2011 - 2012

So we say goodbye to another year that had been filled with crafty inkyness and hello to a new year which once my Mojo returns should hopefully be even more colourful.
Looking back at the year it has certainly been an interesting one. I managed to get my crafty creations published in both Craft Stamper and Stampers Sampler and started as a permanent team member for Just Stamps magazine.
I also went to my first ever workshops starting off with the Tim Holtz Artsy Crafts one in February, followed by another 2 Artsy Crafts where I met some lovely people and learned new techniques, esp off the lovely Lynne Perrella.
I took part in my first craft fair, a fun day and great confidence boost as people really enjoyed my makes.
I lost my mojo a bit in June which was scary but I soon turned it around by taking up art journaling or at least the techniques used in art journaling. I am not much of a journal writer but I gave it my own twist and created home decor objects in a painty, inky art journal style. Some of my favourite creations were my mirrors last year hence I am entering this one into The Stamp Man Awards for favourite project of 2011.

I also discovered my love for Stampotique stamp.


These are two of my favourite projects. The card I sent to my sister's boyfriend for his birthday, I think he wasn't too impressed with Uncle Buck on the front. Ah well, I think he's such an adorable character.

I also started painting canvases last year, mainly using collage sheet images as the main focus. I esp like working with the kids pics from Lisa's Altered Art, and also my own family photos.

These are just a few things I really enjoyed making last year, of course there were many cards and challenges I entered, let's hope 2012 will be just as fun filled. I have set myself a few goals for the year and once my mojo returns I will get making. I am currently updating and redesigning my whole website so I am concentrating on that for now. There will be some candy coming soon too. I had promised this a while ago but never got round to taking a picture of the goodies and writing the post so I will make that a priority!

Happy 2012 everyone!!!

Abstract Canvas inspired by Dyan Reaveley

Sometime this summer (if you can call it that) I was browsing some blogs and one post stood out. It was Dyan Reaveley's blog post about a canvas class she tought. Here is the original post.
It inspired me so much that I wanted to try out my own large canvas. I had until then only stuck to smaller canvases and used photos and collage sheets to fill it out and I was a little scared of tackling the big white canvas.
But with the help of the post and loads of peeking at the student's canvases I worked out this canvas here.




I liked that one very much but thought I could have done some things a little better so I made a second one. So this is the new and improved version.

I won't give you any instructions as Dyan is teaching these as classes and I don't want to give away her secrets. If you're clever work out your own or maybe take part in one of her classes. My time off if very limited and as I'm always working weekends I can't get to as many workshops as I'd like otherwise I would have loved to go to this one.

As these were painted in the summer holidays my boyfriend's daughter was here too and she joined in as well. She is 13 and this is her canvas.... this one is a bit work in progress and not entirely finished but almost there.

Thanks to Dyan for letting me post these and for the inspiration.

Dyan's Blog

Try it on Tuesday - Alter it Week

Running a bit late this week with my Try it on Tuesday entry but I'll get it in just in time.
The theme is (or was) "Alter anything" so I got working on this wooden frame. Gesso, paint, splatters, bottle cap rings, spray inks, stamping and a gungeboard heart.
That's the ingredients for this frame. I think it would make a nice little frame for a kids picture, what do you reckon?

As always the Alter it week is sponsored by The Craft Barn.

Bottle cap fridge magnets

I've recently come across some bottle cap fridge magnets in a shop and thought what a fab idea. I had already bought some bottle caps previously and the epoxy dome stickers and these caps fit one of my circle punches perfectly.
So I got making.
Some images work better than others, just give it a go.
For these I used stamped images but I think they'd also look fab using old photos or maybe even magazine clippings. Anything you can punch out really.

I think they'll make a nice addition to my display at the craft fair next week. I am a little nervous about my first fair but also excited. Hope the weathers nice.

More of a detailed view here, I used one of the hero arts background stamp - pop dots for the ones on the left. The butterfly is out of a bigger image by Paperbag Studios.

