Bookmark

When are posts like buses?

When you blog two in two days after a silence of 4 months!

Quite got into making a few bookmarks - it seems a nice slow way back into crafting after a long time away. Enough space to play around with but not too big - also if it all goes wrong, it's ok to chuck.

Happy with this one though - love the colour scheme - red and gold. I've embossed red, glittery splatters around the outside and the little round antennaes in a gold embossing powder. Just love this little zini monster from Paperartsy, such lovely stamps. 

Tried out my crackle glaze, not adept with it yet and each time I do use it, I decide that maybe I need to lay a thicker layer on!

Anyway, I have decided to enter this little munchkin into the Paperartsy challenge as well, the photo doesn't actually show just how much the bookmark glitters in the sun.

Challenges entered:

paperartsy.topic-14-glitter

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Stay Curious

Wow, can't believe that I haven't posted anything since May! 

Life and the garden seems to take over during the summer months and the time flies by.

Whilst I am still looking through various art blogs during lunch breaks and over cups of tea, I don't seem to find time to actually make much art!

Anyway, I did manage to add to my small handmade journal and created this page with glittery outlines on the circles - I was quite pleased with my first dabble into creating 'shadow'.

I've entered my piece on the Paperartsy challenge, which is 'glitter' - there is always so much inspiration on their blog, it's really worth a visit.

Challenges entered:

 paperartsy.topic-glitter

Thanks for visiting,
Rachel

I love ART

I thought I would try and create something for the challenge over at That's Crafty- it involves the art having a predominantly black theme. I have seen this idea copied a lot on blogs - firstly, create a bright picture with lots of interest, then covering most of it up - seems a bit strange, especially when you like the background that you are covering up!
I used a sun-ray stencil that I had made myself.

Challenges entered:

thatscraftychallenges/back-to-black-challenge

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Creativity is Magic

So, after not creating anything for a while, I've managed to have some arty fun twice in a week - all because it rained, forcing me out of the garden again!
This picture was inspired by Nika Rouss over at the Donna Downey website - I love her style of painting, incredibly she seems to use only her fingers and a baby wipe for so many of her paintings and I love her painting style.
Anyway, I used a Jofy flower stamp and am actually really happy with my picture!

Challenges entered:

rubberdance.may.rule of three

theartisticstamper-floral-fantasy

countryviewchallenges-flower-power

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Sunflowers in Spring

 This page started as a mop up page. I had too much pink paint on my craft mat and so decided to use it up through the circle stencil as a border. Well I loved it...and promptly forgot about it!
Over on the Rubber Dance blog they are holding a challenge to use 3 colours - pink, red and orange - I haven't managed to create any art for a long time - the garden is just too much of a temptation for me at the mo - well, the colours seemed to fit for a sunflower theme....even though it's still spring.... and that border was just so perfect.

Challenge entered:

rubberdance.may-colour-challenge

countryviewchallenges/may-flower-power

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

I Can't Stand The Rain

Just finished this in time for tomorrow's deadline - entering her into the Craft Barn's song challenge. As you can see this time the song is I Can't Stand The Rain.

The rain drops have a shine to them which I haven't managed to pick up in the photo. Still keeping with my own challenge of creating a face each time - my nemesis is always the nose, they are just so difficult to draw, sometimes on a rare moment I am happy but not this time! Never mind, always focus on the positive and I like the flower and the eyelids have a glow to them with the treasure gold. Actually my favourite part is the chin and neck area, I like how I shaded it.

Challenges entered:

thecraftbarnblog/song-title-challenge

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Daisy bookmark

Seemed to go a bit crazy with this blue and yellow theme this past fortnight but this bookmark started off as a practise piece - I was testing out different mediums over embossed work to see if the embossing was clearly visible when you added ink and different paint over it.

This piece has white embossed circles from the same Ellen Vargo stamp I used in the previous blog, with a blue distress ink over the top and seemed to work the best.

Added a text stamp in purple and another Ellen Vargo pointy 'squished' oval stamp also. Then I painstakingly painted and cut out lots of daisies - 'Lesley's Flowers' from The Artistic Stamper and glued them on for that added pop. I added treasure gold around the outside but that's not too visible in this photo.

Challenges entered:

theartisticstamper-april-backgrounds

paperartsy.blue-and-ochre-challenge

thatscraftychallenges.foliage-and-flowers-challange

Thanks for visiting,
Rachel

Hot Chocolate Box 2

....and so I have decorated another of my daughter's mini hot chocolate boxes that she received for Christmas. I love these little boxes, such a cute size, they are made from great quality card and so are a delight to paint and work on.

I decorated my first box in pinks and oranges and added stamped little piggies here.

 Well, for this box, I started with some hand-drawn flowers on dictionary paper and neo-color crayoned them - I've made a few of these flowers recently and found the idea on Anna Friesen's blog called Artful Stories here. I didn't exactly copy her idea but tweeked it a bit - anyway love these flowers.

Then the boxes were first gessoed - painted with turquoise and white Paperartsy paints - and finally white embossed and stamped with a brown ink using the fabulous Ellen Vargo EEV02 shape stamps.
Then everything was assembled....and voila! Pretty pleased with the result.

Challenges entered:

paperartsy-blue-and-ochre-challenge

thatscraftychallenges-foliage-and-flowers

rubberdance.april-colour-challenge

theartisticstamper-april-backgrounds

Thanks for visiting,
Rachel

Blue and ochre

Over at the Paperartsy blog, they have a colour challenge going on - I guess it's no surprise now which 2 colours they have chosen.....yes, blue and ochre!

I thought that it would be fun to use my new Donna Downey stencil to create the flowers.The brick work was initially embossed using a Jofy 38 stamp set, then I painted over them with a brown and inbetween with an ochre neo-color crayon.
Joy of course because flowers are joyful!

Challenges entered:

paperartsy-blue-and-ochre-challenge

thatscraftychallenges/foliage-and-flowers-challange

rubberdance

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Blowin' in the Wind

Haven't blogged for a while, as it is major garden time, lots of weeding and sowing seeds - it has to be one of my favourite times of the year with the blooming of daffodils and snowdrops and the promise of warmer weather. I do find that if the weather is fine then I'm out in the garden and so any craft time is very limited!

I did however manage to find time to create a picture for the the Song Title Challenge over at the Craft Barn. This month it is Blowin' in the Wind as you can see below. 

I am trying to draw a face for each picture, don't always like the faces but it's good practise. This woman was supposed to be blowing and my daughter pointed out that maybe the lips should have been parted a little... she may have a point!

Anyway, on the whole I'm happy with my picture and the Jofy 'dandelion' seedheads.

Challenges entered:

thecraftbarnblog.song-title-challenge

craftstamper.blogspot.take-it-make-it-challenge-march

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Daisies

This is another picture in my gelli plate journal - every picture starts off as a gelli print!

I drew the large daisies onto dictionary paper and stamped the other flowers onto various thick patterned card and cut them out.

The Jofy words were embossed onto some more gelli prints - sure do use the prints up!

Challenges entered:

craftstamper.blogspot-challenge-march

theartisticstamper-march-challenge-springtime

rubberdance-colour-challenge.blue/yellow/pink

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Infusions

Over at the Craft Barn blog they are holding a competition for a chance to win the 12 new colours of Paperartsy Infusions, please follow the link below to enter.....

thecraftbarnblog.blogspot

Thanks Rachel

Monster hugs

Just a quick card that actually took me under 30 minutes to finish, so I thought I would enter it into the Country View Challenge this month, which is create something in under 30 minutes!

A little birthday card for my brother, it actually looks a bit girly in the picture but those pink parts were actually more of a purple paint. The wording was embossed with a sparkly black powder - still needing to practise my embossing skills as sometimes I accidentally find some embossing powder has escaped over the page and then once I have gone in with the dryer, well.. it's just too late then! Not too sure what everyone does to combat that? 

Challenges entered:

countryviewchallenges-february-time-challenge-30-minutes

thatscraftychallenges/just-words-challenge

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Somebody to love

This is my 2nd picture for the song challenge over at the Craft Barn blog - the idea is to create art incorporating a song title and singer/band, highlighted every 3 weeks (I think) on the blog.

As I have planned to use this challenge to practise drawing people I thought I would use my one and only new die as the focus of the girls love - a pretty bird!

I started off using a piece of card that had brayer 'wipeoff' (not sure that the computer has ever heard those technical terms before, there are a lot of red lines under the words lol) from a gelli-print session - these pieces of colourful card full of interest are proving very valuable, a pre-made background!

I hand-drew the girl and enjoyed painting her with a mixture of paint and Neo-color crayons - her top was cut out of scrap paper and the bird has been coloured blue and embossed with white. I thought it needed some stamping in the background, so I added some purple arrows and butterflies in a colour that wouldn't be too prominent.

...clever thinking to lay the birdie down OVER the hand, hence hiding my failure to draw a decent hand! 

