PanPastels Frosty and Bright

Hi All

I have been playing with my PanPastels again and this time I experimented to get a cold and frosty effect background using distress inks, embossing ink and my one and only blue PP.

Here is a mini tutorial to show how I achieved the background effect.

Starting with a piece of card I covered it in the fabulous new DI called Iced Spruce. Heat dried it and then stamped TH snowflakes with embossing ink. I then used a sponge and dabbed turquoise PP over it until the snowflakes appeared.

Then I sprayed it with an acrylic sealer. Next I used the same snowflake stamp and used white acrylic paint with it. 

When I had finished I sprinkled glamour dust over them to get that nice frosty/sparkly effect and sprayed it again.

The snowman was die-cut using a sizzix die and covered with snow-tex and faux snow added to the hat and scarf. I used 2 snowflake punches and my new Memory Box Frosty Border to create the rest of the snowflakes.

.......  and finally some gems, beads, sequins and a Kanban red rolled flower and some die-cut leaves.

Here you can see the frosty effects.

I was so lucky to win the PanPastels challenge last week and would like to say a big thankyou to the team at this great challenge blog.

I hope you like my frosty and bright card. I would like to enter it into challenges at -

PanPastels UK Challenge Blog - Frosty and Bright

Sunday Stamper - Frosty the Snowman

Ladybug Crafts Ink - Winter Blues

Make My Monday - Christmas Flowers, Foliage or snowflakes

CES Challenges - Snowflakes

CCEE Stampers 2 de-cuts or 2 punches (I have got both)

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

White Christmas - the new theme at Fashionable Stamping Challenges, 

just perfect for this time of year. 

But how will you interpret it? 

What about using mostly white on your card? 

Then again you might choose to link a project to the seasonal musical 'Holiday Inn'. 

Then again "White Christmas" is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. 

Heck whatever you fancy really. 

But for me a white Christmas is all about snow.

So as I suggested this idea I decided to use white acrylic paint for the TH snowflakes on acetate and laid it over a stamped image of Santa Claus, a La Blanche stamp inked with coffee archival and stamped onto kraft card. I used white acrylic paint and distress ink to paint in some of the face. The sentiment is a Just Rite stamp (I keep forgetting I have these) and a ribbon to finish off.

Please take a look at the wonderful creations on the catwalk, gain some inspiration, show us your stamping and come join us.

There is always a fabulous stamp as a prize.

Enjoy your Sunday.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Paper Sundaes - Beautiful bows
Scrappy Frogs - Use kraft card
Sparkles Forum - Vintage Christmas
Crafty Emma - Snowflakes
MAWTT - Let it snow

Halloween Tag Give-Away Winners

Good morning, I hope this finds you bright and cheery and ready for that Christmas shopping or whatever you have planned for today.

I have been so busy at work, I forgot about my Halloween tag give-away and suddenly it just popped into my head this morning - how does our brain do that? Anyway I promised that those who linked to my Halloween printables post would be put into a draw to receive a tag. 

Well as am so late, I have decided to give four of them away.

Here is my little box of numbers, one for each entry.

And here are the winning numbers

So well done to.............................................

MARTINA for her amazing Halloween box and she gets Tag 1

LISA-JANE for her fabulous card using her daughter's image 'Witch Dusty' and she gets Tag 2

GINA, I think it was for her Zac-a-lantern (sorry Gina your link has stopped working) anyway you won Tag 3.

and lastly LORRAINE for her Trick or Treat card and she wins Tag 4

Girls, please email me your address which is on my side-bar and I will get your tag in the post to you.

Thanks everyone who played along with me, I think I will try this again, great fun.

Have a wonderful weekend.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Tim Holtz inspired at The Stamp Man

Yay the end of the week and the beginning of the weekend.

Today it is my turn to host the challenge at The Stamp Man and I am asking that you choose any of Tim's Tags of Christmas - (so that gives you 48 to decide from) - and use his techniques to create your own Christmas project, that could be a card, tag or altered item. Just tell us which tag you have chosen and the techniques you have used from it. This really gives you the opportunity to be as creative as you want, but with a TH Christmas theme.

I chose Tim's very first tag, which you can find here. If you want to go directly to Tim's home page to find the others you could choose from, then click HERE. Scroll down and you will find them listed under Categories.

The main technique I used was a crackle paint background. 

When this was dry I stamped over it and added torn music paper, ribbons and embellishments.

