Craft Barn Q & L Challenge - Strong

Ooops - I'm sneaking in a bit late with this one!

Time for another challenge at The Craft Barn and this time I have chosen the word STRONG for my quote book.

I am trying to find quotes which are meaningful to me in some way or another, and this one spoke volumes...

"Even strong women need an arm to lean on now and again" J D Robb

I've gone right out of my comfort zone with this layout. As you probably know, I don't rate myself as any kind of an artist, so to put a face I've drawn on my project is a bit of a biggie for me.  I've been studying YouTube tutorials hard and I was inspired to paint this Whimsy Girl, and she seemed to fit the quote, so here she is...

 
Backgrounds are brought to you by Dylusions ink sprays in Bubblegum Pink, After Midnight and Vibrant Turquoise.

And Whimsy Girl II is brought to you by Caran D'ache Neocolor IIs and a few details added with Midnight Blue Cosmic Shimmer Mist.

I hope you like her.

WOYWW #246

Hello and welcome fellow desk hoppers! (Not a desk hopper yet? Go here to join in the fun).

It is half term here at Moonshine Manor and I have the house to myself today as Moonshine Minor is visiting Grandma and Grandad and Mr M has driven Moonshine Major to Swansea for an Applicants Day at the University. Needless to say, I am making the most of the lack of demands on my time to have a good old play in my craftroom.

I bought some mache monograms in 2011 (I know this because the receipt was still in the bag) with the intention of altering them and putting them at the top of one of the walls in my craftroom. I had never quite worked out how I was going to hang them up so I had put them away in the wardrobe of despair and forgotten about them. Some time last week it occurred to me that if I cleared all the knick-knackery off my window sill I could stand them on there as a cool, arty, mini installation. So, to get to the point of what WOYWW is all about, what is on my workdesk today is - my altered monogram project...

Oh, by the way in case you are interested, the February Calendar Girl I had on my desk last time is now finished, you can see her here if you like.

That's it from me, what's going on in your craft space today

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2014 - February

Hello and welcome.

Time for another link up to Mr Holtz's blog and to reveal my take on Tim's February tag. You can see the original tag and tutorial here.

Tim has gone for a chalkboard look, and as I missed trying this technique on his November tag I was keen to give it a go (with mixed results... I'll explain at the end of the post)

I've pretty much stuck to Tim's original design, just changing some of the details to work around any missing supplies. So without further ado - here is my February Tag...

As you can see I didn't have Tim's hearts layering stencil so I made do with a TCW Harlequin design.

I used a Paper Artsy stamp HPXT04 which had a suitably loved up, but appropriately sized, sentiment, and a flourish  from October Afternoon's Remember When calendar set which was still out on my desk from making my Calender Girl tag. The heart is cut from greyboard using a Cuttlebug die and covered with Dimensional Magic and ordinary micro glitter.

The key and metal trim have been touched up with a little TH Antique Bronze DS to blend with the colour palette.

As I said above, I had mixed results with Tim's chalkboard technique - possibly because I was using a different embossing powder (mine was whatever I had in my stash rather than Tim's Antiquities Frosted Crystal). I never seemed to catch the embossing powder at that magical point between turning from matte to gloss and so was really unhappy with the results I got (see picture below).

In the end I decided to use a Versamark stamp pad and talcum powder to create my chalkboard effect. So now I'm happier with the look and my tag smells scrummy too!

Thanks for stopping by, let me know you came, I'd love to see your take on Tim's tag.

February Calendar Girl

Hello and welcome friends!

I may have been away from blogland for a little while but I have been doing some crafting!

Mostly I have been altering tags, here is my February Calendar Girl tag, and I will post my February Tim Tag later in the week.

It being February it was inevitable that my Calendar Girl would have a Valentine's Day theme, but I decided to steer away from the traditional red and pink colour palette and go for black and white with some pops of red.

If you follow my blog you are probably aware that my crafting resolution for 2014 is to use up some of my stash rather than just collecting it. I've always tended not to use things, thinking that I should save them for a "special" project, but I'm making a real effort to get past that mental block and use my goodies if they work on a particular project .

