September Calendar Pages - Just in Time!

Here I am sliding in last minute with my September Calendar page.  It was finished a while ago but only just got around to posting, and as you can see I haven't filled in the boxes just yet.  I have written down all my days entries else I would never remember what I have been doing!

I've used the Dylusions stamps and stencils.

Now to finish off October.

I went to an amazing class with Finnabair at the weekend, photos of my projects to follow......

In the Hen House!

So my dilemma on a Saturday afternoon was do I do the housework or do I do my August Calendar Page, um difficult decision but after much deliberation (of about a micro second!) I chose to do my calendar page.

I couldn't decide what theme to do for August so rummaging through my stamps I found the JOFY hen house set and thought I'd give them an outing in August.  I stamped them onto paper and coloured them with pencil.  The background is a blend of orange and purple.

I am ahead of myself and have nearly finished September which I will add later.

A little bit of Whimsy with Kate Crane

A couple of weeks ago I spent another creative weekend with Kate Crane at the Stamp Attic learning how to draw whimsical faces, I've been wanting to learn to draw Kate's style of girls for ages so this was a great opportunity.

The first thing we did on the Saturday was make a tiny little journal in a matchbox, using Dina Wakley's mini face stamps and washi tape we ended up with a great little mini journal ready to fill with mini ideas and thoughts.

Next was working on a bigger scale in our art journals, creating painted and layered backgrounds to which we added downloaded images and journalling.

I always seem to have some mishap when I am at the Stamp Attic before it was the windscreen wipers on the car, this time it was trying to stay on my feet!  I admit I wasn't exactly wearing sensible footwear but they do make me taller!  I managed to get over the cobbles fine, with the help of my stick, but whilst I was walking back through the car park, loaded with with my bag, shopping bags, handbag and walking stick, I turned to try and get the car keys from the pocket in my bag and wallop, down I went in the car park, my glasses flew off in front of me and I landed on my bag.  Two guys came over to see if I was ok, one of them picked up my glasses and bag and carried it to the car for me, but as you know when you do something like that it's always 'oh I am fine!' and then say ouch when they are gone!  I was most upset about denting my pencil tin after I fell on it!!

Luckily I wasn't driving home, only to Didcot Railway Station to pick up Mark, we had booked a hotel for the night which turned out a good choice, the room was lovely and the good was brilliant.  Plus they had my favourite Brandy, of which I needed a few medicinals!!

After a yummy cooked breakfast I headed back to the Stamp Attic (wearing flat shoes) for the second day. Again we started off making a little mini album in the matchbox.  Then it was time for drawing, there were a few moans and groans and 'I can't draw' comments but after we followed Kate's exercises everyone ended up with some great whimsical girls.

Some photo's of the projects: -

Drawing and shading practice

A small banner made with the whimsical girls

Mini matchbox journals 

And Kate, I have been practicing!

I think she looks like an England Player!

Thanks Kate for another great weekend, looking forward to the next one.

May Calendar Page

Well I'm still keeping up with Kate Crane's Calendar Challenge.  May calendar page is finished and days written in so far!  I used pinks and greens for the colour scheme and my new Tim Holtz heart stencil for the background.  I picked out some of my favourite Polkadoodles house stamps to add to the corner.

March and April Calendar Pages

One of my favourite films is the Wizard of Oz, I had some Oz stamps for Christmas which I thought would be great for a calendar page.  I used the brick stencil for the 'yellow brick road' with Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion along with Toto lining up ready to take on the Wicked Witch!

April's page was inspired by my visit to Dina Wakley at AFTH, using one of her masks for the background, and the technique we used of wiping away the paint from the stencil and one of her lady stamps, slightly altering her hair.

January Calendar Page

A little late but Happy New Year everyone.

I haven't done Kate Crane's Calendar Challenge for a while now so I though it was time to give it a go again. I bought some great metallic paint which I used for the background, had to tone it down with some matt paint though!

I'm going through a bit of a Dylusions stamps phase at the moment so thought I'd use one of my new sets Doolally Dorris and stamped out the circle journal from Write between the Lines.

Now I just have to fill it up!

What you can make with Junk !

Well it poured down with rain again most of the way to the Stamp Attic and my trusty elastic band still held in place on the windscreen wipers (if you are wondering what that is about check out my post further down!) Must get around to getting the new clip on!

Who knew what you could make with lots of junk, I'll never throw anything away again, as I am a bit of a hoarder anyway the house is going to get even more messy!

This is what you can make, Kate Crane showed us how to put together her lovely junk journal from all sorts of pieces of cardboard, old envelopes, music sheets, magazine pages, anything really.

I love the spotty binding, sticky back canvas painted black and spots added with a bottle top.  We also painted the front cover and added doodling and stamping.

Here's the finished journal ready to fill.

Hope everyone has had a good weekend.

Kate Crane Art Journal Weekend

The last few weekends have been filled with crafting loveliness, the last one was spent with Kate Crane at the fabulous Art from the Heart shop in Harrogate.  Kate was teaching us ways of adding lots of different layers to our art journal pages.

Ready to get going!

The first day was playing with Amsterdam acrylic paints, they are lovely thick paints and very easy to work with and blend.  Lots of doodling, stamping and sponging through stencils.

We also used some Deli Paper with the Geli plate, it's a waxed paper and great to use on your page or stamp onto and cut your image out, saves colouring in!

Geli printing onto Deli Paper

Kate busy teaching

 These are the painted pages from the first day.

The second day was all about getting very messy with inks, stamping and colouring!

Kate is a great teacher if you ever get the chance to do one of her workshops.  It was a fun, messy and very inky weekend with some new found friends, and of course some new supplies which just happened to fall into my shopping basket!!

Whilst I was still in the zone, here are some more journal pages.

Me with Kate

Mark came up to Yorkshire with me and we stayed in a little apartment in Knaresborough, we spent the rest of the week checking out the sights and eating far to much fish and chips!

The Shambles in York

Found this great little 50's American Diner in the Yorkshire Dales!  Amazing ice cream parlour!!

A photo with Blind Jack in Knaresborough.

Last workshop this weekend, Kate Crane again making her junk journal, a bit closer to home this time at the Stamp Attic.