Encore - Lovers Love The Spring

Encore Posts

While I'm away, there are some scheduled posts with new creations coming your way, but I'm also taking the chance to do some catching up here at Words and Pictures.   Projects which made their first appearances elsewhere for Design Team duties or Guest Designer opportunities, but which only had a sneak peek here, are being gathered together in the pages of my virtual scrapbook.  I'm calling them "Encore" posts and they're formatted differently (all the way down the centre), so you can spot them easily.

Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

Hello everyone, catch up time here again at Words and Pictures, with a project which originally appeared over at Calico Crafts in their previous life.  These days they offer a fabulous range of Calico Craft Parts which are pure delight to create with, but I still remember with fondness the eclectic range of crafting goodies they used to supply.  Here's what I wrote back in February 2014.

_____________________________

I'm delighted to share a little touch of Springtime and a little touch of Shakespeare with you. I was even lucky enough to catch 10 minutes of sunshine between torrential rain showers for some of the photos.

I'm always amazed by the difference in colours depending on whether it's in sunlight or in shade...

It's another hanging created on a side piece of the same chopped up book box as the last one... waste not, want not. (Calico don't stock the history books box set I'm afraid!)

I painted the thick cardboard with DecoArt White Wash acrylic paint and added a coat of One Step Crackle Medium (also DecoArt) around the edges.   Once it was dry and crackled, I rubbed Burnt Umber paint into it and wiped away the excess with a babywipe.

Then I began assembling my Spring collage pieces.   One of the joys for me at Calico Crafts is they have such lovely things that you really don't need to do very much to create something special!

The grapevine heart is 8.5cm across, and comes wrapped about in plain wire.

I have to admit that I unravelled that and re-ravelled it (yeah, I don't think it's a word either!) with rusty wire - a bit fiddly, as I had to re-ravel before fully unravelling so as not to have the whole thing disintegrate on me, but I think it was worth it... but then I'm a rusty wire junkie!

These adorable little speckled eggs - they've just had a whisper of gesso added, and then the white splatter at the end.

And the ruffle roses have had a couple of coats of gesso to rough them up a little and make them a touch paler.

The three driftwood planks absolutely delight me and, again, they've just had a rough coat of diluted White Wash paint for an even shabbier chic look.

Being a rusty wire junkie, I couldn't resist wrapping the planks up with a bit more of the stuff.

And the whole thing is layered over a piece of script paper torn from the Kaisercraft Timeless Classics 12x12 pad.  I inked the edges with Jumbo Java Versamagic Chalk Ink, which is a lovely rich colour, perfect to add definition to the paper behind the twigs of the heart.

The words - ah, the words - are from one of the songs in Shakespeare's As You Like It. The first verse is at the foot of the post... it's not necessarily his finest hour, but it's pretty!

They're stamped using the Artemio Typewriter Alphabet stamps onto lightly inked paper, and then edged with the Jumbo Java Chalk Ink again.

Some rusty wire through the eyelets at the top, some hot glue gun action, a little white paint splatter and we're done!

______________________________

I hope you like it, and I really, really hope that Spring will be here soon in reality.  According to the weather forecasts I've been looking at at the time of adding these top and bottom paragraphs, the weather in China is likely to be an improvement on what we've been having in the UK - so fingers crossed for all of us!  Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll see you again soon.

It was a lover and his lass,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonny no,

That o’er the green corn-field did pass,

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, Hey ding a ding, ding:

Sweet lovers love the spring.

Song from As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Autumn or Winter?

Hello and welcome everyone!  Thank you all so much for your amazing comments and support through last week's busy business - it makes all the work (okay, play - but pretty all-consuming play at times) worth it!

It's a big Artistic Outpost day today, with not one but two brand new releases... one very much Autumn-based, and one on the Christmas end of things.  I'll give you a quick look at what I've been making with each of them, and then you'll get to see the projects in more detail over the next days and weeks.

And there's lots more inspiration from the rest of the Artistic Outpost Design Team, all well worth a visit.  Here's the full itinerary of the hop:

Gerrie, Lisa, Suzz, Tracy, Linda, Alison, Terry, Kate

So here's what I've been doing with the fabulous Hayride plate - perfect for the autumnal crafting colours (and with a vine stamp that's gone straight into my top 10 favourite stamps!)...

And I seem to be in a neutrals mode for Christmas - this is what Christmas Chalk inspired me to create...

