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



 

 

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

 

Circles for AJJ and some alcohol madness on a keyboard

Hello

Hope all well with you.
We've been having a bit of a heatwave here and a couple of nights we've had to sleep downstairs rather uncomfortably on a 2 seater settee -  so I'm hoping it cools down a little soon. My PC seems to be suffering also and getting hot quickly and been left off more than on lately.
But I managed to make this page in one of my art journals For AJJ circle theme  I used Colour Cloud blending inks, stencils and I used a few of the faux Washi tapes I made recently .... the words have been digitally added.

 

Is it hot where you are too? If so, I hope you are managing to keep cool. 

Even the weather lady was too hot and had to put her bikini on :)

 

 

 

The Cactus flower (from prev post) and extra growth on it shrivelled up after a couple of days and fell off as it has in the past.

 

 

 

But it looks as if there will be other flowers coming as it has that tell tale grey nodule where it grows from.

 

 

When it's really hot I can't think straight and maybe this is why I did what I did?  I had a mad moment and decided to use some alcohol inks on one of my old music keyboards.

 

I have no idea what I am going to do next - other than maybe try stamping on some keys... I did think about making it into a door stop but not really sure where this going so it may be put to one side for now. 

I've been trying to keep cool sitting in the garden- not really doing anything but watching the world go by and taking an occasional photo of something I thought interesting.

 

 

 Amazing what you see in the sky too

 

 

Love the colours on this fly - and thinking he'd look cool with some Steampunk goggles :)



 

Thanks for stopping by 

Gill x

 

Some Steampunk, Circles and Cactus flower...

Hi everyone

Hope you have lots of fun things planned for the weekend. It's nice and sunny here today after a week of high winds and rain - but at least it gave me more time to play :)

Previously I promised to show what I was doing with shrink plastic - so here are my earrings created with die cut shrink plastic and I'm linking to the fab Steampunk/mechanical theme at TIOT

I don't really like my photos - the light wasn't particularly good and its not really showing the textures very well or the difference between the matt and metallic paint/wax - I think it looks a bit better in real life.
Doing the little rings and fixing to the earring hook was a bit fiddly but I hope to make a necklace at some point to go with the earrings.



My die cut pieces shrunk and gessoed

The Airship balloon die by Sheena Douglass and cog dies from Crafters Companion. The small middle rivet looking bits were the circles left from the middle of the cog and when I heated them I stopped just before they uncurled so they left a folded over rim around the edge (hope that made sense).

 

 And for AJJ and Rosies circle theme I have an all digital piece all digitally made or photographed etc by me (the  palette isn't real but the paint brush belongs to Dave)

  

If you saw yesterdays post you will know I was wondering when the Cactus was going to bloom. It always seem to happen around midnight but I couldn't keep awake and went to bed about 10pm and threatened nicely asked the Cactus not to bloom last night - ok you know what happened then and this is what we found this morning.

 

I'm hoping this is the first of many and not the only flower. I think the most it has ever had has been 4 or 5 flowers and it hasn't bloomed every year.

We bought this cactus probably about 1981-ish from the garden centre near us but we were living about 60 miles away then and it never bloomed until after 1996 when we moved here  - which was where it came from of course, so perhaps it had not bloomed before because it was home sick.

 

  

Thank you for stopping by.

hope you have a wonderful day and weekend.

Gill x



Steampunk lantern

Hello

I'm linking to TIOT for the fab Steampunk/Mechanical theme  and hope this piece is acceptable.  Not clockwork but I thought the wind-up mechanism was the the nearest thing to being almost steampunk.
The black rubber looking surface of one of our wind up lantern torches went very tacky and horrible to touch like it was disintegrating. We weren't using it, so I had nothing to loose and gessoed over it - and when it dried it was a much nicer surface.
Then I  mod-podged some dictionary papers over that (the lower part of porch) and painted. Added some painted foam die cut cogs and hands.
The top was also black but I mixed up some glass bead medium with some paint for texture and painted that and added my painted silk flower. I didn't overdo the decoration as this still has to be usable and not have things get in the way when winding it up.
 
