Fly Away

Hello all, and the warmest, and most colourful of welcomes to Words and Pictures!  


Thanks for double-hopping to the various destinations yesterday.  I'm aiming to do some hopping round Craftyblogland myself very soon.  Time never seems to be quite on my side at the moment!


I'm back today to share what I've come up with for the Compendium of Curiosities III Challenge 1, hosted by the fabulous Linda Ledbetter.  


There's a wealth of inspiration for the challenge from her amazing Curiosity Crew, as well as from Linda herself, not to mention from the man himself, Tim Holtz, with all the fabulous techniques in CCIII.

We're playing with Tim's Distress Paint marbling technique this first time out, found on p.43 of the book.

It's part of the game rules that we shouldn't give away the technique details... so that keeps things quicker for a start!












I've been playing with corrugated cardboard (no surprises there, then), a random piece left over from a ripped up box, about 12.5 x 5.5 inches, so just a little larger than one of the huge jumbo #12 tags.  













I did my marbling over the top of a layer of heavy gesso, using all my favourite shades of blue with some Picket Fence thrown in for good measure.









When I heat dried the Distress Paint, I held the heat for longer in certain places to get these fabulous bubbles from the gesso underneath.

I'm in love with the textured effect, and the lovely extra detail from the top layer of the technique.

It became pretty clear that what I had was a twilit summer sky...










I did some more marbling on to some Tissue Wrap, this time with a rainbow of colours across the papers.  

I glued the tissue onto white paper - you lose the translucence, but you get zingier colours.











Then I got busy with the Butterfly Frenzy Decorative Strip Die, and sorted my butterflies into shades (fiddly, but not as fiddly as gluing them all in place was!).

My Umbrella Man, cut out of ridged Grungeboard, had been sitting on the table for a few days.  He was planning to take part in another project, but I commandeered him for this one.












I shaded him in sombre browns and blacks, and gave him a little broken boardwalk to stand on.

The boards are made of pieces of wooden coffee stirrers liberated from my favourite coffee shop and dyed with Distress Inks.








Looking up at all the vividly coloured butterflies (are they real or in his imagination?) there was only one phrase fluttering through his (my) mind, again borrowed from a song (happening a lot round here lately)... One day I'll fly away.













Unfortunately there's neither an I'll nor an apostrophe in the ChitChat stickers so I had to go for the full version: I will.

It's quite nice as it shifts the emphasis of the thought slightly: I will fly away, or perhaps - like these butterflies, one day I will get the chance to fly away.  See, I told you I like playing with words!










As I mentioned, gluing the all butterflies down was the fiddliest bit...















... trying to make sure the colours were nicely graduated...









... sticking down the larger ones and then filling in the spaces with smaller and smaller butterflies...
















... into smaller and smaller spaces!












Once they were all in place I roughed up the edges a bit more, and inked them to match the darker, more sombre mood of Umbrella Man himself.  

Will he ever get to fly away, I wonder.










Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I know I've been terribly poor as a blog-visitor lately, but after a day with the dollshouses I usually just want to collapse in a heap.  Must do better!

I'll be back on Saturday with a couple more sneak peeks for you, but for now I hope you're all having a great week.  See you soon (I hope)!

The sky is full of dreams, but you don't know how to fly.
From This is your Life by The Killers

"The Guide says there is an art to flying," said Ford, "or rather a knack.  The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground, and miss."
From Life, The Universe, And Everything by Douglas Adams



I'd like to enter this as my project for Challenge 1 in the Compendium of Curiosities III Challenge hosted by Linda Ledbetter.
With all those colourful butterflies fluttering into the sky, I'd like to add this to Spring is in the Air (literally!) over at the That's Crafty Challenge Blog.
And there's an Anything Goes going on at A Sprinkle of Imagination - can't say no to that!

Keeping time...

Hello everyone!  Hope you're all having a great weekend.  It's catch-up time here at Words and Pictures (and yes, I'm still trying to do some catching up with all of you too) with a piece I made as a Guest Design piece for the Calico Crafts blog in June.  At the time, I pretty much just showed the finished project, but promised some more process photos in due course... well, here they are.

If I remember rightly, I spent much of the making of this not being sure about it, and wondering where the heck it was going, but ended up fairly happy.  I hope you like it!

It grew into being a piece about what we hold on to, what we preserve in the face of time's onward march, how we keep hold of memories and mementos... with a play on the words "Keep Time" - about a clock keeping good time, and also how we try to keep hold of time, not letting it run away from us too quickly.

I started with one of the little specimen trays, but did away with the sliding lid...

... or rather, did away with the acetate and glued the extra bit of frame into place.

I layered up DecoArt paint and crackle glaze... 












... and more paint...

I lined the rear wall with one of Calico's large vintage collage sheets.  These are amazing - really huge and great quality.

Although I liked the weathered paint all over the frame, I decided to go for a papered exterior, to match the rear wall of the interior.  

And I've still got about 2/3 of the sheet left to use!

I added yet more paint, as well as ink and Treasure Gold white fire...














... to create my weathered look on the frame and within the compartments.

I stamped the Kaisercraft Tic Toc texture stamp onto the paper for some extra "time" texture.
















