Applied Creativity in three acts - Act 1 - France Papillon

Good morning lovelies! How are you? I do hope you are good -I am! Its been a fantastic weekend - I was lucky enough to visit Coventry and take part in the Applied Creativity in three Acts workshops at the Holiday Inn. Sue Tucker of Art Workshops was at the helm and over the next few days I'll bring a few pictures of my projects. We had two workshops with each of three international artists. This post covers the ones I did with France Papillon. I really enjoyed the process in each case and was thoroughly pushed out of my comfort zone - the results are less me than the other classes - but I really learned a lot!

Saturday Workshop:

This has a pancake rather than an egg. We had issues with the plaster of Paris in this workshop although two people were successful. My pancake was actually that belonging to France! Mine was even worse! Anyway - the Workshop itself was still fun and lots of interesting techniques were undertaken.

Sunday Workshop

This is my second make with France - again way out of my comfort zone but I certainly did enjoy the journey! 

I'll bring you my makes from another artist tomorrow!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Its all in the words at Stamps and stencils

Hello there! Another post so soon! Its another new challenge too - this is the new one over at stamps and stencils - this is Sue's pick and here's what she says....

Words with Meaning - I may be an old romantic but I love to see quotes and meaningful sayings on pieces of art. These can be quotes that are particularly meaningful to you or family sayings ! So, for this challenge I want to see your words taking centre stage, big and bold ! Remember, as always, you need to include some stamping or stencilling or both ! 

I decided to make a card using a spellbinders stamp from Tammy Tutterow. I made a panel first using distress oxides and then stamped the stamp onto it. I used distress pens to colour the words and a white posca pen to add the highlights. The back of the card I made using distress oxides and a joggles stencil.

What a great saying!

Hope you can join us and show us about your quotes! Check out my teamies inspirationhere

Big hugs

Rachel x

Hearts at Countryview Challenges

Hello there! How are you? I do hope you are good! Its gone and arrived at June 1st already! I can barely believe it! Where is this year skipping away to? Before I know it its going to be Christmas! Yikes - sorry about the 'C' word.

So being the first of the month its time to start a new challenge at Countryviewchallenges - the theme this time is hearts - I love this theme and really enjoyed making this first piece. I hope you like it.

The stamp set I used is from Paperartsy eclectica-rubber-stamp-sheet-by-darcy-edy02. Such great stamps. I stamped the heart first and masked it and the top and bottom borders before repeat stamping with the cogs. Next I coloured the borders with distress oxides and painted the remainder of the image with more distress oxides.

I then added more cogs from prima finnabair collection. 

I hope you can join us! Link up and check out what my teamies have done here.

Big hugs

Rachel xx

orange purple green and change for junk journal junkies

Hello Lovelies! How are you today? Ready for your bank holiday? I do hope you have a good one. We are footloose and fancy free until this evening when the girls have a friend each coming for a sleepover. I must be crackers!

I have a journal page to share with you today. The theme for last week over at Junk Journal Junkies on facebook was Change and the colours were orange green and purple. Here's what i did.

I started the page using distress spray stains in the required colours then when dry I applied some of the new paint from Indigoblu to the rhs to create a face shape. Next I used one of the new stencils to create the main facial features and then went wild with the hair. I am rather pleased with this face - I know I didn't really draw it but I think it shows how good the stencil is! I finished off using distress inks of the required colours through a clarity stencil.

I am looking forward to seeing what the challenge is this week!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Mistletoe and wine at CCC

Good morning all! By these fortnights roll by a bit too quickly - I only had chance to make one card for this theme of Mistletoe and Wine ...and as you can probably see - I made it mostly during my coffeepot class - time has definitely been against me this week!

Looks like I must have had the wine when I drew those wine glasses! How funny! 

I look forward to seeing what everybody else made of this theme!

Hugs

Rachel x

Coffee pot for May

Hello there! I hope you've been enjoying this sunshine - its been brilliant here! So nice to feel warm although it does make training much more of a struggle! Still - I'll just manage I think!!!

Its been a good week - I hit some pbs in my strength training - 75kg in deadlift, 47.5kg in backsquat and 34.5kg in bench press. It felt good to hit these and I think I could have gone a bit higher too! I'll keep that in the bag though!

On Monday I ran coffeepot. One of the ladies had asked to make a wedding card - now all of the others had said they didn't really want to make a wedding card - so using the same techniques I decided to try and please them all!!! Here are my samples...

Here they are all together - the top right is the one I made as the demo.... I added the vegetation as an afterthought and everybody really loved it - before you tell me its an unusual wedding card - I know - but the wedding takes place in  field!!!!

Here's a closer look...

All the stamps are clarity and I used adirondack inks and stencil brushes with torn paper to create the landscapes.

Hope you enjoy whatever you are doing today!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Last makes from Butterfly one day special

Hello there! Just wanted to log the remainder of my butterfly one day special samples! Here they are!

This one involved stamping the image and masking, then stamping the harlequin fragment, then the background was coloured with distress and then I used the butterfly stencil. The main image was painted with inka gold.

This one was stamped with versamark and white embossing powder was used to fix this with heat. Next inka gold was used to paint the image.

This one was done with distress oxides. It looked much better in real life.

This one was such fun to make - lots of fussy cutting - beautiful butterflies!!!!

I say these are my last samples - a few have been saved for specific posts in June but other than then thats all folks!!!!

Big hugs

Rachel x