My Eyes Adored you - Sunday Stamper

Well, here we are again - Sunday Stamper time run by the super talented Hels Sheridan. Haven't managed to do all the art work that I made the resolution to do at the beginning of the year but this is my second Sunday Stamper entry for 2012!

 The tag is coloured using distress inks Tattered Rose, Wild Honey and edged with Peeled Paint. The border from "It's More Flower Art" was then stamped with Shabby Shutters . Embellishments next: Tim Holtz rosette coloured with Wild Honey, highlighted with Aged Mahogany and one of his buttons in the middle, Shabby Shutters coloured grungepaper leaves made from Wendy Vecchi "Natures Art" stamps with Peeled Paint and over-stamped with Pine Needles. Tim's bookplate is filled with a Wendy Vecchi "An Eye for Art" eye stamped with Coffee Archival with a hint of Aged Mahogany for the pupil. The seam binding bow is coloured with Aged Mahogany and Wild Honey distress inks. Finishing it all off is a memo pin with a ticket with the wording from "An Eye for Art".
Loved the challenge this week - as soon as I saw "Eyes", I knew straight away what stamp set I wanted to use!!

That's all from me for now - thanks for visiting

Caz
xx

Yesterday's ATC

Well - I managed two days of "art" even if this is being posted late! And today isn't over yet so I might manage something for a third day!

I decided not to waste the remains of the tag's die cuts so the ATC makes use of what was left. Not sure where the idea for the white leaf veins came from - it just happened! I've bought a pack of kraft ATCs but I'm not sure about them yet - I don't think I like the textured side so I'll have a go using the back as the front (if you see what I mean) before I make my mind up.
So with the remains of Tim's foliage from yesterday is the heads Stampotique background, Cherry Pie Art Believe stamp (stamped with Imperial Purple Versafine) and some black soot distress stickles round the edge and leaf tips, the background is Iced Spruce and Evergreen Bough distress inks.

 So that's my second piece of the year. I need to do something bright now!!

TTFN

Blog Revamp in Progres...........not!

Just realised that all my graphics programs still need loading on this new laptop! Bummer!!!

Have made an ATC today but it's still drying so I can't take a photo yet - at least I have managed to make some art two days in a row!!

Update - revamp has been put off as I like this design better than anything I've sen so far! And, to be honest, having to find the discs for the graphics programs has put me off a bit - I put them somewhere safe so I wouldn't lose them........................

TTFN

:-)

First Tag of 2012

Not a new year resolution in sight but I thought I'd start the year off with a tag I made today and enter into the Sunday Stamper for the first time.
 So this is it - doesn't really show up the true colours but it's the best photo out of five taken with various lighting/flash etc!

It's actually more burgundy than it looks here! It's only the second time of using the rosette die and there were a few choice words as it would NOT stick and kept pinging up until I managed to get it  pinned down with a bottle of stamp cleaner on top while it dried! It's all Tim's inks/dies/stamps apart from the words which are a Cherry Pie Art stamp (I think).
Happy New Year to all who visit my blog - not making any resolutions this year but I do mean to make a lot more art this year so there should be plenty of reasons to come back for another visit or two!!

Best Wishes for 2012

Caz

Here's my entry for this week's What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday... or WOYWW for short...devised and  hosted by Julia Dunnit, If you click HERE you can visit the website for more about it and links to other "players". I've had very little time or energy since my last posting - I did manage to do a workshop last month with Hels at The Stamp Attic with Distress Stains and Fresco paints but apart from that.................... :-(
So I decided I needed to take back some "me time" and do another one of the little books that we made in the workshop but using a pink and brown theme which is not my normal choice of colours - this is the work in progress:

 The mauve book from Hels' workshop is at the back for inspiration and these are all the cardboard pages with their first coat of paint.
I'm taking pictures as I go so I'll try and be back tomorrow with the progress photos. Off for a quick look at some of the other entries then I need my beauty sleep - I was up at 5:45 this morning!!
TTFN
Caz

WOW.....WOYWW for the first time!!!

