We might need a bigger house ...

Bank holidays in England are not supposed to have been the one we've just had like this, the weather was fantastic (well it has here in the Midlands) and I had a well earned and deserved rest, shame I've come back to work but at least the weather has returned to normal - cold dark and raining.

So part of that resting was also crafting, it was bliss to be able to spend so much time playing with inks and paints. I have long been ad admirer of Rothko, those huge canvases of layers upon layers of paint, visible brush strokes and the way the light falls on them to create depth and texture.  We went to the Rothko exhibition at the Tate in 2008 ( a quick search on Google Rothko Tate will find you reviews and examples of his work) Some of my favourites are the brown and white ones with a line across the middle at varying heights on the canvas. 

My Mum gave me a a load of A3 sized pieces of handmade paper a while back and I've wanted to do something quite large with them inspired by Rothko. 

I taped a sheet onto an old craft mat with masking tape and started adding layers of paint, starting with a soft brown, then adding washes of a paler off white / oatmeal colour, the bottom is slightly darker than the top to suggest a landscape. I left that to really dry overnight as I didn't want to tear the paper, taping to the craft sheet really helped here.  The next day I added some dry brush strokes of a darker brown very very lightly in the corners and worked a faint line across the middle.  I was trying to build layers that were hardly visible but all together created a whole piece (does that make sense?) 

Now to add more layers, I started with some text stamped randomly using expresso Adirondack, next using some willow, lemonade and hazelnut Adirondack started stamping some rectangles with some old Hero Arts background stamps I've had for years, to even out the colour I used a baby wipe to spread it around in the rectangle. Then I added some embossing with a seed head stamp with old paper distress embossing powder, it stuck to the versamark bit also some of the other bits that were a bit wet / damp, I didn't mind as I wasn't really after a neat image. Finally some old gold inka was watered down and brushed here and there and some heirloom gold perfect pearls mist sprayed.  

Moment of truth taking the masking tape off, would the paper tear?  No - safe and I really liked the neat edge of the paint against the ripped edge of the paper.  Got the sewing machine out and went round the edge in a cream thread a few times and also over the line in the middle.

OK now for the embellishments. I've had these house stamps and the Lavinia flower stamps for ages.  I stuck some old book pages to some card, stamped the images in black stazon and embossed.  Cut the houses out close to the edge and the flowers into rectangle. distressed the edges and then painted using various DI's.  Bit more old gold inka watered down added in and then stuck them down.  They looked OK but needed "anchoring" so had a rummage around and found some old self adhesive paper ribbon, it contrast well with the slightly darker colour on the bottom.

I then stuck the whole thing onto some cartridge paper that I'd distressed the edge and added some old paper DI before sticking to an piece of mount board and putting in an old IKEA frame that I'd distressed as well (lot of distressing going on here)

To say I'm chuffed to bits with it is an understatement, I have been able to translate the idea in my head into reality and it worked. I had the confidence not to panic when it looked as though it might not work and to keep adding more to see what happened.

Seeing the whole thing in the frame and hanging in pride of place in our living room makes me feel like a real artist.

Now I've started on a second one - this time blue is the colour, and the reason for the title on this blog entry?  Well we can't afford a real Rothko and anyway they are massive, but if I keep producing more artwork and it keeps getting bigger in size well then yes we might need a bigger house.

jo

xx

What to do with left over flowers?

Blogging again eh, see what you can achieve when you aren't at work!

So after I'd made tons of flowers for my gorgeous pomegranate canvas and tag artwork the other week, I had some leftover cut out flowers that were just lying there taunting me to make something with them.  One of my all time favourite flowers are cone flowers where the petals droop down like tattered ballerina skirts.  I'd also had an idea wafting around in my brain to make a bouquet of flowers using florists wire for the stems.

Decision made.

I took the large petal shape and with a large paper stump rubbed them in the centre on the back to make the petals rise up (or down when you turned it over).  With the other petal shapes I did the reverse so they would rise up!

Next using a glue gun (I love using my glue gun it gives such height to your work when trying to create a 3D look) I stuck them all together carefully so as not to flatten them, added a Craftworks candy fake brad as a centre. One they were dry I sprayed some tattered rose and copper glimmer mist over the top just to give a subtle shimmer.

Stems - I was originally going to cover the wire in strips of torn calico but then thought - would tissue tape work here?  And oh yes it did!  So wound tissue tape around each of the stems.  At the top using my round nose pliers I bent over say an inch and the curl it round to make a spiral that I could attach the flower too.  Using a bit of cut an' dry I ran the stems through some peeled paint DI to add a bit of colour.

