Happy Birthday Ellen

As I don't have any children myself (only the furry kind) I have always borrowed my best friend Sarah's, I get to do all the nice bits then give them back!!  Ellen is 9 today, I can't believe she is 9 already, seems like only yesterday it was her first Birthday.

I made her a birthday card using the Gorjuss Girls stamps, coloured with distress inks.  They are so cute.

And whipped up this morning a yummy (hopefully!) quadruple chocolate birthday cake, chocolate overload!

Happy 9th Birthday Ellen xx

Get Artsy Last Two Weeks

Sadly my Big Picture Class Get Artsy has come to an end   The last two weeks focused on watercolours and India inks.

The watercolour layout used a sheet of watercolour paper which was sprayed with water, I used watercolour cakes, tubes and gelatos blended together, using a straw to blow the paint, (need a lot of puff for that!), some drippage from the top of the page and some splatters from the paint brush, finished off with some stamps for extra texture. I like the effects on the finished page, and don't be afraid of white space!

Watercolour Background

The last page used India inks, again on watercolour paper which I cut into squares and rectangles.  Some of the squares were sprayed with water so they were really wet, I then dropped India inks onto the paper and watched them spread.  Other papers were covered with molding paste then coloured with ink.  You could also use the Pitt Big Brush Pens over the paste and blend with your fingers.

India Ink Background

On the plus side, I have found a new class, drawing whimsical girls faces, photo's to follow once I have watched the videos and practiced!

Prima Girls

I love these Prima Girl Stamps by Julie Nutting, they are perfect for cards, just thought I would share this Birthday Card for my friend Sian who had a mile stone birthday this weekend, Happy Birthday Sian.

Laughs, Mess and Inspiration - Just Scrapbooking

I have just returned from another weekend retreat with Just Scrapbooking held at the Hatton Court Hotel in the Cotswolds, as usual it was a weekend filled with lots of laughing, making new friends and great inspiration from Linda.  The only thing missing was my partner is crime, Alexa, who couldn't make this one!

There were 6 workshops over the weekend teaching a particular technique, we then incorporated this into our own layouts, the great thing with Linda's weekends are you are encouraged to develop your own creativity, you are not just given a kit and everyone makes exactly the same layout, everyone's were so different even though they were from the same technique.

We worked with the Gelli Plate, metal and fuseable fibre and film, these are some of the layouts.

The Group

The Hotel

The hand was made using a Henna hand template, the title was made with papers from the Gelli Plate.

Another Gelli Plate paper

A collage of all sorts!

Working with metal and fusiable fibres, also glass bead gel

Thanks Linda for a great weekend x 

Get Artsy Week 4 - Fiber Paste

This was such a fun technique, using the fiber paste leaves a texture like handmade paper.  I began by adding the paste through stencils then covered a texture plate with the paste to see how that came out,, I had to be patient and wait for it to dry which was not easy!  It worked great, it peeled of the plate easily and I wondered how it would work through a die cutter, I used the Tim Holtz doily die cut and it worked fine.

When the textured papers were dry they were cut into squares and rectangles and placed around my photographs.  I used water colours to colour them.  I placed the doilies each side to balance the page.

Need to catch up with weeks 5 and 6 now!

Week 4 of Get Artsy and Sadness

This has been a sad time for us, our lovely old puss cat babies have died, Tabby, the star at the top of my blog died last week, They had lived with us for 13 years and we miss them loads, his sister Tara died in January so at least they are now together.





I also had some spinal surgery on Tuesday so catching up with my online class has taken a bit of a back seat.  I got myself motivated today to get it done and I am really happy with the results.

Week 4 of my Get Artsy class was Fiber Paste, which gives the effect of handmade paper.  Using various stencils I applied the fiber paste to water colour paper.  When it was dry these were cut into small blocks to arrange around the photographs.  The blocks were then coloured with Gelatos, Distress Stains, crayons and inks. I also spread some of the paste over a texture plate to see how that would come out.  I had to be patient and wait for it to dry (something I an not always good at!!) which paid off as it came out really well.  I  then put it through a doily die cut.  It was coloured with Gelatos and India Ink.

Fiber Paste on a texture plate then put through a die cutter.

The Fiber Paste through the stencil

Have to watch week 5 video now!  I think we are onto water colours.

Get Artsy

I couple of weeks ago I signed up for a class at Big Picture Classes called Get Artsy, a mixed media class with Mou Saha, each week we cover a different technique using a different medium.  Mou has some great ideas and I love her style.

The first week we used gesso, the technique was to paint a thin layer of gesso over the page, the scribble over with gelatos, dry blend with a make up sponge then lay a stencil over.  Using a baby wipe over the stencil takes the colour off which leaves a great background.

The second week we used soft Gel Medium as a resist, I drew a title very lightly then painted over with gel medium, I also used a cat stencil.  When the gel is dry watercolours are painted over then wiped away, the gel forms the resist.  We also used the gel medium to collage papers around the photo.

Using the soft gel medium on black card

and on white card

The third week has been working with Modelling Paste. Using stencils and embedded die cuts to give texture, again painting over with watercolours gives a lovely mottled effect.

A close up of the modelling paste

Looking forward to this week using Fiber paste.