Kathryn Wheel - Calendar Challenge June

Yes, late again...ah well.  This month (since I have started a new job, really) I have felt like I am chasing my tail, so I went with an Alice in Wonderland theme, mostly

'I'm late, I'm late for a very important date, no time to say 'Hello' - 'Goodbye'....'  Here are my two pages:































On Kate's last session at the Stamp Attic she made a comment along the lines of 'you don't have to start with gesso on your page, but if you don't, it's a bit like going out without your knickers.  It'll probably be OK, but you just don't know...'  So I started with gesso. In honour of flaming June, I went with a yellow and blue theme.  I dragged a hotel key card through some black paint too, just for a contrast.






When it was dry, I used a clock face mask, and a selection of Alice related stamps.

I die cut loads of pocket watches from card, and randomly stamped more of the Alice stamps on them.

Stuck them all down, and hey presto!

Hope you like

Resources

Ink and Paint

Liquitex basics: Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow, Black
Winsor & Newton: Iridescent white
Distress Ink: Squeezed lemonade, Mustard Seed, Salty Ocean, Stormy Sky, Mowed Lawn
Archival: Cobalt

Stamps
TJ Design: Wonderland Silhouettes
Deep Red: Mat Hatter Tea Party

Bling and other stuff
Pebeo Gesso
Tim Holtz Collection Layering Stencil: Clockwork
Tim Holtz Alterations Movers and Shapers: Mini Clock Key & Pocket Watch

Craft Barn Q&L - Mountain

I guess most of us have songs that bring to mind specific events.  I can remember EXACTLY where I was when I first heard The Joshua Tree - in the bath in my boyfriend's flat in Yeovil!  The perfection of Bono's voice and the soaring music made me come running into the lounge, dripping everywhere!  March 1987.  It's still one of my favourite albums, and when I saw 'Mountain' was one of the words, I knew the song I would be choosing for this Craft Barn Challenge (which I am only making by the skin of my teeth!).  I saw U2 at Wembley, in August '93, the night Salman Rushdie came on stage.  Possibly not the best gig I have ever been to, but that doesn't change how much I love The Joshua Tree.  Hearing this song took me right back to Yeovil, and that flat.

I have climbed the highest mountain,

I have run through the fields

Only to be with you

Only to be with you

 

 

So, as usual, I started with my Centura Pearl card, A3.  I created the mountains by scraping grunge paste and texture sand over a mask torn from card.  Whilst searching for those, I also found some texture glass, unopened.  Hmm....  Oh yes!  It has that distinctive ammonia smell, but once you get past that, it's lovely!  When dry it allows movement of paint nicely.  So I set that aside to dry - for about 2 hours!!  I spread it on quite thick.  This will be used through stencils more in the future, methinks.

 

 

 

 

The lyrics have been stamped onto card that has been coloured using Distress Inks, mixed with interference red Perfect Pearls spray.  Had to be bling somewhere!  Having stamped the words, I tore them out and edged each with more DI.

 

 

 

 

Paint - lots of colours, mainly PaperArtsy Fresco Finish, but with some added iridescent white, to give the mountain tops a bit of a shimmer. Plenty of dry brushing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I had assembled it, I added a frame using film edge stamps, which gives it closure - unlike my love of that song, and that album.

 

 

Hope you like!

 

Resources

 

 

Paint and Ink

PaperArtsy Fresco finish: Snowflake, Pea Coat, South Pacific, Hyde Park, Guacamole, Limelight, Mudsplat, Seaweed  (said there was a lot!!)

Winsor & Newton: Iridescent White

Distress ink: Tea Dye, Tumbled Glass, Wild Honey, Iced Spruce

Archival Ink: Jet Black, Potting Soil

Brilliance: Pearlescent Ivy

 

Stamps

KaiserCraft: Cursive Script Alphabet, Film Edges

 

Bling and Other Stuff

PaperArtsy: Grunge Paste

DecoArt: Texture Sand, Texture Glass

Perfect Pearls Mist: Interference Red

Q&L - Music - Tiny Dancer

Hi all.  Time for the fortnightly quotes and lyrics challenge from the Craft Barn again.  This time it is Passion and Music - oh yes.  So, sticking to my 'I must have seen them live' criteria, I went for Tiny Dancer, by Elton John.  I think Madman Across the Water was the first album of his I bought, and I remember dancing round my bedroom to Tiny Dancer (and Indian Sunset... what a song, what an EPIC song...), I dreamt of marrying a music man...  That went well - NOT!  Anyway...

