CHRISTMAS CARDS

Once again I have been absent from blog land I have been so busy. I know we are all busy at this time of year but this year seems to have been manic plus we lost a whole week due to the snow and now it's come back again.

I didn't make all my Christmas cards this year, I only made for crafty friends and here are just two samples.

DECEMBER WHAT A START

Well what a start to this month. I haven't had my car out of the garage since last Friday, my husband is stuck in France supposed to fly into Gatwick then get a flight to Manchester where is car is parked and we all know Gatwick is closed! The good thing is I have had the time to do some crafting and have finished my December art calendar pages.  The bad thing is I missed a page after November so had to go back and start again or I would have had a big gap and I like continuity! Then today I realised I had done my pages upside down ROFL! So now I hope that's everything bad out of the way.

I painted my pages with various shades of blue with splodges of white and sprayed Crafty Notions Silver all over the pages to give it the wintery feel. My journal squares are from Basic Gray Blitzen Jack Frost which I thought was very appropriate and my images are from the Octopode Factory. I maybe disqualified from the 365 Challenge because horror of horrors I have used peel offs for my days and date numbers LOL.

NOVEMBER DAYS

November days completed for the 365 day challenge. I started my December pages but then discovered I had left a gap of a double page spread after November so what I prepared is going to have to be for my January pages (aren't I in advance doh) and now I have to go back and start again for December. So those of us who took up the challenge we are nearly there, not that we want to wish our lives away LOL. Those of you who want to join us in January 2011 go and take a look at Kate's "The Kathryn Wheel" blog to see what  it is all about.

MAKE ART

Hi fellow bloggers, it's quite a while since I blogged anything in fact I haven't produced any art work. The deputy head at school (a friend) is retiring at Christmas and I have been asked to make an album which will contain photos of everyone who attends her retirement do and a small signed card from everyone. Well I couldn't say no could I so my life has been taken over by that but I have managed to do this page in my tiny 7Gypsies journal. I love this journal because it is so small that once I have an idea it's really quick to do and finish. I did this page because like many of you out there I spend too much time on my PC going from blog to blog and not actually making art. The image is from the Octopode Factory I love these quirky little figures. The PC is an Apple Mac cut from the Argos catalogue, the eye and borders are from Paper and Gluestix.

October ends

Hi people, I am not the most competent of people when it comes to PCs etc but at the moment blogger is driving me crazy. It has taken me nearly 2 hours to be able to upload the previous photo and then it wouldn't let me upload the October Art Calendar pages on the same post so here it comes at last but in the wrong place and wrong order. I suppose I could have cancelled the previous post and changed them around but quite honestly after all this I could not be "bovvered".

OCTOBER ENDS AND NOVEMBER BEGINS

Hi everyone, I have finished my October pages for the 365day challenge and I have my November pages ready on time. November is very colourful representing the 5th November and fireworks. I still need to add a few more embellies but I am thinking about it and I might go around the orange squares with a white shakey pen.

A CRAFTING PLAY DAY

On Wednesday I went to a crafting play day to my friend Ann's(Flutterby Crafter) along with 4 other crafting friends. We had a really wonderful day with lots of chatting, laughing,eating and crafting. It was all in aid of improving our metal work skills and the result is a lovely canvas painted and stamped before attaching the metal which was embossed using the Cuttle Bug folders and TSS molds. It as taken a while for me to blog my finished canvas as i have had problems with my PC, so anyway here's mine. This photo looks pink and actually it is green this is due to me and my lack of techno brain!!!!

OMG 40 YEARS

On Tuesday this week my other half and I celebrated 40 years of marriage. I believe that this is a Ruby wedding anniversary and so I have done a journal page related to this in my large A4 book. I was only going to do a single page but it has developed into a double page spread. I have used various shades of red for the backgroud. I sprayed through a Crafters Workshop stencil "Dot Burst" with one of Dyan's Altered Originals sprays "Velvet". The side borders and all the images are from Dyan's new fabby stamps "Dylusions" and the girl image is actually called Ruby, very appropriate, I coloured her with Copic Markers. All the outlines and other bits of white were done with a Sakura white gel pen and I have used a "Golden" Acrylic paint Interference Red which gives a lovely shine when rubbed over a painted background. The top and bottom borders are downloads from Crowabout Studio. I have even managed to do some journaling this time which I don't normally do. Hope you like the pages.

