I have opened a Folksy Shop

Good evening.

This is just a quick note to say that I have opened a Folksy Shop. This is a website that is dedicated to crafters selling their hand made creations. If you would like to have a look you can either click here or else on the link in the right hand bar of this blog.

I hope you like what you see. At the moment I have added examples of my encaustic art and some of my small acrylic paintings. other things will follow as time goes by.

Encaustic Art Workshops and New Artwork - Jungle

Good morning.

A quick update. The workshops are go! All the equipment is ordered - it should arrive today or tomorrow and the workshop dates are booked. I have 6 sessions set up for 2011 so all I need now is to start advertising and to take some bookings. I have another demonstration session set up for this Friday afternoon. I am so looking forward to that.

Here is a new piece of Encaustic Art that I created at the weekend. It is on canvas board and it is about 10 inches by 12 inches in size. I used a hot air gun and the scribing tool to create this and I am so pleased with the effect.

Exciting things are happening

Good morning. Sorry I have not been around much of late but things are happening and so I have not had time to make cards and do challenges.

I have the opportunity to start holding workshops in both rubber stamping and encaustic art. I am hoping to start the encaustic classes in October so all my energies are being directed at getting this sorted out. Initially I will be holding the workshops in the Craft Emporium in Stonehouse which is currently stocking some of my encaustic pictures  and also some of my acrylic flower paintings. Once I am up and running I will be able to hold them anywhere so I will be starting to look for other venues. It is even something I can do in people's homes. How exciting is this.

This picture shows two of my new encaustic pictures. These are the first I have painted on canvas rather than the usual glossy card. To see some more of my canvas encaustic work click here

Once I have got these classes underway, as I have already had a lot of interest following a demonstration day at the shop a couple of weeks ago, then I will contemplate the rubber stamping one.

'G' is for ...... Gardening (and Green)

Good afternoon.

A card for 4 challenges:
Crafty Creations #134 - Dies 'n' Punches
Sketch and Stash #69 - Sketch
Cards for Men #'18 - 'G' is for .....
The Paper Shelter #29 - Anything Goes

I believe that this design follows the sketch provide by the Sketch 'n' Stash Challenge except for the fact that I turned it though 90 degrees. The stash was the stamp set which I have not used for some time.

The 'G' is for - Gardening (and Green) gives you two Gs for the price of one.

For the dies and punches, of which you had to use a minimum of 3 - well, as near as I can tell I think I used 13. They were all Spellbinders, mainly from various flowers sets, which were used to cut out all the layers from the flowers, all of the leaves and the oval shape was cut using an oval Grand Nestability for the main image. All of the flowers and leaves were tinted with Distress inks which had been used in the main image to make sure that they coordinated. The flowers were layered up and fixed together with gold brads.

The main image is a composite picture made from stamps by Sheena Douglass for Creative Expressions. These were coloured with various Distress Inks and a water brush. The 'With Love' Sentiment was also from a Stamp from one of Sheena's "A Little Bit Sketchy" stamp sheets.

The various strips of card were cut from my hand marbled sheets. Everything was mounted onto a dark green background which in turn was mounted on to a lighter green A5 size card.

Butterfly

A card for  challenge:
Crafty Creations #133 - Your inner Animal

Well, as you can see die cuts abound in this card. Spellbinders were used to cut the main oval and scalloped oval, the flowers and leaves and the sentiment.

This is based on an A5 white card base which had the edges tinted with two tones of green distress ink - Shabby Shutters and Pine Needles.

The main image is a beautifully large and colourful butterfly from a stamp by Chocolate Baroque which was stamped with black archival ink and coloured with Promarkers.

The white oval was embossed in a large floral embossing folder and then coloured with Milled Lavender, Shabby Shutters and Broken China distress inks which match the colours of the butterfly.

Vin Rouge

A card for just one challenge: Totally Papercrafts #79 Food and drink

This is based on a tall thin card made by folding an A5 piece of card the other way (so you don't end up with an A6 card!).

I have both Food and Drink here as the background features the grapes and the bottle contains the drink!

The large background mat is made from hand marbled card.

The Grape vine mat was from a Stamp by the Stamp Man. This was stamped with black Stazon, coloured all over with Shabby Shutters distress ink and the detail of the vine and grapes painted in with Adirondack inks.

