Crafts-Too Summer Days 3

The twist changes for the Summer Days theme this week at Crafts-Too Challenge You and with the Summer Days theme we want to see beach colours. I have used sand colours and a summer beach theme for my DT sample using a Marianne seashells die and some small summer sentiments that came in my pack, plus some Tim Holtz goodies.

I have made a double pocket envelope using the Tim Holtz die and papers from Joy Crafts vintage papers block and dry embossed them on the edges and blended vintage photo DI over the raised parts.

Having glued the two envelopes together I added some washi tape and fabric tape from Crafts Too around the edges to give it more sturdiness. Do you like the shells? They were die-cut using glassine paper, crumpled and rubbed with DI.

For the front I stamped using one of the small summer messages, added some chit-chat stickers and stamped and cut out the Clarity deck chair.

On the back I added the fastening. You can really see the texture from the EF here.

The two tags have been made from Tim Holtz ‘Tiny tabs and Tags’ die. I used the wrinkle free distress technique and the TH Tiny Things set of stamps.

These fit beautifully inside the pockets.

Looking forward to seeing any last summer days projects you may have with the twist of beach colours. Do pop over to Crafts-Too Challenges to enter.

Thanks for stopping by today.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with -
Simon Monday Challenge - Make the cut
Tando Creative - Feel the Heat
Frilly and Funky - By the seaside
Anything but a card - Summer Fun

Grandpa Cabinet Card

I found a packet of these recently and they reminded me of Tim’s cabinet cards in shape and I could see the potential of making my own.

I began by blending walnut stain DI over, splashing with water and creating those gorgeous splatters and stamping one of the stamps from  ultimate grunge set.

I added texture with coloured up grunge paste through a harlequin mask.

When embellished and a photo of my Grandpa John Albert Victor Axon (aka Bert) added it looked like this…..

The key was die-cut using a designer paper scrap, inked and covered in rock candy distress crackle paint, a bulb charm dabbed with metallic distress paints, a wooden corner inked and I added a small stamped bee found in my box of bits.

Here I used more metallic distress paints on the metal cogs, an embossed B and my favourite bit was adding small photos from one of the Tim Holtz paper pads to a piece of film strip, I think they are so cute.

A piece of black die-cut with Tim’s vintage lace border die and the piece of paper added at the bottom from the French Industrial paper stash.

I’m not sure what Grandpa’s jobs were through his life but I think he tried his hand at many things. When the children were small (my Mum and her brothers and sisters) they all lived in North London. Anyone else out there have an Axon in the family, it’s an unusual name.

Thanks for taking the time to visit and read my posts and for all the lovely comments I get, I so appreciate them all.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Workshop - Butterfly Box 2

Just a quick post from me today to share a second workshop I did recently making the Butterfly Box. This project went down really well with everyone loving their creation.

It was made in exactly the same way as the previous one I did but the paper I used had gone out of stock and couldn’t be sourced so I used a G45 design and made a completely new box.

Here are four belonging to some of the lovely ladies who attended.

Sorry about the lighting, there is no natural light in the workroom and these were taken on my phone. But you can see the ladies did a great job.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Crafts-Too Summer Days 2

I had a Marianne lighthouse die to play with this month from Crafts-Too and decided to use it as part of the ‘having fun in the sun’ twist for the summer days challenge. I am not good with being in or on the sea and yet it draws me in and I love being near it. In fact I love being on it for a short while and lighthouses are certainly an attraction for me. So I made this seascape hanging.

I have to say it looks better irlife and irlight, the photography doesn’t really do it justice,

I started with the Tim Holtz cabinet die cut in greyboard for a strong base and painted it with acrylic paint. When dry I stippled modelling paste over the bottom to represent the rough seas around the lighthouse and I adhered the lighthouse with the paste to see how it would be placed. Again when dry I painted in the sea and sky using acrylic paints, dripping different colour blues and sea green into the spaces, then adhered the second lighthouse I had made over the top, gluing some sand around the bottom of it.

I then added the boat – can you guess what it is? I’ve altered it quite a bit with alcohol inks, treasure gold and paint.

I dry-brushed the rough waves with white acrylic paint to make them look more like white tops.

The hanging piece is some corrugated packaging cut down and painted with gesso and sand to give it that shabby textured effect

I added some TH paper, given a coat of white wash (thinned white acrylic paint) with distressed the edges.

I assembled the pieces …….

… and coated the shell collection with some gesso and sand too to blend it all together.

But it just didn’t look right once I had taken all the photos – re-think time.

In the end I added some CI stamped seagulls and some painted ones in the background as I felt the sky area needed more attention.

I’m happier with it now but still thinks it needs something else?

I hope the visitors on the passenger ferry have a lovely visit on their trip around the harbour.

Oh and I nearly forgot, did you guess the boat is a peel-off? Sure you did.

I hope you have had some wonderful exciting summer days and fun in the sun.

Do come and join us at Crafts-Too Challenges we would love to see what projects you are making that link to this theme.

I am entering this into the Summer Vacation challenge at Inspiration Journal. and the Artistic Stamper's Postcards, travel and holidays challenges.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Famous Quotes 2 for Country View Challenges

This is my second piece for the CVC challenge and was inspired by the PaperArtsy day I attended a few weeks ago.

I have used a size 10 tag, metal card, fresco finish paints and Lynne Perrella stamps and the quote comes from HP10004EZ hot pick set.

The background was made using butternut, honey dew, eggplant, mermaid and guacamole opaque paints, blending them together with a piece of foam. I stamped the feathers from the LPC007 collection in coffee archival then heat dried them and knocked them back with more of the same colour paints. When it was dry I scraped metallic glaze over it with an old credit card.

The focal part of the tag is a piece of the metal card, embossed and painted with FF paints with treasure gold colours added to the raised parts. I stamped this lovely small image onto card I had already coloured up with DIs and a pedestal I found in my bits box.

I used downloaded butterflies to add more interest…..

….. and I bunched flowers together and overlapped them onto the quote to bring everything together.

I think this quote comes from one by Abraham Lincoln who said “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time”. So true.

The trouble is the days seem to go two or three at a time.

Enjoy your day and thanks for stopping by to see what I have been making.

hugs {brenda} x0x

PaperArtsy Day

I was lucky enough to attend a PaperArtsy day with Leandra a few weeks ago with Chris (my sister) and met up with some old friends and blogging buddies – Gillian. Michelle, Lin, Karen, Neil and Helen and also met irl Susan (owner of Country View Crafts) and fellow DT member for CVC, Gabrielle. It was a hot but prolific day making lots of technique samples for teaching the PA products. We covered the range of Fresco Finish paints and glazes, crackle glaze, metal paper, the bumping technique, paint resist, blending paints, layering the paints, sprays, painting on fabric, grunge paste and treasure gold and not only did we use all these products to go with these techniques we also used Jofy, Lin Brown, Lynne Perella and Eclectica stamps. What a great time we had.

I have already posted some projects made with some of the samples from that day.

Thanks for looking.

Have a great day.

hugs {brenda} x0x