A fantastic opportunity....

A great opportunity has come up for me recently and I've been meaning to share for a while but never got round to it.
Basically opposite where I live is a row of small shops and businesses, one of them being Studio 61 - a framing studio and art gallery. The gentleman who owns it has kindly agreed to display some of my work, my mirrors to be precise. Although it's not exactly what he normally exhibits (mainly his own photography) he liked my stuff and as I'm a local artist he wants to give it a go and see if my stuff may sell. So the past 3 weeks I've been busy working on some mirrors for him and I dropped them off today and now it's wait and see if people are interested.

This one here is my latest piece and my favourite at the moment, again I got really messy and painty with the background and the houses are stamped (Paperbag Studios) and coloured with my new favourite neocolor crayons (thanks to Kate Crane for the tip!!!).

Fingers crossed my mirrors sell and I may get to do more business with John. In the meantime I'll just enjoy getting messy, I have just stocked up on mirrors so I'm set for a few weeks!

Sisters in the mirror.....

Remember the 3 tags I made as my first venture into art journal style stuff?

This mirror I started that day too, it was my first bigger piece in that style and it just confirmed I had made the right decision trying this kinda style. It's so much fun and messy and if I don't like something I just paint over it, splatter more paint, spray a little more etc.

I love using this particular photo of me and my sis, it works so well with everything.

I have another mirror to share with you in the next few days so watch this space!

Flower girl card - Charisma Cardz Challenge

I've not shared a card in a while so I thought it was time.....

I made this card for the Charisma Cardz Challenge where the theme is All about flowers.

The image is by Paperbag Studions, I love their stamps more and more each day. If you havn't tried them give them a go, they are stunning and great quality.

My crafty year so far and new adventures

With half the year almost done (and didn't it fly by?) I thought it was time to look at my year so far.
It's been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. I started the year with a much needed new job and that meant 13hour days sometimes at least to start off with. So no crafting but I so wanted a new job for the past year that that was a sacrifice worth making.
Craft wise the year started extremely promising. I became a part of the Alter it monthly team, having admired the blog and challenges for a while it's great being part of it.
I also became a permament member of the Design Team for Just stamps - Einfach Stempeln. It's a small(ish) German magazine aimed at stampers and mixed media artists. It is also the only German magazine I have come across. It has such great potential to become much bigger and it's fab being part of the team. And of course it's such an honour to see my stuff in print every month.



I also had my first UK publication this year with a reader submission in Craft Stamper. My frame got accepted last year but wasn't featured til earlier this year.

My mum sometimes asks me what I get from having my things published, but it's just such a great feeling having something in a magazine and that other crafters out there may be inspired by my piece.

With this being my 2nd year of my craft madness I thought I should try selling my things at a craft fair this year as so much stuff accumulates around the house and at some point I will run out of wall space, so may as well sell some. Everything just fell into place and within days I had booked a local fair. It was all going too well I thought as later the fair was cancelled due to lack of stallholders. But I spent hours searching the net and found plenty more, from small fairs to big summer festivals. Many of them were already fully booked or I couldn't get the time of work but I am in a great position to start planning my fairs early next year and pick out the best ones. And I have still got 1 booked for this summer, it's a bit daunting but also exciting.


As it's a year of firsts, I also booked my first craft workshops this year. First one, of course the Artsy Crafts Event with Tim Holtz, he's been such an inspiration and it was great meeting him in person. It also inspired me to book another workshop with Lin and Leandra. The projects may not have been that much up my street but they were still fun and it was just so lovely being amongst crafters and I talked to a lot of lovely ladies there and made a new friend - Alison of Craftytrog's Inky Adventures. Check out her blog, she makes some great things and is so lovely to chat to.

