Bee Wellington Boots

My page today was inspired by some beautiful wellies (Wellington rain boots) that were a surprise present from my mum.

My page design includes a napkin that I received as part of the napkin swap over at T Stand for Tuesday, I think this napkin was from Erika as it has busy bees on it.

If you are interested, I’ve also recycled the washi tape that came as part of the napkin swap, see my page Love you to the moon and back.

I started by creating a hexagon template from some card using a compass; I used this template to draw and then cut out hexagons of the napkin and also some blue paper that was recycled from a book cover. I arranged them onto the page using a glue stick and edged them all using some gold border outline stickers. Next I die cut the honeycomb from some leftover gold cardstock using a Bee Hive Sizzix Thinlits set by Olivia Rose. They were arranged onto the page with some white rub-on transfers for the wording and also some white flower stickers which I also added to decorate the napkins. To finish, I added two bees which were stamped and die cut using a Beehive Buzz Pink Ink Designs set, and were coloured using Spectrum Noir Tri-Blend markers.

Here are the pretty wellies that my mum kindly bought me; the colours, bees and honeycomb inspired my page design.

Wellies is a term that we use in the UK for Wellington boots which are also known as rain boots or gumboots in other parts of the world:

• Wellington boots, or “Wellies” are named after Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington who wore and popularised them here in the UK.
• Wellington’s boots were made of leather, but in 1856, the Scotland-based North British Rubber Company (now known as Hunter Boots) began manufacturing rubber Wellington rain boots. Being made from rubber enhanced the boots by giving them more flexible movement and making them 100% waterproof.
• The nickname “gumboots” is a nod to the natural rubber that rain boots are made from. Natural rubber, which is obtained from trees, is called “gum rubber” hence the name gumboots.

As T Stands for Tuesday and keeping with the bee theme, here’s my apple juice and ginger beer in a glass that we purchased when we visited Maine Mead Works in America which has their bee logo on it – Happy T Day everyone!

Hoping that you all stay safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Neet from Hickydorums is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen Fur and/or Feathers so I’m joining her with yet more busy fuzzy bees … ha,ha!

LTSCB#157 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog as I created this page using a scraps of book page and gold cardstock as well as a napkin.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #176 – Anything Goes challenge with my bee page.

Love you to the moon and back

Today’s page is in memory of my dad who passed away just before Christmas last year; it would have been his birthday today.

The two cute dogs are from a birthday card that I bought and with his passing never got to give him; I loved the image so I used it to create a page to remember him by and to say “love you to the moon and back”.

I started by stamping the background using a Mini Dots stamp by Kaisercraft and black Archival Ink, then a couple of stamps from a Mister Fox stamp set by Kaisercraft using Peeled Paint and Faded Jeans Distress Archival Ink. Then I added the black and white striped washi tape to the bottom of the page to create the foreground; the washi tape was recycled from the napkin swap package that I received from Bleubeard & Elizabeth – thank you! Next I stuck the two adorable dogs in place, which were fussy cut from the birthday card and to finish, I added the “Love you to the moon and back” wording using letters from a Metallic Stickers Alpha Silver set by Tim Holtz.

Parkin was one of my dad’s favourites and one of his birthday treats (smile!). It’s a type of gingerbread cake that originated in northern England made with oatmeal and black treacle. This particular parkin recipe has been passed down through generations of my dad’s family and I enjoy making it, as well as eating it – it will always remind me of him!

Hoping that you all stay safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Neet from Hickydorums is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen Fur and/or Feathers so I’m joining her with the dogs on my page.

LTSCB#157 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog as I created this page using a recycled birthday card and washi tape.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #176 – Anything Goes challenge with my autumnal page.

T Day ATCs and a Big Thank You

I had a lovely surprise in the post, some happy mail from Bleubeard and Elizabeth which contained the napkins from the napkin swap to celebrate T Stands for Tuesday 9^th Anniversary – thank you so much!

Although it wasn’t part of the napkin swap, I created an ATC for each of those taking part; so today I’m sharing how I made them (smile!).

Using some old playing cards as my base, I started by covering the front of 9 cards using some Pébéo white gesso with a brayer and left them to dry. Next I added some torn Dictionary page pieces over the top using Liquitex matte gel medium. When dry, I coloured them using washes of Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Kuretake Watercolour paint and then I stamped them using a Fragments stamp by Tim Holtz and black Archival Ink.

