Craft room decoration

Still working on the craft room renos. 

Whilst sorting through craft room stuff I found some wooden letter that I had purchased a thousand years ago.  The letters spell CREATE and I remember buying them to decorate and put on my wall.  

I decided that I really like the steampunk look.  I'm definitely not a girly girl. Even most of my cardmaking is "shabby chic". Anyway.  I used black gesso and various bits and pieces I had laying around.  Some of them plastic, some metal, it really doesn't matter what you use.

Here are a few close ups of the elements. I'll finish with a tutorial video which explains the products that I used :)

Card making on the fly

Following on from my previous post, crafting has been a little problematic.  Not only don't I have the space to craft at the moment, I also have very little time.  

Those of you who know me, know that I work in a high stress job and crafting is part of my self care routine.  If I wasn't able to craft, I think I would burn out and have nothing left to give to the people who feature prominently in my life. So what's a girl to do??

Pinterest! Pinterest, that's  what.  Pinterest is what I do when I want to create but don't want to think for myself.  Pinterest has thousands of projects to case.  And that is what I did.

In this card here I used ink blending and used fun foam and black card to cut out the word "thanks". I decided to try to match the background colours with Tim Holtz distress oxide inks and die cut the butterfly out of the results.

This next card was created using some of the new products from the 2017/2018 Stampin Up catalogue 

This card particularly caught my eye because I love this Eastern Palace suite. 

I also decided that I needed to make some fathers day cards, again lots of ideas on pinterest.  I just looked for cards that worked in with what I had on hand.  Here I used Zig clean colour real brush markers and the background is distress oxide ink

More fathers day cards in the next few photos.  The background in this one is ink blended and the elements are coloured with copic markers

With these next two I decided to experiment with distress oxide inks. I have to say, I'm really happy with how these turned out

So as you can see, when creativity is lacking for whatever reason, Pinterest is your friend.  

Another week, another craft room reno

  We're currently refurbing my craft room yet again.   I don't know about you but sometimes I arrange my room a certain way and then a few months later I find that it doesn't  work for me any more.  Seriously, am I the only one that does that? My poor husband, I swear he is the world's most patient man.  He completely refurbed my room a few months ago for which I uploaded a video

So I really liked it, but as time went on I realised  it just wasn't that well organised.  The space could be utilised a little better.  So as always, I tell George what I need and also as always he makes it happen 😁

I decided that I really didn't like the way I was storing my paper so we have taken the paper storage away and are currently working on a new storage system.

Here you can see the mess everywhere :)

I moved all of my stampin up stamps from the shelves into a cupboard which meant I could put embossing powders and little knick knacks on the shelf within easy reach.  I also put my Tim Holtz ink storage at a reachable height :)

I moved my silhouette computer station over under the window so now I can open the curtains and let in some light

In this photo you can see my very messy mixed media supplies.  I call these my trolleys of shame and I'm currently working on tidying them up

There's still quite a bit to do.  I'll make another reveal video when I'm done :)

Yamba Winter
Whenever the weather gets cold I like to create projects that remind me that somewhere in Australia it is warm enough to paddle in the rock pools.  One such place is Yamba on the north coast of NSW.

 My eldest daughter and her family are fortunate to live in that beautiful part of the country and as always, my granddaughter, Layla Rose makes a beautiful  subject

I used 7 Dots studio Cotton Candy Dreams Cloud Watching paper and for the background I used Lindys Sassy Saphire spray.  I must say I really like the effect.
I usually lay out the projects to see how it will look when it's finished.  The other thing I do is take photos with my camera so I can remember where everything goes.

I remembered I had bought some shells a while back and decided to use a selection of those too.  The sand is a mix of White Sand texture paste and tiny art stones.  I just put these around the focal image.

I added some chipboard pieces which I coloured with white gesso.  The net chipboard I decided to leave plain as it looked more like a fishing net.  Then I just added more shells to complete the canvas

Here is the full length video tutorial

Full Throttle

I've wanted to make a "boy" page for a while now and have been sorting photos of my grandson.
The motor bike he is riding was his mother's.  She was given it when she was 3 years old.  She is now almost 30.  Blair is 5 years old in this photo :)

 For me, this was really just an opportunity to play with some new goodies I got last week.  First off, I used the Art Alchemy paint, Metallique Brass Hardware.  I'm really happy with the amount of shimmer this put on the page.  Then I played with some Art Alchemy Metallique Wax.  It's a very soft creamy medium that you rub on to give things an aged look.  I only had chipboard gears so I wanted them to look like metal.  It worked brilliantly :)

As you can see, they look quite rusty.  I also had some screw heads and other little bits (Metal Embellishments - Mini Hardware) so I used those also.