The two plates are full of gorgeous images and wording, and - as always - they mix and match beautifully with other Artistic Outpost stamp sets.  Christmas Chalk, especially, offers up some lovely Christmas sentiments and decorations which can be combined with any Christmas stamps you already have.

So, for today, I'll just share one of each set of creations with you, so that you can have a closer look at some of these great new images.

Going in to bat for Autumn, we have this set of tags.  I really wanted just to have a bit of a play with the stamps, to explore them a bit, and this was where it took me. 


I had great fun playing with the backgrounds: some wrinkle-free distress, some spritzing and flicking, some stencilling, some inking and distressing.


Pretty much without meaning to, I realised I was creating progressively darker, more detailed backgrounds, ending up with this monochrome rainbow effect!

Each one started with the same basic stamping, done in either Potting Soil or Sepia Archival ink, or a bit of both.












I stamped the pumpkins and then stamped them again on some book paper (nice and thin) to create a mask so that the vine could creep "behind" them. 

This is the simplest tag with just some gentle inking around the edges. 

Can you see why I'm completely in love with this vine - it definitely joins my all-time favourite floral flourishes.

This is the full-on wrinkle-free distress tag, with all the stamping done in Potting Soil.







And I love the little sign too.  As you can see in the stamp plate pictures, the sign itself is blank, so that you can add words over the top to create a number of different notices.  

Here the sign is stamped in Sepia, and the words in Potting Soil, so that they stand out well.

Had a little play with one of my new Tim Holtz stencils here too!

There are three possible sets of word on the Hayride plate, but I know there are sentiments within my stamp collection which will also sit there really nicely!

I think this spritzed and flicked background may be my favourite of the four...

The little pail of apples is another delicious image - delicious apples too, I'd guess.

I could have used the Hayride sentiment from this set, but all the time I'd been playing the Simplify Simplify words from the Old Grist Mill plate had been revolving in my head, so I gave in and grabbed that one instead!












And I inked up the twine and raffia in progressively darker colours too, so that the monochrome rainbow continues onto the tag toppings...

In the Winter corner, we have a tag set created with the Christmas Chalk stamps - though these gift tags are considerably smaller!













I started with some paper from the It's Christmas Time paper pad by Maja Design.

I handcut the tag shapes to fit the words.












Since we're using Christmas Chalk, I stamped in a chalk ink - Versamagic in Jumbo Java.

I do like the matte finish it gives.

I love the lettering - especially those fabulous textured letters of the word Christmas on this one, and the Let It Snows on the first one.

And the reverse side of the paper has this rather smart stripe to it, where I've stamped the To: and From: stamps... making this a really quick make - a lovely way to smarten up your Christmas gift-wrapping with very little effort!







As most of you know, I have a hard time with Christmas crafting before at least November, so I have to finish off back in Autumn, with the glowing September sunshine on the Hayride tags...

Thanks so much for stopping by today... If you want to see more of these amazing new stamps, do have a hop round and see what my amazing team-mates have been creating - you won't regret it!  If you lose your way, you'll find all the details here.  

A quick real life update: a deposit has gone down on a rental property (having seen 20 houses in the space of four days last week) so at least we won't be homeless in four weeks.  And the clearing, sorting and packing goes on...  Hope you're all having a great week, and - if I get the chance - I'll see you out there in Craftyblogland!

I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

Henry David Thoreau

Three phrases that sum up Christmas are: Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men, and Batteries not Included.
Anonymous

I don't know

Hi all, and welcome.  Just a quick share today of another result of last weekend's playing around with the paints, paste and inspiration found at PaperArtsy's stand at the Hobbycrafts show a couple of weeks ago.


As I said before, I saw the amazing Leandra demo-ing using Ferro paste and the fabulous Fresco paints, and I've been having great fun following her lead.


You can see the details of how the textured leaves were created in the previous post, so I won't bore you with it all over again - just slightly different colour combinations this time, though I'm still definitely having a bit of a turquoise thing, which is pretty new for me!


This was done on a regular size 8 tag, and I really just kept messing about until it felt like it was done...













The background has layers of paint, stamping, tissue tape, stencilling and blended ink.













I love the texture you get on the leaves with the Ferro paste - and Leandra's tip about heating them to get a raised effect from the blistering is great (though it advises you on the pot not to use a heat tool).

I had some more fun dying seam binding ribbons with Distress Inks and Stains - I love how they glow in the sunshine.


