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.