Golden

Hi everyone, just a quick post. Last week I was asked to make a golden wedding card, which was a bit of a challenge as at the time I was really in a grungy, splash paint around sort of place....anyway after a bit of a think....

I decided to adapt the layout I'd used here, a little vintage but still my style.

Vanilla fresco crackle over gold paint

The same treatment to the finnabair mechanicals and embellishments plus some florentine treasure gold.

Background stamping with PaperArtsy  stamps in archival yellow and white brilliance ink and it's complete.

You may have noticed I've been tidying my blog, finally labelled my posts and sheer madness I'm now on facebook...anyone who knows me will remember I said I would never do that...well I wanted to be able to share my Donna Downey inspiration Wednesday pages, so that was the main trigger.
I'm also pretty excited at the moment because I'm lucky enough to have a room to craft in now...all to myself...which I'm in the process of decorating and reorganising. If I don't post for a while it's because all my craft stuff is currently packed up....hope it won't be too long before I post again. Thanks as always for stopping by.

Stardust

Hi everyone, 2nd post of the day and I'm sharing a double page from my journal this evening.

The theme at That's Crafty! this time is Wish Upon a Star so I think this fits the bill nicely. The journal pages started life as something light and bright which an experiment involving black soon put an end to!

There's a lot of texture on the page, from black gesso plus crackle, then more black gesso followed by pewter treasure gold on the highlights. At which point I thought it began to look like a night sky and went from there.

The quote is one of my favourites and rust coloured prima blooms and silks were incorporated into the background with embossing powders and splats of black and white paint.

I swiped the left over silk glaze on some card for the background of the rusty star, before using a Sara Naumann star stamp.

Over at Frilly and Funkie the theme is 'Something to Say' and I've been wanting to use this beautiful quote by Vladimir Nabokov for some time....I just love it.....'and the rest is rust and stardust'. 

Not frilly but hopefully funkie!

I'm also entering it into the 'Anything Goes' challenge at Simon Says Stamp.

Thanks as always for stopping by.

Featured on Tuesday's Tutorials!

Yes I'm absolutely thrilled that my April  'Hot Wax' post over at Stamps and Stencils is being featured on Marjie Kemper's blog today as part of her fabulous Tuesday Tutorials series.

Over the last year Marjie has run a Texture on Tuesday series, which has been wonderful. From June this year her focus is on tutorials and there have been some pretty amazing and inspirational posts already.....so I feel so honoured to have been asked by Marjie if I wanted my Hot Wax inspiration post to be featured.....of course I said YES!

Hope you'll hop across and check the post out if you missed it first time around. Once again thank so much Marjie for featuring my post. 

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting!

Catch up....

Hi everyone, another quick post from me. I've finally finished my piece from Sue Carrington's inspiring Metal Art workshop last month. Slow but steady! I loved the original colour combination but decided to go a different colour way with the alcohol inks and then came unstuck trying to marry up the background. The finished piece is much less vibrant than the original but as I love shades of brown I'm more than happy with the result!

Thanks so much for stopping by and happy crafting!

Quick post for a friend

Hi, this is just a quick post to let you know that my dear friend Sue Carrington has a new blog URL..not through choice sad to say. If you normally follow Sue, please pop across and say hello either via the link on my side bar or http://stampssuestyle.blogspot.co.uk/   The names the same...she's just moved house! Thanks Ruth x

Red and Gold

Hi, firstly thanks for all your lovely comments on recent posts, I'm really lucky to have such wonderful visitors :-) ....so what have I been up to now? Well I've been playing with some newly acquired brushos in my journal, and created something for the challenge over at Kristin's blog. It's week 4 of SOC which is 1 Red +1 Red + 1 Metallic challenge. I do like a challenge and red isn't a colour I often use in my creations.

I used some absorbent ground in my journal then added brushos and probably too much water and then hoped for the best! Sorry the photo is a bit blurred.

I've used a stencil with white gelato and stamps, silk glaze in crimson and gold fab foil.

I found and used what I thought was an apt Ernest Hemingway quote 'For her everything was red, orange, gold-red from the sun on the closed eyes, and it all was that color, all of it, the filling, the possessing, the having, all of that color, all in a blindness of that color.'

Hope you get chance to join in. Thanks for visiting and have an enjoyable and hopefully crafty weekend! 

Happy Holidays at Stamps and Stencils

Hi everyone, the very talented Toni is our host for this months challenge over at Stamps and Stencils. The theme is Happy Holidays and I'll let Toni explain in her own words...

It's that time of year where you may be thinking about dusting off your passport and digging out your swimsuit! Yes it's holiday time ! Whether you're a lover of the seaside or someone who enjoys a city break, we would love to see your holiday inspired projects. This could be journalling, altered art, or even a good old card. Just remember that we are a mixed media challenge blog and your project should reflect that and as the name of our blog  suggests, don't forget to include some stamping and stencilling

So how did I get from the above to my creation? Well a happy holiday for me would involve the sea and walks along a sandy beach with our dog. It hasn't changed from when the children were young, it was something we all looked forward to on arriving at our destination... looking for 'treasure' on the beach or exploring rock pools. At first I was thinking whitewashed or bleached wood and sandy colours, with plaster moulded shells but I was restricted by the supplies I had and the moulds or stamped images into plaster just didn't work. I then remembered a holiday where we visited a 'fossil beach' and found an ammonite and then wondered if I could use UTEE instead instead of plaster...so that's the route I travelled.

I started off with a 6x6 deep edge box canvas, I removed the canvas and flipped it over.

The supplies, the ammonite stamp is quite old but you can get alternative ones or a nautilus shell stamp would work well.

Clear UTEE heated till it starts to turn amber and then a little gold leaf and brown mica flake was added.

Poured on to a mat and the stamp had some versamark and chalk fresco on it before stamping. I had no idea how it would turn out but boy did I like the result....the bubbles just added to the effect.

I could have left it as it was but I wanted it to look more defined so I added some treasure gold to the ridges. The base is grey board which I roughly marked the aperture on to.Next grunge paste firstly just textured with a palette knife, then once dry I stencilled some more through the bubble stencil. To finish some fresco paint in pumpkin and irish cream dry brushed on.

I wanted the image to be raised up so the light would show through from behind so I've used 3D transparent gel medium. (UTEE doesn't normally adhere well, I used some superglue on the back of it and adhered it to a piece of clear acetate before adhering that to the gel)

Onto the frame, chalk fresco lightly washed over the whole frame. On the sloped sides of the recess I randomly covered half with irish cream, then filled in the remainder with pumpkin soup. Crackle glaze and a top coat of chalk.

Onto the sides

Saffron archival stamping, then a wash of thinned chalk fresco.

Stamping in irish cream and another 'wash'

Grunge paste again through a stencil, dry brush irish cream and a wash of chalk fresco.

A tickle of treasure gold to finish. 

Please hop across and see what the rest of the very talented design team have made, We're so looking forward to seeing your holiday inspired projects.  Hope you enjoyed the post and as always thanks for stopping by!