Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes at We Love 2 Create

Good morning, it's challenge time over at We Love 2 Create and we've got an Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes theme so it's a nice easy one for you to play along. As always we've got some lovely crafty goodies for our lucky winner, thanks to our generous sponsors Premium Craft Brands. 

I've had this box for ages, it was a gift box for a watch I received ages ago and it's been gathering dust for I thought I'd give it a bit of a makeover. I began with a coat of white gesso and then applied dictionary paper with matte gel medium. Once that was dry I coloured it with my PanPastels, you can find links to the colours I've used at the end of this post.

The focal image is from the Stampman, I stamped it on tissue paper with versamark and embossed with gold EP and applied it to my box with Matte gel medium. To give the wings a bit of extra sparkle I stamped the image on self adhesive sparkly acetate and applied PanPastels to the back of the acetate, you can see the effect a little better in this pic.

I added some shadows with Paynes Grey PanPastels and then stamped some words here and there with Memento Teal Zeal ink. I've added some embellishments that came in my monthly treat from Craft Box and a little lace and some faux gold pearls to the side of the book box.

I'm entering this project in the following challenges:

A beautiful mess: anything goes

Craft Rocket: Favourite colour combo

Crafty Catz: Add lace

Creative Fingers: Anything goes

Fab'n'Funky: Winged things

Frilly and Funkie: It's not easy being green

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: E is for embossing

Thanks so much for visiting today, hope to see you again

Claire xx

Bright Yellow Green Pan Pastel	Pan Pastel bright yellow green shade	PanPastel Turquoise Shade	PanPastel Turquoise Tint	Paynes Grey
PanPastel Light Gold Metallic

Male theme at PanPastel UK

Good morning, we've got a new challenge starting at PanPastetl UK and this week we'd like to see projects with a male theme. As always our lucky winner will receive a PanPastel starter set from our lovely sponsor Berni at Your Creativity Store so don't miss out :-). I don't have many male themed stamps, and love to create sea/sky effects so this was a great excuse for me to create a nautical card. 

I began by created the background using a Pronty Alphabet Mask. I laid down some turquoise PanPastel and lightly brushed some Raw Umber PanPastel through it, I overstamped with some text. Next I created the little seascape using PanPastels in various shades of blue and turquoise. I cut a porthole shaped frame and added some dots of cosmic shimmer glue.

The Embellie was made using Maimeri Iridescent medium coloured with PanPastels in shades of brown, buttered onto one of my favourite stamps from the Stampman, I inked the stamp up with gold stazon first and  left it for a couple of days to dry

:

To finish off i've added a nautical knot using some string and an old button

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Artistic Stamper: makes for me

Crafting for all seasons: Masculiine

Get Inky: boys/men

Milkcoffee: Male inspired

Sisterhood of Crafters: masculine

Top Tip Tuesday: masculine

Totally Gorjuss: for dad

Well as usual on Sunday morning there is a ginormous pile of ironing calling my name so i'd better scoot and get it done so I can grab some time in my craft room. Have a lovely day and thanks for popping by

Claire xx

Alter it at PanPastel UK

Good morning lovelies, sunshine again here so I may brave the cold and tidy the garden this morning but before I venture out, I'd better tell you about our new challenge over at PanPastel UK. Our theme this week is 'Alter it' and as always our lucky winner will receive a fab prize of a PanPastel starter set from our generous sponsor Berni from Your Creativity Store.

I've altered a plain little wooden box, I began with a layer of watered down Maimeri Gesso and once that was dry i added colour with Ultramarine Blue tint PanPastel and a little Raw Umber PanPastel. Next I applied Maimeri Iridescent paste through a Crafters Workshop Template, I love this stuff its so shimmery and gorgeous! Once that was dry went over with Graph'It markers using the chisel tip to add some colour.  The focal image is a gorgeous stamp from the Stamp Man, I've coloured her with PanPastels and Graph'It markers and cut out before attaching to the lid of the box with Maimeri Matte gel medium.

Next i stamped some flowers from the same stamp set on the box with versamark and applied Ultramarine Blue PanPastel over the top. I whizzed a brown Graph'it Marker around the edges of the box and around the image, softening the colour with the blender pen. To finish off iv'e added a couple of glittered acetate butterflies and a  little flower (made with air dry clay and coloured with PanPastel to act as a little knob to open the box. I've sealed the finished project with Maimeri Matte Gel medium. Here's another pic of the finished project:

I'm entering this project in the following challenges:

Allsorts: for a lady

Bloggers : alter it

Cheerful Stamp Pad: anything but a card

City Crafter: wings of an angel

Forever Friends: animals/Butterflies or birds

Happy Campers: use a favourite stamp

Incy Wincy: anything but a card

Ladybug crafts: Blue

Moving along with the times: lovely ladies

Simon Says Stamp: anything goes

thanks for visiting today and for your kind comments too

have a lovely day

Claire xx

Good things come in small packages

Hi there and a big warm welcome to my new followers, its lovely to 'meet' you and hopefully I'll have returned the favour and joined your merry band of followers. If you don't have a link to your blog on your profile do leave me a link so I can stop by and say hi. Anyway back to business, its time for a new challenge over on the catwalk at Fashionable Stamping Challenges. This time I chose the theme which is 'Good things come in small packages' so we want to see you creating something small scale, anything from an ATC to a mini book or alter something small. Of course as we're a rubber stamping blog we want to see some stamping on your project. 

I'd planned on making some ATCs for this challenge but kind of got into shrink plastic mode and thought it would be perfect for this challenge. I'd had this project in my head for ages, since I saw some gorgeous 'Captured Fairy' projects at a craft fair. I wanted to create a captured mermaid and oh my goodness did it give me some grey hairs (ok then some more grey hairs lol)

Apologies for the dodgy photos this project was almost as tricky to photograph as it was to make lol. I took a little jar from the ginormous pile of 'stuff waiting to be altered' in my craft room and set too with the glue and flowersoft to create the sand at the bottom of the jar. I coloured the flowersoft with alcohol ink to make it a yellowy orange colour and added some shells from my stash to the bottom of the jar. I stamped the background and coloured it with distress markers, cut it out and stuck it on the outside of the jar with multimedium. Next I used a little stream and pearl alcohol inks to colour some of the glass and the reverse of the background. Next I made the little figures, both of which are quite large stamps (all the stamps used are from Chocolate Baroque), I stamped them with versafine ink, coloured with distress markers, cut them out and shrunk them with my heat gun. Here's a pic of them before they went in the jar

So far all was going smoothly the tricky bit was hanging the little mermaid and seadragon in the jar. Oh my, did I get in a stress lol. Anyway eventually I used invisible thread and made holes in the jar lid to thread them though, it took a bit of 'faffing' around to get them to hang properly but they behaved in the end lol. To cover the lid of the jar I made a little brayered sea, added some shells (real and shrink plastic), a little boat (this stamp is from the Stamp Man) and a little 'journey' key. I added some  pearl trim, some lacey sequin trim, and some blue green sea weedy fibres. I covered the edge of the lid with string. This was a bit of a performance as I used my hot glue gun and got in such a mess with stringy bits of glue everywhere. I popped some white netting under the lid and the job was done. Here's a pic of the lid

I'm entering my little 'Captured Mermaid' in the following challenges:

Cards and More: Maritime

Craft Garden : inspiration from water

Frilly and Funkie: Outdoors 

(my quote is 'Secrets of the Deep' but its at the back of the jar and doesn't show up at all on the pic)

Live and Love Crafts: Lovely lace and terrific trim

Try it on Tuesday: Travel

Thanks for popping by

Hope you're having a great weekend

Claire xx

Sneaking in ....

Here I am sneaking in at the last minute with my tag for this weeks challenge at Dragons Dream Tag it on which is 'Bead-dazzle'. I've made a bracelet with twisted bugle beads, cube beads and size 11 seed beads and attached it to my tag for this weeks challenge. I did get it finished yesterday but the internet was soooooo sloooooooow I gave up trying to post it lol.

I love bead stitching but it takes so long I really don't make as much jewellery as I'd like to. This is the second of these bracelets I've made, my friend loved the design so this will be a perfect pressie for her.

The tag is a large manilla tag from Graphicus, I coloured the tag with dusty concorde and milled lavender distress inks and stamped the Stampman dragonfly stamp with dusty concorde. The edges and sentiment are embossed in silver although it hasn't shown up too wellin the pic. The words read 'Imagine the possibilities' , another stamp from Elusive Images.