Tag 1 - The Snowman

Tag 2 - Christmas Snow 1

Tag 3 - Snowflakes

Tag 4 - Christmas Snow 2

Tag 5 - Santa Claus

Tag 6 - Merry Christmas

Supplies used -

Tim Holtz Crackle Paint - picket fence, old paper, tattered rose, brushed corduroy, brushed pewter, tarnished brass

Distress Inks - weathered wood, dusty concord, seedless preserves, black soot, tumbled glass, tea dye, pumice stone, chipped sapphire, tattered rose. stormy sky, vintage photo, bundled sage, barn door, antique linen, mustard seed, ripe persimmon

Tim Holtz stamps - mini holidays 2

 I hope we will see you over at Jill's great challenge blog entering your fabulous creations and please go take a look at some amazing work for you inspiration by my teamies.

I was lucky enough to be chosen as a Ginger Gem at Gingersnap Creations 

this week for my 'Ravens' piece.

Have a wonderful day and a great weekend.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

An Explosion of Colour

The PanPastels challenge this week is actually called 'Fireworks/Exploding Colours', but I wanted to show a variety of bright colours used as the background and more added in layers with masks over card and music paper.

This was achieved with just five of my PanPastels showing how versatile they are and how well they mix and blend together. I have stamped over the top and then added atyou spica black glitter pen over the top. The sentiment was stamped with Versamark and PPs tapped lightly over and then Sakura glitterpen over the top of that.

I have added a shabby fabric flower, cut the bird cage from patterned paper and then highlighted it with PPs, cut the bird covered it in Tim's tissue tape and again added PPs and a couple of die-cuts.

I just love playing and experimenting with these. I think I need to add some more colours on my Christmas list.

Stamps used with archival ink are TH Grunge Circe and Fairytale Frenzy.
Masks - Tando Creative - music and Spellbinders Impressabilities - Fleur de Lis

Another inspection finished at school, now I hope we can settle down and prepare for Christmas, it has been such a hectic term.

I hope you are enjoying your week and managing some art and craft work.

Oooh nearly forgot, remember my pumpkin tag was chosen as card of the week at Sugar Creek Hollow, well I've been asked to be a guest designer for them, so keep an eye out later this month for my piece, can't wait to show you what I am making.

Take care.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

PS Here is one of my cats asleep in my craft bag. He thinks he is a dog sometimes as he has to come and lay by my feet or be in close proximity. Like alot of cats he likes to get in boxes and bags when you aren't looking. Say hello to Tinder.

Shabby and Vintage Tags 1

Happy Friday Everyone - the weekend is upon us.

I am sharing some tags I made whilst I was away the other weekend for a few days in Swanage. I took a bag of bits with me which included some lovely images from the Graphics fairy and the Crafty Individuals booklets. (No stamping!!!)

First though I want to show you these great things I found at an antique market in Bridport and at Wimborne market.

The glass doored cabinet was very cheap at only £5, the thimble display box was only £2.50 and the smaller carved box was £1.50 - bargains don't you think? I also bought the little dress form, some sets of old keys, some cigarette cards and a tiny glass bottle.

I just loved this vintage picture of the little girl and  wanted to make the tag quite feminine but rustic at the same time.....

So this is tag number one. I had taken with me some pages from an old book and  bought some fabrics whilst I was there as well, so these all came together very nicely methinks. I cut out words and phrases from the book pages to give the tags a focus.

Tag 2 .......

..... now this one is very masculine. I used one of the old keys I bought and added some staples to keep the industrial feel to it.

There will be a couple more to show you another day.

Enjoy and have a great week. I am teaching at The Art of Craft in Farnborough (Hants) tomorrow - we will be making my vintage mini album. I hope you are all into fabulous crafty things this weekend.

luv and hugs {brenda} xox

Dark and Mysterious PanPastels

I haven't had a chance to enter the Panpastels challenge for a couple of weeks and this was definitely something I wanted to get done. The challenge is 'dark and mysterious' but being post Halloween I didn't want to use any spooky images, so I set about creating a dark and mysterious landscape using tissue paper, PanPastels, Crafty Individuals tree stamps and the birds are courtesy of T!m.

The next few photos will show you the stages of making this. I really wanted some texture for the landscape and the tissue paper worked really well.

Tissue paper torn into strips, crumpled and glued with matte multi-medium.

PanPastels added to give a darkish sky and dark landscape.

Stamps added to give the overall feel to the piece.

A larger tree stamped, painted with PanPastels and cut out.

I cut a little fence freehand.

And added the title of the piece.

Do you hear the whispers in the wind on a dark night?

Take care.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

PS My pumpkin/fall colours tag was chosen as card of the week at Sugar Creek Hollow and I have put a cute badge on my side bar. Thanks girls I am delighted to be chosen.