Crafty Boots bingo - Inspire!

When a special friend of mine thad a special birthday (yep that one again!) I wanted give something that she could keep. I've known her since my first night at halls at Polytechnic (you can tell how old I am!) She and my friends from college inspired me to be creative. Kate especially with sewing and cooking. I learnt lots from everyone there and it gave me a taste of the world outside my family. Super. Happy 40th Kate, hopefully this is something that she can hang in her home across the ocean and think of her daft friend back here in the UK.

It's my contribution to the Crafty Boots Design team challenge - Bingo, with green, yellow, ribbon and lace set by Denise in homeage to her US roots..perfect for a friend who lives there.  Have a go and see what you can come up with.

I used mount board as a base. I mod podged on a couple of english/german dictionary as a based and then covered the whole lot in antique paper distress stain. I used a watered down acrylic eco green  paint in ocean for a rough brush round the edges and then used watermelon through the Tando random circles mask. The stamp is the bubble gum tree from Unity and the flowers were cut using a Paper Artsy Grunge flower die in an off cut of basic grey paper (not sure which one, sorry) and then swooshed with acrylic paint and sprtized with sunshine yellow perfect pearls. A Tim Holts memo pin with an adage ticket and two hitch fasteners to hang it by fininshed it off. 

No girls!

Gosh what a concept! Crafty Boots challenge had me a little foxed on this but this is what I came up with..

 I used a craft card tag and a harliquin stencil to do three layers of colours with acrylic paint, brown, blue and white. Tumbled glass distress ink round the edges and a bit of vintage photo around the bottom edges.

I saw the lovely Lin Brown distress a name plate at the PaperArtsy stand at Ally Pally on Saturday and was inspired. I used a light blue acrylic then darker splodged on the top and sanded a bit away. I used a bit of distress ink round the edges not as graet as Lin's but I had a try.

The Fixed price man (nice concept) stamp was from Ally Pally from who I thought was rubber necker stamps - can't find the link to who I thought thay were. They sell lots of different stamps just cut up and unmounted, he appealed.I realised that I needed to stamp him on something different as the background was so dark. I choose white card and lightly distressed him with Vintage photo. The phrase the eyes see everything was from Mini 02 I masked the top of the stamp, thanks to Hels S who reminded me how to do this! I stamped another Paperartsy mini 56 at the top and then decided that some watch parts donated by a friend would sit beautifully in the circles. The name plate had an off cut of paper  and the watch hands jazzed it up. The brads I suspect may be woodware? I did n't noticed I had one screwhead and one phillips head, opps.

Thanks for the challenge Crafty Boots!!
PS - sorry about the sidewise photo's.. I have been having some trouble with blogger...

My "proper" first challenge..

I said below that I would enter my first craft challenge actually by the time I got my blog sorted (well sort of, at least I can get photo's on here now.. chuckle) the challenge had finished!

So here goes Studio L3 Grungy Monday 12 using Tim Holtz technique April 2008.

I cut the tag using Tim's Sizzix movers and shaper Tag and bookplates die and Lost and found paper, the one with the clocks on.

My favourite stamp set at the moment is the PaperArtsy Clocks 6 I really love the words.. "time does not change usit merely unfolds us", this set me thinking again about butterfly's unfolding their wings.. so out came my Dark room Door Butterflies and I embossed them with clear ink and embossing powder.

I had a good look at the technique and decided to use the expresso paint dabber Tim uses and then go from there. It felt a bit dark so I added the paper lace tape and I wanted to pick up on the jade/teal colour from underneath so added a bit of ribbon across the centre and through the tag hole.

I stamped the Paper Artsy words and swirl in Jet black Staz on and added the metal embellishments. Simple but it does fit my original idea.