December means trees and gold and silver of course.

I made this page from all sorts of bits and pieces I had kept over the year. The off cuts of paper and ribbons that might just come in useful. I havent been on my blog much recently and hope to remedy this in the new year. I thougt I would refect on what has beena bit of a roller coaster of a year through each month.

January: Never a good month for me so snow drops wer a good theme. Hope that spring is round the corner.

February: I am not a slushy valentine person so did my on take on it. Also Farnborough craft show.

March: Spring is here, excellent. Plus a long weekend with my friend Vicky and Dina Wakeley. I got shingles just before but did not spoil the fun. Then an excellent Holiday with the Husband.

April: We made the decision to move house. The husbands job is under threat so down sizing and mortgage free is the way to go. Also I started a level 5 management course which is both scary and exciting.

May: I work in a doctors surgery and on the 6th one of the GP's died unexpectedly at the grand age of 46. On the Monday evening we said goodbye on our wayout and at 6am on Tuesday I had a phone call to say he had died during the night. This was an aweful time. I had to phone patients to cancel their appointments and explain that the doctor had died. On the first day I probably phoned about 50. It was hard to deal with the patients emotions while keeping mine in check. It was hard to be pink and flowers this month.

June: Dragon flies and lavender this month. I love lavender! Also learnt about brushos at the craft barn. I love them.

July: The house is sold yay. And more brushos at the craft barn. Finding work, course work and crafting hard to juggle. Craft wise doing the bare minimum.

August: Had enough of sweet and pretty and went for scary and gothic. My favourite. Holiday to Salzburg where we did all things sound of music. The city is beautiful I would reconmend it to all.

September: A course in Cornwall with Vicky and the talented Linda Knight. Marvellous!

October: Work and the course taking over everything. Only just get calender page done. We have been told our move is immenent so have packed up craft room and decluttered house garage etc.

November: Latest assignment is stress in the work place. Pah I have 2 people off with stress and working all hours. Makes for an interesting assignment if only I had time. Have you ever been so tired that you could just sit and cry? Also chain collapsed so delay on moving and husband has been given notice of redundancy. On a high note went with Vicky, Ann and Jenny to the nec craft show and signed up for Wanderlust 2016. A year long course in mixed media. Also new doctors have started at so patients are now happier as we have appointments!

December: It has been a long year. Some good and some not so good. It is always lovely to meet up and celebrate with family with good food and wine. So here is to the next. We have just chosen another house so fingers crossed. Onwards and upwards as they say.

Sorry if this has been a ramble but it is good to share so I am told. Happy Christmas and a Wonderful New Year.

Grey and Owl for November

Hi, just got in by the skin of my teeth. Hope you like.

Orange and Pumkins. It has to be halloween!

The calender challenge this month is orange and pumpkins. No one does halloween as well as graphic 45 paper. So I got all my off cuts and put them together to make what I hope you agree is a good page.

September is leaves and the colour brown.

I just love Autumn, the smells, colours and promise of new beginnings. I think it has to do with starting a new year at school with a new uniform and stationary. I always thought right! This year I will do better, stop my day dreaming, get more confidence, do my homework and keep my things looking nice. This lasted at most till October. Day dreaming was more fun than reallity back then. I still love new stationary though.
I drew my leaves on book paper and cut them out and coloured each on with a differnt wash. The back ground was made using dylusion sprays through stencils made by the cut out leaves. I used a thin layer of gesso to lighten where the leaves go. It then dawned on me I need to fit in a calendar. I stamped over the picture and embossed. Think it works just. Finally I used inktense darken the edge of the leaves and aquarable to partition off the leaves.

Hope you like.

August: pink and butterflies

After dragon flies and beach huts I feel the need for something less cutesy. There is alot of butterfly pictures about including butterflies as hair or as peoples wings.. This is a take on that but with a scary girl picture. Other than the girl the rest of images come from a bag of paper bits I bought in a little shop in Walsingham Norfolk. It cost all of £2 and I still have lots left. I stained the background and butterfly by using acrylic ink and then sprayed with water. I scanned the calender into the computer and enlarged to superimpose the month of August. Finally I edged in black soot.