 

 

To finish off, I added some paint splatters because it still looked a little bare for my liking.  I really had fun making this one.  Let me know what you think.

6 x 6 mixed media canvas

This gorgeous 6 x 6 canvas was inspired by Shari Carroll.  When I saw the mix of colours I just knew I had to try to recreate it.  I started out by using gel medium and some Tim Holtz tissue paper.  I then used gesso very lightly.  Once that was dry I applied the Wendy Vecchi crackle medium both thickly and thinly to give different depth of cracks.  It takes a little while for it all to dry.  Once it was dry, I used the following color bloom sprays:

Dragonfly blue

Tea stain,

Golden Walnut

Pot marigold,

Soft Teal and Magic stone to work on my background.

I have also used paper clay and Prima moulds to make the decorative accent on the left hand side of the page.  This also takes a little while to dry.

I then painted all the elements with Gesso and added my photo into the pocket watch piece.  I made sure to cover it when I was spraying the colours around as I didn't want to damage it.  I added some Prima Art Stones and then some flowers and metal elements.  I used some Frank Garcia Memory Hardware Pearls on top of some of the elements.  I then continued to build up the colours that you see in the finished project.

You are so Beautiful

Mixed media scrapbook page

Hi everyone, it's been a while since I have posted anything.  Not that I haven't been creative, but it's just been too hot to be creative in my craft room.  We have had temperatures of 43C which is, I think, about 109F....much too hot.  Anyway, I have made two projects.  The first one is a mixed media scrapbook page titled You are so beautiful.  I've decided to scrap some of my photos that I have had for a very long time.  This one is my granddaughter, Layla Rose who is just soooo photogenic :)

I'm using some gorgeous paper and flowers from 49 and Market.  Their paper is just such good quality and I really like the flowers too.  I started out just getting a feel for the layout.

Then I marked where I wanted the layout to be and removed it.  I then did some random stamping using Simon Says Stamp basic black ink and 49 and Market texture stamps.  I then also used a stencil called Time for love and Gesso.  I then spritzed everything with Kaiser Mist, Apple.  Next I added the chipboard pieces and flowers.  Lastly I added more mist around the bottom chipboard so it stands out a bit better.

                                        

I've completed a video tutorial which is available on my youtube channel.

BARN PARTY

Silhouette Cameo project

Hello again.  Here I am back with another project to share.

This project was quite difficult for me but let me start at the beginning.  I have had my Cameo for about 12 months and to date, it has been this pretty little thing sitting on a desk in my craft room.  I have watched countless youtube videos and read umpteen dozen books but was still flummoxed about how to use it.  I had been to various sites and had purchased cut files that I was dying to try out.  Sooooo, long story short, I decided to just jump in and have a go.  The cut file I have used is called Barn Party and it's from SVG Cuts which is a fabulous site and the cost of the packages are quite reasonable.  Anyway, back to the story.....

What possessed me to start with a project like this?....must have been a moment of madness.....

So there was lots of cutting and recutting.  Lots of asking questions on the Cameo page on facebook and lots of wonderful people who tried to help me out.  My life totally changed when I realised that I could right click to select all and then "make compound path".  Those little perforations had me beat for ages and ages.  I was even toying with putting the score lines in afterwards by hand! But once I worked out about "make compound path" I had no more trouble getting all the bits cut out.  The only other thing I will say is that it would have been easier if all the bits that belong together would have been on the same page.  Some things I had cut out in black that should have been cut out with designer paper and so on.  My problem was that I couldn't picture where the pieces went in my head (now I can because I've made it).  

  So I worked on the base  which was pretty much just a box with two boxes inside for strength.

All up the project took me about 4 days.  It will probably not take nearly as long if I make it again, simply because I can now picture where the pieces go and whether they have to be black or designer paper.

The back bit has a hole for a lead to go through so you can have plug in tea lights in there to light it up which I thought was really cool.  I have some battery operated ones that would work just as well though.  If you don't want to put lights in it you can always fill it with lollies and snacks and use it as a table decoration for a halloween party :)

Let's take a minute to talk about the roof.  I had a lady on facebook ask me whether I had any problems with the roof as she had made it and could not get the roof to fit.  I'm not sure whether there was an issue with the roof or if it was just my inexperience but once I glued the roof on I noticed that it had slipped at the other end and try as I might, I could not get it to fit (the glue was drying so it was hard to take it off without tearing it).  All I can say is next time I make it I will take extra care with gluing the roof on and see if there are any issues.

The other thing that is noteworthy is be careful what gauge cardstock you use.  Mine was not that thick so I feel it does not sit as straight as it could if I had used thicker card stock.  All in all, I enjoyed making the house and will be making more things from SVG Cuts.