Young at Heart

Monday brings a new Crafty Boots challenge. This time it is Young at Heart and I have chosen to make something that reminded me of starting school. 

I have a confession - I collect October Afternoon and Cosmo Cricket papers and don't use them. I keep them very carefully and look at them often but don't dare to take a pair of scissors anywhere near them! So, I thought I would be brave and use a piece from October 

Afternoon's Report Card and attach a couple of Wild Cards and some alphabet stickers. I used two of Tim's dies - (Tag and Bookplates and Tiny Tabs and Tags) and a little Gathered Twigs Distress Ink at the edges. The ribbon and eyelets are from Stampin' Up. I hope you like my reminiscence of primary school days and you are brave and use something from your stash that you have been holding on to! Have a fabulous week. Gabrielle x

Christmas is coming...

For my latest Creative Expressions DT project I have made a Christmas Tag using their  Stylish 1 Christmas stamp set. As Christmas comes ever closer I know we will see lots of the traditional red and green combos but I just didn't feel ready for that today and so I have made mine using Weathered Wood and Old Paper Distress Inks. 

The tag was a piece of white card stamped, using the fabulous swirly stamp in the set, in both colours with both inks. Then I stamped three baubles and clear embossed them and cut them out. The sentiment is again stamped onto a little white card and coloured with Old Paper Distress Ink. 

The ribbon I inked with Faded Jeans Distress Ink (I love colouring my own ribbons) and I added a little pearl and crystal embellishment. I really enjoyed the challenge of using Christmas stamps but in non-Christmassy colours! Hope you have a great week - half term is over for me and so I'm back to work tomorrow! My lovely husband has just bought the ironing board in - so I think I should take the unsubtle hint!!! Gabrielle x

Feeling blue...

The Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week is to use one colour and the DT ideas were just so fabulous that it was a little intimidating to pick a colour! Eventually I chose blue as I wanted to move away from brown for a change! I used one of the large pocket watch parts 

inked with Tumbled Glass Distress Stain and for the dots on the art part I used Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink. Then I used a variety of stamps on grungepaper and used all six Distress Stains (Weathered Wood, Stormy Sky, Broken China, 

Faded Jeans, Chipped Sapphire and Tumbled Glass) to ink them. Then I used Tumbled Glass on some Stampin' Up paper for the background and then I assembled it all. I added glossy accents to the butterflies and an antenna as I did here but I used a spare piece of the 

inked paper highlighting the word 'flower'.  I have loved making this - it was a real challenge just to use one colour!

For those WOYWW lovers - on my desk is... tags! and a few of them! All cut ready for the school craft fair, just waiting for a bit of ink! Thank you for stopping by my blog - if you have a bit of time do check out the SSSS DT makes and the other WOYWW posts. 
Gabrielle x

Autumn

I had an hour to myself in my shiny new studio and decided to just have a 'play' and see what took my fancy! I have long admired people's projects that focus on strong colours and thought that I would use purple (Seedless Preserves Distress Ink) and green (Peeled Paint Distress Stain) and see what happened. In the back of my mind were the challenges at Everything Wendy Vecchi (use two hearts) and Sunday Stamper (Autumnal colours). I decided to use a square Art Part frame and stamp a dotty stamp with clear ink and use clear embossing powder - btw all the stamps I used were from Wendy's gorgeous sets. Over the top of that I swiped the Seedless Preserves ink pad. 

The background is some Graphic 45 paper covered with Shabby Shutters Distress Stain. I stamped out leaves in Jet Black Archival Ink and then inked them with the Peeled Paint stain.  The heart was stamped in clear ink and then embossed as before, and then thoroughly covered with the Seedless Preserves pad (this was an inky fingers project!!!) The sentiment was stamped in Seedless Preserves on creamy card and then cut out and edged and the heart was stamped out and then roughly embossed. 

The butterfly was inked with Peeled Paint stain and edged with Seedless Preserves and a memo pin as antenna with a stamped star in the 'eye' of the pin which was filled with glossy accents. The butterfly was then lightly covered with glossy accents so it stood out more from the heart. Well, I hope Everything Wendy Vecchi forgive me that this isn't actually a card (though it does have card on it!) and that Hels agrees that these are Autumnal colours - though I had such a lovely time making it I don't mind if I broke the rules!!! Gabrielle x  

Christmas came early!

