Glitter for little girls!

I made this for one of my colleagues at work, well, more specifically for her little girl.  We were talking about how girls do gravitate to pink after a while, and I felt the need to do something in pink!

So here is the door hanger I made for Rosie.

Back (or front?)





















Front (or back)?

The background colours are mainly Distress Inks, and I used a stencil or two. 












I stamped and embossed the fairies and the word, and distressed the edges.  I added the foam letters, and then over painted with some lovely Galactica paint.  Have I mentioned I love this paint?  So much, I had to buy some other colours...  mmmmm.














On the other side of the hanger, I added loads and loads of flowers, which I had sprayed with cosmic shimmers, and some diamanté sparkles.  And another coat of the Galactica. Just in case there wasn't enough glittery stuff on it...

Hope you like, and more to the point, I hope Rosie likes...





Resources

Substrate: Stamps Away: Door hanger
IndigoBlu: Perfect Stamping card

Paint and Ink:
Distress Ink: Victorian Velvet, Worn Lipstick, Iced Spruce
Archival: Jet black
Stewart Gill: Galactica: Flamenco

Stamps and Masks
Lavinia: Fairies and words
Tim Holtz: stars
Dylusions: leaf flourish

Bling and other stuff
Stewart Gill Embossing power: Interference Red
Cosmic Shimmers: Pearl mist
Perfect Pearls spray: Interference Red
Prima Flowers: Essentials no 9
Stampin' Up: stick on gems
Papermania: Alphaminis

Believe!

I have been playing with the lovely Galactica paint from Stewart Gill, which is me to a T!  Bright, shiny and VERY VERY sparkly!  It seems to be the perfect match for anything faerie, and so...

I started with a frame from a well known Swedish furniture store.  The glass in the frame is way too green, so that has been put to one side for another day.  The frame was sanded, and a piece of mountboard cut to the size of the card insert - that was never going to be sturdy enough for what I wanted.





I painted up the mountboard using the technique taught by Kate Crane at her Junk Journal workshop (ooh such fun!).  This means you use a couple of colours and white to create a background.  The white tones the colours down, and then you can go in full on with the same colours, to get tone on tone.  Of course, not blingy enough, so when dry it got a coat of Alchemy (a lovely sheen) followed by the Galactica (which really isn't coming out on the photo below.  It real life, however, it's where I wanted it to be!

I didn't want to stamp direct on to it, so I dug out some acetate, and stamped my Believe and my faeries.  So far, so good.  Wait for stazon to dry...  Then a touch more glitter with a gelly roll pen - I love this colour (or non colour, really).  Think snail trail, shimmer but no real colour.  Mmmmm.








Wait for stazon to dry...

I mounted the acetate up using shaker tape, so that a) the glitter would show through, and b) there would be a shadow cast on the mountboard background by the stamps above.

The frame... couldn't leave it plain!  So a thin coat of Galactica again, and repeat stamped a tiny star stamp in stazon again.  Wait for stazon to dry...!


Hope you like!


Resources:

Substrate
Frame and mountboard, Acetate

Paint and ink
PaperArtsy: Pea Coat, Haystack
Stewart Gill Galactica: Holo silver
Stewart Gill Alchemy: Seaspray
Stazon: Midnight Blue

Stamps
Lavinia: Faeries, Believe, and tiny stars

Bling and other stuff
Gelly roll pen

Y is for... Craft Barn Challenge

Well!  This week's Craft Barn Challenge is Y.  I think I have the best dictionary in the world!  Mum's trusty Collins Concise came up with Y is for Yggdrasil and Yarn.  I had forgotten my Norse myths and legends, and then this!  Which meant Yarn was going to make me think of all the fairy tales my Dad used to tell me when I was a kid.

I opted for Journalling on this piece - I'm not really comfortable with journalling, that is, WRITING, as I like stamping really, but hey ho, that's what this challenge is all about.



So, usual size and base cards, to match the rest of my book.  This time though I created the flap, so I would have more space to write inside, and keep the tree on the outside.

The tree is stamped on a brayered base.  The tree and the leaves are Lavinia stamps.  I touched the tree bark up with some gold watercolour paint - that's just shimmery yellow, isn't it?!

On the inside, I used a lovely stencil which is letters (you need letters to make words, so you can spin a yarn...).  Having stencilled through with a pale yellow ink, I rotated the stencil 90 degrees, and sprayed dylusions through it - and some gold shimmer of course!

Then I used a perspex journalling thingy to create my wavy lines.  My first fairy tale is The Miller's Daughter who could spin pure straw into gold.  Below is The Tinderbox (the dog with eyes as big as saucers), and Red Riding Hood (what big eyes you have).

On the inner flap, we have Goldilocks (Who's been sleeping in my bed?), and 'Beware the men who are hairy on the inside' is from The Company Of Wolves - great film, that line has always stuck with me!.

All the writing was done with Sharpies - don't they smell!?

As usual, I created a tag to hold the dictionary definitions, and used some real yarn (I must get round to finishing that cardy off!!) instead of ribbon.

Hope you like!

