Happy Summer Garden Tag

Hi Everyone,

Firstly Thank you so much for popping over today for a visit to my crafty world, and welcome to my new followers great to have you with me.

Today I have my May tag for you. You can find Tim's tag HERE with all the step by step instructions. The first thought that came in to my head was, oh this is going to be easy this month,  How wrong was I.  So many decisions, which trinkets, what colour background etc. Here is my tag.

I chose yellow tone as my background as we are heading toward summer and this is a nice bright summer colour which makes me feel Happy. The yellow background is a mix of Squeezed Lemonade and Scattered  Straw, and then we have Mustard seed inked through the Latticework stencil.  All the tiles are made from chipboard and are decorated with the wallflower papers. 

 My Inspiration came from my garden where we have just had two beautiful fledgling blackbirds came to say Hello with their proud parents whom we have been feeding for the past few weeks.

The blackbird on my tag is made from shrink plastic die-cut from Tim's Caged Bird die and painted with acrylics.  He was just the right size to sit in the ornate frame.  He did not show up too well against the wallflower paper on the tile and so I gave him a burlap background which seemed to do the trick.     

 Also in the garden last week we noticed the swallows flying high above us.  I just love to watch them swooping down to catch the flies they are amazing acrobats.  It is so nice to say Hello to them when they arrive from abroad every year, I feel so sad when they migrate back to warmer climates.  This little swallow is a remnant rub from the Botanical collection.  The little heart I have to own up is not one of Tim's but is very similar and I discovered it at the bottom of my trinket stash.  I put a flower in it and filled it with glossy accents to capture its beauty forever.  I love the colour of the flowers in my garden, and it seems every day I discover a new bloom.

 

I used one of the shadow press plates to spell my Hello, the arrow points inwards to the tag towards the pen nib one of my favourite of Tim's trinkets, and, which also enables us to say Hello in another way of course by means of words, letters, or in this case notes.

Those who follow my blog know of course that I am doing a little atc to match each months tag for my wall hanging, and here it is.  My atc has taken on more of an industrial feel although I have kept the yellow background to keep it bright. I have put a few small watch parts in the bottle, The pretty frame is an old broken belt buckle but acts as a lovely frame.  The tile on the bottom looks a little bit like a camera, this was not intentional it was just a scrap left over from my metal box which you can find HERE if you missed it. With the addition of a cog and remnant rub. 

 As you can see here the collection is building up nicely. 

Thank you once again for dropping in, and all your lovely comments I really appreciate them.

Mo xx

Bursting Flower Box

Hi Everyone,

Today I am sharing with you a project I have put together for Eileen Hulls Art with Heart Challenge? where the theme this month is 'May Flowers'.  I was inspired to do this  after seeing the one my lovely friend Anne made recently for her Guest Design spot over at Country View Crafts if you missed her AMAZING creation, you can find it HERE.  

I wanted to try and get a box bursting with flowers, but through the sides rather than the top, and here is how it turned out.

 I got my colour palette by just looking out of the window and I had plenty of purples flowering away in the garden. This is how I made it

 Use Eileen's large bigz block cube die (the 3" one) to die cut the block sides from strong board, I used mount board. I used a movers & shapers flower to die cut die cut the apertures, and then painted with Bundled  sage DP and stamped using Coffee Archival.

 I die cut leaves from the bigz spring greens and coloured with Peeled Paint DP

 Used a poky tool to carefully score some detail onto the leaves

 and then shaped the leaves

 these were added to the built box around the flower apertures

 I took the flower cut outs from the apertures to make a handle for the top

 Glued them together and painted them using Dusty Concorde distress stain and a paint brush to get into the tight corners I used a drill to get a hole in the middle of the flower

 The hole was made large enough to take a book screw which was painted on the top with Mustard Seed.  The flower had a very thin coat of glossy accents and this was heat dried straight away which made it bubble and gave it lovey raised detail.

