AVJ - Monochromatic and ombre mixed media

Welcome to another first Friday in the month and now it's July we can truly say half the year has gone and we are now swapping our longer days for longer nights. But the crafting doesn't stop and we have a fabulous challenge at A Vintage Journey where the very talented Tracy is our host and she is looking for monochromatic projects this month. She says - 

'I love monochromatic themes in artwork; I love the balanced look it gives to a design. If you ever struggle with knowing what colours to use this should be right up your street, one colour alone or hues of one colour (plus black and/or white) - simple! Please just check that your entry is vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial or steampunk to be in with a chance of being a winner or Pinworthy mention.'

I have made a canvas board piece with a mixed media background and ombre effect in my monochromatic and neutral colour scheme and loved playing with the layers of paints to create the effects.

Process steps

1. Take a small media board stamp numbers and text in black archival ink then spread modeling paste across it and add in some gel beads and fragments. Take a piece of card, place over the inclusions and press them gently into the paste.

2. Adhere some torn paper.

3. With a palette knife scrape white gesso over the board leaving elements below randomly exposed.

4. Take raw umber, titan buff and titanium white media acrylics and a babywipe and paint thin layers of the paints ombre style - ie light to dark.

5. Using the left over paints dip the canvas in the colours one by one, allow them to move around on the surface and dry each layer in turn. Take a little translucent white and splatter.

6. Dip the canvas again this time in gathered twigs and walnut stain distress inks and dry. Also use a pipette and dribble walnut crystal ink across the textured band and allow it to dribble down the page, spritz a little water in place to help it move about.

7. Gather some collage elements and a lost relative photo - I cut it down to give me a good image but also maximise the space I had to work with. I painted and altered the metal bits and used chit chat stickers for my message. The hessian and string add that more rustic look.

I hope you will be inspired by this fabulous challenge theme and amazing inspirational projects from the Creative Guides. Do pop over and take a look if you have a moment and of course if you join in you could be in with a chance of winning a $25 voucher from the amazing Funkie Junkie Boutique.

This is my first post for today, I have another coming up for Country View Crafts in a few hours.

Have a fabulous weekend and a hopefully warm (hot???) month of July.

hugs Brenda xxxx

The sky is like a monochromatic contemporary painting, drawing me in its illusion of depth, pulling me up.

John Green

DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Titanium White - See more at: http://www.countryviewcrafts.c DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Titan Buff DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic - Raw Umber DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Translucent White Tim Holtz Distress ink - Gathered twigs Tim Holtz Distress ink pad - Walnut stain Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Found Relatives Tim Holtz Ideology Small Talk Sticker Book Tim Holtz - Idea-ology - Arrows Tim Holtz Idea-ology - Trinket pins

InLinkz.com

FSC - Monochrome plus one

Hi Everyone

This is my DT card for the Fashionable Stamping Challenge which today is to use monochrome plus one.

As you can see I have chosen to use the sepia tones and my additional colour is black.

FSC challenges are for stampers only, sorry no digis allowed, and on this card I have used DPs, but also stamped with Fresco Finish acrylic paint - vintage lace on dark brown card using a Darkroom Door background stamp and also I used French Correspondence by B Line Designs using vintage photo on cream paper.

 I added a touch of gold foiling round the edge of the DP, lots of distressed edges using my fabulous zutter distresser, more vintage lace paint on the edges of bits, a rosette, nesties scalloped circles and cricket flourishes finished with punched flowers and gems. I liked the masculine/feminine appeal to this and have made it into my wedding anniversary card for Ken. But I will have to hide it until the end of July.

If you would like to enter and have a chance to win a stamp from Marina at Cottage Crafts, then pop over to the challenge blog to see the amazing Stampettes creations. They are all such talented ladies. 

I hope to see you there.

I hope your weekend is going well, enjoy the rest of Sunday and have a wonderful week ahead.

Thanks for stopping by, your visits always mean so much to me.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Monochromatic for the Stamp Man

The new challenge is live at The Stamp Man and for this fortnight Lisa has challenged us to use white and one other colour. Don't ask me how I settled on green, I have no idea, it just happened - so like me I know.

My TH stamps have come out again with DIs and a white gel pen. I also played with marbling using alcohol inks.

Supplies
Tim Holtz stamps - fairytale frenzy, slight alterations
Distress Inks - shabby shutters, peeled paint, forest moss, bundled sage
Adirondack ink pad - lettuce
Alcohol inks - lettuce, meadow, bottle, willow
Inkssentials white opaque pen
Die TH elegant flourishes
Sakura glaze pen in green
Stickles - lime green

I hope you will pop over to the Stamp Man challenge blog and take a look at the fabulous inspiration from the team and hopefully enter the challenge. Don't forget Jill kindly donates a £10.00 voucher to the winner who is chosen by the DT and if you take a look at the on-line shop there is free P&P over £20.00. Such a good deal.