The bottle was created from a piece of white card and I drew the bottle shape before colouring with distress ink. The label was cut from white card and edged with a small leaf stamp by Sheena Douglass. The Cheers stamp is also by Sheena and the Vin Rouge by the Stamp Man.

A bow was added as a small embellishment to complete the look.

Quite a simple card, but fun to make none-the less!

Christmas in July

Good afternoon, the weekend is upon us once again so it must be time for Shirley to hit the challenge trail!

This is an entry for three challenges:

Crafty Catz #93 Christmas in July
Crafty Creations #129 Christmas in July
Totally papercrafts #77 Bling It Up.

So here we have an unusual colour combination for Christmas but I think it works.

The main image is from Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque). This was stamped on acetate and gold leaf was applied to the back for the first bit of bling.

This was layered onto glossy card which had been coloured with various alcohol inks. Once trimmed to size the edges were picked out with fine gold peel offs (not something I use often but they do have their place).

This was mounted onto black card which had been embossed with the brand new embossing tools from the makers of the Cuttlebug. It was a corner embossing tool that was positioned on the master board and used to emboss each corner. This layer was mounted onto a pink A5 card blank and then the holly berried were highlighted with gold glitter glue for added bling.

The "Joy" sentiment was also embossed on gold textured card using the Cuttlebug system, cut to shape with a circular Nestie and backed with the scalloped circular Nestie to finish the look.

Invention

Good morning. Happy Sunday.

Here is a card for 5 challenges:

Crafty Creations #128 - Seeing Double
The Paper Shelter #23 Colour Green
Totally Papercrafts - One for the Boys
Crafty Catz #92 No Pink or Blue Allowed
CES Challenge #46 Humour / Funny

I hope you like the two sentiments. I find them funny but that I have a weird sense of humour.

For the seeing double you actually have a reflection. This was done by inking the stamp with die based Adirondack Bottle ink and transferring the image onto a brayer. This ink was then rolled onto the white card. The image was stamped again in the usual way  and then both were cut out.

The main image stamp, the cogs and gears and the quote from Thomas Edison are all from Creative Expressions - designs by Sam Poole. The other sentiment is by Clarity Stamps.

The card is made from a dark green base A5 card. Layered onto this is another piece of green card which had been sprayed with Glimmer Mist through a Tattered Angels screen.

All of the images were tinted with Shabby Shutters Distress Ink before being bonded into position with paper glue.

Cat Scratch

Good evening.

Here is a card for 2 challenges:
Die Cut Dreams #94 - Animal Antics
Sketch and Stash #66

All the stamps are the stash that I haven't used for ages. They are from a set by Chocolate Baroque

All of the papers are decorated by myself. The background is white card sprayed with Glimmer Mist. The same card is used for the scalloped Nestie die cuts.

The strip down the middle is hand marbled paper.

The meow backing card and the paw print strip were stamped on white card and tinted with distress inks. The paw print embellishments and the sentiment were treated in the same way after being cut out with circular Nesties.

The main image was stamped on watercolour paper and coloured with a water brush and distress ink.

All these elements were mounted onto an A5 size card to conform to the Sketch and Stash challenge sketch.

Princess

A card for 2 challenges:
The Stampman #27 Anything by Tim
Totally Papercrafts #75 - Girly Girls

For the Anything by Tim challenge I used Distress Inks and Tim's Coredinations paper.

The stamped image was by Creative Expressions.

To create the main panel white card was swished over my non-stick mat which had been daubed with various colours of distress ink and spritzed with water. It was dried between swishes until \I achieved the result I wanted. The princess was stamped with Stazon ink and coloured with Twinkling H2Os including gold for her crown and the stars. The edges of the panel were aged with more distress ink and then the whole panel was triple embossed with clear powder to give a beautiful shiny finish.

For the next layer, Coredinations card was put through a Cuttlebug in an embossing folder. The panel was sanded to show the core colour and the edges highlighted with Tea Dye and Frayed Burlap distress inks.

The tree paper was made by spraying Glimmer mist over a tree mask by Tattered Angels.

Ribbon was wrapped around the Coredinations panel and bonded in place. All the layers were mounted onto the A5 card base and a faux bow added over the ribbon.

One for the Birds

Good morning.

Here is a card for the The Paper Shelter #22 For the Birds  and for Sentimental Sundays #64  challenge.

I think this looks quite dramatic in black.

