Blogaversary and 1000th post Giveaway

I have a double celebration to share with you. The 29th January was my FIVE year blogaversary and yesterday saw me publish my 1000th post. I never ever dreamed I would get this far when I started in 2010 and when I look back at what I was making then I cringe. It's been a fantastic five years, I have learnt sooooo much and more or less found my niche in the crafting world, although I still love experimenting with new styles and products, I feel now that I am at home with my art and that's a lovely feeling.

I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all you lovely people who have been following me over the years both as Blogger and Google followers and those of you who follow by email too. I am very proud that my blogger stats show that I get 10,000+ page views a month, that just blows my mind to think that so many people visit to see what I am making and creating.

So if you would like to join my celebration and you are a *'follower'* please leave a comment below and I will use Random Org on the 24th February to choose the winner.

(A Follower is anyone who has subscribed to my blog through the Blogger Followers list, Google Followers and those who subscribe through the Follow by Email widget).

If you are unable to leave a comment on the blog as an email subscriber, please do email me and I will add you to the list.

Thank you again for being part of my life.

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“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”.

 ~Thomas Merton

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Always listen to the heART.

hugs Brenda xxx

Treescape for Crafty Individuals

Crafty Individuals have a new set of tree stamps out - CI-429  and called Trees Galore. 

These are much wider than others they have designed and give great scope for using them to create landscapes, much like I have done on my collage piece below. 

I started with a piece of linen card and the wrinkle free technique using some green and blue distress inks (sorry forgot exactly which ones). Over that, using Potting Soil archival ink, I stamped the trees one and a half times to elongate the landscape further

It left a tiny gap between the two stamped images so I used a brown drawing pen to join them up.

Using a second stamp from the set and Tree Branch archival ink I did a second generation stamp across the tree line to create an ethereal woodland background. 

I gathered stamped ephemera (also CI stamps) and other elements to begin building a collage.

Using papers and oddments the background started to come together.

I knew this small portion of a tag would be ideal to use and just stamped lightly over it using a CI text stamp.

Some scraps of papers, borders and hessian and a portion of Tim's film strip die with the ephemera filling the spaces gave me some shape to the layout and provided additional dimension and texture. 

This is now in my large collage journal.

Before I go I thought I would share a few photos from our weekend trip to London. The children had given us tickets to see 'Memphis' for Christmas and we decided to stay overnight.

It is currently on at the Shaftesbury Theatre and starring Beverley Knight - she was amazing as were the whole cast. Their voices reverberated around the theatre and filled every corner.

Our hotel overlooked Hyde park, so it was lovely to have a walk round on both days.

The Italian Fountains.

Statue of Peter Pan.

The Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.

On Sunday we went to the Eight Lives, Eight Stories exhibition at The British Museum where new technology has uncovered some secrets of eight mummies from the Thebes area of Egypt.

We finished off with a glass of wine at Covent Garden taking in the atmosphere and for a while listening to an operatic singer.

I hope you had a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

PS I have just discovered this is my 1000th post, so come back again tomorrow as I will be offering a blog candy to celebrate.

Tic-Tac-Toe for AVJ

What is tic-tac-toe?

Wikipediea says -

Tic-tac-toe, or Noughts and crosses, is a paper-and-pencil game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. The player who succeeds in placing three respective marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins the game. So this is how this challenge title came about.

Annie is our lovely hostess this week at A Vintage Journey and she has described your challenge thus-

With so many Tim Holtz/Ranger and any other similar products we would like you to choose at least three items from the grid below and incorporate them in your projects. You can choose items horizontally/vertically or diagonally, it's your decision. Please, please include the name of the items you are using within your post, not just in the link to the challenge.

Idea-ology or any metal embellishment	Sprays	Ribbon/twine
Paint	Ephemera	Die cuts
Foil tape	Texture fades	Stains

For my Creative Guide sample I have taken the diagonal line from top right to bottom left. My Idea-Ology component is the ‘Found Relative’ photo, to embellish the collage I used Tim's Expedition ephemera pack and I used distress stains on the background (see below process steps).

Get yourself a cuppa and have a wander through the post, be warned there are quite a few photos.

Process steps – I dipped into Tim’s background technique as demonstrated on his July tag of 2014

To bring the piece together and add details -

 Alter the bookplate, this simply has some antique linen distress paint dabbed on it. Simple but lovely effects.

Ink the edges of chosen ephemera pieces ....

... and know exactly where you are putting them on the collage.

 Add some sewing and die-cuts......

..... and make charmed embellishments.

As this is such a large collage I built the lower with the large layers first and put it to flatten under a heavy box. When it was dry and flatter I added the next level of smaller elements and flattened it again. 

Finally I adhered the bulky elements to finish it off.

The altered clip board was made quite quickly -

I covered it completely with tissue wrap - this paper is so forgiving

I again used distress paints to alter the look of the clip (which was bright silver to start with).

