Tim’s November Tag of 2013 and reverse chalkboard effect

Having learnt this chalkboard technique on the Creative Chemistry 102 course I was pleased to see Tim use it this month for his tag. He gets great effects, but this time I wanted to play a little more.

This is my tag using the Sizzix Framelets Snowman Blueprint set. I followed Tim’s steps except I used pastels including coloured ones and black.

The die-cut layers give fabulous dimension and there are so many pieces that can be cut easily.

The hat, holly, nose and scarf were cut and layered and you can see where I used red, orange and green pastels. The berries are coloured with red stickles.

The ice skate charm was painted with a dab of picket fence distress paint to make it look snowy and the snowflakes were inked with pumice stone DI and covered with frosted lace stickles. You can clearly see here how I added more contrast by using the black pastel.

On this next snowman I used good old children’s chalk.

He came out quite well on the frosted crystal although some of the first ones I made I didn’t heat the EP enough and was too cautious with Tim’s warning.

I used some of the bought embellishments I have in my Christmas box and Tim’s Merriment papers.

This last piece shows a snowman in reverse, he is black and was as a result of playing with PanPastels rather than chalks. The pans are so fine they wouldn’t ‘stick’ to the tooth of the EP.

You can see that they left a white residue on the black card and to get more of a chalkboard effect I added some lines using the white pastel again.

Using more bought embellishments and Merriment paper I made another quick card with him.

Tim showed the sizzix magnetic platform for cutting thin dies on his post, I thoroughly recommend it if you use a Big Shot or Vagabond, cutting all and especially small thin dies are so easy now, no taping them down. Susan has them in stock at Country View Crafts. 

Off to link this to Tim’s November tag, I can’t believe there is only one more for the year.

“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”

Franklin D Roosevelt

 

Hope you are having a great weekend.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Victorian Carolers for CVC

Good morning everyone

My post is a little late this morning because I forgot to schedule this with the shop post duh!!!!!

Anyhow just a sneak peek for my card which is on full view with instructions at the Country View Crafts Updates blog.

Hope you have time to take a look.

Have a great Friday and a happy weekend with hopefully some crafty time for you.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Updated with full instructions -

I just love the silhouette shapes of the Victorian Carolers and have used the Tim Holtz die with distress stains and remnant rubs for my card today

Starting with the rub-ons I rubbed some over my background card leaving a space where the silhouettes were going to be placed.

I dispensed the colours of stains I wanted to use onto my craft mat and followed the wrinkle free distress technique by Tim Holtz.

When dry I added the silhouettes and used a white drawing pencil to go round the edges and make the silhouettes 'pop' more from the background.

However the silhouettes looked rather stark so I cut another set and stamped them with a Tim Holtz Christmas script (use could use any text or music score if you haven't got this one)  .....

..... and adhered them using foam pads to create some depth and dimension.

Three stars cut in chipboard from the Crescent Moon and Stars die were covered with Stickles glitter and I made the poinsettia using crinoline fabric. I was rather please with the quite colourful outcome.

Country Kitchen for Country View Challenges

I had a fabulous crafty day with my friend Shirley recently and we decided to get the melt pots out and play with beeswax. With my theme of ‘Letters’ this month at Country View Challenges I decided to use some Italian dictionary paper (gifted to me by the wonderful Gio), A napkin that had fabulous images and also text on it, a text stamp on the background and then die-cut letters for the title.

This is a small (ish) chipboard home decor piece I created for my kitchen.

One thing I learned playing with napkin images and other papers is that layering of pieces is crucial. The cockerel layered over the dictionary paper only just works, the dictionary text shows through and became so translucent with the wax on it.

Here you can see the text from the napkin as well as the die-cut letters.

The Italian dictionary paper.

The stamped text can just be seen behind the cockerel’s head.

You can also see how I highlighted the die-cut letters with a white posca pen to make them stand out more and I painted some detail over the cockerel to ensure he stood out as much as possible too.

And at this angle you can just see the shine of the surface after I buffed the wax. I also sanded the edges and inked then with walnut stain DI.

Have you entered our challenge yet? There’s always a great prize for the lucky winner as well as Winner and Top 3 Guest Designer spots. Hope we see you there

hugs {brenda} x0x

Christmas Tag Card

I made this tag card for a workshop that I taught at The Art of Craft recently.

The shop has recently got in Distress Paints and we focused on mastering the ‘Marbling’ technique. My fabulous group of lovely ladies practised using different colour combination to see what they would like to use on their tag but also to experiment with how much paint and how much water they should use. They loved getting all painty.

The stamps are Graphic 45

The 25 was cut in metal sheet from the Christmas Noel die by Tim Holtz.

A snowflake charm painted with antique linen distress paint.

And the inside covered with Christmas papers and some washi tape and rub-ons added.

The Merry Christmas was from the G45 set we used.

We added a small panel on which to write a greeting .......

..... and a punched border and Crafts-Too holly die with a computed generated sentiment finished it off.

I hope you had a great weekend. Thanks for stopping by, Have a wonderful week ahead.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Christmas Decor

I am sharing a workshop piece using three 4x4 canvas boards to produce this wall hanging.

Black, white, cream and gold are the colours used with each board joined with ribbon.

I began by gluing scrumpled gold tissue paper over each board and then dabbing cream acrylic paint around the edges of the boards getting lighter towards the middle so that the gold still showed through.

When the cream paint was dry I used a palette knife to daub white acrylic paint around the edges to give an artsy look.

Each board was stamped with black archival ink and I used two Indigoblu and one woodware stamps. They didn’t come out perfectly because of the textured background so I used a black pen to smarten the images up a bit.

The edges were wiped with embossing ink and I sprinkled vintage gold Frantage embossing chunks over (I was a bit too heavy handed on this one)

To finish the backgrounds I added some gold and star dust stickles to each one.

Whilst these were drying I die-cut and punched the large and small stars, the holly and the reindeer from mat gold card and edged them with the black archival.

Finally I adhered the embellishments and added the ribbon to connect them altogether and to hang them up.

These are the makes from my great group of ladies who enjoyed the session and were very pleased with their project. We aim to please lol.

Have a wonderful weekend, the sun is shining and it’s a glorious day here in the south of the UK, hope you are as lucky.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Guest Designer at Gecko Galz

Sometime last year I was asked if I would be a Guest Designer at Gecko Galz and November has come round so fast.

I have made four projects and would like to share the non-Christmas ones with you today.

Firstly a collage card with an embossed background using the Tim Holtz Cargo mask on coredinations card stock with the letters sanded down.

The image is from Gecko Galz brand new collage sheet ‘Retro Fashions 1’. I layered scraps of paper, washi tape, lace and ephemera to create the collaged corner …….

…… and adhered various metal embellishments to add dimension.

The sentiment is from the Tim Holtz Simple Sayings set of stamps.

My second piece is a tag card

The image came from the same Retro Fashions sheet as above and the butterfly is from a bottle cap set they do.

I love the chic feel to this image with the cracked background contrasting with the elegant lady drawn in black and white

Some tissue tape, washi tape and a black border balance the composition at the bottom.

Some rub-ons and a black bow at the top …..

….. and a doiley with inked edges placed behind the focal point to give it more of a feminine feel.

I’m really happy with this one.

We have had some stunning sunsets this week, these photos were taken on Monday night, there was something similar tonight.

From my workroom window.

Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer to your goal.

Elbert Hubbard

 

Enjoy the rest of the week my friends and thanks for stopping by.

 

hugs {brenda} x0x