Welcome to the weekend ......

Morning readers,

As many of you will know I swap ATC's with a pal on the Isle of Skye, whilst we used to swap materials (and make ATC's from those materials) we decided to mix it up and try themes for a while. I've been working on the "technique" theme. I also love to use snippets and had this small piece left over after making a card using the paint and glue stick foiling technique; it seemed just perfect for an ATC .....

My ATC

And a closer view of the foiling, faux stitching and colouring

Materials used:

• ATC blank
• Snippets of card in dark brown, chocolate brown and white + a snippet of paint/glue/foil card from my post of June 9th .. if you want more details of this technique then see it here
• Dies from My Favorite Things  used to cut rectangles from the foiled panel and chocolate brown cardstock
• Unbranded silicone image and sentiment (sadly, bought in good faith believing them to be S.U.) stamped using black ink and die cut
• Pencils used to colour image ... I took the pink from the background and the deep red of the foiling as my colours for the colouring

MFT dies - 1185 stitched rectangles + 839 wonky stitched rectangles
SU "Beautiful You" lookalikes (which I bought in good faith) with dies
Memento tuxedo black ink and polychromos pencils (not shown)

Materials for the paint and glue stick foil panel include:
Fresco dolly mixture paint dry brushed on
Glue stick adhesive applied through the Dylusions stencil
and then the sheet leaf applied and burnished

I'll be entering the above make for the following challenges:-

1. Through The Craft Room Door - June 12th challenge - ANYTHING GOES
2. Southern Girls - June 14th challenge - ANYTHING GOES
3. Crafting With An Attitude - challenge No. 40 - ALWAYS ANYTHING GOES
4. The Crafty Addicts - challenge No. 49 - ANYTHING GOES

And now it's time to share another Christmas card with you ....

My card

  

The front, back and inside of my card along with the front and back of my envelope

Materials used:

• White 12½cm square, 250gsm, card and matching sized envelope
• Two pieces of white card cut to fit
• One piece of navy card, cut to mat
• Snippets of card in white and navy
• Blue polka dot grosgrain ribbon attached using double sided tape
• Stars image and sentiment stamped using blue in
• Stardust stickles applied - to bling up my card

Dina Wakley stars images, Precious Remembrance Shop "sketchy Christmas"
Ranger Archival cobalt blue ink
Blue/white polka dot grosgrain ribbon
Stardust stickles - not shown

I'll be entering the above make for the following challenges:-

1. A Snowflakes Promise - challenge No. 52 - ANYTHING CHRISTMAS GOES
2. Christmas at Sweet Stamping - June challenge - ANYTHING CHRISTMAS GOES
3. The Merry Christmas Challenge - challenge No. 24 - ANYTHING CHRISTMAS GOES
4. Chrimbo Crackers - challenge No. 160 - ANYTHING CHRISTMAS GOES
5. CAS Christmas Card Challenge - June challenge - MASCULINE

Have a splendid weekend folks, whatever you plan to get up to

Monday funday

Morning all

 

That's it then ... Newbury Artstamps/mini craftathon weekend over for another year!

 

What on earth am I talking about? It started off with some pals who had been communicating on-line via the now defunct craftbubble.com crafting forum .... we mooted a mid year meet as we'd met up for a Craftathon in February of 2011 and then the Newbury Artstamps show presented itself as an opportunity in July. A couple of pals said they would like to craft too so I invited them to join me at my home (although they had to put up in a hotel as I don't have the room). This was such a success that we did it again the following year and then again the following year ... which brought us to 2014's Newbury Art Stamps show. We usually head to the show on Sunday having crafted on Friday afternoon and pretty much all day Saturday. The first year was experimental and we all just played but we subsequently got more focus for our next weekend (actually to try and stop the "kitchen sink" getting carted half way across the country!), and this year, we decided to try the bitumen/tarmac technique. I had seen several instances of it in action and spoke to the people most likely to join me for that weekend. Sounded like all we needed was the bitumen, white spirit, acrylic paint, die cuts or charms (for texture), soft cloths, a protected surface in a ventilated room and (most importantly) latex gloves!!! 