Hope you like. I am quite pleased with the result.

July is turquoise and beach huts.

Hi

I really enjoyed making the July calender page. I love summer, the sea and beach huts. Recently I took park in a brusho course at the Craft Barn and it is such fun and not too messy. I must remember less is more when it comes to shaking out the powder.

I used water coloure pressed card and sprinkled torquoise and lemon brushos on and spritzed with water to make the back ground. Next on seperate water colour card I clear stamped and heat embossed in black the beach huts. I again colured these using the brushos. After they were dry I cut them out and stuck them on the page. Finally I put on the calendar and added a little ditty about beach huts by Ann Perrin.

Hope you like.

June: Dragonflies and lavender.

It has been a very busy and at times traumatic month so only posting this just in time. I painted the background using acrylic paints and stencils. The border was made using my new indigo blue stamps. For the lavender I used inktense watercolours. The dragonfly was made with a mixture of inktense and pastels. Sorry this is just a short blog. Will try better next month.

Fionax

Travel

This weeks craft barn challenge is travel. It my is my Dads birthday this week and he use to sail an enterprise called Mad Moggy no E12929 every weekend. He probably still would if he could. So it is fitting that his birthday card has a boat on it.

A cople of months ago I learnt how to iris fold at the Tuesday craft club. One of the designs in Dawns book was a boat an I knew then it would be perfect for Dad. I needed to make a background thouhg so out came the inks and stencils and a sea and sunny sky was made...well sort of.

Hope you like.

Night and Day

When on holiday recently we looked across the bay and saw what looked liked a giant owl with glowing yellow eyes. In the day we could not make out the shape at all and assumed it was how the beach lift there was lit. But what if it wasn't. What is night shows the true image...

So the craft barn gave a challenge night and day and this gave me an oportunity to explore. I started with 2 tags and grunge pasted a skull on each. I gesso'd one black and one white. On the day one I painted it pale blue and added rocks and a red and white lighthouse. On the night one I added a black lighthouse and highlighted the skull.

I then decided to make a journalling page out of it all. No white space - sorry Dina  I forgot about that but I did ground my lines. I hope this fits in okay with the day and night challenge.

Craft Barn Callendar: magenta and flowers.

This month is magenta and flowers. This threw me a little, what colour is magenta..pink, mauve, redy purple and also I am not good with flowers. But hay hoy thats why it is a challenge.

I started with an idea by Anna-Karen Evaldsson from May edition of craft stamper. I used grunge paste through a flower stencel, using just the flower bits and not the leaves. Anna-Karen then used water colours and stamps. I used stronger water colour background using my ink tense pencils and blocks but went for stronger colour and more flicking. Less is suppose to be more..pah! I added colour to the petals so the flowers stood out and used distress ink put on with cotton buds and smudged. Oh and a butterfly stamp in an ink that would blur when wet. Lastly I added some silvery/lilac guilding wax to bring out the texture of the flowers. For the month I stamped straight over the picture. I had to go over with a pen as ink didnt show as strong as I wanted.

Hope you like, I think I have a magenta...just.

Edgar Allan Poe

Well I have had fun with this. I watch a programme called The Following which is about a serial killer called Joe Carroll and he is obcessed with Poe. A friend suggested I made something in tribute to them both. I have to say I do like doing dark things from time to time.

I started with an mdf tryptic. I took of the hinges and painted the whole lot in black gesso. This was to be my canvas. I then built up layers using texture paste, stencils, stamps and heat embossing. The images of Poe are from the computer, the lighthouse a die cut and a picture of a victorian lady to represent Annabel Lee. Around the edges I used thick black lace with a little deep red lace. This I went over with ultra thick embossing powder and stampendous aged black embosing enamel. Never done this on ribbon but the effect is excellent and it was great fun to do. Finaĺly some metal embellishments and son red roses. Hope you like.

