Tag - keep me flying high

Happy Sunday to you all, I hope it is a good day wherever you are. I had a text from Maddie early this morning to say she had landed in Singapore and was on her way to the hotel.

Well this is my third post for today (never been known before!!), the other two are DT pieces, this one is just for me.

I am really disappointed I can't go to the Stamperama show. My car is still in the garage and is gonna cost me mega bucks as it needs new tyres, new windscreen and new cam-belt just to name a few bits. So that's my purse strings tied for a while.

Anyway instead I've had some fun amalgamating a number of challenges to produce this tag. Inspired by Simon Says Stamp and Show - a recipe of torn (I cheated a tiny bit, I haven't got torn edges but I have got torn fabric for the top), DIs, button and wings, Gingersnap Creations - glorious greens and Rogue Redhead Designs - a stamped background. It was Saturday show and Hels - picket stain distress stains resist that started me off and fits the Sunday Stamper challenge - I will always love you. Thanks Hels. This also reminded me of 'High' by The Lighthouse Family and the sentiment is some of the words from the song.

I have used a number of different stamp sets - Crafty Individuals, B Line Designs, Oxford Impressions, Darkroom Door, Our daily Bread and TH. I used shabby shutters, peeled paint, forest moss and pesto for my gorgeous greens. The bird cage was stamped onto some Basic Grey paper. Do you like the bird sitting on her nest? Roll on Spring I say.

The bird cage wings were painted with DIs and the covered with rock candy crackle paint and the birds were heat embossed to make them 'pop' more.

I will keep this tag for my Hubbie when it is his birthday later in the year.

Have fun and thanks so much for stopping by, I really appreciate all the lovely comments you leave me.

hugs {brenda} xox

PanPastels - Love and Romance

Hi Everyone

I am so pleased with my project this week. I have altered a box that my PanPastels came in and made it into a gift box that I am going to put some choccies in for my DH for Valentine day and on top of that I have made a matching card. This is my DT piece for the new challenge starting today at PanPastel UK challenge blog.

Whilst playing and making this box my Craft Stamper magazine arrived and I pounced on the free stamp to use and had a read of some of the articles. Trish Latimer made a selection of things using the heart stamp, one where she stamped several onto music paper and coloured them up. I had covered the box using TH seasonal papers and thought I would use that technique for the hearts to go on the lid. But whilst playing around I experimented mixing a little red PP to some multi-medium matte and covered the hearts (and some extra papers to use later). I really liked the artsy effect it gave, but I went on experimenting - see pics.

I sanded the edges to give a more vintage look......

.... and then covered with vintage photo DI.

This and the next photos show the difference it made when I then added clear embossing powder.

It created a super shiny effect, making the colour really pop.

Here you can see the before and after.

This is the finished box......

... and what it looks like on the inside.

 

I sponged the edges with embossing ink and added gold embossing powder.

I added metal wings made with metal sheet run through the Vagabond using TH heart wings die. The blue metal was rather dark so I lightly sanded the raised parts of the wings, added stream alcohol ink and sanded again.

The tattered banner, another TH die, was also heat embossed once made up and some little hearts, punched from the extra paper I had covered with the PP and multi-medium mix, again embossed with clear ep.

I used the same papers for my card, another large heart and two smaller ones - one on top of the mini rosette.   The sentiment was made using the Dymo machine. The card was also edged with gold ep.  

Rather a long post today but I wanted to show you this amazing technique and the finished effects.

I hope you will come over and show us your 'love and romance' projects and you could be in with a chance of winning a set of two colours and tools for yourself from Your Creativity Store. A fabulous prize and worth £11.99.

Please come back again next week when I will show you how to create a vintage background using bazzill paper and PPs.

Have a great week ahead.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

FSC - Monochrome plus one

Hi Everyone

This is my DT card for the Fashionable Stamping Challenge which today is to use monochrome plus one.

As you can see I have chosen to use the sepia tones and my additional colour is black.

FSC challenges are for stampers only, sorry no digis allowed, and on this card I have used DPs, but also stamped with Fresco Finish acrylic paint - vintage lace on dark brown card using a Darkroom Door background stamp and also I used French Correspondence by B Line Designs using vintage photo on cream paper.

 I added a touch of gold foiling round the edge of the DP, lots of distressed edges using my fabulous zutter distresser, more vintage lace paint on the edges of bits, a rosette, nesties scalloped circles and cricket flourishes finished with punched flowers and gems. I liked the masculine/feminine appeal to this and have made it into my wedding anniversary card for Ken. But I will have to hide it until the end of July.

If you would like to enter and have a chance to win a stamp from Marina at Cottage Crafts, then pop over to the challenge blog to see the amazing Stampettes creations. They are all such talented ladies. 

I hope to see you there.

I hope your weekend is going well, enjoy the rest of Sunday and have a wonderful week ahead.

Thanks for stopping by, your visits always mean so much to me.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Dress form tag

Good morning on this very cold frosty Saturday morning.

