Mixed Media A4 Tag

Was looking through my stash and came across a pack of Stamps Away Stamp and Ink Board Large Tags. I must have had them years, so thought it would be fun to have a play and see what I could do with them. Click on any of the pictures to watch my You Tube video showing my process, and feel free to subscribe while you are there. 

I thought this sentiment fitted well with the wording on the "clock" which is Time Brings Flowers. 

List of supplies used:

Stamps Away Ink and Stamp Board Large Tag

Stamperia Rice Paper DFSAA4446 - Little Bird on Branch

Stamperia Rice Paper DFSAA4447 - Round Clocks

Greyboard - circles cut with Crafter's Companion Debbie Shore Metal dies - Circles

Imagination Crafts Satin Finish Decoupage Glue

Imagination Crafts Transparent Relief Paste

Imagination Crafts Structure Paste

Sara Signature Enchanted Christmas -Forest Vines Stencil

AALL & Create Stencil #38 Cracked Walls 2

Imagination Crafts A4 Stencil - Crackled Feather.

Elizabeth Craft Designs - 1639 Garden Notes English Rose

Daler Rowney Mixed Media Paper

Distress Oxides: Spun Sugar, Crushed Olive, Bundled Sage, Victorian Velvet, Saltwater Taffy

Distress Oxide Sprays: Bundled Sage, Peeled Paint

Distress Spray Stain: Picket Fence

Stampers Anonymous - Tim Holtz Collection - Just Thoughts

Distress Ink: Ground Espresso

Embellishments from stash: cotton lace, paper roses and flowers, clear embellishments

Thanks for popping by and happy crafting,

Cxxx

Art Journal - Blue & Cool Colours

Another Art Journal play, this time in my Pink Pig Journal. This is one where I may follow a prompt or play with some products. And unlike my Arteza journal, I am not so fussed about the outcome - it's the playing and process that's important with this. 

It's the second attempt at videoing myself and I am still having teething problems. I had an issue with the focus of the camera and paused the video to sort it. Then forgot to start it again. That said, it gives an idea of how I put it together.

To start with, the prompts I have cut up in my box are from Mixed Media Arts. I don't use them too often, so there's plenty to work with. This time I chose Blue and Cool Colours. I don't generally just randomly pick one, as I still struggle with that. When I use them, I need to give myself a feeling of knowing what I can do. 

To go out of my comfort zone I use Everything Art (click here for their courses). I dip into the 100 steps and have signed up for the Care December. Kasia and Jamie give more than just a word prompt. They give you prompts for the techniques and products - and often a video - so I feel a bit more supported. 

I tried to show the products more - but still feel that I need to work on that. And as the video missed some of the process, I will give you a full list further down. And it seems Blogger only allows videos of under 3 minutes - so am going to have to give that some consideration too.

After the video paused, I used Structure paste through the stencil you could see. And then Lunar Paste through the Whitewash stencil. And on the other side, a couple more of the Elizabeth Craft Designs stencils with Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide. I also did some stencilling on the coloured part of the shell.

The edges of the pages were painted with the Turquoise Cascade and Nearly Navy Inks.

Products Used:

Rice Paper - I use this to clean up ink, and then it provides me with a quick background like this one

White stamping card

Cadence Satin Finish Decoupage Glue

Amy Design Ocean Wonders Shell die set

Cosmic Shimmer Watercolour Ink - Peacock Teal

Cosmic Shimmer Pearlescent Watercolour Ink - Nearly Navy, Turquoise Cascade

Cosmic Shimmer Pixie Powder - Aqua Lagoon

Cosmic Shimmer Pixie Sparkles - Blue Wish

Cosmic Shimmer Lustre Polish - Snow and Ice

Cosmic Shimmer Luna Paste - Moonlight Ocean

Imagination Crafts Sparkle Medium - Midnight Ice

Imagination Crafts Structure Paste

Imagination Crafts Stencils - Whitewash, Chevron + not sure of the other one

Elizabeth Craft Designs Art Journal SO40 Pattern Stencil Pack

AALL & Create Stamp Set - #351 Alphabet Splatter

Distress Oxides - Weathered Wood, Iced Spruce, Mermaid Lagoon, Chipped Sapphire

Thank you for popping by. 

Please feel free to follow me here on my blog, on Twitter, FaceBook,  Instagram or Pinterest.

Happy crafting, 

Cxxxx

It's Not Who You Are That Holds You Back .....

Had a play in my art journal yesterday. And also had a play at creating a video/reel of it. I don't think I did too badly for a first attempt.

I have four different journals - some have more in than others. This one is one I tend to do double page spreads with a quote and an image. It's just something I like to do - and the quote is usually relevant to how I am feeling at the time. And I think this is where I am at the moment. Having recently retired from a long teaching career - a job which is all consuming but gives you a purpose and identity - I am currently struggling to know exactly what I am. Looking for what I want to do now seems to throw up an endless list of what I am not. 

