A last gasp...

Tonight is the deadline for the February challenge on Aunty's Forum, and I've just ducked under the wire with these last two bits.

The last of my glass painting - a suncatcher...




And then two watercolour painted cards. The fairy is going to be for a friend of mine MUCH later in the year. Trouble is, the second she sees it on this blog, she's going to know it's for her, but never mind! The teddy is for her daughter....

The fairy was rubberstamped in Stazon ink, and the background, and the fairy, painted in with watercolour paint. I then stamped a frame using dye inks and various rubber stamps I have.

The teddy was rubberstamped with Versamark and heat embossed with black powder, then coloured in with watercolour paints.






Non-craft stuff to blog - Nick & I went 10 pin bowling last night and I trounced him. Neither of us are brilliant at it, but I scored 115, 117 and finally 128 in our three games, beating him each time. For me to get over 100 at all is an achievement - my highest ever score is 133, so I acquitted myself quite well, even if I do say so myself. I know, pride before a fall and all that - the important part was having fun.

Nick is off to London on Sunday night for 8 weeks - he's doing the practical part of his NVQ 6129 in plumbing. He'll be back most weekends, but it's going to be an interesting 8 weeks.....

love and light to you all!

More Glass Painting

Continuing on from yesterday's blog, here are the last couple of glass painted items I've done, this time using a Kenco coffee jar.

This one is very simple. It is basically just an outline of a medieval gargoyle (looked better sat up than lengthways!) which is then filled in, and the big bare background filled with liner spirals. Very simple, but effective nonetheless.




The second one is more complicated. I started out by outlining in black all the corners, or where the glass went off at a different angle. I also outlined a rubber stamp design of a fleur de lys, which I stamped onto the glass at the front. I then worked my way around the jar with the fill and flood technique, as before, using a different facet each time (so it took 8 days to do the paint alone). You have to work this way, otherwise gravity pulls the paint to the lowest point and you end up in a terrible mess. While it was drying, I used offcuts of friendly plastic to make an inset for the lid (to hide the word KENCO!), which was quite effective. I then went around dotting with gold, silver and copper liner, which gives a very rich effect.



My favourite pieces to work on are items I've bought from charity shops. There's such a wide variety out there of Crystal Decanters and old perfume bottles, sugar bowls, vases, and for a very cheap price too - add some glass paint and you have a unique item. I've sold a few in the past, for weddings or anniversaries, which have been customised a little (like with numbers or initials). Good fun.

So there you have it....

More painting tomorrow...

Glass paints

I've decided I might just eke out my photos and blog them gradually over the next few days. Don't want to burn out too soon, eh?

So, today we have a title of glass paints. I've been using mine a lot lately. The Christmas cards in yesterday's thread show four of the cards I've made lately - here are a couple more...





The idea is simple - get a suitable peel-off, stick it to acetate (or glass if you need something more substantial), and fill in the gaps with glass paint. I find the fill and flood technique works best - otherwise the colours get too weak. You do need to ensure that you keep your work flat until it dries, otherwise you end up with a mess when the colours run due to gravity. This can make it quite interesting if you're working on a multi-faceted object (which we'll look at tomorrow, maybe), not to mention time consuming. But it is possible to do a lot of work quite quickly when working with cards.

Once dry, the acetate is then mounted using double-sided tape. The best cards to use are double apertured ones but you can't get these in a wide variety of sized or shapes. I tend to either make my own, or alter the ones I have to suit. A single aperture card can be used and a second aperture cut so that you see the light shining through. If I only have an ordinary single-fold card, I cut the aperture, and then cut some matching paper or card for the inside to cover the DS tape.

Paints - mostly I use spirit based glass paints, but I have also got Pebeo Vitrea 160. These are paints that you bake in the oven at 160 degrees to "fix" them, and they're supposedly dishwasher safe. They're excellent - although the colours aren't always as rich, the variety is great, and they also have some fantastic "effect" glass paints, like crackle, and irridescent. I'd dig out some of my work with these, except that it's all boxed and in the attic..... no space!

Catch you tomorrow!

Let the Blogging Commence!

Well, here goes. I doubt I'm going to get everything blogged tonight, so expect lots of stuff on here for the next few days.