IN A DARK DARK CELLAR

A month ago at AFTH Dyan gave us the challenge of using these little Munsters in our art journals. I chose a theme from a childrens book which we were using at that time in the reception class at the school were I work. There are lots of skeletons in this book which was appropriate as  we also had Tims Mini Halloween stamps to use. I have used the wording from the book and substituted Munsters for skeletons. On these pages I have used Dyan's new paints and sprays from her fantastic Dylusions line. You may be able to see a white splodge above the Munsters that is the light reflecting on gold paint as I took the photo late at night.

ANOTHER MINI PAGE

Here's another double page spread in my Mini Art Journal book. This time I have used all of Dyan's sprays and mica sprays. All the images and banner border are from Dyan's Downloads which I have greatly reduced in size, they are so cute. I hope this photo turns out ok as my friend Ann (Flutterby Crafter) gave me a lesson in photography this week and pointed out where I am going wrong, so fingers crossed.

FUN WITH ATC'S

 Over on FUN WITH ATCs the 19th challenge is Witches and Wizzards. I have used a piece of water colour paper which I sprayed with some of Dyan's Altered Original Sprays and then gave it a nice sheen by spraying with Dylusions Burnt Orange Pearl Mica Spray. The stamps are from Tim's Mini Halloween and the images are from Lisa's Altered Art. I used Glossy Accents on the witches hat and wings and the cat wizzard's eyes and hat.

A MINI ART JOURNAL

I bought this little book from Dyan at AFTH, they come in pairs and are a 7Gypsies product, they are very mini and measure 8.5cms x 13.5cms. After I bought them I wondered what I was going to do with them apart from hoard them ROFL which I am prone to do. I then saw Kate's (The Kathryn Wheel) mini journal and that gave me inspiration. I love small things as you can complete a page in no time, another reason I like ATCs. I have finished  my title page using Dyans letter downloads which I reduced in size. The borders are from Crowabout Studios and the images are from Marsha at Tumble Fish Studios. I have gessoed, painted, splattered, sprayed using Dyan's fab Dylusions Mica Sprays, they give a fantastic sheen to your pages. I have sprayed through stencils and made a couple of borders using Sakura gel pens.

OCTOBER BEGINS

I am a little late with my October pages but I needed the time to think about my background and colours. I used the scrape method to paint my pages (old credit card) not a brush. When they were finished I thought they were too bright so covered them with a layer of gesso which I like as it gives a cloudy eerie effect perfect for the Halloween month. I love all the Halloween stamps and images but I am not a fan of Halloween itself. All the stamps I have used are from Tim's Mini Halloween and the wording from 7Gypsies Disclaimer. All the paints I have used are from Dyan's Dylusions range, beautiful colours and finish. I decided to use purple journaling squares and white Sakura gel pen to write with as it shows up better than the black. Oh nearly for got the lovely spider is from my favourite Stampotique range.

Another month gone

September went with a last day of sunshine and warmth in this part of Yorkshire and here are my September pages to go with it, they are quite bright sunny and warm. It has been quite a busy month so busy that all my good intentions of having my October pages ready in time just didn't happen so now I had better get on with them.

SKULLS

Over on "Fun with ATC's" the challenge is to use skulls or a skull on your ATC. I used watercolour paper this time, coloured it with Dyan's new acrylic paints DYLUSIONS in orange and purple. I stamped a background of skulls  in black , used some white gesso for the circles. The skull is from Tim's plain elements grunge shapes, I coloured it with a white dabber acrylic paint and when dry covered it with another dabber "Pearl" attached him with Glossy Accents and put a red crystal in each eye socket. For the finish I mounted it on to black card.

