A Visual Journey #26

Yikes you know what week we are on????? Yep you got it, half way through the year (in fact that was last week as I am one behind at the moment).

We are all going away as a family in August and our minds are turning to the sun, sea and sangria of Lanzarote. I combined those thoughts with a workshop I did recently on brayering techniques and decided on a sea theme with a brayered background and I really quite like the end result.

I began with three dark, opaque colours of fresco finish paint using Leandra's monotone look.

I then added more opaque and translucent colours until I achieved this (and guess how many colours I used in the end - 12!!!!).

To get my class started on our workshop we talked briefly about adding household items to the brayer including elastic bands and this technique reminded me of a watery effect - so using chipped sapphire distress ink we got this - .......

.... and then repeating with snowflake ff paint we got this -

I also added some 'bubbles' using Tim's stencil and mermaid lagoon distress ink.

Next I stamped the nautical blueprint stamps using scraps of leftover inky pieces of card and cut out the shapes and names.

Finding a left over sample of the monotone brayered paint technique from the workshop I dipped it in walnut stain distress ink and began putting the pages together. Finding a shell stamp from an old Craft Stamper magazine, I added that and a tresaure collage stamp using white pigment ink.

When I was happy with it I actually added some journalling about our impending holiday in Lanzarote and the memories it invokes.

Are you in Summer mode at the moment or are you in winter mode (according to what part of the world you live of course)?

Well I definitely want to start packing now, but will have to wait another month I am afraid.

Enjoy your holidays and breaks wherever you are.

hugs Brenda xxx

 As always if you would like to share the visual journey collection you will find the code to add to you post here -

get the InLinkz code

... and I look forward to sharing in your pages through the linky below.

Thanks for taking the time to share your work with me and each other.

An InLinkz Link-up

On your travels at CVC

Memory Travel Cards.

When making decisions about what to make for this challenge I was reminded of Tim's fabulous sheet from the Lost and Found stash depicting all the hotel badges from around the world so I thought I would combine it with the fabulous photo booth characters. I set about making some memory travel cards for each individual using the 12 x 12 cut down into 3 x 4 pieces as the backgrounds..

Mixing Tim's papers, photos and ephemera was a delight I loved cutting and sticking these together to create little memory cards for each person.

I began by choosing and placing all the collage pieces on a background to see what would work. Immediately you can see that the background and elements merge together so it's difficult to see the focal parts that help tell a story about the character.

I needed to tone down the backgrounds so I used antique linen distress paint spritzed with water .....

and dipped the backgrounds and dried them several times until I was happy with the results.

Now I was happy that I could use these and as you move to the individual cards there is a story for each one.

This is Marie who travelled to Florianopolis in the beautiful state of Santa Catarina, Brasil in 1946 to see her mother who had moved there. Her travel memory card reminds her of her journey from Kings Highway, Brooklyn in June of that year and as her mothers home was very small she stayed in the Lux Hotel.

Henry has a pen pal in France and he travelled from Times Square in New York to see his friend. The year was 1951 and this independent young man was eager to be staying at Le Grand Hotel.

George had a wonderful vacation in Columbia but missed his girlfriend tremendously and was so pleased to travel home to Manhattan to see her.

Nancy travelled to Paris in 1942, her parents were quite unaware of her trip and thought she was going to California to visit some friends. This was an unusual visit, travelling incognito to the Hotel Mondrial in Paris, trying to avoid being noticed as she had a very secret job to do. Her memory card was very special to her after the war reminding her of this unique role she played in helping Britain win the war.

I love the idea of making travel memory cards with snippets of ephemera as memory joggers later in life. I am useless at finishing my travel albums but a card would be so much quicker and easier, I think it is something I will adopt in the future when I travel to places.

I hope you will have fun with the travel theme at Country View challenges, do pop over and see all the wonderful inspiration from the team.

Thanks for stopping by today - enjoy the rest of the week and hopefully some creative time.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tim's tag for June

Under the wire or what??? Just managed to squeeze a bit of time last night to get this tag done while Ken was up the driving range and having a golf lesson - phew.

I've had to improvise quite a bit for this tag, I don't have the blending pad so I use distress inks colours directly onto the stencil and went from there. It's a different effect but I rather like it and it's not too dissimilar. The colours I used were victorian velvet, iced spruce, evergreen bough and the new hickory smoke.

I do have some of the coffee cup die-cuts that Trace sent me but I have already used them this week (see coffee lovers card here) so I decided to use my unused tarnished trophies die and create a tarnished patina effect using distressed products. (I think I feel a tutorial coming on, but I just didn't have time last night).

The pieces I gathered together to add to the tag.

I wanted to keep some of the details quite similar so I added hessian but used remnant rubs ....

.. the pin and coin in the ribbon is almost the same .....

...l but the trophy and ephemera is very different with a hand made price tag lol.

