some chill out time.

Dont forget .........................................................................

"At Christmas, all roads lead home." 

Marjorie Holmes

hugs {brenda} x0x

Sleigh Ride for Crafty Individuals

This fabulous stamp popped through my post-box recently along with some others that are all new to the Crafty Individuals shop. I have already shown one card using this stamp - here is another with softer colours.

I fell right in love with this one and knew I wanted to make some fairly simple and quick cards with it to add to my collection (which grew quite rapidly and have now all been sent out).

I blended some distress inks onto tissue paper and stamped this lovely image over it adhering it to card with spray fixative.

Using the pennant on the edge die and Core’dinations paper I made a border.

And added a gold embossed star and a computer generated sentiment.

Materials

CI 398 Santa’s Sleigh Ride – Crafty Individuals

Pennants On The Edge die – Tim Holtz for Sizzix

Distress Crackle paint – Ranger

Core’dinations Black Magic paper pad

Distress inks – Iced Spruce, dried marigold, chipped sapphire

The excitement is mounting in our family can you believe it's only six sleeps? I hope you are well on the way to getting finished. My cards are all written now, some still need delivering and just a couple of last minuter things to buy and wrap. Good old M&S on-line helped this week (I really don't fancy trying to get through the crowds at the Sandhurst store - it's a nightmare).

Sorry not been on the blogs this week, but hope to catch up soon. I am picking the girls up from school today so that we can make flapjacks (one of our family Christmas traditions), so that will be fun.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas #11

Linda has produced a fabulous tag for #11, I loved the fresh colours on this one and have more or less cased her design for my card with just a few differences in the trees and materials used.

Starting with the background I used the zesty broken china and shabby shutters together but before I blended the inks I stamped the splatter stamp from Tim’s urban tapestry set with picket fence distress paint and dried it. I think this gives a great snowstorm effect. I over-stamped with frayed burlap using the small music score from mini holidays 4.

The tress were die-cut from the small movers and shapers pine tree using dark green card and then I dipped them in some peeled paint distress paint misted with water and heat dried them. I die-cut the trees again with some white glitter card and cut off portions to look like snow on the boughs, sticking them over the top of the green painted trees. I finished them off with a white pen to make them look as though they were part of the snowstorm and then glazed them with tattered angels pixie dust glitter paint and edged them with walnut stain. Cool huh?

I die-cut three snowflake flurries (Tim’s on the edge die) and cut two them down and stuck them together to create the edge piece for my card, I also cut a single snowflake similar to how Linda did hers. I covered them with distress ink and antiquities verdigris EP and heated them. When cool I then covered them with glossy accents and rock candy distress glitter and finished with some walnut stain distress ink around the edges.

The mini deer is a TH movers and shapers die, cut in cream card, covered with walnut stain DI, heat dried and then covered with glossy accents and the rock candy distress glitter. He looks much more mottled in real life, this is one of those occasions when I couldn’t get the light right to show you the real effects.

Lastly I used the sentiment from Tim’s simple sayings stamped in Wendy Vecchi’s potting soil archival ink and edged with walnut stain again.

So this is the constructed card, you can see what I mean about casing Linda’s tag, there are so many similarities aren’t there?

I loved the snowy effect when it had all been put together…..

….. and I love the non-traditional Christmas colours.

Linda has the full details of this challenge on her tag 1 post but in essence make a tag or card etc. and take something as inspiration from Linda’s tag for your own make, link this up to her post and originally you had to enter all 12 challenges by December 22nd to be eligible for the draw, but Linda is extending this with two bonus round tags on the 21st and 28th December and everything now needs to be completed by the 8th January. Linda is very generous with her prizes so you could win a $50 or $25 voucher to her on-line store ‘The Funkie Junkie Boutique’ and even get a 15% discount over January 2014.

Another day nearer to the festivities, I always love this build up time, getting everything ready. I started my baking as I said I would (see last post) but sadly my boil and bake cake went rather dry. Still I shall be making another next weekend so hopefully I can remedy the situation.

I haven’t heard from Becca today but yesterday she was dressed and up and about on the ward and had eaten some toast for breakfast. The surgeon came round to see her and said he was very pleased with the op and her progress and is hopefully going to let her come home next week. That will be wonderful.

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:  the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.

~Burton Hillis

Have fun and enjoy your preparations for the big day.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas #10

This is my latest card based on Linda’s 12 tags of Christmas challenge and this is being entered for #10. However the deadlines for completion have been extended to January 8th (details here).

I took several parts of Linda’s tag for inspiration.

Firstly the gorgeous holly cut in cream card from Tim’s Holly Branch die then dabbed and dipped in forest moss and evergreen bough distress paint and when dry I ran them through a text embossing folder, sanded them down, inked the edges with walnut stain and added whitefire treasure gold.

