WOYWW 148

I thought I had removed the word verification, but I noticed it was still on! Not any more though Ha!

OMG! In my best Janice impression from Friends. My music book journal is going to work out great. The pages are nice and thick, and there is no seepage onto the next page. Mind you I've caked these two pages in gesso first though. So we'll see how this turns out.

I'm back on the WOYWW, been away for a few weeks, but I'm glad to be taking part again. My list link number is 136.

Back with my haul!

Well I had a great time in York, Sarah Millican was brilliant. I found this great second hand shop called the Banana Warehouse, the window display just stopped me in my tracks straight away. It was just stacked hap hazardly with old vintage tins, tools and tat! The inside was an Aladdin's cave of organised chaos. There were sections for old books, bric a brac, trunks and suitcases and lots of furniture. I spotted an old coronation tin from 1953, and a silver jubilee book from 1977.  This book is full of old black & white pictures from 1953 to 1977, I'm sure I will use them lots. I picked up two fantastic large scale hardback music books too.

I can see one of the music books being used as a journal book, probably the Beethoven's Sonatas, because someone has annotated many of the pages in pencil, and it looks great. There's a Sunday School Prize badge in the front dated to 1932. The other 'Popular Songs' music book is dated to 1913. I love em! Guess how much........only £10 the lot BARGAIN!

Then I went to Art from the Heart this morning, I couldn't wait to get in there. Here's the haul from today. I bought the other 6 dylusion's inks to complete my set. I've got something in mind already to get cracking with tonight, probably using the Dina Wakely stamp, hell yeah! I bought the last copy of Art Journalling mag, it was meant to be.  The 'Art at the Speed of Life' book has some amazing techniques and projects in I can't wait to try out. I still have so much to learn. 

The Posca pens which were recommended to me by Kate Crane, the last time I was at AFTH, I got from Stuff 4 the Office in Ripon (or as my sat nav says Ripe-on! Stupid thing!)

I think I'm going to be very busy on my week off work, and seeing as the weather is...well...erm...CRAP...I guess I have no alternative but to force myself to get inky! What a crying shame.........NOT  :-)

Oooo I forgot to mention, I also booked myself onto one of the AFTH classes, for the 9th of May with Kate Crane, a drawing class for your journal....Must......Contain......My....Excitement......or Kate will think I'm crazy.
Laters
Michelle x

Just realised that word verification was on!! arrgg. I thought I had turned this off. It's not on now though.

Creativity is in the hands

It's been a busy week, all this nice weather means, my only time in the evenings and the weekend is taken up by making the garden more respectable.........What we need is the heavens to open up and to rain solidly for a week, so we don't have a hosepipe ban, and I wouldn't feel so guilty about spending the whole weekend in the craft room!
I'm off work next week, so hopefully I'll get a few things posted on my blog instead of the one measly post on a weekend.....  I promise I'll do more. I'm in a pop choir too and we've had 2 concerts in the past week and a bit.   I have far too many hobbies! ...... My family would agree.

I'm staying over in York on Monday night, we're going to see Sarah Millican, but gonna swing past Art from the Heart on the way back up north on Tuesday morning, oooh I can't wait, payday weekend, bring it on.

Anyway, this latest post is all about not thinking too much about what you're creating just let your hands do the talking. It's not really your creative mind that starts a project off, it's usually just your hands picking up inks and stamps and seeing what happens. Then at some point you know where your going with it.

I used my gilding flakes and flitter glue too on the bird cages.

There are dots of liquid pearls all over too. Had these ages and don't use them enough. For the background I used just London Blue dylusions ink sprayed onto a craft mat, and thinned it out with a bit of water and streaked through some lemon yellow liquid pearls. I love the effect it has on the background. Only you can't see it very well because I covered it with hands and spirals.  I have a pic of the background before I put everything else on, it was pretty. The yellowy streaks are the shimmery lemon yellow liquid pearls.

Is it something we learn, or is it in our genes?

I love having inky hands, they make sense.

Have a good week. Michelle x

Where does the time go?

What happens to the weekends? They go so quickly. Sometimes I think there's a black hole sucking the time away from me. This weekend especially seeing as we've lost an hour! 1 hour is a lot in a crafter's life, we need them all.  Time suckage was the inspiration for this journal page below.

I used my new fabulous Dylusions inks from Art from the Heart, Vibrant Turquoise and London Blue for the background. I love these bright colours. I also used the Dylusions number jumble stencil here and there, using distress inks. I flecked water over too, and blotted for random blotches.

I used Crafty Individuals clocks stamps (CI-255) for all the clocks, but the 2 Big Ben's are from Papermania and Clarity Stamps. 

I drew the black hole with my soft pastels, using white, purple and blue, oh and the black!

I spent a long time shading in between those clocks, basically because I couldn't make my mind up. I did the shading first with orange soft pastels, but didn't think it was dark enough, then a dark blue Derwent pencil and then with black pencil. Quite like the way that has turned out now. I like to see how the page evolves when I change my mind.

