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

Thank you

Hi Everyone,

Just a very quick post tonight to say a huge,  THANK  YOU to everyone who has left such lovely comments and words of encouragement and congratulations following my winning entry over at 

A Vintage Journey with Dasies Bees and Cherry Blossom for their Spring Flowers challenge. If you missed it you can find the full post Here.

 

Mo x

 

CC3C (1) Me shell

Hi Everyone,

Today I want to share with you a project I have made for my entry into a new challenge which is being run by the incredibly talented  Linda Ledbetter of Studio L3.  This challenge is basically based on the techniques shown in Tim Holtz's new Compendium of Curiosities Volume III and if you love the work of Tim Holtz as much as I do, this book is a must have.   The challenge, which runs fortnightly, is being sponsored this time by Inspiration Emporium who are awarding a $50 voucher to spend in the shop also, all participants are given a promo code  to received 10% off any purchase at Inspiration Emporium!  Alternative weeks will be sponsored by the lovely Linda Coughlin of the Funkie Junkie Boutique.  If you want to find out what you have to do to join in the fun, click on this link(Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 3)
   
Challenge 1 is based on Tim's Paint Marbling technique which you will find on page 43 of the new book.  We are not allowed to show you how to do the actual technique in respect to Tim's hard work putting the book together, (another reason why it is a must have) but this is what I created.

 I have used the Paint marbling technique 3 times on this piece, each with slightly different colours to create a layered look and the frame.  I have just taken delivery of the new Nautical Blueprint stamp set from Stampers Anonymous, and it is gorgeous, I can tell already this is going to be one of my favourite summer stamps sets.   I wanted to give the shell a realistic look as much as I could so I stamped it using Vintage Photo DI, followed by Vintage Photo embossing powder which gave it a nice rusty looking texture.  I coloured the 'inside' of the seashell using Perfect Pearls to give a lovely shimmery pearl inner.  I pondered for quite some time as to what to use to give the rest of the shell a rough realistic finish.  The answer became obvious after a while.  I stamped and embossed again on  a separate piece of white card as before, and then carefully applied Versamark with a pen to effectively 'colour in' the shell and then sprinkled Antique linen embossing powder over it.  The combination of the two colours gave a lovely sandy effect but lacked true colour.

A little time spent painting over parts of the embossed areas with Spiced Marigold and Rusty Hinge distress paint with a water brush gave me the colour I was happy with. I fussy cut the shell and also cut out the inside area to show off the pearl.  I used a ball tool on the reverse of the shell to shape it a little,  put silicone glue in the centre of the shaped area and strong pva over the edges, placed it over the original stamp on the card and kept pressing down the edges until they bonded and left it to dry.

Once my seashell was dry, I came to mount it on the marbled backing and thought it looked a bit plain.  This was soon resolved with a little bit of tearing and inking around the edges, it also gave a much better view of the darker marbling on the backing sheet.

 

The frame started life as just a piece of plain white card, coloured with the Marbling technique and scored with my Hougie Board, and inked to bring out the detail. The centre was cut out to fit the picture and then a combination of 3d foam layers gave it depth. I used black foam on the inside so it would not show as much through the aperture. 

 

I love beach combing whenever I am on holiday and so I have no shortage of little shells, real dried seaweed, crab shells and bits of driftwood, rope etc, for decoration within the frame.

In my front garden, it is a pretend beach in parts with the coloured pebbles and a  lobster pot that houses my collection of larger beach combing finds, together they gave me a perfect backdrop for the photo.  In case you are wondering, the sand is a cork sheet I put there just for the photo. 

 

I do hope you have enjoyed a little journey to the seashore with my meshell!!,

Thank you for your visit

Hugs Mo x