I used a couple of die cut sets to cut out the teacups and saucers, the flowers and little bird from some coloured papers. The teacups and saucers were stamped using the Fragments stamp and Moonlight White Brilliance Ink. Everything was arranged onto the ATCs using Liquitex matte gel medium along with various DoCrafts stickers to create the “T Day” wording and a number “9” which was die cut.

For the reverse of the ATC, I covered the back of the cards with black DecoArt Acrylic paint and I stamped the Fragments stamp using the Moonlight White Brilliance Ink. The wording was printed using a Dymo Letratag Label Maker and I stamped the “Handmade with love…” using black Archival Ink; everything was stuck in place with some of the die cut flowers.

As you may know Bleubeard and Elizabeth kindly sent some amazing postage stamps as part of the napkin swap which you can see here – thanks so much, they are so beautiful!
It looks like I may have the pink flowered international stamp that was mentioned on Bleubeard & Elizabeth’s blog post last week – yippee! Also the black and white washi tape was holding the ATCs together which I plan to recycle.

Of course all the napkins are fabulous and I received so many that I couldn’t fit them all in one photo (grin!).

I can’t wait to get creative with them on my art journal pages – thank you so much to everyone who sent napkins for the swap! Also a big thank you to E and Sharon for organising everything – you’re both stars!!!

I had such a lovely surprise when I found all these stunning ATCs amongst the napkins; from top left to right we have Sharon, Elle, Lisca, Bleubeard & Elizabeth, Chris and Mia). It was so kind and thoughtful of everyone – thanks so much!

All the teacups featured on this post allow me to join this week’s T Day – wishing you all a very Happy T Day!

I hope that you’re all staying safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

Paperbabe Stamps and their #176 – Anything Goes challenge with my ATCs.

LTSCB#157 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with my ATCs that I created from old playing cards.

Challenge #62 – Anything Goes at Ally’s Angels with my handmade ATCs.

MIUCB#61 – Anything Goes + Optional Smooshing over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with my smooshed watercolour background my ATCs.

Cute as a bug

It’s a new month so we are launching our September challenge today over at the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog, and as always the theme is Anything Mixed Media Goes.

My mixed media page was inspired by a pretty Sunflower napkin that I just had to buy whilst out shopping.

I started by cutting panels from the napkin and sticking them onto the page using a glue stick. Then I added some colour between the napkin pieces using watered down Jasmine and Spice Spectrum Aqua Markers. Next I stamped a hexagon design from Docrafts over the top using Toffee Crunch Memento Ink. To finish, I edged the napkin pieces with black Glitterations border stickers and I added the cardstock stickers of a bee, flower and the wording “Cute as a bug”.

For more inspiration please check out the amazing creations from our Guest Designer and my fellow Design Team members over at Creative Artiste too. All you need to do is to use three different mediums on your projects to join our mixed media challenge; I hope you are inspired to join us, it would be lovely to see join you there!

The sunflowers reminded me of September as we always have family holidaying with us this time of year who kindly gift us flowers which are often sunflowers; here’s the beautiful bouquet from last year (smile!).

I hope that you’re all staying safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

As well as Creative Artiste , I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Neet from Hickydorums is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and her theme is Fur and/or Feathers; bees can be furry so I’m joining in the fun with my page (smile!).

Paperbabe Stamps and their #175 – Anything Goes challenge with my sunflower page.

LTSCB#157– Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with my sunflower napkin inspired page.

Lake District

When sorting through some boxes at my mums, we came across some old maps from our holidays when I was younger. I have so many fond memories of those holidays that I decided to create this Lake District page (smile!).

I started by stamping a Tiny Dots stamp from Kaisercraft onto the background using Picked Raspberry Distress Archival Ink and black Archival Ink. Next I stamped some ferns over the top, as they are native to the Lake District, using a Leaf Prints stamp from Tim Holtz and some Peeled Paint Distress Archival Ink. Then I applied some white acrylic paint over the top using a brayer to push the images and colours into the background. I ripped a Lake District map, keeping the corner image, “The Lake District” wording and die cutting the birds and branches from it using a Silhouette Birds and also a Small Tattered Florals Thinlits set by Tim Holtz. I edged all the paper pieces using a black Faber-Castell marker and then I stuck them in place using a glue stick. To finish, I added the wording which were from a Kaisercraft Sticker sheet; they read “Happy”, “When I look back I want to remember this moment” and “Beautiful”.

I have fond childhood memories of visiting Kendal, Bowness-on-Windermere, Ambleside, Grasmere, Hawkshead, Keswick and Grange-over-Sands in the Lake District; I think this bird is adorable as he looks like he’s fell walking like we always used to on our holidays (grin!).

