Just a quickie this morning for a cousin.   She lives abroad, and I don't have her address, but we are friends on Facebook. So I created this card in Craft Artist for her to make my birthday wishes to her a bit more personal.

More playing about!

Again nothing brilliant, but playing.   I was watching a programme on Hochanda yesterday and it inspired me to have a go.   This idea was from the first show, and I created it whilst watching the second show.

I set myself the challenge of using what was on my desk at the time.   My new Daler Rowney pearlescent paints, an AALL & Create stencil, and some dandelion dies and stamps that I had for my birthday recently.

The idea was to create a background using 3 shades in a "family" colour.   Well I didn't exactly have three shades in the set of paints that was to hand, so went for pink, red and purple.

The three colours of paint were applied with fingers, layering up the colours.   Then using the same colours I sponged them through various parts of the sunflower stencil.    I then used the paint again with the dandelion stamps in various colours.

The idea I was following used a tag as a focal point with a cutout image on it.  I improvised.  I actually used a trimmer that I have had for more years than I care to remember that sits on the shelf above my desk.  I invariably forget I have this - it cuts two sorts of wavy lines.  I used the shape I cut as my tag.  I applied two shades of pink/red ink to this, and then stamped the dandelion on it with white gesso.   I also die-cut a couple of dandelions from the set and mounted these over the stamped image.

The programme I watched was Lou Withers teaching Paul Church to do a Mixed Media project, and to basically not be afraid of getting a little messy with paint and using your fingers.  Thus the two sentiments I added as a note to myself.

I confess I am not that good at this sort of mixed media (albeit mixed media does come into a lot of my creations), and although I have some art journals, I have always been a bit afraid to do anything with them. 

So this again is for me and trying out techniques, whether they fail or not - and hopefully one day I can look back on them to see how far I have come.

I already know what I forgot - and that was to gesso the page first!    It does look better in real life as the pearlescent paints have a love shine to them.

Playing about

I had some new paints (Daler Rowney pearlescent paints) arrive yesterday and naturally wanted to try them out.  However, I had just come back from the eye hospital, and was still affected by the drops I had in my eyes!     However, the urge to play overtook the dodgy eyesight - so I just dropped colours all over the new journal that came with the set of paints, and sprayed water at them to create a background.

Later on when that had dried I grabbed a stamp off my desk and stamped the flower images,  and then painted them with some of the same paints.    I then took an old credit card and using the black inkpad created a few random lines across the page.   Finally I painted a strip of card with the green paint and then wrote the sentiment on it with black posca pen.

OK it's not brilliant, but I needed to play with the paints, and as it is in my art journal it is just a reference for me.

MDF Guitar

I have had this MDF guitar kit sitting on my desk for at least a month, telling me it needs something done to it.  I bought it some time ago.  I think it was part of a kit for Powertex, but I forgot about it and then didn't have any inspiration to decorate it.

I put the main parts together with clear Powertex.  I then painted it with various acrylic paints to try and give the impression of a "curve" to the piece.

I originally wanted clear "strings" using beading thread, but I just couldn't get them to stick (even using red liner tape) so I ended up using twine, although it was thicker than I wanted - but hey ho go with the flow - as they say.

The kit came with two pink paper roses, but they were so squashed in the packaging they weren't really good enough to use, and anyway I needed 3 ( I always work in odd numbers). so I made some from air dry clay.

There was also am mdf "flower" type embellishment in the kit with hearts on, so I cut this up and used some of the heart for the keys at the top of the guitar, and then cut some more up and used them as a random embellishment.

I used a guitar stamp and a scribbled heart and a swirl on the guitar, and embossed it.   The Guitar stamp was painted with posca pens, as were the little heart decorations, and the three larger heart shapes that came with the kit.

Finally I added a little dried gypsophila in with the roses and and added some pebeo gold gilding creme and glitter to the twine.

another view

I wasn't to sure about this whilst I was working on it, or even when I finished it - but it is growing on me!

