Leaving Card/Gift & Arty Girlz

Today my mate, Louise, leaves work & she starts a new job on Tuesday. So I made her a gift & tag. I also made her this card which was a class I took during the cybercrop at the weekend. As I haven't shared any of this work I thought it would all fit the Arty Girlz Open Theme this week. She won't see this blog until lunch time so I'm safe to blog early!!!

The pink background is hand made using pigment inks & various stamps in grey. Also a bit of sequin waste. The floral stamp is coloured in & beads stitched in most of the flowers. This pic isn't clear. It was hard to take!

This laid down shot does show the beads.
This is the cover of a notebook I made her. It's been sat on my desk for over a month & I'm so desperate to give it to her. Again all made with pigment inks & stamps & black embossed.
This is the tag I made last night after work just to finish the gift off. She adores purples but likes oriental pinks so I thought a purple tag would be in order. I stamped onto a scrap piece of Double sided Papermania paper, Lilac Dragonfly. The other side of this paper I used to make the Glamour Puss layout below.

First Batch of Cybercrop Designs

This first one won!!! The challenge was Girl's night, use Galmour in the title

This challenge was to use one of several film titles. I selected All I Desire

This challenge was Carbon Copy. We had to use a sketch.

What A Weekend!!

WOW! I'm totally exhausted & very happy. Despite my best efforts, the migraines I suffered most of the week did spill into my creative time, but I have still managed to complete 1 card, 1 tag, 1 minibook & 6 page layouts! I've used lots of scraps & lots of pink. Had a lot of fun as I pushed myself beyond my usual dithering boundaries. As there was no time to complete all the classes I have saved some to do at my own leisure.

I'll be back to share some of it, need a good night's sleep now. Back to dreary old work tomorrow. Roll on the next craft event! Hopefully two of my teamies wil be popping over soon for a crop.

UKS Cybercrop - The Oscars

This weekend is the Cybercrop on UKS. I have watched each year, but always been far too busy to take part. This year I cleared a very large window in my life & intend to have a weekend of "me" time crafting & enjoying the creative process. Its something I have lost the art of recently & that is why my blog is so quiet.

OLW -Grow

I started this layout 6 months ago & it never got finished. In fact it never got passed the background graph paper!! Then I saw the new word over at OLW - GROW & I just had to get it done! I spent a year working on the Horticultural Unit at Bishop Burton College of Agriculture, Beverley, back when I was 17. I took a City & Guilds course in Horticulture & it was one of the best years of my life. I worked under glass training, layering & picking tomatoes. The photos were kindly given to me by a dear blog friend, Anne. As it is over 24 years ago & sadly all my photos are lost. This is what GROW means to me.

Guest Designer for Arty Girlz

Back in January I was delighted to recieve an email from Julie & Crissi of Arty Girlz asking if I would like to be a Guest Designer for them. I was happy to agree & arranged to create something for them once I got back from my team retreat. Once back I selected my theme & created a design. I then emailed it off & promptly forgot all about it. Then I noticed other GD's appearing on the site & wondered what had become of mine. Julie had never recieved my jpeg image. So just after my birthday I sent it off again & thankfully it was recieved the same day.

So today I am glad to be Guest Designer with my theme Hand Made Backgrounds.

There are many beautiful papers out there & it is really easy to create a card/scrapbook page using them. But I find the real joy is in creating something for myself getting my fingers as inky & messy as possible! I love using Gesso, paint & in the design below, Distress Inks.

To create this design I used my favourite technique of watercolour type backgrounds using wet kitchen towel to apply the inks & blotting them off to give a mottled effect. I then stamped all the background with various parts of stamps. The butterfly lady I created on a spare piece of card in similar shades & glued her on. This picture doesn't show her as clearly as IRL. Most of the stamps used are Crafty Individuals, the large swirl is Papermania.

I hope you all enjoy making something of your own & get bitten by the bug.

A Suprise Today

My pyramid is featured over on the Inspirational Blog. I'm quite chuffed as I consider it one of my best pieces in a while & even more so because it's mine to keep. It also inspired me to create something else which is winging its way to my forum mate Joanne.