A DAY WITH DYAN

Yesterday was the monthly art journal class at ART FROM THE HEART. I think we all really look forward to these days with Dyan and yesterday I took my 13yr old grand-daughter Isabel, she just loves to go there. Dyan presented us with a challenge as usual, she had some wrapping paper with strange little images I think they are called "Munsters." We had to cut them out and journal with them also using Tim's new Halloween stamps. Our pages didn't necessarily have to be about Halloween but the stamps went perfectly with the "Munsters". Isabel did 2 double page spreads one being "Munsters in the Attic" and the other isn't quite finished but it is about Aliens, I think she just has the wording to do. I haven't finished mine I will blog it at a later date when I have done the wording.

CRUSADE NUMBER 44

Michelle over at GPP Street Team has a new challenge this month ~ Scrape. The idea is to paint journal pages with several different colours using a credit card or splodger, brushes are not allowed. I cut a heart stencil from grey board, well 3 actually and then scraped paint through those too. I did my left had page first but didn't like the red I had used, too brown so I did it again using a bright red acrylic paint. It is still darker than the right hand page but it's ok. I think we will be adding to these pages later, if not I will journal about how my heart loves art! I used my A4 Moleskine for this double page spread and then did another double page,same technique in my smaller A5 Moleskine but this time I scraped white Gesso through sequin waste (punchinella) and a plastic spaghetti measure from Asda!

FOR A CHANGE

Here are 2 cards I made this week at the Craft Box Elsecar (near Sheffield). For the first card we used DIs Shabby Shutters, Broken China and Vintage Photo. The image is one of Tim's stamps which we embossed using one of Ranger Distress Powders. The grassy flowery stamp at the bottom edge was stamped and then Perfect Pearls brushed over to give a sheen. The second card again we used Vintage Photo DI. The 2 side panels are stamped with a script and ribbon attached, the right hand side panel should have a bow attached but I didn't want one so later I may attach one of Tim's idea-ology pieces or a flower. My favourite of the two is the bird one.

WINGS ATC

Over on "FUN WITH ATCs" the challenge is WINGS. I used Tims Vintage Shabby paper covered with Rock Candy crackle paint. The image with wings is a Sugar Nellie stamp coloured with Copic markers and the wings painted with a gold dabber acrylic paint.  The bird attached to the ribbon is from Tims ideaology and I used a few pearl beads for extra decoration along with the white ribbons and pink embroidery silk.

TYPOGRAPHY

Typography what does it mean, words and phrases. The background to these 2 journal pages are made from words and phrases cut from magazines, they are all black and white, glued to the pages using Claudines "extra time slow-dry medium". You may still be able to see some of the words but I covered them with watered down gesso. Using 2 of my large "Crafters Workshops"stencils I sprayed with Ranger Color Wash in Cranberry and Stream. Before spraying I stamped in black some of Tims "Spills and Splatters" and "Slight Alterations" also the wording "embrace imperfections" I have journaled on one of the pages in the swirls but it may be difficult for you to see on the photo. I also have a positive and negative effect on the pages as when I sprayed through the stencils I then turned them over on to the next page to use up all the ink. If you like my pages be sure to leave me a comment they are well appreciated.

HERE COMES SEPTEMBER

Finished at last quite a few of us have been running against the clock this time it seems even Kate (the Kathryn Wheel) who organised this challenge That awful splodge on my August page actually is a lovely shiny "Golden" (make of paint) Iridescent paint which in real life does not look like a splodge, it must be the light when I took the photo. So back to this month I used Jo Sonja's paints, with a few runny drips here and there. The border at the top of the pages is Graphic 45 Botanicabella, the squares and the 3 pears are from the same papers. The large Pear and Apple are a couple of stamps I bought when Sue Roddis had her sale earlier in the year. The September word I cut from a magazine, it actually was pale grey so I changed it using a black marker pen and edged in white as are the squares and fruit and banner.