Butterfly Birthday Card

A fairly quick little card for a lovely little lady.   I stamped the Indigoblu butterfly with black ink and heat embossed it with clear detail powder, cut it out and painted it with distress oxides.  I masked off the card, stamped the butterfly in the middle, and then randomly brushed the background with distress oxides and did a light wash over the the butterfly with the same colours as the cut out butterfly.   I also gave it a little shadow.   The cutout butterfly was glued over the top of the stamped one on the card.

I edged the masked off distress oxide section with a black pen, added some peel offs (well it is no use them sitting in boxes being ignored) and then created the sentiment in Craft Artist and mounted it on card.

Die-cut Wedding Anniversary Card

Another family wedding anniversary card for this weekend - simple but effective.   Die cut into card stock with a Clarity die, and backed with Joanna Sheen Faux Pour paper in red.   Sentiment created in Craft Artist and backed with the same paper

Wedding Anniversary Card - Ginkgo

Another of my oops I nearly forgot cards for this weekend.    I have this stamp and die, which I bought by mistake - I thought I was ordered a poppy - duh - that's the problem when two things are the same item!   Anyway I thought I might as well use it, and it was the right size for this card blank.

Once again stamped with clear embossing ink and embossed with a red mix WOW embossing powder, and then water coloured with green.   The sentiment was created in Craft Artist and backed with some red Joanna Sheen faux pour card,which was the exact match for the stamped and painted image.

Nautical Birthday Card

It was a mad panic yesterday to discover that it was August and I needed to make a Birthday card and get it in the post for a family member.    He is quite into sailing, so I found this yacht stamp in my stash - I forget what make it is.  I do know it came free with a magazine, and I think it was actually a Sheena Douglass selection.

I stamped the image with my WOW! clear embossing pad, and used some WOW embossing powder in a blue.   I then lightly water coloured the image and also the surround of the card, and then edged the card with blue ink.   The sentiment was created in Craft Artist, and mounted on a piece of Joanna Sheen's faux pour paper.

Alcohol Inks

I watched show yesterday on the Kielty Inks, which are less "smelly" than normal alcohol inks.   As I had some, I thought I would try some of the techniques shown.   Erm .... yes ..... well a bit more practise is needed, but am happy to share my disasters!

I was trying to paint a flower - methinks it looks more like a distorted puffer fish!

I also did a random drop of all the colours of inks, which I have tried before, and it will make a good background behind one of the Clarity dies.   The demo showed adding bit of gold leaf to parts of the inks that were still tacky - I couldn't find my gold leaf - so dropped a few random bits of gilding flakes on.

This was my second attempt at a flower - a tad better (albeit I mucked up the leaves)   I found the ink was drying to quickly on my first attempt, so I added some extender, which helped a bit.    I think my main problem is that I need a bigger straw to blow the ink around, so the next aim is to find a suitable straw and try again.

A simple joint birthday cake for my son-in-law and myself, as we are having a family tea, and our birthdays are next door to each other on the calendar.  As my birthday is a bit of a milestone, we had to have cake and my son-in-law loves my rich fruit cakes (well so do I).  If nobody else wants any, we will be quite happy with that - it will be half each!  I must admit my fruit cakes have quite a reputation, and I have had many compliments in the past from chefs, but only the immediate family know the secret!

We both love royal-iced cakes too, but as I had hurt my back (see an earlier post) I couldn't stand to do the icing as it takes a few days, albeit only a few minutes each day, so for once I cheated and used sugarpaste.

We both love sweet peas, so I chose those for the spray on the top, colouring them the same as some I have growing in the garden.

Obviously I couldn't make the cake too feminine, so I discovered a train stencil in my cake stash, and my son-in-law collects model trains, so I stencilled it on to a strip of sugarpaste and attached it to the front of the cake, using the same range of purple colours that I used in the flowers.   To finish the sides of the cake I did scallops of little blossoms.

side front view

a glimpse of one of the scallops around the rest of the side of the cake