Back to School with the Divas

Good morning everyone

A big welcome to new followers Von and Patricia and all my new Fashionable Stamping Challenges Teamies. I am pleased you are able to be with me on my creative journey.

Today the lovely Divas are challenging you to create something with a 'back to school' theme and this is so apt for me isn't it? I started back to school on Monday and we have had 2 training days and today the children start back, I am so looking forward to meeting them - wish me luck.

I have made a vintage memo board for my design team piece. The backing paper which is from a Victorian copy book, I found by googling and the alphabet sheet is from the Graphics Fairy. The schoolroom picture I cut from a vintage alphabet flashcard that I purchased last year. I stamped the torn note book edge with a Stampotique stamp I won and then added some school ephemera - one of my old ink pens, an old nib of mine that I have had for years, a shrink plastic ink bottle (made using a paper relics perfume bottle stamp - I added the word ink and the colouring to make it look as though there is ink in it). The innkblots are another Stampotique stamp I won. A nostalgic touch don't you think?

I hope you will pop over to the Divas by Design challenge blog to see the details and what the rest of the lovely ladies have created.

Take care.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Stampin' Sisters in Christ - Quiet colours
Crazy 4 Challenges - Back to school
The Cheerful Stamp Pad - Let's reuse
The Paper Variety - Use stamps

In the Garden

Sorry I am a bit late with my ATC for the Stamp Man, but yesterday I went back to work, just a casual  day, no children in, only staff but I have files I need to go through today so I decided to bring them home rather than go in as it takes me 55 minutes to get there in the car.

Here is my ATC for the garden theme, I used the watercolour technique for the background and just added the little butterflies and a sentiment. I chose autumnal colours as we now seem to be at that point when the leaves are just starting to turn - how sad. I have entered this into the Simon Says Stamp and Show blog hop.

Supplies
Stamps - TH artful flight, shabby french, mini clear stamps from QVC
DIs - shabby shutters, peeled paint, bundled sage

If you are an ATC lover why not pop over to the ATC swap blog and take part. we look forward to seeing your creations.

Enjoy the weekend, the sun is shining at the moment - so long may it last and we have a 60th birthday celebration to attend tomorrow night for my friend Yvonne. I decided I would give her the travel tag card I made and posted last week.

Take care.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Shabby Chic Dress Form

Woo challenge 3 for Fashionable Stamping and this time we would like you to use some ribbon or lace on your project. Now to me - that means shabby chic - so that is where I went.

I often use paint on the edges for this style but this time I went further and dry brushed the edges of the mounts with acrylic paint. I over stamped the pink mount with white paint and edged the blue mount with blue household paint.

The dress form was painted twice with Fresco paint and a layer of crackle glaze between them. I stamped a gold necklet on it. The best wishes mount has been dry brushed and the sentiment stamped with archival ink.

Don't you just love this dress form die - it is the most used of any of my equipment at the moment, I hope you are not getting fed up seeing it. A couple of people have said they think it is too big to use on a card but it is very versatile - this is an 8 x 8 ins card, but others I have made have been smaller and one was only 4 x 5 3/4 ins (see earlier posts).

Supplies used -
Papers from my scrap box.
Paint - white acrylic, blue household, Fresco Finish london night and snowflake.
Stamps - flourish by La Blanche, sentiment by Anna Griffin, necklet by Hampton Art.
Dies - TH sewing room.
White flower from Suzanne Klezcar and my own handmade rolled flowers.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Crafts and Me - Lace
Bloggers Challenge - tic, tac, toe - lace, patterned paper, die cut
Speedy the cats friends - use lace
Creative Inspirations - 1 of 3 - mine is set 2 shabby chic, pearls and lace

Travel with the Stamp Man

This is my design piece for the Stamp Man challenge this week and the lovely Frankie has chosen the theme 'Travel'. Since I just came back off holiday you would think this would be easy for me - but no, it tested my imagination again. Hurry up Mr Mojo and give me some spontaneity.

Inspiration has come from these challenges - Simon Says Stamp and Show is also travel, Take a Word - Old fashioned (the plane certainly is) and The Paper Variety has another travel theme.