Blue Jean baby, LA Lady, seamstress for the band

Pretty eyed, Pirate smile, you'll marry a music man

Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand

 

Hold me closer Tiny Dancer

Count the headlights on the highway...

 

The Madman cover is embroidered denim, so I wanted to start with blue.  As I have been on a Kate Crane weekend (another one, at The Stamp Attic), and Kate does love a good colour wheel, I went with green. It had to be Dylusions!  I added a little Radiant Rain, for bling.

 

Dylusions reacts with water, so I used a mask or two and dabbed through it, with water, and with distress inks - that was a good effect!

Picking up on the seamstress idea, I used his Holtzness' blueprint stamps top and bottom, and reverted to handwriting (I must restart the calligraphy classes) the lyric.

 

Finally I added a couple of embellishments, a dress form, and some rain drops to act as headlights.  I love the way the glue soaks up the dylusions.

 

All in all, I'm pleased with it, so I hope you like!

 

 

Resources

 

Paint and Ink

Dylusions: White linen, After Midnight, London Blue, Polished Jade, Black Marble

Radiant Rain: Pearl Blue

Distress Ink: Black Soot, Stormy Sky

Archival Ink: Jet Black

 

Stamps

Stampers Anonymous: Mini Blueprints CMS150

 

Bling and other stuff

Tando Creative Mask: Music

That Special Touch Mask: Piano Keys

Studio 490/Blossom Bucket: Mannequin

Prima: Raindrops

Robins Nest Dewdrops: Fairy dust

Crafty Notions: Stellar Flash

Q&L: Fame - Life's been good

Hi there!  The challenge this fortnight was Unique and/or Fame.  I was struggling, then the good old iPod did it again...  Life's been Good by the Eagles (or Joe Walsh), and yes, I have seen them a couple of times!  I'll be able to stick all my old ticket stubs into the book at the end of this!  So here is the verse:

It's tough to handle this fortune and fame

Everybody's so different, I haven't changed

It's a difficult one to illustrate, this, so I didn't!  I went for abstract.

My A3 substrate this time was watercolour paper.  Because I wanted to move the acrylic about on the paper, I gave it a coating of Matt Medium (which I managed to squirt all over my trousers, my T-shirt, the floor, before I got it on the paper...), and then used the Eclectica limited edition Paper Artsy paints in blocks, with a smidge of Nougat, for graduation. 

My Kate Crane/Kathryn Wheel stamps turned up yesterday, so I used two half circles on the lower edge, and outlined them in white. 

In keeping with the fame theme, I stamped stars in metallic Brilliance around the edge, leaving a gap for the words.

Added the words, and details of the song/band, and hey presto!

Hope you like!

Resources

Substrate
Winsor and Newton Cotman Water colour paper

Paint and Ink
PaperArtsy: Tikka, Chartreuse, Chutney, Nougat
Distress Ink: Black Soot
Brilliance: Mineral

Stamps
Hero Arts: Life of the Party Stars

Bling and other stuff
Edding 751 creative: White Marker
Pitt Calligraphy pens: Black
Winsor and Newton: Acrylic Matt Medium

Q&L - Knowledge - Two Roads by Chris Rea

This fortnight's challenge from the Craft Barn was Knowledge and/or Hurt.  Took me a bit of a while to find a song from someone I have seen live, that I wanted to do... then I came across Two Roads by Chris Rea, and I have no idea why I didn't think of it straight away!  This was on the 'On the Beach' album (yes vinyl...) and I saw Chris live probably 5 times during 86/87.  I even got his signature on one of my programmes... Oh yes, I started my stalking career many years ago!

