Words, Words, Words

Hello and welcome all, with an especially big welcome to the new followers - I'm delighted you've decided to join the journey!  


We've already had some wonderful entries to the Words, Words, Words challenge over at Our Creative Corner, and I'm delighted to be here today with the mid-month inspirational nudge.  


The rest of the team have created some real delights - do pop over and have a look - and here's my offering for you.


I'm really looking for projects that put the Words centre-stage, or have text/script/writing as a central part of the creation, so I decided to keep things fairly simple, creating a tag to showcase a sentiment stamp that I'm absolutely in love with: it's the one from Tim Holtz's Way With Words set.

The background is done with Fresco paints and crackle glaze to create a white-washed weathered wood look.  

There's a little bit of Distress Ink blended around the edges and corners too.

I've used one of my all-time favourite stamps on the corners - the Autumn Leaves Stampology corner stamp from the Silhouette Blossoms set.  

It's stamped in Sepia Archival.

I also stamped the words in Sepia, as I knew I wanted to use some of my rusted embellishments for the tag, and wanted a colour which would tone in with them.

One of the reasons I love this sentiment stamp is that you can use it as one whole "how to live your life" set of thoughts, as I have on this tag...

... or you could, of course, stamp individual phrases separately, giving you a wealth of possible quotes for your projects.














I used some of the Idea-ology Foliage flowers which I rusted recently.  (I know, I still haven't published the promised post of all that going on - when I've got my Internet back, okay?!)

I love the rust against the weathered paint... lots of decay, but beautiful in its way!

The tag topping includes some of the rusted muslin fabric created at the same time as the flowers, as well as some frayed crinkle ribbon, all tied with twine.















So a pretty simple make - but it pleases me.  


I hope you like it too... and I hope you'll find some time to come and play with Words, Words, Words with us over at Creative Corner.  


You can link up and find all the rules right here, and you have until August 28th - hope to see you there or elsewhere in Craftyblogland very soon!


Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
Rudyard Kipling

Krafting a Nest

Hello and welcome everyone.  I hope you're finding some time to play this weekend - at whatever it is that gives you joy.

I'm here to catch up with some long neglected duties and pleasures.  Owing to the absence of a working printer, I've fallen behind with offering you any inspiration pieces using images from the fabulous Nicecrane Designs.  Well, I'm now back up and running, so I'm here with a pair of cards (and matching envelopes too!) in the hopes that doing the double will at least partly make up for it!

It's also been far too long since I managed to play along over at Frilly and Funkie - life just keeps getting in the way - so I'm delighted to offer these up for the Birds and Nests challenge there, as well as having "krafted" them so that they'd fit in with Simon Says Stamp and Show's Kraft challenge.

There is also a challenge over at 13arts where the theme is A House, with a recycled element involved, and at least two different media.  There were lots of birdhouses amongst the amazing DT inspiration - but I've taken it a step further: these nests are the houses for my birds - so I'm hoping this will fit there too...

I started with some images from the beautiful Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady.

The lovely Ignacio of Nicecrane has produced these images both in pre-coloured and the non-coloured versions I've used.










That means you can choose to colour them yourself or, as I have, leave them in sketch form.

I printed two of the bird images onto kraft paper and tore and inked the edges.













The next layer is of watercolour paper, again torn and inked to provide a lighter frame before we get to - guess what! - yes, corrugated card!








I'm going to own up here - I had "finished" these cards once already, but I just wasn't happy with them - but then I never am with cards... I find them really hard for some incalculable reason.  So I thought I should call it a day and get on with something else.

But then I suddenly remembered the birds' nests I won in some fab candy from the lovely Miss Danielle Renee way back when.

So the cards went back to the craft table, got ripped to pieces, and I started to layer in some extra elements.






It seems fitting that one year on from when this blog started, with a complete obsession with the colour combination blue & brown, that I'm back there this week!

One of the nests had some very pale turquoise eggs, and another had some that were a deeper shade.







