Thinking of Spring

Can only think of it as it's not happening any time soon even with Easter just around the corner!!

Sue over at Stampotique has chosen a theme of Spring and across at the PanPastelUk challenge site they have a photo for inspiration.

The background is a mix of wild honey, ripe persimmon and mustard seed distress ink and splashed with water.  The background script is stamped in olive green stazon.  The flower is stamped in versamark and embossed in black embossing powder.  The dragonfly was stamped onto a thick vellum in black stazon and cut out.

A Vintage Card

I felt I had to do something today even though I still don't feel well.  I've had a couple of new sets of T!m's stamps for a week or so now and not had the energy to do anything with them.  So I stamped a few images and coloured them with distress inks and a water brush.

Then I discovered that Over at Out of a Hat Creations this week they have a game going on as it's their first birthday.  Now I have to admit I haven't stuck to the rules entirely as you are supposed to make a spinner and whatever it lands on go with that theme.  

There are six different themes and one of them is vintage, so I am entering my vintage male card into the challenge.  I haven't given it a sentiment yet as I'm not sure what it's going to be used for yet. 

Brighter than Bright!!

So between the sniffles and the snuffles I've found time to play.  Linda's second technique involved using the portfolio pastels, which I just happened to pick up whilst in Utah.  Linda created a journal page, but as you'll know by now, I don't do journalling, so I used the same techniques but on the old faithful, a tag.

To see how it was done and to join in the fun, hop over to the PaperArtsy blog.  

I've also just stumbled across a new challenge site over at Country View Crafts courtesy of looking on Julia's blog - thanks Julia.  So I am also entering my tag as their first challenge theme is 'pick n mix' and lots of things have definitely been picked and mixed on this tag!!

The Mystery House

Linda Cain is back again over on the PaperArtsy blog.  To say she is a favourite of mine would be an understatement, I love how she bases most of her art on tags, probably that's why I'm a fan!!!

So this tag has used some of the techniques Linda has incorporated.  Linda does state in her post that it was a shame to cover most of the background, so I didn't!!

The house looked lost on the tag so I mounted it onto white card and cut it out with a border.

I used various stamps from the Ink and the Dog plates and Urban Snapshots.

Into Spring with Green

To continue with the St Paddy's day celebrations I made another green based tag using the distress paints.  Over at PanPastelUk they are asking for a touch of green and ABAC are asking for spring / colours and I think green is very much a spring colour with all the new shoots of the flowers popping through and of course the birds merrily chirping away, so I am entering this tag into both of these challenges.

Totally Green

Still not feeling great, but how could I resist the challenge over at Dragons Dream TIO this week as the recipe is green, cogs and a die cut.  And being St Paddy's day it seemed a very fitting theme.  

I used my 4 colours of distress paint to create the background, stamped the cogs with olive green stazon and the numbers were swiped with jet black.

The LP image was stamped in black stazon onto a piece of kraft card and coloured with crushed olive distress ink.  I mounted it onto a piece of text script paper picked up on my hols.  The heart was die cut from metallic card and coloured with meadow alcohol ink.  Everything was stuck together and wrapped in green string.

An Altered Tin

So I this is what I started off with, a cigar tin and 3 wooden spoons.  

Following Helen's technique, the guest designer over on the PaperArtsy blog, I used irish cream, cinnamon, chocolate pudding, claret and honey dew fresco paints.

I stamped a couple of the images from the Ink and the Dog, Man of Numbers plate #6.  And blanked them out with snowflake paint.

Stamped over them with black stazon.

Coloured them with south pacific and limelight fresco paints.  I did start off with guacamole but it's not a translucent one so instead of showing through the image it covered it up (you can see on the bottom two postmark stamps).

Now for the inside.  For the top of the lid I used some of the papers I got from Michael's.  Stamped the banner from the LP stamp plate #5 onto a piece of kraft card and cut it out.  The ticket is from a T!m pad I picked up from JoAnn's and added the chit chat words.

I covered the inside of the tin with another piece of paper from the same paper pack from Michael's.  I painted the wooden spoons firstly in snowflake and then brown shed and chocolate pudding.  I stamped them with the script stamp from the backgrounds plate #2 in black stazon and then coated them a couple of times in satin glaze.  Stamped the hand onto white card, the ticket onto kraft card and the heart onto metallic card.