The book screw was pushed through the flower and secured to the top of the box 

with the other half of the screw under the lid (the inside of the box is brown as that was the colour on the other side of the mount board) the centre of the flower was speckled with a black archival pen

 

 The flowers were cut from mini tattered florals decorative strip from different coloured card and white card that was painted, these were layered and shaped

 I used 3d pads and acetate strips to mount the largest flowers

 and then secured then with another 3d pad onto the inside of the box through the aperture

 I continued to add different flowers, some directly onto the box and some on acetate strips

 until I had a spray bursting through on all four sides.  The little feet are just 4 square beads glued to the bottom

and that was the atb bursting with flowers 

 

 Thank you so much for your visit today
Hugs
Mo x



 

All about him

Hi Everyone

Thank you so much for dropping by today. I have some very exciting news for you.
I am delighted to have been asked to be guest designer over at A Vintage Journey where the lovely Anne is hosting this months challenge All about Him. Below is a little teaser of my project, if you would like to see more simply pop over to A Vintage Journey where you can see the project in full with plenty more photos.



There is still a whole week to take part in this challenge and there is a £10 voucher up for grabs to spend at Country View Crafts. Check out the travelling instructions Here.

Mo x

Glitter For Men!

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for popping over today.
I am cutting it a bit fine (again!) with my entry for the second challenge in the new Compendium of Curiosities III Challenge.  Challenge number two is all about Distress Glitter.  There are some amazing fabulous prizes donated by  Tim & Mario to win, and also from the second challenge's sponsor, The Funkie Junkie Boutique.  I am not a glittery girl as a rule but these distress glitters are like no other. They are chunky like sugar and so give a fabulous shine and texture plus they take the distress inks so well and hold the colour.  Here is my entry for challenge two. Glitter on a man's card!? but it works.....

  

I wanted to use my new chevron die and also wanted to show how good the distress glitters look when teamed up with metal techniques which is perfect for an idea for the a card for the man in your life. The  little hint of glitter on this card is just enough to bring it to life, and just shows off the versatility of the distress glitters.  

I hope this card gives you some inspiration with Fathers day coming up, and with that thought in mind I am also entering this into this months challenge over at A Vintage Journey which this month is hosted by Anne who has chosen the title of 'All about Him'

 

Mo x 

Fond Memories

Hi Everyone,

Today I bring you a project I have really loved putting together as it brings back so many lovely memories and it is my entry for the current challenge hosted by Terry over at  A Vintage Journey .  The theme for the challenge is Fond Memories click on the link for full details.  Terry  asks that the focus of any creation for this challenge is memories of a special person, a pet, a period in time or a wonderful event, and of course be inspired by Tim Holtz.  I chose a wonderful event as the subject for my project, that event being our Wedding Day. 

Normally when doing a project with lots of photos I would make them black and white, but on this occasion I have purposely kept the photos in colour to show you the somewhat unusual colour scheme of green and yellow. Looking back the whole colour scheme of the day is quite amusing.

 

 To try and represent the colours I used Tim's Paint resist technique using Picket Fence DP through the Doily stencil onto the eight fronts of the apertures followed by squeezed lemonade, shabby shutters and bundled sage DI applied over the top. The paint acts as a resist and gives a lovely pattern. The lace trim was cut from the vintage lace  die, I decided to keep this white to lift the darker colour a little on the front panels.

 

 

The eight inner panels were done using the same resist technique but this time using the Latticework stencil and then spritzing with a mist made with shabby shutters re-inker.  There was a little bit of recycling going on along the way too. 

 

 

 

 This front frame shows me and Al in combined love hearts aah! The alpha chips had to be cut down a little to fit, and and the calendar was done with tissue tape.  I added the film strip right at the end using my tiny attacher, to give a bit of extra interest on the edges.

 

 

This Photo is where the colour co-ordination gets funnier, check out my brothers BROWN, my Dads BLACK, and Alan's GREY suit!! yet somehow it didn't matter, everyone just had a great time.  The 21 was my age and the 34 Alan!, 2/6 - the date.

