Lucky Stars

WOW, WOW, WOW - I am SOOO happy!!

I think it must be my lucky week!!!! I have won stamps in both of the competitions I entered, I can't believe it! I have won one of Tracy Easson's beautiful, beautiful Wonky Tonk stamps and now have just found out that I've also won a Zini stamp (one of Elena Zinski's stamp set with Paperartsy). I've been excitedly waiting for my Wonky Tonk stamp to arrive with the postman today but I think it must take longer than I think to travel down from Scotland - lol!

Well, I am definitely attaching my lucky streak to this art journal page - because I love it so much!!

This is all down to my wonderful Gelli Plate - I just love using it and am really pleased I took the plunge to buy it. I started by basically throwing all the blue paint I had onto the double spread, that's probably about 5/6 different shades and makes, plus some orange, cream and gold. 

I was beginning to hate it and thought about giving up at this stage. But then looked through my notebook that I use to gelli print in and found the perfect page, tore it into 3 strips and added two along the centre and stamped and embossed stars onto the third. Some text stamps and stars made from texture paste, plus a quote and I very happy with the result.

The background has a sheen on it, where I had mixed some Paperartsy Metallic Glaze in with some blue paint - ooh pretty!

Challenges entered : 

countryviewchallenges.november-2016-stars

craftstamper.take-it-make-it-challenge-november

paperartsy-typographyfonts-and-quotes

Thank you for visiting, Rachel

Violet

Yeah!!! Finally, after a few weeks I have worked out why the quality of my photos on my blog have deteriorated. I have been sending my photos in a small file, so the quality was being compromised.
I would consider myself with very, very basic computer skills, that have improved since I've started up my blog....yeah, go me!! It is a big learning curve and thankfully my husband (ok, I had to confess it was him that solved my problem....yeah, go hubbie) has helped me, SOOO frustrating when you are happy with a piece of art and then posting a picture results in a fuzzy image!! When I get a chance I will re-edit some of my old pictures from past posts, so they are nice and clear.
I have to admit that I still don't know what lots of the settings on the right hand side of the blog page mean, you know the ones under the heading 'Post settings', ie labels, permalink etc - it's a slow journey in the world of computer learning for me - I am leaning more and more on my kids for help, lol!

Anyway, back to the art, this week over at the Craft Barn it is V for their alphabet challenge. I have chosen Violet and thrown a few different shades of violet at it. I started by getting out all my violet shades of paint and working out which ones worked well together.
The main pinky/violet Gelli print background is Violet by Dina Wakeley and the flowers and border are Violet by Graduate. Still really happy with my Gelli plate, I use it alot. The flowers are Jofy stencils.

Funny because the colours that I have chosen are real Halloween colours, completely by accident! I never make any Halloween art as I have no Halloweeny stamps or stencils!

Challenges entered:

thecraftbarn-alphadictionary-V

craftstamper-challenge-october

pennyblackatallsorts-challenge-autumn

Thanks for visiting, Rachel

Owls in an Oak Tree

Wow, I've just bought myself a Gelli Plate with a voucher I was given for my birthday way back. I had 'ummed and 'arred over whether to spend my precious voucher on one as I've heard mixed things about them - mainly from people saying they were fun to use but then didn't know what to use the prints for.
Well, I must say the surprise element you get every time you peel the paper away can be a squealy moment, no 2 prints are the same and the options of what strange household object to use next to get a different print are endless.
With this in mind, I decided to get my browns and orange paints out and create a few prints to use for a branch for my O picture for the Craft Barn Alphabet challenge. After my positive paper piecing picture called Colour a few weeks back, I thought that I would try the same process to stick my Gelli print pieces down.
Love this process! Tear and stick!
The owls are from one of the first stamp sets that I ever bought, but unfortunately I haven't kept the packaging so don't know who made them and the leaves are of course from Jofy 12 Paperartsy set.

Challenges entered:

thecraftbarn/alphadictionary-challenge - O

stampotiquedesignerschallenge-september-challenge

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

simonsaysstampblog.mondaychallenge

Thanks for visiting,
Rachel x