Attaching - again using the glue gun I put quite a blob of glue on the reverse of the flower and cupping the lower petals in one hand I carefully put the spiral end of the stem in the glue and slightly wiggled it to make sure it was embedded in the glue.  Held it for a bit until the glue got more solid and left the flower to set completely.

Now what to put them in? Fortunately for me we have a branch of that well know craft superstore just 10 minutes away from us. (My husband would say unfortunately but hey I don't complain when more fish and bird seed arrive from his favourite stores). So I trundled down there as I knew they got various paper mache containers that would do the trick.  Bought a circular box and the bag as I wasn't sure but in the end plumped with the bag.

I gessoed the box first and then  covered it in torn page's of text.  Next some colour.  I went with some thin washes of a vibrant pink mixed with some white to take it down a notch, then some dry brushing of the "neat" colour and finally some thin washes of  a denim blue and some dry brushed white. Now to add some stamping of text and flowers in stormy sky DI, you can hardly see it but I know it's there!  Added some wooden baubles as feet, re-threaded the handle and glued on the final three flowers.

For the flowers to sit in I cut some dry oasis to sit in the bag and covered that with some coconut fibre, I bent over the flower heads slightly and then carefully pushed the stems into the oasis staggering the height of each flower.

Pretty pleased with the result, really like the feet as they just raise it up and the flowers were exactly how I imagined them, you can just see in the photo above of the flower at the back how the petals droop down.

So it's Easter Sunday and it's clouded over a bit today just in time for the BBQ we have planned for family, but my biggest dilemma is whether to do more paper based crafting or work with some fabric? 

Now where's my sewing machine....

jo
xx

Oh to be in England ...

Happy St George's Day in a grungy, shabby, Miss Westwood stylee!

jo

xx

I've been making stuff - honest!

It's true, I have been making stuff just not blogging.  Life (that thing we have to do between 12am and 12pm) has just got in the way a bit.

I had a play afternoon a few weeks ago with my best mate Kate, (Kate who lives here not in the US) and I thought we'd use some canvases that you can get from that well known craft store chain. We used an A4 and A5 size.  Kate made a great photo display wall hanging with a wooden clothes peg so that she could change the photo whenever she liked. It looked great and I think she had a really fab afternoon - playing.

I started by using the fabric tag I'd made the day before, in a you know just one of those let's see what happens kind of way.  I cut a tag using the Tim tag die from calico, painted the back with some PVA glue to stiffen it, love how it curls up on the edges.

On the front I wanted to make a transfer print using matte medium and acetate of a photo I'd taken. I really love this image transfer technique which Leandra (Mrs PA) had shown me ages ago at an Ally Pally show. Basically you print your image on acetate, spread a reasonable layer of matte medium on the surface you want to transfer on, put the acetate face down over the medium and start applying pressure with a bone folder or an old credit card.  Gently start to peel away the acetate to check if the ink is transferring.

I love how you never know whether it's going to work and that you never get a complete transfer and that's it's all faded and blurry. Once it had all dried I added some brown DI's and stamped some text.

Now for the canvases. 

The large one I first painted in a very light linen colour acrylic,rubbed a candle over to act a a bit of a resist and then pained with pomegranate slightly watered down. Rubbed back the top layer a bit to show a little of the linen colour. Then started stamping with Tim papillion stamp set and and backward text stamps in a purple ink. Added some swirls in pumice DI. 

For the embossed bits I used the big papillion text stamp which I adore and the little sewing location stamp with old linen distress embossing powder, I think it adds a nice contrast to the damson background.

Then the smaller canvas was painted in the linen acrylic and some old paper and burlap DI added in to add depth and tone. some more stamping and embossing. Cut out some swirls from grungeboard, painted and put them through a texture plate, then highlighted them with some old silver inka.  I also added this in around the edge of the big canvas.

Then stuck it all together and thought about how I was going to hang.  Um, metal wire through eyelets will probably work and tie in with the aged look. so that's what I did, but NOOOOOOOOOOO it looked all wrong and I thought "oh sugar" ruined it - humph.

Well I slept on it and had that light bulb moment, I don't actually want to see how it's hung up I need to attach a ring to the back and loop some ribbon through it, but how do I cover up the eyelets - flowers and lots of them! 

So after lots of stamping with a Wendy Vecchi stamp (daisy like just in the photo - it was meant to be) and cutting and inking and gluing (love the centres - craftworks candy) with the glue gun  and curling to give shape I had lots of flowers.

I think the light bulb moment worked - what do you think?

Happy crafting over this Easter weekend whether it'sin the garden, in the craftroom or a bit of both as it will be for me!

jo
xx

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