Christmas Tag Card

I made this tag card for a workshop that I taught at The Art of Craft recently.

The shop has recently got in Distress Paints and we focused on mastering the ‘Marbling’ technique. My fabulous group of lovely ladies practised using different colour combination to see what they would like to use on their tag but also to experiment with how much paint and how much water they should use. They loved getting all painty.

The stamps are Graphic 45

The 25 was cut in metal sheet from the Christmas Noel die by Tim Holtz.

A snowflake charm painted with antique linen distress paint.

And the inside covered with Christmas papers and some washi tape and rub-ons added.

The Merry Christmas was from the G45 set we used.

We added a small panel on which to write a greeting .......

..... and a punched border and Crafts-Too holly die with a computed generated sentiment finished it off.

I hope you had a great weekend. Thanks for stopping by, Have a wonderful week ahead.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Guest Designer Spot at Sugar Creek Hollow

It's fabulous to have been asked to do a guest DT contribution for Sugar Creek Hollow this week. In fact I was asked before Christmas but it was when Becca was in hospital and I just couldn't spare the time then, but my thanks to Cec and the girls for having me join them now. It really is an honour.

The theme this week is Vintage Hats, Shoes and Purses and you can choose to feature just one all all three of these items.

 As I am definitely into the Graphic 45 papers at the moment, I chose hats for my focal point and made a chipboard tag, die-cut from the Tim Holtz tag and bookplates die.

All the papers and elements are from G45 papers except the little Prima flowers. The sentiment is computer generated.

The central lady in her gorgeous hat comes out of the little pocket and can be written on the back to send someone a message or a birthday/congratulatory wish. 

I covered the back of the tag too with the G45 paper, keeping it simple but finishing the tag off nicely.

So if you're up for making something in the hat, shoes or handbag line than pop over to the Sugar Creek Hollow challenge blog and look at all the other fabulous inspiration there is for you to see.

Thanks again for having me girls.

hugs {brenda} x0x

UPA RAQ - Journal It

A hybrid scrapbook page.

Unruly PaperArt's theme this month is 'Journal It', focusing on scrapbook pages. I love scrap-booking and tend to make my own books, although saying that I haven't made any recently but I have been wanting to 'scrap' some photos of our trip to Paris back in April (you know the one Ken treated me to for my birthday).

This Moulin Rouge paper from Graphic 45 fitted the bill perfectly and has been sitting there waiting to be used for such a project. The graphics are fabulous and with so many lovely images I didn't want to cover too much of it up PLUS I needed to get the journalling in, so I have reverted to the classroom when I used to make books with my pupils and we would make lots of flaps and things to do our writing on. I just love secret places to explore on pages don't you?

Whilst in Paris I just had to find the Moulin Rouge as my final dissertation at college was on Toulouse Lautrec and of course this featured strongly in his work.

I have used PSE 7 to change my colour photos to sepia and to print some digital elements that I have added to the page. As this will go in a 12 x 12 plastic pocket it needs to be kept fairly flat and the paper is very busy anyway. The lampost I created myself from one of our Paris photos, the other bits come from DigitalCrea. I wanted a bit more of a 'girly' look to this so added the mannequin.

I also wanted the photos to have an aged and slightly distressed look so I used Antique Linen and Walnut Stain DIs on them before mounting onto brown card.

Beneath the photos you can see the little journalling mounts I have made to provide the details of the trip.

I hope you will enter some scrapbook journalling this month, it would be fabulous to see you on UPA and of course if you would like to be a guest contributor then see Shar's article here.

Crafty salutations.

hugs {brenda} xox

Gingersnap Creations Visiting Artist 4

It's a sad but happy day at Gingersnap Creations as this is the last challenge; and of course it has to be the inimitable colour theme "Copper, Rust and Ginger".

My card is made up of these colours plus a fabulous vintage picture I found of Ginger Rogers, which I thought fitted perfectly.

Have you ever painted with alcohol inks? The rose background is a foiled piece of printed cardstock from the  DCWV Natural Stack, I wanted one of the flowers to stand out more so I used copper, ginger, pearl, raisin and butterscotch alcohol inks to create that metal effect. I also used the fabulous Graphic 45 Steampunk Débutante papers.

The two pictures show the rose in different lights. The first shows the foiling and on this one you can see the alcohol ink painting.

Go take a look at all the wonderful inspiration on the Gingersnaps blog and hopefully we will see you participate too.

Hope your week is going well. I finish school on Friday and can then say I am retired. Woo that will feel strange, but I am looking forward to having more time to experiment and create again.

Take care, next week I will be able to come and catch up with you all. My huge thanks to those of you who have stayed with me, I really appreciate your love and support.

For now.

hugs {brenda} xox

Steampunk Débutante tag

Hi All

I have some of those fabulous Graphic 45 papers which I tend to 'stroke' rather than play with, but have decided they must make more of a showing and of course one of my new year resolutions is to use more of my supplies, so I am hitting that one still.

The tag was covered with some gold, flower embossed paper and I used both the Steampunk Débutante and Le Romantique Graphic 45 paper pads for the elements. 

To add to that, this includes a stamp by Andy Skinner, a couple of Memory Box dies and a flower made with a Spellbinders die. 

Oh and the little black flower on the top hat is an earing. 

The earing and the butterflies were heat embossed.

I know it doesn't look much but it's taken me a whole weekend to put this together - why do I always spend so much time, cutting, changing, re-arranging and re-designing things????

So I hope it brings a little inspiration to some-one.

 thought  would also share a couple of pics from my workshop on Saturday. These great ladies made a mini album with me ready to take home and add their photos.

Joan, Debs, Carol and Pat.

I need to take some photos of my album to show you too.

Have a great week.

hugs {brenda} xox

Finished Wedding Album at last

Is anyone going to the craft show at Sandown this weekend? I thought I might pop along, but I definitely want to go take a look at what is at Ally Pally next weekend. Let me know if you are going to either of them.

HI Everyone

Firstly welcome to Tracy as a new follower. I have been watching and following Tracy's blog for quite some time now, ever since I came across her at the Stamp Attic shop and blog. Tracy makes some amazing art which is very inspirational. Good to see you Tracy, thanks for joining me on my creative journey.

I know you have seen bits of this project in the making over the past few months, but I thought I would show you the finished Wedding Book that I gave to Jamie and Helen last week.

The book itself is a wooden ring binder and the pages have been painted with ordinary household paint and embossed in some places.

All the pages have been made using G45 le Romantique papers.

Thanks for looking.

Have a wonderful weekend.

luv and hugs {brenda}