Finally I glued the collage to the board - I couldn't resist taking a picture of the other bulldog clips all round it.

 The little charm was added to the clip.

Finished.

I've just noticed I haven't shown you how to get the exra mile out of your Found Relatives cards. Can you see the gorgeous patterned piece that looks like a playing card. Well carefully peel the back off your relative card and you too can have an additional element to add to your projects.

I am really happy with the way this turned out and have bought several more clipboards so that I can experiment with other designs.

I hope you will pop over to the AVJ blog to see all the amazing creations from the Creative guides and hopefully find some time to join in the challenge.

Have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend, I am off to London tomorrow to see 'Memphis' at the Shaftesbury Theatre and we are going to stay overnight, this is our Christmas present from our gorgeous kids Ben, Bev and Maddie.

hugs Brenda xxx

A Visual Journey #6

Today sees us start a new link up for February and I have got my Visual Journey #6 pages to show you.

 The pages were started last weekend when I visited my sister, I got part of the background done using her gesso, acrylic paints and stencils. When I got back to finishing it I didn't like the brightness of the pages so I dulled them down by spraying white linen dylusions ink over them. (see process steps below)

It's the first time I have inked up these Dina Wakeley butterflies ....

... they are a beautiful shape.

So here's a quick rundown of the steps if you are interested. I like to record them for my own benefit 

Scrape gesso over the pages to seal most of the surfaces.

Scrape acrylic paints on the pages.

Whilst damp use a stencil and rub away some of the acrylic paints. Dry.

Using a sponge dab a different colour acrylic paint through stencil. Dry

Knock it back with Dylusions white linen spray.

When dry seal with a spray varnish. (mine was a shiny one). This allows you to work over the top of it without rubbing any more colour away.

Stamp Dina Wakeley butterflies with black archival, paint with acrylics.

The quote is downloaded from the internet.

I am adding a new Linky for February. Thank you to everyone who shared their pages in January, it was such a pleasure to pop round to your blogs and see what you have been doing, I hope you are enjoying it too. I am now looking forward to February and seeing how your pages are developing and finding out more about how you are putting them together and what is inspiring you. Butterflies are always an inspiration for me as my Mum always used to tell me that she would return as a butterfly in her next life on earth. So I see her so often around me.

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

hugs Brenda

here is the Linky code for you to use.


get the InLinkz code

An InLinkz Link-up

Drips and Drops at CVC and step x step

It's the 1st February (Really? Already?) and it's time for a new challenge at Country View Crafts. The theme today has been chosen by the lovely Sue at Scrumplescrunch and she's called it 'Drips and Drops'. Mulling this over in my head I knew I just had to go with my most loved techniques using distress inks and started off on a background but as the ideas were developing I ended up with a Spring or Easter card with the egg image coming from that gorgeous wallflower stack from Tim Holtz.

The acrylic block DI technique using glimmer mists is a technique I love to turn to when I'm in one of those 'don't know what to do' frame of minds.

Dabbing distress inks on the block, misting them until you get those gorgeous 'drops' of colour and then pressing it into the card to get great blended distress effects.

When I'd done that I splattered 'drops' of ink over in stormy sky distress stain and water using a small paint brush and heat dried it.

Blend antique linen and stormy sky DIs over the top half where there is less colour and flick water 'drops' on. Absorb the water droplets with kitchen towel and heat dry

Blend same colours over again and ink the edges with walnut stain.

Splatter 'drops' of gathered twigs distress inks and absorb with the paper towel immediately to ensure the 'droplets' are not too deep in colour.

Finally flick some more water 'droplets' on and heat dry.

We have created a speckled look with depth at the lower part of the card and more subtle effects at the top of the card..

Moving on to the next stage I made a frame using the Tim Holtz Thinlits dies – Labels. Ink the edges of the frame inside and out with walnut stain and adhere one of Tim’s eggs from the Wallflower paper pack.

Take a mini tag and repeat the process steps, stamp a special word and staple a small piece of hessian over the tag hole.

QUICK TIP

With hessian, to prevent it fraying too much, apply a thin layer of wet glue (I use my favourite evo stik wood glue) over the back and let it dry. This keeps the fibres together when you cut into it).

 The final stage is layering up all the elements and I love using tissue wrap instead of stamping on backgrounds, you can still see some of the colour through it.

Strips of Tim's papers still from the Wallflower pack and a couple of chit chat words from the seasonal set. But embellishments were difficult - I wanted to add more eggs so I attached one to a small piece of film strip and cut an even smaller one out and glued it on nearby. Fiddly but for me the detail is so important.

So how will use drips and drops on a card or project? I've got to get my thinking cap on now as I have one more sample to make for later in the month.

We are looking forward to seeing what you do for the CVC challenge.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx