round and round

Hello there! How are you today? I hope you are well. Today I have a post to encourage you to join us in the current challenge at Countryview challenges. The theme is circles and this time I have made a double journal page.

This is the finished page - below I will show you my steps in making this.

First of all I started with a mop up page from my brayer ...

To this I added more paint from paperartsy - amethyst and sour-grapes and also snowflake.

I also used the snowflake paint through a stencil and also using some stamps.

Next I stamped jofy10 and lin-brown---elb24 in black ink and stamped stampers-anonymous-tim-holtz-cling-mounted-stamp-set---newsprint--type over the top. I then fussy cut them ..

I added these to my page and added stems in posca pens - I also used more circle stamps from various paperartsy sets.

The quote is from a Joni Mitchell song ...

Close ups of both pages.

I hope you have enjoyed my step by step and will join us over at Countryview Challenges!

Hugs

Rachel x

Autumn lady from Chocolate baroque

Good morning to you! I hope you are well and happy. We are okay - my girls had a lovely afternoon yesterday at their sports day - they really enjoyed themselves! I of course loved it too - but not quite as much as my evening swim at the quarry - it was really wonderful.

Today I am sharing with you a card I made whilst at coffee pot on Monday - I took some extra stamps along and had a play with the autumn lady from Chocolate baroque. I also used infusions in making this card.

I stamped the image and coloured her in distress pens and then masked the image before using paperartsy golden sands infusions on top of ripe persimmon distress ink.

Here's a closer view - the words are from Tim Holtz.

I'm having fun with the infusions - I caught a great video the other night from Giogiocraft - she shows 10 ways to use them here - I'm enjoying working my way through these ways and I will try to see if brushos work in exactly the same way - they seem pretty similar although the infusions to me have more mixtures of colour within one bottle. Don't know if thats true but its my current opinion! What do you think?

Have a good Thursday - I'm off to Kendal to see a friend from my distant past as a chemistry teacher in Kent! I haven't seen Alison for about 10 years so it will be lovely! Also we're off to see the Hobbit in the park at Lancaster tonight! Excited!

Big huggles

Rachel x

3UP at Paperartsy

Hello there! Well I have been very very lucky and been able to join in with the 3UP posts that are on at the paperartsy blog all week. I am so very grateful and have had so much fun playing! Tonight we are working with stamps from EKD and EEG and ECL stamps with Fresco paints in a BRIGHT colour palette. I did cheat a bit and added a couple of JOFY images - but dominantly I used stamps from eclectica Emma Godfrey 16 set.

Here's what I made ....

Its an MDF shadow frame box from Candy Box Crafts.

Here's the central portion ....

....and the bottom right hand corner ...

and the main central portion.

To create this I used 3 different colours of transparent paints - london-bus, yellow-submarine and blue-glass. I applied them onto gessoed MDF surfaces using a brayer - in many cases I mixed the red and yellow to create orange and also a blend through yellow orange and red. That was really cool and worked beautifully.

When dry I added a layer of  crackle-effect glaze to the main outer frame and when dry I added the yellow on top to create the fabulous crackles. The blue backdrop was stamped on using a squiggle stamp from the mentioned set in leftover brayer paint - I also stamped on some black card strips and added these to the blue to create 3 strips.

When everything was dry I glued it all together and then stamped the frilly circles onto card that I had covered with yellow paint and red paint. I also mixed some yellow and blue paint and stamped the small circles onto this.

Finally after fussy cutting and stamping the bees too it was time to assemble the piece.

I apologise for the lack of process pictures - I can only say that I got carried away! If you have any process questions please ask - I will try my best to answer them for you!

I do hope you will enjoy visiting us on the paperartsy blog this week and seeing all the wonderful things that people have made - I know my fellow 3UP team from tonight have made truely awesome projects!

I would like to thanks Darcy and Leandra at Paperartsy for giving me this opportunity - I really do appreciate it!

Big hugs all!

Rachel xx

Coffee pot meets Kevins Gang

Hello Lovely people! How are you? I hope you are well and happy! We are good and enjoying a rest after the weekends performances - they all went well - I was really pleased when I got to see the show on Saturday night - it was surprisingly funny - great stuff!!! We had a lovely after show party too. So all in all it was wonderful.

