"The Sea" CJ is home

Sadly, somewhere on its travels, my CJ went missing. AJ worked hard to get me replacement entries, and here is her entry on the theme of "The Sea".
My original idea for my CJ was to have the pages so I could string them into a banner for my craft room.

Ayyjay did her entry on canvas ... woo hoo

wisher used lots of texture and colour on her pages

wrighboysmum designed clever frames and beautiful mermaids

Dusty Fairy

Lots of texture on these pages

Elysian Angel

Clever use of alcohol inks of aluminium foil, beautiful

sixofone

 ... very clever use of sandpaper for sand!

lebosi

Lovely textured page ... 

... finally here is my entry

I used the free stamp from Craft Stamper on Bazzill card in shades of sea and sand.

Art Journal for Ally

I love everything that Ally does, and was so pleased to find myself in an art journal with her. This page shows imaginative use of pages torn from an old book, then lavishly painted. I guess the tree is stamped then doodled around (or it might be hand doodled ... wow). It is GORGEOUS

... facing page is here ...

Look at the dinky bird table and the fabulous tweetie birds ... LOVE IT!

My CJ entry for Time

A mix of old and new stash ... luggage tags, backing paper, paperclip and watch faces had been around for ages, stamps and inks are Tim Holtz. I am loving the blending tool, it gives new life to ancient papers and it is very easy to get a great effect. I'd previously tried to use a make-up sponge and it was very wasteful of ink and didnt give such a smooth colouring effect.

AJ's beautiful entry for Time CJ ...

This entry caught my eye because AJ has used masks and stamping in an interesting way. Her base card is bright white, which gives an intense contrast to the inks. I love it!

... page 2 is here ...

... and here is the recipe from AJ

... recipe card for the gorgeous CJ page

Altered Art CJ: Time

I love this entry by nettyb ... the texture of the page is fabulous and all of the metalware moves ... it was almost too good to pass on!

I didnt want to open the packet

I've just stamped a bunch of images for a CJ I need to finish tomorrow ... and I needed a flourish so I took a good look thru my box of stamps and found a brand new Tim Holtz one ... then I carried on looking because I didnt want to dirty the brand new stamp ... how crazy is that??? Anyway, I had to use it cos it was the right size and the right shape. Will take pics tomorrow

This letter will change my world

I have applied to get my original birth certificate, the first step on finding my birth mother. Because I was born before 1975, I am required to meet with a social worker, so it wont be a quick process.

blog hop and blog candy

fed up with football?

then hop on over here

http://paperworksco.com/blog/

http://cabioscraftcorner.blogspot.com/

fathers day card

A HUGE thanks to "fiddle fart" for the little blue boats that she sent to me after I commented on her blog. I used Tim Holtz alphabet masks and Tim Holtz Broken China distress inkpad to make the word "dad". Here is her gorgeous card

I got my ears pierced today

Must read the leaflet ... and follow the care instructions. Here are the teeny studs I have ... it didnt hurt a bit!

I am a magpie

I need to justify this posting by saying that I dont drink spirits, so when I saw these gorgeous baby mixer bottles I just had to "borrow" five empties to use as vases. I also borrowed the roses, from the local park, but I felt so guilty I wont be doing that again! Thanks to Lisa and Lyndsey for drinking so much!!!!

The finished table ... ta da

It is so nice to finish a project that I thought about for a LONG time. Here is the finished table, its the perfect size for my laptop. I painted the spindles with Adirondack Acrylics in Cranberry, Bottle and Denim (I cant tell you how old the paints are, they were one of my very first scrappy purchases and are price-marked £2.99 each).

running out of fabric ... ooopppsssss

The fabric has dried perfectly, I'm very pleased with the finished effect. I did the second layer a different way, I started at the edge and worked towards the middle, and that didnt work so well, I used much more fabric and it was much messier (I never seemed to have a "dry" bit of table to hold!). Unfortunately, I seem to be running out of fabric already, so it looks like the legs will need to be painted. I have one more top to do. One tip I do have is to use soft fabric ... the stiffer fabric did not want to "curve" around the edge, even when soaked with glue.

refurbishing a wooden table

Does anyone remember the FABULOUS table that I photographed many months ago when I first visited ArtsBank. Well, I decided to have a go at my own fabric covered table, starting with this (ultracheap) bit of flatpack furniture. I have stuck the fabric to the table with PVA glue and its now left to dry. Will post an update tomorrow!

GORGEOUS painted furniture

the decorative paintbrush

Look at the glorious stuff on this blog ... I am green (and blue and yellow and red) with envy!

Painted furniture

I have bought a sewing box to alter! I am so excited. Will post "before" photos ASAP. Does anyone have any advice? I'm in the UK, and the only sites I have found have been in the USA and have brands of paints only sold in the USA.

Elsie and Rachel hold a summer camp

summer camp

Red Velvet Summer Camp is a 6 week online class encouraging a crafty, handmade lifestyle. This course is filled with projects to keep your summer inspired and fun-filled. Elsie and Rachel will share 30 Do-It-Yourself projects and have three live chats with students! The cherry-on-top is a merit badge project to celebrate the end of Summer Camp.

Guest designers include Leigh-Ann and Holly and Emma

tell your story: negative spaces

What a disaster of a page. I was really too tired to tackle this theme of negative spaces. Rachel asked us to cut out the word "stop" from a newspaper or page from a book, plus snip a few "holes" in the pages to show the background BEHIND the newspaper. I carefully cut the word "stop" out of a sheet of patterned scrapbooking paper, and I had this WONDERFUL sheet of laser cut paper sold by Navel Jelly. Unfortunately I FORGOT to paint the background ... oh no!!!! So this beautiful sheet of laser cut is not shown off to its best advantage. Finally we added a small amount of journalling, either positive or negative. So my resolution to use up my treasured stash went terribly wrong ...

tell your story: circles

Elsie used a stencil to make her circles, I tried drawing round a bottle cap, then I punched out a circle and tried drawing around it, then I decided to punch out a bunch of circles and journal on them.

Elsie asked us to focus on what matters most, and I scribbed the first thoughts that came into my head.

I would like to redo this page, using one of these:

then I could use LOTS of coloured pens!

creativity boot camp

There is only one thing better than a freebie and that's TWO WEEKS of freebies. Join me in the Creativity Boot Camp ... its going to be LOTS of fun! The banner will stay at the top of my blog for the duration of the course.

Look at this fun site!

You can work out what day you were born on ... and lots of other fun things

brainbashers

I was born on a Thursday

tell your story: choices

I ripped these pages from a magazine several weeks ago, I loved the choice of items and the arrangement of the photographs, so I was very pleased when Elsie did a busy journal page. I think this page works very well, and I am pleased with it.

tell your story: one day, two ways

How lovely to be able to doodle ... my doodles are rather rubbish, but at least I had a go. A rather sombre page, the UK news is dominated by the sad story of a shooting