Monday 24 December 2012

I'm still here - honest.................

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY GORGEOUS BLOGGER FRIENDS 
Hi to you all, I hope you all have a fabulous time tomorrow whatever you may be doing.  My apologies for my absence but I have been recovering from an operation, on 26th Nov, to remove my gallbladder and have not felt up to any crafting sadly. Ha ha ha, by the time I did start feeling up to it Christmas had crept up and bit me on the posterior so to speak and I have been manically catching up on nearly 3 weeks 'out of action' to make sure everything is sorted for tomorrow!!!!!!!!

OOH and just to make things worse I have not been able to get an internet signal for the last 5 days so will hopefully be able to catch up with your recent posts soon.

Hopefully once the dust has settled I will be up and running again my lovelies.

Huge hugs to you all

Dawn x x x x x x    

Thursday 15 November 2012

Altered Book update..............

Evening all,

hope all my blogger buddies are OK out there??

Ha ha ha, I'll try to keep this short but know I will fail miserably!!!!!!!!  I have a few new spreads in my altered book that I would like to share with you.  The amazing Elizabeth has done us so so proud with the course that she has provided and I am sooooooo sad to think that the end is now drawing near.  We have one more lesson to go in which we will be looking at techniques for decorating our book covers, Elizabeth has sagely advised us all to try to make sure the inside of the book is completed first hence why I am manically trying to find as much time as possible in order to get this done - only about 8 double spreads to go, arrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh.  Lol, why oh why did I pick such a thick book!!!!????

Anyhooooooo............


The first spread is my completed image transfer spread that was promised in my last AB post.  It still doesn't look finished to me but I have to be honest and say I'm not too sure what else to do with it!! Any suggestions would be gratefully received peeps.  Tee hee, I couldn't help myself but put hats on the bottles, the images came from a fashion spread in a weekly UK magazine.


The bottles on the left hand page are packing tape transfers of bottles I found on a printed collage sheet, the colour may not have transfered very well but I still liked the outline images I was left with.


The three bottles on the left of the right-hand page are packing tape transfers of images from an advertising flyer that fell through my letterbox, these have transferred perfectly.  The bottle on the right is an attempt at a multi-medium transfer using multiple crossed layers of the medium painted on top of the image, lol not a technique I will be trying again to be honest!! I stopped trying to get all the paper off the back as there had been a few worse failed attempts prior to this one where the images ripped completely.  Hey ho, always worth trying these things. 


This next spread is another example of using folded pages to create pockets.  The central pages have been covered and collaged with some K&Co papers, the base pages were painted and stamped with a Viva Decor stamp using stazon, I then sponged some additional paint through my favourite Tando Creative sequin waste mask.


A tag 'line-up'.................and in more detail..............





The tags were all cut from kraft card, inked, painted, stamped and embossed within an inch of their lives and lots of embellies and sentiments were added.  Needless to say much fun was had by me!!!!!!


This spread was a layout experiment and I kept it as simple as possible.  The ladies are by Crafty Individuals and were coloured with pro-markers, the background was created using a purple glaze and some craft tape that was free with a magazine.  I am in two minds with this one as part of me thinks the ladies look a little daft just floating on the grid, this could be solved possibly by grounding them a bit with some charcoal and a paper stub to create some shadow - the other part of me quite likes it and feels that I went with an idea and should just be happy with it, what do you think????????


Ha ha ha, this one was a bit of a disaster to start with!!  I had stamped a lovely texture stamp around the page and went to put a glaze over the top - daft mare me had used the wrong ink and it all smudged!!!!!!!! The upside of it is that I quite liked the black smudgy effect of the ink mixing through the paint and decided to leave it as it was. The autumn leaf background images were on a free to use collage sheet I found on the net, these were stuck down and edged with a bronze metallic pen for definition.  The additional leaves on top are stamped from a Paperartsy set, painted using distress inks and clear embossed to finish, the little paper flower was clear embossed and added to finish.

YOU STILL WITH ME?? ONLY ONE MORE SPREAD TO GO - PROMISE...........


Ha ha ha, I didn't promise it would be a quick one!!!!!!!!

