Kaisercraft Paperartsy style

DDs got me the Kaisercraft desk organiser for mother's day last week, so I've been putting it together today using my PaperArtsy Thorndon Hall papers

The sheet music isn't Thorndon Hall, it's something random from my stash, and the piece just above the three drawers isn't covered in paper.  That has a coat of the new Fresco Finish in London Midnight, then a thin layer of the crackle glaze followed by a coat of Vintage Lace. It's magic! It's so simple, no worrying about how long to leave between coats or anything, just let the crackle dry (or dry it with a heat gun) then put on the top coat and the crackles appear.  Here's a close up, the crackles really are amazing

 I stamped a  bird from each of the three new PaperArtsy stamp plates I bought yesterday straight on top with  black archival.  It takes the image like a dream. 
Now I just have to get organised enough to put stuff in the organiser!

Interlude

For some reason I couldn't get going on Tag 5 today, my t!m mojo went missing :(  Instead I made a birthday card that I have been putting off for a while.  Inspiration struck and I set to work putting it all together:

I did all the stamping (PaperArtsy Hot Picks) in Aged Mahogany DI, Coffee and Jet Black Archival, and was quite pleased with the result.  The background paper is a sort of linen colour and the colours really went well together.  Stuck the lace trim on the bottom, mounted the whole thing onto the card blank, inked up the Birthday Wishes stamp with Aged Mahogany and stamped it.... UPSIDE DOWN!!!!  It looked beautiful, except for the greeting being up the wrong way :o
Did some quick thinking and cut a nestie label from the left over background paper, stamped again onto that (the right way up!) and mounted that over the mistake.  Only problem then was it covered part of the top of the thistle, so I rummaged through my stash and found some Prima flowerage in a suitable colour and stuck that in the right place.  Phew! I don't think anyone will notice, as long as you guys promise not to tell!

A bit of a make-over

I decided to give my blog a make-over.  I loved the original template but as it was pre-designed it was a bit limiting in what I could do with it.  So I played around for a while, then I found a fabulous site Blogger Sentral which has all kinds of amazing tips and tricks to customize your blog.  After browsing around Blogger Sentral for a while, I realised I wanted an image for my header, so I made a tag.

The more observant among you may realise this is slightly different to the actual header up there.  This is because I stamped the corn advert on to it afterwards!  I coloured a tag with Wild Honey DI which I then splashed with some water to give some interest.  I then played with my Paper Artsy HP1009 plate and stamped the flower head and the birdies in the grass also in wild honey.  I then stamped the flower head again on some card colourd with wild honey and spritzed with gold shimmer mist with Coffee archival.  I then cut out the flowers and layered them on to the tag.  I finished off with some Crafty Individuals birds then photographed it for the blog header.  I then added the Shepard Corn stamp and now I am entering it to the Sunday Stampers challenge week 121.  The theme is movies, so this is Children of the Corn... or maybe The Birds, I'll let Hels decide, lol

WOYWW is one year old!

Congratulations to Julia for starting this and working so hard to keep it going.  It's become a phenomenon a very big thing!  For those who haven't heard about the mega huge WOYWW movement, hop over to this post on Julia's blog where it is all explained.  So, on with the motley... here is my anniversary piece (on my very messy desk)

Ta-da! I have finally altered my bean tin (actually a tomato tin).  Regular WOYWWers may recall seeing the poor nekkid tin holding some of my pens, pencils and assorted things that would fit in it, sitting on my desk awaiting adornment.  Well, I thought it would be a fitting anniversary tribute to finally decorate the poor neglected thing.  Of course, this meant my desk got even messier as I had to empty it out, and then I was working until late last night to finish it so stuff is strewn all over the desk (whaddya mean "what's different"?!)

