Some last minute Christmas cards.....

Just a couple more Christmas cards to share, I had already finished my card making for the season but a friend asked for a card for her boyfriend so I made these two.

I am entering the top one into the Happy Daze Challenge and the bottom one into The Artistic Stamper Challenge.

Another year, another 12 tags of Christmas....

It's that time of year again where everyone in the crafting world creates their own little interpretations of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas. I like the fact that we can now link them all on Tim's page and you can see everyone else's tags. So many different ones, amazing!!! Unfortunately I won't be able to make every one due to a lack of time. I have even given up my forthcoming monday (day off = craft day) as I'm visiting a friend. But I'll try to make some tags in my spare moments before and after work.
So here is today's tag, love the canvas reindeer, fab idea!

I am entering this into The Artistic Stamper Challenge where the theme is Christmas.
And also The Happy Daze Challenge - Christmas gifts, cards and tags.

Christmas Tags a la Lynne Perrella

You may remember me doin some crazy coloured things on tags a while ago, a technique I learned from Lynne Perrella using acrylic paints, stencils and oil pastels. Well, when I first saw her demo the technique at Artsy Crafts I fell in love with it and thought I'm gonna make all my Christmas tags like that this year. Instead of writing someone's name I just pop a picture tag of them on the pressie.

So I finally got around to doin some of those tags, here is the one for my dad (right) and my brother, here in a picture with me (I'm the little one).


The one on the left here is for my mum, I think she was 16 or so in that picture. And the other picture you probably have seen before, it's me and my sister. I was searching high and low for a suitable pic of my sis but I always come back to this one. But she's getting more than one pressie so I will have to find another picture to make another tag. Watch this space.

I have also been sewing wrapping paper from a printed out photo, I'll show that once the present is wrapped.

What are your ideas for wrapping pressies this year? Anything personalised at all? I'm always up for new ideas!

I am entering these tags into the Happy Daze "Explosion of Colour" Challenge. The blank Manila tags are available from their shop and so is the black Staz On ink I used for rubbing over the tags at the end.

My blog makeover is complete.... and a journal page

Welcome to my newly designed and improved blog. Things have changed a little around here, out with the old tired looking design and in with a new fresh design, all in white with a few splatters of colour around. I have been working hard on the new design and layout and hopefully it'll make it a bit more userfriendly and more pleasurable to read for my followers. I have also improved the presentation of my photos, been a busy bee playing with my camera and photoshop, so bear with me it's work in progress.

To get started I would like to share my first "real" journal page with you. I say real because before I have only done art journaling style things on canvases and decorated mirrors with it, but this one if actually a page in a book. But not an ordinary journal, no, this is a board book. It's chunky and durable and I won't lose interest in finishing it as it only has 10 odd pages or so. I hope to do one page every week - inspiration allowing!

I would like to enter this page into the following challenges:

Happy Daze - Explosion of Colour (Distress Ink and gold Paint Dabber available from the shop)
Stamp Man - Backgrounds
The Artistic Stamper - Backgrounds

So let me know what you think of the new blog. I will try to post every other day from now on, hopefully I can keep up. I still have to overhaul my website too, which is a little more work than the blog was. Laters!

Halloween ATC's and the new Stampotique Flickr Group

I said only a few days ago that I don't really do Halloween, but with so many Halloween and Atumn Colour Challenges around at the moment I can't not get into a slightly spooky mood.

These ATC's have been created with various challenges in mind. I used some of the new Distress Inks and LOVE them, I mean, how can you not?! Can't wait for the wintery seasonal release ones next month - www.timholtz.com.
Also I am still rather attached to my Stanpotique stamps at the mo, maybe that's because they are ALL sitting on my desk taking up valuable crafting space. I really have to get that shelf made I want for my wall to display all my woodmounted stamps.

Also, I wanted to tell you about the new Stampotique Flickr group I started, with permission of course. It's a nice way of gathering all Stampotique creations in one place and to browse when you need some inspiration. So join us HERE and add your creations or just browse and chat.

These are going to be entered into the following challenges:

Playdate Cafe - Colour Challenge
Artistic Stamper - Autumn Colours
Happy Daze - Halloween
Tando Creative - Spooktastic

And last but not least - Grungy Mondays - it has been aaaaaages I have entered one of the lovely Linda Ledbetter's Challenges. Life has just got in the way and one can't enter all challenges in the crafting world (although this week I'm trying bloody hard!). So I hope time will allow me to take part in more Grungy Mondays from now on!!!

