My inky travels along life's rocky road

Saturday 28 January 2017

Rebel Stampers ATC Swap - January


The second set of ATCs for the Rebel Stampers swap had to use mesh. I initially saved a bit of netting from a bag of onions but then I found a sheet of snowflake mesh which I have had for years. As I still had my Christmas stuff out I decided to use these 2 snowmen stamps which I have had for years and used a lot. I put some salty ocean DI onto a craft sheet with a few squirts of water and then dragged the ATC blanks through the ink. When dry, I ran them through a snowflake embossing folder and then added a torn piece of card at the bottom to represent the settled snow. Both snowmen were heat embossed and then I used embossing pens to colour and emboss their hats and scarves. I cut the mesh to size and glued it to the ATC blank behind the snowmen. To finish I added a few punched snowflakes.

Friday 27 January 2017

Rebel Stampers ATC Swap - January

 
I've decided to take part in the monthly ATC swap on the Rebel Stampers forum. Every month there is a technique and a theme and you can choose either or both to make a maximum of 4 ATCs. This is my first set of 2 with the theme of Gold. I have had these gold embossed oriental backgrounds for a long time so I decided to use them with a Hobby Art geisha stamp. I made 2 differently coloured ATCs and added some gold embossed oriental writing (I think this is Chinese rather than Japanese) and a pearl brad.

Thursday 26 January 2017

Alphabet ATCs - W for Wood


Another black background for my ATC this month for the word Wood/s as in the material and/or the forest. I have splattered some old Firework Burst colour sprays which look very effective on a black background. Unfortunately these very old sprays by a company called Sticky Fingers no longer work as intended but the colours are still fabulous so I have just flicked them over the base. The birch trees are a die by Impression Obsession. I got the idea on a recent trip to Wisley where the silver birches looked almost luminous as it got darker. The birds which are part of the die set gave a useful pop of colour to the piece.
This is letter no17 and by my rough calculation we should be finishing this challenge towards the end of this year. I am pleased that I have stuck to my intention of choosing 3 different words each month (so far). We have passed awkward letters like Q and X but there is still Z to come...

Friday 20 January 2017

Mini Album

Towards the end of last year I bought a Sizzix die set in the sale. It was a Lori Whitlock set called essential mini album with numerous pieces from which you could cut album pages, the spine, matting pages and other little bits and bobs to help embellish the album. January is always the perfect month to try new things out and this is what I made:


The papers were from a Papermania collection (antique cream) and a DCWV set (serenity). Apart from the letter and the numbers all the die cuts you can see here came from this set. It was very easy to put together and the pages are a nice size.

Wednesday 18 January 2017

Alphabet ATCs - W for Winter


While I had my Christmas things out I decided to use them for a winter themed ATC for my second swap entry. I used a Rubber Stampede tree stamp on some snowflake patterned paper and a torn strip of white paper. The snowmen are made with a punch - I edged them with some weathered wood DI so that they stood out against the white background. I punched out a few extra snowflakes brushed with Wink of Stella and added some clear sequins.

Monday 16 January 2017

Craft Therapy


Some days you just have the urge to make something for the hell of it, just to lose yourself in thinking about something other than that thought that is uppermost in your mind. Yesterday was such a day. Our day started with some very dramatic events that I won't go into here but at the end of the day no one was hurt. I wanted to make something to unwind and I spotted a freebie coaster sitting on my desk waiting to have something done to it.
I found this quote online and it seemed to fit the bill. I covered the coaster with some text paper and then added ripe persimmon, cracked pistachio and salty ocean DIs. I wasn't too sure where I was going with this but added some gesso through TH scribbles layering stencil. The flower is cut from a Sizzix Lori Whitlock die and I added a brad and some sequins to finish the piece.

Tuesday 10 January 2017

New Year, New Challenge

Having completed the alphabet challenge on the Craft Barn blog last year I was interested to see what the new challenge would be. This year they are taking Sara Coleridge's poem 'The Garden Year' one verse/month at a time. You can read all the details for the challenge here.
Having decided to take part, much time has been spent settling on a format. I finally chose to use a rough postcard size 16.5 x 10cm which I will bind into a book at the end of the year. I had problems punching the binding holes after the pages were complete last year so I have done all the hole punching in advance this time.
For January the added twist is that the page has to have 'a bird in a wellington boot'!!!! My drawing skills are non-existent and I had no welly stamps so I spent a while trying to figure out how to deal with this. Twelfth Night came to the rescue - as I was taking down the Christmas cards I noticed one with 2 girls in wellies and miracle of miracles the snowy scene they were in was surrounded by a frame which had a couple of robins. Just get your magnifying glasses ready...


Not a great pic but it's white on white with some glitter so it was never going to come out well. My base page has been embossed with the Cuttlebug snow folder.  I cut Memory Box's Country Landscape with a different brand of white card  - it's a slightly different white so the die cuts stand out a bit more. I coloured in the trees and roofs for some pops of colour to complement the wellies and robin and added glamour dust for some sparkle. The blue bits along the left are the holes ready for binding .
A tough start to the challenge but I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's.

Saturday 7 January 2017

Alphabet ATCs - W for World


This month's letter in the Alphabet ATC swap is W. I decided on World and used a TH stamp and die set for the image of the world. The text is from another TH die set of travel words. I mounted the die cuts on a black background splattered with white paint to give a starry effect.
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