Halloween Greetings Part 2

Well, better late than never eh? I totally messed up the scheduling of these posts so I hope you will forgive me for being a little behind the times.

At least both yesterday's project and today's could simply have all the references to Halloween removed and would then make great gifts for the teen with Gothic leanings.

 

As you can see from the photo above this little book is really easy to construct with six pockets and tags for inserting in them made from 12x12 black cardstock.

 

 

Then you just decorate as desired. I added some mini pockets and tags for journalling to the front of each pocket but left the backs blank as 6x4 photo mats.

 

 

The inner tags are a mix of photo mats and journalling spots.

 

 

 

The poison bottles are from Studio 490 European Art set stamped in black, white and Rusty Hinge inks with labels cut from the packaging of the paper pack - waste not, want not and all that!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's all from me for now.

 

Back soon with previews of the coming month's workshop projects plus news on the dates of our this year's Annual Winter Sale. Keep your eyes peeled you wouldn't want to miss it!

 

 

 

 

 

Be Still My Heart - A very Studio 490 week!

 

Oh the excitement when this little delivery arrived on Thursday at Snazzys! Mostly all the new Studio 490 goodness from the wonderful Wendy Vecchi, with the new Art for You stamps and

co-ordinating Bugs & Butterflies Art parts at the top of my shopping list!

 

 

For those of you who are not quite sure what to do with all her lovely goodies Wendy has designed the three different Kits for Art you see in the (bad) photo above. Each include all the Art Parts you need to make the illustrated project, and the Be at Home kit (centre) even has her Blossom Bucket embellishments too. 

 

All of the Studio 490 product range, except for the Blossom Bucket embellishments are in the online store now, just click 'online store' to pop over for a peek, and I am working on some samples for the store which I will share next week.

 

The Headmaster has spent two days shuffling all the stamp ranges around the store to make the new bits fit so I thought you might like a peek, and maybe a drool too - no, not at the Headmaster just at the lovely new stamps etc from....

 

 

 

Studio 490 and...

 

 

Tim Holtz - including all the Classic and Blueprint ranges - looking very depleted already, but no worries as more stocks of these are due in next week, .....

 

 

......the new Christmas stamps from Dylusions - we have the stencils and restocks of the ink sprays too plus .....

 

 

 

Hampton Art, which I will try to get into the online store later this week, after the Blossom Bucket embellies, and after the new Christmas Hero Arts, and after the new Chocolate Baroque stamps, and ........ you get the picture lol!

 

I will pop back tomorrow with the new Design Team kit, which the DT will be using from Monday, and which will be available from the online store early next week if you want to play along with the team.

 

I will leave you with the new (re-arranged) view from the front door of the store.

 

 

 

Thanks for dropping by xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So where did the week go?

 

I know, I know but I have no idea where the last week disappeared to! So, to catch up, firstly here's last Tuesday evening's workshop project.

 

 

The triptych is an empress wood blank, painted with Eco Green Crafts Acrylic paint in Orchid and layered with Prima's Fairy Belle papers, distressed around the edges with my trusty Tim Holtz Distressing Tool.

 

 

I stapled some cotton lace to the layers of paper before I stuck them down, ( I borrowed Penny's stapler in the workshop and then forgot to give it back - drop me your address Penny and I will pop it in the post to you!), added a few roses, paper flowers and the frondy bit from TH Alterations Pinecone Die - I've done everything but make a pinecone with it but more of that later! I found an old broken Style Stone frame and some metal bits and bobs then misted the whole piece with Cosmic Shimmer Vintage Mist in Patina. The plan was to mist the finished piece with black ink a la Finnabair, but I lost my nerve. I quite like my subtle take on her work, but next time, courage lol!

 

This week also saw a visit from Nicky Cresswell aka Minxy to teach a couple of workshops for Snazzys. She, unlike yours truly, remembered to take photos during the workshop so here we go! 

 

 

This was her initial project, and here are all the variations

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fabulous aren't they?

 

On Sunday Nicky agreed to run a drop in session making roses from both stamped images and dies, and boy did I need her help, I am all fingers and thumbs with anything fiddly. She used the Studio 490 Accents for Art stamps and the TH Alterations Pinecone Die ( yes, to make roses) and some of her own Spellbinders dies. There was much hilarity, but Nicky was very patient, full of really useful tips and tricks, and a good time was had by all. I'm not sure that Wendy will still be planning a heart made with 40 handmade red roses for her parents Ruby Wedding Anniversay tho'!