Resources

Paint and Ink
Versafine:Spanish Moss, Majestic Blue, Imperial Purple
Distress: Gathered Twigs
Adirondack: Denim, Sunshine Yellow, Caramel, Oregano
Stampin' Up: So Saffron
Dylusions: Pure Sunshine
Cosmic Shimmer Watercolour: Rich Gold

Stamps
Lavinia: Tree stump, Vine leaves

Bling and other stuff
ArtistCellar 6x6 Stencil: Romans
Wool from stash
Sharpies - various colours
Wooden lette from shash

Paper Sun - Hels' Sunday Stamper Challenge

Hels' Challenge this week inspired me (last week's is on the shelf not looking happy at all...) - not only do I love Steve Winwood, the tutorial on Paper Blocking spoke to me, too.  I've not been great at keeping my offcuts, but I will now!!

So, Paper Sun - the Sun is the only bit that ISN'T paper, but this is what we have...

I started with one of the Stamps Away Medium tags, which are pretty solid, and don't seem to mind not being sealed before starting off.  I covered the tag with bits of paper cut from a few 6X6 sheets. 


When covered, I mixed Americana paints and brushed a wash over the lot.  With hindsight, the wash could have been a bit thinner, but hey-ho!  Then I sealed it, and created the shadows around the central blocks.  Hels suggests her magic pencil - couldn't find my pencil sharpener, so adapted, and used a black watercolour pencil, and I'm pleased with this, which means if I want to go away from black as a shadow, I can!  Whooppee!

Then I created a mask for the sun, and scraped a dollop of stencil paste into the hole, leaving it pretty textured.  When it got a bit of a skin, I dripped a little Dylusions on to the paste, to give it a sunshine colour. I also used my watercolour pencil to create a bit of a corona around the sun.  I have  afeeling that it will be a lot more transparent tomorrow, when it is fully dry.  But you can see that the blocking underneath is already visible.

Then Stamping!  All stamps on this are from Lavinia, which I have been ignoring recently, and I'm not sure why!  Believe was stamped on a piece of card and embossed with some glittery embossing powder, then the card ripped and edged with embossing ink, and the same powder added and heated.  I swooshed the card through some spritzed Distress ink, when it had cooled a little, and set it aside to dry.  Then it got set on foam pads to give some dimension, as well as taking it off the page.




The ribbons were coloured in the same way (with the addition of some Cosmic Shimmer mica spray - otherwise where would the bling be???!), and I used the same DI to edge around the tag, after I'd done all my stamping, just to give it some definition.

As a first attempt at paper blocking, I'm quite pleased.  I guess my learnings are (spot the tutor!!):

• don't cut the paper too regularly - my widths were all a bit samey
• think about the stamp and its placement - not easy to stamp if you have several layers (might be easier with a rockablock, maybe?)
• Use more varieties of paper
• Put the spatula in water, when you've finished (doh!!)

Materials

Substrate
Stamps Away - medium tag

Odds of paper
Lavinia stamps - there aren't any names on them, but: Unicorn, Allium, Foxglove, Vine, and Beleive

Inks and Paints
DecoArt Americana - Indian Turquoise, Light Buttermilk
Dylusions - Pure Sunshine
Archival Ink - Cobalt
Adirondack - Eggplant, Denim, Purple Twilight
Distress Ink - Salty Ocean, Tumbled Glass, Chipped Sapphire

Bling and other stuff
Dreamweaver - Embossing paste Translucent
Glue n'Seal
Cosmic Shimmer - Vintage Mist Astral Mystery
Faber-Castell - colour grip watercolour pencils
Stampendous - Stamp-n-stuff embossing powder - Golden Ocean (blue powder with gold glitter, oooo lovely!)

C is for...Craft Barn Catch up!

No, well, yes, it is, but really it is for Constellation, Cassiopeia, and Children!   As mentioned, I have an aim to catch up on the Craft Barn challenges I missed, just so that my binder will be complete.  This is C - so 4 more to do!

This is a piece of pearlescent card, spritzed with water, then mica powders/pigments layered on to look like a night sky.  When dry, I used a Sakura pen to draw in my three favourite constellations (Cassiopeia, the Pleiades and Orion - probably not seen in this conjuction, ever!).

I then stamped a Lavinia vine stamp in Versafine around the edge, and a Claritystamp across the bottom, also in Versafine.  I lined around the edge in a permanent black felt pen, and mounted it onto some gunmetal sticky mirri, then onto the page.

The tag (there's always a tag!!) has the three definitions on it, and the C is coloured in Cerulean Blue (well, not really, but it was another blue, and I love the word Cerulean!!).

I'm sorry you can't see how amazingly shimmery this is, but on this final tag you can just about make out Cassiopeia - just across from my thumb!



Materials
Stamps:
Clarity - Dancing Children
Lavinia - Vine

Ink:
Versafine - Olive Green, Imperial Purple, Majestic Purple

Bling and Glitz
Cosmic Shimmer - Watercolour and mica powder
Luminart - Primary Elements
Sakura pen - shimmery gold