Little Thank You canvases

I popped into the Great North Papercraft Extravaganza (GNPE) in Harrogate after a class at Art from the Heart in October.  I heard that Paper Artsy had a stall there so I went to grab myself a bargain. I picked up these teenie tiny canvases which I've painted and stamped up to say thank you to two crafty friends, Anne (Redanne) and Trace (inkypinkycraft).

Anne sent me a lovely Christmas tree stamp I said I liked on her workdesk, so I sent her the pink mini canvas. Trace and I did a swap shop of goodies from our stash. Trace sent me a lovely enamelled hanging heart with her parcel and I sent her the blue mini canvas below.

I enjoyed working in the small scale as it makes you focus on the tiny details. The little heart and crown is from Tim Holtz grunge board elements.

I painted up the canvases with acrylic paint, then painted around the edge in metallic purple and blue. 

I blacked the edges with black Adirondack dabber. 

I used a honeycomb stamp and a flourish to create some layers on the canvas. 

I've used some cosmic shimmer embossing powder on the hearts and Tim Holtz Walnut Stain distress embossing powder on the crowns. 

I've used my favourite little accessory the Beadazles and some Cosmic Shimmer mica flakes too (the mica flakes are my new obsession at the moment), love those shiny things.

I just wanted to say Thank you very much xxxxx

Wiry 3D Christmas Tree Tag

I've been away from my crafty desk this week, with everyday life getting in the way of my crafty mojo-ness!

I'm practically rocking back and forth, going crazy not being able to use my distress inks and stamping.

Well I'm back I tell you, back where I want to be, with dirty inky hands, long may it last!

I've got a new camera too, so I'm just feeling my way around that. I could do with a lesson in using my digital SLR, I've forgotten everything I learned at college about photography. 

I'm really enjoying using these new stamps for the Creative Expressions design team. The ones below are the Let It Snow stamp set. I just love that Christmas tree and the reindeer. 

I started off with a tag I had inked up with blue distress stains and Cosmic Shimmer mists, hence the lovely blue drippage, then I splatted it all with white gesso. It really looked Christmassy at this point. But I wanted more colour!

Then I stamped it with TH crackle stamp using a green metallic acrylic paint, distressed the edges with Rusty Hinge DI,  and darkened the edges more with Black Soot DI. I used a stiff dry paint brush with a bit of white gesso on it to run streaks up and down the tag, which gave it a weathered beach kind of effect. 

Loved this with the blue and the rusty hinge colours.

I used the Let it Snow stamp with Picket Fence Distress Stain and stamped that around the tag, then stamped some flourishes here and there too. I pleated some music Tissue Tape along the bottom of the tag, for a nice little frill not thrill!. 

I've added some sparkly gold texture from the Cosmic Shimmer mica flakes too, they are gorgeous, love them!

I used blue and green alcohol ink on the numbers, the pin and the Christmas token to match the green wire on the tree and the baubles.

I made the tree using Cosmic Shimmer Bronze lustre embossing powder. Stamp both sides of a tree shape 3 times then cut it out. Then do another one without one on the other side (this is your base). Fold the other 3 in half. Cut one  in half, this is your centre one. Use the other 2 folded trees to glue (down the centre only!) to your base and glue the centre one in and leave to dry. Once dry you can bend all the layers into the right position. I used a poky tool to make holes to thread the wire through the layers of the tree. Don't forget to add some beads while your threading to make little baubles.

I am well and truly into the Christmas spirit now, especially as the Coke Cola Christmas truck advert was on the TV on Saturday, now I know Holidays are coming!.

Michelle x

Ordinary Candle Holder to Sparkly Christmas Candle Holder

Everyone who knows me knows I'm a big Christmas fan, and if I can turn an ordinary everyday item into a Christmas decoration, I will!

Here is a large glass candle holder, very nice and elegant.......but Christmas is coming and it can't just sit there being all elegant and having no reference to the festive season can it! 

