A Day out in York

Helen and Lin waiting for Emma whilst she chose the topper for her Christmas cake from one of the food stalls on the St Nicholas Christmas Market in York today.

Helen and Emma at the same stall.

Then they found some bling, bling on another of the stalls.

The sun then graced us with it's presence (photo taken by Helen).

Tracey, Emma, Lin & Sam after a bit of shopping - Helen is behind the camera as this is one of her photos. See her blog here for some gorgeous photos of the buildings around York.

We then hat a hat trying on session in BHS.  Helen, Emma & Lin all had trilby's and Tracey wanted a hat with a big pom-pom.

I already had a hat so I tried on some furry friends ear muffs.

And this was tucked away in some alley which we went down to get to an indoor Xmas Market. Again, it's one Helen took.

Then we went back to the outdoor market after it got dark and it was all lit up.

And the food part. We got some mulled wine which was gorgeous.

Thanks Emma, Lin & Helen for a lovely day.

Christmas Baubles

Alison made THIS fab card and then sent it to me for Xmas along with some wooden snowflakes so I could have a go myself. So I didn't hold back, I totally stole her idea and got straight onto playing. 

Instead of using friendly plastic, I used coloured utee. I was going for a red, but when it had melted I realised it was actually orange, but not to worry!!  I painted the wooden snowflakes silver and added gold glitter and micro beads into the utee.

Don't you just love how it oozes thought those holes!!

Thanks Alison, not only for the idea, but for the snowflakes too.

I'm also entering my cards into the Arty Inklings crimble challenge.

Stampotiques challenge this week is Christmas cards in November.

Utee Embellishments

I've been playing with clear Utee, printed images, cookie cutters and to dye for ink and made these embellishments.  The green heart isn't as dark as it looks as it's transparent when held up to the light as I used the to dye for ink.

Close up of the middle of the butterfly.

Close up of the faces encased in the Utee.

Bezels with Utee

I was watching some Utee uploads on YouTube and came across this one by the lovely Carol Fox. Using lots of different metal embellishments in the bezel I covered them in melted Utee and then used the heat tool to get rid of the air bubbles. I like this one as the spinner still spins.

For this one I cut out a piece of coloured text paper and added a silver coloured charm. I pushed the charm into the melted Utee.

I added gold coloured mini dragonfly beads and sequins to this very small bezel and filled with Utee.

This is a 1" Ranger memory frame and therefore doesn't have a back.  I placed a charm and 3 beads inside and filled with Utee.  As you can see, it's pretty transparent.

And this is it on my craft surface, as you can see, the Utee looks more yellow.

And this one is exactly the same except I used a single butterfly charm. But I need to go back and reheat this as you can see the top right corner has a bubble in it.

And again on the craft surface.

And here are all 5 together. Sorry for the glare but I used my new daylight lamp as it was nearly dark by the time I was finished.

Knit & Stitch Show Harrogate

Emma on the bling, bling stall!!!

As you can see, it was relatively empty, in previous years it's been heaving, but then I've never been on a Sunday before.

This was on display at the Stef Francis stand.

And then in a different colour set.

This was mounted on a canvas.

A display of silk rods.

Then Emma got brave and bought a kit. When it's complete it will look something like this.

This is the same photo with the colour enhanced so you can see a bit more of the detail.

There was this bead stall there, one of many, except this one displayed all beads by colours - lush.

And finally my purchases. I managed to get everything on the list and also picked up a few other bargains along the way.

And we topped it off by stopping off at The Kestrel Inn for a lovely meal on the way back.

The Green Goddess

Over on the PaperArtsy blog Liz is back and on day 3 created a background using cling film. I used sage on an mdf plaque.

Don't know if this shows up very well or not, but this is after the cling film has been removed and the paint dried.

Close up of the cling film background.

I then mixed sage with grunge paste and applied through a stencil.

Using my new wooden TH stamp I stamped in olive green stazon in opposite corners.

Now this 'was' my last piece of crackle tissue paper which I was saving for a very special moment, but.....

look what popped through the letter box earlier this week from Emma - ooooooh, thank you xx

So I stamped my LP Acey Duecy image onto the crackle tissue, turned it over and painted the back.

Once dry, I painted the whole of the back in snowflake.

Cut out the pieces that I needed.

Used satin glaze to stick them to the background. Added extra stamping in black archival and green stazon, applied treasure gold to the raised GP areas, the middles of the flowers and around the edges. I also applied 3 layers of gloss glaze.

And it still needed something else, so I put gem stones in the middles of the flowers and on the darker sides of the symbols.

And randomly dabbed on some peeled paint distress stickles.

And finally added a piece green of fibre.

I'm also entering into this weeks Simon Says Stamp Monday, who have a theme of it's a mystery.  My mystery is the cling film and distress stickles.

Think Monday, Think Atc's have a theme of all one colour and my colour is obviously green!!

And finally Tag Along have a theme of bling this week, so with the treasure gold, the gems and the stickles, that's my bling!!

Turn the Cogs

I took an mdf cog (approx 12 cm) applied grunge paste through a stencil, dried it and added scrunched tissue for more texture.

I coloured it with various colours of distress paints but forgot to take a photo. Then I swiped it over with little black dress fresco, I prefer to use this instead of the black soot as it isn't as runny. Then I applied quite a bit of pewter treasure gold.

I really rubbed it in to all the nooks and crannies to show up the textures on the cog.

Then I took some wooden and chipboard pieces and using the same foam pad as used for the cog, I coloured them. I also added  the 3 colours of metallics. Outlined the edges and stamped in little black dress.

And then once I started adding embellishments, I couldn't stop - lol. It seemed such a pity to cover up all that gorgeous texture, but I love how it's turned out.

I added cogs, gears, spinners, brads, mini wired coat hanger, prestuds, handle

Metal zip, screw top, more prestuds, Roman numerals, metal wire 's'

Over at Our Creative Corner, they have a steam punk tic tac toe challenge.  Although I've used about half of the ingredients on the grid, my actual line is wings, gears and wire.