Well the car is in the garage having a huge service plus I've got an oil leak, so that's gonna cost me a bomb. It was -8.5 when I took the car over, it took me ages to defrost it and oh my fingers did hurt with the cold. Maddie is off to Singapore today for a week to work at the air show there, and hopefully I will see the other offspring and family tonight. Then tomorrow I want to be up bright and early to go to the Stamperama show at Stevenage. Anyone else going?

I was so determined this weekend to join in with a Gingersnap Creations challenge and their masking tape theme inspired me to make this tag. You can see the steps I took to create it in the photos below.

I laid out the masking tape and stamped it with Stazon.

I laid the masking tape over  the tag.....

... and bended DIs over it.

Using gel medium I glue some stamped tissue paper over the top,

and then played with distress stains and more DIs and sewed round the edge of the whole tag.

I die cut the dress form in brown and white card, cutting out the white piece.

More distress stains and water were used to colour the white form and white DS to colour the brown one.

I added a two layer net skirt and had fun with snaps and small embellishments.

A large flower at the top and some net and ribbon through the tag hole.

I love the spring colours on this one. Not so grungy as usual!

Stay warm today and enjoy your weekend. 

I will be back tomorrow with both my FSC and PanPastel UK design team pieces.

hugs {brenda} xox

Challenges to have fun with - 

Gingersnap Creations - Masking tape

Bloggers Challenge - In bloom

SJCrafts - Happy and use a punch - just being able to create & make makes me happy lol

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

The Stamp Man - Texture

Happy Friday everyone - where did the last two weeks go? 

I hope you haven't been affected by the snow again this week. We have had a lovely covering but I think it is going to melt quickly.

Our next challenge to tempt you at The Stamp Man is about creating a project that shows us how you use textures in your work.

I felt like creating a steampunk card again this week and have used an embossed piece of mirri board that Jill had sent me a while ago. It really speaks for itself except the colouring on the embossed gears are done with Promarkers.

Here you can see the Promarker colours.

The inside page.

Can you see the vintage bee I have stamped. 

Yvonne will remember this one?!?

Supplies -

Tim Holtz stamps - Steampunk

Tim Holtz Ideaology - game spinners, ornate plates, sprocket gears

Tim Holtz Journalling Ticket and Salvage Stickers

Stazon Metallic gold

Distress ink - vintage photo

Watch parts and button from stash

The team have been busy making fabulous things to inspire you, so I hope you will come on over to the challenge blog and see what they have been creating. Most of the elements used can be found at The Stamp Man shop and the winner will receive a £10.00 voucher to spend there.

Thank you for visiting and big hugs if you leave a comment. It is so amazing to know that people come and look to see what I have been creating.

Have a great weekend.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Gingersnap Creations Chestnut theme - Words of wisdom -
mine are 'You an do anything but not everything'

Crafty Ribbons - Men or boys

Just for Fun - Vintage Men

Shabby altered bottle

I made one of these last year and have been collecting the same bottles again to make some more. 

My one has some artificial flowers in it and is sitting on a small table in my living room.

Painted with Fresco Finish at the bottom and lace added over the top.

Ribbon and pearls.

Vintage dressmaking pattern glued to the top part and more ribbon and trimmings with pearls.

Lots of flowers and gems to decorate.

Have a great week and thanks for visiting me.

hugs {brenda} xox

PanPastels - Happy Birthday

This week my DT card for the PanPastel UK Challenge Blog shows how scraps of design papers can be used to make a lovely birthday card and they are all bought together by using PPs around the edges.

The challenge is sponsored by Your Creativity Store who will provide a trial pack of these amazing products for the winner. I can assure you, it is a prize well worth having, I won two before I became a DT member. (How lucky am I?)

As you can see, I have used three different pieces of (scrap) designer paper this week to build the background for my card. If I were to leave them just stuck together they could look disjointed but by edging your card, you create a border or frame which pulls everything together. To achieve the effect I have created here, use a light distress ink and blending tool and then gently dab the PP colour over it. I used tumbled glass DI and Phthalo Blue extra dark PP. I repeated the same technique with the torn strip of dark blue paper and edged with white this time to create a different look.

A birthday rosette, a small tag covered in PPs and stamped over with acrylic paint and other embellishments finish it off. What do you think? Quite a simple card, but effective in it's own way.

Next week I am going to show you a fabulous artsy technique I discovered whist playing with stamps, glue and PPs.

I hope you are able to enjoy some time crafting and creating today.

If your saw my photos in my previous post, we still have a lovely covering of white but already a slow thaw has started. If you are in the depths of a cold spell stay warm and if you are in the southern hemisphere I bet you already are!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

It's snowing down south

Just thought I would share these photos just taken of my back garden from my craft room window. It has been snowing for a few hours now. I expect the whole of the UK is covered in a blanket of this white stuff!!!

I don't know why the sky looks reddish, I can only assume it's the light from the street lights on the main road behind the houses in the background.

That's the end of my conservatory just showing.

I'm glad Ken filled up the bird feeders today.

This is the decking with the lights on - we call it the runway. (We are almost under the flight path for Farnborough airport).

Wherever you are, whatever your weather, stay healthy and warm.

luv {brenda} xox