Challenges entered:

thecraftbarnblog.song-title-challenge

rubberdance.february-theme-challenge-layers

craftstamper-take-it-make-it-challenge-february

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

February hearts

I've created another page in my handmade journal, it's only a couple of pages per month and is always started off with gelli prints and then added to.

On this page over the gelli printing, I spread texture paste through a heart stencil and then added red, pink and purple paint - I added scribbles in a block down through the hearts with a white Posca pen, I got the idea from Jo Firth-Young and I like it. Added some stamped circles in white paint, stencilled February words and ta-da!

Challenges entered:

thatscraftychallenges/i-heart-you-challenge

rubberdance.blogspot/february-theme-layers

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Flower mask

Well I really enjoyed making this journal page and it finished as something very different from my first 'vision'.

I started on a double spread that I had already made a background for previously and just left, you can see pieces of it with pale pink and blue circles. I thought that I would use my flower mask - so I placed it down and sponged some grey and silver paint through the slits, then overstamped with a circular scribble stamp I have from Visible Image.

I built up various shades of green around the petals (they look more blue now in the picture though). I added a sparkly pink shimmer to the petals, although it doesn't show! I hand scribbled a border and added a little quote 'do what you love'.

Challenges entered:

blog.paperartsy.masks-challenge

rubberdance.grey-pink-green

craftstamper.blogspot.february

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Valentines

So I have made a Valentine's card - I stencilled using a gold paint through a flower stencil onto a red background, stamped using some background script stamps and created a texture paste heart in the middle. I have just received this beautiful script stamp as an early birthday present and decided to use it for the message, I think I will be using it alot!

Challenges entered:

craftstamper.blogspot-take-it-make-it-challenge-february

theartisticstampercreativeteam.februarys-creative-challenge-love-hearts

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Pink/orange piggies

So, I've been viewing lots of altered boxes on various people's blogs and one of my favourite things is recycling! My daughter received a set of little cardboard boxes with different flavours of hot chocolate inside, these boxes are such a cute little size - only 7cm tall and 5 cm wide, very dinky, soooo........

Here is a before and after or actually the way I have positioned the boxes, an after and before! I wanted to have a focal image that was repeated on each of the 4 sides and decided on little 'Cookie', as we have named her in our house, she is a Paperartsy Zini stamp that I won in a challenge! I have embossed her in a black/silver sparkly WOW embossing powder, so each panel has a sparkle to it.

 I actually really love it - isn't it great when you get a pure happy feeling from a creation, doesn't always happen! I'm hoping to purchase a few more ElenaZinski's little monster stamps and maybe alter a few more boxes, I think there are 6 in the hot chocolate set.

Challenges entered:

paperartsy.topic-pink-and-orange-challenge

theartisticstamper/january-anythinggoeschallenge

countryviewchallenges/january-anything-goes

simonsaysstampblog.wednesdaychallenge-anything-goes

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Pink/orange journal page

I love bright colours and over at the Paperartsy blog, they have a pink/orange challenge. So out comes my Dylusions journal and my trusty Gelli-plate.

I embossed the rectangle background shapes with white powder and painted over the whole of the background with my Dina Wakley pink acrylic paint. After gelli printing a page with orange paint, I added the same Paperartsy rectangle background stamp over this but with a black archival inkpad.

The flowers were just hand-drawn over a brayed orange and pink piece of card found in my stash. 

I like the black 'ribbons' around the flowers, these are quite sparkly, created by laying down black paint on card and painting a layer of Paperartsy Metallic Glaze - I love this stuff as it's a quick way of adding sparkle to anything.

Challenges entered:

blog.paperartsy.pink-and-orange-challenge

countryviewchallenges.january-2017-anything-goes

theartisticstamper-january-anything goes

simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

LET IT SNOW

It's funny how when you upload a picture onto your blog, you can have varying results. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised that it actually looks better on my blog than in real life and sometimes the opposite! While I was very pleased with my picture Let it snow (created mainly for the song challenge over at the Craft Barn, now I have uploaded it onto my blog, all I notice is the doodled 'beard'!! I doodled around the whole of the girl and I like the look of it but not when it makes her look 'gruff'!! Hehe, well never mind, one to learn by.

I was especially pleased because this picture started off as a humble gelli-print - lots of blues, white, red and pink - you can see the circle stencil under her scarf and all the white lines created by placing cardboard on my gelli plate first before I took a print.
Anyway, I do like her teddy bear/sea-lion winters hat with the white embossed bobbles.
The snowflakes are also embossed and shiny from the Visible Image snowflake stamp set.
....and Dean Martin's name has been added as one of the singers of the song at the bottom - this is an added rule of the comp.