Anyway I created a tag card. On the front I glued some TH atlas paper then swooshed it a bit in paints and dry stippled some over it too. Then I spritzed with gold mist. Over that I blended DIs and edged the whole card with vintage photo. I've stamped the sentiment and other bits straight onto the card and stamped the plane onto copper metal, made a tape sandwich with strong card and cut it out, sealing the edges with a metal tool. Using a trinket pin, I added a philosophy tag to the ribbon.

I used the stains and spritz for the inside of the card and made it look like a place for the correspondence with a MME stamp and using a TH 'post card' stamp as well.

I have a friend having her 60th birthday coming up, so I might use this as her birthday card as she just loves to travel.

Supplies
TH paper stash - crowded attic
TH die - tag
Adirondack paint dabber - smidge of blue, yellow pastel
Crown metallic paint - refresh
TH stamps - air travel
Cosmic Shimmer - rich gold
DIs - shabby shutters, scattered straw, vintage photo
Archival Ink - black
Moon Glow spritz - horny toad teal
Starburst Stains - pulpit teal, sea mint green

I hope you will pop over to the challenge blog to see all the wonderful creations from the amazing team and hopefully you will find the inspiration to take part. Don't forget there is a £10 voucher for the Stamp Man shop for the lucky winner chosen by the DT.

Have a wonderful weekend, I am off to Birmingham to celebrate an 18th birthday.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Workshops and meeting friends

I had some brilliant news the other day. My local craft shop - The Art of Craft -  has accepted my offer of 4 workshops, so I will be teaching and demonstrating during October and November. If you know of anyone in the West Surrey/East Hampshire/Berkshire area who would like to learn distressing techniques using distress inks, make a Christmas card using distress techniques or make a mini-album, then keep an eye on the classes coming up on the Art of Craft website. When I have more details I will also let you know.

I had a brilliant day yesterday. It was off to Lucy's where I also met up with Zoe and Von. We did some crafting, lots of chatting and laughing and sharing ideas. What a pity none of us thought to get a camera out - just too wrapped up in what we were doing. Thanks girls I had a great time.

I also had 2 parcels waiting for me when I got home - both candy gifts from Suzanne and Angela. Another big thank you for papers, stamps, sketchbook and other bits and pieces and a wonderful comment from Suzanne about my work - how lucky am I?

My Stamp Man DT piece will be coming up later this morning and then I will be off to Birmingham for the weekend. I hope you enjoy the next few days especially those of us in the UK as we have a bank holiday Monday to look forward to.

Take care everyone.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Winner and 18th Birthday card

Well before I go on - I firstly want to thank Brenda and the DT over at the Stampalot Challenge blog for choosing my card to win the July 'Anything Goes' challenge.

I also won blog candy at Suzanne's blog, Suz's Stamping Story - thank you Suzanne. Please pop over to see what Suzanne does - she makes some amazing things.

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome some new followers. It is lovely to see Deb at Stamp Dancer, Ali at Al's Bits and Pieces, Suze at CantStopCrafting, Angy, Eva, Sylvie at GibMiss and Tole_wils995, thanks for joining me on my creative journey ladies. (They were there with all my followers but Blogger seems to have lost them all at the moment).

This is my first card (or piece of art) since I have got back from holiday and oh boy am I finding it difficult to find any personal inspiration, Mr Mojo seems to have stayed on holiday and not come back with me!!!

We are going to Walsall, Birmingham, this weekend for an 18th birthday celebration (yes Sarah I am going to be near you again), so I need a card and a gift. Gingersnap Creations Random Redhead Challenge is a tribute to teens and Play Date Cafe is navy, bubblegum and leaf green, both of these fitted the bill to help me on my way. The Paper Variety want any threads including ribbons and Stampin' B's want any distressing so this fitted with them too.

I used Stampotique's Moth Fab and coloured her with promarkers. The birthday greeting is my own made in PSE and mounted on TH's large paper rosette. The backing paper is from First Edition papers - Spring Feast and I have given it a gesso wash. Edges have been distressed and inked with DIs and a scrunchy ribbon, crown and card swirls added as embellishments.

If I haven't got round to seeing you yet I am on my way.

