When we were young…

Posted in challenges, collage, vintage with tags , on May 10, 2008 by Rosie

Is this week’s Skinny Saturdays theme and I have made the ‘faux linen’ background for Saturday’s Workout with white and gold ink on black cardstock. (It IS there, Heike and Sandy!). My text reads: “Life was so simple…” Ain’t that the truth?!

\"Life was so simple...\"

The image of the children is from ‘that’ calendar and the advert is from a free collage sheet I downloaded. When I find the site again, I’ll put a link to it!

Heart and Soul…

Posted in challenges, collage with tags , on May 10, 2008 by Rosie

That’s the tag I’ve created for this week’s “Tag, you’re it” #6 and Layers of Colour this week. Taggers asked for black and gold; LOC seeks embossing on our artwork. I loved Laura’s highly stylised heart so much that the good old tomato paste tube, coloured with a bit of alcohol ink came out again! I stamped the heart with PM foam stamps on the reverse and used my embossing tool to shape it and embellish. The images are from Crafty Individuals Miniatures and I’ve used text strips torn from an old book. All the edging is done with a gold ink pad and the fibres and ribbon are black and gold! What an enjoyable thing to create!

\"Heart and soul...\"

I’ll be carving some more stamps this evening and I still have another project to make, as I see Sara’s back with Skinny Saturdays! And then who knows what Lisa will have us doing outside our comfort zones this weekend??? Also, Michelle Ward has just posted the next Crusade over at GPP Street Team - Paper casting… can’t wait to have a go at that one!

4×4 Friday

Posted in Auntys Forum, challenges, collage, rubber stamping with tags on May 9, 2008 by Rosie

‘Tickets’ must appear on our 4×4 Friday artwork this week… and I finished carving this little bird stamp last night - looks like a Gangsta Flamingo crossed with a Cypriot Pelican to me!! Anyway, my 4×4 is on one of the distressed scraps backgrounds from Trish’s Background Noise Challenges and the ticket was a RAK from my forum buddy Ali - cheers hunni! :)

\"Tickets, please!\"

 

Tea or coffee?

Posted in challenges, collage, rubber stamping with tags , on May 8, 2008 by Rosie

That’s the challenge at Theme Thursday this week! I had fun putting this little collage together with the front of a coffee box, a vinyl coffee mug (I won the die last year and it cuts beautifully!), some red pipecleaners and more stuff! It’s hanging over the mantlepiece at the moment and looking very tempting… I can almost smell the coffee!

Mmmmmmmmmm.... coffee!!!!

I’m entering this for RattyTatty’s Dovecraft comp too - to win some fab prizes, as I have used more of my Dovecraft Papers!! And the swirl stamp border is my own carved stamp!!! :)

Diva!

Posted in Altered art, challenges, rubber stamping, vintage with tags , , on May 7, 2008 by Rosie

Wednesday Stamper’s challenge: “Diva”!! May I present Miss Margaret Ruby - her face adorns the art-doll. Apparently she was an actress in the 1940s…

Miss Margaret Ruby

Her body is made from a yarn cone - heavy-duty cardboard - given to me by Debs; her clothing and arms from a piece of fabric out of the mauve textile pack I bought at the Holsworthy Family Resource Centre; her face from my stash of vintage photo postcards. I handstitched the sequins and beads onto her dress and the legend “Diva” is stamped to her twill sash. (See Ds Ancient Alphabet stamps). I also stamped Tanda feathers to her sleeves, although I haven’t shown you those!

I found creating her rather absorbing, sitting watching/listening to the British Soap Awards, which I’d probably never have had on TV deliberately.  The most challenging bit was finding my needles! I still haven’t found the beading needle I bought a couple of weeks ago, or my needle-book! Oh well, life goes on.

Tomorrow I have to complete scanning papers for my end of year accounts and start building the HFWRC website. Never a dull moment, eh? :)

Charms and Microscope sliders!

Posted in Altered art, challenges, rubber stamping with tags , on May 6, 2008 by Rosie

Here’s my entry for Created by Hand this week - “Charms”: I’ve never worked on a microscope slider before, but Cheryl sent me some to play around with in March. I started this one, but it really wasn’t turning out well at all and I lost the will to finish it. However, when I downloaded that sampler from Digital Collage Sheets, there were some slider-sized images on it so I had a reason to go back and complete the project. I’ve left the outside pretty much as it was, apart from the addition of a bottle cap with another image from the same sheet and some little charms.

I used a colourwash of blue ink with some perfect pearls for the background, stamped the little running man (Cherry Pie Artstamps) randomly on it, added a gold skeleton leaf and metallic rubons round the edges. I made a jump ring with blue craft wire and attached a small silver fish and sequin bead and added a length of silvertone beaded chain, cut from a necklace - car boot buy!