The background is a white cardstock tag  (I used the Julie Nutting doll stamp packaging as a template) covered with Echo Park Yours Truly Love Notes paper which I stamped with a Craft Stamper (CS) freebie grungy heart stamp. I then randomly rubbed white acrylic paint over the tag with my finger to push the design right into the background. The edge is inked with Black Soot DI, but this reacted with the white acrylic to create a greyish smudge so I used another CS freebie, grungy border stamp and Jet Black Archival to stamp a random border. I used a black Sharpie to soften the squared off edge of the stamp.

The doll was stamped onto Neenah white cardstock and coloured with Copic markers. I made the mistake of stamping the image with Jet Black Archival ink, and even though I dried it thoroughly the stamped image has bled slightly where the Copics have touched it. Note to self - buy a black Memento ink pad!

Her dress is paper pieced from a Papermania 6x6 paper stack. I chose papers with the same design but with the colours reversed to emphasis the frill on her skirt. I used a coat of matte medium to seal her dress and then added shading with a black Pitt Big Brush pen. Some tiny red gems completed her outfit.

The gem swirl was made using a Bazzills InStitch'z template and some black Papermania Gems.

The heart border at the bottom is some decorative tape which I bought on-line thinking it was washi tape - It is actually a fairly glossy adhesive tape but it looks OK here. The LOVE bingo card is a Kaisercraft Miss Match stamp, stamped on white cardstock. The gorgeous red velvet rose is a Making Memories Vintage Hip Finding (a mega bargain from TKMaxx - I got 4 sets of these (two roses and three vintage style buttons) for about £3!) The black acetate flourish and heart are K&Co Elegance Die Cuts. I am using October Afternoon's Remember When calendar stamps for all my Calendar Girls, as each month is written in a different font, which I thought would add a bit of interest to the tags. February is stamped on a Memory Box Bistro Label die cut which has black inked edges.  You can see from the supplies I've used that some of this stuff has been in my stash for years - at last it is getting an airing!

Thank you for taking the time to visit - happy crafting!

WOYWW #244

Hello again and thank you for dropping in. You're probably here because you know all about the phenomenon that is What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday... but if not, and you want to play along, go to Julia's place for all the details.

So here we are with a new month - which for me means new blog challenges to be completed. I've been over and looked at Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2014 for February - hmmm - bit of an issue with lack of supplies - so I'm still puzzling over what I'm going to do with that one. I'm hoping to start playing along with Kate Crane's Calendar Journal challenge over at The Kathryn Wheel, and of course I have my own personal Calendar Girl Tag challenge on the go too.

OK, so I've gone for the easy option, and I'm playing dressing up dolls again! Here is my desk with my February Calendar Girl in progress...

A different view again this week, taken from the back of the desk from the window end. You can see my bucket of Copics and my box of Promarkers - all stored nib down - SHOCK HORROR!

You can also see a stack of cheap exercise (composition) books in the foreground - I'm using one of these to make notes for my Calendar Girls - so that if I have a brilliant idea for, say, October I can jot it down and not have forgotten all about it when the time comes.

The cardboard tube is the inside of a cling film roll, and is really sturdy - so I'm adding it to my collection of random tubes-which-may-or-may-not-be-re-purposed-into-some-amazing-gorgeousness-one-day, and the empty multi-vitamins pot will go in my box of things-to-make-painty-marks-with.

Aside from that, everything else is either stuff that is still there from last week or being used in the current project...

This is my progress so far - I have deliberately avoided a red & pink colour palette, even though I am going with a Valentine's Day / love  theme. I'm using black and white with a hint of red, and again I'm making an effort to use up some of my stash.

You may be wondering why I have a legless girl - not a comment on too many Valentine's Day glasses of Champers! - I had a mishap with my shading on her dress and inadvertently coloured her knees a rather unpleasant shade of grey - so I've had to re-stamp and colour her legs and will have to surgically re-attach them later!

Well, that's what's happening here today - what have you got going on? Let me know you came and I'll catch up with you soon.