ACP:2 Red + C

This is the first 'proper' post for the Alphabet Colour Project:2 .. I'm really enjoying putting together all the bits and pieces for the project... so much so that I have refiled all my decorative 12x12 papers in readiness! (the administrator in me raises its head again!!)

This post/project is brought to you by the colour RED and the letter C... lots of craft options beginning with the letter C (the further down the alphabet, the less options there seem to be - could you all please start thinking about options for x, y, & z! lol)(and yes, I have zentangle and zippers...)

Here are the colours I chose to work with red for this project... a kraft Cardboard base to create Cards.. simple..  I love seeing red with paler, tealy/turquoisey blues...

Cards with red as the focal colour, both basically created in the same way but different finishing touches and decoration...
I recently bought a couple of phrase/word block dies from 'Lil'inker designs' in America (www.lilinkerdesigns.com), and what with it being Valentines Day in a few days used the 'love you so much' die for these cards.
I die cut the word block from a panel of black card and trimmed it leaving just a narrow frame.

I die cut several hearts, cut parts from around their edges to make them slightly more asymmetric, then I doodled around the hearts to tie them in with the stamping on the red panel (image is from JOFY24)

The flowers on the card below are from JOFY12.

So that's project one of the ACP:2 project done and dusted.... just another 20ish to go... :o)

xx

Where did the time go!

I am off schedule with my christmas posts (lots of things going on here)  - I meant to blog this before now - better late than never I suppose!

Designed for a class at Forget Me Not Kraft Kabin in Rochford, its a 20cm board canvas - a sampler/patchwork of lots of this years christmas stamps and my go to christmas mini JM07.

A fun project - these look great framed (Ikea frames are a perfect and inexpensive option) so can be brought out each year.

ho ho ho

Countdown to Christmas: Day 2

Another quite quick'n'simple decoration...

This snowflake was created using a new die from Sizzix - Texture Fades Layered Snowflake - one of the very useful Bigz dies that comes with an embossing folder.

I die cut several snowflakes from corrugated cardboard to give the decoration dimension and weight and glued them together.  I then cut and embossed a silver snowflake and one cut from book text - glued one to the back and the other to the front of the cardboard snowflake stack.  Poked a hole through one of the points and threaded through a hanging thread.

Looks great on the tree and will look even better when I've created more.

Ho ho ho

What weekends are made for...

... an evening with friends - one of those evenings where you laugh so much your stomach muscles ache, your throat hurts and in the end you have no make-up left on because you've cried with laughter..

We started off at the Blackfriar pub - I've always wanted to go in here to see the interior - & it didn't disappoint - I wish I could've taken photos. I hadn't noticed until I looked at this photo how all the building around it have gone... but its still standing! Fantastic.
I hadn't seen several of the friends in a long time - too long - missed them - great evening.

... a fun day teaching a workshop - at Its Crafting Time - where between us we built a terrace of houses - Balamory has nothing compared to these lovely JOFY houses:

... a day in the garden - tidying up, buying and planting new plants - LOVE lupins - mini towers of colour... this is my current favourite part of the garden:

... time spent with Family - nephews birthday - I made a card for him - boys/mens cards are hard aren't they? (or is that just me!) (must challenge myself) - this one was created thanks in part to the PaperArtsy brayer masterboard video that was on the blog earlier this month.

... all that, and there's still today!  Gotta love a Bank Holiday weekend!

Hope yours is good...

xx

'The house that JOFY built'...

.. is the workshop I'm looking forward to teaching this coming Saturday, 24th May, at Crafting Time in Shepreth.  

There are still a couple of places left so contact the shop if you'd like to book a place.
On this workshop we'll decorate/alter an mdf house (moneybox) using all things JOFY & PaperArtsy - Grunge Paste, Stencils, Paints and JOFY stamps... I'm really looking forward to this - its going to be a fun class!

Hope to see you there

x

Just wondering how....

.. this DoCrafts Gorguss girl would look combined with my stamps... buying DoCrafts stamps is not something I normally do but I couldn't resist this one:

- I could see the possibilities of using her with my stamps - she's a nice size & stands alone ((nothing round her- some images in the group had animals)) and so could be placed in amongst my flowers..