I made a couple of little holes with my cropodile and attached the bracelet with a little purple ribbon, it looked a bit plain so inspired by Cynthia's fab challenge at Rainbow Lady's Challenge blog this week which is 'feathers' i added a purple feather.

I'm also entering this tag in this weeks challenge from Tuesday Taggers where the theme is 'Anything Goes' and the sponsor is Ribbon Oasis who are offering a gorgeous selection of ribbons to the lucky winner 

Thanks for looking. We look to be having some better weather today,

I hope you get some sunshine too 

Claire xx

A new challenge at Let's Ink It Up

Wow, what a fab response to our first challenge Let's Ink It Up!

Thank you to everyone who entered and congratulations to the winner of the challenge, our fab Top3, Guest designer and winners of the blog candy too! We were blown away by all your beautiful creations. I can't wait to see what you come up with this time, our challenge is to make a tag, with a twist - use a vintage theme!

We have another generous sponsor lined up too, our winner will receive these fabulous stamps 

from Carol Gomes, Close to my Heart independent consultant!

Close to my Heart have the most gorgeous stamps as well as inks, papers, markers and embellies!! You don't want to miss out on a chance to win such a great prize! We will also be awarding a badge to our top 3 who are chosen by the DT!
Here are my tags for our second challenge:

I had 2 ideas for this challenge and couldn't decide between them so I ended up making 2 tags, 'His and Hers' .

Both are using large manilla tags from Graphicus.

His Tag: I made a bp using steampunk images from the Graphics Fairy and added a couple of watches (tanda stamps on vellum backed with gold leaf), a vellum scroll stamped with a text stamp from the Stampman. I triple embossed some mountboard with gold and moonshadow EPs and stamped into it with a border stamp from Elusive Images for the bottom of the tag. The focal image is a stamp from Joanna Sheen stamped with Vintage photo DI and framed with a watch Glimmer chip from my stash. To finish the tag off I added some button and wire embellishments I made with bits from my stash, some steampunky watchparts from the Altered Element and a bow tie/collar embellie made with a scrap of white card and some black velvet ribbon

Her Tag: I stamped a lot of vintage lady images from a set of See D's stamps directly on the tag with dusty concorde DI and misted with water. I distressed the edges with the same ink, then vintage photo and then a little black soot. I made a ribbon and feather embellishment (inspired by a pin my friend was wearing lol) by getting lots of scraps of ribbon in shades of purple, gold and beige and attatching them to some card - I then heated them with my heat gun till they all crinkled and curled. This was a bit like extreme crafting for me so I did this next to the kitchen sink just incase. I added a couple of feathers and some ribbon flowers I made using sheer organza ribbon. The focal image is again from Joanna Sheen and is framed with a butterfly glimmer chip which was inked with DI and embossed with gold EP. I also added a band of plum ribbon and made an embellie with an old earring from the scrap store - I filled it with silicone glue, sprinkled on some purple glitter and then covered with with glossy accents. I found a tassel in just the right shade to finish off.

I'm entering my tags in the following challenges:

Sir Stampalot: All distressed

Play Date Cafe: a gorgeous colour combo of plum, gold and beige

Tag Tuesday at Kard Krazy: Butterflies

Totally Stampalicious: Anything but a card

Thanks for visiting today, I hope you're going to pop over to Lets Ink It Up and join our  challenge. Check out the rest of the DTs fabulous work too if you need some inspiration!!

Claire xx

The Stampman challenge ... music

This set of stamps was one of the first I got from the Stampman and I still love them. I've used lots of inky techniques to make this card for the latest challenge from The Stampman challenge which is 'Musical'

The base card is stamped with text using vinage photo DI. The next layer is some card which was 'sloshed' with loads of moonshadow inks in golden dubloon and ethereal emerald (the MOST gorgeous colour isn't it??). The next layer is vellum stamped randomly with the dragonfly text stamp. Then paperlace and ribbon were added (I coloured them with the leftover moonshadow inks on my craft mat). I stamped the focal image with vintage photo DI and stamped the dragonflies twice on some fantasy film. The sentiment is from Elusive images. Everything was torn and inked with lots more DI before being layered up to make the finished card.

I'm entering this in the following challenges too

Simon Says Stamp and Show: Layers

Artful Inkables: Distressing

Creatalicious:Vintage

My Partner in Crafting Crime: Vintage

Thanks for looking,

Claire xx