Like the Phoenix she rises

I bought some old but gorgeous stamps from a friend who was having a craft clear out. She has always had a really good eye and a knack at tracking down stamps that are a little bit unusual and different. So when I saw she was selling this stamp I jumped in there quick as it is one I've always loved.

 

The stamp does have a cat on it but for my purposes I cut the cat away when I was cutting the image out.

 

 



Now she is a little saucy, and not to every ones taste so I will warn you there are naked breasts (only in rubber stamp form) in the following pictures.

 

 

The piece is on a mountboard base, about 12inches in height.

Layers of acrylic paints, stamping ink and alcohol ink and gilding flakes.

 

The bee is symbolic of the Empress and feminine energy and I thought it went perfect with this piece.

 

 

 

 

A special canvas

I love having a whole day to play at my craft table and today I got cracking early on a canvas, I showed the background in an earlier post here

 

 

Here is the completed canvas, which I am hoping will be auctioned off to raise funds for the Miscarriage association

 

 

The whole canvas is done in acrylic paints and then embellished.

 

The quote I found online and thought it was so perfect for the theme of this canvas.

 

 

 

 

The heart is a 3D polystyrene heart that I cut in half and then applied a coat of gesso, a few coats of paint and then a bit of silver leafing and some clear micro beads for texture. 



Mixed media on acetate

This week I thought I'd visit a love a had years back, acetate! I have made many things in the past using acetate as the base, I just love the look of it.

 

I had the urge to make something girly and pretty so that's exactly what I did.

 

 

 

 

I started out with a piece of acetate, 4x12 inches folded in half (4x6), which I then put the right hand side through my cuttlebug to emboss, bare in mind this will then be the front of your card

 

 

once embossed this is what you will have.

 

Now to start working on the elements for your card. I used some Dylusion sprays to colour my card,

put some of your chosen colour into a pallet and use as paint

 

 

remember to use varying amounts of white to vary your shades.

 

with any paint left cover a sheet of card or paper, you'll need it later if you want to die cut elements to add to your card.

 

Now for stamping, pick your main image stamp and also a few smaller stamps with which to make a background. I used the postage mark stamp from the Crafty Impressions Explore stamp set , as well as a couple of others from my stash.

 

 

cut you background piece about an inch smaller all round than your card base and after edging the sides with some brown ink apply it to the inside of your card. Don't worry about being able to see the glue as you'll cover this up later.

 

Now for the front of the card, place your main focal image where you would like it to be and using decorative elements play around until you like what you see. Clare carries some lovely

elements you could use. Some great items to use are sequin waste, ribbons, lace, paper flowers and die cuts ( this is where your painted sheet of paper comes in handy) ( metal dies )

 

 

My altered die cuts ready to add to my card.

 

Once I was happy with the layout of the elements I glued them all in place.

 

 

Once the front of your card looks pretty you need to pay a little attention to the back and inside as all the glue/double sided tape that you've is visible, so cut a piece of card the same size as the background you stuck inside the card and attach this to the vary back of your card, this also gives you somewhere to write your sentiment.

And do the same to hide the sticky stuff from the front.

 

 



 

 

Having a go

Do you ever see something on your travels around the internet and think 'Oooooo I'd love to have a go at that' ? I know I often do. I first saw mixed  media cuffs a year or so back and immediately fell in love with them and have since then been wanting to have go at making my own. So as it's my turn over on the Clare Curd Crafts DT blog today I decided to have a go with some yummy items she carries in her shop

 

Now those of you who do mixed media know it isn't the cleanest of hobbies and I often have stained fingers, as was the case after making this project, so please excuse my grubby looking nails and fingers in these photos.

 

 

 

I started out with a cutting a length of grunge board that fitted around my wrist and I coated it in gesso then started adding colour, a mixture of alcohol inks and Dylusion sprays.

 

I then added a length of ribbon along the cuff using a good glue.

 

 

The quote is a stamp from the Crafty Impressions Explore set. I stamped this onto a thin piece of metal using Stazon ink and attached this to the cuff using eyelets.

 

The next step was to add the edging ribbons to the cuff. This was done using hot glue.