The thing is, you see, that lots of things I'm involved in or doing are coming to either a conclusion, or fruition, all at the same time.

First up is something for SSCC (Seasonal Storm's Christmas Club). Just to prove I HAVE been making my Christmas Cards, here are last month's....




swiftly followed by the ones I have made this month. The girls in SSCC will know that I have neatly dovetailed this month's cards into the team challenge on Aunty's Forum!




Next up are the Inchies I received for the Valentine's Inchy Swap, also on Aunty's...




Fabulous work, girls! Only 9 of us took part, though we made 10 inchies each. Mine are the two on the bottom far right.


And here are the ATCs I made for the ATC swap we did. I hope in the next day or so to photgraph the ones I've had back today...





And yes - those really are watch parts glued to the cards....

That'll do for tonight, craftwise.


The last thing I'd like to put in tonight is a picture of the tattoo I had done on the 16th February.... I'm loving it. It's at the base of my spine. Certain of my friends know exactly what its symbolism is - I don't want to sit here and explain it or try to justify why I did it. It's personal. It speaks of my own personal belief. Nuff Said.

Back in Business.... I think!

Hi folks!

I'm back....

It's been a while since I've even looked at my blog, let alone posted! I've been through a bit of a rough patch mentally & emotionally, though I won't bore you to tears with it. Now I have a stinking cold (thanks, Hubby!), but I've got a bit of time to put a post up here and say hi, and watch this space.

The biggest problem I have is that a lot of the stuff I'm doing is for other people (like their birthdays) or are for swaps where I don't want to spoil the surprise, and that makes it difficult to blog them. I'll have to find some time to create something just for ME....LOL

Catch you around!

Nothing Quite Like Rubbing It In.....

My (somewhat senior!) brother has just been on his first skiing trip to Austria. According to my Sister In Law, he's taken to it like a duck to water.

He knows how much I like snow and mountains. He knows how much I'd like to visit Austria. And he also knows I'd like to go on a skiing holiday.

On Wednesday, I received this MMS from him....



Like I said in the title.

Nothing quite like rubbing it in.....

Mojo moments

My mojo seems to be flowing quite well lately.

Donna has another challenge on her Tilda & Co challenge blog, the one for this week was something involving numbers. As I'm still waiting for my new Tildas to arrive, I've had to use my one and only stamp again. Ho hum. But it does make it more of a challenge to do something a bit different! Anyway, here she is...



I've used a morphing mauve card from Craft Creations, Gold Mirri card for the one, matted onto purple cardstock, and stamped Tilda with Stazon onto white card which I've then coloured with water soluble pencils. I've made a balloon with "You're My No." on it, using Letraset, and also coloured that in the same way. A bit of Crystal stickles, and a few jem hearts and we have our No. 1 card! It's much more sparkly and stuff in real life though! Hope you like it Donna.....

I'm still plugging away at the team challenge on Aunty's Forum. Here is effort No.3




I've shown the back too because that's where the required element of a winter coloured embellishment is lurking. Well, gold is wintry to me because of Christmas!!!

And another one!

Had a mad flurry of crafting tonight - Mojo in full swing - and came up with this little beauty!

I think it's kinda cute in a very basic way.....

More cards....

Over on Aunty's Forum we have a team challenge. This month it's Mono + One & No Squares. In other words, entries must be black & white, NOT a square, and there must be an embellishment in a winter colour. Here's my first entry for it....



I've used a Mattie Stencil to do the white cutwork, which was mounted onto a black square card which I cut the corners off to make it Octagonal. There's some black & white background paper I downloaded from somewhere (though can't remember where now!) and then there's a silhouette lady head (check out ebay!) to which I've added an flower embellishment in a wintry blue.

I'll be doing a few more as the month progresses (hopefully).

However - while I was in a black & white mood (and while the square vs. rectangle debate was unanswered on the forum, I made another card, VERY quickly, but didn't add an embellishment so I haven't entered it for the comp....




I'm off now to do some more crafting while my Mojo is fully operational!

Oops!

I was a bit late getting this in - but on Donna's blog (Crafty Crafts, then go to Tilda & Co) she had a challenge to use a Tilda stamp with flowers. Being new to Tilda, and only just getting my stamp - here is my entry!





I really like these sweet stamps, so methinks I'm going to have to get some more!