Mothers Day gifts - bit of up upcycling and crackling!

It's been another busy week. With Mothers Day this Sunday, closely followed by my Sisters birthday then my Daughters just a couple of days later, I've been busy making cards. But as it is very difficult to buy for my Mum I decided to try and make her a couple of bits. I found the teensy tray in a charity shop about a year ago, it was originally painted dark blue with some Mexican men on it (really wish I'd taken a pic!). And the thermometer thingy was a purchase from the Craft Barn last week. I decorated them both the same way, just used different embellies as they had to be flat on the tray for obvious reasons! Pics of the products used and quick tutorial is below. Hope you like them, Suz xx

Painted both with pink, then crackle, then nougat Fresco Paints. Used the distress inks though the stencil. Made flowers from cream paper, mixture of textured & pearl in two different styles. Ribbon from stash. Metal charm from Docrafts with an old button stuck on using the glue gun, used that to stick flowers too. Hey presto! I did also spray the tray with some Spray and Shine to seal and varnish against hot drinks.

Toy train - my DT post for Artistic Inspirations

For this weeks Artistic Inspirations challenge , which is Anything Goes, I've used a children's Toy Train image from Angies Digi Stamps. It is such a lovely simple, sketcy image I've tried to keep the feel of it by making childlike cards (not too difficult for me!!).
It is the first time I've tried this writing style for the sentiment, which I learnt from a video on the fab PaperArtsy blog and I'm totally hooked! It will be featuring widely on my art journaling from now on!

I coloured the first image using alcohol markers, very quick. The number is from a Tim Holtz alphabet die Vintage Market. I made the background by spritzing mica sprays and scrunching it up once it was dry. I used some rainbow silver card for the background and the train track which was great as I never know what to do with the stuff! Very easy.

This was just as easy, simply pattern building within the design. Dead easy peasy! Hope you like them. Suz xxx

Vintage card for a stylish friend with a little quote of my own just for her!

Here's a card I made last week for a very lovely and stylish friend who is mad about all things vintage. Details of how I made it below.
Think I'll enter this it the Country View Crafts Challenge as so many elements are paper which is their Anniversary theme (paper chase), and also the Craft Barn Challenge, their theme is quotes using the words Travel and or Flower!

 

 
I used a backing paper which I've had for yonks but loved too much to part with - but this was the perfect use for it! I inked a paper doily which was a vile green colour, with Barn Door distress ink, which worked a treat. I die cut another smaller doily to match. I stamped & embossed a tailors dummy, cut off the stand/ base and added feathers and tulle to make an evening dress. I then added a string of diamante across the bottom of the bodice and did the same for a stamped handbag (hung over the sentiment on the top right) added some gems in various places too. I made some paper roses and used some thin strips of paper I'd cut off to make the flourishes adding a lace bow and another lace strip to the sentiment. I cut out the words and the sunglasses from a Sunday paper magazine and did faux stitching around these and the background paper. Finally a little glossy accents on the glasses, a touch of Stickles glitter on the dresses, and it was all done. Thankfully my friend loved it when I gave it to her on Thursday!

Spring Bumble Bee Canvas

Hi All

This was one of those projects which came together from a range of inspirations such as the Spring Canvas idea of PaperArtsy DT member Julie Anne Lee who made really quirky 'green man canvases' - check out the PaperArtsy link, to the weekly prompts of the Journal 52 Art Journaling Group.  The two latest prompts are 'Art for a Cause' and 'Colour Swatch Inspirations'.  I chose to combine the beautiful colours of a Bumble Bee (saw my first bunch of them on some flowers at Clarement Gardens and took a pic 2 weeks ago) as my colour inspiratin and listed on my canvas all the reasons/ causes for making 'art'.

The main medium was a variety of PaperArtsy Fresco paints in Tango, Zingy Zest, Cheescake and Snowflake. I also used some FAber Castell Pitt pens for outlines, Microns for fine pen marks, various ink pads, stamps and a work stencil. Great fun!

Hope you like it. Suz xxx

St Patricks Day card

Hi all. Had some fun with this one. I used the lovely mushroom house from Digi Stamps for Joy. For the first card I used watercolours and colouring pencils, added a frame, cut the words and shamrocks and went around them with a white Sakura pen to add the stitching details which kind of matches the way a shamrock looks around the edge of it's leaves. The background is inked with shabby shutters and mowed lawn TH distress inks and I used glossy accents to make the windows shine.

The second project was a bit of a challenge as I'm frightened of my sewing machine but wanted to make a design with fabric! So I printed out the image onto 300gsm card, cutting out the sections to use as templates on fabric which I then put onto a fabric background by using bondaweb type double sided sticking stuff, AFTER, I'd stitched on the words by hand using backstitch. I used Cosmic Shimmer to stick on the flowers and buttons and stitched a button to the door before sticking it onto the background. The background was secured by staples to a flat canvas, I think a box one would be easier to manage next time.  Hope you like them, and why not join in yourself with the Artistic Inspirations Challenge which is Anything goes/ St Patrick's day/ Green, this week. Suz xxxx