Belated Blog About Mother's Day

Whoops! Between illness and loads of Guiding meetings, the last few days seem to have vanished on me! I havent't had any time at all for crafting and yes I have missed it! Today I managed to get a few backgrounds done in my random art journal so will try to post them in the next few days.

First however, Mother's Day!! Yes I know it was ages ago but I really wanted to share what I made.

Since it's arrival, I have been an avid reader of Scrap365. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out today, it's absolutely amazeballs!! So much inspiration and talent!!

Anyhoo, a couple of issues back (I forget which) Kim Woods created an amazing papiermache mannequin and I thought hw I could scrap lift it.

I began by covering the mannequin with a layer of gesso and stamped a black butterfly randomly using archival ink.

I then tore squares of patterned paper from BoBunny and punched them with a flower punch. Using Modge-Podge, I adhered these around the lower half of the mannequin layering both the squares and the flowers to resemble a skirt.

Next I created small flowers by layering 4 punched flower shapes and pining together with a tiny brad. I distressed the bottom flower with crushed olive distress ink and highlighted the petals on the others with black soot distress ink.

I created a "skirt" around the bottom edge with a piece of vintage lace and made a waist using black gingham celebration ribbon and olive ribbon from My Mind's Eye.

Next step was to spray some white Papermania flowers with Stampasaurus spray in and layer with a hold to hold togther. I cut two strips from the BoBunny paperstack, distress with crushed olive distress ink and attached to the back.

I randomly placed adhesive gems in a flourish pattern, before glueing all of the flowers using silicon glue.

To finish, I tied a variety of ribbons around the middle including a pair of scissors and a key that I brought from Hobbycraft.  Before making a rosette with Gorguss Paper and Tim Holtz Rosette die and adding ideo-logy watch face to the rear.

I love how this turned out and nearly kept it for myself however Mum loved it and it gave me warm fuzzies to know that she liked it.

Plus I soon brought another mannequin to make myself one!



Mother's Day Gift Idea

As its Mother's Day on Sunday, I've had a few thoughts on what to give her.
Ok so option 1 is a purple clock canvas
I started off with spritzing the canvas all over with multiple colours of glimmer mist.
I created some stamped backgrounds and mounted these on a dark purple cardstock panel. Using a picture from the Glitter Girls, I attached "Wrath" to some torn paper and added some silver ribbon.
On the main canvas I attached some thick purple ribbon, some flowers and the clock and the panel of patterned.
I think I probably could have added more to it but I quite like its simplicity

More laterz on option 2 and 3
Ermie x

Busy week

Wow, can't believe its been a week since I last blogged! And there I was doing so well lol

Its been a very busy few days, haven't been out for ages and this weekend managed TWO nights out!

First I met up with some of my bridesmaids, 2 of whom I don't get to see very often. Lots of chatting and lots of vodka = good night :-D

Then on Saturday bf and I attended a charity night, a friend is running the London Marathon in April to raise money for Juvenile Diabetes. She had arranged a disco, raffle and charged £10 to get in. In total she raised £1300 which I think is absolutely amazing!!

Lots of people there from back in the day and had a great time. Lots of vodka too lol

After a mammoth weekend bf, LM and I got on the motorway and headed south to the parentals for a couple of days.

Picked up my new car (yay to no more breakdowns!!), LM's first visit to the beach (he even paddled in the sea, bloody freezing lol) and a trip to a farm.

I think he thoroughly enjoyed himself, I know Nanny and Grandad loved having him there.

I just wish they could see him more often.

Last night my course started, OMG! Gonna have loads of homework, need to be organised and start each assignment early and not leave everything to the last minute as I am usually prone to do!!

That's about it, back to normal today just me and LM as bf has to go back room work hehe

Will try and upload a crafty creation later if the mini demolition derby has a nap!

Bugger :-(

If At First You Don't Succed...

So although my little experiment at side by side pictures using Linda Elbourne's code worked, they did overrun the side border slightly. I've changed to a two collumn layout to see if that changes what it looks like.