WAY BEHIND

A little late but better late than never, I have just finished my August pages in my art calendar challenge organised by the lovely Kate. Well I say finished they could do with a few more embellishments but maybe I will have time to do that later.

CATS

Over on "Fun with ATCs" they have a challenge, to use CATS on your ATC so what to do. I used the Graphic 45 Alice in Wonderland script paper as a background, cut out the Cheshire Cat from one of the other papers, used German Scrap down one edge. The pretty cat I stamped twice coloured with Copic Markers and spread Ranger Stickles "rock candy"all over the images. The head of one is behind one of Tim's Fragments which represents a mirror and then the sentiment I did on the PC. In case you can't read the wording it says "Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the nicest cat of all"

A CELEBRATION

I spent a wonderful evening at AFTH yesterday. It was a celebration crafting party, what were we 12 ladies celebrating? Sandy Poppins (Sandra Hall) is going to reach the ripe old age of, wait for it, 50 next week. Like I told her 50 is the new 30 so there's no need to worry. Anyway we had a great time with lots of nibbles, wine and cake of course the only black spot was that Dyan wasn't there but poor Ben who had to put up with all us ladies on his own, did tell us that Dyan had been discharged from hospital that same evening, so hopefully she is on the mend. We did do some crafting amongst all the festivities, the lovely Katie took charge and guided us through making a "Canvas Graffiti Purse". Believe it or not the purses are made from place mats which we decorated using different layers of paint, sprays, stencils, and doodles. There was quite a bit of sewing to do both by hand and on the machine. A good time was had by all and here is my purse.

ALICE IN A JOURNAL PAGE

Today I have been to Art From The Heart for an Art Journal class. It was a sad day in one respect in that Dyan was not there to teach us, guide us, and inspire us as she is ill in hospital. All the regulars were there and we each made a tag to send to Dy to cheer her up and wish her well. I also did a page about Starbucks as I always call there on my way to AFTH for my usual Cappuccino with 2 extra shots. I haven't finished this page so I will post it at a later date but here is one I did earlier in my large A4 Moleskine. The inspiration for this page was taken from Dyan as at the time she was creating a few similar pages in her own journal. We used the Graphic 45 papers which are gorgeous and lots of Dyan's new spray inks "Altered Originals". If you haven't yet got any of these sprays you ought to buy some as they are fantastic and all who use them rave about them. So here is my page courtesy of Dyan.

A FANTASTIC WEEKEND

Hi everyone I am back after a fantastic weekend spent at  my favourite place in Harrogate, AFTH with the fab Dyan and Dina. Dina as you know if you have seen other peeps blogs is the most fantastic art journaler and tutor. We had a great time with lots of lovely food prepared by my fave teacher and her team, we didn't seem to stop eating and laughing of course. Here are a few pics of what we did with no explanation as to how we did the pages as you need to go on Dina's workshop to find that out.

These pics should be ok as I have sorted the problem of wrong orientation of my photos, it was my camera which was set on Auto Rotate, not bloggers fault.

STAMPOTIQUE DESIGNERS CHALLENGE 12

Over on Stampotique Designers the challenge is a sketch using Stampotique stamps. I have used "Carrot" and "Framed", I stamped them in black on to white card and coloured them with my Copic markers. I gave all 3 shiny faces using Glossy Accents and black bling eyes. The wording is from a Stampotique stamp which I don't have boo hoo. All the papers I have used are from Tim's Lost and Found  which I have grunged up and distressed, they really lend themselves to being grunged. I attached my images to the background using Tim's Tiny Attacher. The curly bits are a requirement of the sketch I used a MS punch for these and Maya Road black ric rac ribbon. The whole is mounted on to black card.
If when I publish this post I may have to apologise because my computer insists on turning my photo the wrong way and I don't know how to rotate on my PC. This is about the 5th time I have tried to publish this post hoping the photo is the correct way.