The White Rabbit is the brilliant unmistakable Octopode Factory.  I stamped the bold clocks, and the white rabbit on a couple of pages I ripped out of an old calculus book I had. So you'll be able to see the calculations in the background of the stamp, and on the rabbits head too. I coloured them in using Promarkers.

I did the words on my computer. The frayed material stamp is from The Stamp Man. I flicked specks of mica powders mixed in white, red and blue paint all over the page, to create a starry effect.

Where does the time go, I wish I was on the other end of that black hole, where I would have too much time in one day! Oh what I'd do with a day like that!!!!!!!

Entered in the Simon Says Stamp Challenge

New title for the top

Just thought I needed a revamp of my blog.

Here will be the new title for the top.

I will work on something for the sides tonight.

Michelle x

New paperweight for my Journal

I've found a new paperweight for my journal! Only it keeps drinking my water.
This is Holly, she lays over most pieces of artwork, I figure its her way of telling me if it passes her feline standards. She jumped up on the top on Sunday night, and stuck her paw right into a tray of black acrylic paint. It was a two man clean up job before she was let loose again on the carpets.  I reckon I should let her walk into paint across one of my pages and create her own art. I'll do that in the garden though. I once scanned her sat on the scanner. I was going to put it on here, but you'd all think I was mental!

 

My first art journal, Page 1!

I think I've turned a corner.....or been hit by a truck carrying acrylic paints and inks.

I went to GNPE (Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza) in Harrogate on Saturday (yesterday) full of crafty excitement looking to spend a fortune on stamps and things. However, I had to leave the madness of argy bargy women and tiny stalls. I decided seeing as I was in Harrogate I'd go to Art from the Heart. I'd been meaning to go for a while.

I can't stress this enough...I'M SO GLAD I DID!
What a wonderful place to be, why did I even bother going to the GNPE in the first place!
If you're remotely arty you could easily get lost in all the wonderful samples of art, it's better than any art gallery. There are samples everywhere, they're displayed in a way that encourages you to have a closer look, feel it, read it, admire it. The atmosphere is so welcoming too, brought on firstly by Dyan Reaveley who is wonderfully chatty, and passionate about her arty craft and secondly Kate Crane who is equally as friendly and talked to me for ages about Posca pens. Thanks for the advice girls. And thirdly all the staff are very chatty and helpful.

Here I bought my first journal, a red Pink Pig spiral bound book, recommended by Dyan herself. I couldn't wait to get it home, but first I needed some of Dyan's wonderfully bright dylusions inks. I could only afford 6, but I wanted the lot! In fact I wanted the entire shop, but I would be destitute if I did. So page 1. of the journal happened in the space of about an hour, a rampant splurge of 20 years of suppressed creative expressiveness. Needless to say it was very liberating! The results of which are below.

I just couldn't wait to get started. My first page in my first art journal.

Maybe I'll break it down so you can see what it says.

Why has it taken me so long? I'm 41 and only just realised, "hey I’m missing out on something here".  Aimlessly blog hopping, I happened upon Dina's blog. There I stopped and indeed pondered for .......quite a while, 2 days in fact! 

I felt a stirring, something was moving.... hang on a minute Michelle, you went to art college, there's a reason why you love this...remember. With a rush of excitement an arty mojo engulfed my mind...The return of an old friend.  I want to do this too!  Now I have a head full of jumping hyperactive ideas. A trip to Art from the Heart sorted me out, I felt like Alice in Wonder-art-land, a journal was bought and an evacuation was about to commence.

After a frenzied affair with colour I could have sat back with a long sigh and lit a cigarette (if I hadn't packed in 5 years ago), looking at it from afar I realised that here is where I wanted to be, not suppressed by a mundane number crunching job.

I was eating a yellow (gouda) Baby Bell, and was playing with the wax, when I thought, right you're going on too.

This is my happy face! Thank you Art from the Heart. xx

Posted this in Simon Says Stamp challenge

Just found My Mojo Monthly very apt for this post, seeing as I found mine again.

B is for Beach

Well it's about time I put another post up, it's been too long, about 10 days I think.

Been very busy with Wedding invitations, Mother's Day cards and birthday commissions. It's  not that easy to be able to update the blog every day is it? I don't know how some of you guys do it everyday, and make wonderful things too. I just never seem to have the time. And of course I work full time too.

Oh well it's better late than never though so here is the next instalment of my decopatch letters.  I am up to the second 'B' of  'The Hobby Room'. This time I went for a summery beach theme, with stamped shells and small pieces of driftwood.  I think I was the only person walking along Seaton Carew beach on Sunday morning in the strong wind and sleat. The things we do for the love of crafting eh? My face was so numb from the cold that I couldn't even feel my hands touching my skin. Probably because my hands were just as cold as my face!

Anyhoo, I got my acrylic paints out and began being arty again, painting my background colours. I added some decorative sand and tiny stones I'd picked up from Internationale, or some place like that about a year or so ago. It was only about £2 for a big tub of it, I knew I'd be crafting with it at some point or another.

I was just experimenting with a word stamp and some Stazon ink to see if stamping onto shells worked, and I quite liked the effect so I went with it. I have an old dictionary that I cut the sail out of, and I just had to cut it  out of the words, beach and beachcomber. I stuck it to a thin piece of driftwood, and then stuck that into a bigger piece of driftwood, which I wanted to be the boat. I also used a punch to cut out my palm tree.

