A Frugal Journey Through January Day 16

Hello and welcome back!

Today I am recycling a canvas board which didn't go the way I planned first time around, plus scraps of paper, lace, scrim, hessian and ribbon, all leftovers from other projects.

For this technique it doesn't matter the colour or pattern of the leftovers as you won't see any of it once you are finished.

I used white glue to adhere all my torn bits of paper to the board, covering the piece with two thin coats of gesso to knock back the colours.

I then decided to use the board landscape, rather than portrait, and added some frayed scrim, stencilling with a Tim Holtz Layering Stencil plus some extra texture paste around the edges of the board.

I finished off with the scraps of lace, ric rac and another couple of coats of gesso before using the book pages and some JOFY stamps with a bit of ink on them and all around the edges - the hessian scraps I had were too heavy for the piece but came in handy frayed, to give me some 'string' stems for the flowers.

Sometimes when I use this technique I dislike the base colours/patterns so much I add a tint of colour either to the gesso or some matte medium on the second two layers. This piece started out with scraps of purple so after two coats of gesso I added a smidge of Luminarte Primary Elements in Sky Blue to matte medium before highlighting the texture with some Treasure Gold in my favourite White Fire. I then added the seaside images stamped on tissue and applied to the project with matte medium.

This final sample was a workshop where we used this technique over both the canvas board and the frame, again tinted with Luminarte's polished pigments with the feature dragonfly from a Tim Holtz set in both cardstock and clearly for art to add dimension. again a couple of shrink plastic elements to finish off.

That's it for Day 16, I hope I have inspired you to give it a go and would love it if you would leave me a link in the comments below if you make something using this idea.

I'll be back tomorrow with another four different ideas with that beautiful Hero Arts Poppy stamp for all you cardmakers, including a layout idea too xx

 

 

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A Frugal Journey Through January Day 4

Hello again and welcome to Day 4 of my Frugal Journey where I have something a little different for you.

I am a huge fan of the work of France Papillon, the author of 'Journal on Mondays' where she creates the most amazing journal pages which are published each Monday on her YouTube channel. Over the past year she has been journaling in an altered book which inspired me to try something similar myself. All you need is an old hard backed book that you can bear to part with. Today, I will show you how I altered the cover, and later in the month I will share how I prepared the pages by thinning them out and creating some flaps and pockets, followed by a couple of finished pages.

I gathered some scraps of black card, stencils,black texture paste, homemade, but more of that another day, some embossing folders and Treasure Gold in a sliver finish.

 

I stencilled onto the cover and spine of the book with texture paste then painted over them with black acrylic paint by Eco Green Crafts - great coverage and a lovely creamy texture which dries beautifully matte. I then embossed all my scraps of black card with various embossing folders, mostly from Tim Holtz, but a couple of others that had no manufacturer's name on too.

I then tore up the embossed images, glued them to the front cover and then highlighted the texture with Treasure Gold. I worked in two layers which I think helps with the illusion of depth. As you can see I created a sort of steampunk look, without any dimensional embellishments as I wouldn't want them to be damaged when I pop this in and out of my bag, but you could use any paper or card stock, in any colour, on any theme you like.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out but normally I wouldn't risk altering the cover of journal before I had finished all the pages as I can be a bit of a messy journaler with lots of inks, stains and sprays - perhaps this will encourage me to work a little (or a lot) more carefully in future. I may also add some more dimensional embellishment when I have completed the journal, who knows!

Thank you so much for joining me today. I will be back, same time, same place tomorrow with an interesting idea for a scrapbook layout.

I hope you will join me x

 

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Long time no blog....

Hello, just a quick catch up which I know is a bit of a cheek given how long we have been MIA lol!

Firstly, and most importantly, an enormous and heartfelt thank you for all your messages, prayers, cards, flowers and thoughtful condolances over the past few weeks. We have been very touched by how many of you have taken the time from your busy lives just to drop by with kind words - and even kinder offers of help. We are blessed with the very best of friends, you know who you are xx

Secondly, a little request. When we exhibit at events we get lots of lovely customers telling us how much they enjoy looking at our blogs and especially the fantastic inspiration they get from our wonderful DT blog. We always appreciate this, as we know just how much time and effort the DT put into creating amazing artwork for everyone to enjoy.

Sooo, as you browse the blogs it would be great if you could take a moment to leave a comment for our teamies to let them know you have been by and to show your appreciation of their work directly, you can even win a little something if your comment is picked by Mr Random - and it would save us feeling like old frauds as we gather the plaudits and have done none of the work lol!

Now, along with a taste of Summer weather, the new JOFY Summer release stamps from PaperArtsy arrived this morning....

 

there are three A5 plates

 

 

 

 

and six Minis.

 

 

 

 

Great fun and they are already in Snazzy's Online Store too over at http://www.snazzysstore.com/

And on the JOFY theme, the Spring release is the focus of tomorrow (Wednesday) morning's workshop

Wednesday 5 June 10am to1pm

 

with Clean & Simple cards (above) as well as techniques with Dylusions Inks and Distress Paints.

 

Saturday 8 June 10am to 1pm

 

 

Distress Paints also feature in Saturday's workshop along with Prima masks & stencils, texture pastes from Maimeri, Treasure Gold from PaperArtsy and lots of new Kaisercraft background stamps.

 

We have some space on each, just give us a ring at the store on 01793 602470 - if it's out of hours just leave a message and we will book you in.

 

We will be back later this week with more news on both more new products in store, and ranges we are retiring, plus more sneak peeks of the rest of this month's workshops.

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So, watch this space xx