Finished art journal page

I had fun preparing for my Introduction to Art Journaling workshop last week. Gave me a perfect excuse to play. I spritzed water onto my journal page, spritzed two strong colours of Luminarc sprays, then blew them around with a straw and once dry I splatted Picket Fence distress stain over and stomped it down with some force (very therapeutic)! Then today I finished the page off by cutting out images from magazines to make the mismatched character and went around the image with black ink, stamped a fab phrase from a set by Dyan Reavely and heat embossed it with white Wow powder. Finally I quilled a bright flower for her hair to be a bit contrary! This page could be perfectly innocent, or have a naughty side with those dark background colours, depends on your imagination!

Think I'll enter this into a few challenges just for fun!:

All Crafts Challenge Theme is anything goes but not cards!
 Anonymous Stamp Challenge Theme is anything/ no theme
Artistic Inspirations Challenges - theme is anything goes/ friendship
Di's Digi Designs - Girly
Musically Challenged - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (perfect theme I think!)
Punk You Girl - Angels and Demons - and I think this girl is both, if she opened her mouth wider she'd probably have fangs!
Challenges for Everybody - Anything goes
That Craft Place Ltd - Sentiment (lovely to see the fab Jools on the DT of on this site!
Craft Stamper Magazine challenge - splatter (did a fair bit of that!)

Quick JoFY Christmas card

Here is a quick Christmas card using a paper piecing technique with the lovely JoFY stamps, and )ov course) some Stickles; great for the boys (still managed to add that glitter though!).

Will enter this into the following challenges:

Sweet stamping challenge - Christmas is coming

and also their Christmas at Sweet Stamping Challenge which has a male theme

Hel's Sunday Stamper - Red

 Stamping Sensations - Christmas

2 Sisters Challenge Blog - Christmas Sparkle 

Crafty Calendar Challenge Blog - All things Chrismas

Back from hols & have finished samples for next weeks workshop

After a lovely week away I'm back and raring to go! Here are the samples of the second project we will make at the workshop on Saturday. Quick and easy but great fun and lovely results. Hope you like them. I'm happy for anyone to copy the design (thanks to those who've already asked because I know how hard it is to always come up with practical workshop ideas, just as long as I do get credit. And the nice thing is they are suitable for the boys, but you can add more bling and glitz to make them more girlie!
Suz
xxx

I'll enter these into the following challenges:

Penny Black and More - anything goes (not digi images though)

My Creative Moments Wordplay challenge - this month it's Seasons & this week anything goes.

CAS-ual Fridays (clean and simple) - theme is tag/ gift, and you can't get a simpler tag which is a gift than this one! 

Crafts-Too challenge you - Christmas scene and what Christmas means to you (for me cosy and glittery sum it up!)

And the brand new Crafty Hands Challenge Blog - Anything goes

 

And my first ever blog hop - if it works!!!

November workshop samples

Hi all
I've been having a play to come up with a card for my next workshop in November. Very organised I know, but as I go away for a week tomorrow I had to get it sorted! I'll post details of how I made it after the workshop.

So, as I'm off on holiday tomorrow  I decided to watch my new Clarity Stamp DVD while packing and putting on my posh nail polish (unheard of for me as they are usually covered in paint!). This is the second time I've tried to watch it; last time my (only 18 month old) tv/dvd player decided to pack up just after putting the disk in, so it was stuck and stayed there for over 2 months until I got around to getting it repaired! Thought I'd try again today, but sure enough, while watching/ listening to Barbara on one of her earlier dvd's (number 2) half way though a brayer exercise, and mid nail polishing, I spot a nasty magpie chasing after my little dwarf bunny in the garden. Only problem was trying to safely put down polish then run from the bedroom (previously the loft) down three flights of stairs to the garden without chipping my polish! Luckily I saw off the rotten bird and Dusky is fine. Anyway nails are done (trying not to chip while I type) and I'm off to Tenerife in 15 hours - hooray!!!! In case you're wondering, I've got all the newest Clarity DVD's (including latest released last week) but decided to get the 2nd as I've got the stamps on the cover! Adios for now!

