Pencil Holder with a Heart!

I love recycling objects instead of throwing them out and this is one of those items. I had a tin that was not really sharp on top so it was perfect to be put to use for something else. I needed a pencil holder in work so I decided that would be what I would turn it into.

Here is how it looked when it started…

I coated it in a layer of gesso and then coated the tin roughly with distress crackle paint in broken china. I spread this on with a pallet knife in a rough way and made it thicker at the bottom and thinner as it spread up towards the top. When this was dry (I left it overnight) I painted on a coat of silks acrylic glaze in a lovely shimmery brown. I love the effect this gives over the blue. I took a wooden heart from crafty cutting and painted it in this brown colour also. When the paint was dry I painted it in clear rock candy crackle paint for a cracked distressed look.

I took a piece of paper and tore it to fit the area I wanted. I then crumpled and inked it up to highlight the crumple marks. I unfolded it and adhered it to the side of the tin. The wings are grungeboard wings that I painted in the brown silks and added some blue silks are highlights to. I went with the wings as the tin was reminding me of dragon scales at this point so wings seemed like a good fit! I glued them down with the heart on top. I wrapped twine around the tin and the heart and tied it in the middle.I had a clay seal that I had made, so I snapped it in half and stuck it above this twine knot to finish it off. And voila called it done…a rather unusual pencil holder! I love the texture from the crackle, twine and grungeboard, it is so fabulous all together… The heart is the perfect touch for on the piece to really finish it off and it is amazing quality too. 

Valentines Mini Cards…

I have a tutorial up over on the Sarah Hurley blog today showing how I made these mini valentines cards. You can find the posting here. Check it out to see the step by step, and the kit I used!

Scrappy Fun!

So this month I already created a card using the Sarah Hurley wood grain background texture stamp which you can find here, and the Sarah Hurley sentiment stamp set that you can find here. When I sat down to create this card I thought it would be fun to use the same two sets but to try and get a totally different look!

To start with I used the wood grain stamp to cover the background of a kraft card base.

 

 

 

I then used a Lawn Fawn die set to die cut lots of speech bubbles from scraps of Sarah Hurley papers. I picked out really fun and bold papers and paid them on the kraft as I cut them so I could make sure they all contrasted nicely. I stamped lots of the baby related sentiments from the sentiment set onto the speech bubbles. This set is really great as there is a sentiment for everything and in this case sentiments plural! The sentiments look great stamped in bold black ink on the coloured paper too.

 

I arranged all of these onto the card along with some die cut hearts and the die cut birds from the lawn fawn coordinating stamp set. I love how simple yet fun this card is. I hope you enjoy it too!

Kraft Album Fun

I have a project share today  from Crafty Cutting using the super cute Kraft albums. I used the 4*4 albums and you can find them on this page here.

• I took the album apart and painted the cover and then when dry stenciled on it.
• I then sealed it with a spray sealer with a bit of sparkle in it.
• While all the pages were out I stamped on them with a script stamp and inked up the edges for interest.
• I then cut patterned paper to cover the pages. Some pages I covered fully, some I cut a small triangle of paper for and others I cut paper for and tore the edge for more interest.
• All this paper was glued on to create pockets for tags.
• All of the album pages were glued at the bottom so that they could hold even more tags.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you check out Crafty Cutting a fantastic Irish store!

Altered Brush Again!

These altered brushes are becoming my ‘thing’. Possibly because my house requires so much DIY that inevitably brushes end up getting ruined and fit for the bin after a while. If you know me you know I rather recycle than throw out….hence altering the brushes! When the bristles go hard this technique is actually easier so it works out well! No big description today on this one, just a flying visit to show it off with a very brief recap…..

Gesso brush….cover in patterned tissue paper….paint in silks….embellish…..and send to very happy friend who’s name begins with K who kept hinting (outright saying actually!) that she wanted a altered brush!

Butterflies and bees are some of my friends favorite things so naturally the embellishments focused on them. The bee is from one of the mod podge me

lt moulds.

 

I hope you liked this and can forgive me another brush, I will give them a rest for a while I promise….until the next bout of painting happens in my house and a brush gets ruined – totally by mistake!

Happy Crafting!

Masked Fun

I had a cheap black and white mask that was lying around my to alter pile for a long time and I finally decided to do something with it. I painted it with a layer of white gesso to prime it. I added some texture with a stencil and texture paste. I then got lots of chipboard shapes, stars, cogs, flourishes, circles etc and used gel medium to adhere them all on. Once these were all dry I did another layer of gesso. I then used acrylic silks to paint it bronze. When this was dry I used rub on gold leaf to highlight the raised portions. I added some ribbon and gold thread at the sides and called it done!

It was quite hard to photograph because of all the shine on the mask but you get the idea below….

Birthday Affirmation

Christmas has been and gone and so has New Years so it is back in to the swing of regular crafting for me. I wanted to make a birthday card with a bit of a difference. I used one of Sarah’s journalling cards as my patterned paper base to make a card with a bit more of a message than just happy birthday.

I started with the Sarah Hurley wood grain background texture stamp which you can find here.  I used this to add a surround to the edge of a card blank so that it was not plan around the edges of my journalling card.

 

I die cut a ticket from some Sarah Hurley note paper and stamped a stamp from the Sarah Hurley sentiment stamp set that you can find here. I masked off the sentiment so that I just had the happy birthday part. I just used some washi tape for this. 

 

I cut out some affirming and empowering words from one of Sara’s kits and inked up the edges of these and the ticked with walnut stain distress ink.

I adhered the journaling card down and then glued all the words and tickets down. I added some stars down also.  This card is perfect for the person who got it  – someone who does a lot of documenting and loves typewriters, as well as it being their birthday. I really love getting to use up supplies in lots of different ways!

New Year Fun

Hi All,

You may all still be in food induced comas on the sofa watching telly and eating chocolates? If so – enjoy!! I am sharing a fun new years card today over on the Sarah Hurley Blog using some Sarah Hurley products.

I used the Tickets and Labels stamp set to create a background on a card base using the solid and open triangles in the set. I used two colours, peacock feathers and mustard seed. I stamped in a random pattern and in random directions.

I took some scraps of Sarah’s papers and added a strip of red line tape to them and added distress glitter to this. I also die cut out the numbers for 2015 and added glossy accents on these and more distress glitter.

While all that was drying I splattered some ink onto my stamped background.

When everything was dry I stamped some stars onto the background and put it all together.

It is a fun and simple card to make and can be switched up into any colour scheme you like!

 

Sketch Challenge

Have you seen the December sketch challenge over at Cardz n Scrapz? I am not usually one to use a sketch as  I find it a bit difficult at times to be restricted to having to follow a process when creating. But this one looked like fun so I gave it a go!

I made a masculine themed Christmas card for my husband with it. I created my own background paper by stamping a fun WMS stamp in red ink on kraft card stock. I did similar on my red panel using a text stamp this time. I over laid this with a white chicken wire die cut for a more rustic look. The deer head was cut on a friends Silhouette a while ago. I stamped and embossed my sentiment in gold on the deer head. I added in chipboard arrows and stars and circles and left them natural with just a bit of inking up around the edges. I liked the natural look against all the red on my card.

 

Hopefully when you read this my husband liked his card and I will enter this into the challenge!

Happy Christmas!!

Happy Christmas all! I just wanted to stop by and wish you all a happy holiday, whatever you celebrate! Enjoy the season and the time with family and friends. I am sharing a few of my cards I made in this post as I have just been too busy to post regularly. They were all just taken on my camera phone so not the best quality images so please forgive me that!

Merry Christmas – and let it snow!! :D