I was so excited to see my latest set of Creative Expressions DT stamps arrive today! They are from the Stylish 1 Christmas designed by Sam Poole. When I saw them I knew I had to make a robin! I don't seem to have made cards recently and thought I should 

put that right. The bird is stamped in Coffee Archival Ink and Fired Brick Distress Ink onto white card and a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink at the edges. The sentiment is stamped all over the card in Vintage Photo again and then with Fired Brick on white card and edged as before. I added two red brads to the largest dots either side of the sentiment and 

some wonderful twine to the top of the card. I suspect that my thoughts will be turning to Christmas a lot over the next few weeks - I wonder if I'll actually make a start on the present shopping?! Probably not! Thank you for popping by and have a wonderful week! Gabrielle x

You're my type of friend

For my Creative Expressions DT project this week I have made a little present for my wonderful friend 'the lovely Kitty'. The lovely Kitty is entrusting her daughter to me for half term so I thought I'd make her something to put in her crafty space. I took 2 pieces of 

Tim's glassine paper, crumpled the first and glued it to a piece of mount board. With the second I stamped a typewriter from the wonderfully versatile Vintage Typewriter set and sentiment in Coffee Archival Ink and heated it to set the ink (the glassine paper will look like it is 'sweating' - that's absolutely fine! It'll go back to normal once you remove the heat). I stamped an alphabet onto more glassine paper and heated it. I then placed jump rings round the letters to spell 'friend' and put a small amount of glossy accents in the centre of each one to create a typewriter key. When dry I glued them to the typewriter. I added a few final elements including a stamped ribbon (another stamp from the Vintage Typewriter set); a shrink plastic typewriter and some twine. I hope the lovely Kitty likes this! Have a wonderful rest of the weekend! Gabrielle x

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 124

Warning! This post is very photo heavy! 

The base!

The outside!

I would like to thank the lovely Julia for hosting the weekly fascinating nosey round people's creative spaces and I am pleased to join in as my incredibly heavy hints are finally over! I am soooo excited that I have my own Studio, my own crafty space! I haven't really had my own space since Uni and as I showed you last week I have been squatting in a corner of David's study it is incredible to have so much space! So a corner of the garden has turned into a Studio and I am busy trying to decant the contents of the study into it! So this is what it looks like at the moment! There's still oodles of things to bring down but it is already very exciting and I've been able to start creating in here! Some of my creations have been put on the wall and it is incredible to see the things I have made around me - and a few things others have made and kindly given - such a creative space! 

There's even a spot for She Who Eats Art!

On my desk is a lot of sticks (appropriated from a well known coffee shop!) and 60 skulls and crossbones ready to teach 60 children how to make a pirate ship! Thank you for stopping by and sharing my news! If you're local - you are so very welcome to pop by! Gabrielle x

10 minute stripes

Two posts in one day! What a busy bee I am! Joyfully I had an hour to play in my beautiful new Studio last night (guided tours start tomorrow at 8am - form an orderly queue!) and so I thought I'd combine the fabulous Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge of stripes with this week's Grungy Monday challenge of 'Tim in 10' i.e. a Tim Holtz inspired card in just 10 minutes. 

Now the key to this challenge was to think it all through in advance and to have everything to hand! I used one ink pad (Vintage Photo Distress Ink); two pieces of paper (Cosmo Cricket and a scrap bit of Slice paper); two dies (Tag and Sewing Room); 

stamps (Haberdashery and Odds and Ends); piece of stripy sari ribbon and a strip of East of India Tape Measure paper chain. Oh! And a timekeeper - thank you Freya! I rarely send cards, as a folded piece of card but I do send tags as a card so I made a tag (cut 

with my trusty Vagabond!) with the lovely Cosmo Cricket paper. I cut out the dress form using the reverse of the stripy paper and inked the edges and on the tag. I crumbled the paper chain and moulded it around the dress form like a ribbon and glued 

them down. I stamped two cotton reels and a ticket, cut them out and inked the edges. I just about had time to glue everything together! I hadn't really realised how long things took to make and I was very grateful that I'd thought it through otherwise I think I might not have got much further than cutting out the tag! Looking forward to seeing how others have interpreted both challenges! Thank you for stopping by! Gabrielle x

Happy birthday Lucy!