 

 

So, a huge thank you to Nicky, who I'm hoping to talk into a repeat performance once she has recovered from an excess of Snazzy seniors and juniors, and I'll leave you with a little video tour of the store taken by Nicky before she left.

 

 

 

Thanks for dropping by. 

Back soon xx

 

PS The Christmas Dylusions stamps are up on Snazzys online store now with the stencils/masks on tomorrow and lots more to follow.

Sew Much to Do Part 2

Hello again Snazzy stampers.

As promised, here is the lowdown on how I made the embellishments for the workshop projects in yesterday's post.

 

The dress form is cut from Grungeboard or heavy cardstock using the Tim Holtz Alterations Sewing Room die and painted black. You then need to cut just the dress part of the form in metal and emboss it using his Flourish Texture Fade or similar. This then gets a swipe or two of Eco Green Crafts Black, and either Orchid or Lake acrylic paint, left until partially dry, and wiped away again with a soft cloth to reveal some of the metal base - I left the blue version a little longer than I intended lol! 

 

 

I painted the scissors Studio 490 Art Part with Ranger's Silver Acrylic Paint Dabber and when dry, stamped it with the scissors from Studio 490's Art by Hand LCS068 plate with Ranger's Black Archival Ink, heat setting it to avoid smudges. It is one of these occasions when it is easier to ink the stamp,  leave it face up on the desk and then carefully press the Art Part onto the stamp. 

 

The cotton reels are a mix of the Sewing room and Mini Sewing Room dies cut in Grungeboard or heavy cardstock and covered in scraps of the paper with some threads and trimmings from my stash wound on.

 

 

The buttons were again die cut and covered in the same way with cotton tied through the holes - I hate to see buttons without threads in the centre, silly really lol!

 

Trimmings from my stash were added to the top edge of each frame, and finally here is another peek at both finished projects.

 

 

These were popular workshop projects at Snazzy's, very different to last week's, which is typical of the variety we offer on our regular Tuesday evening dip into mixed media. I hope if this inspires you to give it a go you will share the results with us - I love to see what eveyone else is making! 

 

We are off to Manchester Central for the Creative Crafts Show this week so if you are going, do pop along to Stand C12 to say hello, and see these projects and many others IRL.

 

Take care xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sew Much To Do with Chapel Road Artstamps

Hello again Snazzy stampers!

Both this week's workshop projects featured Chapel Road Artstamps new Sew Much To Do stamp sheet..........

............... and the Tim Holtz Alteration's Sewing Room and Mini Sewing Room dies with
his On the Edge Pennants and his Riveted Metal and Flourish Texture Fades, some Ideaology Grungeboard, Studio 490 Art Part scissors and matching stamp, some Studio Sticky Back Canvas stamped with some Hero Arts label stamps (CL398), some scraps of lace, embroidery thread, trimmings and Ric Rac from my stash, and some Eco Green Crafts paints in Lake and Orchid and WOW embossing powders in Vanilla White, Olive and Burgundy.

That seems a really long list of materials doesn't it but, I bet you all have similar products in your stash that could be adapted to this type of project, and I did make two versions!

 

The original workshop 'for instance' I made using Carta Bella's Beautiful Moments papers on a Orchid base, yes I know, pink - so not me!

 

 

I then recovered myself and made a second version with a Lake base to co-ordinate with Authentique's Loyal papers.

 

Both paper ranges are double sided so, to create the faux patchwork effect for the frame insert, I only needed a scrap of 7cm x 11cm of three papers to get six different designs to play with. I then embossed each piece with the same Riveted Metal Texture Fade I used for last week's Steampunk projects - versatile or what lol. I used the embossed design to create a mini patchwork of papers, sticking it down on the insert base with Herma repositional adhesive as I went. I added a mini label from Hero Arts CL398 stamped with Versacolour Bamboo/Cardinal ink onto sticky back canvas, frayed a little around the edges and smidged with a little Old Paper Distress Ink to shabby it up a bit.

 

 

All you have to do is paint your frame back & front, make sure it is completely dry, then stamp the images from the Sew Much to Do stamp set, and the mini doily stamp from Prima's Fairy Belle collection in Versamark. I used the same colour embossing powder each time for each image and added a swipe of Inca Gold in Pale Gold around the frame edges once the Embossing Powder was cool. On the pink version I used some of the leftover embossed papers to create a little border of randomly sized strips along the top edge of the frame, and on the blue one I trimmed the top of the frame and the insert with Pennants cut from some of the laftover Loyal papers.

 

That's all for today but if you pop back tomorrow I will run through how I made all the other embellishments.

 

Take Care xx