Get Better Soon Mum

Mum came home from the Nursing Home on Monday and I went to stay with her at night after school. Wednesday was her birthday and after a lovely dinner I got her to bed and crashed out myself. I was woken at 1:15 am by her calling to discover she had fallen getting into bed. I tried to move her but could not get her up and called an ambulance. We spent the night in A&E and she was admitted to a ward with a broken hip. They operated later that day and she is now in hospital. I can't believe she only managed 2 days home before something else happened. I have no idea what will happen now and where we go from here. Her friends and mine say she can no longer live alone but she is a very independent lady. We have discussed granny flats and other options before but she has always been adamant she wants to say put. I am still struggling to catch up on missing a nights sleep and think I was the grumpiest teacher ever on Friday but I am sure my pupils will cope.
I quickly made the card to cheer mum up before going to the hospital for first visit of day. I used distress inks, paper artsy stamps, dylusion inks and layers of card. Photo not great as I was rushing as always to get out of house to hospital.

This and that

The photos show the front and back of my current art journal. I set a challenge on UKStampers to take inspiration from a modern (ish) abstract painter and alter something using inspiration from your favourite abstract artists and stamps. I choose Wassily Kandinksy. The front is inspired by a painting called Patch of Puddles. I began by creating shapes with modelling paste, leaving three squares flat for stamping.

I then added dylusion acrylic paints and wiped some off with a baby wipe.

I stamped with three Paper Artsy stamps and sealed with some acrylic gel medium.

The back was inspired by the painting Composition V111.

Once painted I added more paper artsy stamps and then some gel medium

I blotted this with a paper towel to create texture. And now for something different... (well not altered or stamped)

This LO shows our eldest two daughters 20 years ago. It is based on a Sketch given by a group I belong to on UKS called Scrap a Sketch. The embellishments on the bottom of the photo hide distracting elements in the photo.

The journalling tag pulls out and describes the day and some of the Easter traditions we had when the children were much younger.

Art Journal Page and a beautiful place

This page combines the doodling and layering prompts on UKScrappers. I was away for half term at the beautiful place below so had less time to play but the views were worth it. 

I gessoed the page and then used red, pink and yellow dylusion paints with a water wash. The heart stamp is from Indigo Blu. I then tore some scrap pieces of TH paper and glued it on with and added more gesso.

I also added more around the edge. I was going to punch butterflies out of some inky card waste but found a pile of them inside my tonic border punch so stuck them on first and then after punching some out of the card tore the card into rough shapes and stuck on at the top.

I then doodled lots on the page, using purple and white sakura gel pens and a sharpie, whilst watching tv. It was very calming - the journalling was about my hate of the commercialism surrounding Valentine's day and around the heart I wrote about why I can be romantic, just not on that day.

Eigg from Camusdarrach

The sun was setting as we walked along the beach.

Stampotique Altered Poison Bottle

At Stampotique Maria challenged us to alter a bottle to a poison bottle and only use Stampotique stamps... hmmm... much thinking ensued. Here is the almost step by step approach, it just leaves out the  swearing, smiling and general messiness that went on. 

I began with an empty perfume stick bottle which I filled with  sploshes of alcohol inks and gold mixatives but I found it hard to get it to go where I wanted it to go.

I coloured the lid with pro markers and alcohol inks and doodled some details on the lid with sakura white and glitter pens. It is a poison bottle but it also needs an antidote which I created and stuck to one of the perfume sticks.

In my bits and bobs box I found an old dried chilli and that seemed a great antidote to poison when wrapped with beads, ribbons, pin and the definition of antidote. I had to really think about how to get the stamping on and then staring at the glass bottle inspiration stuck - shrink plastic. There was a lot of unladylike cursing at this point as bits curled over too much and got stuck etc but I finally ended up with these pieces edged in alcohol ink.

Angel Boy, Oh Deer, Smushasha and Olivia (Eric had a major melt down and curl up)

I decided the bottle needed a stand so found the plastic protector from a stack of cd's added ink and stuck on some metal fasteners as feet. If I had taken photos in daylight you could appreciate how giving the bottle a base that is raised up helps the colours bounce. I then stuck my shrink plastic stamps to the bottle with glue, masking tape, glue dots, tape and more swearing as a curvy bottle and wavy shrink plastic make it tricky to stick. I also added another layer of ink to my shrink plastic.

Olivia perhaps suffering from Poison?

Angel Boy hiding under what began as a hideous flowery chipboard tag  before I covered it in gesso,  inks and my drawing of a wonky skull and crossbones - and another bead from that box.

  

Here you can see the shrink plastic poison charm above Oh Deer and a key and owl charm that were dipped in alcohol inks and added to the sign.

The curved bits hanging from ribbon on each corner are from a broken shell necklace in my bits and bobs box that I dripped red ink onto to make them look a little like blood. I enjoyed making this. I hope you enjoyed reading about it. 

Art Journal Page

As I am yet again trying to catch up with prompts on UK Stampers weekly challenge here is week 37 - Laugh (just 38-40) to finish now... To save time I used a mop up page as my background.

 Because I was thinking about Monty Python's parrot sketch which always makes me laugh

I decided to create odd stamped images using images from Dylusions and Tim Holtz.

 I was going to use scrapping alphas but did not have the letters I needed so cut out the waste and then sprayed Dylusion orange ink over before removing the ink. 

I stuck to the organey green colour scheme on the mop up page using the inks and distress stains to colour the images with.

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.

A productive crafting day at the crop

Yesterday I went to EK Craft and Crop hosted by Suzy and Audrey. Despite their being a slight crisis with the heating (not working) and a flooding toilet which meant we had to find the stop cock (which we did) it was a great day. The room soon heated up with all the hot air floating from numerous crafters happily swapping ideas, stories and laughs. I managed another double layout in my Paris album. I can't remember why I decided to make it such an odd size but the plan is to bind it all together in a book form so I think that's why I went with the American page size. although as I do not measure accurately don't hold me to that. 

