In the Undergrowth (Again!)

Hi all!  First off, apologies for being so sluggish on the visiting again at the moment.  Busy work schedules plus crafty deadlines plus a stinking cold mean I haven't been able to keep up the momentum as I'd like ... it's just all a bit much right now.  But I'm missing my Craftyblogland fix!

I'm falling behind here too.  As well as trying to catch up on my Lynne Perrella samples (catch the stained glass here), I've realised I also have a massive backlog of projects which made their debuts elsewhere and which I've yet to publish here on Words and Pictures, to keep my crafty scrapbook up to date.  Since for the first time in forever I've got a quiet start to the month here, I thought I'd take the opportunity to post an Artistic Stamper project from January 2014.  If you saw it then, please don't feel you have to comment again - it's just so that I can (eventually) get everything under one roof, so to speak.

This is a folded tag which I made as my mother's (Cestina of Cestina's Dollshouses) birthday card last January (these people with birthdays so close to Christmas...).

As I correctly guessed at the time, her complaint was that there were no fungi amidst the undergrowth, but I think she liked it, nonetheless.  The folded wallet structure comes from Linda Coughlin's brilliant tags offered up as bonuses in her 2013 Funkie Junkie 12 Tags competition.  I loved making my version so much that I've added it to the repertoire!

I started with some wrinkle-free distress technique on a large tag - colours, I think, were Evergreen Bough, Broken China, Peacock Feathers, Peeled Paint, inks and stains combined.

I also added a couple of spritzes of Perfect Pearls Blue Patina to the craft mat, so there are lovely touches of shimmer.









I gave the edges a good inking with Walnut Stain - I never tire of how this gives such depth to the colours and draws the eye inwards.

There are a couple of flower stamps on the outside cover: the little one is from Botanical Plate 1, and the larger head is from Katy Fox's Encyclopaedia Botanica set...










... as is the little butterfly on the flap.  All the stamping is done in Archival Potting Soil.












I added some Idea-ology Foliage, positioning them so that the petals of the lower flower actually form the closure to tuck the tag behind (very pleased with this little brainwave - and it works beautifully!).


And then lots of painty splatter - one of my favourite things to do at the moment.
















Once you open it up, you're heading into the undergrowth (seems I like it in the undergrowth!)...

The layered background started with mopping up the leftover inks from the front cover's wrinkle-free distress - so you get a paler version of the same shades.


















Here you get the full version of Katy's large flower...
















There's a little bug on the inside of the flap... bugs like to hide under things, I find, don't you?!











There's some stencilling: Evergreen Bough through the Artistic Stamper Splats and Swirls mask, and Broken China and Walnut Stain through the Tim Holtz Bubbles stencil.













Then I got going with one of the Tim Holtz flourishes to add some detail into the layers.














The gorgeous wording comes from the fairly new Grungy Greetings plate - what a font! - and it's stamped (Potting Soil still) onto kraft card, and layered over an inked book page (and I promise I didn't notice the words surrounding it until I was taking the photos...)

Closed up again, you get a full version of the flourish on the back, and a little butterfly stamp (from Unity) that, with my monogram, seems to be becoming my "signature".







Thanks for stopping by today and for putting up with this catch-up post.  I'll be trying to feed a few more of them in here and there so that I can keep my virtual scrapbook up to date.  We'll see how that goes!!  Happy Crafting all!

The dream was always running ahead of me.  To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
Anaïs Nin

Snowy, Starry Night

Hello all!  Thank you for your fabulous feedback for my final PaperArtsy makes... and if you missed all the fun, I'd love it if you had a moment to catch up.  You'll find all the links you need here.

I'm here with another creation inspired by the 12 Tags of Christmas created by the wonderful Linda Coughlin, the Funkie Junkie herself.  The challenge has been going for weeks, but I'm only just now getting a chance to play.

10 of the 12 tags are up and ready for us to play with, there are two more to come, and we have until 22nd December to get them all done.  This is my third creation, so it'll be full Funkie steam ahead here at Words and Pictures over the next couple of weeks.

You'll find all the details here, along with Tag 1 (though you can create any kind of project, as long as it's inspired by Linda's tags), and the prize is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique, so it's well worth getting your act in gear!!











This is my version of Tag 2 (yeah, I'm leaping around a bit in terms of what order I do them in).  You can check out Linda's beautiful original here.  I've not wandered far from the path... though my background has more Pumice Stone than Frayed Burlap (a colour I've never got on with very well).















I absolutely love the cabin in the snowy woods, from the Artistic Outpost Midwinter plate.  And since I'm on the AO team (alongside Linda!), I thought I'd go for making this tag an AO affair. So my additional stamping is all Artistic Outpost too...









The words from my all-time favourite Christmas Carol - In the Bleak Midwinter (but it must be this version by Darke, not the Holst) - are from the Midwinter plate too (obviously, now I think about it).  I suppose it's no accident that in my favourite carol, the words are by a poet I love, Christina Rossetti.

Lots of Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls seems to have got itself into the mix just here!








The pine cones and smaller snowflakes are from the same set...













... while the larger snowflakes and the little "joyeux noel" greeting are from Snowy Woods (probably my desert island Christmas stamp set).














I loved the stamped triple embossing Linda used on her little deer, but (not having the deer) I used a little wooden tree ornament from Kik (Czech cheapy shop that I've mentioned before - a bit like Poundstretcher or Woolworths).












