Winter Wonderland Robin

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

My page was inspired by a beautiful Christmas card of a pretty robin sitting in a winter wonderland.

Using the Christmas card as reference, I painted the page to recreate the scenery on the card using Kuretake watercolours paints. Then I die cut the berries, grasses and seed heads from different colours of Tim Holtz Kraft Cardstock- Classic; the dies cuts that I used were Garden Greens Thinlits by Tim Holtz for the berries, a Holiday Greens Thinlits set by Tim Holtz for the grasses and a Delicate Autumn Stems Thinlits set by Lisa Jones for the seed heads. I stamped the trees and over-painted them using the Kuretake watercolours and I stamped some tiny snowflakes over the Christmas card and background. I stuck the Christmas card and all the die cuts in place and then I painted and heavily splattered the page with white acrylic paint. Once dry, I added the wording which were from a Christmas sticker book by Tim Holtz; they read “the beauty of a winter sky”, “wonder”, “little winter bird” and “the first snow has fallen”.

For more inspiration please pop over to Try it on Tuesday to see the amazing 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!

As T Stands for Tuesday, I’m sharing my cup of tea with some yummy Scottish shortbread – 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 join the following challenges:

The lovely Bleubeard & Elizabeth from https://alteredbooklover.blogspot.com/ who is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and her theme is Collage Fodder, Food & Drink or Both so I’m joining her as I collaged the Christmas card and doe cuts onto my page to create this snowy scene.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #181 – Anything Goes challenge with my winter wonderland page.

LTSCB#158 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with my robin page and the recycled Christmas card that I used.

Peace on Earth Christmas Challenge #28 where Anything Christmas Goes with my Christmas card inspired winter wonderland page.

Advertisement

Autumn Greetings

I’m having so much fun creating pages using the beautiful napkins that I received as part of the napkin swap over at T Stands for Tuesday. So today I’m sharing my third page, this time I used an autumnal mushroom designed napkin to send you all Autumn Greetings!

I started by painting the edge of the page with Burnt Sienna and Yellow Ochre Kuretake watercolours. When dry, I stamped a crackle design by BoBunny, over the top of the watercolours, using black Archival Ink. Then I stencilled the ivy using Black Soot Distress Ink; the stencil template was created using an ivy die cut from a Garden Greens Thinlits by Tim Holtz. Next I carefully tore the napkin, around the autumnal mushroom image, and stuck it in place using a glue stick. To finish, I stamped the “Autumn Greetings” wording using Ground Espresso Distress Archival Ink.

It was my hubby’s birthday last week which happened to coincide with a Beer Festival at one of our local pubs. With my autumnal page and as T Stands for Tuesday, I’m sharing one this “All the leaves are brown” ale – it’s by Brewster’s Brewery and is a California Common Style beer at 4.8% ABV made with British malt and hops; it’s amber coloured, zesty and fruity.

We also both had a BBQ Fried Buttermilk Chicken Burger topped with maple-cured bacon and cheese, and served with BBQ sauce, onion rings and chips – so yummy!

Cheers and Happy T Day!

Creating pages using the napkins from the T Day napkin swap is so much fun! If you’re interested you can find them here:

1. Bee Wellington Boots – Bee napkin from Erika
2. Time for Tea – Alice napkin from Lisca
3. Autumn Greeting – Autumnal napkin from Chris – this post
4. Mischievous Cats – to be posted in November

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

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Elle from Empire of the Cat is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and her theme is Fairytales, Folklore & Fables – Tell Me A Story so I’m joining her with my autumnal page as mushrooms have a long history in Magic and Folklore; in the UK it is often thought fairies live in them (smile!).

Paperbabe Stamps and their #179 – Anything Goes challenge with my autumnal page.

Challenge #63 – Anything Goes over at Ally’s Angels with my Autumn Greetings page.

Stencil Fun Challenge which is Anything Goes as long as you use a stencil (with optional Halloween Colours); with the stencil which was created from a Tim Holtz die set that I used on my page.

Deeply Loved

As it’s the first Friday of the month, we are launching our October challenge over at Creative Artiste today. As always our challenge is Anything Mixed Media Goes.

My mixed media page was inspired by my hubby; it’s our wedding anniversary tomorrow (smile!).

I started by adding water to the page and then some Orange Kuretake watercolour paint gradually building up washes of colour to give a smooshed effect. Then I splattered the page using the same paint and some white acrylic paint. Next I fussy cut the flowers and foliage from some decoupage paper and stuck them in place using a glue stick. The wording was a Kaisercraft sticker and reads “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage”; it was edged with a black Faber-Castell marker. To finish, I splattered the page using black DecoArt acrylic paint.

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!

Here’s my hubby and me, I can’t believe that we’ve been married 34 years – time sure does fly when you’re having fun!

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:

Paperbabe Stamps and their #178 – Anything Goes challenge with my anniversary page.

MIUCB #61 – Anything Goes + Optional Smooshing over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with my smooshed background that I created using watercolour techniques.