This is the finished project - not entirely the way I initially envisaged it - but I always enjoy the process. And this is one journal where I want to like the end product. I have another where I have experimented or followed prompts, and in that one there is a lot that I don't like - but that helps me to sometimes just let go of the end product and focus on the process. 

Here is the speeded up and edited video, having removed all the faffing and prevaricating.

Products used:

Arteza 14cm x 14cm Sketchbook

Distress Oxides: Picked Raspberry, Ripe Persimmon, Fossilized Amber

Distress Mica Stains: Winterberry, Flickering Candle, Jack O' Lantern

Distress Archival: Vintage Photo

Stamps: Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Just Thoughts (very old set); AALL & Create #662 One Of A Kind; Imagination Crafts Texture Stamps (from two different sets - both old)

Stencils: AALL & Create #147 Coffee Stain; #38 Cracked Walls 2

Tim Holtz Stamping Platform

Tim Holtz Stamping Blocks

Blending Brushes - cheap ones from Amazon

Cream card from stash

Thank you for popping by. 

Please feel free to follow me here on my blog, on Twitter, FaceBook,  Instagram or Pinterest.

Happy crafting, 

Cxxxx

Butterfly Pocket Journal Page

Today's share is using the Elizabeth Craft Designs: Art Journal - Butterfly Pocket Insert. It is designed to fit in the original (A6 ish) ECD Traveller's Notebook (TN), but the height is about the same as the XL square - and so fits in there, and therefore with the faux leather cover that I made before.

This is a HUGE die set. You get the die to cut the pocket insert, which has a lovely Mandala style cut out design. There is a separate die to cut out that same design on other parts of the pocket - or on the fab size tag die that comes with the set. There are also three side-on butterflies - but you can cut them twice and create a full front-facing butterfly. There are also a range of words in a really funky font - with extra individual letters for any that are not covered in the words!! 

So, the "worker" die cuts out a piece that is divided into three. Two parts fold and stick together to from a pocket - which the tag fits into. The other part creates the other half of your page-  so it opens like a card (I will have a blog for one that I made soon) - which then fits over the elastic in your TN.

I used an A4 piece of mixed media paper, and inked it with Prize Ribbon, Scattered Straw and Bundled Sage Distress Oxides. I also sprayed the paper with the same colours. I spritzed my mat with water, and mopped this up on the BACK of the card - as both sides will be visible (see the part where the word "creative" is).  

Using the same colours, I inked through several stencils from the Elizabeth Craft Designs: Art Journal - Pattern Stencil Pack. This is a lovely set of little stencils - perfect if you take crafting supplies with you when you travel.

I picked out some yellow, green and blue card from my scraps box to complement the colours, using this for the die, the letters and some of the butterflies. 

  

And it now sits inside my TN.

  

Thanks for popping by, and I hope I have given you a little inspiration. Feel free to follow me here on my blog, or on FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest. For all the videos, pop over to the Hixxy Studio YouTube channel to subscribe. And FB lives are streamed on both the YouTube channel and the Hixxy Crafts FB page. The main items I use can be found on the Hixxy Crafts website - have a look under the Hixxy Studio tab.

Happy crafting,

Cxxx

E is for Extremely Tricky!

So, we're at the start of another 2 week challenge. And of course we are now at E/F. Same as before - you can make anything you want and use anything you want from your stash - providing at least one thing starts with an E or an F.

I like to take each letter individually and see what I can dig out from my stash, but I have to admit that E was a tricky letter for me. That said, I finally found my inspiration and managed to create my project for this week's inspiration - and Easel card with an Envelobox.

One of the things I found most tricky was trying to find colours. Originally, I was against using Emerald, but in the end I dug through my ink pad collection to see if I could find any inspiration for colours starting with E. And this is what I found - Emerald and Elderberry - Green and Purple - and I actually quite liked it. To be fair, I didn't use the ink pads (except for the sentiment) but it gave me a starting point.

I really wanted to use my e-Brush - an airbrush brought out by Craftwell about 5 years ago that works with Spectrum Noir pens. So I then had to colour match with my pens. I used JG3 (Emerald/Green) and LV2 (Elderberry/Purple). While I was looking through, I also picked out a couple of lighter colours to go with them - LG1 (a pale green) and CR2 (a light pink).

I had a piece of Mylar into which I cut a circle (easier to do if you have multimedia type dies). I used scrap paper to mask off the area around. I started with the LG1 and sprayed the bottom part of the circle, and then CR2 to do the top.