This was another depths of the night idea that I just had to try, lol I have the strangest dreams don't you think!!  I stuck three lots of three pages together, cut them sideways into three sections and then decided to stagger the pages in sections again (soz for the lousy explanation but I think you can see what I mean from the picture??)  I ended making an awful lot of work for myself by deciding that I wanted to alternate the background colours (front and back!!) on the pages involved.  More paint was added through my fave Tando mask and I then stamped all the sides individually using a Tattered Angels flourish, Phew!!
But that was not all, each section then got a page edge of some sort i.e. inked lace, flower strips, die cut strips and punched circles (stamped and embossed too).
For added interest I decided that there should be other elements on most of the sides too, these were either Pink Paislee ephemera, Lynne Perrella stamped images or Paperartsy stamped sentiments................






Ha ha ha, that's it for the moment folks, hope you made it through??

Stay warm and safe my lovelies.
Thank-you sooooo much for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to.

Huge hugs x x x x


Thursday 8 November 2012

Cards........

Evening all,

hope everyone is well out there?

Ha ha ha, I don't make many cards but like the old 'bus' saying the need to make these three came at once!!

The first one is a birthday card for a very special lady in my life, my gorgeous niece Victoria, who had a birthday recently.  She is a 'girly' girl who loves pink and purple so the Dylusions came out for her.  Lol, I tried to be clever and mask off a panel on the card but needless to say it leaked under the masking tape so I ended up cutting the panel from the original card and mounted it on to a new one........


The card was embellished with some stamped and coloured flowers from a Dylusions stamp set and I added some patterned tape and gems to finish.

The second card was made for a member of my on-line craft group UKPC, who incidentally shares the same birthday as my niece.  I masked off and inked a background with distress inks and stamped one of my faves from the Hobby Art 'Beauty' collage stamp set using coffee archival ink.  I then added accents and a border with a metallic glitter pen to finish, sorry that they don't show up in the photo very well though!!........


The final card was made for a monthly card swap that I have been participating in through UKPC.  The theme this time was embossing.  Ha ha, I got a lot carried away and threw every embossing technique I could think of at this card (tee hee, can you spot them!!), ooh, and a lot of colour - sunglasses at the ready my lovelies!!!!!!!!


The stamp set used on the last card is from Inkadinkadoo, lol I can't remember the name though, sorry!

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to.
Huge hugs x x x x

Wednesday 31 October 2012

Altered Book lesson - Image transfers........

Helllloooooooo everyone,

I hope you are all well? I also hope any blogger friends in the U.S. are all OK after that horrific storm, I know some of you are in that area??

Anyhoo, the lovely Elizabeth over at Altered book lover asked us to play with image transfers for one of the last lessons of our amazing course (thank-you soooooo much Elizabeth x).  If you would like to see Elizabeth's incredibly inspiring and comprehensive tutorial please pop on over here.

I had a good play with packing tape and multi-medium transfers but have to admit that this page is not yet finished but I would like to share a couple of finished spreads based on another technique (using gesso as the transfer medium!!) I spotted on Claudine Hellmuth's blog last week, the you-tube demo can be seen here.

The first spread is using what I am now sure was a photocopy as there was no bleeding of ink when I rubbed the paper off!!  I have left the background very plain just using acrylic paint and soluble wax crayons to create a frame........


As you can see, the transfer was very clear!! I decided to tint the faces a little with promarkers and inked the edges of the torn card that I had used to try the technique on but chose to leave the rest well alone!!

The second spread was done with the same technique but I used printed images this time.........


The result wasn't so clear and the ink ran a lot when I was rubbing the paper off the back of the transfer and it got quite messy ha ha ha.  The good thing I suppose was that the gesso base could be 'washed', removing the smudged ink, this resulted in a more faded transfer which I quite like!! Even some of the colour stayed!!
The page was coloured with acrylic paint and acrylic ink (my gorgeous daughter was in hysterics watching me blow the yellow ink around the page with a straw for some reason!!), the edge was stamped with a web I found in my stash and additional images were added from free printable collage sheets I found on the web (really sorry but I can't remember where from exactly).  The transfer images were then collaged on too.

I would also like to share my altered book niche with you all.  I completed this exercise right at the beginning of the course and it is still really a 'work in progress', here goes........