Take care.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Giddy up we're homeward bound

Just a quick hello from me this morning to say I have not been MIA but we got back from holiday last night, having had a fantastic 2 weeks in Lanzarote. The title is from the song the girls were singing yesterday whilst waiting at the airport - very apt wouldn't you say?

A huge thanks to everyone who has stayed in touch with my scheduled posts while I have been away and I will be over to see you a soon as I have got some washing sorted out - yes the mundane things have got to be done haven't they?

I thought I would post a few photos of us. The girls love the pool and had a great time swimming every day. We took them to the beach and of course had some lovely meals out in the evenings.

I am looking forward to seeing what I have missed whilst I have been away and catching up with you all.

Luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Bird's Nest - hybrid card

There are times when I really get stuck for men's cards - like many people they are not my first choice card to make. But this one was fairly quick and easy.

Look on sites like Dezinaworld, Graphics Fairy and Bumble Buttons for free downloads. Print them as they are or use PSE and layer some of the images together. Add a sentiment, maybe some stickles and distress inks; some simple embellishments like buttons and a sticker and another card finished fairly quickly and easily.

Have a great day.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Handmade Flowers Wendy Vecchi style

Today is the second challenge for Fashionable Stamping  and we were so pleased to see so many of you amazing crafters enter our 'Anything Goes' last week.

So we hope you will join in again this week by adding your own handmade flowers to your project and showing us what you can do. Don't forget to show us some stamping too.

I have used Hero Arts 3 dotted flowers with their leaf and a Wendy Vecchi Art Parts base and used one of her wooden borders to create a little shelf. Both were primed with gesso and then painted with Claudine Hellmuth acrylic paints. It is stood with a TH small easel behind it.

Flowers coloured with distress stains and DIs and little Syntego pots to put them in. I used a mini glass bottle and filled it with real poppy seeds and made the label in PE. The little button is one of my moulds.

Supplies -
DSs - weathered wood, faded jeans, fired brick, spun sugar, wild honey, antique linen.
DIs - walnut stain, vintage photo, dusty concord, wild honey, fired brick, peeled paint
Stamps - Wendy Vecchi - love to make art, hero Arts - 3 dotted flowers, Our daily Bread - butterfly, PaperArtsy - man of numbers plate, Prima - hex net
Grungepaper (for the flowers, butterfly and foliage).
Charms, bits of old jewellery and chain.

Well I hope August is warm wherever you are in the northern hemisphere.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Summer Colours

Do you believe in life-long learning? I do - but it is difficult to get children to understand what it means. So this card is dedicated to the whole philosophy that we continue to learn new things all our lives. I have used my favourite saying and there is a hidden message there. Can you see it?

This piece is for Lisa's 'Anything Goes - with Summer Colours' challenge over at the Stamp Man. Do pop over and take a look at the most fabulous inspiration from my very talented teamies.

My inspiration for this card came from Joanne Wardle's article in the August Craft Stamper magazine for using resist techniques, but I didn't keep mine to a one layer card - of course I went on to embellish it more. I used art masking fluid as the resist for the centre sentiment to be stamped onto.

The flowers were made very simply with pre-cut, bought white paper flowers, swooshed in distress inks, heat dried - being scrumpled and curled in all the right places, and then beadazzles added to the centres. I thought they looked very summery, just like a patch of marigolds.

The butterflies were stamped with embossing ink onto card I had distressed with DIs, cut out and then DSs swooshed all over them. The depth of colours really soaked into all those tiny cracks and crevices.

Supplies used -
Stamps - TH good thoughts, papillon and artful flight
DIs - peeled paint, mustard seed, spiced marmalade.
DSs - peeled paint, forest moss, wild honey, fired brick, walnut stain.
Paper flowers, beadazzles, adhesive ribbon, gems
Dies - marianne and crealies.
Promarkers (just the lettering on the sentiment).

I hope we will see you over at the Stamp Man for our summer colours challenge and don't forget that Jill generously provides a £10.00 voucher for every challenge to spend in her on-line shop - so that's gotta be worth entering for. I hope you are having a good summer (or winter if you are in the southern hemisphere) and that you are having some good crafty time for yourself (especially if you have children who are off school for the summer holidays).

Take care.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxoxox