All her hearts

Hi everyone, hope you've had a good week! Another painty project to show today and one made for a lovely friend who has her birthday today. Lots of my crafty friends have their birthdays in August, so it's been a nice busy month! 

I've been wanting to try one of the Art doll style pieces made famous by Cristy Tomlinson. I love the style as  it doesn't seem to matter how the paper is cut, it just looks right in this style. Die cuts and chunky glitter are collaged into the background with paint, ink and stamping and they're given dimension with Faber Castell pitt artist pens.

I used a canvas which is about 5 or 6 inches square, can't quite remember and the text is computer generated.

This is the card I made to go with the canvas.

More die cut collage with paint but the stamping which is a Crafty Individuals stamp is this time only on the flower heads. Most of the die cuts are Memory Box dies, they have a lovely delicacy and there are Martha Stewart punched flowers too.

Slightly different camera angle and totally different look to the colour!!! :)

I'm entering my pieces into this week's Simon Says Stamp challenge which has an anything goes theme.

Little Wing

Hi everyone, hope you've had a good weekend. I have a wall hanging to show today with a mixed media painted background and using a Paper Artsy Paper Mache hanging and letter stamps, an Artemeo bird and branch die cut, Memory Box flower die and a mixture of DecoArt and Golden paints. Stamping is done with Archival ink and the piece was sprayed with DecoArt matte sealer.

I'm entering into Simon Says Stamps challenge this week which is 'Inspired by summer distress' and I have the blue and pink and a touch of green on the branch. 

The bird made me think of Little Wing as the title for this post which in turn made me think of the song 'Little Wing'. Performed by Stevie Ray Vaughan, it's below if you'd like to listen :).

Late summer walk with a friend

Hi everyone, it's been a typical UK Bank Holiday Weekend so far with a soggy and dismal day here, hopefully it'll cheer up as the weekend goes on ;)! No such weather for Summertime Tilda with bow and Tilda with daisies and mushrooms they are enjoying blue skies and flowery meadows :D!! 

As usual, everything is watercoloured with DI markers, watercolour markers and watercolour crayons. A bit of white gel pen for the flower centres and a doodled tree and background. I've used DooHickey tiny zig zag border die cut from kraft card behind the panel, a piece of chipboard painted light blue at the back, corrugated card for the heart and corners, a pretty daisy, chit chat stickers, the Tim Holtz doily edge die cut from grunge paper and painted and twine bows to decorate. This is a free standing panel using the Tim Holtz easel stand die which I cut from chipboard and attached to the back. This was the gift that went with the card I showed yesterday.

I'm entering my panel into the Deep Ocean Challenge blog's theme this week of deep blue.....hope my blue is deep enough? :).

Enjoy your evening. 

A grand day out

Hi everyone, I hope you've had a good week and the weekend is off to a good start. A card and it's presentation box to share today which was made for a very special lady who's just had her birthday. 

Tilda and Edwin siblings are having a grand day out in the country, sitting among the flowers under the old oak tree :). Everything is watercoloured and background scene doodled in. The swirly roses are hand cut from colour washed thin paper and the Magnolia DooHickey vintage flowers were cut from the same paper. I added lots of pearl pen pearls, faux stitching and a handmade background paper.

I made a box for the card to be presented paper using thick blue card and Prima paper.

All the flowers and leaves are made using DooHickey dies cut from the same blue card and Prima paper with the edges either inked or distressed with sandpaper. I made a band for the middle using a Martha Stewart punch on the edges.

Thank you for visiting as always and I'll be back soon with a post about the gift that went with this card :)

A tag, a postcard and an ATC art swap

Hi everyone, hope you've had a great week and it's almost the weekend....very much looking forward to it!  My week became very special today when I received a package from my blog friend Mel at The Yorkshire Fox blogspot. I'm a huge, huge fan of Mel's beautiful creations, her style is everything I love with the most beautiful special touches and unsual addtions of fabrics, wirework and glazes, hearts abound and clever design always have be ogling for ages :). I'm always inspired after visiting Mel's blog and I'd encourage everyone to pop over there to see her wonderful creations. Mel has the most gorgeous and eloquent writing style too and always leaves the lovliest and most encouraging comments. A friend indeed! Thank you Mel for the beautiful, beautiful things you made for me.....above and beyond and I'll treasure them always.

As you can see from the close up shots the level of detail is incredible and I love Mel's style, colour and texture. I hope you enjoy the photographs I've taken of Mel's work, I've tried to do them justice in the photographs but as always in real life everything is even more beautiful.

I marvel at the intricacy of the wirework!

The trademark hearts, I love all the variations!

A beautiful sculptural flower....I won't tell you what it's made of, I'll leave that for Mel, but I would never have guessed in a million years! The texture of it is lovely.