I also managed to make a card for mum with a great deal of encouragement from the girls as I muttered about not liking making cards as it required neatness and precision. Thank you Audrey for keeping me on track and mum did like it and I did almost get the house tidied and clean before she arrived for her birthday dinner... It helped that I had made the tag earlier in the week using TH Spiced Marmalade and Worn Lipstick distress inks for the background and stamps from Lost and Found and Paper artsy. Suzy suggested the contrasting turquoise and I found a piece of ribbon that finished off and sewed some buttons on. Due to wonky stamping I had to stamp the sentiment again on turquoise.

SDC38 Black white and hint of yellow colour journal page

This challenge has taken me way out of my colour comfort zone. Kaz at Stampotique set the challenge "I'm setting you another colour challenge as you all did such a good job of the last one. This time it's to use black and white and add just a hint of another colour." I used my new journal for this and swiped black dylusions over the page with a baby wipe as I had been mopping up paint from another page (still in progress). I then used a mix of bottle lids to stamp circles with white and yellow acrylic on both pages. I then stamped Eric and Olivia onto the page and embossed them with TH Black distress powder. I used a Ranger medium pen to write my thoughts and embossed that too (I took a chance on you, worth the risk). I think my head must be full of Abba songs and advertisements as there are two well known catch phrases in there.

My stamped figures were blending into the background so I drew white lines behind them which helps bring them out and then I went a little doodly with the white pen. The facing page also has a Lost and Found Gramophone stamp on it. It is disguised within the white doodles. I used the last of the Tattered Floral pieces from the TH die to create a flower and leaves and added a paper ruler stem. Another part of the flower gave me the love heart balloon.

I'm off to the monthly EK Craft and Crop tomorrow so hopefully will have lots of times to play or finish stuff. I have about five different projects littering my desk at the moment and none are quite finished yet. Thank you for dropping by and I love reading any comments people make.

Art Journal Pages

As you can I have used some of my new purchases. The first page was asking whether or not we are spiritual and I am not, I am much more of a free spirit summed up by the quote from Nietzche: One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I swiped on marmalade distress stain and then added Adironack Espresso randomly. I stamped the Dina Wakely Grungy Silhoutte onto the still wet ink so it blended into the page and then scribbled with a sharpie pen. I used my white pen to write the quote and stamped with paint and ink using the free Jo Capper Sandon  stamp from craft stamper.

 I'm not sporty but I do enjoy water sports and used to sail, windsurf and water ski. Now I am content to kayak around beaches watching seals and surfing waves. The second page is a succession of layers or ink, paint, ink and more ink and paint.

 Once I had built up layers and used gesso to make shapes in the pattern I drew round some chipboard starfish and then sprayed through the waste sheet.

I stamped Smushsasha from Stampotique on the page and then on card and coloured her with aqua pro markers, cutting her out was tricky but it allowed me to place her hands round the distressed surfboard and keep some definition. I also stamped circles with the distress stains in peeled paint and broken china.

I used a glue lid to stamp white and black circles of paint and a card to add white paint lines - some of which I smudged. The title was done in aqua promarkers and sprayed with water to make it run. Finally I added the wavy journalling and a few more stamped circles over it.

More ATCs in a similar vein

When I was trying to work out how to create the ATCs for chain and charm swap I had a little play. I stamped Olivia from Stampotique onto shrink plastic and made holes. I tried colouring some (did not work) and on some of the others my holes bubbled and filled again. I used the Paper Artsy rule stamp on the the same background with Lost and Found dress form and bunting and added the paper fibre again.

 I stuck her down (hole vanished) and then found the rabbit brad and decided I liked the surreal contrast of elements. Living free seemed right at that moment. The other one is a variation on the chain ATC but with different chains and brads. Really the same elements with a different chain and brads.

Stampotique 36 - Altering A Book

Wow this is my 250 th post. In celebration I will be giving away a book similar to the one I altered for this challenge. I will pick a random comment from this post next Sunday 21 August. Sorry there are a lot of photos in this post.
Valerie at Stampotique challenged us to alter a book. I had such fun with this one and ended up altering three pages in my book. The book was given to by my eldest son as he worked for the publisher when he was in Paris. I was going to give it to a niece or nephew but something told me I would want to play with it.
The book began life as this:

It has lots of different sized pages like the screen that  is a separate page

This made me think of changing rooms which are not places I like going into to.

I applied gesso to all the pages as they are quite thin and for that reason I used a mix of dylusion paints, inks, glimmer mists and water colour pro makers.

I tried adding some texture with the gesso

Inked, painted and coloured some of the existing elements on the page

Lots of ink dripping on this page

I stamped Stampotique's Olivia on card three times and then added her head and three sets of legs to the dress, I stamped dylusions Ruby Rainbow legs and Love Struck Lucy onto card and added them. I wrote the journalling on the paper that I had used to protect my pages and stuck it down. "Does my body look okay in this?" and "Why am I the wrong shape?"

I outlined the original girl and changed her clothing a little. On separate pieces of cards I stamped Stampotique's Angel Boy and Oh Dear on card and added the wings and Oh Dear the page,  then Ruby Rainbow in three layers. I also used my new stamps from Shady Tree Studios for borders and words. "Embrace your curves, bumps, lumps and imperfections!"

I used more border stamps from Shady trees and the number stamp from Paper Artsy. I drew a danger sign on card and added it to the page.

I hope you all embrace  your bodies - or maybe you are that rare breed and actually love your shape.

The book I'm giving away is Colour Your Way Round Russia. I will post more pictures in another posting to avoid too many pics.