So to trial it here are two pages from my Random Art Journal, very happy with the left hand one, not so sure about the right one, but then it's green and I really am struggling with this colour.
I'm maybe I should try wear it more then I might be able to craft with it lol.
Would definitely make a change to the black or grey I usually wear, family would think I was coming down with something hehe


It's Never Too Late page made using tattered rose and fired brick distress inks, glimmer mists, Tim Holtz bitty grunge stamp set and girl is from Crafty Individuals plus lots of doodling. I must have been casting a shadow over the page when I took the piccie as it's much brighter in reality.

Art page made with green and red acyrlic paints and a babywipe, Stampotique picket fence and dylusions bits 'n' bats and up your street set. Love those Dylusion stamps, would love to have the full set plus inks and new stencils lol.

Lets see if it worked.....
x

March Calendar Challenge

So over on The Kathryn Wheel blog it's already time to upload March's pages. Haven't had a blog long enough to have linked Feb and Jan's pages :-( but will include them on this post.

The challenge is to keep a note everyday of either what you did or where you went leaving a unique look at 2012. The plan is to upload to Kate's blog at the start of the month but as I've only just worked out how to do this it's a little late lol


This month I've used Stampasaurus spray inks, creative workshop templates, acyrlic paints, sakura white gelly roll pen, black sharpie, authentique and my mind's eye paper, forest moss distress ink and the most fantabulous Octopode Factory stamp "March Hare"

I think he just sums up March perfectly, that half sleep recovering from Winter look that most of us get on a Sunday morning lol

So here are my completed Feb pages.


All filled in!! OK truth be known I did forget a couple of days and had to go back later, but I still remembered the important bits lol
On this layout used a lot of ditress inks, acyrlic paint, bitty grunge stamps from Tim Holtz, Alphabet stamps from Studio G, "Just a note.." from Anita's, Swallow from Stampotique and random hearts, flowers and cow stamps that I've had so long I have no idea where they originated from! To finish the paper I used pastel crayons to ground the date squares and coloured in the "Cheshire Cat" from the Octopode Factory with promarkers.

And finally January;

Here I used a lot of blue acrylic paints, snowflake stamps, glimmer mists, doodling and a freebie stamp from Polksdoodles, I forget now which magazine it came with. This one I was much better at remembering to fill in!! Am now going to attempt to link to other blogs! (fingers crossed) :-)

MIL Quickie Birthday Card

It's my Mother-In-Law to be's birthday next week so have made a quick card, not sure at all about it as think its awfully green!

See this is why I don't tend to use it that much lol

Used a freebie stamp from Ladybug Crafts Ink, coloured with Promarkers, rosette die, Papermania Secret Garden sentiment, forest moss distress ink and Stampasaurus Mint Garden spray ink.

I have a few days until her birthday so I'll have to have a think about it

X

Hear Me Roar

I Am Woman Hear Me Roar!

IF I want to be heard in this life I need to speak up! I love how this page turned out.

I built up the background using crushed olive, forest moss and pine needles distress ink. I used a combination of blending and printing with different shaped bits and pieces.

Switching to Memento inks in Cottage Ivy and Bamboo Leaves I stamped around the edges using stamps from Papermania, Sizzix and Studio G.

The Cowardly Lion is from the fantastic Octopode Factory and I coloured him in with my really cool New Distress Markers!! ;-)

Swallow stamp is from super cool company Stampotique and I've used some vintage paper for the Lion to stand on and for the title.

I don't often work with Green so this was definitely a challenge however I may have to start using it more in my journaling.

New Year

I know we're almost at the end of February but I wanted to start sharing my random art journal with you.

The basic idea behind it was to find a quote or sentiment stamp that summed up that day and create a page around it.

Well obviously I'm already miles behind but I am managing to keep up with quotes etc, for some reason there just isn't enough hours in the day to complete everything that I need to lol

Ok, so for page 1

"Cheers to a New Year and another chance to get it right!" Oprah Winfrey

For this page I applied blue and green acrylic paints using a babywipe and dried with a heat tool.