Here are the old maps from my childhood that inspired my page – don’t you just love the raven on the English Lakes front cover (smile!).

Hoping that you all stay safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Chris from Pearshapedcrafting is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen When We Were Young so I’m joining her with my Lake District page which was inspired from happy times when I was young.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #174 – Anything Goes challenge with my Lake District page.

LTSCB#156 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with the old maps that I used to create this page.

MIUCB#60 – Anything Goes + optional Clean & Simple over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with my simple design of stamping and map pieces on this page.

Lazy Days of Summer

It’s time for a new challenge at Try it on Tuesday which for the next two weeks is Summer Blooms.

My page was inspired by some beautiful Provence Stamperia papers that were full of summer blooms.

Having chosen one of the 8×8″ pages from the Provence paper pad, I wanted to extend the background across my page so I painted the page with washes of Violet, Ultramarine and Sap Green Kuretake watercolour paints. Then I stamped the page using a couple of Kaisercraft stamps and some Distress Archival Inks; this included a Script stamp using Seedless Grape ink and a flower stamp from a Magnolia Grove stamp set using Seedless Grape and Peeled Paint inks. I used a Paperbabe Stamps stencil to create the vertical stripes on the page using a baby wipe to remove the watercolour paints.

Next I stuck the 8×8″ page in place and edged it using some striped washi tape. “The Lazy Days of Summer” wording was cut from a 12×12″ paper sheet by Graphic 45 and to finish, I added the butterflies and watering can Die-Cuts which were also from Stamperia.

For more inspiration please pop over to Try it on Tuesday to see the wonderful creations from our Guest Designer and my Design Teamies too (grin!). I hope you are inspired to join our challenge; it would be lovely to see you there!

Lavender in the garden always reminds me of summer and the butterflies seem to love it too; these are Painted Lady butterflies.

This one’s a female Common Blue butterfly.

As T Stands for Tuesday and summer is here, we’ve been enjoying these chilled fruity drinks – Happy T Day!

Hope that you’re all staying safe and well!

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

As well as Try it on Tuesday, I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely  Chris from Pearshapedcrafting is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen When We Were Young so I’m joining her with my page as when I was young I experienced lazy days of summer during summer holidays.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #173 – Anything Goes challenge with my summery page.

LTCCB#156 – Anything Goes over at Love To Craft Challenge Blog with my summer blooms art journal page.

MIUCB#60 – Anything Goes + optional Clean & Simple over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with the techniques I used to re-create and extend the background on my page.

Eat Cake

It’s a new month so it’s time to launch a new challenge over at Country View Challenges which is Happy Birthday; the lovely Monika is hosting and asks that “you join this challenge with a birthday card and/or a gift”.

So for this challenge, I’m sharing this fun birthday card which I created using a Sizzix Celebration Cake Mini Thinlits Die.

I started by die cutting the cake using the Sizzix Thinlits die from some leftover soft pink cardstock, some recycled grey paper and some bright pink design paper. I also used the same bright pink paper to create the background and frame the cake by die cutting a circle from the paper. Then I layered everything together onto a 3×3” white card and I embellished the cake with a thin strip of the background paper and a pretty flower sticker. To finish, I added the “Eat Cake” wording which was a Sentiments Label Sticker from Tim Holtz.

As this card design was simple to make, I made a few of them to send to family and friends.

For more inspiration please see the amazing creations from my fellow Design Team members over at Country View Challenges. I hope you’ll join us, it would be lovely to see you there and you never know, you might even win a £20 voucher for the Country View Crafts shop! Before you enter, please read the rules!

As I’m also joining T Stands for Tuesday today, I’m continuing the birthday theme by sharing my cuppa with a piece of one of my homemade birthday cakes (smile!) – Happy T Day everyone!

Wishing you a Happy August and I hope that you’re staying safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

As well as Country View Challenges, I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

Paperbabe Stamps and their #173 – Anything Goes challenge with my birthday cards.

LTSCB#156 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with the leftover and recycled papers that I used on my cards.

Extraordinary

Looking at old holiday photos of Greece, I was inspired by the old weathered shutters and doors. I used one of my favourite techniques to create the background and some lovely images from an old magazine – I hope you like it (smile!).