Quintessentially English

I went to Cromer at Easter and nothing is more English than the traditional seaside and pier. Cromer is a lovely place and being a beautiful sunny day lots of people were on the pier and beach and some of the beach huts were open. I have chosen the beach huts as my project as I love them so much and is my dream to own one prefrable on the the North Norfolk Coast.

I used a JOFY beach hut stamp and then painted them with water colour paints. This will be made into a birthday card for some one special.

Craft Barn Challenge April

Hi, at long last I am able to enter this entry. This is due to 3 things...
Dina Wakley 4 day work shop..so excellent.
Holiday to Sharm El Sheikh..lovely week doing nothing.
Work..which pays for my crafting so has to be done.

So this month is blue and showers. I cut a template on my cricut so I could has a negative and positive. I used the lovely new paints by Dyan Reavley to paint my background and umbrellas with the help of the templates. I went around with a fude ball pen and stamped a different design on each brolly. Finally I stamped the month and added lyrics from Bambi.

Hope you like.

Dina Land

I have had the pleasure of spending 4 days with Dina Wakely at Art From The Heart in Harrogate. She is such a lovely person and inspired me to just go for it. She says that her career was built on whoops moments and came out with funny stories to illustrate this. I met some lovely people and caught up with others that I have been on courses with before. I went with my crafting buddy Vicky and we both had a whale of a time and learnt lots. Here are some photos of my work.

The folio, I wrote about the weekend in this.

These are some stand alone pages.

This is my favourite. It involed paint and transfers.

My first attempt at a face, straight onto the paper with black paint. That was a heart stopping moment.

And finally a 6 page spread with windows and stuff that all connects.

How cool is that!

flowers

This week the craft barn have challenged to make flowers. I have a bead book and have wanted to try this and now have an excuse.

They were simple to make and would make great embellishments for cards, canvas or scrap book page.

craft barn challenge for March...yellow and bunnies.

Hi

A great couple of words for March. I just love this month. It is warmer, lighter and brighter...spring is definately here! So I decided to have a go at a spring sunrise with standing stones and bunnies. A spring soltice if you will.

I used watercolour paints to create the sunrise which is yellow through to a deep orange. Next to make the stones. I tried crackle texture paste and it cracked beautifully and then fell off. Whether it does not like water colour as a surface to adhere to I dont know. So I used more water colour. Next came the bunnies. I dont have a stamp and not good at drawing so reverted to when I use to work in a pre school and used my middle and little finger dipped in brown acrylic paint, added ears and tail. Not bad. Finally to add the grasses and flowers. This was done using the side of a acrylic block and various stamps I have from stampin up and c'dees.

I am pleased with the result, thanks craft barn for chiving us all along.

craft Barn challenge anything tando

Hi

The challenge this week is to use any tando product. Now I know some of my stencils are tando but when I get them I take them out of the packet and put them with the rest. So I don't know which are or are not tando. I had a rummage in my stash and came across some people. Then I found a people quote which some days is me - dont you just want to shut yourself away from the world sometimes?

I painted white gesso on the back ground card and black gesso on the people. Using dyllusions and distress ink I made the background. I used a flower stencil as well. On the people, I spritzed watered down Indigo Blu miss money penny on the people and then used black soot distress ink to tone it down a bit.

The quote I used is 'Today was going great until, people'

Thanks for stopping by. X

bathroom pictures part 2

Hi

So these are the pictures for the ensuite bathroom. I am very pleased with how this turned out.

The butterfly picture was made by up cycling a picture frame that I painted violet. The background is a set of stamps I had never used and the main butterfly is 3 stamps on Canvas with different colours. I put foam pads behind the wings to give a 3D image. The centre of the butterfly is from an old bag and the beaded hanger from beads my sister Jess made for me years ago. She is one talented lady

The larger piece I am really proud of. 