.... I stamped the image on a piece of scrap Smoothie that was on my desk - I just wanted to see how she stamped out.. but then I kept going 'how would it look with flower stems', and 'what about leaves'  - by the time I'd finished I created the panel!
I was just playing - the Gorjuss image is quite cute (a bit of cute now & then can't do any harm can it) but I kept the colour relatively neutral & tried to dampen down the cute with the corrugated card but don't think it distracted much :o)  

But I don't mind  - she makes me smile.

I can see several more of these being created!  too cute..!  The co-ordinating papers (sorry, couldn't resist those either) are quite dark - greys, purples & reds- maybe I'll make a 'gothic' one.

x

Ooooh I do like to be beside the Seaside... part 2..

... a couple more samples from Sunday - a long canvas (12x4in) - quite clean and simple... huts were stamped on tissue paper, glued to the panel and painted with Fresco Finish - Bora Bora, Elephant, Beach Hut (appropriately) and the green on the centre hut is a mix of Bora Bora and Guacamole (nice!).

 Stamped the phrase repeatedly along the top edge:

I bought a box of driftwood from Birds in the Barn when I was over there last weekend - the wood is lovely and some pieces were perfect for stamping and painting.  This little hut is from the row of beach huts on JOFY16 - would make a great lighpull in a beach themed bathroom..

... and because I really do 'like to be (and live) beside the seaside' on Sunday I took the 10 minute drive to the seaside... even though its actually the Thames Estuary we have a fantastic long stretch of beach, beach huts, fun fares, a Pier (complete with train!) and recently we've also had glorious sunshine too.... yay for Essex!

Most of the beach huts in Thorpe Bay are on stilts because of the slope on the beach:

Some people keep their huts plain (treated) wood but there's a stretch where the huts are lovely & smartly painted {I'm a little biased as that smart blue one in the middle of the photo belongs to my MiL and her sister :o) }

They are so 'summery'!  I love the red & white one too - very striking against the sky and sand.

I went down the beach early on Sunday morning for a bit of beachcombing.  First thing I found (but left behind) made me chuckle:

There's a statue somewhere missing a nose! lol  I checked- its just a stone but it definitely looks like a nose don't you agree! 

I 'needed' sea-worn glass and 'stuff' from the beach.. but, pickings were few and far between - I was disappointed and pleased in equal measure that there was very little sea worn glass - disappointed because that's what I wanted but pleased because hopefully it means that less glass is finding its way into the river/sea (less bottles being discarded etc etc etc)

There were A LOT of cockle shells.. . I picked up a few of these white flat ones but only if they had worn holes in them (great for threading) but as you can see very little glass.... (and I'm glad)

 LOVE my bits of wood... especially the right hand piece - lovely cracked paint!

Hubby's not often quite sure about the 'treasures' I bring home - but even he said - 'ooh thats a good bit of wood'  lol so it must be winner!  lol

OK, I'm going to go and make something with my stash from the beach...

Thanks for popping by

Craft Barn Extravaganza....

... is where I spent last weekend demo'ing my little socks off and enjoying every minute.

Its taken me a while to write this post - life kept getting in the way - kept going back into the 'drafts' box...! lol but now, eventually (lol), here comes the catch up...

It was the first extravaganza at The Craft Barn's lovely new location - 3 marquees nice and close to the shop... really nice set up.

Here's my demo desk - tidiness is always a bit tricky during demo's (for me anyway) and so I decided to display my samples vertically rather than horizontally:

   

The shelving unit on the right was an ebay purchase- best £15 spent! lol- and it folds up flat. genius!  I forgot to photograph behind the desk but that was really organised - tiers of wire baskets holding all the necessary bits and pieces.

Here are some of the samples from the day - keeping them nice and simple.  I demo'd my 3 new A5 plates and 6 new minis...

 I love how this arch sample turned out - scrapbook printed papers mixed with Fresco Finish paints - a combination that makes me very happy!

 ...as does the combination of Fresco Finish and book text! :o)

back with some more samples in the next few days....

Taking the time...

... to play helps to learn/discover new things- and any mistakes along the way help to learn even more (that's what I think anyway- and that you learn something new every day- whether its big or small)

This little panel is something I made from bits I found on the desk when I was clearing up (there is always something (or rather lots of things) left on the desk...

