Christmas Cracker 1- Sanded Foundations

Leandra from PaperArtsy has put together a fab video showing how to tint grunge paste and then after it's dried to sand it back, see here.

I've used the method on another page in my journal - I've used distress inks (Peeled Paint & Faded Jeans) for the background as I wanted to flick this with water to mirror the rain day here today. I tinted my GP with Tinned Peas and Guacamole for the stems and Blood Orange and Claret for the flowers (all become one colour though).

This stencil is mini cornflowers by The Crafters Workshop - I got in a bit of a mess with the smaller flowers, need to invest in a mini spatula.

To finish the page off I've added some stamping in Mowed Lawn and a few butterflies that were floating around.

Happy New Year !

Journal Page Inspired by Jo Myhill

Well I hope everyone has had a truly wonderful Christmas. I've family coming to mine today then it's definitely diet time !

I loved all three of Jo's projects over at PaperArtsy this week, see here for her first one.  I've used some of the ideas from this project for a journal page.  I've firstly painted the page in Fresco Moonlight and Pansy.  Then I scrunched up some preprinted tissue I wanted to use and applied it with matt medium, keeping lots of texture in it - apart from where the birds are. This was a bit too white so I've used DI in Dusty Concord and Milled Lavender to tone it down.

Then came the scary bit of adding the GP - I was intending to apply a thickish layer but loved the way a thin layer hi-lighted the texture in the tissue. I went over this in DI again and watered down Pansy Fresco paint.

To keep to the birds theme I've added a picture from an old book - I cadged a few pages from a shop in Camden a while ago, wish I had the whole thing though. I've perhaps created a new species as it had to be coloured in purple DI to match ! 

An escape from Christmas preparation !

I didn't think I'd have time to make anything this week but with most of my Christmas preparations done I thought I'd spend a while in my craft room. I took inspiration from the last of Liz Borer's projects over at PaperArtsy. Before ploughing straight into a whole book cover I've made a tag to test out the techniques - need to practise the mock fabric panel a bit more (and get it straight next time lol). The colours I'veg used are Eggplant, Pansy, Nougat, Very Berry and Snowflake. (the colours aren't quite true on the finished project - not enough light yet for a good picture)   

Wishing everyone a Very Happy Christmas !

Christmas Stocking

I thought it was about time I started thinking about wrapping and making sure I've everyone's present.  I've a couple of small items I wanted to make a box for.  My friend Karen popped round this week and we made a couple of these stockings - fiddly but worth the effort. 

I'm entering this into the PaperArtsy challenge this week which showed a number of different bag and boxes.



Lin Brown Workshop

I was lucky enough to attend a Lin Brown workshop with my friend Karen a few weeks ago, I've been meaning to post these pictures ever since.  This was a fantastic day and flew by - cutting out so many flowers by hand certainly takes some time !