 

 

This is one of my favourites of me and Al backed onto a burlap heart. Don't you just love Tim's new arrows? I found this spotted white ribbon in my stash and thought it matched the spots on my dress

 



 

This is one of the funny things the photographer had us doing, sitting down on the lawn surrounded by my bridesmaids bouquets. I used this little ring rather than a plain wedding ring, as it looks a bit like my eternity ring.  The white lace looks very similar to the edging on my veil. This veil was mark 2 (Mum accidentally put the iron through Mark 1 the night before and my sister and I had a quick dash to the bridal shop for a new one on the morning of the Wedding). 

 



Here we see both sets of Parents, the wording 'so proud' came to me as that is what most folks say to the Parents at Weddings isn't it? 'You must be very Proud'.  The wording was put together using ideology label letters, and the photo is backed onto an adage ticket.

 



 

My bridesmaids wore apple green dresses made by a friend, and we all carried bouquets of white and yellow carnations, although one appears to have gone astray on this photo! (I probably left it on the lawn). The chit chat stickers relate to them being Created and then they kept having to be altered due to weight loss.    

 

 

Cut the Cake and make a wish!  the little wishbone on the ring fastener was just perfect for this photo

 



 

And finally (If you are still with me!!) Here is Alan and I on the dance floor at the reception having our first dance, obviously I had got changed by this time.  The tissue paper represents the music in the background and I liked this stamp from Tim's new Mercantile set, after all no-one is perfect are they? but Alan is perfect in my eyes.

So there we are, Thank you for joining my with my trip down memory lane.

 

Mo x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Things with wings

Hi Everyone,

I am sharing a little Triptych  today that I put together recently using a Tando mini theatre.  I don't often use papers as the main element of my projects but the graphic 45 Botanical tea garden paper was love at first sight and I just had to have them.

I wanted it to look a bigger project so I started  by dividing the mini theatre panels into 3 pairs.

 

I lightly dabbed texture paste onto the frames of two of the panels and then on the centre frame I gave it a thicker coat, and then pressed a scrip stamp into the texture paste to form a pattern.  All of the textured panels were given a tickle of treasure gold to bring out the textures when dried.  I die-cut the trellis to link the panels together from white cardstock, doubled over to give it strength, and I also used an additional die-cut trellis as a stencil for the background on the centre panel.  This was given a coat of tumbled glass distress stain and when dry I applied white texture paste through the stencil. 

 

 

The Flowers were cut using a combination of tattered florals, tattered garland and movers and shapers dies cut through core card and Graphic 45 Botanical tea garden papers.  Some of the flowers cut from the Tattered florals bigz die were inked on the edges and others were left clean.  The yellow flower centres are punced using a small daisy punch, as were the little flowers on the feet.  The leaves you may recognise as the bigz spring greens die, again cut through core card. I used various different pearl embellishments and a pearl stick pin in the flowers.

 

I have used 2 different sheets of Botanical tea papers, one for the front panels of the triptych and also the 3d decorations ie the butterfly, humming birds and stamps.  The other sheet was used on the back which I kept quite plain. 

 

 

The stamps are already in a strip on the papers and rather than have them flat, I folded and shaped them slightly, holding them in this shape with a combination of 3d pads and glue. 

 

   I am entering my triptych in the Current Challenge at Country View Crafts which
is has the theme of 'Natures Glories'. With all the beautiful birds, flowers and butterflies included on this project I thought it just right for this challenge.
 

 Thank you for your visit, I do hope you like what you have seen. Please feel free to leave a comment, I do read each and every one - they mean so much!

Mo x

Love those leftovers at OCC

Hello Everyone,

I am so thrilled and honoured to have been invited to be a guest designer this month over at  Our Creative Corner where the lovely Linda Coughlin  aka The Funkie Junkie is hosting this months challenge.  The theme Linda has chosen for May is Love those leftovers .

The picture below shows an all to familiar site on my desk, loads of scraps left over from previous projects.  If you want to see what ive created using these leftovers,  hop over to Our Creative Corner   where you will find lots of photos and a step by step guide of how I put it together.  For full details of how to enter the Linda's challenge click HERE

 

 

Thank you for dropping by today 

Mo x