Snow, snow, snow....

... snowflake rosettes!!!   I think I've mentioned on here before how much I love the paper rosettes that can be made from the Tim Holtz die - well look what those clever people from Sizzix have bought out... Lovely Snowflake rosettes!!!!!!!!! Ho ho ho!!  Very lovely! (these will probably find their way on to many projects this christmas!)

It looks so nice when only the edges are coloured - I'd quite happily add this to a project as a border instead of folding it into a rosette:

I used the same colour distress inks (evergreen boughs, tumbled glass) on this card. Stamped and embossed the main image from JOFY Plate6 in clear ink and added the colour over the top.  I bleached the big stars and when the bleach was dry I gently went over the stars with Tumbled Glass ink... Fine black lines were drawn to add detail to the design and ties it in with the base card colour and the black stamping of the top border and the sentiment.

PaperArtsy sells cute little papermache hearts (approx 5-7cm).. I painted this one with Fresco Finish paints: Mermaid, Crackle Glaze and a top coat of Nougat - the gorgeous turquoise/gold wax (aquamarine, Treasure Gold.. also from PaperArtsy) was wiped randomly over the surface - lovely festive shimmer.. I tied on a tag stamped with 'noel' from Plate3, and a couple of wooden snowflakes that have coloured with the same wax.  The wood absorbs some of the wax so that it leaves the 'dye' colour and then a lovely surface of gold: gorgeous.

**  On 4th November I'll be demonstrating my stamps at Birds in the Barn nr Colchester in Essex.. Please come along - I'll be there from 10am-3.30pm - I look forward to see you.  **

Christmas... part 4...

The temperature is definitely dropping, and all the leaves are falling off the trees (which is keeping Mr JoFY and his newly acquired leaf blower busy)(can't get my head round that - he's basically hoovering the garden isn't he! lol) so Christmas is on its way - confirmed by hearing 'last christmas' by Wham! played in a shop - that's how I know its christmas!

Here are the last of my Christmas samples. First up is another Cabinet Card pennant:

 this time I embossed the pennant (made from mount board) with the Sizzix 'starry night' embossing folder (see this post for more details.. or just scroll down - its in 'christmas part 2'), coloured with distress inks, distressed with water, added a bit of bling with 'frosted lace' stickles - gotta love those for subtle accents of sparkliness!  'frantage' embossing powder around the edge and I covered the big iron work star (under the rosette) with the same - love that embossing powder! So much so that I applied it to the edge of the rosette too - blinging it up!  It is christmas!!

So the pennant is a bit distressed but the next sample I made is more shabby chic but without much shabby! lol 
This sample is just.. erm.. well.. hhmmm.. pretty, yep its pretty.  I wanted to do something with the rosettes other than sticking them onto something and so I made a hanging decoration:

The main rosette (slightly larger that the die made rosettes- this one's made using a Martha Stewart scoreboard) is made out of Tilda double sided paper - such a pretty spotted paper - lovely soft blue. Its topped with a book text rosette & another ironworks star/snowflake (I'm getting a lot of use out of these dies aren't I lol)

On the other side of the rosette is the pretty rose print, all the fixings of the rosettes are hidden by another rosette, and a Martha Stewart snowflake - bought last year & I still love it!
All blinged up with stickles and a self adhesive gem!

Pretty!

This is the decoartion from the side showing the layers of rosettes:

Once our tree is up - scheduled for the weekend - I'll take a picture of it on the tree....

I'm off to watch my youngest nephew in his Nursery's play - he's 3yrs old and very cute - I may require tissues....  Its all getting very christmassy!!

Wrap up warm and have a nice day..

PS before you go - maybe you could help me - I'm putting together a 'christmas alphabet' any suggestions for the letters v-z??  Please leave any suggestions in the comments! Ta muchly in advance  :o)

PPS - Just a reminder: 100 followers or over on this blog by 2012 and there will be a give-away!! 
I'm just going to mention this every so often, not every post, or it'll start to sound like nagging! lol

WOYWW & Christmas(ish) part 3...

Here's my desk this week with general stuff on it including a new, nice, clean, & uncut craft sheet... & the address book because I've written all my christmas cards - and before you're impressed that on 7th December I've finished my cards - don't be because I bought them!  And it was very liberating - I'll make family & hubby's but all other are shop bought.

What I'm seeing in the photo is no difference to the state of my desk even though I spent a good couple of hours the other day re-organising it... how depressing.

Earlier in the year I helped clear and organise the White Shed at PaperArtsy HQ... anyone else think Leandra should/could come over and help clear my work room?

Lets vote - raise hands please...
Right, I'll call her..
ooh, hold on... what's that you're saying at the back?
You'd rather she spent her time bottling paints and pressing rubber than clearing up someone elses mess?
oh, OK fair point..
I'll tidy up on my own - seems right - it is my mess afterall... lol

I'll be round for a snoop later on...  and if you have no idea what this WOYWW is all about go HERE and all will become clear..

And now for something much prettier than my desk:

Here's a decoration I made using a whole lot of Tim H's stuff (not something I normally do).  A vintage cabinet card turned upside down makes a great penant and the circular part cries out to have a rosette mounted onto it.  Then there' a Hero Art stamp, distress inks, Adage tickets, ball chain, and memo pins (they're trickly little beggars aren't they! lol)

I have something else christmassy to show you tomorrow...

Please 'follow' the blog (over on the left-hand-side - I'll be a happy little blogger if I can get up to (or over!) 100 followers by 2012... in fact I'll be so happy I'll have a little blog-give-away in celebration!

Its beginning to look a bit like Christmas!!

