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