Alpha/Dictionary Challenge 2016 : S

I chose SHORE as my word for the letter S for the Alpha/Dictionary Challenge at the Craft Barn. The twist with this letter is to include a shell. I like seaside images so I was thinking about what you find on the shoreline and of course, a great excuse to include beach huts. I love beach huts so they just had to be on my page.

Cockle shell stamp from Marianne Designs : Beach PA4007

Vintage photo image from Marianne Designs sheet of vintage beach photos.

Beach huts and focal image of girl with parasol : Craft Individuals.

All the stamped images are coloured with Inktense water colour pencils. The definition and the edges of the shell panels are highlighted with the blue pencil and softened with water.

I'm glad I now have a seaside page in my book, it makes me happy.

April Showers

Sunday morning chilling out on the sofa, I was watching a PaperArtsy YouTube video by Sara Naumann entitled Journal Cover Collage. The technique used stamping on tissue which has been a recent discovery for me with the alpha/dictionary project so I thought I would give this a try for the Craft Barn Two Weekly Challenge. The theme for the challenge is April Showers.

Here's a link to the YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpP83rgoDTM

My entry for the challenge is a small journal book cover.

I used an Instagram photo image for the background, the stamps used on the tissue are from Inkylicious and the background dotty paper from Kaisercraft. I really like that ghostly effect the tissue over the picture makes. Do watch the Sara Naumann video to see how to do it.
PaperArtsy Frseco finish paint used was snowflake.
I added a few ribbons and threads from my stash plus a couple of tiny shrink plastic tags. Can you see them? They are tiny.

Now I have my empty journal book, what shall I put in it? Maybe some experiments.

Alpha/Dictionary Challenge 2016 : D

D = Difficult, I deliberated and dug deep until I finally decided on DOOR.

A bit of brainstorming over lunch with a friend at work led us down a very dark route of devils, disasters and demons but she suggested door and I have purchased a couple of the new PaperArtsy Hot Picks sets which, as luck would have it, feature lovely images of doors. That new Hot Picks release for 2016 was pretty awesome, I really did want them all!

There is a twist on the Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary challenge for the letter D, the colour pink has to be included. So, my main door image is pink of course.

I am learning a lot from all you bloggers out there so this time I tried stamping on tissue paper, I like this, the words on the page still show through. For the main image, I originally stamped on tracing paper but the ink did not dry despite trying to heat set it, leave it over night and blot it on copy paper. I binned that idea and decided to stamp on printer paper, colour it with watercolour pencils, cut it out and stick it to the page. This pleased me.

Stamps used :
PaperArtsy Hot Picks HP1601 and HP 1605.

OK, time to upload this one and go see what others have done for this challenge.
Enjoy the rest of Sunday. x

Playing with Bleeding Art Tissue

Over the Easter weekend I was having a bit of a play as the weather was not so kind to us. My plan was to do a small canvas with bleeding art tissue but I also had a scrap of card to practice on which turned into a finished piece, always nice when that happens.

Circles were die cut from bleeding art tissue and applied direct to canvas with water and left to dry for five minutes before peeling them off and discarding the tissue. Then add a few more circles to layer up the colours and repeat.

I then used a stencil, Finnabair bubbles, that stencil I have used a lot recently, adding some milled lavender distress ink. To finish the background layers I added some rubber stamped circles using white paint (PaperArtsy Hot Picks 1102).

The focal image is a PaperArtsy JOFY stencil (PS007). I used Imagination Crafts glitter paste to give it a bit of sparkle.

Same technique used on this panel with the bleeding art tissue, stencilled circles and rubber stamping. This time I used black ink through some stencils for the images and added a sentiment.

Stencils :

Andy Skinner : Baroque

Imagination Crafts : Wildflower

"I want to be improbable and beautiful, afraid of nothing, as if I had wings."

- Mary Oliver : Starlings in Winter

Craft Barn Two Weekly Challenge : Rabbit

This is my entry for the two weekly challenge at the Craft Barn where the theme is Rabbit and we have to use an oval on the work. Easter is done although I do have a bit of my Easter egg left so I decided that an Alice in Wonderland ATC would fit the challenge.

The background is a scrap of tissue stamped with hearts and wonderland. The rabbit image is actually a hare so I have cheated a little. It is from a very old set that I bought many years ago, I don't recall the name of the company but it is a lovely set of vintage illustrations on red rubber. 

I colour tinted the image with distress markers and die cut the oval. 

A quick make this week, its been a tad busy.

"If you don't think, then you shouldn't talk."

- March Hare (Alice in Wonderland)