Very far out of my comfort zone!

Amongst this week's inspiration at the PaperArsty blog is Clare Lloyd's challenge to make a tag wrap and paint a face... I have not painted anything like this since I was at school and to say I was nervous to even think about it is an understatement! However, I am trying to be braver and embrace new techniques and so I pushed myself to have a go. I wasn't sure if I liked what I did but looking at it again with fresh eyes today it's isn't too bad! If you want to have a go yourself, Clare's fab tutorial is here!

I popped my tag on a simple journal page. I have all the equipment needed to make a tag wrap but realistically I'll not look at it again once I've made it and my journals form a sort of story through new techniques and so the tag sits better in my journal! I hope you like my tag - no idea if she should have a name...?!
Edit: I missed the deadline to link my project to the PaperArtsy site! I thought it was 7pm but it's 5pm - so I have learned two new things this week!!! Never mind!

A woman's mind

I am enjoying playing in my journals - for two main reasons; the first is that I am loving the freedom of creating backgrounds with a palette knife meaning that it's quick and fun and there's no washing up of messy paintbrushes afterwards! The second is that I finally have a place to put all the quotations I have gathered over the years. This one amuses me!

I'm rather fond of this hat!

I am sharing a second painty tag over at the Country View Crafts blog today - I'd love it if you joined me!

I'm in Rhapsody!

When asked by my Mum what I was doing when she rang one day I explained I was working on my DT piece for this alphabet challenge for set by Jax for  Dragons Dream Tag It On. She immediately said the word 'Rhapsody' as the elements this fortnight are the letter R and Music (as well as a tag and at least one stamp). So thank you Mum for the inspiration!

I covered a tag with vintage music paper and then added some of my favourite stamps as well as a grungeboard R. The tag is quite simple this time as I wanted the music paper to be a major focus.

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I have said this before over the last few weeks but I am really LOVING this fortnightly challenge. I think my tags are building to a really interesting collection - I have made a page on this blog to honour the tags  - that's how much I'm loving them! This is a different view of the collection so far:

They look great all together but mmm... very green and brown with bursts of purple, red and blue... I wonder what the next few challenges will bring?! Hope you're making your own collection of alphabetic tags!

Without Leaving Home

It's my turn over at Country View Crafts and I have been playing with paint and my new very, very lovely Lynne Perrella stamps. What not pop over and have a look?!

Be..

The weekly challenge at PaperArtsy is proving to be a wonderful boone to my re-emerging mojo! This week saw Keren make some mini frames and this sparked an idea...! I stamped lots of Sara Naumann stamps directly on the page and then I added thin layers of paint. The trellis frame has lovely Lynne Perella images behind it (gosh, that was a labour of love!) and I then added my sentiment which came from first thoughts I had when I read Keren's post!

Thank you, all at PaperArtsy HQ, for the inspiration - it's great fun to be part of the challenges!

How old would you be?

What an incredible week it's been over at the PaperArtsy blog - the projects have been fabulous! I haven't had much chance to 'play' this week but I had to have a go at Sara Naumann's technique (more here) as I think it's going to be invaluable! 

I want to make a cover for one of my journals but just can't quite find the right photo yet... Rather than miss playing along I have made a tag and will make the journal front once I finally make a decision! If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them!

The photo I used is from my birthday (a better look at it is here) as I had a spare on my desk! The only change I made from Sara's technique is I added paint to the tissue paper after it was dry and removed the excess with a baby wipe. I looked the effect!

The paint colours I used were London Bus, Beach Hut, Limelight and Snowflake - the mask is one I picked up at PaperArtsy's stand at Ally Pally and is a firm favourite already! 

Thank you for the inspiration Sara and the rest of the DT!

Birds are Nature too!

For my second project for Country View Crafts Challenges I wanted to challenge myself to not use flowers and those gorgeous Scribbly Birds (by the very lovely Dina Wakley) seemed to fit the bill! My children bought these for my Mother's Day present - how did they know?! 

I didn't want to cover up the background too much as I was really pleased with the vibrant colours - quite brave for me! The paints are PaperArtsy and instead of painting I scraped them on with a palette knife which enables you to get lots of thin layers which build up - as many of the PaperArtsy paints are translucent it means that as they are laid on top of each other you can still see the layers below.

The birds were stamped on the page and again on a piece of card and I coloured them with Portfolio oil pastels. I then cut out the body of the birds and adhered them to the page. They are perched on torn pieces of Terminology Tissue Wrap. We hope you're enjoying the theme this month - there's still time to join in!

They were the big things

More experiments in my Small Moleskin - this time painting on Tissue Wrap! I love the border (white paint through one of Wendy Vecchi's stencils) and then I drew round each line. I love the little chap (I think he's called Twinkie) and think he looks perfect holding a balloon!

Queen... or Quote perhaps?

Time again for another in the hugely enjoyable series of alphabet inspired tags for Dragons Dream Tag It On. This time Julie Ann has chosen the tricky letter Q and the colour gold (as well as the obligatory tag and at least one stamp). 

For this tag I used layers and layers of PaperArtsy's Old Gold paint and a little Nougat and built up the background before promoting my phrenology head, Su, to be queen! I wasn't sure if I was going to use 'queen' or 'quote' as my Q (I love the quote from Wendy Vecchi!) but, for me, the queen idea had the edge!

We hope you'll join us this time!

Simple Tastes

I really love these Lynne Perrella stamps and find myself using them time and time again. This time I combined them with some stencils I bought from PaperArtsy, Fresco paints and a little Tissue Wrap. The quote was from Oscar Wilde - quite my favourite wit!

Optician Su

I have made no secret of my love for my Phrenology head stamp, Su. I absolutely adore her! When I found the quote (on Facebook of all places!) the page sort of made itself! The fabulous green PaperArtsy Frescos look terrific as a backdrop for Su in her optician's glasses. Oh, I do love Su!

Darcy's Journal Challenge - Month 4

I have spent this glorious Bank Holiday weekend mornings supervising the intrepid discovery of our garden and the ultimate attempt to reclaim it (!) and the afternoons having a go at Darcy's challenge (over on the PaperArtsy blog) to use her journal pages as a prompt... I sort of followed every step but not having all the right paint colours, stamps or stencils mine is so much brighter - I prefer Darcy's version but it was great to play along for the first time. I'm not sure I'd have thought to put the crackle on a page and so I need to explore that much more! 

I still have to buy the Ellen Vargo stamps so to get the circles I drew round some lids! The  stencils are Lin's instead of Jo's and the sentiment is Lin's too - I clearly need to buy Jo's stencils - can you see a shopping list forming?!

Thanks for a fun couple of afternoons Darcy!

Hold my hand

I amused myself when I realised that this young man could have a giant hand - it was all too Kenny Everett! I love the colours on this page - the little smudges of orange look fabulous against the hot pinky red. Hope you like it too!

Nature's Glories

This month's theme at Country View Crafts Challenges is Nature's Glories and I couldn't help but think flowers and these fabulous Lin Brown designed flowers (for PaperArtsy) seem to fit the bill perfectly! 

The pages of my large journal were painted with PaperArtsy paints and the spots are Grunge Paste through a stencil. I then painted them with Portfolio oil pastels - I love the effect this creates.

The I sponged the paint on to each flower stamp and printed them creating a variety of shades - I made lots more flowers than I needed and then cut them up to make layers and add depth.

The bottles (again, PaperArtsy!) were stamped on packaging from some of Tim's new dies! Thank you for popping to see my project, we are looking forward to seeing what you'll create this month!