Make a Jigsaw

Happy, happy Christmas to you and yours. Hope you're having a wonderful day.

It is my turn to share another idea for our Make a Scene theme over at Country View Crafts Challenges. I decided to take the theme literally and that this is a scene you can actually make! 

The blank jigsaw has a slight sheen to it and so I used Distress Inks to colour the background and then a water pen (filled with water) to bleach out the ink under the stamped images. The background has five different stencils on it.

This is my first born showing that the jigsaw really works! I hope you'll join in with us this month.

Happy Christmas to you once again x

25th December

It's my turn over at Country View Crafts Projects and I have yet another Christmas themed project to share! Hope you'll join me!

Merry Christmas!

It's my turn over at Country View Crafts Projects and I've made something Christmassy - it must be December!

November

Ah! November! The month which sees you put away Halloween decorations only to realise you’re going to have to start getting your Christmas ones out soon! The nights have started getting very dark here (it feels like bedtime at 5:30pm!) and so it seemed pretty natural to make a night sky theme for my page this month!

The background was achieved by putting Black Marble Dylusions ink over the top of a blue and white painted background and dabbing it off. I then added the stars using Tinting Base for a soft look and the drew in their outlines. For a final flourish I liberally sprayed the page with a pearl Perfect Pearls spray so it has a deep lustre (that no photograph will ever pick up!

I drew the large houses free hand and stamped out a few Dylusions ones to make up a street. They were then inked using Broken China and Vintage Photo Distress Inks. Then I went bonkers adding some PaperArtsy and Tim Holtz stamps in the background.

I hope you are enjoying your November, thank you as always for stopping by! If you want to see more then I have grouped my calendar pages this year here and there's a Facebook group full of incredible inspiration with loads of different styles - really worth checking out!

Making a scene

There is a new theme at Country View Crafts Challenges and it's... 'Make a Scene'. Well, I must confess that this stumped me a little until I remembered the wonderful Stately homes we visited in the summer holidays  and the (slightly creepy) deer heads mounted on the panelled walls.  As it's nearly Christmas i couldn't help giving one of the deer heads a red nose!

Thank you for popping by and please do join in with the challenge this month there are prizes on offer!

Fresco Tag

I've had a little play with Fresco paints for Country View Crafts today - pop over and see more!

Late October

I am very, very late in sharing my October page in my Art Journal. The truth is I made this amazing background and everything was looking just as I'd hoped but then I just couldn't work out how finish the page!

I sprayed the page with lime Dylusions ink and then sprayed Black Marble ink at the top. Liberally spraying the black with water I let it run down the page to form spooky tree like trunks. When I had finally decided what to do next I added a leaf stamp to the top of the trees and they fell into place.

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The labels made great daily journal spots (I have filled them all now!) and the stamps are mix of all sorts of stamps I could find including some much loved, and very under used stamps, from Waltzingmouse Stamps.

I hope you had a wonderful October, thank you as always for stopping by! If you want to see more then I have grouped my calendar pages this year here and there's a Facebook group full of incredible inspiration with loads of different styles - really worth checking out!

Feeling Blue

The new theme this month at Country View Crafts Challenges is... the colour blue! I love this challenge as it meant I could make a simple journal page using some of my favourite things! I love this little chap who is standing on a strip of book text. I used watercolour pencils to colour him in and to give a shadow around him. The background has some of my favourite stencils and the painty marks were heated so they 'blistered' to give a little texture. 
By the time I had finished this I was feeling anything but blue!!! Thank you, as always, for popping by!

Present Tag

it's my turn over at Country View Crafts Projects blog, please pop over and see more!

Blue Snowflakes

The new theme this month at Country View Crafts Challenges is... the colour blue! I sprayed a snowflake stencil with turquoise Dylusions ink and then flipped the stencil over so the image on that tag is a secondary image - I loved the 'hit and miss' finish! The snowflakes reminded me of this Lynne Perrella image which I coloured with the ink left on the stencil using a paintbrush (so thrifty!) A few snowflakes and a simple banner from some of book text and that's that!

Thank you, as always, for popping by.

Halloween Triptych

It is my utter priviledge to have been allowed loose on the PaperArtsy blog tonight! The theme this fortnight is Triptychs  and this is my Halloween version! I hope you'll pop over and see it!

Floral Texture

This month’s challenge over at Country View Crafts Challenges is ‘Add some Texture’. This is a wonderfully diverse topic that means you can let your imagination run wild! I started with an MDF block and last time I showed you one side, this is the other! I used the new paint colours from PaperArtsy and Slate.

I started by adding Grunge Paste through a dotty stencil and... I didn’t like it! So I sanded the grunge paste down to leave a shadow of the dots and then stencilled the flowers on top.

I decided to do the opposite from before – I added light green paint, then green paint

Then plum and blue and kept adding painty layers until I was happy!

I loved this at this point but decided I wanted the flowers to be darker... Did I make the right decision?!

The final touch was to add a watercolour highlight to the flower. I used a black watercolour pencil and then added water to activate it but you could use charcoal or a Distress marker or watered down paint...

Thank you for popping by – I know the team are looking forward to seeing what you make!

Poof Boom Bang!

I have a second project over at Country View Crafts Projects using the Crazy Thoughts stamp set. Please do pop over and see it when it's completed!
I loved the stamp set so much that I made a 'bonus' tag. I actually gave this to a friend at her 'Hen do'! Hopefully they don't end up as a stereotypical old married couple! The Wendy Vecchi couple and the speech bubble were coloured with watercolour pencils and the background is layered Broken China Distress Ink.

Thank you, as always, for popping by!

#bestie

Hello!  It's my turn over at Country View Crafts Projects and I hope you might pop over and see what I made!

Add some Texture

The new challenge over at Country View Crafts Challenges is ‘Add some Texture’. This is a wonderfully diverse topic that means you can let your imagination run wild!

I wanted to use Grunge Paste as my texture and to add painty layers to make some visual texture. This is a l-o-n-g post so you are warned! I started with an MDF block and I used the new paint colours from PaperArtsy.

I started by adding Grunge Paste through a stencil

Then I added a layer of blue paint and then plum

I then added green paint

Then I added the lighter green paint and kept adding painty layers until I was happy!

The final touch was to add a watercolour highlight to the flower. I used a black watercolour pencil and then added water to activate it but you could use charcoal or a Distress marker or watered down paint...

Thank you for popping by – I know the team are looking forward to seeing what you make!

You rule my world

I love numbers and so this month's challenge at Country View Crafts Challenges of Numbers is perfect for me! For my second project this month I made a grungy imaged tag as my house if full of teenagers this holiday! Not that there's a blossoming romance you understand but my daughter does have blue hair! It, will of course, be back to 'boring' brown for school in September. Shame as I really like it!

I started by inking a tag with Wild Honey Distress Ink and then using Tree Branch Archival Ink though a couple of stencils. I added a strip of wash tape to act as a ground for the stamped figure and stamped her onto the tag. This is a bit of a cheat as she is a very detailed figure and to save trying to cut out all of that detail later I use the stamped image as a base!

I stamped her out again on cream card and coloured her with watercolour pencils. The boy usually has wigs but for this tag they were clipped! a little more wash tape and I thought I was done! However, when I came to it the next day I knew it needed more!

I added some Tim Holtz stamps to the edges and I was much happier! I hope you'll join in with us this month.