So I grabbed the Broken China and Salty Ocean Distress Paints and added some colour to my corrugated card.














While the paint was still wet, I dipped it into clear UTEE and heated for a wet-look, textured finish.











The Salty Ocean turned out to be slightly less greeny than the eggs themselves... solution - give the eggs a touch of paint, obviously.













In my pile of half-makes and leftovers was a sheet of kraft on which I'd used up spare Picket Fence DP when stamping the wooden rulers to make my Tools of the Trade tag.

There was just enough to tear into two additional panels to insert between the corrugated card and my white background.









The borders are done with a stamp from the Autumn Leaves Stampology On the Edge set, and then given just a hint of the Distress Paint colour for that card.

I also edged a couple of bark hearts with the appropriate colours and added them to the mix.

The matching envelopes each have a slightly larger version of the images. 

They've also got the border stamp and are edged with the matching DP.













Again the images were printed on kraft paper -which I really like against the white, especially with that edging of Vintage Photo Distress ink.

The sentiments of course are by Tim Holtz - a couple of my favourites!

I'm still not entirely convinced, to be honest, but I quite like them - given they're cards, and I really don't get on with making cards - and they're certainly an improvement on the first version.  

Who knows, I may end up ripping them to pieces again and adding more!

The thing I do know is I love the images themselves, and there are thousands more where they come from.









So I really recommend paying Nicecrane Designs a visit - not only lots of beautiful images, of so many different types and styles, but at a really great price too...

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Looking forward to seeing you again soon either here, or elsewhere in Craftyblogland.

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.
Robert Lynd

I'm entering this in the following:
Frilly and Funkie's challenge Birds and Nests
Kraft at Simon Says Stamp and Show
At 13arts they are playing the theme House - my birds live in the nests, so that's home for them, and my corrugated card is recycled from a packaging box, and I've used paints and inks.

Escape Into A Book

Hello everyone!  We're kicking off a new Get Altered challenge over at eclectic Paperie today.  It's hosted by Tracy, and she's chosen Altered Books as her challenge theme.  Come and play... there's a prize on offer generously sponsored by Kim at the eclectic Paperie store.

I was a solitary child, a reader, and books have always been hugely important to me.  A book is a route into an enchanted place - an escape to other times, countries or even worlds; a place to discover, learn and explore to the edges of your imagination and beyond.  And, yes, a place where even if there isn't quite a "happily ever after", there is at least a sense of resolution and completion.  Though a "happily ever after" is obviously the best option...


When I first found out about altered books, I have to say my spine crunched slightly... surely this was a desecration of my holy places?  Books are for reading not altering!  
But as we've ploughed through the thousands of volumes my mother and I have collected over the years, I've come full circle.  

I've been holding on to books that are now unwanted as books and using their pages to craft with and, on occasion, taking whole books and changing how they live in the world.  Turns out that if it's a choice between the scrapheap and being altered, I'll do anything to save a book from oblivion!

So here's a book which was being (reluctantly) offloaded, and it's now got its very own "happily ever after"!




Sadly, I forgot to take a before photo - too slap happy with the gesso! - but it was just an old hardback book - in fact, a version of Hamlet with the original on one side and a German translation on the facing page, so it's got my "other life" built into it too!

I started with the outside covers with, as I said, a coat of gesso all over, including the page edges.  I then started playing with my new - and first ever - Dylusions sprays.  

I picked the London Blue and Vibrant Turquoise as part of my shopping after my lucky draw at SSSaS the other week.  (And I've got a couple of the new colours on order - I'll leave you to guess which!)  I seem to be on an incredible roll with lucky dip draws at the moment - sorry, everyone!











I used the Crafter's Workshop Chicken Wire stencil, spritzing through it, and then turning it over to use up the ink left on the surface.  

Since I only have the two colours at the moment, I also added some spritzes of Luminarte's Radiant Rain shimmer mist in Fern to add both some greener colour and some fairytale sparkle to the look.

Next step, of course, was stamping.  And it was inevitable that the Donna Downey Delicate Flowers stamp would get in on the act.  