I covered it in grungepaper that I had inked with Wild Honey and Peeled Paint DI then stamped with Paper Artsy Hot Pick stamps (purchased at the Artsy Crafts event... I lurve those stamps) in archival Olive, Coffee and jet black inks to give some depth.  I added a few extra little birds from Crafty Individuals.  I then made some holes with the BIA and laced it on with some hairy, dangly thread stuff I had laying around. (oh, I painted the tin with a Willow paint dabber first).

And here is the money shot.  The famous acronym stamped across the top.
My pens and stuff can now sit proudly in their new, suitably adorned tin.
OK, I'm on leave this week so I can hopefully visit more desks this week.  Looking forward to seeing everyone on this special date!

Artsy Crafts...

... was amazing!!! I had the greatest time getting inky and messy and having fun.  First we made a giant tag called Secret Garden using all kinds of fabby new background techniques and doing interesting new things with Ferro.  (Of course we got to play with all of Leandra's latest Paper Artsy stamps, and we also got to play with her new dies which are - pardon the pun - to die for!!)

Then we made the main project, Flights of Fancy, which was full of even more amazing new background techniques, and new ways with metal, incredibly inventive things with Terra and some cool stuff with canvas.  We played with Inca Gold too, and I need every single colour, it is just sooo gorgeous!

Finally we made a little birdie hangy thing which used even more new techniques and stuff!

I'm only allowed to show you little sneaky peeks, but you can see how gorgeous all the colour combinations are and how lush everything looks.

These weekends really are the best thing ever.  Lin and Leandra really are the most amazingly talented people but what is truly wonderful is how generous they are with that talent.  Of course they are always ably assisted by Superwoman (aka Karen) and the comedy double act of Linda Elbourne and Jo Firth-Young, and the whole team makes every effort to ensure that everyone is well looked after and feels welcome.  The whole atmosphere is warm and friendly and everyone gets on really well. I can honestly and wholeheartedly recommend these events to anyone and everyone.  Can you tell I loved it.  This was my second time and I really want to go to every one from now on... if only I can afford it!
Anyway, hope everyone in the UK is enjoying the lovely weather... make the most of it while it lasts, and I look forward to visiting all the WOYWW in a couple of days.

Very Busy Week

This week has been rather hectic with the result that I have been left with very little time (or energy).  I had an emergency site meeting in Yeovil, my six-monthly oncology follow-up (all clear thankfully, still waiting for the mammogram results though), had to pull a 12 hour day to catch up on urgent stuff at work.... phew!

All I have managed to do creatively is start preparing some backgrounds for an online art journaling course I am taking.  I had been playing around with the idea for a while, and enjoyed the Soul Journaling stuff, so decided to just go for it.  I signed up for Visual Journalism 101 with Pam Carricker details here.  So far I have only managed to watch the video and read the download for week 1 and start my backgrounds.  I have managed to slap a layer of paint on, then leave it to dry, then do another layer the next day.  This first pic shows one with 3 layers of paint so far.

This one is a bit further along with some "imperfect" stamping (a very good technique for me as I find perfect stamping a bit of a challenge!) and some textures added.  There is some clear gesso stamping you can't see which is going to be used as a resist once it dries thoroughly, then I get to add some "fly poo" ROFL.  I used a Paperartsy mini text stamp for this one, and I have done another one with the same colours but using a music stamp for variety.

 
I haven't completed my 52 in 10 prompt 3 this week.  The prompt was to think about what advice you would give your younger self.  I know what I want to say, but I'm not sure how to say it, so I'm procrastinating.  I've decided I am going to move on to prompt 4 which is up today and come back to prompt 3.  I am preparing one of these background for it though once I am ready to journal my thoughts.

I'm also waiting to see what Document 2010 is all about.  The first prompt goes live tomorrow, when I will be on route to Birmingham for a two day visit to a furniture trade show, so I won't get to find out properly until Tuesday night!  Looks like another busy week ahead :(

 

Advent Tree

A few years ago (I can't remember exactly when, my age is catching up with me, but about three or four I think) I bought an advent tree from M&S for my DDs.  They are 24 and 25 this year but still love their advent calendars.  Anyway, this one from M&S was all very sophisticated in silver and black and was filled with fashion jewellery!  It made up part of their christmas present as it was fairly expensive.

