CUNJEVOI SURPRISE

Hi and welcome. Just a quick post and an entry into a challenge I've not been to before.
At Crafts -Too Challenge You the criteria is for the craft piece to be about the natural world... with a twist. The twist this fortnight is to add wings (real or fantasy). Pop on over to:
http://c2cu.blogspot.co.uk to have a look.

My layout is showing butterflies (chipboard: small ones coloured with distress stains and then with liquid pearls to give a jewel-like shimmer; the larger one coloured with Opals embossing powder). Part of the background paper has been stamped with dragonflies. This was altered printed cardstock,- paper I didn't particularly like, smooshed over with distress inks, including Black Soot, after  highlighting some aspects with white crayon, which acted as a resist. The paper was then buffed off to reveal the lighter sections, before stamping with archival inks.
The photos were taken at a rainforest park near Lismore. The plant is a native one: a cunjevoi. These I've seen about for years, but on this occasion, they were in flower... the first time I'd seen them flowering... quite unusual!

Thank you for stopping by. Catch you again soon. Cheers, Di

CHRISTMAS STOCKING SURPRISE

Hi and welcome on this glorious Christmas Eve. I hope everyone has a wonderful day, with family and friends.
Christmas has been a popular theme this month, and ARTastic has also continued with this theme, using a 'wordle' as an inspiration. I'd not heard of these before, but what an interesting concept. I can see many uses for it in a classroom, (as a retired teacher) with students having a great time.  While I didn't do a wordle for my piece. I did use some of the words from the inspirational one. pop on over to: http://artasticchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/ and see what the very talented DT has done with this.
I decided not to do a layout. Instead I made a stocking from firm cardstock and decorated it with: aluminium flashing tape (embossed, inked with alcohol inks), die cut poinsettias (from a gauzy tissue paper and Tim Holtz Tattered Poinsettia die), vintage photo print, and 3D Stamping Paint.

The stocking has tabs on the edges and this was all adhered to a firm backing with mounting tape, so that something could be placed inside.

In this case, the surprise is a giant wordsearch of Christmas words with every letter of the alphabet represented.
                                       

Again have a safe and joyous Christmas.
Thank you for visiting  and for your inspirational comments. Cheers, Di

FLIPPIN' OVER CHRISTMAS

Hi and welcome. You could take this title in a number of ways (depending on mood). However, I have made a tag, with a Christmas theme.
First, I used a Petaloo magnetic tag for the base. This is a deep chocolate brown which is great as a base colour to give additional depth. I'll apologise here for the quality of the photos.. really should have done them in natural light so that the true colours were more obvious (NOT !! at 1.00am!!)

 

This was painted liberally with Collage Pauge, and TH tissue paper was adhered to it.

 

 

After this I used a chevron stencil and white gesso to create a background. With the stencil in place I spritzed with glimmer mists  and then removed the stencil and left everything to dry.

 

 

 

 

 

When dry, Inca Gold (soft gold and apricot) were rubbed in.This gave the tag a beautiful pearly finish, while still allowing the chevron pattern and sprayed colours to still be seen.
Inside the tag I glued on paper strips,and fabric pieces, again with the Collage Pauge.These were tidied up before the edges were covered with paper tape, again smooched with Inca Gold.

 

 

A paper doily, smooched with a chocolate coloured Inca gold and a die-cut strip of paper was used to frame a vintage image. A Christmas poem torn from an old poetry book completed this section, together with a die-cut and embossed bauble (foil paper).

 

 

 

                                      

 

 

A dove was die cut and embossed from pearlised cardstock. Pan Pastels were applied to sections and the whole piece lightly spritzed with biscotti Perfect Pearls.When dry, some sections were highlighted further with Inca Gold. A piece of ribbon was threaded through the cardstock to form the basis of a very retro choker. Miss Bird was certainly getting into the Christmas spirit with her choice of jewels to adorn herself. A Christmas tag, again a deep chocolate brown,  salvaged from an old 
Kaiser craft range and some lace completed the front. Rayon ribbon was coloured using distress inks, and used to complete the tag.

Thank you for looking. I'm entering this piece into:
http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.ca/  where the team members were getting into the holiday spirit.

and  http://ourcreativecorner6.blogspot.com.au/ where the team was looking for a vintage Christmas, with no red  or green.This is a first visit to this blog challenge.

Have a happy and safe Christmas. Cheers, Di

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS.....

...... on ev'ry site you see!!!!

Including Pixels and Paper for this month's challenge.
This month we have a vintage Christmas photo for your inspiration, so we would love to see your project based on an aspect of Christmas shown here. You have until midnight, 5th January to submit your creation, so we hope that this gives you plenty of  time to enjoy the festive season with family and friends and hopefully finding  some crafty time for yourself.

Pop over to:http://pixelsandpaperchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/ to see what the team has produced for this.
This is my DT piece for the challenge. I focused on the stockings and used this concept as a centrepiece for my layout. This was done with iris folding.

 

On the background I've also stamped a Christmas ornament topper  (Chocolate Baroque stamps) with versamark, then heat embossed it  and added braid so that it looked like they were hanging.
The inspiration photo also reminded me of my childhood when many of the decorations for the house and the tree were handmade. I remember making strings of bells from milk bottle caps, washed, turned inside out and moulded into bell shapes over a lemon juicer. We also made paper chains from cut up cards and crepe paper.
For this memory, I chose to make the ornaments from stamped foil paper, (Chocolate Baroque stamps)  and again heat embossed the design. This gave them the look of some of the gorgeous decorations that were always packed away carefully each year. The idea of stamping and cutting out the ornaments was the result of a play day at Julie's at: http://timetocreate-handmadetreasure.blogspot.com.au/


                                                 

Some close-ups of the ornaments. Sorry about the blueness of the background. In trying to get the detail of the ornaments to stand out more, the background was brightened a wee bit too much. The photo below is more of the real colour. Sentiments are Words from Darkroom Door.

 

The photo of our son taken in 1990 was framed with foil paper, smooshed with 3D Stamping Paint. Journalling has been done on tags popped into the folds of the stocking.

 

On the base I've placed a strip of "Merry Christmas" words in  various languages  (Graphic 45). I played with some soft metallic silver Pan  Pastels and 3D Stamping Paint on this strip.

Thank you for visiting and please pop on over to Pixels and Paper to have a peep. We'd really love it  if you decided to have a play with us.

Cheers, Di