12 Tags 2012 - March

Hi everyone, hope your weekend is off to a good start! I'm scraping in on the last day for Tim Holt's 12 tags of 2012 March tag and this one involved a technique for making the mosaic butterfly which I followed to make them. 

The technique is a pretty way to use up scraps of paper which in this case was from a Crafty Individuals pad 'Travels in Italy'. My weathered wood background is one of Andy Skinner's great techniques and is going to be a favourite. I painted with acrylics at the bottom of the tag and made a fabric flower using the tattered florals die and more paint. To finish off I added some text at the side and stained seam binding. Enjoy your day :)!

Day 7 Technique Tags

Hi everyone, just popping on with my technique tags from day 7 of Creative Chemistry with Tim Holtz which was all about embossing powders.This is the first time I've managed to get the rusted enamel to work really well (that's the tag on the right) so I was pleased with that. The distress embossing powder on umbrella man (the ATC at the front) is my favourite, I love this powder and particuarly Tea Dye which  gives a lovely rusty effect and that's the one I used here. Back tomorrow probably with my day 8 tags and if you're doing the workshop, I hope you're enjoying it :).

Day 6 Technique Tags - Creative Chemistry

Hi everyone! Here are my technique tags for day 6 of Tim's Creative Chemistry workshop, only one day behind....not too bad :D. All of the techniques for day six involve using distress markers in various ways to create different effects. The ATC on the left is various ways to use the markers for watercolouring and I made a repeat pattern of the butterfly stamps on an ATC cut from watercolour paper.

The large brown tag isn't really how the technique is meant to look as it apparently only works on Ranger speciality stamping paper and we don't have that over here yet as far as I know. I gave it a try anyway and like how it came out, kind of like an old book plate all mottled with age. 

For the last technique at the front I didn't use a stamped image to colour and embossed an ATC using one of the sizzix ATC embossing folders instead using Ranger card which held up really well for water colouring.  Back soon! :)

PPF - mixed media art book pages

Hi everyone, hope you're having a nice evening. I've got a double page spread in my mixed media art book to show today and which I'm also entering into Paint Party Friday. This one is an acrylic painted background, collaged paper for the goose girl's dress and also for the geese which I cut out freehand and then added texture paste to. Lots of doodling, stamping using Katzelkraft lace stamps in black ink and white paint, black indian ink and bubble wrap texture were added to finish it off.

Thanks as always for your lovely comments, they're always appreciated and enjoy the rest of your evening :).

Technique Tags Day 5

My technique tags day 5 of Tim's Creative Chemistry workshop. On the left is the kraft resist paper technique and I had to improvise with clear embossing as I had none of the paper. The tag on the right is stamping with picket fence distress stain and the small tag is a marbling technique (definitely need more practice with that one!). All of these techniques involve distress stains and I hadn't used mine that much lately so it was good to use them. Enjoy your evening! :)

Technique Tags day 3

My technique tags day 3 of Tim's Creative Chemistry workshop. On the left is the agate technique and another of my favourites and the second Archival resist, which is a new one to me and gives a great effect. There was one more technique which involved the backwards stamps and an embossing folder but I don't have the stamps so I haven't done that one. Back shortly with the last three tags.

Technique Tags Day 2

Hi everyone, hope you've had a lovely weekend and enjoyed some good weather, it's beautiful here today! This is the first of three posts today so that I can add my technique tags for each day of Tim's Creative Chemistry workshop. Here are the day 2 tags, blending/spritzing and flicking, wrinkle free distress and watercolour stamping. The first two of these are firm favourites and I use them a lot but not the watercolour effect which is very pretty and makes a nice background. It seems odd to be posting unfinished tags but I'm going along with how they were demonstrated and the next ones include stamping. Back shortly!

Technique tags

Hi everyone, hope you've had a good week. I'm posting my technique tags from Tim's Creative Chemistry workshop these are from day four and I enjoyed making my own custom stamp pad for the flower on the smaller tag it's one of my favourite of TH's techniques. Hope to get days two and three sorted over the weekend :D!!

Have a lovely evening.

Mixed media book journal - bird house

Hi everyone and I hope your weekend is off to a good start! Another page in my mixed media art journal to show and this time a bird house still using the theme of spring. 

The birdhouse is cut from patterned paper and everything else is acrylic paint, black ink, white pen and bit of charcoal. 

I'm joining in at Paint Party Friday this week which is a lovely blog where you can share what you've been painting each week.

Enjoy your evening.

Dawn chorus

Another robin family sketch, black ink over water colour crayons :D. Hope you have a lovely weekend planned!

Mixed media journal page

Hi everyone! I have my first ever mixed media art journal page to show today and after putting off doing this style of book for a long time I'm glad I tried even though I still have that nag in my head that this is in a book rather than on a canvas, may be I'll get over that eventually. I'm not really one for repeating work either so transferring to a canvas afterwards doesn't really appeal but I do like the fact that eventually I'll have a book of work that's all in one place and that I can flick through.

I made my own journal from a large old book which is an idea from the Christie Tomlinson workshop and this is also where the idea for cupcakes came from. For the book I tore out pages every so often throughout the book then glued those left together two at a time and painted on gesso as the base. I've used scrapbooking paper for the cake cases and butterfly and everything else including the background is painted with acrylic paint. I used a Katzelkraft flourish stamp for partial stamping in black archival ink around the background, some bubble wrap and white paint here and there anda white gel pen for the hearts. So, something different for me, I have lots of sketch books, I've always sketched but using one for mixed media is new and I really enjoyed creating this double page spread.

Back tomorrow with another owl family watercoloured sketch. Enjoy your evening :)

TOMIC 41 - Feathers, flowers and sketch

Hi everyone, we have a new challenge starting today on TOMIC which is a lovely sketch by Lisa to follow and also to incorporate feathers and flowers. I hope you can join us and be in with the chance of a great prize from Magnolia.

I've made a card with the beautiful ballet Tilda, my current favourite :), love her curly hair and the ballet outfit! I watercoloured her with distress ink markers and the background with watercolour paint. The paper is by Magnolia and I've added cut outs from glitter card using a marianne die and die cut DooHickey star tags from fabric. Decoration is with flowers, feathers pearls, gems and lots of stardust stickles.

Enjoy your day.

Sketching Exercise

Hi everyone, hope your week is going well. A sketching exercise to show today to get me back in the swing and which is part of  a workshop I'm doing at ChristieTomlinson.com. As you can see :) my subject was peppers, sketched in pencil, watercoloured and then shaded with black pen. Close ups below.

Exercise 2 was a word prompt, the word being 'place' and there's also a theme of spring. I chose garden as my place and the sketch idea is robins and their nest...we have our robins nest building again close to the house and this is the watercolour sketch that came from that. 

As always, thank you for your lovely comments, I appreciate them :).

Signs of spring

Hi everyone, hope you've had a good week. A card to show today with the sweet Celebration Tilda, I think she can work as a sitting Tilda but also looks as if she could be jumping up in the air so that's how I imagined her for this scene. Tilda and the scene are painted with distress inks and distress ink markers and I've created a handbag shaped card for my die cutting maching which I cut from blossom pink Bazzil card. I've added faux stitching, die cut letters, gems and stickles to decorate  and punched flowers which I think look like blossoms so I can enter Cute Card Thursday's challenge for this week which is 'signs of spring'

Have a lovely weekend!