It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas......

Merry Christmas one all all.....

Oooh I'm starting to feel all festive and Christmassy..... 

It's that time of year again folks....!  I just love Christmas time and all it encompasses, it's always been such a special time for me, and I don't think that I'll ever out grow it.

I love making anything Christmassy, but I never seem to have enough time to make everything I want, but I really enjoyed making my Design Team project this month for Roc Nicholas. 

The Photo doesn't show the colours off that well. There are lots of brightly coloured 'baubles' in the Christmas tree, but for some reason they can't be seen.

I used one of Tim Holtz Vignette boxes as the 'frame' for my project (I think it was the middle sized one) and I really enjoyed creating it.

I chose a piece of Christmas paper and added some background embossing to it. I then attached Roc's gorgeous Christmas Tree (Roc's Tree) stamp to it, which I had heat embossed onto acetate.

I really wanted to try and make this look as Christmassy as I could, so I applied a Christmas washi tape to the to and sides, then covered the inside base of the box in snowflakes as well as snowballs. 

I wanted to add a tree of some sort and I really love Tim Holtz Woodland Trees (I used the medium size one) and prayed it a few shades of green, using a combination of Dylusions and Tim Holtz Distress Sprays. When the inks were dry, I added the baubles.

Whilst the ink was drying, I chose two more of Roc's stamps, as I Love them to bits, they're sooooo cute. I chose 'Horse' and 'Vic. I gave Vic a Santa hat to make him more festive and a bow tie for Horse.

I used Luminance colouring Pencils by Caran d'Ache to colour in the images, they give such a smooth result and blend so well, I love them.

Once everything was dry and coloured in, I glue everything in place using a silicone glue. I don't always like my projects but I really enjoyed this one and being Christmas themed makes it even nicer...!

Stamps I used were Roc's Tree, Horse and Vic. Click on the links above to view them..

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you've enjoyed my project and if I don't see you before, I'll see you in 2017...eeek!

Mwah, Happy Christmas Crafting xoxo

My Journal page....

She was Grateful....

Hi everyone, it's my turn today to show you the Journal page I made for Roc Nicholas Design Team....

I haven't done a Journal page in a while, so after spending what seemed like ages trying to choose which journal to use, I finally opted for my pocket Moleskin. I enjoy working in smaller Journals, you get totally different results from working on larger projects... They're great fun and can be as detailed as you want them to be (or not)!!

I began by selecting a few co-ordinating colours of Amsterdam acrylic paint, in this case I chose shades of Turquoise, Lime Green, Yellows and a contrasting Pink, which really helps the other colours to 'pop'...

I started the page by layering the colours upon each other, beginning with the lightest colours first. In order to achieve a good blend of the colours, I always apply white paint with 

a dry brush over areas of the colour to soften the edges or joins. You can then reapply more colour to increase the depth or more white to soften the colour depending on the style you're looking for. Although I do have to mention that I always use a dry brush for this technique.

When I was happy with the border, I used white Gesso to block out a rectangular panel in the centre (it needed a couple of coats), this is where I wanted my main images to be...!

I made sure it was completely dry before drawing a border around the central panel with a black fine liner pen.

I chose some of my favourite background stamps and stencils for the next step as I wanted 

to use the same colour paints (or ink pads) to highlight areas of colour around the painted border. 

To make sure that I didn't stamp on to my clean gesso'd panel, I used a piece of paper as a mask, so any over-lapping would end up on the paper and not the Gesso. I was really pleased how the stamping and stencilling turned out!

Whilst everything was drying, I coloured in Roc's images which I'd stamped using Archival ink, as it's permanent...

I coloured the images using my favourite colouring pencils, which are a mix between Fabre Castell Polychromos and Caran d'Ache Pablo pencils. The colour ranges are beautiful and are so lovely to use and blend colours together.

Once I cut out my images, I positioned them on my page where I wanted them, then glued them into place.

All was left to do was some shading with a grey pencil around the base of the letters and under the 'Bird Lady's' shoes. This just gives the image some depth and grounds' it.

I hope you like my journal page? I love using Roc's stamps as they are so versatile and great fun...

Stamps I used were:-

- Bird Lady, Roc Nicholas

- Be Grateful, Roc Nicholas

- XXXX Border, Roc Nicholas

- Hearts Cubed, Jo Capper-Sandon 

I'd love to hear what you think, so please feel free to leave me a message. 

Thanks for looking, Happy Crafting Everyone xoxo 

The Witch with the Screaming Bunny.....

An early Halloween offering..... Bwaaa ha ha!

Hello to you all out there!  I just love this time of year when the leaves start to turn, the days feel crisper and I can snuggle up with a big blanket and my dog drinking endless amounts of tea (and crafting, of course!)

Well, it's my favourite time of the month again and that can only mean that it's my turn to show you my Design Team piece for Roc Nicholas DT....

My design piece is always due at the beginning of the month and because of this I didn't want to miss out on Halloween, so it's come early to my house this year...!

                 

I used a 5x7" canvas for my project this time. I started by tearing up some vintage book, music and ledger pages, and glued them to the canvas. When dry, I applied a thin coat of Dina Wakley Gesso (by Ranger) using a palette knife - just enough so you could still see the type on the pages, then left it to dry. 

While the gesso was drying I chose which stamps I wanted to use, I had a picture in my head of the finished piece. 

I stamped the images onto watercolour card using Archival ink, then went back to the canvas. 

I used a combination of Tim Holtz Distress Sprays, Dylusions ink Sprays and DecoArt ink Sprays to colour the canvas. I used orange and yellow tones for the sky and deep purples, blues and crimson for the bottom.

I sprayed the colours so that they 'pooled' on the canvas, giving me the chance to let the inks run in any direction. Once I was happy, I dried it with my heat gun.

To give the background more interest, I stamped some patterns and shapes onto it with a 

corresponding colour.

To colour my stamped images I wanted to use Tim Holtz Distress Markers and Distress 

Crayons as watercolours. I'm a huge fan of the whole Distress range, especially the 

Crayons!

I began with the lightest colour and painted the images adding shading to gain depth. I love painting like this.

When all pieces were painted, dried and cut out, I could start assembling the canvas!!

I used Roc Nicholas 'Stacked boxes' stamp, but instead of boxes, I used them as 

tombstones, then stamped over them with a pale grey text stamp. 

I also used one of Tim Holtz Ideology Broomsticks, and one of his Ideology Pumpkin Pieces (which I cut in half to make two!)

I glued the witches hats to the Screaming bunny and the Bird Princess and then positioned my Witch (bird princess) on her broomstick. The Screaming Bunny Witch wanted to hitch a ride on the broom too! 

Then once I'd glued my pumpkins in place and stamped a quote I was finished.

The stamps I used were:- 

Stampotique

Roc Nicholas:-      Bird Princess

                           Screaming Bunny 

                           Stacked Boxes

                           Heart Vine 

Kare Crane:-      Approach with Caution 

                           Texture cube 

Daniel Torrente:-  Spiral Daydream

Stampers  Anonymous

Tim Holtz:-           Crazy Things

Tim Holtz Ideology:- Pumpkin Pieces

                                 Broomsticks

I hope you like my early Halloween offering. I had fun making it. Please pop to my blog and say hi, I'd love to read your messages.

Thanks or looking MWAH xx