Wonderful Wednesday: Some exciting news...

Hello!

I hope your week has started well.  Today I can share with you some of my news that I recently received!

I am now a member of the Crafter's Companion design team!! :)

I am really pleased and excited and have lots of lovely new team members to work with and can't wait to get started using their fab products.  I will be making samples for TV so look out for them on HOCHANDA, I will be sharing them with you on my blog too!

So to celebrate I have made a card using some of the lovely dies from the English Country Garden collection...

 

The background was created using the Floral Vine Edge on Kraft card.  This was then put through the Delicate Petals embossing folder and then Pebeo gold gilding wax used across the texture...

 

 

The flowers were cut from watercolour cardstock using Grand Floral, Floral Duo and the swirl was from the Lazy Daisy die.  These were all coloured using a scarlet and orange Spetrum Aqua pen, sprayed with a little bit of gold foil Prima Bloom spray and finished off with more gilding wax and a gem for each flower centre...

 

 

 

 The sentiment is from the stamp set which came with issue 11 of Crafter's Inspiration and was stamped onto Kraft card and heat embossed with gold powder then die cut and mounted onto vintage gold card...

 

 

The card expresses the sentiment that I feel to Crafter's Companion for giving me this opportunity. 

I would also like to use it to say thank you to all my followers and the people who come and read my blog and especially for the lovely comments.  It is lovely to see them and in a couple of weeks I am going to announce a giveaway for when I reach the milestone of 50 followers to say a big thank you, so keep looking out! 

Have a wonderful rest of your week,

 

Jane x

 





Mixed Media Monday: Tando Flower Workshop

Hello!

I hope you had a great weekend and are ready for the new week.
We had our second trip off the Isle of Wight in a week with a trip over to Southampton and Eastleigh for a workshop at Bella Crafts with Di Oliver from Tando.
First I have to say what a fab place Bella Crafts is!  They have activities for children to drop in and do as well as loads of different classes and workshops for all ages.  They also have a fantastic selection of goodies in their shop!!!  If you would like to find out more then click HERE to go to the website (I am not on commission!).

My youngest and oldest children (aged 4 and 14) did some painting and decorating whilst me and my other daughter took part in a workshop with the lovely Di Oliver from Tando Creative (click HERE for her website).  This is what we created...

 

The one on the left is my daughter's who is 11 years old, I was really impressed with how well she did with very little assistance and I actually prefer her leaves to mine!

 

We used lots of different techniques and the whole piece took about 3 hours to complete.  We used a Tando flower pot kit plus Decoart paints, gesso, crackle glaze and antiquing cream.

 

Here on the petals of the flower you can see the effect of a thin layer of crackle glaze with raw umber antiquing cream applied once dry...

 





We also used tissue paper and matt medium to create a textured look on the leaves.  A wash of sap green paint added the veins...

The pot was given extra texture and depth with dry brushing...

Dripping the watered down paint from the top added interest to the background...

We used so many different techniques and I can highly recommend Di's workshops!

Here is what the others got up to too...

A fun day was had by all (well maybe not the husband, but he was given lots of cups of coffee!!).

Thank you for reading and looking, hopefully I will see you again next time...

Jane x

Funtastic Friday: A 'quilling' monolith!

Hello!

Firstly I must apologise for the lack of posts in the last couple of weeks, amongst other things going on I just managed to get out of the blogging habit for a bit but hopefully I am back on it now!!

I have a couple of exciting announcements coming up in the next few weeks that I must sit on for now, but I also had a fab day at the Ally Pally craft show last weekend. 
There were loads of great demos going on, make and takes, HOCHANDA filming live plus of course lots and lots of....shopping!!!!!!!!!!!
So for my post today I am using some of the crafty stash I acquired and here is a piccie of it altogether...

 

 

I couldn't wait to get started so decided to use my new decoart paint colours with one of the monoliths and the Bee Crafty stamps and stencil...

 

 

The colours used were Payne's Grey, Transparent Red Oxide, Transparent Yellow Oxide and Quinacridone Gold, which was allowed to drip down for an extra rusty effect. 

 

The base was first stuck together then coated with white gesso.  The colours were applied one layer at a time and dried between each.  Then I used the paints with the Bee Crafty stencil and used archival ink with the ledger and Versafine with the pen stamps from the Bee Crafty set.  The pen nibs were also coated with clear embossing powder...

 

 

I then stamped, embossed and cut out the quill and ink pot and coloured them using Spectrum Aquablend pens.  The sentiment was a wordage stamp from Bee Crafty...

 

 

Once it had all been put together with glue gel I used watered down brown and gold paint to add splatters for more texture and gold Pebeo gilding wax...

 

 

Finally I added some Finnabair rust paste to the corners and base.

 

I love the fact that these monoliths are double sided and I am thinking that I may decorate the other side as well so that I can alter what is on view.

 

The visible image stamps are next on my list to be tried out so I will show the results of that next time, I am also thinking that I may need to create something a bit brighter next time as I seem to be heading down a grungy path at the moment!!

 

Until then have a lovely weekend whatever you are up to :)

 

Jane x



Mixed Media Monday: Industrial Elements

Hello!

I hope you have had a good weekend. 
We have had a mixed bag of weather here but it has meant that I did manage to get a project made for today's post.

A couple of weeks ago Andy Skinner was on HOCHANDA with a range of products.  I love a bit of an industrial style and also the rust effect so I decided to invest in a set of his Industrial Elements chipboard from Tando to have a play with.  I have recently started collecting the Decoart fluid media range of paints as well as some of the other mediums so I took the opportunity to combine them together.