All the stamps used are by Chocolate Baroque. The main image was stamped on black card with Versamark ink and Cosmic Shimmer mica powders, in various colours, were dusted over to reveal the image. This was roughly torn and then the edges were embossed with gold powder.

The coloured mat layer was hand made marbled paper again with the edges torn and embossed with gold. The sentiment was treated in the same way.

The two birds were embossed with gold on black card. They were cut out leaving a black border around the edges.

The main image and mat were bonded to the black A5 size card with Pinflair gel and the birds and sentiment with sticky foam pads

The First Christmas Card of the Year!

Here we are in July and here I am making my first Christmas card of the year. I know I usually start early but not this early! This exception is for the CES challenge #45 - Christmas challenge

This is one of my all time favourite Snowman stamps. I have had it for about 4 years and out he comes every year. This was stamped on Navy card and embossed with white powder. This, in turn, was layered onto hand marbled card,  pale blue card and finally onto the A5 navy coloured blank.

The snowflakes were created from 3 individual snow flake layers, cut and embossed using Spellbinders Shapeabilities, layered with Pinflair gel.

The snowflake ribbon was pushed through a slot cut in the spine of the card blank and tied in a bow. A plaque was cut with an other Shapeability and the message placed on the front with sticky foam pads. This was mounted on the ribbon with Pinflair.

Flowers - One Layer Card

Good morning.

This card if for the Crafty Cardmakers #50 Challenge and what a challenge it was too. The one layer technique is exactly what it says - put your image straight onto the card blank with little or no embellishment.

For this A5 card I chose to use the Donna Dewberry one stroke painting method. Unlike Sheena Douglass' paint fusion technique, this is done without the aid of the safety net of using stamps to give you an outline to paint. This is done entirely by hand starting with an clean sheet of card!

Once  the paint had dried overnight, I tinted the edges with Dusty Concord Distress Ink and stamped "With Love" in the bottom right hand corner with green ink. Stamp by Sheena Douglass.

I only started trying this technique last weekend so I am delighted with the results. I hope you like it too.

Bouquet

Good morning.

Here is a card for two challenges:

The Paper Shelter #21 - Lots of Dots
CES Challenges #44 - Recipe

The recipe for the CES challenge was to include 1 image, 2 ribbon lace or twine, and 3 designer papers. Therefore I chose 3 papers with spots and dots for the Paper Shelter challenge.

I used a cream A5 card blank. I trimmed each of the layers to size and edged them with a gold pen to give more definition without actually using more layers. The middle layer of paper was stuck onto a backing card to give it more stability for wrapping the lace around it.

The main image was stamped on mount board with black Stazon, which had previously been painted with blue and cream emulsion paint. The bouquet was painted with acrylics. The stamp, by the way, was from the Simply Sweet set by Sheena Douglass for the Paint Fusion technique. When dry it was edged with gold embossing powder using Versamark ink. The gold twine was wrapped around and secured on the back and a small bow was made from the same material to mount on the lace. Both the image and the bow were mounted with Pinflair glue.

The Beach

A card for 2 challenges:

Crafty Catz #90 - Vintage Look
Totally Papercrafts #74 - The Beach
I do love this stamp from Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque). Both the main image and the  poem on the post card are from them. The post card header is from Creative Expressions.

To keep the vintage look I have used cream card for the base A5 blank, which was tinted at the edges with Antique Linen Distress Ink.

The main image was stamped on watercolour card with Timber Brown Stazon ink and the picture was water coloured with three different tones of Distress ink to give an aged sepia effect. The edges were then tinted with more ink to give a vignette. Crocheted lace was bonded to the back of the image . The post card was made in the same way, without the lace.

To finish an old gold bow was added as an embellishment.

Poppy Painting

Good morning.

Poppies are definitely the theme for this week. Therefore I thought I would add another one created on canvas board using the Paint Fusion techniques of Sheena Douglass. If you click here you can pop over to my other blog to see a couple more examples  - Pansies and Daisies.

Poppies

Hello again.

I'm sorry, it is yet another poppy card. I just love them and I seem to have so many different stamps that include them!

This card is for the Critter Challenge #72 - Sketch plus Red.

I started off with a cream linen textured card for the base.

The 2 red square panels are Coredinations card which has been through a Cuttlebug and embossing folder. The surface was sanded to remove the top layer of colour to reveal the core. These were then simply bonded to the base card.

