Where did you get that hat?

Finally! It's taken me on and off since Christmas to get done with this project but at last I'm done ;)

This is a Tando Creative cardboard Mad Hatter hat which was bought for me at Christmas by my Mum from The Stamp Attic (I believe Wendy might still have some in the shop) - one each for me, my Mum and my Nan to work on when we got together at Christmas.  Mum and Nan had finished by New Year, me not so much...(!)

The kit comes as a flat pack but you glue it together into this 3D shape. I decided it needed the Andy Skinner treatment (yes, still loving this technique!) but no book this time - I moved onto a Mad Hat!  Of the additional pieces, some were included with the hat kit itself but Tando also make an extra small kit of parts which go with this set - teacup, 'drink me' sign etc.

 I made a small rose from card using the Tattered Florals Alterations die and sprayed it with black and red spray inks, and found a large Prima rose which seemed perfect apart from the colour so I sprayed it to match.  I added some Idealogy cogs to match the metallic look of the hat, and tied lace and ribbons around the base of the hat.

The '10/6' label is part of the kit (painted and then inked, with a layer of glossy accents on the letters) and the pins tucked behind it are Papermania Vintage Notes.
I thought it would be fun to add a little signature Mad Hatter trinket, so used a 7Gypsies photo holder with a circle of card cut to size and inked, and then covered over with Glossy Accents to look like glass and hung from a piece of brown twine.

Thank you so much for visiting today and coming to take a peek at my hat :) it was really fun to make and I'm quite pleased with how it came out :) hope you're getting lots done for National Craft Month, don't forget to keep an eye on the Facebook page, Twitter and our Facebook chat group for some little surprise RAKs that will be announced for our followers :)

Gayle xx

Thankful for Thanksgiving

Hello TST!  Soooo loved the Thanksgiving posts last weekend, hope our US friends had a wonderful time :) I am posting today with an autumnal thankfulness themed tag because even as a Brit, how can you not join in :) I was very lucky to be nominated by my TST companions as a honorary American so I decided I need to indulge my love of pumpkin and make something autumnal to show my gratitude for the honour (honor!)

I had shortened this tag for reasons unknown (suspect I needed the bottom piece for something else!) but I wasn't going to let that stop me ;) I coloured the background with yellows. oranges and red (some of my favourite colours) and stamped the images on top in black Archival and blue and red Distress ink.

The flower is a combination of Alterations tattered florals and tattered poinsettias, with a brad centre and some marmalade Distress stickles.

The centre flower is a paper Prima flower in its original colours; I felt the blue matched the background colours so used it as a centre piece.  I also wanted a caption to bring everything together so I typed one out on my Dymo :)

I've also posted at The Stamp Attic today so I'd love to hear your comments if you have any :) hope you've had a wonderful weekend :)  I am off to a Melt Art class tomorrow, hopefully I will come back with some lovely things to share!

Gayle xx

Sssh! It's a secret...

Ok, I have to admit, I saw the little Prima key in the glass box and I totally started singing 'The Key The Secret' by Urban Cookie Collective (very cheesy nineties dance tune!)

I layered up some tissue tape, some magic mesh, Andy Skinner and Tim Holtz stamps and added some lace, Stickles, sprocket and spinner, red ribbon, a Prima embellishment and a Dymo caption. Phew! sounds like quite a list :-D

I've also posted at The Stamp Attic today, and would love for you to visit me there too :) here's my sneak peek!

Distress stains and spray inks

Good afternoon and welcome to the weekend!  Today I have some tags to show you using distress stains and spray inks, both of which are fairly new to me but I love them! :)

This first tag uses broken china and fired brick Distress Stains (plus a bit of water sprayed on and some inky fingers!) for the background, with flourish stamps for the large flourish at the bottom and some Tim Holtz stamped script and chequers in the background (stamped with fired brick Distress Ink and brown StazOn).  The butterflies are plain die cuts that were coloured with fired brick Distress stains and stamped with flourishes, with the body coloured with black Posca pen. 

 The Distress Stains are delightfully messy and I can't wait to get some more colours!

For the tags below, I used Dylusions spray ink in vibrant turquoise for the tag on the left, and a broken china Distress Stain for the tag on the right, through masks to make the backgrounds for the tags.  The Dylusions ink works really well; I've tried a few spray inks but they haven't really worked the way I expected; well this one did! And the colours are awesome :)  The brick mask is a Prima one, and the compass mask is by Creative Expressions.
For the brick tag I stamped the birds, tree and rushes from Andy Skinner's 'Nature' stamp set using black StazOn and then added vintage photo Distress Stickles to the rushes.

For the compass tag, I added a strip of Tim Holtz tissue tape and then embellished with some eyelets, some vintage photo Distress Stickles and some die cut cogs which I painted using the techniques from Andy Skinner's class a few weeks ago (really enjoyed that!) - see here for the blog post.  I wish the sun would come out, those rusty brassy colours look great in the sunshine!

Andy is giving away some blog candy this weekend, so make sure you visit his blog to be in with a chance of some goodies!

Have a great weekend, stay scrappy! :)

Gayle xx

Scrappy chest of drawers

My Mum spotted this project in the July 2011 edition of Craft Stamper and decided that she really wanted it for her birthday this year; she's been very patient with me as her birthday was at the end of August!  But I finished it recently and wanted to share it with you the next time I had a post here at The Scrappy Tree :)
It's a little different to the one shown in the magazine, mainly to do with the demands of the lady it was being made for :)

The drawers come from a company called Eco Green, as in the article.  I used Docrafts Artiste acrylic paint in Linen and Baby Blue, and DecoArt One Step Crackle for the base colour of the drawers.

 The drawers are stamped in StazOn Ink in Black and Saddle Brown using Tim Holtz stamps; the buttons on the front of the drawers are Graphic 45 metal button brads.

The embellishments on the side are two Tim Holtz die-cuts coloured with Antique Linen Distress Ink and covered with Glossy Accents.  The dress form is cut from Tim Holtz paper.  I wound embroidery thread around the 'reel' in a colour to match the Prima flower in the middle, and then added some buttons around them in contrasting colours.  I will try to add a daylight photo when we get some (!) but for now thank you for looking :)

Happy Scrapping!

Gayle xx

Prima Picks!

At The Scrappy Tree we LOVE Prima!! So when Prima posted this pic of their fab new stuff along with a blog comp to win some luscious supplies we just had to join in - enjoy!



Check out Prima's blog here.