So, Two Roads, and the lyric goes like this:

Ain't it funny how you never can tell? 

It always seems to hit you when it's going so well

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Now it's lawyers at midnight and the learning begins

 

I put my old favourite Centura Pearl through the big shot in an embossing folder, then used Distress ink across it, to highlight the texture. There are several layers of stamping across the top of the texture, to add a bit more depth. 

 

I took a couple of book pages (knowledge, after all, comes in books!), and used some watered down acrylic, before I stamped the lyric on the pages.

 

I gave the page an 'edge' with my Pitt pens, just to finish it off.

 

Hope you like!

 

Resources

Substrate: Centura Pearl
 

Paint and Ink

Distress ink: Worn Lipstick, Stormy Sky, Evergreen Bough, Iced Spruce
Archival Ink: Cornflower Blue, Cobalt, Venetian Orange, Tree Branch
PaperArtsy: South Pacific, Snowflake

Stamps
Katzelkraft: Woodgrain
Hero Arts: Music Background CG479, Printer's type lower case LL762
Artemio: Roman capital peg stamps


Bling and Other Stuff
Sue Wilson A4 embossing folder
Faber Castell Pitt Pens: various
 

Random Birthday Card

These days, I hardly ever make cards, there's always other things to do.  However, when it is a special birthday, for a special person, I do want to make the effort.  A certain someone is 60 this week - which just feels wrong on so many levels - I am clearly closing in on the same age too (a few years to go, but even so...).




I knew it couldn't be uber-blingy, and I knew it had to go through the post.  I wanted to make reference to the passing of the years...and all this led to a Kraft base card, with a little dry embossing and some mega flake.









I am a great believer that the birthday starts with the envelope, so that has a little stamping too, on the back, an aide memoire for how to open an envelope, and on the front, just a little advertisement that there's a birthday coming up.

Hope you like!  (Actually, hope he likes too!)


Resources

Substrate
American Crafts Kraft Card

Paint and ink
Distress Ink: Stormy sky, Tumbled glass, Walnut stain, Tea dye
Archival Ink: Potting soil, Manganese blue

Stamps
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection: Mini Blueprints CMS 154
IndigoBlu: Wild Meadow WM1, Happy Birthday HB
VildaStamps: Time Flies V474

Bling and other stuff
Mega flake: Gin and Tonic
Flitter Glue
Triboss embossing folder: watches
Sakura Gelly roll pen: clear star

May - Kathryn Wheel Calendar Challenge

In an effort NOT to be late for the Kathryn Wheel challenge for May, here we go!!

 This one really is bling city...  The month and year are die cut, and then glued on.  Then, I started off with a wash of purple and then overpainted with some Byzantium (full of mica) and a bit of Alchemy (iridescent loveliness...).  When dry, I stamped some dots, some scripts and the ticket label outlines.

I die cut the tickets, distressing the edges of the weekdays, and stamping the weekends with the same ticket label as in the background, adding the numbers in blingy Brilliance ink.  The final touch was to add a group photo (happy boating men!) from Deviant Scrap (thanks for the link, Kate!!)

All glued down with redline tape!

Hope you like!

Resources

Paint and ink
Rico: purple
Stewart Gill Byzantium: Cerisanctum
Stewart Gill Alchemy: White Mist
Brilliance: Pearlescent Lavender, Galaxy Gold
Distress Ink: Seedless Preserves
Archival Ink: Deep Purple, Hydrangea

Stamps
Wendy Vecchi Studio 490: All About Art LCS011
Stampers Anonymous: Apothecary CMS138
ClarityStamp: Numbers set

Dies
Sizzix Alterations strip die: Ticket strip 656620, Inside Out 657827

Bling and other stuff
Cosmic shimmer dries clear

Craft Barn Q&L - Flower

I don't know who is picking the words, but I do want to thank them!  I am digging out some fantastic albums albeit on the new fangled i-thingie...So this time, on the Q&L Challenge, we had a choice of Flower or Travel - I had a great one for Travelling - but I am not allowed to conjugate, apparently (thank the lord...), so I went for Flower, and came up with Children's Crusade, by Sting.