A superb time piece, a metal piece that's cleverly embellished.

Here are the pieces that I sent to Mel. The tag had to include a heart, I think of Mel and I think of hearts :). This heart is made from corrugated kraft card coloured with distress ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder. The tag background is a TH distress ink technique and I've stamped using archival black ink with Paper Artsy letter stamps. Finished off with button twine, doodling with black.white pens and a chit chat sticker.

The postcard sized piece is acrylic paint over watercolour paper, a butterfly image transfer, more paint through stencils, TH tissue tape a chit chat sticker and then everything sprayed with a couple of coats of matte sealer. I think may be this photo is showing the colours a bit brighter than they are, can't quite remember.

The ATC used THs distress marker onto speciality stamping paper technique, with frayed burlap distress ink pad. I've die cut the lala land crafts filigree corners from blue card and sanded it back here and there. The rose is made from printer paper, spritzed with cosmic shimmer misters and free hand cut for a rolled rose. 

Again, thank you Mel, it was lovely to do an art swap with you and I hope we do another very soon. Thank you also for the wonderful extras in your beautiful packaging, the rusty key is really wonderful. If you made it to the bottom of the post, ha ha, I like you a lot. Enjoy your evening. 

Sketchbook Challenge August - Shelter

Hi everyone! I'm joining in with this month's challenge on the Sketchbook challenge of Shelter with my pen and watercolour drawing of a view of the beach walk at Whitstable, a very atmospheric place and I hope to go again one of these days.

Little Christmas

Hi everyone and I hope your week is going well so far. I have set of cards to share today with the gorgeous new Little Christmas collection stamps Cozy Christmas Bear, Tilda with a cute lamb and Coco with present. They're all watercoloured with watercolour crayons and markers and then cut out with a circular nestabilities die.  

I've made circular shaped cards to give the impression of a Christmas bauble with a snowflake embossed front piece, a scalloped nestie circle behind the image, a punched snowflake and a DooHickey die cut snowflake. The embossing and all edges of the card have been swiped with iced spruce distress ink and I've added some sparkly pearly embellishments to the snowflakes and pretty wired ribbon. 

Tilda's Town have a challenge of vintage this week and I'm entering my card set into that.

Goosebump Tilda

Hi everyone, hope you're having a lovely weekend! A tag shaped card to share today using the sweet Goosebump Tilda from the Turning Leaves Collection. The colouring is with watercolours with some doodling over it and I've then cut her out and mounted her over the background with glue gel.

The tag card was easy to make using a corner punch on the top corners and cropodile punch for the centre hole. I embossed the card with a Tim Holtz brickwork embossing folder and swiped over the raised brickwork with vintage photo and walnut stain distress ink pads.

The window/shutters/flower window box are Memory Box die cuts all coloured with distress inks/acrylic paint. Behind the window there's some muslin fabric for a curtain and to finish off I added a punched grass border, punched flowers with pearl centres, a punched and watercoloured butterfly, ribbon and a chit chat sticker sentiment.

I'm entering my card into the Ribbon Girl Card Challenge where the current challenge is bingo. I've chosen the top line acrosse of ribbon - pearls - image.

What do you say?

......is the challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show this week and my words are chit chat stickers sitting on a VERY bright extra large tag. The background is the summer limited edition set of distress inks and they are bright and a lovely addition to the collection.

I've inked the background first direct to the tag with the three inks and then inked with black soot through a prima floral mask. I also inked the die cuts and flowers (die cuts are Memory Box, Sizzix Tim Holtz and Magnolia). There's doodling in blue and white pens, Maya Road resin flowers, pink crystals and lovely May Arts black saddlestitch ribbon to finish off.

Enjoy your evening :)

Little Christmas Collection 2012

Hi everyone, hope you had a good start to the week. Here are two of the beautiful new angel Tilda's from the upcoming "Little Christmas' Collection 2012 which are on pre-order in many of our favourite Magnolia retailers :). This is Dancing with stars Tilda on the left side and Little Tilda on the right.

I've made two little gift bags using the Sizzix Tim Holtz gift bag die and kraft card. The stamping was done directly onto the bags before they were put together and I've coloured with pencils this time. I've used two Magnolia snowflake stamps to make the background which were stamped in black. There's pretty ribbon, lots of stickles in silver and holly red and also some chit chat stickers and Papermania glitter circles.

I'm entering the Tilda's Town challenge which this week is to name your technique. I suppose there's a technique to colouring on kraft card so that's technique one and I've embellished with glitter glue inside the stamped snowflakes so I'll have that as my second technique :).

Thanks as always for your lovely comments and sorry if I haven't managed to reciprocate just yet. Enjoy your evening :)