Since I was the one not staying in a hotel it made sense for me to obtain supplies ..... Our local B&Q (about one mile away) didn't have the necessary, although I was able to get some paints and the white spirit. And after a trip IKEA (about three miles away) for something to play with  ...... I was ready to roll ..... no, wait, some of us craft at the speed of light so perhaps a third project? I ordered some A4 board backed canvases from eBay, I can always use them myself if we don't get around to it.

Unfortunately, Lauren couldn't make it so it turned out to be just Cherry, Debs, Wynneth and me! As it happens, probably just as well as my dining table was groaning under the strain of four crazy crafters at play so not sure what might have given way if there had been FIVE instead!

Wanna see the mess we got ourselves in to and the fun we had? You can see the early preparation in Saturday's post here, if you missed it!

Here's how things looked Saturday morning

Cherry taking the ultimate step (with bitumen paint) ... to potentially RUINING her work!

Here are my two pieces - "tarmac'd / ruined"??????!!!!

And I had time to make a tag too

Whereas Cherry moved on to journal pages!

My tag with modelling paste and acrylic paint - before getting the tarmac out - AGAIN!

The big reveal, my canvas, mirror and tag - so, not ruined at all then????

And we had time to clear up the smelly crafting wreckage and craft on!

Completely finished and with the mirror back in situ

 

NO IDEA but a huge curiosity about the technique? See Gary Reef explain it here or Karen's explanation here

Then we cleared up (a bit) and went out to dinner at Raj's and a good time was had by all, back to the hotel for another round of drinks before heading home. Sunday morning dawned bright, clear ... and WARM! We arrived at Newbury coincidentally about a minute before Lauren and we all parked in a row!! Heather arrived shortly after. Car parking had changed a bit from previous years and we felt like fillies paraded around the paddock before finally reaching the entrance to the stand/Artstamps! Not as big as previous years but, apparently, the show had been pulled together in just weeks so - pretty good under those circumstances! We did our usual of heading round once and a little shopping before heading to lunch .... where we did show and tell before heading off to shop some more, having seen what everyone else had bought!

Lunch and show and tell!
L-R: Wynneth, Cherry, Heather, Lauren and (front) Debs

 

Once we were all shopped out we said our goodbyes and headed in our respective directions, I was bringing Cherry and Wynneth back home with me. We had a revitalising brew before Cherry headed north and home and I put Wynneth on a train south not long after.

Thanks so much to everyone for coming along and for making this weekend so fantastic - it was great to see you all - can't wait for 2015 now!

Want to see what I bought?

Starting on July 11th the lovely Clare is going to be hosting a free mixed media workshop for the summer holiday period so, if you are interested then pop over to her blog here and sign up

 

 

Have a fabulous week everybody, I'm going to be having a rest today!

 

Tarmac weekend!

Morning all

 

The Purple Princess is away from her desk this morning .... well..... I'm about but I've got company this weekend. I've been joined by a couple of crafting friends and we plan to tarmac Bristol! We were so keen to get cracking that we didn't even stop for dinner ....

 

Here are Cherry, Debs and part of Wynneth planning what to do - just as soon as we finish dinner!

 

Following a delicious Chinese we cracked on and we're ready to tarmac a couple of projects this morning! Here's how it's looking, so far:-

My A4 canvas

My IKEA mirror - I took the mirror out of the frame - of the four, two came out really easily and the other two?
DON'T ASK!!!

Here's how all of the projects looked at 08:00 this morning!
Top to bottom: my own, Wynneth's, Debs and Cherry's

I find it so interesting that we all started off with the same materials and just look how differently they all turned out!

