Tag Friday for AVJ

Yay it's a five Friday month so we all get the pleasure of making a tag for the AVJ blog and it's great as there are no rules or themes we just keep to the genres that we love.

I started by collecting together some mini tags and textured embellishments that I made a while ago to get a feel of the direction I was going to go in. Grungy, timeworn and rusted were the words that came to mind.

So I took an ordinary #8 tag and painted it with black gesso. When it was dry I then dipped and dried in watery washes of burnt sienna, yellow iron oxide and paynes grey mixed with cerulean blue which gave me those electric streaks. yep I felt I was definitely getting the right style.

For the next two layers I mixed media acrylics with lace chalky finish paint, so the first one was the lace mixed with raw sienna through a chevron stencil with a wash paynes grey and quinacridone gold mixed on the tag. The second was lace mixed with phthalo turquoise and burnt umber through Andy's cog stencil and given the same wash.

I added some text stamping in coffee archival ......

... and I sanded the edges and blended the same coffee ink round them. I also altered the smaller tags with media acrylics, dipping, spritzing, blending and drying ....

... and put everything together to create a collage. The arrow, 'explore' and route 66 badge were from my rusty bits box as they were made months ago and were surplus to requirements at the time, but came in so handy for this make.

Hope you can find a minute to travel on over to the Vintage Journey Tag Friday post and take a look at the magnificent inspiration from the Creative Guides, honestly their tags are amazing.

Have a great weekend, enjoy whatever you have got planned and thank you for taking a stop by my blog today, I really appreciate your visit.

hugs Brenda xxx

Halloween Give Away

I find myself with an extra set of brand new Cobweb Blueprint Framelits stamps and dies and am offering it as a give-away to one lucky person who links a Halloween project to my linky below. I will keep an eye open for any other die cuts or extra embellishments I might have to add to the parcel when I send it off.

So to be in with a chance to win this set please add a Halloween project below which can have been made and blogged anytime in September or up to 6th October this year and be one of my blog, Google+ or email followers. You can enter as many times as you want. I will choose the winner next week on the 6th October at midday (BST) so that I can get it in the post and give you a chance to use it before the spooky season finishes.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing your entries.

hugs Brenda xxx

An InLinkz Link-up

Remembering a special friend

Some of you will know I sadly lost a very special friend and Godmother to Ben at the end of August. I made this page straight after her funeral. She was a fun loving, strong lady who loved her family and friends and would do anything for anyone. We are going to miss her tremendously.

The page started as a 'mop up' piece used on the first page of the book (see here). I had used it for mono-printing and drying off using my trusty media fluid acrylics from DecoArt..

It looked very different by the time it had gone through a series of stamped, painty and stencilled layers.

My friend Linda loved her garden so I decided flowers would be my remembrance piece for her, I used Tim Holtz flower garden stamps, his wildflowers stencil and wildflowers die to create the effects. The stamped flowers were cut and individually painted using media fluid acrylics.

Seth Apter stamps in the background ....

....... various stencils.

And the page is in my Seth Apter style journal.

I would like to enter this into the Anything But Cute 'Friendship' challenge as it was partly inspired by being a Guest Designer for this current theme, but this is a very different style than the vintage clipboard I made for it. You can see that here if you missed it.

Have a great week everyone and thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Harvest easel card

It's my turn over on the Country View Crafts Project Blog today and I made this quick easel card with a resist background.

It is a fairly quick background process, but what made it even quicker is the central panel was my test piece for the upcoming workshop on the (1st October details - HERE) and I didn't want to waste it or hide it in my bits box - I think it works well on a card.

Please stop by the project blog to see how I did the background if you have time.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

hugs Brenda xxx


Updated from CVC

I'm going to show you a quick background using DecoArt's Decou-page glue/sealer. I got carried away making an easel card on a canvas board with my technique practice piece for the upcoming workshop (details can be found HERE if you would like to see more about it) and forgot to take photos, but here are some using card.

I began by using a baby wipe to blend over a light cover of hansa yellow medium fluid acrylic paint. The canvas board I used had been sealed and I should have given the card a coat of clear or white gesso before I started and would recommend you do so if using card as your base.

Give the background a quick blast of the heat gun to dry it off and then brayer small amounts of the decou-page randomly over it.

Again heat dry, lightly spritz over with water it and still using a babywipe gently rub over cadmium red hue. You can see how the decou-page has acted as a resist.

Repeat the deco-page layer again and the last step this time using quinacridone burnt orange. You can see the yellow and red through the darker orange colour.

Finish by lightly brayering titanium white over the top to create a bit more depth and some added interest.

So here I caught up with the same steps I had followed on the canvas and you can see how different it looks. The canvas took the colours in a completely different way and the results are paler and more subtle. You can also see the linen texture of the canvas itself.

I finished it by inking the edges and simply with some autumnal berries and flower. I was tempted to add some background stamping but as I had done that on the mini harvest board I left well alone. You know that feeling - should you add something more or not??? But I was glad to be using my little practice board and not letting it go to waste.

A few simple autumnal embellishments and we're done.

I hope you enjoy having a go at this quick background and if you do, please let us know.

hugs Brenda xxx 

TOP TIP

Don't forget to wipe over your roller with a clean babywipe after each time you use it with the decou-page otherwise the glue will dry quickly and gunge your roller up.

