Journalling Aargh and Just for Fun Challenge

The challenge at JFF was to use your favourite colour, for those that pop in here regularly you'll know that for me it is green closely followed by purple. I choose green as it is a happier colour and I was trying to rid myself of the negative thoughts. I had been experimenting in my new journal with gesso and distress stains and created this checked background a few weeks ago. Yesterday feeling stressed to exploding point about work I decided to journal on the background and unusually for me I worked out and wrote the journalling first.

I drew round a cd three times and pencilled in my writing and then wrote it on the page using a pro marker. I feel like a headless chicken at the moment so using dylusions stamps (Lovestruck Lucy, Ruby Rainbow and Dependable Dotty)I stamped three heads and used the umbrella stamp to create spokes. 

I coloured the heads with a paintbrush and Distress inks and then stamped the Dylusions circle stamp to give more circular energy. As  you can see below Dependable Dotty has a strong influence over me at the moment.

I swiped more Distress Ink and some picket fence ink stain over the top. The distress inks are the Winter release (yes I gave in and bought them). Writing how I felt did make me feel better and helped get some of that screaming out my head. I then went to get my hair cut and I had a bit of a drastic change - influence I think, by my stamping and colouring of Dependable Dotty...

A major chop and lots of red, violet and aubergine. I think I like it but my son did comment that I was going a bit emo - you can always rely on family to say the right thing...

And here is another journal page on the theme of bitrhdays for UKStampers.

Just For Fun Art Journal Page

The challenge at Just for Fun was to use your favourite stamp. My current favourite is Dependable Dotty by Dylusions as I just love the versatility and quirky feel of it. I have fallen behind again in the journal prompts at UK Stampers so typically I went for the last one, number 43. Am I social? Yes and No. With close friends I will let my hair down and have fun. If I have to meet new people I curl up inside with fear but usually you cannot tell as the more nervous I am the louder I become.

The background had many layers of dylusions paint, ink, gesso and stencil and more ink before I liked it but then it was quite dark. I did stamp Dotty straight onto the page and coloured her lighter but did not like it. I stamped her onto black paper and embossed with silver pearl and coloured with some aqua pro markers. I wanted a cartoon type feel to this image so did very basic colouring. The picture below shows what it was like before I coloured her and I'm not sure which one I prefer.

The other image had Dotty's other head and an image from a music magazine I cut out, gessoed over and then painted, journaled and doodled on. We were meant to include an invite so I made a tag describing my invitation to social hell. I felt it still needed something so punched some butterflies with the Tonic punch and used waste paper with ink spray spatters to back the butterflies.

Thank you for popping by.

JFF Altered Tin

This time the Just For Fun challenge was set by Von  and her challenge was to recycle book pages or magazines so I decided to use an old copy of Living Etc magazine to alter a tin - to hold pens in. I used Dylusions and Tim Holtz stamps and mixed them up to create figures. I cut out images from the magazine to create furniture and splodged a lot of mod podge around. Yet again apologies for evening photos...I began by layering white gesso on the coffee tin. I then stamped the image above onto dictionary paper - in two sections and coloured with pro markers and stuck it on. I began to build up images using other stamps but for these ones I decided to stamp directly onto magazine pages to colour and create the image.

She has a dylusions head and legs and a dress I cut out for her with a sofa and cushions collaged behind. I liked an orange chair for the vibrant colour but added TH birds to perch on it.

This one's face was on a very dark image  stamped on top of a photo of black kitchen units and the body was over a garden image. There is a chandelier cut out behind her and more of the cushions and couches.

My big mistake was applying my stamped and collaged images t to the white gesso as I had gaps and wanted a different colour as a background. It was a bit fiddly to paint around images.

 Late last night I mixed a little pink acrylic paint with mod podge - but this morning I realised it was a little brighter than intended.

The final colour was green acrylic paint and mod podge. The finish is really interesting and layered but I don't think the evening photos show this. The umbrella was stamped over a two tone piece of magazine.

Apologies for showing another tin - my glitter tin was my first altered item and this is my second, I think the third one might be more embellishment heavy but as I pick up and move these tins all the time they need to be sturdy to withstand my careless handling. I quite liked using the magazine images to "colour" my stamps as the effects were often not what I expected.