If you would like to see the lesson detailing the 'how' please pop on over here.
I am hoping to make a small handbound journal to fit in the niche before the course has finished.

Finally I would like to share a couple of additional collage spreads I have done in my book.  They have been created using some papermania/docraft papers from my stash and some images from a travel brochure, the blue butterfly and red tags are from a Hot of the Press tag book................









Apologies for the long ish post, I'm trying to play catch up ha ha ha.

Huge hugs blogger friends. Thank-you so much for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to.

Dawn x

Friday 19 October 2012

Learn Something New........Final Installment!!

Hellllloooooooo everyone,

hope everyone is fine and dandy??

Lol, the temperature has dropped again but I'm determined not to give in to the heating going on until November.

Anyhoo, I finally remembered that I had scanned these ages ago but forgot to blog them!! Sieve head me!!
The pages are constructed as before in my hand-bound pre-painted page journal using various collage images and stamps from my stash, all finished off with some doodling. I had such fun doing this that I'm missing it now!! I hope to decorate the cover some more when I have the time and will share with you as and when.

The final page was promised to my gorgeous 5 year old daughter as a collaboration, bless her she did me some lovely drawings and cut them out all ready for me to stick in. Ha ha ha, she does more journaling than me and I swear she has about 8 books on the go at the moment!!!!!!!!

Here you go........











Hope you all have a fab weekend. Thank-you so much for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to.

Huge hugs x x x x

Monday 8 October 2012

Altered Book - Fabric Lesson........

Evening All,

I hope everyone is well?? Ha ha, I'm still resisting the temptation to put the heating on in the evenings as the temperature now drops dramatically once it goes dark! Stubborn wench that I am I'm determined to hang on as long as possible.

Anyhoo, the lovely Elizabeth (Altered Book Lover) set us a glorious fabric challenge for this lesson. A ton of inspiration and instruction was provided and if you fancy a peek please pop on over HERE.

The first offering is my version of a patchwork quilt, lol minus the stitching and quilting! I used a card base and stuck down squares of scrap fabric, fabric paint was squeezed along the joins to neaten it up a little and some lace was stuck around the edge to finish it off. One of my fave stamps (Octopode Factory's Cheshire Cat) came out again to snuggle under the quilt, and I have to admit to being guilty of cutting his tail off so that he could fit in the hidden pocket, sorry Cheshie.........


My second page started as a scrap of fabric which I stamped on with stazon and a Debbie Moore collage stamp. This definitely needed more work so I edged the image with some copper stickles and spread it out with my fingers to create a frame. This was then matted onto a scrap of green velvet, I stuck a sprinkle of bedazzles down one side using glossy accents (I wasn't trying to cover up the fact that I had stuck the stamped panel on wonky - HONEST, pmsl!!) and stuck a border of bronze sequins around the edge. A piece of lace was also coloured with DI and stuck under the panel for interest.  The background was created using smooshed on acrylic paint and a flourish stamp from my stash........


My final offering is a tribute to my fave shoes which sadly deserted me not long ago i.e. poor old things had been worn so much they just gave up and fell apart!!
Ha ha ha, don't worry, it all went through the washing machine first!!......................


I trimmed and saved what I could and stuck it onto a DI and memento ink background, sadly the laces were beyond saving so I used some fibres instead, looks much better than the originals believe me!!
I tarted it up a bit with some glitter glue to add a little more interest. The shoe (or whats left of it) works brilliantly as a hidden pocket so I did a small tribute tag too........


I have had so much fun with this lesson and I hope it shows, it really stretched me again as I never usually reach for fabric when I'm crafting but it truly does make a fab collage medium and substrate for many papercrafting techniques, thank-you Elizabeth for such a great lesson.  On to the next one now, something else I haven't tried before - Image Transfer - wish me luck.

Many Thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to.

Huge hugs blogger friends x

Wednesday 26 September 2012

Learn Something New.......Part 3.......

Hi folks,

another quick post to update you all with my latest journal pages, ha ha I'm just about keeping up!! Again lots of stamping, collage pictures and doodling - what fun..........








One more post next week should just about do it!! Keep well and stay warm blogger friends.
Many thanks for popping in and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to, I really appreciate any feedback.

Huge hugs x x x x