FUN WITH ATC'S CHALLENGE 12

Over on "Fun with ATC's the challenge is to make an ATC related to Asia, mine is China. I sprayed my background with Crafty Notions Poppy Red followed by gold I edged with a gold Krylon pen. I stamped the images and embossed with black embossing powder. The same image was stamped on to a piece of shrink plastic I coloured red and cut in the shape of a tag, made a hole and threaded a fine gold thread through the hole and shrunk it with the heat gun. I then layered it on to a piece of black atc card.

HERE AT LAST AUGUST

No I am not wishing time away even though yesterday I did mention that when this months Art Calendar is finished it will be only 4 months to..............  I did manage to finish this yesterday but didn't have the time to put it on my blog but never mind it is only the 2nd today so two days late but better late than never. I will carry on with this Art Calendar challenge to the end as I really enjoy making the pages and keeping a record of what I do each day even if it is only a snippet of my day. For August I chose the warm red orange colours as August represents sun and heat for me although at the moment I do think I am living in the wrong country for this. Looking at yesterday and today my pages should be grey.

TIME FLIES

Here we are the first day of August and I suddenly realised this morning it is now only 4 months to Christmas! Why did I think about this, because I have finished my July Art Calendar page for Kate's 365 day challenge and have started my August page, I know, I know I should have had it all ready for today but I haven't so now I need to go and get on with it.

Birds in Flight

Over on the challenge site "Fun With ATC's" the theme is Birds. I covered my atc with Jo Sonja's acrylic paint "Jaune Brillant", stamped around the edge with Adirondack Sepia using one of Tim's stamps. I cut my pictures of birds from a Graphic 45 paper,distressed the edges and edged with DI Rusty Hinge. I attached with a brad one of Tim's Idea-ology bird charm. I also used one of Tim's fragments which I coloured with Ginger and Butterscotch Alcohol Inks, used the Blending Solution  to make a clear area for my picture and attached the fragment with Glossy Accents. Hope you like it as I did this very quickly to meet the dead line.

Summer Holidays

I am a member of Graphicus Guild and each month take part in a ATC swap. It involves 2 ATCs they can be the same or 2 different ones but they must follow a theme and this months is "Summer Holidays" and the colour yellow, so here are my 2 for this month. I have used a set of acrylic Hobby Art stamps throughout and I love them because they have a beach hut stamp. I have a yearning to live near the sea or at least have some kind of holiday home on the coast and own a beach hut, strange I know but maybe because I am Pisces. Back to subject once I had stamped all the images I coloured them with my Copic Markers, the background too . I used Glossy Accents on the windows, the sun and the sails of the boats. The clouds and the waves were done using Woodware "Fluffy Stuff"it is fun to use as you just use it in the same way as Glossy Accents but then you heat it with the heat gun and it fluffs up. Hope you like them, I think I am going to get quite a lot of use out of these stamps this "summer".

Anything Goes week 8

This cute little fella is a "STAR" I love him and so have used him for Anything Goes challenge which is to use Stars in any form. I coloured my ATC background with DI Tumbled Glass then I sprayed through a Crafters Workshop template (mini cosmic swirl) using Dyan's Altered Original spray in Sky Blue. My little guy is a Stampotique Original, coloured with my Copic Markers, his hat is from Dyan's Downloads cut from one of the houses. All the stars are also from Dyan's Downloads, the silver one I coloured with a Ranger Dabber and the 3 bottom ones I covered with Glossy Accents and did the same with his boots to make them nice and shiny. The wording was done on the PC and finally I faux stitched around the edge. So that's it, my star.

ANYTHING GOES CHALLENGE 7

This week on Anything Goes the challenge is "Sparkle and Shiny". My card is full of sparkle and shines brilliantly. I used Broken China DI on the main part of the card and layered Tim's Vintage Shabby blue papers, distressed the edges and used Stickles silver all around the edges. Tilda was colourd using my Copic markers, her umbrella has glitter raindrops and her friend the frog has diamante eyes and a shiny gold crown. I also used Stickles Star Dust on the dots on the background paper. So I think there is lots of sparkle and shine on there.

