Dress to impress

This fortnight’s recipe at Dragonsdream Tag It On has been set by the fabulously talented Trace and is "Dress to impress" - to include dress or dressform, embossed impression and some bling (plus the obligatory use of at least one stamp and for it to be on a tag).

I chose to use a dressform and actually die cut two, using the body of one to emboss through an embossing folder. The bodice was then covered with white paint, sanded and lightly inked with Gathered Twigs and Broken China Distress Inks. The bling is within the ribbon roses as well as a little sprayed on the large dressform. How will you show us your interpretation of the theme? We'd love to see!

New...

For Crafty Boots this fortnight my lovely friend Helen has set us the theme of New - as it's still early in the year - new stamp, new house, new anything! There's something rather wonderful about 'new' things - a new year brings fresh determination to make it the best yet; new things smell lovely and there's nothing like testing a new ink to see what inspiration the colour brings! 

Freya and I challenged each other and chose to use new stamps. We also had to use Dylusion inks, a skull and a sentiment. Quite a challenge! The tag was sprayed with London Blue, Vibrant Turquoise and Fresh Lime inks. I stamped the leaves (from the Around the Edge set) and inked the with more Fresh Lime ink.  

The mushrooms (from Doolally Dorris) were inked with Postbox Red and Melted Chocolate inks and the white spots were bleached out with a tiny spot of... well... bleach! The skull (from Dependable Dotty) was stamped on to white card and a little hat added (from Doolally Dorris). The sentiment was from the Say What You Mean stamp set and was stamped on to white card and adhered. I hope you feel inspired to join us this time - we love seeing what you create!

While Dragons Dream

This fortnight’s recipe at DragonsdreamTag It On has been set by our incredibly talented team and is mythical animals, a night sky and a clear moon (plus the obligatory use of at least one stamp and for it to be on a tag). I don't have any mythical creature stamps so I printed a horse image from the internet and added two Dylusion wings to create a Pegasus! You know that I will find that I own something suitable next week! 

The moon was a splodge of Antique Linen Distress Stain which I clear embossed before inking the background with Distress Ink. The sentiment is a Wendy Vecchi one from "I am my Art" set - appropriate 'eh?! I hope you'll join in with us this time!

WOYWW 188

Gosh! How quickly the week goes and suddenly it's Wednesday again! Huge thanks, as always  to the lovely Julia for hosting our weekly blog party! This week I have taken a photo of my desk as I found it on Tuesday afternoon. The tag in the centre is my Dragons Dream Tag It On tag for today - if you'd like to see the finished version click here! There are two tags on the side. One is old and one is new! The new one needs finishing too but uses the new JoFy stamps (they're gorgeous!) I am so very sorry in advance that I may not be able to visit many blogs this week - we're moving offices and it is incredibly time consuming... and just a little frustrating too! If I have no hair by next week you'll know the move didn't go well!!!

Black and...

For Crafty Boots this fortnight Freya has set us the theme of Black and a bright colour of your choice (ideas include orange, pink, bright blue, lime, yellow, purple etc) I decided to make a black tag and add lime coloured embellishments. I sprayed the tag with Black Marble Dylusions Spray and then I drew some leaves in the background using the Luscious Leaves stencil. Then I stamped two sets of leaves, three flowers and a bird onto white card along with a sentiment and inked them with Fresh Lime Dylusions Spray, dried them and cut them out.

I hope you'll be able to join us this fortnight - there's lots of other creative ideas on the Crafty Boots blog and we hope yours will join ours! Thank you, as always, for stopping by.

WOYWW 187

Gosh! How quickly the Christmas holiday flies by and all of a sudden we are back to a more normal routine! That means that, as today is Wednesday it must be time to share our creative spaces with the world via Julia's What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday. I have had a major tidy and on my desk is my Christmas present Dylusions journal, a few tags mid progress and the very, very beginnings of a new project for Country View Crafts. Have you spotted my chair is missing? That's because it's in the dining room! We had a whole day board game fest and my chair was much more comfortable than a day sat on a dining chair!!! Really must return it to the Studio...! I'm off to return our Christmas decorations to their boxes. We normally do this on the 1st January but we couldn't quite bring ourselves to remove the fairy lights this year!

January

Happy, happy New Year! I hope 2013 is your best year yet!

I have decided to make my New Year's Resolution to be to participate in Kate Crane's journal challenge. Much more information can be found here. These are my calendar pages for January 2013. I was thrilled with this and then I made a red page elsewhere and look the red has bled through the spine onto this page! Oh well! That's all part of the learning process I guess! If you know how I can stop this happening in the future I'd be really really grateful!

I really need to thank the lovely Kitty for my Dylusions journal that she bought me for Christmas - I LOVE it!!! Thank you so much Kitty xxx