Challenge #62 – Anything Goes over at Ally’s Angels with my Deeply Loved 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.

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.

Things with Wings

Over at Sparkles Monthly Challenge, we are launching a new challenge today which is Things with Wings.

So today I’m sharing the birthday card, that I made for my mum this year, featuring a huge Thinlits butterfly from Tim Holtz (smile!).

I started by creating a masterboard from watercolour paper smooshing it using Salty Ocean and Peacock Feather Distress Inks. When dry, I cut a panel from the masterboard and stuck it onto a 6×6” card using double-sided tape. Next I added some white rub-on transfers from a Remnant Rubs set by Tim Holtz and used some outline stickers to add some silver dots and a silver border around the panel. The large butterfly was die cut from white cardstock using a Perspective Butterfly Thinlits set by Tim Holtz and to finish, I added the “On Your Birthday” wording which was from a topper set.

I hope you’ll join us at Sparkles Monthly Challenge too, for more inspiration please check out the amazing Things with Wings designs from my Sparkles Buddies in the Design Team too; we would love for you to join us so please be sure to check out the rules here.

This is the gate that greets you at my mum’s house and as you can see it features many “things with wings” (smile!).

I hope that you’re 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 Sparkles Monthly Challenge , I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

MIUCB #59 Anything Goes + Optional 3-D over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with all the different techniques that I used to create my 3-D butterfly card.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #169 – Anything Goes challenge with my butterfly card.

Feeling Good

Over at Try it on Tuesday our challenge for the next 2 weeks is I Can Hear Music where we would like your entries to be inspired by a song.

We hope that you’ll join in the fun too and as you can see my song inspiration was “Feeling Good” but please be sure to let us know what song inspired your project if it’s not obvious.

To portray the first lines of the song, I started by sectioning the page into three panels. For the “Birds flying high” panel, I applied Salty Ocean and Speckled Egg Distress Ink using a Slimeline Starburst A4 Mask Stencil by Marianne Designs to create all the clouds. Then I stamped the Scribbly Birds in Flight by Dina Wakley over the top using black Archival Ink and I coloured them using Burnt Sienna and a mixture of black and white Kuretake watercolour paints. For the “Sun in the sky” panel, I used the same Marianne Designs stencil to apply Mustard Seed Distress Ink and I coloured between the sun rays using Salty Ocean Distress Ink. For the “Breeze Driftin’ by” panel, I used the same stencil to create the foreground using Rustic Wilderness Distress Ink and the clouds using the Speckled Egg and Salty Ocean Distress Inks again. The dandelions were stamped using a Molly Blooms Dandelion Clock Flower stamp and coloured using Sap Green and touches of Burnt Sienna, black and white Kuretake watercolours. I separated the panels using black Glitterations outline stickers and to finish, I added the song lyrics which were printed using a Dymo Label maker.

For more inspiration please pop over to Try it on Tuesday to see the wonderful song related 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!

This “Peeling Good” beer inspired me to create this page as it always has me singing “Feeling Good” when I see it. This beer is a chocolate and orange stout, it’s rich and smooth with a lovely orange flavour and aroma. As T Stands for Tuesday, I’m sharing this beer with the T Gang too and wishing you all a very 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  Alison the Craftytrog is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen Play it again Sam so I’m joining her with my “Feeling Good” page.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #165 – Anything Goes challenge with my song inspired page.

The “I Love …..” challenge over at Stamping Sensations as I love Art Journaling and enjoyed using all the stamps to create this page.

We Love Stamping and their Favourite Stamps challenge, as Scribbly Birds in Flight stamp set by Dina Wakely is one of my favourite stamps, I was so pleased when it was re-released so I could buy it (smile!).

Whatever The Weather challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge with the clouds and sunshine on my page.

Happy

Over at Try it on Tuesday our challenge for the next 2 weeks is Black and White + 1, where we would like you to use black and white plus one other colour on your entries.

Limiting colour options is always a challenge for me, so I decided to create a black and white collage background and see where my creativity took me; I ended up adding a dark cherry colour as my “plus 1” – what do you think?

I covered the page with leftover pieces of white tissue paper which had been stamped with black Archival Ink and some black and white Botanicals/Halloween Collage papers by Tim Holtz; they were collaged onto the page using Liquitex matte gel medium. Next I added some pieces of an old magazine page (which was where the cherry coloured inspiration came from) and then I applied some Pébéo white gesso using a brayer over the whole page and left it to dry. I mixed some Kuretake watercolour paints to match the cherry colour and used it to add a colour wash over the collage pieces and also some splatters. For my flowers, I arranged some white paper flowers onto the page and drew in their stems using a black marker. The leaves were stamped using a Carabelle Studio stamp set and black Archival Ink. To finish, I added the “Happy” wording panel which was by Kaisercraft.

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!

As T Stands for Tuesday, I’m sharing our mugs of green tea along with my hubby’s favourite Black Forest Gateau (which happens to be cherry like my page … smile!) and my favourite cream filled meringue – 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 #162 – Anything Goes challenge with my happy page.