SEWING ATC SWAP

At the Craft Den this month the ATC swap title is "Sewing". I painted a piece of canvas material with Worn Lipstick DI, stamped the paper pattern and the tape measure in black added the small safety pin and stitched on the 3 buttons. I machine stitched all the way round twice using a straight stitch I then sprayed the whole thing with Crafty Notions gold just to give it a sheen.

A Great Weekend

Hi everyone, I have just had a great weekend. One of my grand-daughters came to stay on Friday after school and on Saturday we went to that wonderful place AFTH to do some Art Journaling. It goes without saying we had a fantastic time talking, eating, laughing and of course doing some art work using all of Dy's wonderful inks,sprays, stencils, downloads, paints, I could go on forever LOL. Here are a couple of pages that I did for you to see, both are completely different styles.

On Saturday tea time when we got home my other Grand-daughter came to stay and on Sunday we all went to Pontefract, you know the place where they make Pontefract Cakes, they are not cakes actually but sweets. It was a Licorice Festival in Ponte this weekend and I just love licorice so we had to go. Sorry we all forgot to take our cameras and so no photos. There were plenty of stalls of various kinds and lots of street activities and the weather was fantastic. After we popped along to XSCAPE just down the road had a Pizza, a Thorntons ice cream and a wander around. Even the girls said they enjoyed themselves which you are never sure about when they are teenagers.

Isabel's challenge page

Here is another of Isabel's pages, this one is the challenge page that Dyan set using the Dressmaking pattern paper and the Swirl stencil. The scallop shapes at the top of the page, the little figure and the "People say I am a dreamer" are all Teesha More downloads which Kate kindly let her use. I am showing you Isabel's pages as quite honestly they are much better than mine. I might show you mine tomorrow as now it is a quarter past midnight.

Two days in one week

How lucky am I having been to AFTH two full days this week. The first day was Wednesday which was a "play day", these days are brill as you get to do whatever art work you want with no interruptions. If at home there are constant interruptions, take the dogs out, do some cleaning, shopping,cooking etc while at AFTH you just get to play as long as you like. I spent the day doing a page in a friends circle journal which I can't show you in case she sees it,sorry! Today was Art Journaling day, Dyan gave us a challenge which was to use one of the large Crafters Workshop stencils and some dress pattern tissue. You might not be able to see but there is lots of layering and one of my favourite Stampotique characters stamped on to a piece of tissue under the umbrella and a quote from one of Dyan's downloads.

I took my 13 yr old grand-daughter with me today, she loves to go to AFTH but it was her first time at a Journaling workshop but she did a couple of fantastic pages and what made her day was that she sat with Kate Crane (The Kathryn Wheel) and was able to watch Kate produce another stunning page and pick up a few tips from her, thank you Kate for being so kind and attentive. So here is one of Isabel's pages for you to see.

ANYTHING GOES WEEK 5

This challenge over on "Anything Goes" finishes tonight so I have only just made it again. The challenge is "VINTAGE". I have used a 4x4 canvas covered in Gesso, painted with Claudine's Traditional Tan. Using Gel Medium I placed a torn piece of music sheet and went over the whole piece with DIs Shabby Shutters and Scattered Straw. The type charm "Chic" is a 7Gypsies and the images are from a sheet of Graphic 45 "Domestic Godess", cut out and outlined with a black pen. Everything can be bought at Art From The Heart.

Goodbye June Hello July

As a number of people have remarked we are half way through the year and where has time gone. I know they say as you get older time flies but even much younger people are remarking about how fast this year is going. Here are my pages for June and July in the Art Calendar challenge organised by the lovely and very talented Kate. For July's pages I have used  Altered Original sprays from Dyan at Art from the Heart, stencils and a few stamps from Stampotique Originals. Now I need to upload to Flickr following my grand-daughters instructions.