Playing Tag.

Firstly I have good news regarding my OH who has come home from hospital today, he seems to be on the mend and much more his usual self. Big thanks to everyone who has been thinking about us all, I really do appreciate your support.

And now ...... another Tag. This one is for the Tag You're It challenge this week which is "On a Bough !"

I have used a set of Stampin' Up stamps and Tim Holtz Distress Inks, along with a bit of ribbon, a tiny black adhesive gem for the bird's eye, my cropodile, an eyelet and some matting and layering to create this tag. I have added a bit of extra dimension by stamping the bough with fruit on a second time and layering it over the first image with silicon glue.

I really enjoyed doing this today, after a rather stressful Easter Weekend !, it was good to know that OH was home and I could relax a little.

Bee xx

Tag It at Tuesday Taggers

This week at Tuesday Taggers the challenge is to Tag It!!

So here is my Time Tag.



I have used Adirondack Dye Inks and Stampin' Up Stamps for the background and large clock, making a feature of the minute dial with a curtain ring and Glossy Accents. The words are from a U-Mount Time plate stamped onto some home made spritzed paper and mounted on foam pads to add dimension. A large stampin' up pewter eyelet, some Idea-ology cogs and brads and ribbons complete the tag.



I've really enjoyed making this Tag and I'm also thrilled to here that The Tag Your It Challenge has started up again, there is always room for another good challenge blogg, so I shall be paying it a visit.

On a different note, things have been a bit fraught at home over Easter culminating with my husband being admitted to hospital on Sunday evening, thankfully he appears to be responding to treatment and sounded as if he was feeling much better when I spoke to him last, but it makes me feel as if the quote I used on the tag was really meant to be there.

Bee xx

It's a bugs life at Tuesday Taggers this Week

The challenge this week at Tuesday Taggers is "Bugs" and is being sponsored by The Craft Barn.
For my pendant I had decided to use an image of a scarab beetle printed onto acetate and then gilded on the reverse, however when I did this the image lost definition and could not be used on it's own, however it has made a fabulous background for my butterflies and Bee.


The metal Butterfly and Bee are charms from my stash, the printed butterfly is from a crafty individuals image pad and I have used a crafty individuals postmark stamp in my collage as well. The frame and microscope glass are from the Inkssential Range by Ranger Products.

I hope you like it.

Bee xx

Tuesday Taggers Altered Art.

This weeks challenge at Tuesday Taggers was set by Lyn (AkA Blackdragon) and it was to alter something.



As I have a number of IKEA mirrors sitting around waiting to be embellished I decided to take one with me to the Beamsley Retreat (see previous post) to work on whilst I was there. Normally my altered pieces turn out fairly grungy, I am not generally a very girly sort of person, but this piece turned out rather pink and pretty !!


At the retreat I had been playing around making paper roses, and I had also been demonstrating cuttlebug techniques, so I decided to incorporate cuttlebug embossed and inked tiles and paper roses on my mirror.

I started by giving the mirror frame a thin coat of white gesso using a baby wipe, which I then coloured randomly with Victorian Velvet and Bundled Sage Distress inks using cut and dry foam.
I then over stamped with a swirl stamp using the same two colours of distress ink, before adhering my cuttlebug embossed tiles the paper rose leaves and the paper roses which I had made and coloured using spun sugar and victorian velvet distress inks. This was a fairly simple project to complete, but I am pleased with the end result, I think the pinks and green work together really well.

Bee xx

What a fabulous weekend.

I have had such a good time this weekend, at a Craft Retreat organised by two of my best crafting buddies, Janet and Michelle from the Tuesday Taggers DT.

The venue was the Beamsley Project, a converted Chapel on the A59 at Beamsley, between Harrogate and Skipton, which provides small scale residential conference/activity facilities for up to 24 people and is fully equiped to provide for people with physical disabilities. Janet and Michelle had hired the centre on a self catering basis to run their first ever Craft Retreat. Participants had travelld from as far away as Lowestoft and Edinburgh to take part in this weekend.

As well as getting together with a number of old friends, Janet, Michelle, Emma, Andy, Kate, Georgina, Averil, Cazro and Yvonne, I made new friends and acquaintances, including Margaret and Vicky, Jean and Marie, Sandra, Glynis, Lyn and Avril, these last two also being members of the Tuesday Taggers DT but this was the first time we had met in "real life". So many talented crafters and all round fabulous people, we were all soon relaxing and chatting away as if we had known each other for years.

On Friday evening after a substantial dinner, prepared by Andy, our chef for the weekend, it was back to the craft room to complete an altered notebook project that Janet had designed as an ice breaker to start the weekend, crafting and chatting carried on into the night with "the late shift" (including me) finally downing tools and heading for bed at about 01:45am.
The next morning after breakfast we all headed off to Harrogate to The Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza at the County Show Ground, for some serious craft shopping and the opportunity to catch up with our favourite retailers, demontrators and crafting gurus ++++before returning to Beamsley with our newest buys to get on with some crafting. After Dinner on Saturday, Emma and I each held a brief techniques based workshop for those who were interested, mine was on getting more out of your cuttlebug, Emma's was on two step stamping using a stamp positioner. Both workshops were well received.

Whilst I headed to bed at a reasonable hour on Saturday "The late shift" were still crafting at 03:00am !!!

On Sunday morning we continued with our own crafting projects but also had the opportunity to explore using alcohol inks with Janet, making and packaging bath crystals as gifts with Michelle and making an easel card with Emma, as well as these prepared workshops and demos, eveyone shared their own skills and talents, including making paper roses, and painting with Twinkling H2O's, amongst other crafty techniques.

