Oh I do like to be ....

My lovely adorable husband (he does occasionally read my blog) treated me to a huge amount of stash for my birthday.  I grant you he did give me a bit of a Paddington Bear stare as the total came up and I may have to repay some of it as it was a bit more than I thought it would be as well.

But what he did ask for as an interim payment was and I quote "something nice for my desk for me to look at" 

Well obviously a picture of me wasn't going to be enough (I asked I got the Paddington Bear stare again), so I set my thinking cap on and this is what I came up with.

We both love being by the sea, to hear and smell the crashing waves, to view the sheer expanse of water relaxes us both.  In fact we need a fill up of ozone soon.  Southwold is one of our favourite locations so that meant incorporating the lighthouse and beach huts.  Both were cut from scrap of grunge paper and painted in a soft grey and and blue with bits of white smudges on to distress a bit. 

The fencing is a Tim die. I stuck some new Crowded Attic paper on some grunge board and one cut out swiped some white acrylic to tone it down and hopefully make it look like a weathered fence.

Inside the frame I covered the top half of some white card with tissue tape and added loads of layers of Tumbled Glass DI at the top and Broken China at the bottom to represent sea and sky.  The top half was then also stamped with a Tim background stamp just to break up the colour.

The "sand" was a piece of ripped corrugated packaging (thank you Amazon) coated in sand and yellow ochre acrylic.  Over the top of this is the Paperartsy grass and bird stamp, using a brown ink pad.

The frame was lightly washed in the watered down grey acrylic a couple of time and then watered down white acrylic over the top and wiped back.  I sanded it to age a bit more a light touch up with walnut DI.

The frame at the top was a spare piece of mount board cut with a Tim die and coloured with the watered down blue acrylic.  The edges were a combination of stormy sky and walnut DI.  I stamped i want to be here in stormy sky and added a little swirl to fill in the top bit.

The bunting was a scrap bit of 12x12 cut, stitched and then walnut DI over the top to tone it down and finally the feet are some wooden beads.

I'll let you know what he thinks.

jo
xx

Miss Kate's sewing shop

I can honestly say I have a bit of a problem when it comes to crafting. I need to work in order to be able purchase essential new supplies, but then don't have enough time to craft as I have to work. So until we win the lottery or I divorce my husband for a rich sugar daddy I have to accept I'm going to have to continue working in order to pay for this habit.

So last week I introduced my best friend Kate to crafting as part of my birthday treat and we went to a workshop at LB Crafts with the delightful Lin.  Kate had never done any paper or metal craft before and readily admitted she found it difficult to move away from a plan and do her own thing. That notion didn't last long and she took to it all like the proverbial duck to water.  Her husband is now cursing me and we are planning regular crafting sessions at my house.

Anyways whilst at LB I of course shopped and came away with some new dies and stamps from Mr Holtz, notably the dress stand die.  I couldn't wait to play.

I have another friend called Kate who lives in Washington DC.  I've known this Kate for over 25 years and it was her birthday a few weeks go.Last year when we visited her it was obvious from how her house was decorated that shabby chic was a favourite.

An idea formed, I could try out this new die and related stamps and make a shabby chic piece of art for Kate.

I had great fun making and finally finished off this morning (that work thing plus other stuff kept getting in the way).

I painted an IKEA frame in watered down white acrylic with some new butterscotch spray ink, and touched up with some walnut DI.  Inside the frame is a piece of Tim paper aged with some walnut and over stamped in Mahogany with the new Papillion text.

From one A5 sheet of Grungeboard I cut a dress form and loads of spools and buttons. 

The dress form was inked with expresso spray ink on the legs and head section and tissue tape stuck on top.  This was aged with some walnut and a waste piece of linen wrapped round the waist of the form. 

The spools were painted with cranberry spray ink and watered down acrylic and over stamped with the London stamp from Papillion in old paper. Various bits of thread and ribbon were Wound round and some attached with bead topped pins. The buttons were painted the same way but this time vintage velveteen DI was used to add a slight bit of colour.  Brown embroidery thread was added through the holes.  the edges of the buttons and the spools were aged with walnut.



The ruler was from Tim's Curiosities plate using (I think) Bronzed God metal,stamped in Stazon and then using a Teflon tipped tool to highlight the numbers and markings.  finally stuck onto black card to give some strength. 

The label at the bottom was cut from mountboard using the Styled Labels die, distressed using old paper and walnut DI and then Miss Kate's sewing shop stamped in victorian velveteen.  Some tiny cup hooks and jump rings used to attach to the picture frame.

Various buttons, ribbon and a Tim ticket were added to further embellish. And for the first time this year I was able to take my photo's outside in the sunshine  - yes we've finally got some sun and warmth!

Now all I've got to do is get it shipped to the States in one piece - wish me luck!

jo
xx

I'm back!

Sorry, sorry sorry for not doing a post in ages - the excuse? Well we changed Internet suppliers and my laptop hasn't really enjoyed the experience and trying to prise time on the desktop from my husband can be shall we say - challenging.

Excuses aside what have I been doing in the craft world?  Well the highlight has been of course going on the Tim Holtz / ArtsyCrafty extravaganza  a couple of weeks ago. Boy what a tiring but fab day.

The whole build up from the announcement to the online ordering (I'm sure the neighbour's thought murder was being committed the amount of screaming I was doing trying to get it to work) to the actual day was (and this is an understatement) intense!  When you tried to explain to colleagues and friends that the great Tim Holtz was coming to the UK and was going to teach a class and that you'd got a place, well they just looked at me as if I'd finally gone mad.

Where do I start on trying to describe the day and what we did, pretty difficult and so many others have beaten me to it, so I'm just going to list the highlights for me:

1. Tim's tip on measuring and putting paper into the little Configurations boxes  is going to make it so much easier to do more Configurations
2. The Ranger  goody bag - very nice, thank you Ranger!
3. Mario and his team for prepping all that stuff - we are not worthy of such dedication to crafting.
4. That little white linen bag of precious things -  trinkets galore!
5. My Idea-ology bag that I won from the great Tim Holtz
6. Lovely Thorndon Hall papers from PaperArtsy to paint and ink over
7. The fabulous new fresco paints from PaperArtsy (fill those little bottles quick Leandra and Mark - I need those paints)
8. Colourwashes - yum
9. Stains - even yummier
10. PaperArtsy new stamps and dies -  need more time to play with these beauties

So I've finally finished my Configurations box today so I thought I'd share some photo's. To be honest I found it quite difficult to get my head round the whole concept of deciding which trinkets to go in each box, but once it clicked I was away.

So hope you like, I do and now I feel confident in tackling my other Configurations box.

Happy crafting!

jo

xx