Anything Goes at PanPastel UK

Hi Bloggers, it's  the first Sunday of 2013 so welcome to the first PanPastel challenge of the year and for your pleasure it is an 'anything goes' theme which always goes down well.

Those who follow me know that I have been experimenting more with the journalling style lately and I have also been using prints I made after Christmas with my new gelli plate. This is another of those and I have added PPs over the top to create more dimension using masks and also used PPs over some gesso layered through a mask. I used the white gesso to stamp the circles as well.

The stamp is from Crafty Individuals and called Party Puffin, isn't he just fabulous? I am making this into a cover for a new diary.

I hope you will join us again this year, there are lots of fabulous challenges in the pipe-line and there is a trial set of the pans for the winner supplied by our fabulous sponsor Berni at Your Creativity Store.

We are welcoming two new members to the team Tracie from the UK and Terry from the Netherlands, I am sure you are gonna love their work so please pop over and say hello.

Hope your week 1 went well and that you are finding lots of crafty time.

Take care and have fun.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with -
Art Journal Journey - Crowns (Thank you Susi for telling me about this one)

Crowned Bunnies - Crafty Individuals

I told you last Thursday I was desperate to play with the new CI stamps and gelli plate prints and here is my first sample combining them both. Jean has already published it on the Crafty Individuals blog.

The background started off as a 'ghost' print from the gelli plate, that is a second pull from the plate, much lighter in colour and often with bits missing. But it wasn't quite enough so I started to spray with Dylusions but they are much too strong, I thought I had ruined it but managed to save it by spraying with water so the colour could bleed and I blotted some of it out too. This meant my paper was soaked, but that's ok, I just used a heat gun and an iron with greaseproof paper to dry it out and keep it flat. It then had much more depth to it as the acrylic paint acts as a mask and the colour of the sprays only come through the gaps. To create more dimension I stamped some circles over the top and used a credit card to get some straight lines too.

The photo above shows a sample of the print straight from the gelli plate and how it looks on the card once I had spent time adding to it.

The bunnies were stamped with cobalt archival ink, coloured with Aquatone sticks and blended with water. The bunting was cut from canvas sheet, coloured with Caran D'Ache crayons and blended with water.

The card itself is made from corrugated cardboard and painted round the edges.

Another one coming soon and I have just finished my PanPastel DT piece for Sunday which includes another of these fabulous stamps.

Everything is back to normal now, I have just got to clear a few more bits of Christmas wrapping etc from the spare bedroom and tidy up and the house is totally sorted for the new year.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with -
Bloggers Challenge - Celebrate (Birthday)
Simon Says Stamp - Something New

Fleur de Lys UPA RAQ - The Paris Issue

Happy New Year Everyone - I hope it is everything you want it to be.

Today at Unruly PaperArts sees the start of a month inspired by a wonderful city and we travel to the City of Light to be inspired by the beautiful and stylish Paris of today and yesteryear.

To start us off I have made a small frame with a Fleur de Lys theme.

The frame was painted with two coats of emulsion and when dry covered with a mix of Fresco Finish metallic glaze and cranberry Adirondack ink and later rubbed over and painted with ripe persimmon. To make it look older it was sanded in places and inked over with walnut stain.

The backing board was covered with music paper then clear embossed twice and inked over with dried marigold, picked raspberry and cranberry.

I stamped a Fleur de Lys on green coredinations paper and cut out mounting the metal charm in the middle of it.

The embellishment on the backing board is a spellbinders fleur de lys accents.

Well having had the family, friends and neighbours in last night to celebrate and see in the new year, Ken and I spent the day clearing up and then getting all the decorations down and put away. Now I can focus on getting some serious time in my little craft room. I hope you had a good evening too and are ready now to have fun exploring new techniques, styles and ideas over the next 12 months.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Surprise Us for New Year at FSC

We have a very special challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges to welcome in 2013.
For the next 2 weeks we want you to surprise us and hopefully you will be surprised by and enjoy the samples on the challenge blog.

In fact this is a very special project for the design team as we are posting out our samples anonymously as a Secret Santa to each other.
I wonder who is gonna get mine?
Hope they like it and I wonder what I will receive in return? Ooooooh so exciting.

So onto my shadow box.

1. Gave it a coat of white gesso to seal the wood and provide a base for more paints and inks.

2. Painted over white acrylic and some Fresco finish Inky Pool and Claudine Hellmuth Altered Orange, with just a tiny touch of black here and there.

3. When dry sanded it down and took some edges back to the wood.

4. Rubbed some Walnut Stain DI into the worn edges and corners using a wet-wipe to take away unwanted ink.

5. Using the wet-wipe rubbed in white acrylic paint to lighten any areas again.

6. I have used the lovely PaperArtsy sewing stamps for this project and stamped one of the text stamps around the frame using walnut stain DI.

7. I created the background using one of the techniques I learned from Andy Skinner but changed it (as you do) to suit my colours. I used the TH sewing themed embossing folders and the dry brushing technique.
I glued some torn stamped tissue paper over the top and added crackle paint around a couple of edges.

8. Stamped embellishments are again Paperartsy using Prismacolor pencils and DI.
9. Sprayed the dress form and label with spray and shine to give more depth and raised them using thick foam pads.

11. Used card covered with black, brown and gold acrylic paint to make the wings and used TH Heart Wings die. When dry I painted them with watered red metallic paint and a coppery rub on.

