Finding Mr Mojo

Well it looks like the weather here may warm up a bit more before the end of the summer.  It was over 40 degrees round the pool last Thursday, the hottest I have ever known it in Lanzarote, I love it, I’m a real sun seeker lol. So now I am trying to get back into the swing of creating and making – but I think Mr Mojo didn't pack his bag and come back home with me. I really don't seem to have any ideas in my head so I took inspiration from my friend Astrid who back in April/May did a tag a day to get herself going again. I have decided to go back to Tim’s tags of 2012 as I didn't manage to get them all made last year, and I am going to make another version of each one. I know this will give me the stimulus I need.

Tim started his monthly tags in February of 2012 and this one was focused on Valentine. I have taken some of the techniques he used to create mine.

Resist stamping using distress paint and blending with distress inks. Check out Tim’s blog for the full details.

I seem to still be hooked on ‘hot’ colours after my holiday.

This is the first time I have used honeycomb paper. It has been in my cupboard for years and years and I shall definitely be using it again.

I also used the letters from one of Tim’s paper stashes to make up this sentiment. I realised I didn't take a separate photo of the bird on the branch which was also cut from a paper stash and coloured with distress stains and a little stickles on the bird itself.

Supplies

Distress Inks – ripe persimmon, dried marigold, mustard seed, festive berries and walnut stain.

Distress Stains - rusty hinge, peeled paint, mustard seed and wild honey.

Distress Paint – picket fence, tarnished brass and walnut stain.

Onyxite Treasure Gold

Stamp from Tim’s Way with Words set

Dies – Bird Branch, vintage lace and sizzix butterfly #12

Other – honeycomb paper, lost and found paper stash.

So I am on my way to enticing Mr Mojo home, you will see more of these tags in the coming days peppered with my DT pieces and anything else I make for myself. Just got to get him home quick though.

Have a great week, I have a workshop tomorrow, seeing a friend for lunch on Wednesday and visiting Chris, my sister, on Thursday, so busy for me.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with -

Stamping Sensations - Wings and things and a touch of vintage

Sunday Stamper - Waterloo Sunset

Our Creative Corner - Words, words, words

CI Challenge and workshop make.

Well having had two weeks in an extremely hot Lanzarote I am home and it’s feeling a bit ‘fresh’ after the unusually high temperatures over there, but the washing is about done, most of it is dry and I am keen to get back into my crafting again. There lies a problem which I will tell you about in another post tomorrow.

For today I am showing you a card that I taught at one of my workshops at The Art of Craft just before I went away and we had a fabulous time putting this one together and it’s also my DT piece for the CI challenge this month. I am so lucky that I have lots of fabulous ladies who come to my classes and they love making a range of things, especially cards. Jane at the shop has bought in the Crafty Individuals range of stamps and I am so pleased to be taking a number of classes using their stamps, this is the second of three for the summer.

We used Ranger stamping paper and masked it off to use distress inks to create the sea and sky and a clear horizon line and stamped this great image of the girls playing in the waves. This was added to some gauze before adhering to the card.

The shells were great fun to make, stamped inked and embossed with clear EP and whilst still hot we sprinkled some fine sand over them. A couple of real shells were added to create extra dimension.

The border was stamped using coffee archival ink onto cream paper and the patterned paper placed over the top.

We also made and added some bunting using the same stamp sets which are CI 272 and CI 284.

It’s an ‘OPEN’ themed challenge at the Crafty Individuals blog for August, you only need to use one CI product to enter and five lucky winners will be able to choose a stamp of their choice PLUS Jean is doing her 25% discount code for all those who enter which is available till the 10th September. Hope to see you there.

Have an enjoyable day.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Crafts-Too Summer Days 3

The twist changes for the Summer Days theme this week at Crafts-Too Challenge You and with the Summer Days theme we want to see beach colours. I have used sand colours and a summer beach theme for my DT sample using a Marianne seashells die and some small summer sentiments that came in my pack, plus some Tim Holtz goodies.

I have made a double pocket envelope using the Tim Holtz die and papers from Joy Crafts vintage papers block and dry embossed them on the edges and blended vintage photo DI over the raised parts.

Having glued the two envelopes together I added some washi tape and fabric tape from Crafts Too around the edges to give it more sturdiness. Do you like the shells? They were die-cut using glassine paper, crumpled and rubbed with DI.

For the front I stamped using one of the small summer messages, added some chit-chat stickers and stamped and cut out the Clarity deck chair.

On the back I added the fastening. You can really see the texture from the EF here.

The two tags have been made from Tim Holtz ‘Tiny tabs and Tags’ die. I used the wrinkle free distress technique and the TH Tiny Things set of stamps.

These fit beautifully inside the pockets.

Looking forward to seeing any last summer days projects you may have with the twist of beach colours. Do pop over to Crafts-Too Challenges to enter.