Guest at Anything But Cute

I so rarely get the opportunity to enter challenges these days so it's always a pleasure to take part but to find myself chosen as the winner of Anything But Cute's Summer Fun challenge was the icing on the cake and I get to do a guest post over on their challenge blog. Thanks to Pamellia and the brilliantly talented team for the opportunity.

The lovely Branka has chosen the challenge and of course if you've seen a previous post of mine this month you will know I sadly lost a very great friend recently to cancer, so this project and theme is dear to my heart.

At Anything But Cute they describe the theme thus-

Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between two or more people. We want you to show us a mixed media creation that's inspired by friendship. You can create anything, from tags to art journal pages but make sure it's a mixed media piece. Let's celebrate friendship together!

For my make I took one of Tim's mini clipboards to alter.

It's about celebrating our friends and friendships and for me that's not only my personal friends that I have made over the years but all my blogging and crafty friends many of whom I have met in real life. Where would we be without each other?

I chose to use a vintage photo that I picked up from the internet that shows a group of friends - I think they may have been in a production as they might well be wearing costumes - but whatever they look happy together.

Please pop over to Anything But Cute to find their challenge details and if you would like to see how my project came together please click HERE to be transported over.

Have a wonderful week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Seth Apter Binder

It's been a beautifully warm couple of days here in Surrey and I have taken the opportunity to sit out in the garden for a while. Gotta make the most of it now as it will soon be winter lol.

Today I am sharing photos of my binder made at the Seth Apter workshop organised by PaperArtsy. I joined up with Nikki, Susan, Gabrielle and Clare and had an amazing day exploring Seth's techniques and products. I got a lot done in the session not only the binder but five technique pages to go in it too but I have to admit I added more detail at home using some of his stamps and and stencils that I brought on the day.

I loved the layers and the way everything came together .....

.... and made some more backgrounds to stamp on, die-cut and punch. I had used some of Seth's products at the workshop but they were not all available on the day so I can feel another spend coming on.

I opened the binder up and worked across both covers and spine at the same time.

I couldn't add the 'inside' stamp straight onto the binder as the cover was more or less finished, so I used one of the backgrounds I made at home to stamp on twice and die-cut the circular piece out and then chopped the word up on it's own and glued over the top.

Seth was a great teacher carefully explaining his techniques and sharing some of his work as examples. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

If you pop over to Country View Crafts Project Blog you can see all our binders and a photo of the CVC girls together. Thanks Susan, Leandra and Seth for a brilliant day.

I hope you are all having a good week and able to get in the sunshine too.

hugs Brenda xxx

New workshop for CVC

Double Trouble

I am calling the next workshop for Country View Crafts "Double Trouble" purely and simply because we will be making two projects this time round.

I love this frame as it is more understated than other projects I do, with less depth and layers but enough for it to still look interesting and I think this simplicity is a great contrast to the recesses and embellishments and allow them to pop out more.

Each of the recesses is made up in the same way but with different designs and embellishments.

The fall foliage thinlits create gorgeous leaves .....

.... that sit on the textured background beautifully.

This has a harvest feel to it as well as a thanksgiving one too.

The shrine is a fun make to finish off the day creating lots of texture .....

... adding Tim Holtz embellishments and die-cuts .......

... and creating a niche with elements that will be perfect for a Halloween display.

There are more details over on the Country View Crafts Project Blog and the workshop is available to book on the Country View Crafts website. Click on the highlighted words and you will be transported over to both places to find out more details.

I thought we were going to have a few warm days this week but today has started cloudy and considerably cooler than I thought, I hope the next few days will be better.

have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

New journal Seth Apter style

New Ideas Create Changes

I had a fabulous day on Sunday at a Seth Apter workshop where he focussed on layers for journalling. Those of you who know Seth's work will have seen some of his wonderful art including assemblage, painting, mixed media, amazing book making, collage and journalling and he has also designed a range of products including stamps, stencils and dies which all work together beautifully. I will show you the binder I made next week as part of my CVC project blog contributions but here is the first page in a new journal - Seth Style -working on black.

I just went for it and played with layers of DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic paints and only thought to take one proocess photo when I had already completed about 5 or 6 layers and before I added the final one.

I used Seth's stamps and one of Andy Skinner's stencils, cutting out the stamped parts and adding the letter s from a second stamp ......

... I stencilled with the paints to create the clock and used a black pen to draw in the details. The centre is another of Seth's stamps cut to fit in the middle and on which I added some words to complete the message I wanted to convey.

I added additional background stamping and stencilling, splattered with a white posca pen, drew in some dots and details and inked the edges.

I love my first page which will always be a reminder of the fabulous day I had with Seth and with Susan, Nikki and Gabrielle from Country View Crafts.

New ideas and a fresh look at things always gets my creative juices working and stirs my creativity into action, thanks Seth for sharing your amazing art, your expertise and ideas and making it a day to remember.

I hope everybody's week is going well, mine is from a project point of view but I had to say goodbye to a very dear friend on Wednesday who died of cancer whilst we were away in America a few weeks ago. That was soooo hard and so sad.

Take care of yourselves and live life as much as you can.

hugs Brenda xxx