The inside was painted with cream emulsion from a sampler tube and stamped with my own zentangle stamp using black soot distress ink. Stazon probably would’ve sat better on the surface, but the distress ink went a bit cloudy - not an unpleasant effect! Then I added the image of the lovely girl, glazed her and fixed pink and mauve pearly seed beads to the top and bottom with glossy accents.

The New Zealand postmark is from the envelope that my Paper Pesto prize arrived in - I still have the stamps!! I like the plainness of the black ink as a contrast to the vividly coloured image and just added a little gold pen edging.  I’m pleased with the outcome of this slider, but what does one do with these things?

If my friend Jo sees this, she will probably recognise the fish and bead, as she sent it to me as a bag charm, which I unfortunately managed to break. However, I have recycled it lovingly, mate! ;)

Ribbons!

Posted in Auntys Forum, Cards, challenges, rubber stamping with tags on May 6, 2008 by Rosie

My Time To Craft challenges us to use ‘ribbons’ on our projects this week and I can now show the birthday card I made for my friend Fi (Magickdiva) last week. It has a matching bookmark, finished with coordinating ribbon and I’ve used another of my favourite Third Coast stamps - Oak, Ash, Thorn. The backing paper is from Papermania’s spring range - I like the greens in this set and did a split with my friend Jan, so we could sample 2/3 different packs. It’s an advantage, having crafty mates who live near big craft stores! ;)

Oak, Ash, Thorn

I used Olive Green Stazon to stamp the image onto olive green cs from the Paper Mill Shop in Bideford.

Well that’s my entry for today - I’m off to mow the lawn now, but before I decapitate all those daisies, here’s a pic I took earlier for my friend, Patty!

Thinking ‘big’ with Paint!

Posted in NGS artgroup, Next Generation Stampers, challenges, collage with tags , on May 5, 2008 by Rosie

Lisa Gifford continues to challenge us to Step Outside Your Box with ‘Think BIG’ and Mixed Media Monday’s theme this week is ‘Paint’, so I’ve painted two 10″x8″ canvasses this afternoon… one is “Blocks” in greens and blues and the second is a collage on canvas, using Trish’s Collage Image for this month’s challenge #3 on ArtBuzz.

Blocks

And the Schoolgirl Collage on canvas:

I’ve used oil paints because I have loads of tubes of them! I haven’t painted with oils for years, but I do like using them - it’s just that they are extremely messy (even for me!) and they take a while to dry out. I was given some sets recently by friends who don’t paint at all and it’s a shame not to play with them, isn’t it? After all, look at the ‘moodosity’ in the Blocks - LOL!!

I think my biggest issue is that I don’t really know what I’m doing - never taken a class in my life! I would love to in all honesty, but all that’s available locally is watercolour classes, which really doesn’t appeal to me. So, I suppose I’ll just have to carry on ‘playing’ all by myself! ;)

Digital piracy!

Posted in NGS artgroup, Next Generation Stampers, challenges, collage, vintage with tags , , on May 4, 2008 by Rosie

Barbara - Artiphy the Heart - set the “Pirates” challenge at TGIF this week and has been nagging me to participate; my List Mom, Trish Bee has started an new challenge Blog called ArtBuzz, which is fab, because it’s radically different! Trish’s #1 challenge was called “Off with his head!” and the idea was to take a human image and replace the head with something completely different… well, you know by now that I have the liveliest sense of the ridiculous, so I kicked back this evening and combined both challenges - with this Diptych:

Now short of photocopying the DVD cover of one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies we own, I have nothing barring those skull & crossbones die cuts that even vaguely equates to pirates. So I took a very plain vintage photo and a brochure about going digital in the SW of the UK and an idea was born… The background is watercolour pencils and waterbrush, “Ma Sparrow” (Digital Pirate), was cut with a sizzix scroll and the images on the right are from background sheets I was given about 3 years ago!! The poker chip has one of Michelle’s Digital Collage Images of a girl on it and the gold ‘fish’ are the leftover bits from fancy die cut hearts!

In case you can’t read my text (a la Julie Prichard), it reads: “Ma Sparrow, Jack’s Mama, was the 1st digital pirate… even her eye patch was a skull and crossbones”. Enjoy, Barbara and Trish!! ;)

Saturday’s Workout Tag!

Posted in challenges with tags , , on May 3, 2008 by Rosie

Tag You’re It (Moo on a tag!) combined with alcohol inks for Saturday’s Workout resulted in a simple Christmas tag for me this afternoon. I made a hideous Xmas card, then decided to play ‘tags’!! Swiss dots large tag (thanks Jan!), green and yellow pastels for the background and a piece of a cutdown, recycled card for my alcohol inked Moo… add a couple of embellies, beads on craft wire and some ribbon with stars chain and I was much happier!

See you all on Monday… which is a Bank Holiday here - so I might have time to play!! ;)