Wednesday 31 December 2014

Mixed Media Canvas

 
 This year I have been very fortunate to attend a couple of workshops with very talented artists.
I'm lucky to know many gifted crafters/friends who I love to meet up with as often as possible.
 
This canvas was made after a workshop with Finnabair and features my beautiful daughter.
I thoroughly enjoyed making it and applying the techniques I'd
learned at the workshop. Finn is such a great teacher and so generous, sharing her knowledge.
 
 
 My husband and daughter quite liked it at this stage.
 
 
They were horrified when I covered it all in Heavy Black Gesso.
 
 
 
 
 Fortunately I had a plan of where I was taking it.
 
 
I love the effects that the Silks paint have on black.
 
Thanks for visiting
Debbie
 

Tuesday 30 December 2014

Brightly coloured Tags

 
 
The next four tags are bright with colours and the backgrounds were great fun to make.
I started by applying the inks on each tag. The flower tag was stamped on and the for the
Julie Nutting Doll tag I used a stencil and lifted some of the ink off the tag using a baby wipe.
I love to paper piece the dolls clothes and my niece loves to come over and play with the dolls I have.
 
 
 
The seventh page isn't easy to see, I coloured the background with distress inks and then spritzed with water. The solid butterflies were stamped with white paint and them kiss stamped with a musical note stamp in black ink.
The Lady in Hat is coloured with pens and she's on a background of distress paints that were blended with spritzed water. For the daisies I stamped them onto self adhesive paper and coloured with pens. I love the face of the Lady in Hat, she's so pretty.
 
 
 
 
This is the last tag in the book that I've mad so far. I will add to it during 2015
 
 
 
Thanks for visiting
Debbie
 
 

Monday 29 December 2014

Tag book of colouring fun

As promised here are the photos of the tag book I have been adding to during the year.
These are very large tags that I cut myself back in January.  A few of them I coloured straight away and a couple when I had a stamp in front of me that I wanted to use.

 
The tag on the left was made when I was invited to play with friends during the Summer and it tied in with a colour challenge that we had over at Chocolate Baroque. The pink tag was made using one of my favourite stamps the Remembrance Poppy I stamped it onto the tag then onto card and coloured and cut out the individual flowers.
 
 
These tags were made when I was visiting friends on one of our play dates. I love these Ladies they are so elegant and colour beautifully. For the background I seem to remember we did three colour pick. I find this a great start for my inspiration when making a project. Judith from the CB design team co-ordinates a colour challenge which is great to boost the mojo.
 
Tomorrow I'll add the next couple of pages
Debbie
 
 
 

Sunday 28 December 2014

Goldfish Bowl

 
Hi, it's my intention that today I'll be able to have time to myself to ink up a
couple of new stamps and have some fun. I hope everyone has had a good Christmas.
 
I made this card for my husband whose birthday isn't until August but he loves his fish tank
and spends lots of time looking after the fish in it.
The fish were stamped onto card that had been coloured with spray inks then cut out and decoupaged.
The background is also coloured with sprays and stamped onto then I used pencils to colour the seaweed. For the shape I used dinner plates of two sizes. The cogs on the frame are from
 Steampunk Christmas heat embossed with  silver powder and distressed with black soot ink.
 
 
 
 
My second is a tag that's gone into a tag book which I've been adding to during this year, a few of my favourite Chocolate Baroque stamps.
 The tag is painted with two blues and white blending from the white to the darker blue.
I used bubble wrap to make the white dots on the tag.
 The Octopus is sitting on a shell from Underwater stamps.
I stamped the shell and the jelly fish from Steampunk Funky Fish onto white card
and coloured with alcohol pens.
I will post the other pages from my tag book on my blog over the next few days.
 
 
 
Thanks for visiting
 
Debbie
 

Tuesday 16 December 2014

Zentangle Seahorses and F is for Fish

 
 
Good morning.
 I have been having great fun with these under the water themed stamps.
For my first card I started with a blank piece of card and stamped the seahorses then
drew the wavy lines around them with gel pens.
I zentangled with the pens filling in between the lines to resemble waves.
It took a few hours to fill the lines but was very therapeutic. When I stood back and looked at the card the Seahorses disappeared into the background so I drew around them with a charcoal pencil and smudged it.
 
 
 
 
For my next card I found in an old dictionary and took out the page with the words fish on.
I stamped with Black Versafine and clear embossing powder and coloured the fish with pencils, again thoroughly enjoying the time spent filling in the details.
I outlined the fish with the charcoal pencil so they stood out from the words.
 
 
 
 
Thank you for visiting
Debbie

Tuesday 9 December 2014

Christmas card, ideal for batch making

 
 
I rarely remember to take photos when making cards so during the summer when I made my Christmas cards had my mobile phone next to me and snapped away to remind me how to stamp this card. These photos show how I make a wreath from a single branch.
 
 
 
Stamp the branch on the four sides first.
 
 
Place the second branch in the spaces and second stamp to add depth.
 
 
 
 
By filling in the gaps the wreath is completed.
 
 
 
I added the Christmas sentiment with red ink and a bow. The edges were distressed and I matted onto red and fixed to a Kraft card square card.
 
 
This card is ideal for batch making and will be given out to my friends and neighbours this year.
 
Thanks for visiting
 
Debbie
 
 
 

Monday 8 December 2014

Two Little Girls Canvas

 
 
Hi.
 
This is the canvas I made while at a Finnabair workshop earlier this year. The two girls are my sister and myself taken by a local photographer. I have many childhood photos mainly taken by my Mum and sent to my Dad who was in the Merchant Navy and spent many months at sea.
 
 


The canvas has many layers of white, black gesso and sprayed inks. The lace we used was gorgeous and I used it sparingly, I'm a bit tight with touchy feely things. Again, the embellishments helped to create the texture and detail on the canvas. This one takes pride of place in my craftroom. 

Thanks for visiting
Debbie

Sunday 7 December 2014

Memory Page inspired by Finnabair

For quite some time I've admired the creative work of Finnabair and I have been fortunate to attend a couple of her workshops this year. She is so inspirational when teaching and her style is so achievable. The first workshop I did was a 12 x12 inch page and decorated it around a photograph of myself (taken many moons ago).

 
The hardest part of the page was finding a decent photograph to put onto it.
I loved all the metal charms that we used, there were so many to choose from fearing that I was overloading the page. I added some background stamping with my favourite stamps Tangled Fragments and Harlequin Fragments
 
Tomorrow I'll have a canvas that I made to show.
 
Thanks for visiting
Debbie

Saturday 6 December 2014

An Under the Sea Canvas

 
I recently received a canvas as a gift from a friend and when the Steampunk Funk Fish and Sea world stamps arrived set to work immediately.
The canvas is 10cm by 30cm in size. I've recently fallen in love with working on canvas so it was great fun to play.
 
 
 
I started with stamping onto scraps of card that were coloured with Brusho inks and Distress spray colours. For the background I used gesso, stencils with paste, ink sprays, paints, cogs and watch faces found at a flee market. The fishes and ship wreck were attached and a leaf sprig for dimension.
 
Many thanks for visiting
Debbie