10. Gathered lots of other bits and pieces together and aged them using a combination of walnut stain, treasure gold, red metallic paint and patina victorian gold.

11. I didn't add too much on the outside as I thought it would detract from the detail of the inside. However I love the half spool with flowers and twined bindwire.

Do pop over and be inspired by our fabulous team and maybe you will come and join us with an entry?

New Years Eve tomorrow and we will be getting ready to have some friends and the family to welcome in 2013.

I wish you all a happy evening and hope that the new year brings you joy, peace, health, hope, love and friendship.

Have fun and be creative.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with -

Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes

Live and Love Crafts - Anything but a card

Vintage Stamping Challenges - Pocket full of Posies

Stampin' for the Weekend - Anything Goes

A fun afternoon creating mono prints.

Look what I got for Christmas! 

Today I went shopping, intending to have a look round the sales and just have a 'mooch', but I got bored and I was home within the hour, desperate to experiment with my gelli plate. Wow, it took me back to my college days and teaching days in the classroom, what fun I had.

This photo was taken after I had started clearing up, the stamps and masks were already in a sink of soapy water.

The prints kept building up on the floor as I played.

My most favourite four mono prints

This being my most favourite of all.

My most favourite 'ghost' prints.

My least favourite ones.

But saying that, now I have got them up in the craft room under better light, I have to say I love these too and can see me using them.  I got 23 prints in total, so expect to see some of them in projects over the coming weeks. In fact I received the new Crafty Individuals stamps before I went on holiday and I can see them both going together really well. So more fun to have. 

If you haven't seen the new stamps they are fabulous, so NOT my style, but they are calling me to have a playtime. The new designer is called Alice Palace and her blog can be found here. The stamps can be found on the new CI web site

I think I am going to have alot of thinking time with these lol.

I hope you have had a great Christmas and everything went to plan. Hopefully you have got a day or two to have a bit of a rest before the new year celebrations.

Thanks for all your Christmas wishes and for stopping by again to read my blog, I feel so honoured that you are here.

See you Sunday for the new year challenge for Fashionable Stamping Challenges.

 hugs {brenda} X0X

Christmas Frame

My last Christmas piece for 2012, in fact I have cleared all my Christmas supplies back into the box and put under the spare bed lol.

This was a Marianne frame I did with my workshop ladies last week at The Art of Craft, it was great fun to make and they loved theirs to take home and display over the festive period.

Design papers from Best Creations Inc ........

Coredinations papers, computer generated words ..................

Punches and Tim Holtz, Memory Box and Marianne dies ...............

Vintage images .................

Glitter, acrylic paint, crackle paint and embellishments.

Only one more sleep. We have the family and some friends for dinner tonight, the family come again for dinner tomorrow, then off to our son and daughter-in-law's for Boxing day. It's a busy holiday as we will be out for a friend's birthday on the 28th and to another friend on the 29th and then a small party here for new year's eve on the 31st.

Wishing you peace and happiness this festive season wherever you are in the world.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Desert Island Christmas cards 3

Just a quick post before I take some things back to M&S, thought I would go now rather than wait till after Christmas when the queues are horrendous lol.

The last of the cards I made when on holiday in Lanzarote earlier this month - it seems like an age ago now.

I had already punched the borders before I left home.

I love the pink and red together on this one.

Here you can see everything I took packed into a very small space.

One more post tomorrow to show a Christmas frame that I did with my class last week.

I hope you are nearly there with preparations and it won't be too busy a day.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Desert Island Christmas cards 2

Some more of the cards I made whilst I was on holiday.

All four backings were made from one sheet of A4 DP, chopped into four pieces with different vintage images and embellishments.

I hope you are having a good week. It's my last day of work today, I will just have some paperwork to do tomorrow and that's me then finished - yay. Hopefully I can get back to blogging.

I just want to say hello to Debbie of  'A Scrapjourney'. Debbie and I have been commenting on each other's blog for a long time. I knew she lived in my area but we had never met up, but she suddenly appeared at The Art of Craft where I was doing a workshop last week. It was lovely to meet you at last.

See you all soon.

hugs {brenda} xox

Christmas masking

Happy Sunday, I hope you are now well into your Christmas preparations. I still have quite a bit to do, but we are getting there.

Today I have one post for both Fashionable Stamping Challenges and PanPastels DTs. The challenge today at FSC is 'Mask It' and at PanPastels it is 'Christmas Time' and by putting them together I have made a Christmas card for my hubbie.

I used a mask and Maimeri modelling paste, available from our sponsors 'Your Creativity Store', to create the texture on the background and then when it was dry I added PPs and also used a holly mask to create further interest.

The toy soldier is a Sizzix die coloured with distress stains, inked round the edges and edged with black pen.

The Marianne trees have been dry brushed with white paint and I created texture on them by using the die for embossing over them to make it look like branches.

Finally one die cut and two punched snowflakes, a die cut 25 and computer generated sentiment complete finish it off.

I am not around again today, I will be attending day 2 of the Andy Skinner workshops at The Stamp Attic. I am looking forward to having some time over the Christmas and New Year to play with the techniques I am learning.

Sorry I haven't been commenting this week. The catch-up with work after my holiday, a day being a governor at a local school and then prepping and doing a workshop at The Art of Craft has prevented me from doing much else. But hopefully I can catch up with you all this week.

Take care, only 10 more sleeps before Christmas.

hugs Brenda xox