Watch tomorrow as I have something else that's cool & I can share!!

Jo's Birthday

It was Jo's birthday yesterday & I couldn't blog this card I made her until the forum birthday game had been played. We put up pics of all the cards we recieve from each member & the rest of us has to guess who sent which one. I'm useless at it but I know I made this one :0) All backgrounds are done with pigment inks sponged on. Stamps are my Big Wild Things. My inspiration came from Jo's new home. She has a stunning garden. My blog is a littel neglected as most of the art work I am making can't be shared yet. I have finished my diet. I have reached my target weight. I was 10 stone 4lbs & am now 8 stone 10lbs. I am very proud of myself.

Theme Thursday - Stripes

Theme Thursday time again & Stripes is this weeks challenge. I love stripes & have this soft brown & beige 12x12 paper sat in my stash. Im very much in a brown mood right now. I love all colour but brown speaks to me. Maybe its because it is cold & I always love autumn.

I can't make much but when that happens I make backgrounds & tags. This tag will probably go on to become a page in a book or part of a larger design. Or it might end up tucked between the pages of a book. Stamps are Crafty Individuals. Circles pattern is brown ink sponged through sequin waste. Ink used Brushed Corduroy distress.

Arty Girlz - Ribbon

Ribbon is this week's theme over at Arty Girlz. I very nearly sat this out as I went through a phase of adding ribbon galore to my cards & now I am fed up of it but I had this quick card to make for someone & thought a touch of ribbon might just finish the design off. I kept it simple because I have a fair bit of stuff to make & not the slightest inclination for crafting. I am very busy at work & shattered at night.

Less is More!

Recently my teamies & I decided to base some layouts on a few sketches to get us out of a creative block. We got too used to doing layouts in our own style & thought we needed to break the mould a bit. I am always struggling with minimal so based this page on a Shimelle Laine idea from SI. I used a single rubber stamp for all the flourishes & it was quite tricky to achieve but I am very glad I kept at it, as I am pleased with the results. This is my Dad in Oz. The trouble I had was getting a photo. I have found that photos of photos are always harder to get crisp!

Pyramid - Project just for me!

I wanted to make something just for me! I made the two triangles below for Arty Girlz & Theme Thursday challenges. I know many people have done triangles no end of times but for me it was a first & I loved every minute of them. So I decided to create two more (second photo) & turn them into a pyramid. Now it is complete I really fancy another to match.

The second two triangles.
My colour schemes were based on recent Theme Thursday challenges too. Arty Girlz is brown & gold. THTH Cherish, is red & black. The 3rd one I decided to give a slight Indian influence & went with orange, black & gold as I enjoyed the THTH orange & black last week. My last one is pink & brown (Another THTH one I did week before the orange). I used pink pigment ink along the edges & clear embossed them to show the pink up. Images of women are from Vintage Resources & Nina (girl with watering can) is from Rein. Blossom stamp from crafty Individuals.

Messy Background turned into Moos

I have finally managed to complete the mini forum challenge of creating a messy background. I then turned the finished piece in two Moos for this weeks's theme Women.

Step 1 The mess

Step 2 The stamping
The Two Moos
My computer has been playing silly devils & it has taken me an age to get images that will fit these moos! Not to worry, I have been busy making a few more triangles with them.

Sketches {by Tamara}

Card sketch #39 this week from Tamara was another good one, & despite still not fairing very well making messy backgrounds that aren't a total mess, I couldn't wait to make this card. I started straight after work & then had to go back for a staff meeting. Papers are BG Urban Couture. Stamps Big & Wild Things, gel-a-tins. Inks, Colourbox queues, pigment inks. I stamped the red flowers onto card & cut them out seperately to give a bit of 3D to the design. I love how these papers already had hemlock on them so I added two in grey.