Thanks for stopping by today.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with -
Simon Monday Challenge - Make the cut
Tando Creative - Feel the Heat
Frilly and Funky - By the seaside
Anything but a card - Summer Fun

Grandpa Cabinet Card

I found a packet of these recently and they reminded me of Tim’s cabinet cards in shape and I could see the potential of making my own.

I began by blending walnut stain DI over, splashing with water and creating those gorgeous splatters and stamping one of the stamps from  ultimate grunge set.

I added texture with coloured up grunge paste through a harlequin mask.

When embellished and a photo of my Grandpa John Albert Victor Axon (aka Bert) added it looked like this…..

The key was die-cut using a designer paper scrap, inked and covered in rock candy distress crackle paint, a bulb charm dabbed with metallic distress paints, a wooden corner inked and I added a small stamped bee found in my box of bits.

Here I used more metallic distress paints on the metal cogs, an embossed B and my favourite bit was adding small photos from one of the Tim Holtz paper pads to a piece of film strip, I think they are so cute.

A piece of black die-cut with Tim’s vintage lace border die and the piece of paper added at the bottom from the French Industrial paper stash.

I’m not sure what Grandpa’s jobs were through his life but I think he tried his hand at many things. When the children were small (my Mum and her brothers and sisters) they all lived in North London. Anyone else out there have an Axon in the family, it’s an unusual name.

Thanks for taking the time to visit and read my posts and for all the lovely comments I get, I so appreciate them all.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Workshop - Butterfly Box 2

Just a quick post from me today to share a second workshop I did recently making the Butterfly Box. This project went down really well with everyone loving their creation.

It was made in exactly the same way as the previous one I did but the paper I used had gone out of stock and couldn’t be sourced so I used a G45 design and made a completely new box.

Here are four belonging to some of the lovely ladies who attended.

Sorry about the lighting, there is no natural light in the workroom and these were taken on my phone. But you can see the ladies did a great job.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Crafts-Too Summer Days 2

I had a Marianne lighthouse die to play with this month from Crafts-Too and decided to use it as part of the ‘having fun in the sun’ twist for the summer days challenge. I am not good with being in or on the sea and yet it draws me in and I love being near it. In fact I love being on it for a short while and lighthouses are certainly an attraction for me. So I made this seascape hanging.

I have to say it looks better irlife and irlight, the photography doesn’t really do it justice,

I started with the Tim Holtz cabinet die cut in greyboard for a strong base and painted it with acrylic paint. When dry I stippled modelling paste over the bottom to represent the rough seas around the lighthouse and I adhered the lighthouse with the paste to see how it would be placed. Again when dry I painted in the sea and sky using acrylic paints, dripping different colour blues and sea green into the spaces, then adhered the second lighthouse I had made over the top, gluing some sand around the bottom of it.

I then added the boat – can you guess what it is? I’ve altered it quite a bit with alcohol inks, treasure gold and paint.

I dry-brushed the rough waves with white acrylic paint to make them look more like white tops.

The hanging piece is some corrugated packaging cut down and painted with gesso and sand to give it that shabby textured effect

I added some TH paper, given a coat of white wash (thinned white acrylic paint) with distressed the edges.

I assembled the pieces …….

… and coated the shell collection with some gesso and sand too to blend it all together.

But it just didn’t look right once I had taken all the photos – re-think time.

In the end I added some CI stamped seagulls and some painted ones in the background as I felt the sky area needed more attention.

I’m happier with it now but still thinks it needs something else?

I hope the visitors on the passenger ferry have a lovely visit on their trip around the harbour.

Oh and I nearly forgot, did you guess the boat is a peel-off? Sure you did.

I hope you have had some wonderful exciting summer days and fun in the sun.

Do come and join us at Crafts-Too Challenges we would love to see what projects you are making that link to this theme.

I am entering this into the Summer Vacation challenge at Inspiration Journal. and the Artistic Stamper's Postcards, travel and holidays challenges.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Famous Quotes 2 for Country View Challenges

This is my second piece for the CVC challenge and was inspired by the PaperArtsy day I attended a few weeks ago.

I have used a size 10 tag, metal card, fresco finish paints and Lynne Perrella stamps and the quote comes from HP10004EZ hot pick set.

The background was made using butternut, honey dew, eggplant, mermaid and guacamole opaque paints, blending them together with a piece of foam. I stamped the feathers from the LPC007 collection in coffee archival then heat dried them and knocked them back with more of the same colour paints. When it was dry I scraped metallic glaze over it with an old credit card.

The focal part of the tag is a piece of the metal card, embossed and painted with FF paints with treasure gold colours added to the raised parts. I stamped this lovely small image onto card I had already coloured up with DIs and a pedestal I found in my bits box.

I used downloaded butterflies to add more interest…..

….. and I bunched flowers together and overlapped them onto the quote to bring everything together.

I think this quote comes from one by Abraham Lincoln who said “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time”. So true.

The trouble is the days seem to go two or three at a time.

Enjoy your day and thanks for stopping by to see what I have been making.

hugs {brenda} x0x