So I decided to use my gorgeous Heartfelt Creations bauble stamps, from Creative Expressions to add some Christmas cheer to my candle holder.

What a transformation! Not ordinary any more.

I stamped the candle too.

It looks so pretty with the heat embossed baubles around the glass.

I used a mixture of white and gold embossing powder.

I'm really pleased with how this has been transformed. It's unique and I made it.

I love that feeling.

Make something that makes you happy today.

Bye for now

Michelle x

Creative Expressions are recruiting. They're looking for a Regional Accounts Manager to cover the Midlands and South East area. If you're interested and want to find out more information check their job vacancies page. 

Halloween Antics 2012

Halloween has always been a big affair in our house, because it's my son's birthday on the 31st. It's great because I'm never stuck for a theme for the party! Although the party is much less chaotic these days now he's 22 but we still carve our pumpkins, get dressed up, decorate the front of the house and get tons of sweets in to hand out to the kids. The kids love it, they always say "it's propa mint this house!"

We like to make the effort, it's a whole lot of fun. Here's our effort for this year.

Here's the big spider web on the front of the house!

Some of our snacks, hotdog mummies.

We used szechuan pepper corns for eyes.

Me and my ghost

I've been trying to find our pictures from previous years, and I found these two from 2010.

This is when Sack Boy from Little Big Planet was all over the place.

And a blog post wouldn't be the same without some crafting now would it!

Well it's been a very busy week, with two important birthdays and a works night out, now it's time to get back in the craft room and get into the Christmas spirit.

Hope you all had a great week, if you got up to anything spooky this week, tell me about it?

mwahh ahh ahh ahh

Michelle x

R is for Retro

I'm a child of the 70's born 1971, I have many fond memories of playing outside, with my flared trousers on and my incredibly long collars! I remember the heatwave in the summer of 1976, and the Silver Jubilee street parties. The music was pretty awesome too. When It's crafting Time said that this week's design team theme was retro it just conjured up happy memories of always playing outside and not so many rules as we have today.

70's retro colours to me are brown's, mustard yellow, red and blue, and here they are on my altered Decopatch letter R for Retro.

I've used Tim Holtz Cirque stamp set, they all work brilliantly with this theme.

I've also cut out the letters from a Tim Holtz Seasonal Paper stash page to spell Retro.

I have to thank Kate Crane for the black liner I used around the letters. Kate kindly gave me a black Stabilo aquarellable pencil after using one in one of her classes at Art from Heart. Its brilliant because you can rub it with your fingers to make a grungy grubby black shadow around things or use a fine paint brush with a little bit of water to blend the black into the edges, which I've done here.

I've also used one of Tim's idea-ology metal sentiments dabbed with blue alcohol ink and rubbed with white gesso in the letters to make them stand out. I've also used music note tissue tape on the inside edges.

It's far out man!

M xx

Beautiful Christmas Baubles

These Heartfelt Creations stamps are so beautiful and I'm so proud to be showing you how I've used them for the Creative Expressions Design Team this week. I'll be making crafty projects for November using these baubles stamps and the Creative Expressions "Let it Snow" stamp set too. I'm looking forward to seeing what we all come up with from these wonderful Christmas stamps.

I wanted to show how they look with different colours, and I really like how they've turned out. You can't see the sparkles so well on these pics but they shimmer lots and they look very Chrismassy.

Each card has a coloured centre bauble with the same colour inked around the edge of the card.

I've heat embossed each bauble with a gold and a silver bauble on each card, and then dotted them with the Stickles glitter.

Here's a close up of the gorgeous Cosmic Shimmer Persian Sea Aurora embossing powder, it has mica powders in it, so it has a beautiful metallic shimmer. The gold and the silver are also Cosmic Shimmer's embossing powders.

I've also used some silver acrylic paint which I've stamped onto the cards to add some subtle silvery highlights.

The bauble strings are made with gold cord fed through the eyelets of the baubles.