I've been trying to only use one stamp set each time I create a sample (these stamps are from JOFY11, and, oops, the words are from JOFY09) (it's a hard plan to stick to- I want to use all the stamps! lol)
I liked making little signs out of the phrase- another way to add the phrase to a piece.
The base is die cut from the mover&shaper cabinet die (again - I told you yesterday that I like it! lol)  painted with Fresco Finish Crackle Glaze, Paints, stenciling (Crafters Workshop), and JOFY stamps (well it'd be rude not to! lol)  The piece is quite small (I like to make dinky little things) the card is 10x7.5cm - the signs give it extra height.
BTW other projects using the stamps go take a look the PA blog - Leandra and the Guest Contributors have been creating some great projects... go here

I'm off to make demo samples ready for Sunday at The Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show at AllyPally - I'll be on the PaperArtsy stand - hope to see you there...

The Goldilocks approach to creating....

... Over the last few weeks I've been working on projects for upcoming classes ..... I sat back and looked at what I'd created I realised that some 'were too small' and others 'were too big' and some were 'just right'.... the Goldilocks effect....

I like this Sizzix/Tim Holtz 'Cabinet Card' die, and the matching 'movers/shapers' that goes with it.... its so versatile.
This time I used it to cut the main shape, and cut again with the mover&shaper die in place to create a frame.  I like to have some of the stamped images coming over the edges structure (gives it movement):

& then use the smaller piece that remains once the frame is cut to create a 'stand' on the reverse...

This was a bit of a light bulb moment for me - some of you might have been doing this for ages but as it was new to me I thought I'd share it just in case you haven't.  lol

The flowers are painted with Fresco Finish - loving the new 'Blood Orange' colour.. Juicy!!

(it was very tempting to stickle the top of those 'dandelion' heads.... I resisted, but I'm not sure for how long...)

OK, I'm off to create more class samples - I've created a blog page with my teaching demo'ing dates (button under the main banner) so if you fancy a day of inky, painty, stamping come and join me.... the more the merrier  :o)

where did that week go??

Phew!  I worked 3 consecutive days (in 2 different jobs), had a day off that was filled working on a magazine article, then there was a lovely day out in London with hubby at the Ideal Home Show.. & now we have the Easter Weekend (again days off/on)... *and* the clocks went forward... all exciting (if slightly confusing) stuff!

So back to last Sunday when I taught a class at The Craft Barn ((who are moving this week to a great new barn at Priory Farm, Sandy Lane, South Nutfield, CH1 4EG (0844 8008551 / 01737 822961) - they'll be open for business on Tuesday 2nd April))  - a lovely group of ladies who created nice layered pieces with my stamps, some die cuts and the all important corrugated card (I love a bit of corrugated card! lol)

This piece is one of Linda's - love her colour choices.

And this one by Di - she teamed Dusty Concord with the claret cardstock - not an obvious pairing of colours (to me anyway) but it worked really nicely. 

This is one of Jane's pieces- her deep colour choices were really striking - and look at the lovely depth of layers - all adding to the dimension of the panels - but no weight - all these could be added to cards, or hung as mini panels/ triptych.

Sorry there aren't more photos from this class - my photos were not quite up to scratch.

I tried to tidy up my desk, I really did....

... but while doing so I found some left over bits and pieces that were crying out to be made into a project...

Loving this tag for several reasons:
1:  it has buttons
2:  it is made on a kraft corrugated substrate
3:  it has tags
4:  it's made with my stamps!

The big round flower at the top is layers of the flowers JOFY09 & JOFY10 (and left over from creating Gladys) secured together with a bit of 3d foam - always comes in handy doesn't it!
The tags were left over from creating the box canvas featured a few days ago.

but the tag isn't created entirely out of rubbish... lol  Sometimes its just nice to play with stamps to see what happens - the leaf with circular patterns on JOFY12... well that was crying out to become petals on a flower:

They make lovely flowers - liking those very much! ... .and those little circles - perfect for bling placement! lol

That's my quick project made.... I suppose I'd better get back to tidying the desk.......

Jo