With a darker blue and white acrylics, using various sized bottle lids, Lego pieces and an old credit card, I printed randomly across the page.

Using a gold marker, I highlighted various details and added journaling under the main quote done in black pen.

I used foam number stamps from The Works and staz-on ink for the dates and the character is from Stampotique coloured with Promarkers.

The crow is from a Dylusions stamp set available from Art from The Heart.

I really like how this turned out especially as it was one of my earliest attempts at art journaling.

Feel free to comment, would love sonera feedback xx

Another Pic

As I don't know yet how to add more than one piece here is the rest of my haul :-D

Goodies Galore!!

Wow!! What a haul! I am one lucky girl, now have loads of goodies to play with! From Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz collection to Crafty Individuals, authentique, bobunny and My Minds Eye paper stacks, rub ons, distress inks,  Graphic 45 stamps, alterations rosette  die, spray inks, chipboards and dies!

There's more than enough to keep me quiet for awhile ;-)

However I think my favourite purchase has to be the complete set of Tim Holtz Distress Markers!!

Not on pre-order mind, but sitting in my sticky little hands!! I most definitely am one lucky little crafter!!

Craft Shopping Extravaganza

Off to Make It in Farnborough in a bit for some serious shopping of crafting goodies! Here's hoping I can find my favs Dylusions, Octopde Factory and of course Tim Holtz!!

Thinking I may need to rob a bank on the way there to pay for it all!! hehe

Accepted!

Woohoo!

I got accepted onto a PTLLS course starting in March. It's Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector, and the first step towards teaching adults as a career choice.

Here's hoping it takes me forward and onto bigger and better things!

Valentine's Card

Yes I know its not Valentine's Day anymore but I wanted to share the card I made for AJ. This was our 4th Valentine's together and we decided not to go overboard. We traded cards and went halves on a Lego Creationary game! We're such big kids lol!!

I based this card on the free stamp in the February issue of Craft Stamper magazine.

To make the background I used a babywipe to paint pink acrylic over a card blank before distressing with Black Soot Distress Ink all around the edges.

Using some of Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz collection background stamps and Staz-On ink I applied randomly around the edges.

The next stage was to spray some Glimmer Mist inks onto old book pages before stamping the free heart stamp 3 times. These I cut out and glued using Mod Podge before adding a handwritten sentiment. Bit of doodling with white and black pens and the card was ready.

Yay!! AJ seemed to like it, which is always a good start :-D

Last Friday

Sorry for the delay in posting, completely hectic weekend!

The Guide meeting went really well, they loved all the different papercrafts they could try. I think the favs were bottlecap badges, rosettes and bunting.

The only annoying thing was that as usual I forgot to take any pictures except of two badges I'd made. So here they are;

Made using paper artsy stamps, sepia accents, shrink plastic and bottlecaps, I really love how these turned out!

My friend saw them later and liked them so I said she could have them, well that's means I'll have to make some more :-D

Crafting With Guides

As we cancelled last weeks meeting, we are holding one tomorrow afternoon. Even though it's half-term the girls love it when we meet up, especially if I've got my Sizzix Big Shot with me!

So the plan is to spend 3 hours playing with paper! Definitely sounds good to me lol!

We've previously covered card making and scrapbooking before so this time they wanted to try something new.

On the list are pinwheels, rosettes, bottlecap charm badges, lollipop signs and bunting. One way of using up all of my scraps :-)

Will try and blog step by steps and upload photos of their creations over the weekend.

I'm really looking forward to Guides tomorrow, right now to sort out with stamps to take!!!

The start

Welcome to my ramblings, randomness and crafty adventures.

I don't pretend to be any good, I have a lot to learn but I love getting inky and would love you to join me on my creative journey of discovery!

Holy Cow!

Just me or does that sound completely up my own arse!!

Look at the end of the day I love stamps, cows, patterned papers, cows, art journalling, cows, cardmaking, cows, scrapbooking, cows, mixed media stuff, cows, gothic art, cows, skulls, tattoos and oh yes cows!! Lol

Anyway I can combine any or all the above is also a bonus!!