The thing….

Your guess is as good as mine as to what this is. I was making some flowers with the wonderful papers from the Crafty Alley September kit. I then decided to cut out the bird and cage die from the paper too. I had the die cut shape sitting on my desk for ages. Its covered in paper from the August kit and stamped with a script stamp. I had an idea for it but it never happened. So for some reason I decided to punch some holes in it and tie the birdcage on with twine. Then glimmer mist it. Then add the flower and leaves. The lucky birdie is escaping because even he doesn’t know what’s going on. But thats art right? It doesnt have to have a point, there is no reason, it just is.

Well that’s what I am going to keep telling myself anyway!!

Mirror mirror on the wall….

A quick project to share today. This was a E3.99 mirror from Ikea that I altered for a good friend. (Hi Faye!) I covered it with the beautiful K&Co papers from the Crafty Alley August kit. I inked and distressed up the edges a bit. I painted up some die cuts I had gotten from a few swaps – the birdcage (really want this die!), the key, the butterfly and the letters. I painted the bird and the key with the distress crackle paint from the kit before bronzing them. I love the effect the crackle paint gives. The cream butterfly, flower, button on the top of the bird cage and leaves are also from the kit. I added some chain to make it look like the bird cage was hanging, well at least I hope it looks like its hanging! I inked up some old book paper using the bird as a mask. I then glimmer misted the paper before backing my cage onto it. The bird has escaped the cage, go birdie! I forgot to clean the mirror itself before taking a photo – sorry! I also never realised how hard it is to take a photo of a mirror, especially to avoid getting into the reflection

I am entering this into the challenge over at the wonderful new Simon Says Stamp and Show blog. Its all about the styles of the likes of Tim Holtz, Wendy Vecchi, 7 Gypsies and Graphic 45 – among many other Vintage enthusiasts. The first challenge theme is “Things with Wings”. Iv got birds and butterflies so theres my wings!!

Take ONE ribbon, TWO buttons and THREE punches or dies….

The challenge over at The Shabby Tea room this week was to create a card or project using ONE ribbon, TWO buttons and THREE punches or dies. I had never tried this type of challenge before so thought I would give it a shot.

My ribbon is obvious enough. One button is sewn onto the knot of the ribbon and the other button is on the watch face. The sentiment is stamped onto a die cut shape, the pocket watch is a die cut shape (both received in a swap, thanks Louise). My 3rd die/punch is the punch I used to round the edges, hope it counts!! The background is using my Tim Holtz texture fade – brickwork. I water coloured it using frayed burlap distress ink. I mixed in some Glimmer Mist in lemongrass to the ink when adding the water. It gives the brick work a subtle shimmer..A bit too subtle for the photo to pick up though!

Thanks for looking!!

Inspiration….

Ok, deep breath, this is a long post. I recently bought a set of Papermania clear stamps and when removing them from the packaging I quite liked the shape of the paper slip in the package (image below). I had an idea for using the shape, but I could not find any paper I was happy with to go ahead and make it.

So nothing happened with the idea – until I received my Crafty Alley July kit!! This kit is so so yummy, the papers are just delicious. So I took the paper slip shape as my idea and came up with the following:

I dont quite know what to call it. Its kind of an envelope pocket card tag holder thing. Suggestions for a more succinct name would be great

The lace on the outside holds one of the alterables from the kit. I glimmer misted it in my limited edition lemon grass glimmer mist and coloured in some highlights with my gel pens. The white prima flower was misted in silver.

A little tab of Velcro holds the flap closed. Inside is a large tag that follows the shape of the envelope flap. So out comes….

The large tag is glimmer misted in silver. It has a pocket made from some glimmer misted velum (my work table is quite glimmery at the moment), with a bit of a pattern masked on to it. It also has one of the wonderful chipboard stickers from the kit. Inside this pocket is another smaller tag made from a scrap of the paper. I am also planning on putting a gift card into this little pocket.

For the main envelope I used one of my Tim Holtz dies to fancy it up a bit and also so that the other side of the beautiful paper could be revealed a bit….

The flower on the bottom is one I made and glimmer misted (seeing a trend on this project?). So over all the end result is….

I am quite happy with how it turned out. I hope you like it and thanks so much for looking!!

Black, white and glimmer mist!

This was made for challenge 95 over at clean and simple stamping. I silver glimmer misted some white card stock  and stamped the scalloped boarder. I then mounted this on a card made of black card stock. The bird image is a digi I picked up as a freebie somewhere, I just cant remember where at the moment though The sentiment and flower were stamped and the flower accented with a little flower pearl. Flower ribbon at the bottom and presto, done. I am really liking black & white cards at the moment!!