A bottle of inspiration

Sometimes ideas just come to you when you least expect it and that was the case with this bottle. The grungepaper top was an idea by the amazing Lin of LB Crafts, she had made little glass vial bottle trees like that and added them to a project and I liked them so much I wanted to make some too.
So there was me sitting at work one day drinking a bottle of Firefly and I peeled the label off as it's one of those shrink wrap labels that come off easy and I was left with this perfect clear bottle. I thought that be really noce to paint with the Paper Artsy paint just like a project we did at the Artsy Crafts event and I could make a big grungepaper tree and decorate the bottle. And there you go.
I made this for the Happy Daze Challenge where the theme is Dangly Things. And Simon says Stamp and Show wants to see Words this week.

Alter it monthly - April Theme - SPRING(S)

It's time for some more Alter it monthly inspiration. I really enjoyed all your contributions for last months theme - TIME. Very creative and inspirational.

Well as for this month with easter fast approaching and the sun coming out a bit more the theme is SPRING, SPRINGS and EASTER.

I did get myself a big bag of springs and really wanted to create something unique with them but you know how it is, sometimes things don't work out like that so I went for this spring themed frame instead. The frame is painted in white crackle paint and out of boredom i sprayed a few glimmer mists over it and it somehow ended up in these splattery pastel colours. Add a load of grungeboard and stickles, done!

Come and join us and you could be in with a chance to win a great prize.

Grungy altered clock......

This clock started life as an Ikea mirror. I just took the mirror tile out, filled it with a square of foam board and then covered it with card. I took some inspiration from Wendy Vecchi and inked up 12 pieces of card with distress inks and used an array of background stamps on them. It's a bit like cutting a cake into 12 pieces, only here my 12 yummy pieces are inky bits of card.

Then each number is a flower and so is the centre. I wasn't too sure about the whole thing being square and I still think clocks should be round, but I wanted to finish it nevertheless. So I added some greenery round the edges, which makes it look real odd. But it's a piece of art and it's my art and I learnt from it and therefore it's worthy of hanging on my newly painted living room wall. From now on all my clocks will be round.

I am entering this into a few challenges.... the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge where we are getting grungy this week. Then there is the Stamp Man Challenge where we are altering things this week. And last but never least, the Artistic Stamper Challenge where this month the theme is rainbows.

Rusty Challenge Time.....

It is time for some more challenges. I've been working on this frame all week, you know a few minutes here and there, I was very busy at work but managed to squeeze in some crafting before and after work. So I have made this to enter 3 challenges.... first of all The Stampman Challenge where the theme is 'Distress', the Alter it monthly challenge with a 'Rusty' theme and last but not least the 'Distress' Challenge at Sir Stampalot.

I've been wanting to use some of the rusty knobs/keyholes/keys I bought at a market in Spain so I thought I combine them with some faux rust grungeflowers. Not sure you can see the rusty flowers very well in thr picture but they are done with distress embossing powder and then inked with distress inks. Very nice effect. I then went a bit crazy at adding lots of little things like punched flowers from metal sheet that I coloured with alcohol inks. Plenty of dangly bits from chains. Rusty snaps, also from a flea market. Some memo pins filled with beads. Grungepaper leaves, a crackled birdie. I just wanted it to look all old and grungy and rusty. I used a lot of Wendy Vecchi stamps on this, they are just fab for adding a pattern to chipboard and backgrounds.

So there you go..... yet another frame to be put on my living room wall, when the living room is freshly painted that is, my OH is currently re-painting rooms bit by bit.

I better be off to work.... ta da.

Back from my blogaholiday with my first ever twinchie.....

I seem to have taken a bit of a blogaholiday, didn't mean to but there was a severe lack of crafted things to blog about as I've been busy working on one of my stamper of the year items. It's now almost finished and I'm busy thinking up item number 2. Hard work that is. Anyone else out there taking part?
I have also (finally) started making xmas cards, about time!!! I'll be posting some designs soon.

I have also made my first ever twinchie this week. It's for the craft stamper twinchie swap and I combined it with the Compendium of curiosities challenge, grungepaper flowers! You may not be able to tell from the upside down photo on the left, but I embossed the grungepaper. Not bad for a first twinchie I reckon.

Also having a very busy two weeks at work with kids cast change happening so plenty of rehearsals, so not much time to craft. Well, I'm off to bed now! Nitey! xxx

Stick, Stick, Stickles - Compendium Challenge Time

Always looking forward to the compendium challenge on mondays, I get really excited around 12 o'clock and eagerly await the new post at 1.
So this week it's stickles time. I'm not much of a fan of stickles, just never really use glitter glue that much. But I do own 2 distress stickles (only because I won them or they came with a pack of things) and I actually made a point of ordering another 2 colours this week - green and white, thought they may come in handy for christmas cards.

As you can see I made yet another grungeflower card. Can't get enough of them. See the bottle cap in the centre, I squeezed that full of stickles too. So yeah, stickles everywhere.
Until next week! Ta da!

Wendy inspired birthday cards.....

I'm still not bored of my Wendy stamps, so here is a few creations:

They are all using the vintage buttons I bought loads of. Especially loving the chunky red-orange upholstery buttons. They are so chunky I don't think the card will fit in an envelope.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge #8

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Originally uploaded by Anikraft

Yippie it's monday, not just my day off and therefore declared craft day but also a new compendium challenge.

So this week we are inking grunge, funny that, I've kinda been doing that the past few days as is. Now I have to apologize for the bad photo, I will retake the picture with daylight some time this week. It's just that I won't have time tomorrow when I normally take my photos, I am off to Ikea to stock up on frames and mirrors to alter! Better take a big bag!

Also apologies for the picture being inserted from flickr, it just didn't want to be the right way up when inserted here so I uploaded it there instead and inserted it that way. Anyway....

So I just got a bunch of Wendy Vecchi stamps (finally!!!! been waiting for back orders for ages!) and gave them a little test run. More cards to be blogged this week.

And OMG I just got the most amazing parcel this morning. I bought a whole lot of vintage buttons from ebay, they are still on their cards. Pretty funky. Had to use some straight away for my flowers. And I may have to share some in another candy so watch this space.

Ta da! xxx