The children of England would never be slaves

They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves

The flower of England face down in the mud

And stained in the blood of a whole generation

 

Midnight in Soho, Nineteen eighty four

Fixing in doorways, opium slaves

Poppies for young men, such bitter trade

All of those young lives betrayed

All for a Children's Crusade

 

I also thought it was quite apt because this year is the centenary of the start of the First World War. 

So, I am still going for A3.  The background is a variety of Distress Stains, aiming for the darkness of the battlefields, highlighting the edge of trenches.  It fades down to green with the graves in the foreground.

 

Over on the right I have my Soho bar, and a few syringes lying in the doorway.

 

 

 

I also made up a decoupaged poppy, to link the two scenes.  I used Viva Precious Metal paint in Crimson, and it is pretty heavy in the mica stakes!

 

I wanted the writing to be in white, but I am going to have to try even MORE ranges of so called markers.  I ended up using sharpies, as they worked fine on the Distress Stain.  Didn't have a white one. That will have to be rectified!!

 

Hope you like!

 

 

 

Resources

 

Substrate

Centura Pearl

 

Inks and Paints

Distress Stain: Vintage Photo, Black Soot, Frayed Burlap, Weathered Wood, Picket Fence, Old Paper

Archival Ink: Jet Black

Brilliance: Starlite Black

Viva Precious Metal Colour: Crimson

Liquitex Basics: Mars Black, Titanium White

 

Stamps

Papermania: Build a poppy

Craft: Art Nouveau numbers

 

Bling and other stuff

Sakura Pens

Sharpies

Q&L Craft Barn Challenge - Road

The challenge from the Craft Barn this time was Road - this one wasn't at all difficult!  As anyone who reads my Facebook page would know, I am mad, verging on hysterical, about delAmtri, and Justin Currie in particular.  So, it had to be:

Be my downfall, be my great regret, be the one girl that I'll never forget

Be my undoing, be my slow road to ruin tonight

Be My Downfall is possibly one of my favourite songs ever.  But don't get me started...



So, back to several old faithfuls on this.  I started off with my brushos - incredibly intense watercolour pigment, which I blotted off to get a sunset sort of a feeling.  Then out with the lovely Clarity masks, London and rooftops.  If you look closely you'll see a few too many London Eyes in there!!



I added a road for the bus, and then realised that the 'tail-lights have gone out of sight' so, didn't need it!

I stamped out my letters using various fonts, and added some handwriting, including the attribution.  It needed a frame, and the Dyanne Reavely circles reminded me of the tail lights, so went with those.

Hope you like!


Resources

Paint and ink
Brusho colours - whoops - tidied them away!
Distress Ink: Chipped sapphire, Black soot, Walnut stain
Archival: Hydrangea, Red Geranium
Brilliance: Mineral
Big and Juicy: Waterfall

Stamps
ClarityStamp: Letterbox alphabet
Stampotique - Amy Wilson Alphabet
Dylusions: Around The Edge DYR34421
Hero Arts: Printers Type lower case
Artemio: Helvetica/Ariel? Upper case

Bling and other stuff
Cosmic Shimmer Mist: Pearl, Astral Mystery, Bronze Blush
ClarityStamp: ClarityMask - London, Rooftops
Copper marker pen
Black fine liner

Calendar Challenge - Kathryn Wheel

Well it's March already.  It's still flippin' cold here tho, but I do spy some green shoots out there, t'other side of the glass.  You don't think I'd be going OUT there?  Are you mad?!!

Anyway, Kate Crane's Calendar challenge beckons, so I set to, with some of the gorgeous JOFY limited edition paints.  mmmm.  I got JOFY's Bloom and Grow stencil out too, and used some more paint.  While I was at it, I stencilled, using the bubbles mask, also PaperArtsy, but Lin Brown this time.





I stamped my circles for the days using a measuring cup, and coloured in the Saturdays and Sundays with a little mica powder - it needed bling...