I glossy accented my waves, so they look wet. I really love this effect it looks great.

I love shells, so I just had to put some shells on, and a little star fish too. They are all real. I picked up the mussel shell at the beach on Sunday too. Oh I nearly forgot my silver fish charm, which incidentally has some random word in another language for fish I think. If you know what it says, please tell me?

Hope you like my shelly, beachy, B. 

Michelle x

Creativity Magazine Talent Spot Cards. Issue 32, March 2012

I'm so excited to be able to share these pictures with everyone now. I have been itching to get them on the gallery since I made them in December. It's really great to see them in the magazine. I have some text I wrote out, on how I made these cards, but I can't seem to find it, so I'll have a little look round my computer and hunt it out and update this post when I find it.

Here are the pics of the cards.

B is for Bling

I have been working hard on my commissions this weekend, they are mostly for children. One with Upsy Daisy from In the Night Garden, George from Peppa Pig, and Princess Aurora from Disney. The other two are grown up cards. I think I'm really enjoying doing the kids one's, I'm getting back to my girly roots as a child, playing with glitter and pipe cleaners! Sometimes its nice to get away from the grown up stuff all the time.

B is for Bling
Strewn with jewels and glitter, this letter had to be blinged up. Not much explanation needed for this creation other than I used, glitter, gems, beadazzles, beads, ice Sparkles and a few drops of alcohol ink.

I love these strands of hairy glitter. The black glitter on the inside of the B shape is also hairy glitter.

Another 'B' to come next, i'm thinking B is for Beach........

O is for Ornate

Oooooo it's about time I did another letter, and here it is, an eternal circle of ornateness. I took some sneaky pictures of the 'O' while it was being made on my WOYWW, and now here's the finished letter.  I keep meaning to take more pictures of the making process, but it's so hard to remember to take a picture.....well what I mean to say is, it's so hard to get my head out of my crafty behind to stop for minute and think that I should take a picture.  I will make more of an effort for the next one.  I had to stand the letter against a bottle of glue to help it stand up as the ornate plaque makes it want to lean over to the right a bit.

So for the ingredients of this recipe:
I painted the letter with white acrylic paint first as a base. Then I used a wonderful pink shimmering mist by Lumin Arte inc. called Radient Rain Pink Grapefruit. It has the most fantastic gold mica shimmer with a soft pink colour underneath. I was so surprised with the finish of this mist, I loved it. I know I will use it over and over again, so pleased it comes in a big bottle too.  It looked fab just like this, but not interesting enough to look at. So I used a contrasting pastel blue Cosmic Shimmer chalk mist over the top, I like the mottled effect it gives (use a heat gun to dry in between coats).

I stamped a few flourishes using a pastel blue Brilliance ink pad too here and there.

The most exciting part for me was using 2 new products I bought at the weekend from The Paperlane in Northallerton, unfortunately for me they were having a reshuffle of the shop when I turned up on Sunday morning and I didn't stay long......wait...not unfortunate for me at all....very fortunate on my bank account! I always spend, spend, spend in there, they did me a favour.  Thanks a bundle!

My 2 new products were Indigo Blu's Gilding Flakes (and flitter glue.. I know that makes it 3, but the glue goes with the flakes, come on, that doesn't count) and the Hummingbird clear stamp set from Kaiser Craft. The effect is amazing on the letter, and the camera doesn't pick it up so well, but it looks really great up close.

The ornate plaque is a Tim Holtz Idea-ology plate. I used Sail Boat Blue Adirondack alcohol ink, and dropped it a few times over areas of the plaque. I cut out some card, stamped an ornate O on the card and wrote the rest of "Ornate" out (I know it's not perfect, but I like it warts 'n all) . Distressed the edges of the card, stuck it in the plaque and filled the oval with Glossy Accents. Which takes an age to dry.

The stamped bird and flourishy flowers are Tim Holtz as well as the ink dyed bauble. The crown is a charm I picked up at a craft show.  The cat stamp is a Lavina Stamps cat, coloured with dark blue acrylic paint, and outlined with a thin black pen.

I picked up on the centres of the stamped flowers with some Cosmic Shimmer pearl pva glue and some yellow liquid pearls (I need an excuse to use liquid pearls on everything).  

Around the edge of the letter I painted bright yellow acrylic paint and flicked it with purple mica powder, the letter shimmers from lots of different mediums. Oh I can't forget the centre of the letter O which I coloured with blue Broken China distress ink.

 B is the next letter, I know what the first thing springs to mind beginning with B is, what do you think?

WOYWW 141

This is my first time posting on the WOYWW.

Here's a sneaky peak of the 5th letter in my series of 12. The Decopatch letter 'O'. I'm thinking Ornate being the theme for this one, although not quite there yet. I still have a few ideas kicking about and don't know which ones to go with yet.  I normally reach for the nearest Craft Stamper and inspiration strikes.

I have 5 commissioned cards to do for Monday, so this weekend is going to be pretty busy.