I also stamped it onto the large rusty heart using Coffee Archival ink.

I cut out part of the paper to use in the little round frame from my stash, covering it with Glossy Accents and leaving it to dry overnight.












All the embellishments and doodads have had a touch of Treasure Gold in White Fire so that they all tone in with one another.

I put some of the fabulous Steampunk Watch Parts into a tiny corked vial - how's that for another way of "keeping time".

And there's one of Artemio's Oldies Vintage clock faces, gilded with the Treasure Gold.  I love the antique-y look that gives it.












On the back of the tray, also papered, stamped, inked and gilded, I decided to add the phrase KEEP TIME.

I cut out letters from the scrabble tiles sheet from the Kaisercraft Timeless Classics collection, stuck them onto card, and inked and gilded them. 











Very happy with my homemade scrabble tiles!















I cut the Tim Holtz Weathered Clock out of Grungeboard ready for some hefty treatment. 

The joy of Grungeboard is it will take any amount of paint, medium, texturising and inking without falling apart - in fact, it stays completely flexible throughout - amazing stuff.












I patted on some DecoArt texture paste with my finger tips, so that it would have lots of texture to it. 

Then it got some paint and some gilding, some more paint, some more gilding and some inking until I was happy with the look.

Everything was glued in place using Glossy Accents...

... and the whole thing got a sealing coat of Studio Extra Time Medium.

(It didn't need to be Extra Time, but I'd run out of all the others!)














A final dusting of White Fire Treasure Gold, and we're done!

I had a wonderful time again with the amazing Calico Crafts goodies. Huge thanks to Helen of Calico Crafts, and the fabulous Louise (a.k.a. Zuzu) who co-ordinates the team, for having me back.




Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today.  I'll see you very soon, somewhere out there in Craftyblogland!

How did it get so late so soon? 
It's night before it's afternoon. 
December is here before it's June. 
My goodness how the time has flewn. 
How did it get so late so soon?
Dr. Seuss

Ingredients available from Calico Crafts:
Small Wood Specimen Tray with Sliding Lid
Treasure Gold - White Fire
DecoArt Americana - Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Buttermilk, Whitewash
DecoArt Weathered Wood Crackle Medium
DecoArt Decorating Paste
Claudine Hellmuth Studio Extra Time Medium
Kaisercraft Tic Toc Texture Stamp
Rusty Hearts
Steampunk Watch Parts
Kaisercraft Timeless Classics paper pad
Artemio Oldies Vintage Style Metal Clocks and Cogs
Tim Holtz Grungeboard
Tim Holtz Sprocket Gears
Tim Holtz Corked Vials
Tim Holtz Trinket Pins
Large Vintage Collage Sheet - Postcards (discontinued, but there are lots of other lovely ones)
Antique Ivory Cotton Crochet Lace
Ranger Glossy Accents
From my stash: Vintage Photo Distress Ink, Weathered Clock Die, various embellishments and doodads

Commemorate, Cherish...

Hello everyone... sorry my visiting hasn't been up to scratch lately.  I'll have some catch up time next week, as I'm working away from home.  


There'll be no chance to be at the craft table so I'll have to get my fix by visiting Craftyblogland.


I'm here with a (for me) quick post to share my take on Tim Holtz's July tag... so full of fabulous techniques, which I've adapted fairly freely this time.  


I have, though, taken inspiration from his thought about commemorating not only the Prescott firefighters, but all those who put their lives on the line on a daily basis for our sake.















You can get the details of the how-to stuff direct from the master so, as usual, I'll just fill you in on my variations.


I started by giving the tag a coat of Picket Fence distress stain, as I didn't want it to be to yellow-y, and then I did my brayering horizontally rather than vertically, so that I could differentiate sky and earth.



















Very happy with the sky effect!













I used the beautiful TH hedgerow stamp to add some foliage to the ground.  It's just one small stamp, stamped several times.













I loved doing the Cracked Stains technique - it's such a beautiful effect.  I shaded my colours across from light to dark, and there's even some Brushed Pewter in there somewhere.













One shot in the sunlight to capture that amazing sparkle...

I used the tissue tape to give Umbrella Man something to stand on, and tinted it with a bit of Broken China and Stormy Sky stains.  

Since it's under the umbrella perhaps it's a puddle of tears rather than raindrops?










The three words are from Tim's ChitChat Stickers, and given just a hint of Stormy Sky DI for shading.

The ribbons are very delicately tinted just to get a hint of colour.  

And I did play with adding a pewter trinket pin, but then I discovered it said Memoirs rather than Memories, so that wasn't at all what I wanted... and in any case, I decided simplicity was best for this tag.







Another fabulously inspirational tag from Tim - thank you! - and such fun to let the techniques lead me in a completely different direction for once.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I'm afraid it's going to be pretty busy here over the next few days - lots of projects due in a rush - so I hope you'll be able to drop in and see what's going on.  See you out there somewhere!

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn. 
At the going down of the sun and in the morning 
We will remember them.
From For the Fallen, by Laurence Binyon

I'm entering this as my July tag in Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2013
And since there's very little stamping on it, for me, and only one small stamp used, I'd like to pop it into A Little Stamping at Simon Says Stamp and Show