In the absence of the large stars, I decided to use some more of my little wooden Studio Calico ones. You saw them in their naked state here, but this time I've added Rock Candy Dry Glitter (following Linda's lead) over a coat of white chalk ink.










They're a bit small for stamping on though!













Absolutely loved dyeing the cheesecloth, so much so that I used it in two places on the tag.















I added some Frantage Aged Gold embossing powder around the top, to echo the tree below.  Love how it's caught in the fraying fabric.











I also love that you can see the mesh behind the tree, through the little laser cut decoration.












And the linen ribbon is just lovely stuff.

Thank you, Linda, for another gorgeous piece of inspiration... I had so much fun playing with this one.  

Three down, nine to go...






I'd like to enter this as my Tag 2 in The Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

And with that shimmering shower of stars, I'd like to pop it in over at Live and Love Crafts, where the December challenge is Stardust.

She would sit by herself in the middle of the old stone amphitheatre, with the sky's starry vault overhead, and simply listen to the great silence around her.
From Momo, by Michael Ende

A world of private dreams

Hello everyone!  Hope the sun is shining on you wherever you are this weekend... and if not, just take yourself off into a world of private dreams, and enjoy the sunshine there instead!

Sorry, I've been slightly infected by the pages I'm sharing with you today.  They were inspired by the new challenge from the House of Bears this month.  If you've never visited, I do recommend it - they're probably the most creative bunch of bears you'll ever meet.

They issue a Literary Challenge each month, and this month they've given us an array of wonderful quotes from Jane Eyre to stimulate our creative imaginations.  The one which jumped out at me was this: 
"She is in a world of private dreams, not here with us."

You'll find all the challenge details here, but without more ado, I'd like to show you what they inspired me to create.

I'm so grateful to the Bears, as I really wasn't in a crafty mood when I happened upon their challenge post, and it was their inspirational quotes which got me back to the craft table after a long (enforced by work commitments) absence.  


I've a feeling I may be playing more than once this time around, as I am with some more Ss for Simon Says Stamp and Show... Stencilling, Shimmer and Sunshine.

And it wasn't just the quotes... I also took a leaf out of the bears' book (almost literally) by doing some art journalling.  

The bears journal all the time - with incredible spontaneity, playfulness and freedom - and it's not something I do very much, though I often think I should do more.

I started by gesso-ing the pages of an actual book (as suggested by the extraordinary Froebelsternchen Susi - another huge inspiration, though I'm not attempting to do what she does!) rather than working in one of my journals.










Then I added some Grunge Paste through my birthday stencils from That Special Touch, the daisy and the foxglove.

From the moment of reading this particular quote, I knew that the subject of the sentence would be the wonderful girl from the Classics #5 stamp set.  








She always looks as though she's not quite present, but off somewhere in some world of her own (as I frequently am myself...)

I cut a mask too, so that I would be able to layer paint and stamping around her.














Then I set to with the Fresco paints by PaperArtsy, including the yummy new Cheesecake and Vanilla colours (nearly said flavours there!)...  














I hope I've captured a real feeling of warm sunshine by using them as part of my sky.  And I love that you can still see the book text underneath... where there is any!

I used a sponge to apply most of the background colours, and then a brush to add in the grasses and greenery.














I used some Tim Holtz texture stamps to add depth to the blue distance.












The quote is stamped on watercolour paper which I painted with the Cheesecake Fresco paint, and then inked green at the bottom and turquoise at the top - so that each word echoes the colours of the whole page.
















I used the brush again for some textural accents around the borders of the sky.














I layered in some hedgerow stamping (of course) using the wonderful Artemio Hedgerow Plants.















I didn't pay too much attention to whether it stamped over or between the textured plants - I wanted the random feel of an abundant natural meadow.














I used some of the little Tim Holtz grasses for extra texture.

I painted the foxglove (not in foxglove colours) and the daisies, layering up Fresco colours for a fresh, random look.


I added some more texture paste butterflies using a stencil by Magenta - the one you all fell in love with on the Flutter By, Butterfly panel.


I dabbed Perfect Pearls mica powder in Pearl onto them for a shimmery barely-there look.


They are, after all, only in her imagination.


And the bee got the mica treatment for his wings too.








The three main butterflies represent her own projection of herself into this world of private dreams - they are "her" in this other world she inhabits. 










So to link them to the girl, I used the same colours on her eyes and lips as on the butterflies themselves.














And as they get further into the world, retreating from reality, they become less and less "whole", more and more fantastical...

 ... even starting to disintegrate into the picture, so that she can merge with her dreams and stay in this calm world of sunshine and nature forever.








I hope these pages give you even half as much pleasure as they give me... I've needed my world of private dreams in the last few weeks, coming to terms with fitting my crafting desires around an less-than-yielding work schedule where - for half the week - I'm not even in the same town as my craft table.

So these pages feel like an expression of something important - not least my craving for sunshine! - and it's all thanks to those bears!

I'd like to enter this in the following:
The House of Bears challenge for June: Jane Eyre Quotes
Simon Says Stamp and Show are playing the Letter S - I have Stencilling, Shimmer and Sunshine
At Stamping Sensations they want to see our Summer Blooms

"She is in a world of private dreams, and not with us."
from Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
from Eleanora, by Edgar Allen Poe


“Yet there are moments when the walls of the mind grow thin; when nothing is unabsorbed, and I could fancy that we might blow so vast a bubble that the sun might set and rise in it and we might take the blue of midday and the black of midnight and be cast off and escape from here and now.”

from The Waves, by Virginia Woolf