All too soon it was time to pack our crafty bags and get ready to return to the real world, but not until we had all enjoyed A traditional Sunday Dinner provided by Andy. Would we do it again? You just try and stop us.

So a huge thanks to Janet and Michelle for all the hard work the put into making the weekend such a success, and here's to next time.

Photos to be added later...

Bee xx

Tuesday Taggers "Jester or Masquerade" Challenge.

Hi Everyone.

For this week the challenge at Tuesday Taggers is to use the theme of Jesters or Masquerade Ball, the theme was chosen by Avril, a really talented member of our Design Team.


I was really excited at this choice of theme as I love everything to do with Carnival's aand Masks etc.


Just last summer my friend Kate and I had a three day break in Venice and revelled in all the Costumes and Masks we were surrounded by, taking loads of photos of Carnival Masks in Shop Windows and even watching a Mask Maker create a traditional papiermache mask.......

However when I came to make a card for this project my mind wandered from Jesters to Clowns, and I used two PaperArtsy Stamp plates to stamp images for the card. I used Tim Holtz new Distress Inks in Wild Honey, Rusty Hinge and Barn Door to give the traditional Jester's colours of Red and Yellow to my card, these new inks are just so vibrant, I love them. I then added some embossed Harlequin Diamonds to my background card, as well as using sequin scrap as a mask to provide additional texture.


The clown Images, Text and other elements were stamped onto plain white card using Archival Black Ink and then coloured with the distress inks, although some elements were left as black on white, as a contrast to the background,they were then layered up onto the base card, using some thin foam pads to provide a bit more texture.



The end result is bright and bold and a bit of fun, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Bee xx

Catching Up and Getting Started Again.

Hi Folks



Warning....... Longish post.....that I started whilst on Holiday in Italy on 19th February 2010 and finally finished here in the UK on Mother's Day, 14th March 2010.....!



It has been quite a while since I posted anything on here, there are a number of reasons for this, most of which are not worth sharing, things like computer and broadband connection problems, really frustrating, especially when you have project deadlines that you can't meet. Also the longer you leave it, the harder it seems to be to get going again.



Then there was the Claxby Craft Weekend with some really special friends, we celebrated Christmas early, combining crafting and shopping with good food, homemade Baubles for the Christmas tree and christmas crackers, christmas tree , christmas dinner and a visit from Santa at the end of November !! We all ended this weekend tired but happy and ready for a repeat next year.







My Christmas Bauble.



After the Claxby weekend, preparations for Christmas at home started in earnest, although I found it really hard this year, at every turn I was thinking about my dad, and missing him more than ever. It seemed especially poignant as both my daughters and my eldest daughter's partner were going to be with us for the first time for the whole christmas holiday. Usually my creative Mojo gets me through when times are tough but not this time, partly because with the house full, there was no opportunity to get time for myself and my creative mojo had flown the coop and deserted me in any case. I hadn't realised how low I had got until the middle of January. No blogging, no creative projects on the go, and not even bothering to read anyone else's bloggs, not even Tim's !!! Thank goodness for real friends, you know who you are, who can just be with you when things are tough and ride the storm alongside you.
A huge thankyou too, for Tracey and her inspirational scrapbooking classes and crops at Running With Scissors, http:/tj-runningwithscissors.blogspot.com my weekly therapy session, in the company of some other fantastic women, this really keeps me going, even when I just sit and chill and watch what everyone else is creating.





I think I must have hibernated (at least mentally) at this point, because the next thing I knew it was February, a brilliant weekend workshop on Art Journalling at Art From the Heart in Harrogate with the divine Dyan Reaveley, http:/www.dyan-reaveley.blogspot.com a fantastically fun and theraputic treat, as I get older I find that I appreciate the company of other creative, funny, compassionate women more and more, again you all know who you are, so thanks a million for your friendship, at the end of the weekend we all received our certificates in Prattology from Dyan, to be coloured in and suitably altered, of course.







here are the pages I made over the weekend.











The front cover.



All the pages were made from scratch using newspaper, glue sticks aand gesso, then background painting, images from magazines, borders, pens for detail and journalling. etc.













Anatomy of a page.












This workshop was liberating and cathartic, a real tonic, filled with both laugther and tears, it should be made available to all women on the NHS, I can't wait for my next "Therapy Session" in May.



Then it was half term and I was off skiing in Italy with my youngest daughter, an annual event which helps blow the cobwebs away. This time I packed, a bound journal, inktense pencils, watercolour crayons and various pens etc, instead of 3 or 4 long novels, but I knew in my heart of hearts that I would find it very difficult to start using my lovely clean blank pristine book.....lol...Then I had a brainwave at the airport and bought myself a very nice little moleskine journal and suddenly I was free to start using (the now less expensive) journal I had brought with me.


Here are a couple of pages I did whilst in Italy, not bad for a real novice, at least I'm pleased with them.










Usually Spring has made an appearance by the time I get back from Italy, but not this year, we came home to bitter cold and dark grey skies. However the sun has finally made an appearance in our garden this weekend, and although there are still snowdrops and aconites in the garden, the Daffodils are just beginning to bloom and it feels like spring has finally arrived..

Finally I will leave you with a few other projects that have been completed recently.






A valentines Card for Tuesday Taggers Love Makes the World Go Round Challenge,




An altered notebook for Tuesday Taggers Curls and Swirls Challenge.


And a litte Microscope Slide Mailer Shrine for Tuesday Taggers St Patricks Day Challenge.

Front Cover



Inside.



It is good to be back in Blogg Land, and to feel my creative juices beginning to flow again. Thankyou for taking the time to read my blogg and share these little glimpses of my creative adventures.

Bye for now

Bee xx