(There was half an hour of it so I rapidly leapt outside to take the photos, literally leapt... out of my ground floor window).

I made good use of my impulse buy of a tiny Versamagic chalk ink in Sea Breeze - that's what kick-started this whole colour thing, I think.  It was 70p in somebody's sale, so you can't really go wrong!


I used it to edge the words in the sentiment, and to give the lovely chalky effect along the edges of the tag too.


And as with the previous post, the words have come straight out of some of the work frustrations I'm in the midst of!







Thanks so much for stopping by - great to have your company for a while, and it's lovely when you take the time to let me know what you think.  If I know you've been, I'll do my very best to return the visit.  In the meantime, have a lovely crafty weekend (or however you like to spend your time, of course - crafting's not compulsory... just inevitable round here!), and I'll see you again soon.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did.  I said I didn't know.
Mark Twain 

There ain't no answer.  There ain't gonna be any answer.  There never has been an answer.  That is the answer.
Gertrude Stein

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.
William Shakespeare

I'm entering this in this week's Sketchy Colours challenge which is White, Green and Turquoise
The Happy Daze challenge for November is to Brighten up the Month - you can buy the lovely Versamagic Dewdrop ink pads at the Happy Daze shop, as well as Peeled Paint DI, Tim Holtz tissue tape and Ferro paste

A sense of belonging

Hello all!  It's lovely to have your company for a while, and I'd like to say an especially big welcome to the new followers - thank you for jumping on board!

I'm going to try to be shorter in my post today - have to be at work, but I had such crafty fun at the weekend that I still haven't had a chance to share with you.

Regulars will remember me saying that I saw the amazing Leandra of PaperArtsy demo-ing at the Hobbycrafts show recently. I already knew when I went that I wanted to get some of the amazing PaperArtsy Fresco paints, and watching her playing with them (and some Ferro texture paste) really inspired me to have a play at the first opportunity.

That wasn't until the Sunday, so when it came I put on some "Sunday music", and this is one of the projects which "arrived" on the table in front of me...

Leandra was using this same mask with the Ferro to create the dimensional leaves, and then showing how to build layers of paint around the texture.

I hadn't planned on getting the Ferro, but you'll see - I think - why I couldn't resist it.

I started with a PaperArtsy hanging board - 8x4 and about half an inch deep.

I applied the Ferro through the mask, and dried it with a heat tool, which gives you that raised blistering on some of the leaves - lovely extra dimension.









The background is built up with various Fresco paints, layering and deepening the colours.

Then I used my tiny Versamagic chalk inkpad to highlight the leaves.

I also had a play with my new WOW music stamp - since I use music on at least half of what I make, it seemed like a good investment.


It's been stamped randomly for texture, just rolled on and off the surface, rather than stamped in full using an acrylic block.  












So that it wouldn't get altered by anything else I might decide to do, I stamped in Archival Ink using Library Green and Aquamarine.

I blended Peeled Paint DI through a Tando mask for the circle textures, as well as using it to distress the edges of the block.

Given I'm back doing a freelance stint with the company I left earlier this year in order to have more time for a life for myself, I'll leave you to determine where the words arose from...  But I'd guess they speak to anyone struggling to find the time and space to explore their own creativity in a world which makes so many demands on us all the time.

But this really felt like a Sunday well spent (and there's more to share with you soon), so perhaps there's something to be said for not being able to get to the craft table for a few days... it was clearly all building up inside!!

But once I'd had a chance to play, my mood started to lift, and the world looked brighter again.

The board has a simple piece of twine to hang it up by, so I think I'll make sure that it hangs somewhere in my eyeline - a useful thought to glance up and see just at the moment.

Thank you so much for taking the time to drop in today... It would be lovely to hear what you make of my playing with paint; to me it feels like having found a new voice to speak with - I loved putting brush to board and seeing what the paint created there.  

Another revelation provided by this crafting journey.  I suspect you'll be seeing quite a lot more of it in the near future!

Be aware of wonder.  Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Robert Fulghum

I'm entering this for the following:
The Artistic Stamper are having an Anything Goes challenge this month
Sketchy Colours - by a happy coincidence - are looking for White, Green and Turquoise
The Happy Daze challenge for November is to Brighten up the Month - you can buy the lovely Versamagic Dewdrop ink pads at the Happy Daze shop, as well as Peeled Paint DI and Ferro paste
Out of a Hat Creations have a Music challenge this week