Wednesday 28 October 2009

Time for a bit of a catch up.

Hi Every one. I can't believe that it is more than a fortnight since I last posted on here, life has been extremely hectic, but quite exciting too.
When I last posted I was hoping that work would start on fencing the land we have recently bought.......here is the proof that it actually started on time !!! It took four men working really hard.... well hardish, nine days to complete and looks really good. The grass seed has germinated and a faint haze of green is now covering the whole field, we have also planted a few trees to replace ones which had to make way for the fencing. I can't believe that this "pipe dream" has become a reality.




These first two pictures were taken as they started work on the first morning, and the next three were taken this morning, now that all the work is finished.






I really feel fortunate to live in such a beautiful place.

Last week's challenge at Tuesday Taggers was to create something spooky, I decided to continue in a digital fashion following on from the previous week's little mouse and created labels for my Halloween Goody bags using Photoshop Elements and some Rhonna Farrer Halloween Style Digital Brushes, I printed them out onto plain white card stock and then coloured them using TH Distress Inks, I put some suitable sweet treats in the bags and the addition of some fibres to the pack tops for that finishing touch, hmmmmmm, just need a suitable container and ..... I wonder who will get to sample these?



Finally ....for now.... This week's challenge at Tuesday Taggers was to use "Bursts Of Colour" sounds straight forward enough I know, but it was a struggle deciding what to do, a firework theme may have been the obvious choice with Bonfire Night coming up but it didn't really appeal to me. I was thinking about fireworks however when I finally decided on using a "caught in crystal" technique as the colours really seem to burst when you drop pigment powders into the Klear polish on the acetate. When my acetate / pigment and Klear polish / tissue paper sandwich was dry some of the colours were not as vivid as I wanted, so I used my copic markers on the back of the tissue paper to add more colour in some areas, I then used black Stayzon to stamp the trees on to the front of the acetate. The Caught In Crystal Panel is mounted onto an 8" x 8" canvas which has had book pages stuck to it in places and been gessoed before painting with acrylic paints, a chinese proverb which says "One generation plants the trees. Another gets the shade" was adhered to the canvas before the "Crystal panel" was placed over the top and finished off with some ribbons.


I am pleased with the end result as it reminds me of the glorious sunsets we see from our windows at this time of year, as well as expressing what our little bit of Lincolnshire and the trees we are planting mean to me.

I'm off to Malham Tarn at the weekend for an annual Crafty get together with some wonderful crafty friends, I can't wait for Friday to come....but in the meantime I need to decide what to take and what to leave at home (other than my OH and DD....lol) I'll probably end up taking everything and the kitchen sink as usual.

Bye for now.

Bee xx

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Still in an Autumnal Mood.

Hi everyone.
The weather here in Lincolnshire continues to be bright and sunny, although an autumnal chill has begun to creep in and as well as glorious sunsets we are now getting some lovely misty mornings. The tree colour is still good, although the leaves are falling fast. We have just managed to get the grass seed sown in 3 acres of land that we have bought adjoining our garden and hopefully the workmen are arriving today to start on the fencing, I am really looking forward to choosing and planting trees and hedgerow plants to give us more autumn colour in the future.

Over at Tuesady Taggers this week the design team are still in an autumnal mood too, our challenge this week is to use a digital stamp to create our projects. We have all used the same image (A cute little Harvest Mouse) by Teri at Delicious Doodles, for our projects.

My Harvest Mouse takes pride of place on the cover of a little Pink Pig Notebook.

First I downloaded the image, decided what size I wanted it to be and printed it out onto copypaper, I then coloured it in using Copic Markers and cut it out. I used perfect medium and two coats of clear embossing to make my mouse more durable. To create the background I applied tea dye and walnut stain distress inks directly to the edges of the green mulberry paper covered board and stamped random leaves using shabby shutters distress ink ink and the acorn stamp from stampin up using walnut stain distress ink.
I tied two pieces of ribbon around the cover and then added a mat made from card covered with frayed burlap and inked with glimmer mists. I placed my Mouse on top of the Burlap mat and added glass beads adhered with diamond glaze around his feet. The end result has a real tactile quality with lots of different textures.

Thanks Teri for giving us the image toplay with, I have really enjoyed this challenge.

Bee xx

Sunday 11 October 2009

Scrapbook Pages.