The background came about by using Tim’s holly stencil that Linda also used, but I used distress inks and the wrinkle free technique before sponging evergreen bough DI through the mask, covering the whole piece.

I used an image rather than a sentiment to go behind the frame and this gorgeous one from Crafty Individuals caught my eye today. I stamped it in coffee archival and watercoloured it with distress inks.

The frame was cut from matte silver card and given a coat of tarnished brass distress ink and then covered with matte medium glue and tarnished brass distress glitter. Love how this turned out.

So here is my card after it had been put together.

I added a small red bow although I had actually cut the berries from the holly die and given them a coat of crackle paint, but they didn’t look right, so I left it simple.

The sentiment is one of my computer generated ones.

One thing I did change from the photos above was the background. It seemed a bit bright so I sprayed it with dylusions white linen to knock it back a bit and to give it more of a ‘snowy’ effect.

Linda has the full details of this challenge on her tag 1 post but in essence make a tag or card etc. and take something as inspiration from Linda’s tag for your own make, link this up to her post and originally you had to enter all 12 challenges by December 22nd to be eligible for the draw, but Linda is extending this with two bonus round tags on the 21st and 28th December and everything now needs to be completed by the 8th January. Linda is very generous with her prizes so you could win a $50 or $25 voucher to her on-line store ‘The Funkie Junkie Boutique’ and even get a 15% discount over January 2014.

I am just like a child running up to Christmas. I woke up at 5.30 this morning and decided to get up and make this card. What am I like???

Wishing you all a very happy weekend, it’s going to be very busy I think with preparations. I still have wrapping to do and I want to start some baking too.

Enjoy.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Winter Wonderland

Looooove this image, another new one from Crafty Individuals which is CI 399 and called ‘Winter Wonderland’. Jean is showing how the DT have used this stamp in a multitude of different ways on her blog where you can also join in with the Festive Spirit challenge for December.

This is my version.

I started with white card and stamped the image in plum archival and watercoloured with distress inks.

Some scraps of paper have been cut and inked and layered behind the image.

The movers and shapers mini snowflake was cut in chipboard and is covered with iridescent paste, aged mahogany distress ink and star dust stickles…..

… and the stickles also added to the falling snow. The sentiment is computer generated.

This one is hopefully flat enough to go easily in the post, but will need a large stamp.

Off to do my last workshop of the year at The Art of Craft this morning, we are making a non-Christmassy mini album from one sheet of 12 x 12 Coredinations paper and lots of bird themed stamps from Crafty Individuals.

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.

hugs {brenda} x0x



Going around under an umbrella interferes with one's looking up at the sky.

Jerzy Kosinski

Through the frosty window

A sneak peek today as it is my turn to post over at the Country View Crafts Updates blog.

I would love to see you over there if you can find a moment amongst all the glitter, cards and decorations lol.

Thanks for popping by today.

If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.

Tom Peters

 

hugs {brenda} x0x

Updated this post with the full edition from CVC updates blog so that I can enter it into the Simon Says Monday challenge before it finishes.

Hi Brenda here and my turn to share a project with you today. I have been using some Tim Holtz dies and a canvas to create my frosty window and who do you think is inside?

Well lets start at the beginning.

I die cut Tim's window die out of greyboard and gave it a couple of coats of picket fence distress paint .....

... and when it was dry I added crackle glaze, another coat of paint and watched the fine crackles appear.

I cut a frame from white card to go over the back of the canvas ......

.... and tore strips of tissue paper, scrumpled them up and using a wet glue adhered them to the back and sides as shown.

I made a background for the shadowbox part of the canvas .....

... and created a 3D mount from a very small canvas which is to be used inside it.

Look you can see someone peeking out, I bet you have guessed who it is? Do you like the frosty windows, this is such a cool technique. I adhered some plastic packaging to the back of the window and then smeared a little matte multi medium in the corners of the four panes of 'glass' and when dry I painted rock candy crackle paint over them. Don't you think it gives a great effect?

I painted the frame I made black after I had glued it on and then added some grunge paste through a brick mask to create the walls.

When it was dry I used some decoart paints to create the brick colours and when that was dry I again used the matte medium to glue on some distress  rock candy dry glitter to give the walls a frosty look.

The window is closed and we still can't see who it is peeking out!!

The greenery was made using coredinations papers in different greens, run through the festive greenery strip die then sanded down and inked with walnut stain.

I also used some left over 'frosty' berries from last years decorations in with the holly and greenery.

And here he is sat peeking out, it's good old Santa Claus just waiting for the 24th so he can load up the sleigh and be off delivering all his presents. Not long to go now.

Have fun with all your preparations and don't forget Santa needs to know you have been good.

hugs {brenda} x0x