Hot stuff!

Yesterday I went to a workshop with Kate on beeswax. I have done some beeswax before, but with varying degees of success. Unsuprisingly, Kate's method worked a dream, and I am particularly taken with the idea that I have to keep buffing up this little fella's behind to maintain the sheen! All the elements are adhered with beeswax, and the background is coloured with distress inks.
This atc is just sealed with beeswax, all the elements are adhered and sealed with gel medium. It was a quickie, so the background isn't as layered as I would like, but I wanted to try the strong colours with the wax, rather than the usual muted, grungy tones. The background is ranger dabbers and the Stampotique figure is coloured with neocolours.
Right, off to provide broom wagon services to my angel of a husband who is hustling three Brownies on a sponsored bike ride - 15 hilly miles in this heat!

I'm back (almost)

 

Seems like ages since I last blogged, and, well it is. But the reason is not that I didn't want to , but that I have been bogged down with work stuff. In fact, last weekend I took myself to a little rural hideaway and worked solidly from Friday lunchtime until Monday lunchtime. I did take art supplies with me, but can you believe that I hardly even unpacked them - I'm such a good girl! In between furiously typing away at my college work though, I did manage to slap a few coats of paint on for some backgrounds, and then I was lusting after some new stamps to use on them. I am so in luurve with the Stampotique stamps, but when you are hours away from the nearest craft shop, what's a girl to do? I decided that I would try and draw some characters myself, which would illustrate the kind of pages I have in my head, and will actually get into my journal when I get a chance. This first page (above) is one I did over half term, and Marcy is who get me started on Stampotique. She first came into my life when the fabulous and inspirational Kate made me a notepad with her on. The next two characters are my creation, the taller 'you did what?' character kind of reminds me a bit of a girl I went to school with and a bit of Dyan at Art from the Heart. It wasn't intentional, she just came out that way - it was the attitude I was looking to achieve.

 

 

Hopefully I will be getting a big chunk of my college course signed off tomorrow so that will mean I am really really nearly finished - and then I can put these two gals into my journal...

May down, June ready

I was all ready to post this yesterday, but I got bitten by the ironing bug and once it has hold, I can't afford to ignore it, else my entire house will be submerged in screwed up clothes.
The background for June is done in the Dina Wakeley style, and I decided to make the blotches of colour into trees and added tree trunks in various animal print styles with marker pen. The character is from Stampotique, the other stamping around the edges of the pages are all Tim Holtz.



Ooh, almost forgot. Kate has very kindly forwarded me an award for a trendy blog.
How cool is that? Now I have to nominate ten people whose blogs I like. I always find that tricky...

On a roll...

This photo frame was a nasty orange wooden frame from a pound shop that I bought years ago, thinking that one of these days I would do something with it. Strangely, once I got down to it, it really didn't take long, the ideas came thick and fast and it took minutes to put together. The stamps are all from Sir Tim, and the frame itself is painted in a mixture of Claudine Hellmuth and Ranger acrylics (mainly traditional tan and juniper).

This is a page from my little Moleskine journal, with the background done in a Dina Wakely style, with sprayed ink and water circles. I actually used ecoline inks in mini mister bottles, as I prefer the brighter colours, but Dina uses the Adirondack colour washes. You can see how she does it
here.
The stamp is my latest Stampotique purchase - now that Dyan is stocking them, rather than having to send for them from the States, it would be rude not to indulge these urges wouldn't it...
Amazingly, I have actually prepped two more pages in my little journal, one of which has really surprised me, so I have posted it below. I am not a fan of purple in my art, when it comes to clothes, I wear a lot of purple, but I never really like it on paper. But, I have to say, I am quite taken with this:

Tomorrow I really have to get on with some real world stuff, but not before I have been for a ride on my horse, had coffee with a friend, picked my daughter up from Brownie camp and of course blogged my completed May journal page....

Watch the birdie!

How else to spend a wet Saturday afternoon, but in your craft room? I bought these little gems about a year ago, and always intended to do something with them, and the miserable wet afternoon we had today seemed like an ideal opportunity! So, I dragged out the Claudine Hellmuth sticky backed canvas, paints and the sewing machine, and hey presto, my little birdie friend! On reflection, he probably should have been a bit smaller, or maybe I just need to find a bigger bird cage?

Fun and Sun!

Well, how can a day get more perfect? First of all the weather is AMAZING here - warmer than Majorca, and it's not often you can say that in North Yorkshire! Then, I spent the morning at a workshop with Kate, and for once had a really productive morning. I loved doing these, I love Stampotique stamps, and playing with Kate's extensive range of these and Tim Holtz's stamps as well as some of the new Distress Ink colours made for a cracking start to the weekend! I made this pad for a friend who invited us over for a BBQ this evening, thought it would make a change to a bunch of flowers.



I adore this set of stamps (they are from paperbag studios) and I have been lusting after them for ages, so it was nice to have a play, and now I know I really want them!
Anyway, I was on such a roll, that I came home and made this pad for another friend who had us over last weekend. The text is from a Mills and Boon, they are so great for stuff like this! I have cheekily used it as my entry for Wednesday Stamper's theme of the week, which is Orange:



Tomorrow I have to take my son into Harrogate for a swimming gala (boo!), but I suppose it would be rude to go all that way and not call in at Dyan's and satisfy that itch for some of the new distress ink pads....(yeh!)

Can you keep a secret?

I have been reading 'Journal Spilling' by Diana Trout, and she talks (and she is not alone) about the benefits of spilling all your innermost thoughts, fears and secrets into your journal, which sounds like a good idea, except when you then put it out there in the blogosphere for anyone to read! Not just that, but my family and friends often want to see what I have been up to, and even the normally disinterested almost teenage son of a friend of mine wanted to know what I was 'colouring in' when he saw me at it one day. So, those private thoughts, secrets and the like wouldn't be for long would they! Which is why I wrote my secret into my little moleskine, added some torn book pages and then I don't know how many layers of paint over the top. I sanded some of them off in between, and there was a point when you could still make out my writing underneath, but at some point it got covered up! I have to say, I am not overly thrilled with this page, because the colours all got a bit dark and the overall effect is a bit muddy, but 'it is what it is' as my Mum would say. I have given the Stampotique character a zip for a mouth, and the text is from a Mills and Boon novel! I'm not even sure that I will add any more writing to this, we'll see. One thing is for sure, no-one else will ever know what lies beneath!

Whilst I remember, have a look at this! I never knew it was possible to do such things with paper, but Sue Blackwell is amazing.