Anyways, ever since I have thought I really should alter it, and finally I have!  So, without further ado, here is the grand unveiling:
Back View:

I gave the whole thing a coat of gesso as the original card had a shiny coating on it then painted it all with Viva Metallic paint in Olive to keep with the tree theme.  I then covered the back and sides with K&Co paper from the Winter Wonderland pad in a deep green (again keeping with the tree theme).  The baubles are from the Seasonal grungeboard pack embossed in gold or painted red and embossed with holographic powder.  I've used a Paper Artsy Egg & Nog stamp and some holly from the Seasonal grungeboard pack and some red gems as a garland.  The bows were from the Craft Barn and then I cut up some Wassail papers for the parcels down the bottom.  The star is a wooden one from the Craft Barn painted red then spritzed with Cosmic Shimmer Golden Fish and edged with a Krylon gold pen.

Front View:

 
 

I just covered the drawers in a selection of K&Co papers from the Winter Wonderland pad, plus a few additional papers from Basic Grey Wassail and Eskimo Kisses.  I wanted this to look like a pile of presents so I made the big bow out of some wired gold ribbon at stuck it on the top with the tails dangling down.

I'm quite pleased with it, except I couldn't find any numbers the right size so I had to write them on by hand :(

Now if only I could get my mucky paws on one of those Tesco Advent Houses! 

 

Conference season :(

Been away most of the week at a conference, will be away Monday/Tuesday next week for another one and again the same two days the following week!! 
Anyways, after the snowman wall hanging I was in the Christmas mood so I made another wall hanging with Cosmo Cricket lacing cards from my TSV kit and more papers from the K&Co Winter Wonderland pad.

The top lacing card is mainly one of the papers from the pad which is just so gorgeous it didn't really need anything else.  I stamped a Paper Artsy Nut & Meg poinsetta onto grungepaper, coloured them with fired brick distress ink then sprayed with wild currant glimmer mist.  I blinged them up with some fired brick distress stickles and used micro beads for the centres.  I added a bit of christmas red stickles to the centre of the large poinsetta on the paper because you can never have too much sparkle at Christmas!
 

The second panel is covered with another of the papers then I painted some grungeboard snowflakes from the holiday pack with Viva metallic paint in ice blue.  After that I covered them in pearl glitter.  The letters are from a grungeboard alpha pack covered alternately in christmas red stickles and fired brick stickles.

The third panel is covered with yet another paper from the pad.  I then ran the smaller grungeboard reindeer from the holiday pack through the cuttlebug with the script embossing folder then inked it up with fired brick distress ink and sprayed with wild currant glimmer mist.  I then painted one of the holly sprays from the holiday pack with olive viva metallic paint and used christmas red stickles for the berries.

The final panel is again covered in another paper from the pad.  I ran the small grungeboard tree from the holiday pad through the bug again with the script folder and then painted it with olive viva.  The poinsettas are the same as on the first panel and the letters are the same as the second panel.

 I laced them together with a sparkly ribbon and here is the whole thing. (try to ignore the mark on the wall, I didn't notice it until I was cropping the pic on the PC!  Housework is a very occasional thing in my house)

 

What a week!!

I've had a crazy week at work.  Insanely busy!  Anyway, it's the weekend now and I have managed to get some crafting done.. YAY!!!  I've altered a tissue box holder for my other DD who has a brown colour scheme in her bedroom:

I took two pics, one with and one without flash (the one on the right is without flash) as it is very sparkly so some of the detail is lost with the flash on.  The background gave me a bit of trouble.  The expresso paint dabber was too dark and the hazlenut was too light.  So I mixed some expresso with titanium white acrylic, but that was a bit flat, so I threw in some quinacridone crimson to warm it up a bit.  Once I had painted that all over I still wasn't happy so I gave the whole thing a generous spritz of Golden Fish cosmic shimmer mist which sparkled it up nicely!

