Say it with flowers!

Happy weekend to you all!  Hope you enjoyed your Easter break last weekend; I managed to fill my Easter week by meeting up with some wonderful friends and also got some much needed sorting done, so hopefully I'm better prepared for a busy time coming up :)

 I have a tag to share today using a set of Paperartsy background stamps I was lucky to pick up in the sale; I love doing backgrounds and I often have trouble covering them up with a main feature but I went for some embellishment on this tag with some small paper roses (made using die cuts from the Alterations tattered floral die).  The background colours are Distress Ink in shaded lilac, squeezed lemonade and peacock feathers with some ink splats in broken china and scattered straw Distress Stain.  The stamped images are black and coffee Archival and poppy red Impress Ink, with some overstamped script in picket fence Distress Stain.

You can also see a little strip of washi tape with the word 'faith' peeping out from behind the flowers at the bottom :)

You can find tutorials on how to make the paper roses online; I was taught how to make them by Hels Sheridan at a workshop so here's the link to her tutorial.

You can see the pieces I started out with here, stamped with script in coffee Archival Ink...

...and then coloured in Distress Ink (in dusty concord, peacock feathers and squeezed lemonade)...

...this is the rose assembled...

...which I then sprayed with a little black Dylusions Ink to grunge it up a bit.

Along with the flowers I added some brown cord, some Tim Holtz and 7gypsies tickets (torn and inked), some pearl hatpins, an Ideaology fragment with a piece of stamped manila card glued to the back (with my initial!) and some yellow baker's twine tying it onto the pin.

I finished up by inking the edges with dusty concord and frayed burlap Distress Ink and some black Archival, and by tying on some Basic Grey fibres I've had tucked away for ages; the colours seem to match really well!

Thank you for visiting us today, have a great weekend and hopefully we'll have some exciting news to share with you in the very near future so watch this space :)

Happy scrapping!

Gayle xx

Altered watch box

Hiya folks, hope you're having a good weekend!  This week I wanted to share a project I worked on recently during one of our regular Scrappy Tree Skype sessions! Love how easy it makes 'socialising' with your friends from far away :)

I've altered quite a few items with this technique now from Andy Skinner's 'Book of Secrets' workshop; I was lucky enough to attend the class with him in person but it's available as an online class now so the weblink in this paragraph leads you there.

This time I had an old watch box in the shape of a book...

It was a lovely little box in its own right but not too exciting as it had the manufacturer's name embossed on the front so....

The 'metal' plates and rivets are part of Andy's book of secrets class, with a Tando Creative die cut bookplate on the front and die cut cog on the back, and a few Ideology gears.

I cut a piece of manila card to size and stamped it using tiny letter stamps with the word 'wish' in coffee Archival ink, then inked around the edges in frayed burlap Distress Ink.  I filled in the centre with Glossy Accents to give it a glassy look.

And here's the back with the larger Tando Creative cog.

I've got a bigger project to share with this technique very soon once I can get some good pictures, just love it!  Want to put it on everything! Thanks Andy :)

Just wanted to remind you that this month is National Craft Month and we're sending out a RAK every week this month to a follower from the blog (Kirsten this week), our Facebook page and chat group, and our Twitter account, so come say hello and let us know what you're making :)


Happy scrapping!

Gayle xx

Steampunk birthday

Whoop it's Friday!  And I am off to the Stamp Attic tomorrow to see lovely Wendy, and Andy Skinner! Woot!

Ok, enough of that :-D I have a card to share with you today which could be used for different occasions but my intent was a masculine birthday card.

The stamps are Ideaology and Andy Skinner, with red brick, tarnished brass and picket fence Distress Stain and black Archival.

Hoping you have some great crafty time this weekend, I know I will! :)

Happy scrapping

Gayle xx