Well it's the end of my first full week back at work and it is so strange being a head again after four years doing other things. It is lovely to have my own school and to have a group of staff and children that you see every day, to build relationships and get to know well. It's very different to my last school where there were nearly 400 hundred pupils - here there are less than 90. Let's see how it goes next week.

Take care and have a good weekend..

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Stamp Something - Anything Goes - Last challenge good luck ladies and thanks.
I Brake For Challenges - Backgrounds - I have different textures and techniques to the pieces that make up my background.
The Paper Variety - Monochromatic
Three Muses - Words
Try it on - Monochrome

Childhood Memories

Last week I went to LB Crafts with my sister, we had never been there before and we decided to go and see what they had in stock. We picked up a few bits and pieces and I spied this stamp called Ives River, but what attracted to me it is that it is the bridge going over the River Ouse at St. Ives in Cambridgeshire. Now as a child I used to live there and at that time it was in Huntingdonshire (which now no longer exists). Of course I couldn't resist it because it brought back so many childhood memories (and apart from that it was a bargain, half the normal price). So it seemed quite spooky when the theme at Simon Says Stamp and Show this week is precisely that - CHILDHOOD MEMORIES. If you live in, near or know of St. Ives please leave me a message and tell me what your contact with it is. The nearest blogging friend to there I know is Dawn, who is at St. Neots, which is where I was born. Do you recognise this Dawn?

Other challenges that have given me inspiration are - Paper Sundaes - Distressing, Stampin' Sisters in Christ - Vintage, Papertake Weekly - the sketch and Gingersnap Creations - Coffee and Cream.

I made my own collage backing paper with vintage images that I have downloaded. I stamped the image onto 300 gms watercolour paper and used DIs to paint the scene. I clear embossed the tickets from the TH Admit One set of stamps and then inked over it. I splashed water over that and heat dried it. The flowers are made from the tattered flowers die - grunge paper, inked with acrylic dabbers and over-stamped with an Invoke honeycomb stamp. The buttons are from my collection bought at Sandown last weekend.

Other challenges to have fun with

Sweet Stampin - Brown + one

Ink on my fingers - Buttons

Tuesday Throwdown -  Distressing

Crafts and Me - Monochrome

Frosted Designs - Monochrome

Another post from me this week and the second today - I have lost count. But I have work to do next week, so it will all quieten down here. Thanks for stopping by and a huge thankyou to those of you who have popped in to see me nearly everyday.


I have a great steampunk ATC coming up at the begining of next week for the new ATC swap over at the Stamp Man.

Take care, happy Friday. Luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Monochrome card

Good Monday morning everyone. Hope you had a good weekend and had a chance to do some crafting along with everything else.
I have made a card to enter the Sketchie Challenge on Craftbubble.com and have had a whale of a time. This challenge really got me thinking about what to do to be creative but I challenged myself with the monochrome as well. I think it turned out rather well and I am very pleased with it.

See the challenge sketch at  http://www.craftbubble.com/index.php?do=/public/forums/display_group_topic/id_14214/Sketchie-Challenge---13-February-2010/

The focus was to make a handmade embellishment as the central feature and stamping could be used for the backing and sentiment.
I stamped white card with a flourish stamp and used my new Stampin' Up Wonderful Words ll for the sentiment. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder for the central mount and matted it onto black and white, both have been edged with Sakura Jelly Roll pens. The ribbon across the middle was made by folding white paper and using a Martha Stewart punch which I then stuck onto black paper. I distressed the edges of the black and white spotted paper and the sentiment and then edged them with silver stickles. My central embellishment looks like a tag with another of my handmade flowers - but look what I have included here, just a little secret.

My gorgeous girls with beautiful smiles on their faces. In this photo Becca is twelve, Ella is three and Maddison is 1, taken last year on our way home from Lanzarote. It's wonderful having grand-daughters, they are such fun and an opportunity to spoil every now and then.

Here is the card with the phot tag out -

I think I will look for some other challenges to enter with this card. I hope you like it.

The card has been entered for A Handful of Stamps - open challenge

.

If you are blog hopping today you might like to check out Sarah Wright's blog - she has some free candy

which will be available for entry until the 27th february  -   http://sarahwrightdesigns.blogspot.com/