The inside of each card has the 3 smaller baubles and a Merry Christmas greeting stamped in the same colour as the ink on the front.

I'm well and truly into the Christmas spirit, drinking mulled wine and waiting for Christmas 24 to start on the movie channels! (Christmas films shown 24/7 and starts on the 1st of November).

Is this wrong?

M xxx

Hiding Pumpkin Cats Stampotique card

Well the weather has turned decidedly colder this week and I feel the winter chill fast approaching. It was time to buy the de-icer for the car and fish out my hat and scarf for the cold dark drive to work every morning. The clocks went back last night so the mornings will be lighter, but not for long. I'll be going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark soon, so I'm pleased I have daylight bulbs in the craft room to keep me chirpy through the winter months until Spring arrives.

If I keep making cheeky little cards like this though I'll be a happy bunny until the sunshine is back.

I'm entering this card into the Stampotique challenge this week where you take inspiration from one of their design team members and my inspiration for this card, you guessed it, would be very reminiscent of Kate Crane's style.

I love these Stampotique stamps, the pumpkins just make me smile lots and the cats just look so cheeky.

I love seeing them hiding behind the pumpkins

 I've used Dylusions inks, Stampotique's (pumpkins and cats), TH spider-web, The Stamp Man's spiders and Artistic Outpost's hanging bat stamps. I used Gold Ice Stickles on the spider-web to make it glisten with dew.

This card just makes me feel happy.

Have a great relaxing Sunday.

Michelle x

Friends are like stars....

I made this canvas for my best friend's birthday, we've known each other since going to Uni together. She now lives nearly 100 miles away and I miss her loads, but we try to meet up at least 5 or 6 times a year. So the sentiment on the canvas really sums up our relationship. She's very creative too so I know she'll love this.

I've used the free star stamp we got in Craft Stamper last month and another free star stamp from Craft Stamper from last Christmas I think. There is also another hanging star stamp on here too, not sure who made that one. 

I've used some TH heart and wings dies and some chipboard stars too for some 3D interest!

I used TH Newsprint Letters, covered in acrylic paint.

I've also sneaked in some Beadazzles in little areas here and there.

What canvas wouldn't be complete without a bit of drippage?

This time its Tattered Angels Teal glimmer spray dripping down the canvas.

When you get your eye in, you can see I've used lots of stamps and gesso through stencils and distress ink through stencils too.

You know me I like lots of layers!

Looks like we might see some blue sky today instead of just thick white cloud.

Fingers crossed xx

Handmade Christmas Wrapping Paper & Tag

Stamps can be used for so many things, it's easy to forget how versatile they can be. When I was thinking about what I could do next with my Tim Holtz Christmas Time stamp set for Creative Expressions I thought about pretty wrapping paper and a tag.  Homemade wrapping paper looks and feels so much better than commercial wrapping paper, and it gives such a unique personal touch too.

I stamped the Santa and the sentiment on TH Kraft Resist paper, coloured it with TH Distress Markers, used red Stickles on Santa's clothes and puff paint on his furry bits! I matted them onto black card and stuck the sentiment to the bottom of the Santa image to make a tag.

I've just used plain parcel wrapping paper and stamped it with the star burst stamps. In the centre of each star burst I've put some red Stickles glitter.

On the top of the parcel I have die cut some TH Tattered Florals and Tattered Leaves from Kraft Glassine, scrunched them up and then distress inked them with, Festive Berries, Mustard Seed & Mowed Lawn.  To give them some festive bling I've rubbed them all with mica powder.

I stamped the star burst stamps all around the parcel.

There is actually a present in there, and my OH wants to know what it is, 

but they're just gonna have to wait!

Michelle x

Fear the Midnight Hour cooked challenge canvas

We've been at it again, challenging each other to make things from the same list of ingredients.

A fab idea we pilfered from the wonderful  Ellen Vargo and Hels Sheridan.

Me & my crafty bud Trace aka inkypinkycraft have been Skyping each other and seeing what we both have in our crafty stash, so we came up with this little list below.  

