Tuesday 25 July 2017

Summer Love and more :)

Hello :)

A page for Elizabeth's Summertime Love at AJJ    before I run out of time this month...
I started this more than a week ago when I had a bit of a painting session.
The sunflower is a mix of watercolours and crayons as a resist.
I scanned my artwork and then added the words digitally, plus my bird (you've seen before) which is now digitised too and finally a photo of some of my sunflowers. 

 A few weeks ago I found some fun paper napkins in a shop with a bank note theme ..


 I had little wooden blank folder that needed decorating and I also needed some practise using serviettes, so I thought I'd see what happened. 
 I filed away any rough edges and think I'm fairly pleased with the result so far :)

 
I added some more colour using Neocolor 11s.
I want this book to use as my go to 'reminders' book for things needing doing
 i.e challenges, blogs to visit and messages that need replying to.


The book is not finished, as out of the blue I was informed that a digital scrapbooking website that I have  been a member of  since 2011 was closing down. So at present I am busy sorting out my digital work I have on there and all sorts before that closes soon.

The best thing last week, was the postman delivering a wonderful surprise. I was very lucky to win some of the fabulous Rubber Dance stamps designed by the lovely Donna Gray over at Inky and Quirky  accompanied by a most beautiful card Donna had made. Thanks again Donna x 
  

Unfortunately I've not had a chance to play with these yet :( 
or finish some other projects I had going... like the canes from the Himaylan Honeysuckle which I will blog another time as I have started on the windchimes and had one experiment making the 'nibs' to draw with.

Bye for now
Thanks so much for visiting..
I hope you have a wonderful day.
Gill x




Monday 10 July 2017

Summertime Love 2

Hello

The lovely Elizabeth  is hosting this months AJJ Summertime Love theme and this is my second page for that, it's digital but I re-used some of my old art and made new things too.
In the Summer I  love that people always seem to dress in brighter colours and everything else for the summer seems brighter happier colours too.



The background paper started, would you believe, from some messy scrap paper that I get left with after I put a sheet of paper under my pages when working to protect the pages below.
You get left with lots of messy blobs, lines and squares - like the picture below - this one obviously hadn't been used much and had great potential to be used for something else.

 
I scanned the paper and then in my graphics/photo editing software of choice, duplicated the paper after taking out the white background leaving just the colour.
I layered and rotated my images and then added some digitalised faux writing I had made a while ago. ( I must admit when I look close up there does like an occasional real word but that was not intentional)

 
 
For my page I also used some paint drips and inky circles created in the same way.
 
 

 
I love playing with my software and getting as much use from something I have created that can be used over and over again in different ways.
 
 
 The flower and scent bottle were from two of my May AJJ  'Elegance and Grunge pages'. I digitally cut them out and then altered the label on bottle and some bits on the flower petals. 
 
If you can make use of the paper I made (JPG file)  and paint drip (PNG file)  I've added it to the bottom of  my free use images section.
 
 
thanks for stopping by,
hope you have a great week.
Gill x
 

Tuesday 4 July 2017

Summer Love Tag for TioT as Guest Designer

Hello :)
 
After being picked as one of the top 5 for the May Transport challenge, I was very honoured to have been asked to be a guest designer by Avril for TIOT tags challenge for the next two weeks ...thank you :)
 
I don't usually make that many tags but I really enjoyed doing this and can see me making more of them from now on.
List of items I used are at the bottom of my post.

 
 
 
I die cut the tag, swirl and 'Love' word on corrugated cardboard ( the cartons that my husbands wine is delivered in is very useful and the wine very nice of course! ) the honeycomb die was cut out of pale green craft foam.
Then on the tag I used a stencil with structure gel and when dry gessoed over it all and then randomly painted with the chalk paints and stuck down the painted swirl. (this had started off blue but then I decided to go over the top of the swirl with a grey Promarker for a mottled effect).

 

I stuck gems on the butterfly, painted over them and the butterfly and then added a little silver wax on the body and antennae. The honeycomb die cut was randomly painted too.
The crown and flowers were made in moulds with air drying clay and later painted.

 
The large word die actually originally said 'With Love' and was very easy to cut up and separate the words. That was painted with the blue 'Mermaid' paint.
After everything was glued down I watered down some of the Gold paint and added a few spots, splats and dribbles.

 
Items used: 

Corrugated cardboard and pale green craft foam.

4 Dies: (1) Sizzix Bigz Tim Holtz ‘Tag and bookplate’
(2) Swirl X-cut (not sure what set is called)
(3) word set by X-cut (had things like 'With Love' 'Best Wishes' etc)
(4) Sizzix thinlet Tim Holtz Mixed media (set of 4 dies)


Prima stencil called ‘Salvage district’  

Galleria structure gel

Paints - Paperartsy Fresco chalk paints : Sherbet, Mermaid, Snowflake, Limelight,

Nougat and South Pacific.
Rowney Cryla (in tube) ‘Rich Gold. 

white gesso.
Grey Promarker.
Metallic silver wax.
 
Wooden butterfly from stash added gem stones by ‘Anita’ and painted over top. 
Silk flower from stash.
Small flowers and crown made in moulds with air dry clay. ‘Plaid Modge Podge’ molds..
set:24893 ‘Royal Icons’ and 24889 ‘Flowers’.

Cosmic shimmer glue.


Grey and blue organza ribbon.



Thanks so much for stopping by here today.
I hope you will stop by TIOT and join in,
I look forward to visiting you
and seeing your creations.
 
Gill x



 
 

Monday 3 July 2017

Summertime Love

Hello

My page today is for Elizabeths great new theme 'Summertime Love' over at AJJ.
Summer to me means being out in the garden more and enjoying nature, looking forward to our annual airshow and the hustle and bustle of happy holiday makers down on the beach or pier where I live.

My page is digital as I seem to have done something to my index finger and having trouble gripping pen/brush etc at present so I'm a bit slower (than normal ha ha) doing things.

 
The background was created using a photo of one of my journal backgrounds with some digital alterations. The photos are of the Helter Skelter on our pier. The Seagull from a MCS kit. Splodges and splats extracted from some photos from my pages and also messy left overs and some pieces made digitally.
 
 
I did a couple of doodles on the keyboard I started to decorate in previous post before the finger incident ...

 
Todays pickings from the garden.. the French Beans are my favourite

 
The chard is ready chopped up for lunch today 
 
 
Another useful thing in the garden - not for eating though.
This is our Himalayan Honeysuckle.
 
This is nothing like my idea of a honeysuckle,
 its stems are more like Bamboo..

 
Could the stems be useful for other things maybe ..
 I've got some bits of it drying - and wondering if they might work as wind chimes as they are nice and hollow. They also may be great to use to make a bug hotel... lots of ideas... but will they work... we will see.
 
that's my lot for today
Have a great week
and Happy Monday
Gill x