I started by creating the worn wooden background by dragging Peeled Paint and Brushed Sage Distress Ink pads vertically down the page and layering Liquitex Matte Gel Medium over the top; the gel medium reactivates the inks and helps create the wood grain texture. When dry, I dragged some Black Soot, Weathered Wood and Cracked Pistachio Distress Ink pads over the top and more gel medium; the gel medium was applied using a paintbrush and I ensured my brush strokes were continuous and in one direction vertically down the page in order to create the wood grain finish. Next I experimented by adding some Ranger Crackle Paste vertically down the page and when dry used sandpaper on some of the areas to give it more of a distressed look. Then I added more layers of the Weathered Wood and Cracked Pistachio Distress Inks to colour the crackle paste and achieve the worn painted wood look I was after. The black and white images of the doors and shutters were from a magazine and the number “1” with the brick background was from a wallpaper sample; I cut them out, backed them with some card and edged them with a black Faber-Castell marker. They were arranged using double-sided tape and to finish, I added the “what seems ordinary is often the extraordinary” wording which is a Small Talk sticker from Tim Holtz.

These shutters and doors were taken many years ago when we visited Crete, which is one of the Greek Islands. The weathered doors looked amazing although I’m sure the locals think they are just ordinary, hence the wording on my page.

We enjoyed exploring the town and taking in the beautiful scenery.

The doors and shutters were beautifully rustic and distressed and I seem to remember enjoying the shade in this doorway, as we had sunny hot weather too (smile!).

Hoping that you all stay safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Wendy from wendyscraftjournal is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen Doors and/or Arches so I’m joining her with my old weathered door inspired page.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #173 – Anything Goes challenge with my page.

LTSCB#156 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with the scrapped magazine images that I used on my page.

MIUCB#60 – Anything Goes + optional Clean & Simple over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with the techniques I used to create the worn weathered wood background.

Welcome to my Garden

Wanting to join in the fun at Art Journal Journey again, I created this page by recycling an arch from a magazine and combining it with some Garden House Stamperia papers.

I started by arranging the arch image from the magazine onto the left-hand side of the page, layering some Stamperia papers behind it so it looked like you’re looking into a garden room. I used a Dark Sepia Faber-Castell marker to darken the floor and I fussy cut the spade and pots, from the same Stamperia pad, arranging them on either side of the archway. Next I created the brickwork by stencilling Ground Espresso and Rusty Hinge Distress Inks and applying some Ranger Texture Paste over the top. I layered more colour over the bricks using Black Soot, Vintage Photo and Crackling Campfire Distress Ink gradually building up the colour until they matched the colours of the arch. The pots of flowers, shelf of flower pots, wreath and welcome sign were fussy cut from the same Stamperia pad and stuck in place, which finished the page.

The brickwork reminded me of the beautiful brick walls in our garden; here you can see some of the pretty flowers that we have flowering currently including Million Bells which have have an abundance of pink flowers with a trailing geranium in the centre. You can just see our Welcome sign on the far right too (smile!).

Hoping that you all stay safe and well! x

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Wendy from wendyscraftjournal is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen Doors and/or Arches so I’m joining her with the garden arch on my page.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #172 – Anything Goes challenge with my brightly coloured page.

LTSCB#156 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with the scrapped magazine image that I used on my page.

Own Your Dreams – Recycle

Over at Try it on Tuesday our challenge for the next 2 weeks is Recycle.

I love to recycle and use up leftovers on my art journal pages so I collaged different paper pieces that I recycled from a Home Store magazine with some leftover sticker pieces.

I started by recycling a couple of the magazine pages by cutting out the different textured and patterned panels and arranged them onto the page using a glue stick. Then I added the large yellow flower which was a washi tape sticker and some leftover pieces of yellow and brown border stickers from Kaisercraft. I used some border outline stickers from Docrafts to frame the paper pieces and to finish, I added the “own your dreams” wording by Kaisercraft.

For more inspiration please pop over to Try it on Tuesday to see the wonderful Recycle creations from our Guest Designer and my Design Teamies too (grin!). I hope you are inspired to join our challenge; it would be lovely to see you there!

Now summers here with peaches are available in the shops and as T Stands for Tuesday, I’m sharing a yummy Peach Bellini. Like my page it’s simple to make (measurements are for a champagne glass):

Add 3tbl of homemade Peach Puree.
Add 2tbls of Peach Schnapps.
Add chilled Prosecco and stir if needed.

Happy T Day everyone!

Hope that you’re all staying safe and well!

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

As well as Try it on Tuesday, I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

Paperbabe Stamps and their #169 – Anything Goes challenge with my recycled page.

LTCCB#155 Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with recycling old magazine pages to create my page.