Swapsies

Do you get together with friends and swap papers?  Talking to my friend Mell online, she was saying she didn't have anyone close to get together with, she suggested we do a Gelli paper swap.  We did a little pile of papers each and posted them, I received mine today and love, love, love all of them.

They were all wrapped up in this lovely file ..

Full of yummy papers ...

This is the full pile I received ...

and Charlie inspecting all of them!

I was inspired! I had to dash off to my craft house and use them!  Cutting parts and using some to stamp onto, these are the finished pages in my mini Moleskine journal ....

Stamped birdie onto the Gelli Paper

Stamped Flower on Gelli Paper

Circles cut from the Gelli Paper

Collage Gelli Papers and stamped bird

Thanks Mell for all your lovely papers, hope you like the one's I have posted to you.

Why not get together with friends and get some happy post!

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.

JOFY

Had a much less eventual trip to The Stamp Attic on Saturday for a day with JOFY making cards with some of her new stamps.  That is unless you count Sarah trying to head for London not Bristol on the way home and reversing back down the slip road, luckily she hadn't gone up it very far!

We used a couple of her flower stamp sets, using paints and distress inks to colour them, these are cards we made during the class.

Had a play today with the stamps that just happened to fall into my shopping basket and came home with me!

Also some journal pages in my little journal.

These are great stamp sets, very versatile and they all mix and match check them out here. 

Girls, Girls, Girls

I have really been enjoying using the Andrea Gomoll stamps and the Jane Davenport stencils to make these girls, this is definitely my new craze! Over the last few days I have been playing around with different looks, I have an oval leaf stencil (which I knew would come in useful one day!) which I thought was a good face shape, on one page I used paint and spray inks the other molding paste, I like the effect of the molding paste best.  I used my Andrea Gomoll stamps for the face, I like how the girls look like they are peeping through the page!

The golden haired girl is using the 'Jane' stencils with the Artistcellar seafoam stencil for the background.

Also had a go at painting over a magazine page, quite like the effect of that too.

Using the oval leaf stencil with paints

Close up

The oval stencil with molding paste, painted over

Close up

Golden hair girl, Jane Davenport stencil

A magazine page

I am watching Jane Davenport's The Whimsical Face DVD learning how to draw the girls freehand and see what personalities come out, so more girls to follow!

Jane Davenport Stencils

Whilst I was at the Just Scrapbooking weekend in June I grabbed some of the Jane Davenport "Jane" stencils by Artistcellar as I thought they would be good to go along with my girl stamps and drawing class.  Got to have a play with them on Saturday at Bristol Scrappers after watching one of Jane's videos on how to use them.  I was right, they are good fun and a great way to get a face without the pressures of having to draw it yourself!

I used book text, gelatos and acrylic paints with a flower stencil for the background, inked through the stencil then painted in the hair, I went over the hair with another stencil and acrylic paint, it was so easy to do, you can get the stencils here and try them out.

This is what I came up with, completely inspired by the Jane Davenport video, I love how she draws in the hair.

I'm off to Cornwall soon so will be taking a few of the stencils and crafting supplies just in case in have a wet day!