A couple of months ago I had a very exciting email about a project, not wanting to jinx it I won't tell you any details but it got me very excited. It took up a lot of my time and my blog has suffered the effects as I had less to show on here. But everything was wrapped up and posted off last week and fingers crossed it goes through ok. If not then I have created some beautiful things on the way and learned some new skills and tried out products and things I may otherwise not have tried. It's all about the journey after all.

Having posted that project off seemed a little like something was ending and I had completely lost my mojo for a week or two there. But every end is the beginning of something new.

I have been eyeing up art journaling for a while and admired the messy and colourful doodles of many artists. I didnt think I would be able to do that. For starters I'm not a journal writer and I don't like my handwriting but I loved the style too much to give up so quickly.
I can always use stamps and quotes for the writing bit.

So I have watched many videos on you tube for inspiration and browsed many blogs and decided to give it a shot. I ordered Kate Crane's dvd as I love her style and I can't wait to watch the dvd and try out some techniques.

In the meantime I got all my art supplies and just had a go at it. I started off with some tags to make it a small and easy project. And I just had a go with gesso, paints, matt medium, stamps, ink, splatters, rim marks and all sorts of messy things. If I didnt like what I made, I painted over it and it just added to the texture and feel of the piece. So the tags you see here are my very first samples of my art journaling, doodle, messy art style that I am getting into. I liked them so much that I went straight onto another piece, bigger and better. I will show it on my blog when it's finished so check back.

All I can say is, if you like something, try it. You might suprise yourself and be a natural at it.

And here is to the next 6 months of inky hands and messiness!!!

Angelboy Tag....

I like tags, they are great to try new techniques and they are fairly quick to do, but then what do you do with them? At least with cards you know you can send them to someone but with tags, I never know what to do with them. Nevertheless I like them, suppose they just have to go into the box with my ATC's.

So I wanted to use my new arched glass stamp (purchased by my boyfriend, he did listen last time I dragged him to the stamp shop! Result!). The tag looks a tad christmassy but that wasn't my intention. Love the colours though.

I actually made it for the ONE FOR THE BOYS Challenge over at Try it on Tuesday.

I'm also entering this into the Simon says Stamp and Show Challenge and the Sir Stampalot Challenge.

My new favourite stamp and a couple of challenges.....

I have spent a fortune on new stamps recently, well I kinda always do. But there is sooooo many I just love at the moment, but the face stamp from Stamp Francisco is my new favourite stamp I think. I stamped it a few times, cut it out and pushed it around the page and there is just so many ideas popping up in my head.... that's always a good sign.

The branch in the background is by Memory Box and also quickly becoming a favourite. I use it for all my backgrounds at the moment.

I made this one for the Artistic Stamper Challenge "Ladies and Girls" as well as the Stampsmith Challenge "Celebrating Mothers".

LOVE-ly cards

With my first craft fair fast approaching I am trying to have plenty of cards available in many different categories and styles. I seemed to be lacking love, wedding and anniversary cards so I got making some.
I love working with my new Paperbag Studios stamps at the moment, the images are just so pretty.

Also I can't seem to stop making random stamped collages and then using snippets of them in my cards.

I am entering this into Hels Sunday Stampers Challenge, the theme is LOVE and to use things we love, well, I love anything Tim Holtz and especially my distress inks as you can see below, I also love my Paperbag Studios stamps so plenty of love from me.

A handful of Moleskine Notebooks.....

As I am currently making lots of stock for the craft fair I have signed up to take part in, I went a little mad at decorating a bunch of Moleskine notebooks. I love these little Kraft coloured ones and if you use beautiful stamps like these from Paperbag Studios, Stamp Francisco and Tim Holtz, they can nothing but turn out great!

My two favourites are these though. The one on the left is a stamp by Paperbag Studios and the one on the right is a mix of stamps but the hand is from Stamp Francisco. I have recently bought a bunch of really cool stamps from them and I can't wait to play with them more. They are amazing!

The one on the right is being entered into the Creavil Challenge where the theme is "Clocks".