Just a Journal Page

Hi Peeps, how's it going?

Well it's been a bit hard work here the last couple weeks, you know how it is sometimes things don't wash over you the way they should. So what's a girl to do?

CREATE that's what. Now I've been to a couple of France Papillon journal classes and she really lives the emotional side of crafting, now I've never quite got there but I think she would have been proud of my thought process with this LOL.

For anyone who knows me I don't 'do' black, either in my crafting (other than bits of accent you know!) or clothing, I find it a depressing colour and always try and be colourful in crafting and thought.

SO I started this with a layer pf black gesso because that's how I felt but as soon as I started to think about what I wanted to do I had to use colours but still wanted to show some black as that's where I'd come from (does that make sense?) 

I used a stencil to ink up and heat emboss in clear embossing powder then as this stencil reminded me of peacock feathers (it probably isn't that but what the heck!) it had to be blues and (my favourite) greens with PaperArtsy fresco paints China & Granny Smith. I then wiped the paint from the embossed areas to show the bits of black!

A bit more stenciling with some grunge paste too ad some highlighting and shadowing with pencils, but I needed it to say something and came across a JOFY sentiment on a scrap of tissue paper however the text says 'hear the song within the silence' but I changed silence to chaos (as you do).

I had to give this a wash of South Pacific as after it dried it was still white for some reason.

Anyhow I'm not sure about the emotional side but I certainly felt better after creating this, I really think it's the time spent just thinking about something else though but hey jump in and enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by and leave a comment if you fancy, and now I've found the follow button again I might not be 'Billy No Mates' if you choose to follow me, go on be a dare devil LOL.

happy Craftin
Rebecca

2016 Topic 3: Wax {Challenge}

Oooo hark at me! Two posts in one month, how about that then!!

Over on the PaperArtsy blog is a new challenge...all about wax!!

So, many many moons ago whilst in Richmond visiting my brother we happened across a craft fair in the town hall (I think anyway, it was a long time ago).

Anyhow, there was this artist chappy selling and demoing Caustic Art with little blocks of wax and an iron... how strange I thought, but I was hooked and bought a starter kit and as I was his only customer all day he threw in some beeswax too for good measure.

I did play at the time and made a few projects but since then said kit has been sat longingly just waiting to be played with again! 

My mind was racing when I saw the PaperArtsy blog 'Where O where is may wax?' I found a couple books with bits of waxy delights in and obviously there was the design team inspiration on the PaperArsty blog.

Now the kids are off this week but my working from home job as been inundated, poor kids have been left to their own devices, not that they are moaning as I've been a taxi to the big un and the little un has been happy on his X-Box with the odd nag of getting some fresh air to come along on dog walking expeditions!!

I seem to be waffling tonight sorry...

I melted some beeswax onto my travel iron! and scraped across the surface, then dipped some paper in the wax still on the iron to adhere this to the board. Now some people might be a bit daft and get wax on their fingers here!!! I tried to iron over the layers but they just seems to slip around a bit. I decided to add some colour, with yellow, green then a few drops of blue and a dash of red. 

I then stamped Lin's lovely flower head from ELB24 stamp set onto tissue paper and adhered that but when I tried to fix that, the colours underneath all ran and mixed together and although the colours were Ok it's seemed a bit of a mess, so what to do?

After a while I used the white wax to colour in the petals and used the tip of the iron to melt this which diluted the colours, I liked this a repeated a couple more times and thought I'd leave this experiment there.

So as quick experiment it's OK, I think and it was good for the wax to see the light of day, although I wouldn't leave them in the light otherwise it would be...
'Ahh! I'm melting.....'

Sorry couldn't resist, bit long winded for a quick experiment LOL Sorry!

Thanks for stopping by and leave a message if you fancy.

Happy craftin
Rebecca

February...check

Well Hello! How the devil are you?

If you saw my last post I made a Birthday/Celebration Board to keep tabs on card requirements, so I thought it would be a good idea to post when each month activities were complete (in an attempt to blog more frequently) well can only hope! LOL

First I thought I would catch up on January and just a smidge of Christmas (how long ago does that feel!!).