 

I'll enter this card into a few challenges for fun:

7 Kids College Fund - anything goes

http://craftingbydesigns.blogspot.co.uk/ - anything goes

 http://handmadeharbour.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/midweek-papercraft-party-9.html - something pretty

http://thepapershelter.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/challenge-133-use-two-colours-only.html  two colours only

Penny Black and More - Anything goes

 

Andy Skinner's Altered Mirror workshop at The Artistic Stamper

Fab day yesterday being taught how to alter an Ikea mirror by Andy Skinner. Such a lovely group of people, really enjoyed meeting them all. And super lunch too Jenny.
There was so much going on I almost forgot to take pics so here are just two of the mirror at the two major stages (there were so many!). I'm not going to tell you how we went from a plain black finish to the bright colourful mirror the to the final metal affect - you'll have to go on one of Andy's workshops for that- but needless to say we all got very messy and had a ball. And while I loved the mirror at the end of stage one, this was all about learning new techniques so we couldn't resist going to the final stage, and I'm so glad we did, it was great fun!

Thanks Andy, and Jenny and Mal too for looking after us (not to mention the scrummy cupcakes - think that was Lorraine). Can't wait to play with all the wonderful bits I bought in your shop!

Think I might enter this into The Artistic Stamper challenge of 'anything altered' lol!!

I look forward to trying out various stages of the techniques again over the next few weeks!

End of Stage one

The final product

Simple Christmas Cards using JoFY stamps

 I stamped the wreath onto white card and filled in the baubles/ circles with blue Liquid Pearls, and bronze coloured Perlen-Pen (similar to the pearls) buttons and Stickles glue (leave to dry-walk away from the wet card!!!). I stamped the cute robins onto pages from an old BT phone book, cut them out and coloured the chests red and glued them to the wreath (copying the idea from a card made by Jo). I used a star mask, inked through with chalky light blue pigment ink onto the red card base. Stuck on the wreath, added some blue raffia and a few dots of the blue liquid pearls onto the corners.


For this Christmas tag, I die cut the tag shape using the Tim Holtz tag die from the 'tag & bookplates' set with the 'Wish' movers & shapers die inside. I stamped and cut out one of Jo's Robins, cut it out & stuck it on. I inked through a star mask using Versamark ink & embossed with gold Wow powder, then I added gold pen around the outside, but it didn't look gold compared to the Wow powder so I went back over with re Stickles glue. I wrote on the card using a wide calligraphy pen (bit out of practice!"). I forgot to add the ribbon before uploading all of this, it will be gold so just pretend! I'll enter this tag into the Creative Card Crew challenge which is 'tags'.

I'll enter the first one into the Crafting Musketeers 'Christmas' theme, and both of them into the LEJ Designs 'Things with Wings' challenge (for the Robins :-), and Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers challenge which is "Wish" .

Three crafty Saturdays in a row....

I've had two very crafty Saturdays on the trot, with my own cardmaking workshops last week, then demo time at the Craft Barn this weekend , (with a little jewellery workshop in between that I was asked to run), and will be enjoying yet another one next week as I've booked a place on a fab Andy Skinner workshop. I think some places are still available, at The Artistic Stamper in Faversham!

Amongst many other things (!) I purchased at the Craft Barn was a set of beautiful stamps by Jo Firth-Young, I've made some quick cards with them to enter a few challenges! Here is a sample:

I stamped the wreath and greeting onto white card using Memento ink, punched out with a 3" circle punch. Coloured the circles/ baubles with Promarkers. Cut the sentiment in half then ran a Spectrum Noir pen around the outside of the sentiments, circle & backing paper then mounted onto a card blank. I then added Glossy Accents to the baubles and sprinkled dry glitter on top. Finally, bows and gems added.
One of the quickest Crimbo cards I've ever made! Suz xxx
I'm going to enter this into the Emerald Faeries 'Sparkle' challenge and also Penny Black and More Challenge.