 

I also added a few flowers to the cuff, just to pretty it up a little, but you could add charms, buttons, anything would look good.

 

 

Finally I added some more eyelets at the back to thread ribbon through to allow the cuff to fastened

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do hope you've enjoyed this little project as I had a lot of fun making it and think I may make a few more.

 

 

There are some great tutorials on Youtube on how to make cuffs if you fancy having a go yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow

Hello lovelies, it's Thursday again and that means it's my turn over on Clare Curd Crafts blog.

 

The title of this post kind of sums my life up at the moment, nothing happens for ages then a whole load of stuff all at once. This week is a whole load at once one as my youngest is off to Uni on Saturday so it's all hands on deck getting all the last minute bits and pieces together for him. With this in mind crafting time has been very limited, but I got stuck in and in under 30 minutes put together two cards, both quite different from my usual style but they show the versatility in the products I was talking about here.

 

First up is a little pink and black number I put together using the papers from the Carta Bella - Well Travelled 6x6 pad and some well loved dies I rediscovered in a box

 

 

I used a 5x5 black card blank and covered it with a sheet of paper from the paper pad, then cut the circles using dies and my Cuttlebug.

 

The words and butterfly are also dies. To bring the pink over onto the butterfly I applied some micro beads down the body.

 

The second card I made was even faster than the first

for this card I started out with a 5x5 white card base which I sprayed with Dylusions spray in Dirty Martini. When this was dry I over stamped it with the sentiment from the Crafty Impressions Explore stamp set. I then cut three banners from different sheets of paper from the paper pad and using a paint brush edged them in the green spray ink.

 

When I stuck the banners down I curled the edges a little to give some movement and dimension to the card

 

If your in the market for some new dies take a look here at the selection Clare carries in the shop.

 

 

A bit of what you fancy

Good morning, well I hope the weather is a bit better where you are, because it looks like autumn is well and truly here today in Birmingham. It's wet , grey and quite chilly, a total comtrast to last week when me and hubby headed to Somerset for a couple of days, wonderful blue skies and lovely warm sunshine.

 

I had to make a birthday card for my Sister today, and I fancied something feminine and a bit shabby chic, this is what I came up with

 

 

the hearts are made from a sheet of decorative paper I made myself using layers of acrylic paints.

 

and those gorgeous crocheted ribbons are a bargain I picked up last week in The Works, only 99p a pack! they were white but I've tinted them with ink, and the flower ribbon, also 99p, is a much softer shade of cream, so I also tinted that.

 

 have a good Monday x





Versatility

Today is my turn over on the Clare Curd Crafts blog

 

With pennies not as free flowing as they once were I know I like to get as much mileage from my crafting materials as possible, and one of the things I look for is versatility in the products. Take the Carta Bella - Well Travelled 6x6 paper pad, as soon as I saw it I liked it, and my first impression was how masculine it was, but after looking through it I discovered there are in fact some very useful papers in there.

 

 

I've previously used this paper collection and made a very manly card and a boyish mixed media hanging, but today I thought I'd show you just how versatile this paper pad really is.

 

 

The black and cream papers are from the Well travelled collection, and to contrast with these I wanted something totally different in both colour and pattern, so I took a plain piece of white copy paper and made my own sheet of patterned paper using Dylusion sprays in Dirty Martini and London Blue I sprayed through a paper doily to get the lacy effect.

I stamped and cut out my main focal image, a very old stamp, in fact it's the very first rubber stamp I ever bought a good 10 years ago, and it's still a firm favourite of mine. I mounted this onto black card, as I did with all the other layers.

 

 

The flower is one I made from the sprayed paper, just cut a rough circle and then cut a spiral into it. Then from the outside edge of the spiral roll the strip all the way to the centre, then secure with adhesive. Roll some of the edges back to get some texture, then add a black gem to the centre of the flower. The frill is in fact a piece of the doily I sprayed through. 

 

Once everything was mounted up I stuck it to a 6x6 white card base.

 

 

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Just to show how versatile this paper pad really is I then went on to make a quick and simple Christmas gift tag

 

 

So crafting need not be expensive if you shop wisely and buy products that will see you through the whole year.