I am entering this project into the following challenges...

* Sandee & Amelie - Anything Goes (steampunk/industrial)
* STAMPlorations - Anything Goes (use a stencil)

* A Vintage Journey - Create within a frame
* More Mixed Media - Anything Goes (option of brown)
* Craft Stamper - Anything Goes (include stamping)
* Creative Artiste - Challenge #18 Anything Goes

Here is the finished piece...

I started with an MDF frame from Bee Crafty on which I used the Andy Skinner Industrial stencil with modelling paste.  I also added some of the Decoart crackle paste using a palette knife for extra age and texture...

 

Whilst this was drying I put together parts of the Industrial Elements attaching them with Cosmic Shimmer glue.  Everything was given a coat of white gesso to provide a base for the other mediums and then Decoart media fluid acrylic was used to provide some colour (Payne's grey and hansa yellow light).  To increase the metallic look I also added some Lindy's stamp gang sprays...

 

 

Some silver Pebeo gilding wax and patina creative expressions wax were added to the raised areas and then the pieces added to the frame using 3D matt gel.

To create a more aged look Finnabair rust pastes were used in areas of the project...

 

 

Finally a sentiment from Tim Holtz was stamped using smoky grey Versafine ink and clear embossing powder added over the top.  Distress inks were used to create an aged finish (tea dye, vintage photo and black soot) as well as some more of the rust paste...

 

 

The chipboard elements were great fun to work with and had a good thick quality that made them ideal for using with all the mediums.

 

I will be back on Wednesday with another project so until then I hope you have a good start to the week,

 

Jane x

 



Even more Leonie samples!!

Hello again!

It has been quite a busy week with the children going back to school, including 2 of mine starting new schools (1 primary and 1 secondary) so I haven't had much of a chance to create something new for the blog (even though I have loads of things I want to start on!).  So for the final post of the week I thought I would show you the remaining projects from the last Leonie launch...

I wanted to make a reasonably simple card that was also funky and bright and the tree stamp was perfect for this.  It has been stamped, coloured and cut out and I decided to stick it on with a slight lean to make it a bit more quirky!  The sentiment is from the previous launch and stamped directly onto the cardstock.  I purposefully chose a mix of bright colours to give the card a contemporary feel.

The next card has a bit more of a traditional feel...

When I saw the wreath I knew that I wanted to create a door for it to hang on!  The door is created using kraft card embossed with a textures wood grain folder and then coloured by spritzing some scribbled aqua markers and rubbing the card into it.  I also created panels and a letter box by using some square and rectangular dies.  The wreath had extra depth added by blending the different greens with some yellow in patches using the glitter pens.  The sentiment is again from the last collection as all the stamps, dies and folders in Leonie's collections mix and match really well.

I am hoping that the bad weather expected on Saturday will give me the opportunity to get some mixed media crafting done so I am planning to have a new project blogged on Monday!!

Have a great weekend whatever the weather,

Jane x 



More Leonie Samples...

Hello!

Today I am back with a couple more samples from the last Leonie Pujol glitter pen launch.

The first one is using the snowman stamp and I decided to use lots of glossy accents to turn him into a bauble!  I was really impressed that despite putting on a few layers of the glaze I was still able to see the glitter from the pens coming through...

 

 

The second project is using the poinsettia stamp.  I blended some of the glitter pens when colouring to add extra depth to the petals.  The flower was cut out and added to the leaf and mistletoe on the front of a mini gift bag...

 

 

 

Have a lovely day and I will be back with another project on Friday,

 

Jane x 

 





Apologies!

Hello!

I am popping on just to quickly apologise for the lack of post yesterday. 
We were at a garden fair all weekend with my craft stall and it was a lovely but busy and tiring weekend so I didn't manage to get a post done for Monday. 
However I will post tomorrow so hope you will come back for a look!

I hope you are having a lovely week so far,

Jane x

Altered Eclectics: An altered scrapbook

Hello and welcome to a new month!

Today is the launch of a new challenge over at Altered Eclectics -

http://alteredeclectics.blogspot.co.uk/

As always it is anything goes as long as the project is altered art/mixed media (no cards, ATC's etc)
so do please pop on over for a look at the design team projects and also to leave an entry yourself!

Here is my project for this month...

This is how my scrapbook started.  It is one that I bought from a craft store in a sale a while ago...

I was initially going to alter the actual front cover of the album but was worried about contaminating parts of the album that I didn't want to get dirty, so instead I decided to alter a piece of board to attach to the front of the album.
I started by creating texture in the background using light paste and 2 stencils (Tim Holtz Clocks and Finnabair Cogs)...

After laying out the pieces that I wanted to add I took a photo before attaching them with 3D matt gel and then added some Powertex artballs within some more gel for extra texture...

This was left overnight to make sure everything was totally dry and then painted over with white gesso, I needed about 3 coats to get it to the stage I was happy with...

I wanted a sepia type tone to the cover to match the kraft feel of the album so used vintage photo and peeled paint distress stain as well as a brown and green spray by Lindy's stamp gang...

To make sure that the texture was highlighted I used gold gilding wax from Pebeo along with some patina wax from Creative Expressions...

To add an aged look to the board I then used Finnabair's rust paste set...

The final touch was the words which were stamped from a Dylusions quote set in gold embossing powder onto vintage gold card.  Then the whole piece was mounted onto card onto the front of the album...

We have a busy weekend at a local garden fair so I will post my next project on Monday, it would be lovely to see you (at the fair if on the IOW and also on the blog) and do please pop over to check out the Altered Eclectics challenge blog.

Jane x