Anyone who read my Hedgerow Tag post will know that I've become slightly obsessed with these Unity stamps - there's a whole line of projects inspired by them waiting to be blogged!

I also used one of the stamps from my trusty Stampology Silhouette Blossoms set.  These were all stamped in Archival inks - Olive and Sepia mainly - incase I wanted to do some more spritzing later.

I love that you can still see the debossed panels from the original book cover, as well as - if you look closely - the original decoration.  

Those sepia coloured simple flourishes in the central rectangle are from the book itself, not me. 










And I also love the distressed look of the aged book underneath, lending its character to what I've created (though of course it has had some additional assistance from some Gathered Twigs DI).

I let the book choose where to fall open... most of them will have a natural place, and it's no use trying to force them to do things they'd rather not do.  

I then gave the internal pages a coat of ground - yes, ground - a new medium I've been playing with, considerably thicker than gesso, and it gives really good coverage and a great surface to work on.










I used the ground (feels like it should be "ground") on the long edges of the pages too, where it had the happy effect of "gluing" them together into a fairly solid block.  

Then I let rip with the stamping once more... the Delicate Flowers again and the rose branch, in Olive, Sepia, Coffee and some Memento Teal.  










I also tried out spritzing the stamp with the Fern mist which gave me a much more watercoloury look, though most of those ended up getting covered up by the quote I'm afraid.












I was delighted to find that I could also stamp quite nicely onto the ground (grounded?) edges... this has ended up being one of my favourite elements of the finished piece!











And on the narrow edges, I added some music stamping (music - another escape, another way to journey into someone else's imagination) in Teal, using my lovely Hero Arts music background.













(These Hero Arts background stamps are on sale at eclectic Paperie at the moment, at real bargain prices - I'm afraid the music may already have sold out though!)

The quote had been hovering at the back of my mind from quite early in the project (hence the plant stamping on the covers)... 



A garden is another enchanted place to escape into, though perhaps Cicero meant it more practically in terms of growing one's food?




It's written on some leftover packaging using the Inkssentials white gel pen.  



In fact, it's the card peeled away from the corrugated side of a cardboard box, so it's got some internal stripy texture which I've highlighted with Gathered Twigs DI.

I used a Pitt pen in sepia to doodle some ivy onto the quote panels - I'm finally starting to allow some freehand onto my projects!  

I wanted some more texture and dimension, and I also wanted to reintroduce some book text, so I cut some book pages from another rescued book using the TH Tattered Leaves die.  

I doodled on them with both the white and the sepia pens, crumpled them up and arranged them into messy leaf mulch to rest the sentiment panels onto.

Having covered up all the book text with ground (hmmm - still sounds weird), it seemed the least I could do to add some back in - plus I just love the look of book pages!












Obviously, the book wouldn't stay upright without some support, which is where the garden twine came in.


It seemed the perfect ingredient, such a simple solution, and also added some great rustic texture to the piece.


The filigree corners give some extra sturdiness.  I embossed them with the Ranger Weathered White powder, so that they aren't too smooth and shiny but have a bit of a roughened texture, which will also hold some Gathered Twigs DI for a bit of gentle distressing.






There were several stages of this where it really wasn't working for me, and I was tempted to start all over again, but I kept on going, altering, adding, covering and changing things and, in the end, I've got a piece which really enchants me.  I'd like to "get inside it", if that makes any sense...  

It makes me happy looking at it and that, I hope, will make the book happy too, even if it can't be read any longer.


Another long post, I'm afraid, but thank you for sticking with it.  If you've made it this far, then hopefully you'll be inspired to alter your own unwanted books and join in with our eclectic Paperie Get Altered challenge.  

All the details are here.  You have two weeks, so there's plenty of time to read the book first too!

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Mark Twain

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.  Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx

I'm entering this in the following:
Simon Says Stamp and Show's challenge Ever After
Papertake Weekly are playing Anything Goes

Just click on the image to go straight to the goodies!