Then out with other JOFY stamps, for the daisy, the butterfly, dragonfly and bunting. A little distress marker colouring in, and more mica powder!

Hope you like!

Resources

Paint and Ink
PaperArtsy: Dolly Mix, Dusty Teal
Archival Ink: Jet Black, Deep Purple
Distress ink: Mowed lawn, Picked Raspberry
Distress markers: Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves

Stamps
PaperArtsy: JOFY13, JOFY14

Bling and other stuff
LuminArte: Iridescent blue
PaperArtsy Stencils: Lin Brown PS001, JOFY PS008
Sakura Jelly roll pens: Various

Q&L - Age - Don't stand so close to me

Hi all, time to upload my entry for the Craft Barn Q&L challenge which is marriage (not doing THAT one) or age.  I opted for The Police, Don't stand to close to me, which contains the lyric:

Inside her, there's longing, this girl's an open page. 

Book marking, she so close now, this girl is half is age

This was fun, and I was very glad of the A3 layout!  Started with colouring the centura pearl (non-shiny side) with layers of distress stains.

I created the depth with pretty much a PaperArtsy fest!  There's lines (which made me think of an exercise book from my school days), there's text, the numbers around the edge, and that great circle, which looks spookily like vinyl...  The pen nibs are a very old clearly impressed stamp - I may have to use that more, I think.  And the ferny bits around the bus stop are a Claritystamp.

Whilst searching through the stamp stash, I found that lovely 'longing' stamp - she does look significantly younger than him, and also the 'serious charge against a gentleman' which tied in nicely with 'the accusations fly'.


When I wrote out the lyrics, I tried to make 'her side', the orange side, more standard school handwriting, and the green side, his side, a bit more grown up, in fact like mine, so not grown up at all!



Hope you like!


Resources

Substrate: Centura Pearl

Paints and Inks
Distress stain: Dried Marigold, Tattered Rose, Wild Honey, Bundled Sage, Frayed Burlap, Evergreen Bough
Archival Ink: Watering Can, Potting Soil, Fern Green, Orange Blossom
Distress Ink: Pumice Stone
Distress markers (various)

Stamps
Clearly Impressed: J6221 - Writing set
ClarityStamp: Hedgerow flower bunch
PaperArtsy: Background 6 BG6, At home 2, Gentleman Plate 1, Hot Picks HPXT01, HP1102

Bling and other stuff
No bling!  Again!

Q&L - Miss

Hi there!  This fortnight's Quotes and Lyrics from the Craft Barn challenge is 'Miss'.  I have loved Elton John's music for ever, and one of his earliest hits just came rushing at me for this:

I miss the earth so much, I miss my wife, it's lonely out in space on such a timeless flight

and of course, it gave me a change to go mad on the bling front!

This year, my book is A3, so I do have masses of space to go large.  I used as my base the shiny side of centura pearl, and painted it with water, before spraying it with several colours of Dylusions.

I cut a circle out for my earth, using the hole as a stencil to rub some iridescent blue luminarte powder through, extending it slightly larger, to give my 'earth' a corona.  The earth was painted up with fresco finish paints, and then sprayed with goosebumps, to make it a bit bobbly.

I stamped that lovely Tim Holtz lady in archival, and then smooshed her through some watered down distress ink, doing the same sort of thing for the words, only in this case, the DI was watered down with cosmic shimmers.



















It's hard to believe that this single was released in 1972 - OMG...

Hope you like!



Resources

Paint and ink
Archival ink: Cobalt, Cornflower Blue
Distress Ink: Dusty Concord, Stormy Sky
Dylusions: London Blue, Vibrant Turquoise, Black Marble, After Midnight
PaperArtsy Fresco Finish: Pea Coat, Toad Hall, Hyde Park, Nougat

Stamps
Stampers Anonymous, Tim Holtz: Classics no 5 SCF005

Bling and other stuff
Goosebumps
Luminarte: Iridescent blue
Cosmic Shimmer Mist: Pearl, Astral Mystery