When me and my mucka Sue go on craftin-tour her hubby on one occasion referred to us as Thelma & Louise so I made her this little wall handing for Christmas (wishful thinking on the Goddess front with the chosen images LOL) but it made them both laugh and was greatly received.

Now onto January for Sue's birthday we had a rare craftin session, you can see what we did here I still haven't finished mine yet, it's just not happening for me I'm sure I'll pick it up again soon but anyway Sue does tend to like black in a lot of her awesomeness so with her card I thought I would give her a little bit of colour.

The remainder of January looked a bit like this...

For some reason I occasionally forget to take photos there's a couple missing in February but here are the one's I managed to take pics of...

So all that was left for February were the dreaded Valentine cards. Now me & the hubby have never been big on Valentine not even in the 'heady' love struck days but we normally manage a card each. Well I make both of them as no-one in the household is aloud to buy shop bought cards LOL.

Martyn has gone a bit bike mad of late since having a bike for his birthday last summer, which is great as he's trying to get fit etc... and as it was late when I even got to my craft table (aka the dining table) they were going to be quite simple cards. This is the one I gave to Martyn...

Which he liked and chuckled appreciation...all good. Now as for mine it was supposed to be bits of torn book paper with a few bright sprays here and there and a Stampotique girlie which started off fine...

 ...but some how ended up like this after finding some sprays I hadn't used yet and almost entirely utilising a load on mop up papers and bits of grunge paste but I must admit I like what it evolved into LOL AND I have a background for my next card/project...perfect!!

The only problem was it was after 12:30 by the time I'd stopped faffing and got to bed LOL but that's me done, Happy Valentine's Day everyone, thanks for stopping by and leave a comment if you fancy.

Happy craftin

Rebecca

2016 Topic 2: Hearts {challenge}

Howdy Folks! Hope all well in the craftin cyber world.

SO... have you been hooked on all the Paperartsy new product launch this week and Leandra's Periscope demoing, it's been a blast, go take a LOOK.

Anyway the good news is that because of this busy week the latest Blog Challenge was extended by a week, Yay! so this gave me more time to get sorted.

Now in the past I have made my own photo calendars but the online template I used to use disappeared which meant having to change all the dates etc... myself and proved too time consuming so for the last two years I haven't had a calendar up so I'm really not sure how I've managed to survive and I have been late for birthdays on a couple occasions!!

So when my craftin mucka Sue came up with an idea for a birthday calendar this set my little grey cells 'a rocking an a rollin!'

I usually pop into The Works when passing (as you do) and they had these lovely little wooden hearts attached to pegs and some larger wooden hearts, the plan was there...I had a tag swap display board in front of craft desk (I mean dinning table, well on special occasions anyway!) and thought it was time for a make-over.

To start I squirted a little, Fresco Paints Nougat, Chutney, Turquoise and Pumpkin Soup onto my craft mat with a little water, creating a marble effect with a cocktail stick then tapped, swirled and splatted the hearts in the paint to create a variety of painted hearts, once dry I gave them a 'white wash' using diluted Nougat.

With the larger hearts I applied Chutney and Turquoise with cut and dry, once dry applied a thin coat of Crackle Glaze, again once dry a thick coat of Vintage Lace and waited for the cracks then I wiped some of the areas away with a baby wipe to create a bit more of a shabby/distressed wood effect. I then applied Space cadet through random sections of a Tim Holtz stencil followed by text in Chutney using Ephemera 3 stamp and then again a 'white wash' of diluted Chalk, this was so the wording would be more visible on a more subtle background.

Finally I stamped the months on each large heart, and pegged them onto my display board, I just have to add the date and person to the little hearts, as you can see April is a awfully busy month! Looking at it now I might need to define the edges of the hearts to make them pop out a little more but I need to look at it a little longer and hopefully in natural light as it''s been a real miserable grey rainy day here in the UK.

Only problem now is there's no excuses now for missing any birthdays or anniversaries!!! The pictures aren't great due to the lack of light though, sorry!

Just before I go, I cleaned the back of my cut and dry and was left with this amazing crackle effect, now if only I could produce that on my projects LOL!

Anyway that's me done, thanks for stopping by, leave a comment if you fancy!

Happy Craftin

Rebecca