Altered Tin, Just For Fun

When I saw the challenge on Just for Fun Challenge blog which was "Anything But A Card" and the challenge on UK Stampers to use up some glitter stash I decided to try my hand at altering a tin. I've never altered anything like this before so it was very experimental. I have a pile of old coffee tins that I store pens, brushes, tools and stuff in and I decided I wanted to try and alter them. I painted the tin with three coats of gesso, very roughly, so there was a lot of brush stroke texture (not sure how to make it smooth unless I sanded it). I then glued Martha Stewart glass beads around the base and then splodged on distress stains in peeled paint and broken china. I used a christmas foliage stamp from Shady Tree Studios as I thought it looked like seaweed. I stamped Smushasha from Stampotique twice onto acetate and liberally applied large flakes of glitter from MS. I then stuck the together and suspended her from the top of the tin using thread. I painted vague fishy shapes in glue on the tin and added more glitter and round blob shapes became bubble in glass beads. I used free Jo Capper Sandon stamp from Craft stamper and glued more glass beads to back of these and then stuck on using raised sticky pads.

I enjoyed experimenting with this and my second tin of collaged stamps is now under way.

Just For Fun Challenge - Words

Von set the challenge at Just For Fun to take inspiration from Words. As I had been making a bookmark for the Stampotique challenge I thought I would create another bookmark for Just For Fun. I used Eric, distress inks, and dictionary pages. On one side I stamped Eric directly onto a dictionary page coloured with distress inks and then stuck that to a piece of green tissue paper. I coloured him with aqua pro markers andpaper pieced some books for him. On the other side I highlighted the words "who said boys do not read books" from the dictionary definitions and stamped Eric over the definitions onto a piece of Lost and Found paper with Spiced Marmalade and Worn Lipstick distress inks. I also created another  quick book using Smushasha from Stampotique. I am trying out a new Accelerated Reading Programme with my first year class (year 7/8) and am busy making bookmarks to encourage them to read. I've laminated them all to protect them.

A Bird Pincushion from old clothes - Just for Fun

I am a bit of hoarder and hate to throw anything out - especially favourite old clothes that have developed holes through long wear. August is birthday season in our household with 6 family birthdays and I have decided to make some presents. Efemeraink's blog always features stunning creations and a few months ago I fell in love with this Bird Pin Cushion. She very kindly sent me a copy of her pattern and it languished on my to do board for a while. Inspiration struck when I saw the old clothes pile and wondered if I could use it to make a bird. The original was done in felt and there is a reason for this - linen, denim and stretch hoody material do not work in the same way.

 As I have yet to get to grips with eldest daughter's sewing machine which she left with me before departing to Singapore for 2 years I decided to hand sew it. As I am also (yet again) giving up smoking I felt occupying my hands with sewing rather than chocolate would be a good move.
After cutting out all the pieces I realised due to the fraying on the denim wings blanket stitching two pieces together would work better. I need to work on this stitch as it is a little wobbly.

I did not have any bakers twine to wrap round the cushion so threaded a large scrapping needle with ribbon to create a similar effect.

The beak is a piece of foam and the ric rac crest evolved to hide some of my  uneven areas and to make it easier to stuff the bird through the head. 

He is a little different from the original and my sewing needs work but I love him and now don't want to give him to my quilting mother in law. I think I have caught the bug and went out and found some felt today and I have drawn a pattern for a mouse on cheese pin cushion which will be next and I have plans for an aviary of birds...

I have entered this in the Just for Fun Challenge Blog - check out the inspiring ideas and creations here.

Just for Fun Week 2 - Times Flies

Here is my take on the Just for Fun Challenge "Time Flies". AS I have used a few angle style wings I wanted to go back to birds and I do like that strange crow. I began by using DI on the background and then inking it with Dylusions Red. I stamped TH crow from Haunted Mansion on to the ATC using black ink and also onto card using purple ink which was then swiped with Red DI - and did the same for the TH Shabby French bird. I layered my WINGS onto the original bird slightly off register. The fob watch (Royal Langnickel - Journey) was stamped, inked and added. The Tempus Fugit came from free stamp with Craft stamper. I then added Ranger Clear Rock Candy which has made it very red... I did mean to iron it flat before taking a photo but I had a very limited time span between daylight and dark when getting in from work.