Next I got to play with some of my new stamps from my Ally Pally haul all stamped with versamark and then embossed with gold for the border and each end:

The border stamp is from Circa Designs and the crown is a Paper Artsy mini.

The chandelliers are Prima stamps and the butterflies are a haberdashery find.

The stamps on the front are Crafty Individuals.  I inked the stamps up with black and then used the second impression to get a lighter effect.  Then I went over some areas with metallic gel pens to colour the birds, leaves and the cage.  The flower and the word are rub ons and bling it ons and the top has more bling and, of course, prima flowerage. The large flower has some stickles to sparkle it a bit because I thought maybe I didn't have quite enough bling in there!!

I'm ba-ack

Southampton was busy and I was exhausted by the time I got home last night.  Anyway, I have been playing hard today and have managed to finish the canvas for DD.

Archie is making his debut appearance down the left hand side near the bottom. Doesn't he look cute all cut out in pink metal?  More pink metal in the bottom left hand corner embossed with my new Big Daddy mould, background all sorts of things... glimmer mists, paynes gray golden acrylic glazed to within an inch of it's life, crafty individuals background papers, tattered rose distress ink, pearl pigments and some silver adirondack paint dabber applied through a stencil.  The top left is blackberry ferro dabbed over with pink viva and there are also some pink micro beads stuck in it here and there.  I finally managed to make a paper rose (yay me!!!) and surrounded it with some lace in the middle.  The tickets in the top right corner are made with some pink mulberry paper and a Craft Stamper free stamp and there is a grungeboard key up there sprayed with pink glimmer mist.  I then chucked pink bling and glitter at it until I felt it was done. Oh and, of course, Prima flowerage in the form of a vine.

Suppose I had better go and unpack and put a wash on now.... booooring!

I got an Archie!!

Headed off bright and early to Ally Pally to get there in time to catch me an Archie!  As soon as the doors opened we all poured in and I headed straight to the LB Crafts stand and got one!

Isn't he cool?!  I picked a green one, and at the checkout I met my follower, Helen, who picked a red one.  It was great to meet up with her and put a face to a person I feel I already know.  Leandra took our photo and we are posted on her blog proudly wearing our spoils. I watched the demos for a while but then it was time to get down to some serious shopping.

Next stop was Scrap Shed which was quite close to LB Crafts.  I bumped in to Carmen (whoopido) with her DD and we both remarked on how we normally couldn't get near the Scrap Shed stand.  Later on it was as packed as it normally is, but Karen's idea of having the tills at the back worked well in freeing up the stand a bit for browsing.... so I got the chance to go back and buy more than once, LOL.  Off next to Scrap Revolution for some more essentials and then it was just a general browse and picking up things that weren't necessarily on my list.  I did manage to fill all my wish list except for Copper TSS metal so I was happy. Here's a pic of part of my haul:

You can see some distress inks (there are lots more, got about 8 of those) and some of the flowers, bling lace, stamps etc.  This is just a selection, I got loads more (variety is the spice of life!) as well as some boring basics like EZmount, plain white glossy cardstock, tags, adhesives.  I also picked up a couple of sheets of Graphic45 papers and my main item of the day was a melt pot (so maybe I can finally wax my petit dolls!)


I met up with some of the UKScrappers as arranged by the Lee and I spent lunchtime with Lee, Ali (and her OH Geoff), Fiona and Juliette which was fun.  It was so nice to meet up with people I have been posting with for such a long time and to find they are just as nice (actually nicer) in person.
All in all it was a great day, especially the footie scores (come on you Mighty Reds!)  I still haven't actually seen the goals, but was watching Soccer Saturday in a pub with my bezzie mate as the goals were coming in. I've got Match of the Day on Sky+ and will savour Torres' hat trick along with Babel's brace and the goal from Gerrard as soon as I publish this post.