Great Aunt - New Style

In January I joined in with the Creative Jumpstart by Nathalie Kalbach and was totally inspired by the work of Louise Nelson, you can see her blog here.

Louise's lesson was using texture paste and gesso on gray board which were new to me so I went online shopping - as you do! :) and didn't find time to play :(

I saw the Merly Impressions February Challenge and realised this would be the perfect chance, so here is my page.

I started with a 12x12 piece of gray board and smeared it with texture paste, then "stamped" into it with a crackle stamp from Viva Las Vegas stamps (another item purchased for this!).

Once it dried I covered the whole page with white gesso. I had searched far and wide for the Krylon spray version to find it's only available to the professional market due to toelene? content, so I used a paint-on version instead.

Once dry I spritzed with Tattered Angels chalk mist, Teal High Heel, then Lilac Night Cosmic shimmer mist.

The technique shown had been to spray then blot until you liked the coverage then add some runs and splats.

My photo is 4x4" with some mats of leftover papers in the same size.

I tied a piece of netting with purple ribbon and glued down with a decorative pin, then added some mulberry flowers and a piece of bakers twine.

My title is made of two different stickers sets from my collection, the first was too flat so it got covered with Diamond Black stickles. The second is felt.

I couldn't resist adding a little bling too!

This has taken me completely out of my comfort zone but, boy, did I have fun!

The Merly sketch is below, follow this link to see the challenge and take part.

Happy 60th Birthday Derek!

Today is my brother's 60th! Birthday - wow, makes you feel really old!

He loves aircraft so this stamp was a must buy on a visit to Crafts-u-Love earlier this year.

Yes, I know it's cute but hey - I'm the one making the card :)

Inspired by the Queen's jubilee celebrations, I created a fly-by!

The base card is an 8x8" from CWC covered with MME Good day Sunshine paper called Head in the Clouds. I used the rest of the paper to cut a "60" out and placed on the front.

I stamped and coloured 10 planes with Copics and mounted them onto the 60 at various heights.

The edges of the numbers have faux stitching to make them stand out a little.

A while back I bough some rub-on letters from Making Memories and I used these to create the message.

and add his name....

I stamped the whole image on the insert too. 

Hope you have a lovely day Derek.

I am entering this card into the Penny Black Challenge - Summertime and the living is easy - Love the blue sky background with fluffy clouds :)

And also Merly Impressions - Red/White/Blue Challenge - as inspired by Jubilee :)

TFL

XXX

Granny Smith

I'm loving the new challenges on the Merly Impressions blog.

This month is a recipe card where you choose a line, see below, I chose to go across the middle which was Buttons/Flowers/Doodling.

I used Kaisercraft Madam Boutique collection which I got from Merly as a kit a little while back.

I have only used two of the papers here, one called Knickers! and the die-cut called Lace.

I gutted a circle from under the lace cut-out and then cut all the flowers out from that piece.

As you can see below, they are all layered together with some bazzill swirls and leaves.

The bazzill was also in the kit but was a little bright so I toned it with chalk ink.

I doodled around the edge of the page and also around the lace cut-out with a fine-liner pens, and also with some Mint liquid pearls to create swirls. I also added dots into the holes around the centre.

Buttons from my stash were threaded with twine and stuck along the photo's edge.

I also added doodling along the inside of the distressed edge.

This is the recipe card.

Thanks for looking.

xxx

My other Mum

The Merly Impressions current challenge is a sketch, this is my version.

I used Kaisercraft Flutterby papers, Monarch and Painted Lady.

These papers seemed to be perfect to match the photograph as there is a saying that Butterflies are the spirits of those who have passed away.

Painted Lady is the base page and the frame around the photograph is from the die cuts on the reverse - luckily I had bought 2 sheets :)

The Stripes are cut from Monarch which has a multitude of butterflies on the other side which is where I cut mine from.

I added a strip of ruffled ribbon as I had made an error on the journalling - shhhhh!

Below are the cut out butterflies with Crystal stickles.

The title was cut with my Art Nouveau Cricut cartridge shadowed with brown cardstock.

I also stickled the butterflies on the main page.

This is the sketch, click here for more details although it does finish tomorrow.

The story is a little sad really, this is the only photograph I have of this lovely lady who was my childminder from being a baby through to Secondary School.

Shortly after I married (first time 1986) she lost her husband, Norman, and became rather reclusive.

I never got to see her much as she wouldn't answer the door if you called round. We did speak sometimes on the telephone but she never wanted to leave the house to meet up.

She never met Lianne, although I used to send photographs, which is a shame.

She passed away a few years ago now and it saddens me that I never got to see her beforehand.

Her only son, Andrew, died earlier this year with no other family that we know of.

I can only hope that they are all together now in heaven (or where ever you want to call it) and are happily reunited - May they rest in peace.

Thanks for looking and sorry for the sad story!



Scrapology December Card Challenge - Leaves....

This month's card challenge was to create a card using leaves, leaf shapes and colours.

I used papers from BG Oliver set to create mine.

The leaves were cut with a Tim Holtz pine cone die set as are the cones, the flower shapes from the Tattered Florals die.

 

I cut several sets and just layered to create the card, plus some smaller leaf shapes punched with a Martha Stewart punch. Random jewells were placed to accent.

I've not got the hang of making the cones properly yet but think they would have been better in bazzill as the inside does show and would be better neutral. Will have to have a play at a later stage :)

Thanks to Chrissy at Merly Impressions for setting this challenge and supplying a wonderful prize.

Hop on over to the Scrapology Blog for more details and the rest of the Design Teams cards.

Challenge runs until 15th January 2012 so plenty of time to enter.