I used card from the back of a sketch pad and the card at the back of prescription pads. Firsty I covered the lot in gesso and the painted. The green is some well priced paint from Tiger. A most excellent shop full of odd and cheap bits. It comes from Denmark. I Covered the back with a nice thick layer of deco art crackle glaze and the result was great. I went over this with a was of burnt umber that filled the cracks. Due to the shininess of the glaze all the paint came off the surface so no change in colour of the background. The tiles are made are layers of thin card.

Next came the fun bit of decorating each tile. I went through my collection of metal and beads and found some interesting stuff. Much of these are old necklaces including the hearts. Distress ink and more paint was used and by the end I dont feel it was obvioulsy made of card and old beads. I am really proud of this up cycled piece of art.

Hope you agree. 

bathroom pictures part 1.

Hi

This last week I have given the bathrooms a fresh coat of paint, new towels and loo seats. It feels all fresh and lovely. It does need some new pictures though and I felt that I should be able to create some.

So here are they are

 I covered the canvas with gesso and then used texture paste through a button stencil. I then painted the canvas and some tiles. When dry I used a stamp I bought in France at the Paris scrap festival. I used antiquing cream and distress ink to add finishing touches.

This canvas was done in the same way but in different colours of course. These are for the family bathroom. When I have finished those for the ensuite I will show you them.

Hope you like.

Craft Barn mini album challenge

Hi

This week the challenge is to make a mini album. It can be of any sort or colour. For ages I have been meaning to do a mini tin album so here it is.

I used a tin that had anti snore mints in it. I covered it in gesso and then orange paint. It was a bit in your face so I added some distressing ink. Next was the inside, this was made with ribbon and card. I have lots of cream small off cuts that were just right for this. (I never throw anything away). I decorated using gelli prints from the other week and photos from Hillier Gardens. There was the most gorgeous friendly robin that came right up close. Of course I took a lot of photos. I have put in a couple of snowdrops and daffodils photos as well. On the back I wrote out a poem all about a Robin Redbreast.

 

February is red and hearts

Craft barn calendar for February challenge is red and hearts. I like romance as much as the next girl, but I am not the tradional red roses type although Nigel ( long suffering craft husband) can always get me daffs and chocolates. So what to do for the challenge? I came up with the Queen of Hearts and went with something that I hope you think is a little different from the traditional valentines.

I painted on a wash in a quinacridone magenta and violet. Then added some diamonds in gesso and when dry went over with another thin wash to take the white glare off. It was then time for hearts which are texture paste mixed with black gesso though a hand made stencil. I added some treasure gold and red distress ink to finish. The queen was stamped on red and I cut out and decorated a crown and embellished with a skull.  I kept the calendar simple again and black inked around the hearts and crown. I then noticed by chance I had the word heart on the crown what luck!

 Hope you like.

Masks, stencils and turps.

The second post of the day.
So this was done with one of my darker gelli plate backgrounds - the one one the right.

1. I sealed the background using gel medium.
2. When dry I painted over with distress paint. It needed two coats.
3. I put on the stencil of the lady and with turps on a cotton wool bud rubbed off the paint. Be careful not to rub too hard as the turps will go through all layers of paint.
4. I half outlined the picture and added the word fashion

I now stink of turps but I am pleased with the result.

Gelli plate, stencils and masks.

Hi

I decided it was time to use a certain piece of equipment that has been gathering dust - my gelli plate. Over the last few months it has been featured in various magazines and the time had come to tackle it again. Following the various instructions and trial and error I am beginning to build up a background, getting colours and shapes in some sort of order and not ending up with mush.

I found contrasting dark colours worked well.

Pastels not so much. A bit insipid.

Big bold stencils worked well

Flowers not so. (the top one)

Masks were good fun but had to really think about what colour would be on top and which showing through.

This was the best flower one.

It was great fun messing about and trying different things. I need to do more of this and just worry about producing a finished article.