This is the inside of both the lid and the bottom.

This project was inspired by Helen Chilton's first technique on the PaperArtsy blog and an article I read in Stampers Sampler.

Shopping in Utah

First stop was Michaels at Park City.  Got a nice selection of wooden stamps and picked up some very cheap Vintaj pieces.  I sent Martin through with the scissors to get 40% off, mine came off the scrapbook.

Next was Hobby Lobby at Sandy.  Martin went through with the paper pad, again with a 40% coupon.  I love their own range of stuff, Spare Parts and Paper Studio, so I picked up a few bits!!

And our final stop, Jo-Ann's at Redwood Road.  I love this shop, it's absolutely huge and even better ALL the paper crafting stuff had 50% off, so as you can see, I stocked up on my T!m stuff.  I would of got more, but it had been ransacked and at that price no wonder!!!

And everything arrived home with us today safe and sound.

More Utah Scenery

Another gorgeous day after a snowy night.

Then it was a bit bleak!!

Then the sun came out again.

This is an Aspen tree holding the snow.

More lovely scenery which we skied through.

Quite a bit of snow had fallen again.

And then even more!!

And then the sun came out again.

Skiing in Utah

For those of you who don't know, I am currently away on a skiing trip in Salt Lake City, Utah.  It snowed for our second day of skiing which made every where look really pretty.

And it carried on for the next two days, but as you can see, the sun was also out!!

Then it stopped and the sun did come out.

And it's been out ever since!! This is Sundance Resort which Robert Redford owns.

Then it snowed some more at Powder Mountain.

Then something weird happened with the sun, it had a huge circle around it.

And finally just to prove we are both here!!

For A While

No more craftiness for me for a while.  No, I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth, shall just be AWOL for approximately 3 weeks as we're going on holiday.  Those of you who know me will remember I missed out last year due to my accident, so I've really been looking forward to going this year.

Not sure how I'll get on until I get there, but I'm going to give it a good go, and oh yeah of course, I shall be shopping too!!!

So if I get chance, the only thing you'll see from me for a while are sunny, snowy photos or any new stash I've managed to find in the big craft superstores!!!

So I will apologise in advance as I know I will not get around to commenting on your blogs.  I will have a sneaky peak as and when I can, so just because I've not left a comment, don't think I've not been.

So for my last piece for a while, I am entering my AWOL postcard into this weeks Stampotique challenge which has the theme of 'use text'.

Have fun you all and happy crafting xxxx

Another Bright Day

This time I used the distress PAINTS, but I couldn't get the same type of watermarks as I did with the inks.  You can just see some bottom left corner.  I'm wondering if by the time I'd got down there the paints had dried!!  I took a different approach with the white ink spray this time too, I flicked it on before I stamped!!

I used the same PaperArtsy flower image as I did the previous post as it's the only one I have!!  This time I squiggled over the stems with white pen too.  I used the text from the Urban Snapshots Arched Apertures #2 plate.

To find out how to create these wonderful tags check out the PaperArtsy blog and their fab guest designer, Linda Cain.

Notebook for Chris

Yesterday was Chris's birthday and a while ago I made her this cute little notebook baring the Stampotique character Gibi.

This is the back.  I also managed to get the o wires on the right way round too!!!

Brighten Up Your Day

YAY - Linda Cain is back again this week guesting over at the PaperArtsy blog.  To see the technique Linda used click here.  I used images from the PaperArtsy Hot Picks 1004 stamp plate and to create my white dots I took the end off my new white Dylusions spray and dotted them onto the tag.

Something Messy

I've allowed myself one last play as I am knee deep in a college assignment which I have to submit before I go on my holidays on Thursday, but I needed a break and Simon Says Stamp and Show are asking for something messy.

I was inspired by both Paula and Helen to create this wooden plaque as I loved the colours they'd both used on recent makes.  I also wanted to play some more with my distress paints, white Dylusion ink spray and of course I my new T!m stamp set.

I'm also playing along with Out of a Hat Creations again with my row of birds.