Add A Die Cut over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge with the die cut paper flowers that I added to my page.

Autumn Blessings

I feel very blessed to have won one of the challenges over at Paperbabe Stamps and I choose some Maryleedee stamps from the Paperbabe Stamps shop as my prize, which are just perfect for colouring (grin!).

Today I’m featuring this super cute Maryleedee as part of my windy autumn scene.

I started by covering the background with some leftover Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink and then I used Burnt Sienna, Black, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Scarlett and Hooker’s Green Kuretake watercolour paints to paint the autumn trees and green foreground. The leaves were die cut using a Fall Foliage Thinlits set by Tim Holtz from some leftover mixed media paper that had been coloured using Tea Dye Distress Ink. I added more colour to the leaves using the Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Scarlett watercolour paints and then I arranged them onto the page using Liquitex matte gel medium, making them swirl in the wind. I also used the paper that I had die cut the leaves from to stencil Rusty Hinge Distress Ink onto the tree foliage. The wording “Autumn Blessings” was created using some letters from a Kaisercraft sticker sheet.

I stamped the Paperbabe Stamps Marydeelee stamp onto a piece of mixed media paper using black Archival Ink. She was coloured using TriBlend Spectrum Noir marker pens; the colours were Gold Brown Blend for her hair, Alpine Green Blend for her eyes, Fair Skin Blend for her face, arms and legs, Dark Red Blend for her lips and boots, True Blue Blend for her dress and Gold Yellow Blend for the bow. To finish, I cut her out, stuck her in place and added a bit more detail to her dress using a white gel pen.

The Maryleedee stamp was so much fun to use and colour; I love the way she turned out! Aren’t her boots fabulous; my hubby often calls me cute as I tend to hold my feet like that too (grin!).

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

I’m pleased to be able to join the following challenges today with my page:

Art Journal Journey and lovely Chris from http://pearshapedcrafting.blogspot.com/ who is hosting this month with her All Kinds of Weather challenge with my windy autumnal page.

Paperbabe Stamps and their Challenge #156 – Anything Goes with my Maryleedee page – thanks so much for the stamps!

Trees challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge with the painted autumnal trees that I added to this page.

Make Your Own Background challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge with the autumnal background I created using inks and watercolour for this page.

LTSCB #151 – Anything Goes over at Love to Scrap Challenge Blog with my Autumn Blessings page.

Everyday is a true blessing

I had so much fun creating this mixed media page and as using up leftovers is one of my crafting goals this year, I used some leftover paper that I had coloured using Kuretake watercolour to create my autumnal leaves for this page too (grin!).

Don’t forget that you still have until the end of this month to join our #76 Challenge – Anything Mixed Media Goes over at Creative Artiste; you just need to use three different mediums to join in the fun – I hope to see you there!

I started by covering the chipboard background with a layer of Pébéo white gesso and left it to dry, and then I applied a layer of black chalk paint over the top. When dry, I sanded the page in a vertical motion using a piece of sandpaper to expose some of the white gesso underneath to create a worn vintage chalkboard appearance. Next I created the leaves using some leftover paper that was coloured using Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Scarlet Kuretake watercolour paints; I die cut three sizes of the same leaf shape from a Fall Foliage Thinlits set by Tim Holtz and then I applied some Vintage Photo Distress Ink to the leaves to give them more of a grungy look. I stuck the “Everyday is a true blessing” wording in place, which was from a Kaisercraft sticker sheet, and then I arranged the leaves around it using Liquitex matte gel medium. I added dots of Pumpkin Ranger Liquid Pearls and to finish, I splattered the page with the white gesso and also the black chalk paint.

As we had frosts in April that affected the apple blossom, I feel very blessed for the crop of Braeburn apples that we picked this year from our apple trees in our garden. I used some of them to make this delicious cinnamon apple cake with maple frosting which goes perfectly with my cuppa for T Stands for Tuesday – wishing you all a very Happy T Day!

I 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.

For the sake of brevity I am no longer listing the individual items that I used to create my page, however I’m more than happy to let you know which particular product was used if you contact me via comments below or using the following contact me link.

Challenges I’m pleased to be able to join the following challenges today: Art Journal Journey and lovely Tracey from Hotchpotchcreations  who is hosting this month with her My favourite colour is October challenge with my autumn blessings page (15x15cm). Chalk it Up! challenge over at The Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog with the chalk paint background on my autumnal page. Paperbabe Stamps and their Challenge #153 – Anything Goes with my autumn blessings page. #144 Autumn Colours over at Sparkles Monthly Challenges with the autumn colours I used on this page. LTSCB #150 – Anything But A Card over at Love to Scrap Challenge Blog with my autumnal mini art journal page. Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge and their Not A Card challenge with my autumnal mini chipboard art journal page. Challenge #6 Mixed Media Lovers with my mixed media autumnal page; this is a new challenge so I thought I’d join in the fun!