Halloween Candle & Trick or Treat

I'm not much of a Halloween person, I'd rather go straight from summer to Christmas, but I had these 2 glass jars hanging around and they somehow inspired me to create some Halloween decorations.

This one I painted with Fresco paints, a little stamped trick or treat band around the bottom, some ribbon and Stampotique's Uncle Buck is just perfect for Halloween. Pop some sweets in, done.





This one I coloured with alcohol inks, added some ribbon and pumpkins and let 2 tealights melt inside.
Very quick and easy to do, might be a nice project to do with children. The glass jars were from some yoghurts I bought.

Both of these are being entered into a few challenges....

Artistic Stamper - Autumn Colours
Happy Daze - Christmas or Halloween
Simon Says - Anything Goes
Tando - Spooktastic
ABC Challenge - Anything Goes

And even more ATC's

Why not share some more ATC's, they are small, they are quick so why not show loads in one day.

This one is using my newly found love for Stampotique stamps, I attached his head with a small spring behind it. It shows that ATC's don't have to be superfancy and take ages. This one was so quick and I really like it. Sometimes you just have to let the stamp speak for itself.

Stampotique is available from the Happy Daze Shop so why not check them out?!
This one I am entering into the Happy Daze "Little Black Dress" Challenge. My little black dress item here is the script stamp by Hero Arts. I use it ALL the time. Any good, large script stamp would do, they are just so versatile.

More Stampotique stamps can be found on this one. The hexagon for the background, I've sewn along the hexagon lines after stamping it. The bees are stamped on top of the acetate, which is then sewn to an acetate backing around the outline of the ATC. I love the idea of the sewing and creating layers like that but I'm yet to perfect that. This is my first attempt, definitely not my last.

This one I'm entering into the Simon says Stamp and Show Challenge.

Notebooks and my bind-it-all

If you've been following the past few days you would already have seen my off cut notebooks. And they were offcuts from when I cut the pages for these little notebooks.

This first one is a favourite. I've recently got all these photobooth pics for a project I'm doing, so I had them scanned in and it came to me I could print them on sticky back canvas and make it into a notebook. Love it!!!

This one is using denim for the cover. It's a pair of old jeans I had since I was 16 or so. I loved them so much but they just stopped fitting me. So here they are recycled with one of the new Dina Wakley stamps.

This one is made from a Japanese fabric, the company is called Kokka and they do all these amazingly cute prints. I love this one for having a London theme. So sweet.

I made many others but most of them wouldn't upload to Blogger they right way up so if you wanna see more, check out my Flickr page HERE.

The sticky back canvas and bind it all wires are available from Happy Daze. I am entering the first notebook into their "Little Black Dress" Challenge. I could not be without my bind it all and sticky back canvas to make sweet personalized notebooks like that. If you have been following for a while you may remember the notebook I bound for my mum and sister using photos of theirs. It's simply to print on sticky back and make such personal gifts. Give it a go!!

Faux Stained Glass Keyring

Over at The Stampsmith we are being challenged to try out faux techniques. So I thought I hadn't played with my alcohol inks in a while and I created this faux stained glass keyring. The stamps used are both Stampotique which I love at the moment.

And over at Happy Daze this month's challenge is "Little Black Dress" - use a technique, product or tool you just keep coming back to over and over again.
I have so many, but one of the is Tim Holt'z idea-ology. I use these swivel clasps for all the keyrings I make and always add a little something extra like here the token and the gears. Can't live without idea-ology. Plenty of idea-ology available from the Happy Daze shop as well as the Stampotique stamps so check them out!

Happy Daze - Seaside Challenge

Seaside is the challenge theme over at Happy Daze this month and this really is a challenge. I'm not much of a seaside theme person but nevertheless I made an effort to join in. I filled a little glass vial with beach sand from last years holiday in Malta. I added some charms, a shell, some shell discs and there you go, a seaside keyring. The word stick and swivel clasp are available from the Happy Daze shop. Check out the current challenge here: Happy Daze Challenge.

Dangly birdcage necklace

I picked up this little birdcage with bird (pack of 2 cages and 4 birds) a little while ago but only just got round to making this necklace. I knew the cage would be perfect to make into a long dangly necklace with a bunch of other charms.
It is very easy to make, I used all golden charms and chain and matching jumprings and just put it all together.

The birdcage set and idea-ology pieces are available from Happy Daze and I am entering this into their DANGLY THINGS Challenge.

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.