Here is my first ever entry for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday... or WOYWW for short...devised and  hosted by Julia Dunnit, If you click HERE you can visit the website for more about it and links to other "players". I've been 'lurking' for ages and admiring all the workdesks but not wanted to put up a photo of my tip! Not that there is anything on the workdesk but as it took me 2 days over the Bank Holiday to clear up the almighty mess in the den, I felt my hard work deserved to go on display!!!!!

Hopefully next week will have something "in progress" to put on here but it's been so long since I've had more than a few inches clear to craft on, I just had to take the photo!!!

Off to look at what everyone else has been making


Caz
xx

The Elements of Art Journaling

I'm so lucky to have won a place on Effy Wild's course -The Elements of Art Journaling - see the link on the right! I have been doing a little beading lately but not much on the paint/paper/glue front but this has kick started me back into it!
We're starting on making a journal and doing some "clustering"(sort of brainstorming) around each of the elements. Each week we will be working on one of the elements - earth, air, fire, water and spirit and learning techniques to make an art journal.
This is my journal front

It started life as a pink/purple background with jade and lime green swirls and then sat at the back of my desk for weeks as I didn't like it and didn't know what to do about it!! In the first lesson, Effy showed us some good background ideas and how to add layers (and more layers) to our covers ......and how to cover it up if you don't like it! I didn't go as far as covering it with gesso but I used matte gel medium to cover it with tissue till there was only a little hint of the previous "art work". It has ripped pieces from an old book, a piece of music in the bottom left corner which I found - "Who is Sylvia" from a The Two Men of Verona (Shakespeare) - my Mum's name was Sylvia so I thought that needed using - all added with gel medium. I tinted the papers with Caran D'Ache Neocolor washed in with a babywipe. It then had skeleton leaves and some butterflies (to represent the Spirit element) added and lightly sprayed with green and yellow Glimmer Mist.

Nearly finished but it looked a bit incomplete so I finished off (nearly) with some magic mesh (bottom left) sprayed with a red and gold glimmer mist - that's the fire element. Still not happy, so I added the gold netting over some of my butterflies: that's Spirit trapped as I feel mine is sometimes. The back was made in a similar fashion but without the net and butterflies.
OK - now to put it together - out came the Bind-It-All which struggled a little with the front, punched all the holes along the top until I decided I wanted to side bind it!! Also managed to punch the back on the wrong side which would have made it upside down! Oh dear - working late and brain already gone to sleep. It has watercolour paper at the front and lined paper for notes at the back. So, I put it together with a matching red wire and then decorated (ok - covered up) the wrong holes by crocheting some pretty fibres through. Tied a few fibres along the edge with some flower beads attached - finished!! Oh - lastly some acrylic words I found that I'd forgotten I had so they had some little brads added and stuck on!
Very pleased with it although it's taken me a lot of the evening to clear up the mess on my desk!!! So now I have no excuse for neglecting my blog as I'll have photos of all I'm doing that I'll be putting up for my lessons so I can add them here too!
Well, that's about it for tonight - I'll trying taking more "in progress" photos next time to cut down on the words!!
Happy Arting

Caz

Busy, busy but not much crafting

Well, life's been very busy for the last month. Unfortunately, there's not been a lot of time for crafting. I love my new job but it's been a bit hectic, mainly because I'm still learning so I don't get through the work as fast as others do and also I've been out and about visiting my new Delivery Engineers and seeing my new area. I've had some really good feedback though so I'm happy I'm getting to grips with everything OK.
I've recently learned the Journal Writing workshop that we thought was happening in March will not now be happening at all as Sarah (that was going to be doing it) has a new full time job so I will have to do some practising on my own from the couple of books I have then take the plunge and do the writing on my pages!
I have made a couple of jewellery sets in the last week so I'll get some photos done at the weekend and get them posted. Oh, almost forgot, my wonderful husband has made me some more shelves so my inkpads have now moved to their new home and I have more space on my desk. He is such a sweetie - especially as I tried to help make them and somehow managed to put the markings for the dowel holes in the wrong place - so when he'd drilled them and tried to put the shelves together, they wouldn't fit!!!! Oh dear - what should have been a couple of hours work took twice as long. I did varnish them myself though so he could get on with building his latest plane!! - I'll put pics up at the weekend too.
TTFN
Happy Crafting
Caz