Challenges entered:

thecraftbarnblog-the-song-challenge

rubberdance.blogspot-january

theartisticstamper-january

countryviewchallenges.january-2017-anything-goes

craftstamper.blogspot-january.html

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Silver and gold journal page

I love my gelli-plate....so much! Just had to say......

So, after spending a happy hour creating lots more pages of gelli prints, I had a quiet word with myself. Whilst I do love creating and then, sitting and admiring all the prints and then usually using a fair few of them. I did think, what I really need to do is have a gelliprint background in my journal. Wouldn't that be so nice, to turn over a new page in my dylusions journal and find some colour already there, instead of a blank page!

Well, that got me thinking...I found some good quality thick paper, torn out from my daughter's unfinished art book from last year (oops, naughty mummy, well at least I'm saving those blank pages!) - I thought, what if I make my own journal, with a few pages dedicated for arty stuff each month - not too onerous, plus I can pre gelli print them (love that) and then sometimes take inspiration from some challenge themes. It's enough to keep me busy but not too much!

I will have the year to find out how to bind them - now that will be challenge!

Anyway, this is a page out of my new journal - love that it is still only a piece of paper, it's so much easier working on one sheet of paper instead of in a book I find!

So this is tying in a gold and silver theme they have going on over at the That's Crafty blog, plus it's still only January and 'the possibilities' of creating anything this year 'are endless'!!

I doodled the quote and painted inside the letters with my gold Dina Wakley Media paint, love this! Plus I love the January stencil with silver paint dabbed onto a black background turned out.

Challenges entered:

thatscraftychallenges.silver-and-gold

craftstamper.take-it-make-it-challenge-january

countryviewchallenges/january-anything-goes

stampotiquedesignerschallenge.sdc264

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

January snow

So, this year over at the Craft Barn blog they have a new challenge for the year. Each month, we will be asked to make a piece of art depicting the 12 months of the year from a special poem written by Sara Coleridge.
I originally saw this challenge, went away and after forgetting a crucial part of it, produced my Cookie in the snow post from yesterday.... as I re-read the challenge, I realised that the art needed to have a welly and a bird in it.....doh!
After giving it some thought today as to how I would go about it for the second time, I really wanted each picture to have some similar thread running through them - so I've decided to try a little watercolour, for the first time.... I guess it will involve some drawing but hopefully just basic stuff.
The picture is only 10cm by 10cm - I've also used some white WOW embossing powder for the snow and snowflakes - I think the boots look more like Ugg boots than wellies but it's the best I can draw.

I enjoyed using the watercolour - it will be nice to have the excuse to practise a bit more throughout the year.

Challenges entered:

thecraftbarnblog.twelve-month-challenge-January

thatscraftychallenges/anything-goes

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Cookie in Winter

Although it isn't snowing outside, we have had a covering from Jack Frost the last few days. I won this little Paperartsy flying monster stamp in a competition where I had to name her.....I chose Cookie, that tummy doesn't come from eating lettuce you know......
Well, even though she looks like a piggie, I like to pretend that she is my cat, who seems to have that face of 'disdain' when she too is walking through the frost!

Challenges entered:

stampotiquedesignerschallenge.01/sdc-january-

countryviewchallenges.january-anything-goes

theartisticstamper-january

thatscraftychallenges.anything-goes

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Partridge in a Pear Tree

Happy New Year to everyone in the crafting world!

I have finally finished my Alphabet Challenge Journal - every single letter of the alphabet completed (just in time) - such a lovely memory of my first year as a craft blogger in amongst a world of extremely, encouraging craft bloggers - thank you everyone that has given me words of advice and positive feedback throughout 2016.

My very last page ended up as a double spread, partly as a way to properly finish the journal but mainly because I thought that I could go a bit more crazy with the size of the tree! The 5 glittery pears are just hand drawn and cut out of sparkly paper and seeing as I didn't have a partridge stamp... I just had to do my best at drawing something from the internet. Lots of fun with practising shading the tree using paints, luckily I made lots of stamped Jofy leaves to hide some spots.

I would love to make a montage of all the pictures that are included in my journal, but this is beyond my computer skills at the moment! Maybe I will come back and do that at some point in the year.

Challenges entered:
thecraftbarnblog.alphadictionary-challenge P

countryviewchallenges/january-anything-goes

thatscraftychallenges.anything-goes

stampotiquedesignerschallenge/sdc263-christmas

Thanks for visiting, Rachel