I visited mum and dad yesterday. My dad is now having palliative care at home - things are not good. I am hoping that my mum is going to be okay. It wasn't a good day at all yesterday for dad ut at least we were company for my mum. It was good to see her smile - she had been using her snowglobe dies and had made some wonderful christmas cards - its such a great thing - crafting. Where would we be without it???

Today I have coffeepot - as long as the men arrive to fit my granite work surfaces. I am taking along Kevins gang stamps from Indigo Blu and also distress pens and paperartsy infusions for us all to play with. These are my samples ...

this one uses the infusions ...

and this one the distress pens.....

I suspect the ladies will enjoy having fun!

Later on I am back to strength training - my back has been a bit out of sorts so I have only been swimming - but I hope to be back to it tomorrow!

Hope you have a great Monday!

Hugs

Rachel x

Snowmen at Christmas card Club

Hello there! Well the fortnight since my last Christmas Card post has rolled by and this time we are making cards with the theme of snowmen. My lovely mum was tempted by the last tattered lace release and happily she cut me some snowglobes to use in my Christmas card makes for this time. So I made two different sorts - one using Clarity stamps and one using paperartsy stamps. Both types were double embossed over the surface to create a glassy look.

These were using some Clarity wee folk ...

and this is made using paperartsy stamps .... I like these best!!!

I will let you know tomorrow how the plays went - I have scheduled this post but shows one and two went fine!!!!

Happy Sunday!

Big Hugs

Rachel x

vintage ATCs for June swap

Hello lovelies! How are you? I hope you are good! I am feeling good and positive about tonights performance of Little Red Hoodie - I may be a bit quiet for a couple of days - hope you will forgive me!!!

Last night I took Lucy on her first high School visit - it was a very positive experience - she is so enthusiastic - I suspect the biggest problem is going to be choosing the order of the schools for her application - she will want to go to all of them!!!

So today I would like to share with you my makes for the June ATC swap courtesy of Jo at mycraftingcorner. The theme for this month is trees .... why not join us ....

The images are all from papers from craftyindividuals - they were from a small pad but i can't find it on the website so maybe they don't do it anymore - shame as its beautiful! In all cases I used  vintage collage medium to add the papers to the atc - I cut these from backgrounds I had already made which can be seen here.

I would like to enter this in crafty-individuals-july-minis-challenge.

Hope you have a great Friday - I'm off for a swim at the quarry - hope its not too cold!!!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Tic tac Toe at Stamps and Stencils

Hello there! Well its time for a new challenge to start over at Stamps and Stencils and this time the theme is a Tic Tac Toe - Toni had this to say:

This month I'm challenging you to have a little mixed media fun, with a game of Tic Tac Toe. Create a project that includes at least three  of the elements from the table below, chosen from either a vertical, horizontal or diagonal line. Remember, to include some stamping or stencilling.

I went for the middle line - so I used tissue (I hope napkins count???) Circles and heat embossing. I used both stamps and a stencil in my project which is a sort of tryptych - I say sort of because the central panel doesn't really relate to much to the other two. But I like it! Infact this challenge gave me the excuse to use one of these napkins - I picked them up when I was in Germany at easter and have been stroking them ever since - lol! Very pretty cats!

I have a step by step - well sort of - to show you how I did this!

I started with a wooden tryptych that I bought whilst visiting Indigo Blu and then painted it with townhouse teal paint and left it to dry.

Next I cut a piece from my napkin  ( drawn by Rosina Wachtmeister) about the same size as the middle panel.  I peeled off the bck two layers and then got out my modge podge ..

I used the matt gel to stick the napkin to the panel then added the sparkly type on top to both seal and sparkle the panel. I also added a further piece from another part of the napkin to the curved top.

to make the sides I used a limor circle stamp and stamped in versamark then heated it up with red embossing powder. I used a black posca pen and a dot stencil to add the black dots and also just the pen to outline the central circles in the stamped images.

Lastly I went around the edges in black. Its a cute little tryptych that my daughter Penny has her eye on!

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I made this and will be able to join us in the challenge!

Big hugs

Rachel x