   

I then used a stencil over the top. This one is a mini stencil by Imagination Crafts that was in a Crafter's Inspiration Magazine. It's a double so I wasn't too worried about it being coloured by the ink. And to be fair, it will still work in the same way. So, over the top of the circle and stencil, I sprayed JG3 and LV2.

  

And the result was really quite lovely. 

I also airbrushed a piece of card using the lighter colours to use as a background.

This topper was then used on an easel card. This was cut using Crafter's Companion Circle Easel card die set. The purple mat was Embossed with an old embossing folder from Crafter's Companion - Embossalcious Everday 6x6 Floral Frenzy. The green fancy mat was cut from Core'dinations using the dies that came with the Easel card set.

 

 

For the envelobox, I followed the instructions for a 5.5" x 5.5" card, so started with a 9" square, and scored at G and levels 1 and 2 on each side.

  

 

I decorated the top of the box in the same way as the easel card. I also added some extra mats and layers, and (although not a lot shows) I found a piece of card in my old demo stash that was inked in the right colours (quite by accident) - I am presuming it would have been with Spectrum Noir Harmony Water Reactive Ink in Plum Pudding and Holly Leaf. I used an Edge'able (Jardin) to cut in either side. it just peeks out below the circle.

  

So there it is - my Emerald and Elderberry circle Easel card with Envelobox, with E-Brushed topper,  Embossing and Edge'ables - and a few pearls for Embellishments!!

 

Happy crafting!

Cxxx

When it goes wrong - put a butterfly on...

That old crafter's adage worked for me today - and saved me from feeling pretty rubbish about what I was attempting. This is what I produced, but it is so far from what I set out to do, that it's really quite laughable.

Let's rewind to just before lunch yesterday. I decided to make a list of all the things on my shelves, in my drawers and in my cupboards (and already I know I missed some things - gel press, mica powders...) that I really should play with, have a go with, experiment with. you get the idea.

And when lockdown had seemed imminent a couple of weeks ago, I ordered myself some journals from Pink Pig. The large one has watercolour card in - for an art journal, The next one is lined for jotting ideas and thoughts down. And the little one is for drawing and sketching - I went small with this one as I didn't want to be intimidated by a larger size.

The art journal was the one I wanted to start with, but I didn't really want to ruin other pages, so I cut a piece of mylar to sit behind the page and protect the rest (or that was the idea).

 

For the afternoon's dabble, I decided to have a play with the Spectrum Noir Sparkle Inks. I bought these with the intention of using them on my Christmas cards, and never did, so they have sat in the cupboard for a while.

I got all excited, googled for something different to try with watercolour based products, and found a lovely video clip which showed techniques using salt water, water with bleach, and clingfilm. Great, I thought. And got myself all set up, remembering to take photos for a step by step. And I used some low tack tape to divide the page into three - one for each of the things shown on the clip. So far, so good.

  

I started with the salt water. The idea was to put a wash of the salt water on the paper, then dot the ink on. I used Amethyst and Garnet from the Glitz and Glamour set. This was reasonably successful - but not quite as great as in the video.

I pushed on with the water with bleach in it. Same idea - make a wash with the water and then dot the ink on. This was supposed to give a much more feathery effect. This was what I got. Total fail.

At this point I was starting to get frustrated, but ploughed on with number 3 - the clingfilm. Plain water is put on the clingfilm, ink dotted on, and then applied to the paper. 

  

The result - a puddly mess that leaked onto the other two sides as well. Totally annoyed with myself by this point. Instead of a lovely page showing three techniques, it looked like a small child had been let loose on it (no offence to small children intended). So, I went over the whole lot with the salt water.

  

At this point, it was a case of what can I do to save this. So I dug out my Sara Signature Flutterby Collection (have pretty much all of this as I demo'd it not long after release), Harmony Water Reactive Inks - Plum Pudding, Winter Rose and Silent Night and Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide.

At this point, photos kind of went by the wayside. I added more of the Pink Garnet Sparkle Ink at the top and bottom and stamped the Botanical Butterfly with Silent Night inkpad. I used water to spread some of the ink, and then filled in with Amethyst and Pink Garnet Sparkle inks. 

Have to say, it looks better on the above photo than I felt it did yesterday, so I watered down some white gesso and went over it to knock it back. And then I attempted to overstamp the butterfly with Memento - Nautical Blue.

    

To frame it, I used one of the Scripture stamps with the Winter Rose inkpad and two different stamps from the Textured Elements set with the Plum Pudding and Silent Night.

The sentiment is from the Fly Away set, and I edged the whole thing (tricky when it's spiral bound) with Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide.

While this is is no way what I had intended when I started, it ended up OK. Oh, and it's almost impossible to keep the next pages clean in a book like this!! 

Lessons learned. Onwards and upwards!!

Take care and stay safe.

Cxxx