Here is our list of ingredients

Mini canvas board

Residences Art Parts

Die cuts

Paint

Gesso

Distress Ink

Stamps

Mystery ingredient

Rock Candy

Here is the result of the cooked challenge. A Halloween mini canvas.

The background is mostly a dark blue and when you move it to reflect the light you can see all the interference paint. On these pictures the camera has picked up on all the interference paint, so it looks lighter than it is. I painted Ranger's Rock Candy on the Tree, the pumpkins and the cat!

My cats keep coming in from the garden with those little stickley (seed) balls on them, that I have to pull off every night. Well I used one of those for the door handle! Us crafter's are resourceful if nothing else!

I wonder what delights we come up with next time Trace. 

Can't wait.

Michelle x

Rich Autumn colours inky stamped card

Just a quickie for today. I love Autumn its my favourite time of year, all the leaves are a gorgeous colour and you can use them as stamps or texture too, (a fab freebee that comes in all different shapes and sizes). 

Try it Tuesday has a wonderful challenge on this fortnight of creating something with Autumn/Fall colours and here is my entry for their great theme. It's an 8"x8" card full of rich warm colour .

I used Tim Holtz kraft resist paper as the base and inked it up with Aged Mahogany, Wild Honey, and Mustard Seed Distress inks. I've used a few stamps all Tim Holtz especially the new Blueprint Autumn leaf stamps. I've also used Creative Expressions metal embellishments and a Wendy Vecchi wooden heart.

I'm going to find some interesting leaves at the weekend and make something from them, dunno what yet, but  I'll make something.

Bye for now, Michelle xx

Golden Arch Evergreen Bough Christmas Card

This is my 3rd make from the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Christmas Time stamp set for the Creative Expressions Design Team. I'm really enjoying being inventive with this fab stamp set. 

This time I've used an arched card which already has a Christmassy feel to it. 

I brushed a Versamark pad across the Tim Holtz embossed 'Merry Christmas' and dusted it with gold Perfect pearls. 

#

I also dusted some music notes while I was on.

I cut a tree and snowflakes die and painted them with white acrylic paint and when they were dry I painted them with Ranger's Rock Candy.  When the Rock Candy was dry I distressed the dies with Evergreen Bough distress ink to show up the cracks.

I used white puff paint on the white furry bits on Santa's traditional green outfit. 

I think this is one of my favourites.

Only 69 days until Christmas Day!

Did you really need to hear that?

Michelle x

PS The inside of the card is really nice too, but forgot to add the picture. 

I will add it when I get home after work tonight. :)

As promised here is the inside.

Ums & Ahs Handmade Journal.

When It's Crafting Time sent me this lovely naked 7 Gypsies portfolio I just knew I wanted to make a handmade journal from it. You can decorate these portfolio's in so many ways, with grungy papers or painty inky messyness. I went for the messyness this time, but I'd like to do another one with grungy papers too. They are great value too only £2.00 for two!

Lots of gesso and texture for an arty journal.

Here is the back where I have used metallic light blue acrylic paint and accented it with streaks of plum purple. I've edged the portfolio with gold acrylic paint.

I used scraps of paper (DCWV citrus) and text from a book and painted gesso over the top. I also added texture using gesso through a Dylusions flower and harlequin stencil, then painted metallic blue acrylic paint over the top. I painted some Tim Holtz Grungeboard letters white and edged them in gold metallic acrylic paint and stuck them on the front of the portfolio once it was dry.

When everything was dry I started to concentrate on the journal pages for the inside. I sewed watercolour card into the spine of the profolio using strong purple tapestry cotton and attached lots of pearls and chain tassels from Tim Holtz Idea-ology range.

Here is a closer look of the pages on the inside of  the journal. I'm looking forward to filling these pages up, especially because I've used watercolour card which will show up colours so well.

I like making handmade journals, there is something really satisfying about it.

Hope you have a great creative crafty Sunday.

Michelle x