On the first Saturday of each month The Craft Barn has in-shop demonstrations and this month I was providing one of them... I had a lovely day, lots of lovely peeps came and watched the demos - bought the products I was demo'ing which was great - but in the afternoon it meant that it was as much an improvisation as a demonstration! lol
Here are some sneak peeks of my samples - a few of the originals will go to the shop...

Lots of techniques & products on these - Rosettes - created with Tim Holtz die (I think I've mentioned before how much I like these! lol); Distress Inks (antique linen, frayed burlap, weathered wood, black soot); dry embossing - with Sizzix folders - these give a really good deep impression; die cutting - Spellbinders - great flourishes (love); and wet embossing - covering the die cuts making them look like metal - this effect was achieved using Stampedous 'Fran-tage' embossing enamels in 'aged silver' and aged black (which is a really lovely colour.. we're talking reeeeeeally nice! (& so is the 'aged silver' judging by how fast it sold out!)

Thanks to everyone who watched the demos, I hope you were inspired.  Demo's wouldn't be the same without you!

xx

So many rosettes, so little time....

Love how this tag turned out - I used Tim Holtz stamps, Nestabililies dies, and the 'cafe' set of Perfect Pearls powders - the Cappucino colour is LUSH- a deep brown.

Last year I made a group of cards (of which these are some - I'd show you more but I can't find the photo's on the pc, grrrr):

and as usual punched out extra pieces which I've now used on these:

(I don't think they're nearly girlie enough - really should try harder.. lol)

(maybe I could make them a bit goth by using Basic Grey's Scarlet's Letter paper - all red black and grey... - embrace my inner goth!! lol)(cut the wings to look sharper and they'll start to look like bats instead of butterflies.. mwahahhaaaa (that's my evil laugh in case you were wondering!)
(no butterflies were harmed in the making of these tags & embellishments)

Take care

A Rosette tutorial...

There areother tutorials out there on the www (Tim Holtz has one on his site - bit tricky to find but maybe that's because I was looking on the ipad (!!) lol) but I had a few questions /comments about the rosettes after my previous post (as they can be tricky little devils, getting them to lay flat etc etc) & I thought I'd just share with you how I do them - other people may do it differently but this is how I make them....
I hope you find it helpful.

Die cut the rosettes - I've used the original die and the second die with smaller rosettes. (btw when I'm die cutting them I put a bit of sticky tape at either end of the paper to hold in place on the die - stops it wandering/slipping).

I don't use the seals from the dies - I punch out circles seperately (from standard card (Papermania 12x12 packs)) that measure 1" (for the smallest rosette) and 1.5" (for the largest and middle rosette).  These will form the base of the rosettes and give them stability.

Run a line of sticky tape along the wrong side of the rosette - it protects the perforation - prevents them from tearing/splitting.

Fold the rosette & press it firmly between fingers - it helps to keep the folds tight.

Attach slim (5mm) double sided tape to the first panel of the rosette strip, cut to size, remove backing and lay the  last panel of the strip over the top (I prefer to use double sided tape rather than glue - quicker drying time)

Work on a piece of acetate (or a craft non-stick sheet) for the next few stages - working on a slippy surface makes it much easier to push the rosettes down into their final shapes (less resistance).

Use a hot glue gun to attach the base to the rosette.  Run it around as shown - don't put the glue in the centre - you don't want it coming up through the hole in the centre & you might want to add brads through there and they'll be difficult to put through glue.  Also because its liquid it allows time to wiggle the folds into place, get them evened out.

 Position the rosette ring over the base.

Gently push down into position.

Just in case that's as clear as mud here's a little video of the last stage!! 
(I thought it might help to show how I position my fingers on the rosette to get an even spacing of the folds)

I hope you find my little (& first blog) tutorial helpful - if you have any questions please leave them in the comments & I'll get back to you.

Bev asked what background paper is it that I use in photos - its vintage book pages glued to an A2 sheet of card (& Bev, you know how I like vintage book pages! lol)

Happy rosette creating.  I warn you- it can be addictive! 
I'd love to see what you're doing with the rosettes you make- so please leave a link - or follow the blog.

Attacking the Stash!!...part 2!!

Oh yes - the stash busting continues...
Mainly by creating rosettes using the Tim Holtz dies {love}.  I showed a picture of my desk on Wednesday of the rosettes in progress and people asked what I was doing with them. 
I think making these might get a bit obsessive - 50 and counting - I'm just making the basic rosette (different sizes), putting them in a box and saving them for later... its all in the planning lol (its a sitting in front of the TV sort of job)

Here's batch 1... I started laying them out to look at them and think about what I was going do with them - it became a great way to see how different colour combo's worked together:

Waaaaaaaay back in June 2007 I posted this picture...

..showing how I'd cut a strip of all my sheets of 12x12 so I could flip through and see what I had instead of going through the stash.. seemed like a good idea at the time... but did I do that? ...did I heck! ...no it just hung on the wall looking pretty (at the studio)... so as part of the big studio-clear-out and the reduce, reuse, recycle plan I've use those to make these:

(OK these don't even dent the pile of paper strips but a)the others are going to be used for punching borders & b) you've got to start somewhere! lol)

 

OK, I think thats quite enough rosettes for one day - but I'll just show you a few pics of what I've done with them so far:

Also I colour the mountain folds of the rosettes to disguise the white core of the card/paper thats revealed when folded - love how that looks

(I'm also thinking that rubbing over it with versamark ink and then brushing with Perfect Pearls would look v pretty.. but thats for another time....)

A little compare and contrast for you: left rosette plain... right rosette with colouring of the mountain folds - nice isn't it! (and gives you another colour to match with background papers and images..

There's more on the desk with all the elements laid out but not stuck down - they're for another day.