The poppy image is from Chocolate Baroque which was coloured with Promarkers. Glossy Accents was applied to the flowers to give a beautiful shiny finish and the whole thing left to dry overnight. The panel was trimmed to size and Fired Brick Distress Ink used to tint the edges. This panel was added to a black shiny mat and then bonded to the base card.

Earlier this week, I rediscovered Mizuhiki cord so I had another play to produce two different knots to embellish the corners of the card.

Geisha

Good afternoon to you all.

Here is a card for two challenges:
Spotlight challenge - Masking
Sketch and Stash Challenge #65

The design of the card is to match the sketch in Challenge #65. The stash was the Mizuhiki cord which I used to make the embellishment and also the Impressability used for part of the masking exercise.

The squares and triangles were made by putting the blue card through a Cuttlebug with the Impressability. It was carefully removed from the machine and with the Impressability still in place and this was used as the mask to add the green to the raise parts of the pattern. This was cut up and mounted onto silver mirror card and put to one side.

The main Geisha image is a stamp from Clarity stamps. A lot of masking and brayering went into producing this picture on glossy A6 white card. The right hand geisha was stamped with black Stazon ink. Two more images were stamped out on copy paper. The geishas on the copy paper were cut out very, very carefully as both the geishas and the intact surround were required for this exercise. I also cut out the moon by drawing round a 2p piece on a Post-it note.

OK, the masking challenge asked for a description of how the masking was done, so here we go:

The first geisha was completely covered with a cut out and the second one stamped in place.

When dry, the first geisha had the mask removed and was surrounded by the cut out sheet. I also masked her head so that this did not get coloured. The colour was added to her dress using a brayer and a Waterfall Big 'n' Juicy ink pad basing the brayer at the blue end of the pad. Still with the mask in place the fern (another Clarity Stamp) was added in green ink from the other end of the Big 'n' Juicy pad. When dry, the geisha mask was place over the first geisha again and a surround and head was used to mask the 2nd lady. This time her costume was brayered with ink from the green end of the pad and the ferns were stamped in blue.

When all this ink was dry, both geishas were fully covered and the moon mask was added in position.

Another piece of copy paper was torn to give the shape for the hills. Starting from the bottom of the picture, the hills were brayered in place high enough to ensure that the geishas had something to stand on. Then it was moved up and lighter coloured hills were added, again with a brayer. A third layer, lighter still were brayered in place so that the hills were receding into the distance. The hills were all done in Adirondack Bottle ink.
The sky was brayered into place using blue Adirondack ink.

All the masks were removed and the birds and flowers (more Clarity stamps) added to complete the picture.

All I can say at the end of that is "Thank you, Barbara Gray, for the inspiration"

Poppies

Good evening.

The second post of the day.

This is for the The Paper Shelter Challenge #20 - Anything Goes

This was a fairly simple card. The main image was created on mount board which was painted with pinky-purple colour. The image was created using the Poppy stamps by Sheena Douglass from the Paint Fusion range. Once painted with acrylic paint the edges were embossed with copper  powder.

This was matted onto a black layer which had been punched with a Martha Stewart punch and had the sentiment embossed in copper powder. This in turn was matter onto the base A5 card which matched the background of the image.

The flower is one from MCS which had been layered and glittered on the edges.

Summer Time

Good evening.

here is a card for 2 challenges:

Totally Papercrafts Eyes down, Look in and let's play bingo from which I chose ribbons, brads and flowers
Crafty Catz #89 - Colours of Summer

Stamps used - Sea scene - Chocolate baroque
Daisy - Sheena Douglass.

The scene was stamped with Stazon on water colour paper, coloured with Distress Ink, cut out and embossed with a Nestie and matted onto the yellow Nestie shape which was edge tinted with Wild Honey distress ink.

The flowery back ground paper was some that I have had for years. This was layered onto yellow card and attached with orange brads. The yellow and orange ribbons were plaited wrapped around the edge of the matted layers and secured in position on the front (where it would be hidden by the image) with Pinflair glue. This assembly was attached to the A5 orangy-yellow base card.

The image was attached to the front of the card with more Pinflair glue, raising it quite high to clear the ribbons.

The daisies were stamped on to white card and painted using Sheena's fusion techniques. When dry they were cut out and again Pinflair glue was used to attach them to the card.