My lovely sister celebrated her birthday yesterday and I didn't really want to make her a card. She has been very supportive of my crafty journey despite having no desire to pick up a glue stick herself! So I made her a little hanging card. The frame is one of Wendy's Art Parts - part of the Bookplates set I won in a Twitter competition run by Simon Says Stamp. 

I covered it in Peeled Paint Distress Stain, then Picket Fence, then Peeled Paint again and then a dusting of Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls Mist. The background is a piece of Stampin' Up paper from my odds box lightly inked with Shabby Shutters Distress Stain. The flowers are Wendy's stamps stamped in Jet Black Archival Ink on to Glassine Paper. As the petals were to curl I stamped the reverse with a dotty background stamp. 

The stalk and leaves are more of Wendy's stamps. I had a good root through my button collection and found just the one and added a little Stampin' Up twine in the centre. I used a jump ring and one of Tim's Type Charm at the bottom and a swivel clasp with a pearl from an antique brooch at the top. Happy, happy birthday 'little' sister! Gabrielle x

Autumn's here!

I've had such a busy few days - my new 'home' has arrived (much more of that on Wednesday!) and I have been so busy sorting it out but I did want to join in with my first Crafty Boots DT challenge. I was thrilled to be asked to join the incredibly talented team and despite having all my stash all over the place I was able to make simple autumnal tag. Before I go on I'd like to welcome all my new followers - I love reading your comments and they mean a lot - thank you. 

I cut a tag from some old Fancy Pants paper and put a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink on the edges. I then stamped a Wendy Vecchi stamp at both ends in the same ink. I then covered a piece of white card in Antique Linen Distress Stain, stamped a ticket in Vintage Photo Distress Ink and added an eyelet and twine. I also covered a little of the card in Pumice Stone Distress Stain and then stamped a circular stamp in Peeled Paint Distress Ink (the stamps were from the sets: Ticket to Art, Mail Art, Art from the Heart). 

The leaves were cut from Tim Holtz's Glassine paper, using my Tattered Leaves die and my trusty Vagabond. The I scrunched them up (so satisfying!) and then wiped Tim's new ink pads over the top to highlight the wrinkles (Ripe Persimmon, Gathered Twigs, Seedless Preserves). Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you have a fabulous week! Gabrielle x
ps - I'm also adding this to the Sunday Stamper challenge - the theme is leaves!

Inky orange

The lovely Gillian chose this week's Sunday Stamper theme for Hels and to be honest I think it was so they could show us their incredible work from attending a Dina Wakley class at LB Crafts on Friday and make us jealous all over again! I was lucky enough to be able to join them, and a few other friends for dinner afterwards and saw their work first hand - it was incredible so I really encourage you to see their blogs where they show you just what they achieved in a day! 

Anyway the theme this week is 'blue and orange' and I thought I'd see how Pan Pastels work on some of Wendy's Art Parts and also I wanted to make a little hanging for my craft space - more on that later in the week! So I covered an ATC with light blue, stamped the dotty 

background stamp with clear ink and then lightly covered it with a dark shade of blue. I then blended orange round the edges which looks really cool in real life - honest! The flower is stamped with Ripe Persimmon Distress Ink on grungepaper and then with orange pastel over the 

top. There is a sneaky stalk in green but I doubt anyone will notice! The ink bottle is grungepaper again, stamped in Faded Jeans Distress Ink with blue pastel over that. A chain to hang it with finishes it off! Gabrielle x


PS: It might be useful if I named the Pan Pastel colours I used!:
580.3 Turquoise Shade; 560.8 Phthalo Blue Tint; 280.5 Orange and 680.5 Bright Yellow Green

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 123

Well, with my heavy hints that something exciting is happening this week I thought I'd start sharing my news by joining in with WOYWW and show you what space I craft in. Now I appreciate that we all make the best of the space we are given, in my case a small corner of the study (our spare room) that was a small corner and is now taking over the room much to my ever 

tolerant husband's disgust! WOYWW is run by Julia Dunnit who presides over the most wonderful way to nosey round people's crafty areas without needing to leave the comfort of your own home! So. Here is where I craft. My horribly messy desk, the piles of boxes heaped up with goodies impossible to reach without serious excavation and stash 

dumped wherever there's a space I doubt he'll notice! To be honest it's not normally this bad, things have been a little hectic this week, and I thought it against the spirit of WOYWW to tidy up 'specially!!! However next week I won't be in here any more.... but more of that another time! Tee hee! Gabrielle x