It's never to late to find out who you want to be!

For a traveller

What do you make for a man? I struggle with this regularly. The man in question is my daughter's GodFather. He is kind and very caring and I wanted to show him I appreciate all the postcards he sends from his travels not just to my daughter but my son, one each from all over the world - the cricketing world that is!

 I came up with this. I love the faded denim and weathered wood colour scheme and included some musical influences, watch parts and the travel theme. The main base is grey board and the circle the back of an art part. The stamps a mixture of Tim Holtz and Wendy Vecchi.

I did add a sari ribbon hanger at the top but forgot to photograph that, opps.

Tweet Tweet.. The Crafty Boots Challenge!

I've  had this plain little bird box sitting around for a while, when the Crafty Boots challenge came up as Tweet Tweet I decide to have a go and alter it.

I used some old book pages to cover the sides and a nifty metal technique on the roof that I learnt at a Crafty Thoughts workshop with Gabrielle.

I used a bit of sequin off cut as a stencil to do the blue spot bumping, another great technique learnt at a Crafty Thoughts workshop.

The mosiac butterfly is a Tim Holtz technique that I have used on a couple of things and decided to use music paper, coloured blue this time and silver jewel metallic embossing powder. The powder melts wonderfully.

The stamps were from various sets Tim Holtz, Indigo Blu and Paper Artsy. The final flourish was a Hels Sheridan flower made from grunge paper with a pearl popped in the middle. All in all a really enjoyable little project. Why not join in the Crafty Boots Tweet Tweet challenge, it's great fun!

Sneek peak - It's a Creative World, Wire and Bead Statement Rings

I've posted today at It's a Creative World, why not have a look at how to make these really easy wire and bead rings.

Metal work! Peg that.. - Crafty Thoughts Class

I find it hard to finish a class in the time allowed so brought this one home to finish. It was another great class with Gabrielle at Crafty Thoughts and we learnt techniques for rusting. There were a couple of things you could do and I went for this large peg.

I used Plumbers metal tape all over the peg then embossed it with a pencil and a couple of metal embossing tools. To rust it I used alcohol inks, rust and gold and then rub over some black acrylic paint. I got very messy, yuk!


The ART letters were rusted with distress embossing powders and edged with black soot distress ink. I am very pleased with the result.

How do you say you care?

Making things has always been really personal for me. I have cried when journaling scrapbook pages and everything I make and give is intensely special. Some times you need to make things for sad occasions. I made this for a friend; I struggled to find the right things to say he's not a gushing type of man so I wanted to let him know we are here.

 I used the Tim Holtz Alteration Matchbook die, the larger of the two on the plate and cut it in grunge paper. This lovely flexible stuff worked well. I then coloured it with Broken China and Picket fence distress stains and distressed just about everything in sight with Vintage photo ink.

The stamps are a mixture, Paper artsy clocks 5, Tim Holtz and the Thinking of you a Creative Expressions wooden stamp. Some I stamped in Pumice stone Distress ink and others in Black archival to give the pages some depth. The last page I wrote on. To hold it all together I used 2 eyelets and a bit of twine to run through the eyelets. Not too frilly for him, now to pop it in the post! (I'm not always good at that bit!)

Bev

Postcard challenge!

Crafty Boots challenge this time is Postcards set by the lovely Gabrielle. However much I tried to convince myself I would not do the seaside I was drawn back!! I bought a Create a Scene stamp set - Seaside by Sheena Douglas ages ago. Not my normal thing but I liked the pier and have used that part of the stamp set.

I have spent many happy hours on the Norfolk coast at Winterton-on-sea and the ice-cream van than drives the beach is pink hence my inspiration. I used glossy accents to gloss the van windows and painted with worn lipstick to get that wonderful pink. To create depth I paper pieced the pink part of the van.

 It was good to play with perspective; I tried different colour inks to help this along with the pier in pumice stone and the foreground in archival black ink.

The sand is scattered straw distress ink and the sky broken china with salty sea as the sea. To give the corners dimension I used a sequin off cut and just added another layer of the same ink.

Have a go at the Postcard challenge and see what inspires you.

Bev

Not just the card..

I find that often once you have made a card you need an envelope or in this case a box for it to go in because it won't fit in anything else!

 

This was the box for a friends 40th card. The card above was made with 2 sheets of grey board and then covered with patterned paper. I then stamped butterfly's from the Dark Room door set - Butterflies  in Saddle brown and Delphinium blue Staz on ink. I stamped once and then again to get the depth  of colour.

  

The rosette on the card has Tim's paper tape with moths on it and after a friend mentioned a strip of it on the back of the rosette was a handy way to keep the rosetee together, I promptly manged to stick it on the wrong side! Saying that I liked it.. A large sparkly stickon from the pund store was the bit of bling I wanted. The stamp inside the card was another Dark Room Door set and was great for the friendship quote. The card was held to gether wither book rings and I tied as many ribbons as I could to it.

The Box was made using the Crafters companions Top score board with plain cardstock and then stamping the same butterflies on. I also used a small amount of Stickles in rock candy to jazz it up.