It's all crazy now!

Hello again, I have been pretty busy this month with very little time to create but one of the items on my to do list was a display board with the new Tim Holtz Crazy Cats for Snazzys. The Headmaster's brief (aka despairing plea!) was to do something 'more colourful' so it would stand out on a show stand, what can he have meant lol?

Anyways.....

...one display board, more colourful, but boy do those cats look miserable - I was combining them with a great Vertical Greeting set from Impression Obsession and had difficulty in finding one that looked cheery enough for the Happy Birthday greeting!

So, as I had the stamps lying about my desk together with the Bird Crazy Set (which also need to have a 'more colourful' display board), I indulged myself with a couple of cards that are absolutely not 'more colourful' but which I think suit the stamps better.

First, the cats....

....and then the birds.

Both simply stamped onto old book pages with some added Gathered Twigs Distress ink, my new favourite brown, a greeting from Dylusions for the cats with some twine, some Candied Apple Distress ink on the beaks and a greeting created with the Stepping Stone Alphabet from Hero Arts for the birds, and a fair bit of fussy cutting later.... What do you think? Brights or Browns?

Thanks for dropping by.

Val x

 

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Tweet, tweet!

Well this post has certainly been a long time coming, mainly down to no time to create anything that isn't for a workshop, a make & take or a display board. Finally, last week as I was chopping up cardboard boxes for the compactor I had a smidge of an idea for a project using JOFY15 stamps.

 

I peeled some of the layers of the cardboard flap to reveal all the ridgy bits and covered the whole surface in gesso - this gave me a bit of a key and kept the colours true when I swiped a random assortment of Distress Paints onto the surface working it into the ridges witha baby wipe - what did we ever do without those!

 

I stamped out the birdhouses and birdies onto some scraps of white card, coloured them with a water brush and Distress Markers and cut them out. I then stamped Hero Arts S5601 Newspaper Backround onto more scrap card and over stamped it with the leaves from the JOFY plate. I coloured these in as before, cut them out and shaped them a bit too.

 

Then it was simply stamping the branches from the same plate onto my base, again coloured with Distress Markers and arranging all the bits I had cut out. I had a couple of empy spaces so I stamped and inked the 'tweet,tweet from the stamp set and filled the gaps. Some googly eyes, garden twine and a bit of spare black mountboard late and I was done.

 

I was surprised how much I enjoyed myself and how quickly this little project came together from scraps. Very satisfying to my mean Scottish blood!

 

Will try not to leave it so long next time xx 

Colourful Pages

Yes, really!

I promised myself this year I would experiment with more colour in my journals, especially colours I don't like, and here are the first two pages made during Snazzys AJ Sundays at the end of May & June.

 

Back in the dark ages, when I was a girl, I was very pale skinned with very blonde hair and my Mother used to dress me in red to 'cheer' me up.  Problem was add a bit of heat, or a bit of sun, or a bit of cold, or a bit of exercise never mind embarrassment and my skin could exhibit every shade of red going lol! 

 

Consequently, I loathe red, never wear it, rarely work with it, don't own anything red. What better colour to start with - once I had been shopping.

 

Postbox Red Dylusion's Ink Spray, Ranger's Distress Inks in Barn Door, Fired Brick & Festive Berries plus Tsukineko's Versafine in Crimson Red & Satin Red all found their way to my studio and onto this page - I did buy some Cherry Pie Ink Spray too as it looked pretty red on the label but on an empty white journal page it looked pink ;o( 

 

I was in need of sunglasses to cope with all the colour so added some Gessso stamping with Kaisercraft Background stamps, texture paste through a couple of Prima Stencils, Chequerboard & Crackle, (which turned red as I hadn't dried the Ink Spray, interesting effect tho') and Tissue Tape inked with some Vintage Photo Distress Ink to try and tone it down a bit - that went well then lol!

 

I think I quite like the page but I still loathe red!

 

The following month it took me all of two seconds to come up with a colour I dislike almost as much as red. That would be orange then, very closely followed by yellow - haven't worked out what it's for other than when a circle of it appears in the sky from time to time.

 

Set me thinking...

 

 

Dylusions Ink Sprays in Lemon Zest, Pure Sunshine and a touch of Sqeezed Orange with Scattered Straw & Mustard Seed Distress Inks, topped with Wild Honey Distress Paint scraped on thinly and it was certainly orange, extremely orange. I added some of last month's red Distress Inks to try and warm it up (I am becoming my Mother!) then consoled myself the beautiful Donna Downey stamps from Unity, I had finally treated myself to would hide most of the sins.

 

I then covered everything with a couple of thin coats of Gesso to create a sort of sunray effect and to try and calm things down, then stamped Hero Arts new Stamp your Story stamps in Archival Ink in Saffron, Distress Ink in Ripe Persimmon and Picket Fence Distress Paint. I then added the flowers and words with stamps from PSX (there's a blast from the past!) and MM in my favourite Versafine Onyx Black ink.

 

I like this page marginally better than the red one but am so grateful I told myself I need only use each colour once in my journal, what a relief!

 

Thanks for persevering with my inky exploits.

Back soon xx