Art Journalling update

As promised, some pics from the journal in progress. I've been reluctant to add writing to many of my pages as I'm waiting to do a workshop at The Stamp Attic with Sarah Anderson on journal writing. She does some great work and is going to do a workshop next month so I'll post the updated pages then. I put a couple of these up when I did Sarah's first journalling workshop but I've been gradually improving (?) them. I started doing the right hand side of this "Live the Life you've imagined" with the baldy heads under the flap and black and white faces. I decided this wasn't spooky enough, hence the added colours! The left hand page was the "imagined life" - all feminine beads, flowers and sparkles which I couldn't get to - being represented by the birds behind the netting.

Not sure of what words I want to add yet. This is how my days can go - little problems buzzing around at the start but only tiny (compared to me). Then gradually as the day goes on I shrink under the (perceived) ever growing problems. I love the Stampotique stamp range so I very much enjoyed doing this one.

I also started doing the Art, Heart and Healing course with Tam at Willowing. This is a free course you can join at any time. This was my first attempt at face drawing that actually didn't look like something from a horror movie!! I loved doing this and am half way through doing the next one - I know what I want it to turn out like but again, I don't want to spoil it with my writing so I have the words planned and will do it after my workshop.

So that's a small taster of what I've been up to while I've been away. There are some grunge flowers on my desk and my steampunk journal in progress which will go up later this week if I can grab some time.
TTFN
Caz

Gems with a wiggle

Ok - slightly contrived title......Joanna wanted to see what gems I'd been creating and Anette said get a wiggle on so............ :-)
I will say my new job has been the cause of a real lack of crafting time - I'm loving it now I've got to grips with it but there's been some serious hard work going on! In the little bit of spare time I've had, I've been making some use of all the beads I've collected and not done anything with! It's been practice, practice, practice but now I'm fairly proficient at making loops and I'm making things now that I'm happy to wear to work and I get compliments for them so I must be getting it right!! I've mostly been using semi precious stones and swarovski beads as I was going to try selling them at work but so far I've kept everything I've made!!

 

 

 

 

These were the first couple of attempts ( above) which were just simple stringing of beads really with a couple of loops. Then I progressed to using more loops (below left) and the one on the right was a bit of a show off as there are about 20 eye pins in there, each needing a "hand made" loop on the end - it turned out well (blowing my own trumpet there-sorry!!)

Sodalite with glass and silver beads

Showing off as I'd mastered loops

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Once I was happy with that technique I went a bit mad and made the copper set which took ages to make and I've got nothing to wear it with but it's hanging on my jewellery stand waiting for me to buy a top in a suitable colour!! I wear a lot of black so the last set I made has ended up being kept as well to compliment any back top I wear!

copper colour chain with glass beads

Snowflake obsidian with glass beads

So that's some of the "gems" I've been up to lately. I've also done some work on my art journal and I've being doing the Art Heart and Healing free course that's been running on the Willowing Ning site. I'll post some pics tomorrow.
Hopefully now that my job has settled down, I'll be able to spend some more time in the den and have more pics to post.
TTFN
 Caz

New Look Blog

Just in the middle of revamping the blog. I thought as I was making a new start and going to make a huge effort to keep it up to date, it deserved a new look. I then found that the old background/theme coding was well hidden in amongst the normal template code and the new theme's code wouldn't override it. It's taken me over an hour to get it off and put something new on. The heading is still a work in progress as it's got a bit late to carry on.