The photos aren't very good because the light has been bad with the rainy days we have had this week.

 

 

First play with some new stash including some more TH distress oxide ink pads and a set of stamps called 'Katrina' designed by the lovely Donna from Inky and Quirky Designs.

I needed to add to my cards supply so made a couple of quickish and simple cards.

The first card has some paper piecing, the cutting out is hard on my hands but I love the results.  Used the oxides on the background, coloured Katrina with Neocolor 2's. Unfortunately the photo isn't showing the iridescent glitter glue I added to the circles on her hair and skirt or on the hanging heart. The sentiments used are rub ons.

There are some lovely quirky fish in this set which is on my list to play with next :)

 

 

A big old Cactus is starting to flower again - hopefully it will have more than just the one flower which when it opens always seem to be around midnight and doesn't last more than a day or so. It was almost 15 years before it flowered for the first time.

 

 

 I mentioned using shrink plastic the other day but I will post that piece another day. 

 Thanks for stopping by

Gill x

 

Another Letter Journal

Hello

Firstly re my previous post, Dave has asked me to say thank you to everyone that kindly sent Birthday wishes to him ... thank you x

Today I am showing a few pages of my letter journal I made for Rike  as we have both received our letter journals now and Rike will soon be showing the lovely one that she kindly made for me.
(you may have already seen the other letter journal which was for Beo and her lovely one made for me. )

I couldn't resist using this rubber stamp of this sweet bear delivering mail onto the Gelli printed cover.  I did a lot of Gelli printing which was fun and tried things I hadn't done before.

 

There were several pages inspired by our conversations and also exercises from a book

Carla Sonheim Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun

 

The creature on the right page is stuck on a folded circle so that I could write my secret message there.  The creature was 'found' among blobs and swirls of paint  - an exercise in that book.

 

Yesterday the weather here was awful and did nothing but rain all day, along with high winds and was only about 10c instead of the upper 20s+  we had last week. After a bit of blog catching up (still not completed) I spent a fun afternoon playing... there was shrink plastic, paints, dies, glass bead medium, a lantern torch etc etc ... err? a torch? ... more of that though for another post.

 

thanks for stopping by,

hope you have a lovely day.

Gill x

Hair, circles and some faux Washi

Hello

5th of June already - I seem to have a lost a few days while continuing working in the garden - well except Saturday which was Daves birthday so we had a lazy day - mmmm - except for the birthday boy who does all the cooking ( it's what he loves to do, so who am I to complain? ha ha) and even though it was a hot day again Dave fancied roast lamb and that's what we had :)

But I did fit in some time to make this A5 page which I am linking to MM&M for 'hair' theme and to AJJ 'circles' which is Rosies new theme for June.
I used a mix of acrylic paint and Neocolor 2's. Used end of bottle caps and black mister ink for circles. Large fancy circle journal stamp from a set of 4 journal stamps by Stampology and words were TH Idealogy stickers.

 

A couple of weeks ago I got some tape to make some Washi tape but on opening package I was disappointed to find it had writing over it. Last week I saw two posts from Beo and  June  who  had both made fantastic tapes themselves. Inspired by their results I thought I'd try the 'duff' tape and see if it was still usable.... this is my first attempt... but I have since bought some plain tape.

 

I stuck some strips of the tape onto black Teflon oven liner - this is what I have used for years as a craft sheet before craft sheets were more easily obtainable.

I didn't try anything fancy on this occasion and mainly just used acrylic paint and made a few marks with ends of brushes etc. .. the second one I stamped on with an owl from a set of birds from 'The works'.
I haven't peeled the 'faux Washi' off the sheet yet and I have a feeling I should have transferred them onto another sheet before they dried completely as there might be some unwanted paint attached at the sides.
Will definitely be trying this again and making different patterns as it was fun.

 

thanks for stopping by,

hope your day has been good.

Gill x