Hi Everyone, I haven't posted any scrapbook pages for a while, but thought you might like to see these. This double layout was made in response to this month's layout challenge over on the Running With Scissors Shop blog at http://tj-runningwithscissors.ning.com/ Helena had posted this single page sketch.
and I immediately thought of the photos of the Hot Air Balloon Trip that Kate, Jim and I had recently. Kate had always wanted a trip in a hot air ballooon, for that matter so had I....lol... and as both Kate and our good friend Jim celebrated special birthdays this year, it seemed like an opportunity not to be missed.
Kate's birthday was in early January, not a good time of year for outdoor adventures, Jim's was in early September a much better time of year, and our trip was planned for 17th September. We spent a lovely day in York, mooching around the shops and having a leisurely lunch before heading to the racecourse to take our balloon trip, an experience we would all willingly repeat, and a real Red Letter Day for all of us.
There were far too many photos that I wanted to use, as I wanted to give a feel of the whole experience, so a double lay out with large flaps for hidden photos and journaling was called for, the sketch with it's strong horizontal lines lent itself to being used this way. The large areas of white space in the sketch also felt appropriate as I wanted to capture that feeling of being at one with the sky.
The Hot air balloon embellishments were simply rubber stamped and coloured in, using a stamp from Clarity Stamps, stamp club that coincidentally arrived in the post a few days ago. The image was stamped once on white card and once onto white shrink plastic, which was then heated, this helped give a sense of perspective, and the calendar page was created in Word on my computer, cut out and then a Stamping Up Border Punch used to give the spiral bound look. All the journaling inside the card was printed out from the computer and then cut into strips before adhering, as were the two Haiku poems I created for the fronts of the layouts. I really like using the Haiku structure to add meaning to my pages in a way that is different from that straight forward journaling.
The words read "A Hot Air Balloon, As one with Wind and Nature, Drifting in Clear Skies" and "Once in a Lifetime, A Different Perspective, A Red Letter Day"
The large letters for the titles were cut using A Slice machine.



I am really pleased with how these pages have turned out, thanks to Helena and her inspiring layout sketch.
Bee xx


Tuesday 6 October 2009

Altered Wooden Box

The challenge at Tuesday Taggers this week is to use Autumnal Colours in our projects. This is a real bonus for me as I just LOVE Autumn. The trees around where I live are the most fantastic colours at the moment and there are wonderful shiny conkers on the ground. We have had our first rain today for ages and now it smells of Autumn too.


Anyway back to the project.....
I had a little hinged wooden box in my craftroom just waiting to be altered....another crafty bargain from the range....

I wanted to use Autumn Colours but also get the sheen that you find on fresh conkers....lol

So out came the pearl powders, metallic dabbers, perfect medium, a maple leaf stamp, etc etc, a piece of ribbon, a few pieces of Tim Holtz Idea-ology and some words from a download from Lisa's Altered Art.


After painting all over the box with Black Acrylic paint and leting it dry, I then painted the lid with a variety of mica pigments in strong Autumnal colours in a random fashion. When this was dry I overstamped with clear perfect medium and the maple leaf stamp and coloured these with dry pearl pigments in copper and brass, I spritzed these lightly with water to set and then overstamped again using the same stamp and black stayzon to get a really layered look like a pile of fallen leaves.

I overpainted the black body of the box with a gold acrylic dabber and then distressed it when dry with a coarse sanding block, then rubbed aged mahogany distress ink over the top. I inked and distressed my words and adhered them with dilute PVA which I then used to seal the whole of the box.

An idea-ology Lock plate, brads, sprocket and spinner were attached to the front of the box and the woven ribbon used on the edge of the lid and bottom of the box.


This was quite an experimental piece as I was using a lot of my supplies in ways that they weren't designed for, for example the distress ink wouldn't dry and fix on top of the acrylic paint, but the PVA sealant prevented this being a problem, in fact there was a bonus in as much as the distress ink became more vibrant and moved around with the PVA in a way which improved the look of the box. I also tried a sandwich crackle technique on the body (I painted the crackle medium between the black and gold acrylic layers) which didn't work, thus necessitating the heavy handed distressing to get a similar effect. At the end of the day though I am really happy with what I achieved and had a great time creating it.

I hope you like it too.

Bee xx