Of course, once we cover our projects in bitumen paint they're going to look scary so, right at this minute, I have NO IDEA how they will turn out .... I only know that Wynneth's, Debs and Cherry's look good enough to put on the wall as they are!

I know Saturday's are normally challenge days for me but I think it unlikely I'm going to get to them until late Sunday or even Monday - but I'll be sure and catch up then! In the meantime, Simply Less Is More's new challenge (one I ALWAYS try to enter of a Saturday) is: "Earthtones", in case you are interested!

 

Have a fab weekend, I KNOW we will be having a blast!

Welcome to What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday!

And what IS on my work desk this week? BITUMEN PAINT!!! It arrived on Saturday and I've not been doing much crafting since ..... I'm about to embark on the journey that is the TARMAC TECHNIQUE!! IS IT FAR? Only as far as your imagination will take you ...... AM I GOING ALONE? Nope, taking three mates with me!!! WHEN AM I GOING? July 4th - a smidge over three weeks to wait. My three pals (Cherry, Debs and Wynneth) are coming to mine for the weekend and we have plans ... oh yes, we have plans!

 

I have IKEA mirrors and photo frames and also board backed A4 canvases to play with. We'll be getting inky, painty and (no doubt) covered in bitumen paint so I'm in search of plastic sheeting to protect my poor innocent dining room table and carpet! Wish me luck!

 

However, that's in the future - so, what do I have to share with you TODAY?

In the interest of it not being a case of the blind leading the blind I thought I should at least have a go and a friend (Karen, see her stunning work here) recommended I start on something small , plus a few other pointers (thanks matey!) .... hmm!

I picked a tag and here's how it developed:

Take one tag!

Emboss snippets of card and adhere (firmly) to said tag - remember to re-punch the hole at the top

Painted and ready to go! Looks a right mess at this stage .. AND I dropped my orange paint
- I'm sure you can see where! Wonder if it will matter!

Paints used

And now for the scary bit .... take one paint brush and some bitumen paint and slather it all over your hard work! and leave it to dry - step away from the project!!!!

OH MY .... all my hard work!

And then the fun bit ..... armed with nothing more serious than a soft cloth (on this occasion I used ½ a J cloth!) and some white spirit - knock back the bitumen, gently does it, you don't want to overdo it.

Well, it's OK for my first attempt - needs practise though!
You can see where I think I took too much off the light pink segment though ..

 

 Materials used:

• One manila tag
• Snippets of card - colour immaterial as I was going to paint anyway
• Big Shot and the following embossing folders: Argyle, Swiss Dots, Halloween, Circles
• Cosmic shimmer glue
• Primo silver paint, Distress Paint in dried marigold, spun sugar, picked raspberry and seedless preserves
• Black bitumen paint (ordered on-line courtesy of eBay)
• White spirit
• Soft cloth (both for application and buffing)

 

So .... whaddya think? Is it finished or do I need to take a little more off?

And now for another shot of my super duper tidy desk - only kidding!!!!!!!!!!!! gotta tidy, and soon!

 

 

Welcome to my new follower, 1cardcreator, and (YES) I AM indeed a friend of Darnell! Thanks for stopping by and leaving nice comments too.

Yesterday saw me out to dinner with pal, Sue, it was nice to catch up with her as its been a while since we had the chance BUT it was only an average (or possibly slightly even below average) meal at a restaurant neither of us had tried before and probably won't be trying again any time soon. OK they're a BYO but the only soft drink stocked is coke and neither of us drink the stuff! I only wanted mineral water but had to settle on tap water, they brought a jug of water with two small ice cubes in it, they worked hard but the water never really did get cold! My pal had to send her meal back as the lamb was so tough she couldn't even cut it let alone chew it! But, when the waiter sneezed in to his open hand which then delivered the bill ...... well, just eeeuuuwww! We'll find somewhere better to go next time, trust me! Should've known better than to stray from our fave, Raj's - but promise you won't tell on me!

Have a happy Wednesday