Theme Thursday - Cherish

I'm not at my most creative right now. Am tired & spend lots of time reading wrapped in a blanket. One of the forum girls suggested a play with messy backgrounds & all I can create is... well a mess! But this morning I saw the Theme Thursday challenge & an idea popped right into my head so I set to & created a bit of it. I enjoyed making my first ever triangle last week but it kind of went wrong. This one isn't a lot better but I'm happy with the results. Had to assemble it now during my lunch so will blog it quick. The photo was hard to take & the design isn't as clear as it is IRL. I cherish nature, the beauty of it never fails to make me happy. I also noticed my deisgn last week made the sampler. I was well chuffed as I really liked that piece & the one the week before that made the sampler too.

I stamped in black & inked in reds. Then I melted black embossing powder in random areas before stamping Cherish & the flowers onto white card. They were dry enough to cut out & stick this lunchtime. They are stamped in colourbox queues pigment cranberry & ruby. Stamps are Harlequin & floral, Crafty Individuals & there's also a leaf swirl in there somewhere from elusive Images.

Arty Girlz - Black 'n' White

Well nice & simple I thought this week's Arty Girlz was going to be, but so far two of my usual background pieces have ended up in the bin & one is getting coloured to add some depth. I settle instead for a simple sleek, classic mix of black & white card & these gorgeous florals (stamp from Crafty Individuals)

Another Inchie swap

This is the second Inchie swap I have taken part in. Forgot to take a photo of the bird ones I received on Saturday.I will blog later. These one inch squares are the sum total of my crafting this weekend.

I have felt very "out of sorts" & spent the time laying under a fleece blanket sleeping or sketching. Did a bit of reading & even got some old paperwork shredded, but that's it.

If you want to take part in the swap you must go over to Joannes's blog for the details as Joanne is the host. The theme is children & I picked my 3 fav girls. The top row are colour washed lilac. Middle row; backgrounds makde by sponging several colours of pigment ink. Bottom row; Alcohol ink backgrounds using Butterscotch, terracotta & Gold mixative.

Stamps by Crafty Indivduals as always!

Sketches {by Tamara} card #38

Tamara has done it again with another fab sketch. I felt guitly missing some & last weeks, I just couldn't make anything original from it. Then seeing the gorgeous DT collection this week saw me having to put my thinking cap on & come up with something different. I saw this idea & thought it would make a great variation on the sketch. It featured in a past issue of Craft Stamper - Fancy Folds & it is was one I really wanted to make. It was only after I made it I realised it would be a swine to get a decent photo.... so I took 3!!! Papers are BG Periphery, Image Crafty Individuals, Ribbon & Brad, Papermania.

Photo taken card closed

Stood open

The inside photo???
Blogger however decided it didn't like picture 3 of the inside of the card I did upload but it appears to have vanished!! Oh well you can just seen the scroll in the pic above!!!!

Theme Thursday - Orange & Black

Another terrific colour combination challenge this week on Theme Thursday. One I do love to see but have never done. So here goes!! Background is distress ink spiced marmalade with other oranges sponged over the top. All the edges are heat embossed black. I used a mix of stamps & the image is one of my favourites courtesy of Vintage Resources.

Arty Girlz & A Layout

Arty Girlz this week is Triangles. Well I made a bit of a mistake with mine, but have managed to save it from the bin. The gold embossing was only meant to be along the edges & across the corners, but I was too impatient for my distress innk to dry & the embossing powder stuck to the whole piece. It has totally covered the pattern I had stamped!! So I rescued it best I could & as it was hard to get a photo of being so gold & shiny I turned the photo to focal B&W so a lot of the colour is turned off. It was meant to be a brown & green piece with gold traces..hmmm back to the drawing board on this my friends!

Image is Nina from a dear blog friend, Rein.

Below is another scrap layout I did over the last two weeks. Both myself & a few of my teamies were needing some inspiration so when I found two sketches that made me think "Yeah! I can do them" I shared them. This sketch is from the March 2007 issue of SI. The sketch is by the ever so talented Anne Parry. I have wanted to use these pictures taken during my glitzy 40th birthday photo shoot preparations, but nothing would ever pull together. Papers are CherryArte. Bits from my Heidi Swapp kit & Thickers for part of the title.