Workshop card – Quirky Birds

A quick post today to show you the Quirky Birds card I made for my Crafty Individuals class last week and repeated again this week. Lots of lovely ladies attended and I got to meet a blogging friend, Jane of Jane's Journal, who lives in Surrey and quite near to where I used to live many years ago.

This card focuses on texture using heat embossing, embossing folders, the rusted enamel technique and adding embellishments including the hand made nest and embossed eggs.

We blended distress inks on the background of the stamped image and hand painted the birds.

These little eggs were a great hit. Again blended with distress inks, heat embossed in clear and stamped into while still hot. When cool they were blended over with walnut stain ink.

The ruler is a Tim Holtz embossing folder, the feathers from the Art of Craft (very cheap!), the sentiment is computer generated and the little pennants lift the TH postage stamp frame to reveal a hidden greeting. (Sorry forgot the photo of that bit!!).

I did take pictures of everyone's card, but sorry girls I have just run out of time to load them all. I will have to do a group photo in the future and get everyone on together.

If you are reading this today, Wednesday, I will be in Coventry with the master himself making lots of tags that I can use to inspire me in running my own workshops and tomorrow (Thursday) I will be attending his workshop making a tag book. When I get back I will post some photos of the sessions and my makes.

See you soon.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Tim’s Tag for August

You know I definitely work better under pressure of time limits which is why I am often on the line for getting projects made. Of course that’s difficult when you have workshop samples to get done. But for today I am showing you my take on the Tim Holtz tag for August and all his instructions and inspiration can be found on his blog HERE.

I have used his techniques for masking and stamping but rather than a tag I have made a tag book. I used a giant size 12 tag and stamped both sides so that both the outside and inside of the covers were decorated.

The colours of distress paints I used for the background are – salty ocean, victorian velvet, walnut stain, picket fence and antique linen. And for the background stamping I used both distress inks and distress markers in aged mahogany, weathered wood, pumice stone and frayed burlap and also used coffee archival for the main images. At first I thought this background was far too busy, but once I had got used to it I really quite like it.

These show how the tag forms the front and back covers and I used tissue tape coloured with distress satins and distress inks to tie the little book up. The pages were sewn in using the sewing machine.

I dipped some of the pages in DI and added some little butterfly stamps and some tissue tape.

Hope you like my variation of Tim’s tag. Now having got back into masking again I can see me using it a lot again in the future.

Today Tim is due to land in England. ready for the two days he has booked at PI. Welcome to the UK Tim and Mario. Wednesday is the retail day training and Thursday is the workshop day. I am so looking forward to meeting up with Jenny – Pushing the Right Buttons -  again, we are doing the Thursday morning workshop together, but I will also get to meet Rita – RMG Creations, Annie – Curious and Crafty Treasures  and Alison – Words and Pictures - in person which will be a real treat. I think Sue – Stamping Sue Style -is also doing the morning session. Anyone else out there I know going to be at either days?

I hope you have had a good bank holiday weekend in the UK, enjoy the rest of it today.

Thanks as always for your visits and your comments, it is amazing how we can make such lovely on-line friends and then to meet some in person is one of life’s treasures.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Finding Mr Mojo – Day 3

Hi and welcome to another of my Tim's tags for 2012 re-visited. Before I move on though I would like to welcome new visitors who have joined me in the last few weeks and thank you everyone who visits here regularly encouraging me in the work I do. You really give me the motivation to extend my artistic endeavours and make it so much more worthwhile.

This tag uses the reflections stamps on an embossing folder and reflects the techniques used in Tim’s tag for April.

The small movers and shapers dress form has been inked with tattered rose and frayed burlap and the corresponding distress embossing powders heated over the top.

It’s finished off with rock candy stickles and some watch parts. The wings and crown were covered with whitefire treasure gold and buffed up when dry.

Here's the tag before being embellished.

The base of the card with the sentiment band and some filmstrip.

Still waiting for Mr Mojo to turn up but in the meantime I am having fun with the tags.

I hope your weekend is going well.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Crafts-Too Summer Days 4

The fourth (but not final) week for the challenge at Crafts-too Challenge You where the theme is summer days with beach colours. I rarely use my lovely Dyan Reaveley creative journal so I decided to have fun creating a page for it. However I ended up not being happy with it and going for a smaller journal. You can see I am still in summer mode and I think Mr Mojo must be on his way home now.

This second piece I worked on used Dylusions sprays – pure sunshine, lemon zest, squeezed orange, white linen and Perfect Pearls mists – Cappuccino and Blue Patina.

The same colours were used with masks …….

…… then I stamped with coffee and blue cobalt archival ink.

I just love how the white linen picks up the other colours it lays on top of.

The flowers are from a Tim Holtz die and the spray of ivy is from a Marianne frame die, cut into pieces.

I used other Tim Holtz dies for the birdcage and for the lettering.

My yellow and blue colours are representative of the sand and sea.

Have you joined us yet? If you have or you haven’t we would still love to see your beach coloured projects for our Summer Days theme. Pop over to Crafts-Too Challenge You to see the DTs inspiration pieces and to find the link in the sidebar to be transported to this month’s challenge.

Happy Friday.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with -
Out of a Hat Creations - Masks/Stencils
The Cheerful Stamp Pad - Your choice

Finding Mr Mojo – Tag 2

This is my take on Tim's March 2012 tag, I don’t have the wood stamp so I used a background crackle stamp with walnut stain and vintage photo distress inks and cappuccino perfect pearls mist.

The mosaic butterflies were made as Tim’s were but I used different embossing powder for the ‘grout’.

The background worked really well but I had difficulty getting a photo of the shimmer left by the PPs.

This sort of shows it.

I painted the metal flower with the distress paints ……..

….. and used the Way with Words set again for the sentiment.

The mosaic butterflies were fiddly but I love the finish to them. Get the full details HERE at Tim’s blog.

More practice achieved which is refreshing my memory of techniques to keep in the toolkit. Maybe Mr Mojo is thinking he ought to be packing his bags to come home. eh? Mind you from a lot of the comments I have received it seems as there are a whole bunch of them awol at the moment. I guess they are chilling out together somewhere and enjoying the break. Lets hope they decide to return soon.

Off to see my Sis today, looking forward to our crafty chat as I haven’t seen her for a while. I hope you have something good planned.

Happy days.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with –

Craft Room - Something new – mosaic butterflies – a new technique to me

Quick card

I made this last Friday in-between getting all the cases unpacked and washing done. I just had to have a quick crafty ‘fix’ lol.

Background paper The Engraver pack by Prima given a little sponging with distress paints.

Tag inked and stamped with DPaint.

Flower a rose brad painted with DPs and watercolour paper petals around it.

The butterfly is a memory box die inked and splattered.

Some washi tape and Tim Holtz sentiment.

Quite happy with it for a simple card.

This was the view from one of our bedroom windows on Sunday night, very Turnerish don’t you think? Can you see the rainbow even though we didn’t get any rain? And this was facing East too, not west which to me made it even more dramatic.

I hope you are enjoying your day, thanks for stopping by.

hugs {brenda} x0x

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