Tuesday 29 September 2009

Shaker ATC for Tuesday Taggers

Happy Tuesday everyone.

The challenge this week at Tuesday Taggers is Trees, the autumnal colours in the trees around where I live is absolutely stunning at the moment, especially when the sun is shining through them, but my tree here looks as if it would be right at home in Narnia....lol....where it is always winter but never Christmas!!!

I have made shaker ATCs like this before, but thought this was a good opportunity to revisit this very tactile little gem.

The tree image has been stamped in silver brilliance ink onto black glossy card and heat set, I have used glass seed beads for the filling and the textured window frame has been made by glueing tiny broken pieces of pasta ribbons onto the card with PVA and then painting with black acrylic paint. When the black paint was dry I dry brushed over it with some silver acrylic to get the frosty effect.

I can feel a series of these little shaker trees coming on.......all four seasons......watch this space!!

Monday 28 September 2009

What a Fab Weekend !

Hi everyone,

The photo below shows me (on the far left) the wonderful Dyan and my good friends and fellow Tuesday Taggers DT members Emma and Janet at the end of a fabulous two day mini-ranger university techniques weekend masterminded by Dyan at Art From The Heart in Harrogate.

Two days of wonderful inky, painty, shimmery play....combined with good food, great company, plenty of laughter and crafty shopping !!! what more could a girl ask for?

In two days we completed 38 different technique tags, using acrylic dabbers, dye inks, pigment inks, distress inks, distress crackle paint, perfect pearls, Claudine Hellmuth studio paints.....etc etc.... we spritzed, embossed, blended, resisted, painted, coloured in, altered, distressed, grunged and babywiped to our hearts content, ending up with each of us creating a wonderful resource file full of information, tips and techniques which can be added to in the future.

Some of the techniques were already familiar to me, but Dyan managed to put a new twist on them, others were entirely new and have opened up new ways of using my crafty stash. So huge thanks to Dyan, and to Emma and Janet for such an enjoyable weeked.....and here's to next time !

Bye for now

Bee xx

Tuesday 22 September 2009

My Altered Clock for Tuesday Taggers

Hi everyone,
I hope this post finds you all well, I've had a very frustrating few hours with my computer this evening, firstly trying to get into my e-mails and then get an internet connection for long enough to write this blogg !! I have tried to upload the photos four times only to have the signal disconnect at the last moment, however I have finally managed to get the photos where I want them and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can get this blogg completed without too many more problems.
The challenge this week at Tuesday Taggers is to use Sepia Tones on our projects.......

I found this little Mantle Clock in The Range a few weeks ago, very cheap, and looking in need of altering, so I decided to use it for this weeks challenge.



The first thing I did was to rub it down a little with some very fine sand paper and then give it a rub over with some tea dye distress ink . I used a Stampin Up Stamp to add some random cogs and sprockets using Sepia Archival Ink, Istamped some words directly on to the clock case and also added others using tissue paper. I used a couple of buttons and some Idea-ology sprockets to add dimension and texture and then overpainted everything with rock candy distress paint.



When the Distress paint had thoroughly dries I worked some Walnut Stain distress ink into the crackles and finally used a Copic marker to add some colour to the glass clock face.


I am really pleased with the end result and hope you like it too. I shall look forward to see what everyone else does for this challenge.

Bye for now Bee xx

Sunday 20 September 2009

Hello everyone, a bit of a catch up!

This week has been super busy and the time has just flown, I can't believe that it is well over a week since I last posted anything on here, as well as having a lot going on at home, my computer has been playing up and it has been difficult to get or maintain broadband connections, making it almost impossible to blog.

My entry for Tuesday Taggers last week was actually a card!! the theme for the week was to use punches and or die cuts
The base card is acetate giving all the other layers the appearance of floating in mid air, I have used a Martha Strwart Border punch, punched a heart out of serendipity and then punched holes and put eyelets in before threading ribbon through and finishing off the heart with the LOVE brad, this has then been attached to a punched and stamped tag and placed on the front of the acetate, the serendipity background and brown matting layer with the punched border are inside the card, and there is a cream insert which has also been border punched. I love the layered look that I have achieved and also the fact that I made the serendipity papers out of scraps, I hate to throw anything away.
Smokey and Smudge, the kittens, are growing fast and beginning to settle in really well, they are getting more confident and enjoying exploring their new home. They had their first visit to the vet on Wednesday for their injections and behaved really well, then met another one of the other members of our household, Zulu our elderly Labrador / Greyhound Cross who seems quite happy to have them join the family.
On Thursday Kate, our friend Jim and I had a wonderful day out in York, including shopping and a good lunch then culminating in a hotair balloon trip in the evening, this was great fun and something we would all love to do again. Both Kate and Jim had special birthdays this year and this balloon trip was one of their birthday presents.
I have taken lots of photos of the kittens and of our balloon trip and will add some to the blog in the next day or so when I have uploaded them from my camera.
Bye for now
Bee xx

Friday 11 September 2009

Lotstodo Challenge.

Hi Folks, I haven't managed to make anything new for this weeks challege of using tissue paper, but the bookmark I made for the Tuesday Taggers Challenge this week includes stamping on Tissue paper..... and my "formerly White Shoes" created back in May haven't been entered in any challenge yet so here thery are for those of you who haven't seen them before.
For more pictures of these shoes see my blogg on 31st May.
Bee xx

Tuesday 8 September 2009

Bookmark for Tuesday Taggers

Hi Everyone.

This weeks challenge over at Tuesday Taggers is to make a bookmark, with or without an accompanying card.

I have only just returned from holiday and only found time to complete a bookmark this week.
Basically I sandwiched a mixed medium collage between two pieces of acetate. There is a central core made from an old dictionary page coloured with distress inks which has been overlaid on both sides with stamped tissue paper, cut out images, cut out text, diecut letters etc. I have added additional colour using Copics Markers, mica pigments and PVA, distress embossing powders and finally added some hand stitching, ribbon and a Tim Holtz Idea-ology tag.


Unfortunately the photos are not very clear and don't show the detail very well.
Bee xx




Sunday 6 September 2009

Our New Arrivals....

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick note tonight to introduce our two new arrivals...

Smokey
and Smudge
They are nine week old brothers who joined our family last Thursday.... and are proving a very entertaining distraction.


This is their first scrapbook page, made in class at Running With Scissors in Grimsby on Saturday, the colours were just perfect for this photo of the boys.

Bye for now,

Bee xx

Tuesday 1 September 2009

Hello from the high seas.

Well Brittany Ferries actually. No pictures today I'm afraid as I am on my way home from a fabulous two weeks relaxing in the heart of Brittany. I am pleased to see that my scheduled blogs have appeared at the right times...... I would have felt such an idiot if I'd got that wrong, and huge thanks to those of you who have stopped by to look at my blogg or have left comments on my blogg, they really are appreciated.
I shall catch up with you all over the next few days, once I am home.

bye for now Bee xx