I am so pleased I managed to fit this in before the end of the month, I shall of course be linking to Tim's June tag link up.

Thanks again for stopping by, it's a very busy week here on Bumblebees and Butterflies so I shall see you again wednesday, thursday and friday.

take care.

hugs brenda xxx

Followers Give-Away

I would like to say a huge thank you to all my Followers including new people who have jumped aboard lately. Like all bloggers I love recording my artistic makes here and sharing with anyone happy to pop by and take a look. I find it absolutely incredible that I have reached 700 blogger followers and there are 349 of you who follow by email, that really blows my mind. So to celebrate this achievement I am offering up this small gesture of thanks.

Each of these three give-aways contain the same components just different types. There is a scrapbook in a tin, a die, a canvas, a paper pack and a packet of gems in each and three people will be chosen for one each. I will send two to those who blog me a comment below and one to followers who follow me by email and send me an email to enter the giveaway. I will post worldwide.

I deeply appreciate you being part of my artistic journey and the time you take to follow my blog whether you are an actual commenter or a silent reader it is an honour to have you here.

This give-away will be open till midnight on the 13th July when I will count the numbers and use random org to choose the winners. Good luck with your entry and thank you for being here.

hugs Brenda xxx

Coffee time for CVC

My turn to share a project at the Country View Crafts Project Blog and I have made a card for all you coffee lovers out there. Tim's freshly brewed die is one I have wanted for ages but Susan has been waiting for more stock from the USA so our lovely Trace very kindly cut me some to play with.

All the process steps are over at CVC if you would like to see more photos and details.

Thanks for stopping by today and if you are a Starbucks coffee lover like me I think you might like this card.

Look out for a special post coming up later with a give-away.

Have a great week ahead.

hugs Brenda xxxx

Update - copied from CVC

My card today is for all you coffee lovers out there. As soon as I saw the die last January at CHA I knew I would probably buy it, but I didn't order it early enough and Susan was only sent a few instead of the bigger number she normally orders and those went to the lucky people who had got their order in early. However our lovely DT member Trace had been one of those who had managed to get it and she very kindly cut me some so I could have a play whilst I was waiting for mine to come over from America.

Process steps

Distress card with antique linen and pumice stone distress inks.

Blend pumice stone around the edges and blend antique linen through a stencil.

Die-cut the coffee/frappuccino cup in cream card and daub picket fence distress paint over, spritz it with water and heat dry. This gives a nice mottled effect to the cup and lid.

Blend pumice stone around the edges of the cup and lid and walnut stain round the edges of the sleeve.

Take the sleeve button and blend the brand new and gorgeous hickory smoke stain over it, heat dry and blend walnut stain DI over the top. Using the brand new punch from Tim Holtz and a piece of sprayed card from my oddments box I added a lovely pop of green and a link to my favourite coffee house.

Put the coffee cup together and go back to the background - add some remnant rubs.

 

I hadn't got a picture in my head of how this card was going to pan out and just started to gather things to put together - a piece of chevron framework and some bunting made from the green card I had used for the star.

  

As I put it together I also added some rock candy stickles to the lid ...

...and inked the bunting pieces adding them to a piece of coloured bakers twine.

With no metal or dimensional embellishments this card is flat and safe to put in the postbox.

Thanks for stopping by today and if you are a Starbucks coffee lover like me I think you might like this card.

A Visual Journey #25

 Not my normal style and not my cup of tea either but this is what appeared.

As always I gessoed my pages and left them to dry. When I came to start designing I saw my brayer sitting on my desk so I grabbed some distress paints (gathered twigs. barn door and mustard seed) daubed a little of each on my craft mat, spritzed them with water and off we went. But what to add? I grabbed a plastic file box with some very old stamps in and chose the Katzelkraft Cirque 01 set. The colours fitted a circus theme but I needed more layers to provide a more detailed background.

I used masks with paints and distress inks and then a harlequin mask with white acrylic paint.

I blended squeezed lemonade distress ink over and you can see the difference between
 the left and right hand pages

The pages were uneven so the stamp didn't give me a defined image, but there's always a way round things -

- out came the pens and a pencil.

Lastly came the 'embellishing' and I admit to being rather void of ideas, so a simple big top and a quote.

I'm not over enamoured with these pages but my energies have been ploughed into design and workshop ideas recently so I feel mojoless as far as my journal is concerned and that's the first time since I started it.

Sorry I missed last week, but I hope to catch up at some point. For the rest of today, tomorrow and the weekend enjoy whatever you have planned and hopefully some creative time.

hugs Brenda xxxx

 As always if you would like to share the visual journey collection you will find the code to add to you post here -

get the InLinkz code

... and I look forward to sharing in your pages through the linky below.

Thanks for taking the time to share your work with me and each other.

An InLinkz Link-up