Advent Countdown (part 1)

Hello all!  I'm trying to create something daily during December so I'm here to share the first week's worth.  There are definitely some new wintry favourites among them for me...

I haven't always got as far as a finished tag - so some days are background-creating days, and some days have more than one tag.  Hopefully in the end it will all add up to 25!  Here's what we have so far...

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Those silvery blue crackled stencilled backgrounds appearing were actually made back in the summer during one of my first playtime sessions with the (then) new Uncharted Mariner colour.  It's taken until now for them to get their chance to shine!

There are some of my own PaperArtsy EAB28 Juniper Edition berries and text in a couple of the others.  And I think my favourite maybe the layered stamping backgrounds from Day 6.  I'm looking forward to finishing those off. 

I hope you are having a gentle run up to the festive season, and I hope to be back with some more Advent Countdown creativity soon.  Happy crafting, all!

I pray this winter be gentle and kind--

a season of rest from the wheel of the mind.

John Geddes

Christmas Countdown Tags

Hello all!  I hope you are staying safe and warm.  The cold is definitely biting here, and I know there are storms across the UK and the US, so huddle up with a nice cup of something warming and enjoy some wintry tags with me.  

After being away for a couple of weeks for work, I was struggling to get back into the crafty swing, so I challenged myself to do something daily in December, and so far these tags are the result.

Here's the first batch of eight for you.  I'm not going keep you hanging around with lots of chat - there's no time for that at this time of year.  And I'm not going to label them for you... they're already numbered. (I'm not sure why it's called a countdown... these Advent numbers are counting upwards!)

You can catch them daily on Instagram, as well as see more close-ups and a few details about ingredients, but I know not all of you visit there (goodness knows I held out against it long enough, and I continue to hate that it's run by ugh FB) so I wanted to share a little of what I've been up to.

I hope you're starting to get in the spirit.  I'm not really there yet, but these tags are helping me on the way.  I'm going to try to keep up the Countdown (or Count-up).  Stay safe, stay well and happy crafting all.

Twelve down, like a hundred thousand left to go...

Pittacus Lore

I'd like to share these at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Challenge Blog where they are celebrating Yuletide Delights

And at Try It On Tuesday they are looking for Snowflakes... well, 1, 3, 5 and 8 have the Sizzix Thinlits snowflakes front and centre, but it's snowing on all of these tags!

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge they are searching the skies for Santa, and you can find him in Tag 6, courtesy of a Tim Holtz stamp over a Tim Holtz mask, with Tim Holtz crackled stars sparkling around, and Tim Holtz Idea-ology metal accents - though he'll always be Father Christmas to me...

Three times three times three

Hello all!  I'm delighted to be here today to share a project created for a Guest Designer spot at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog.  I was honoured that my journalling page for the wonderful Time challenge was chosen as their winner, and I'm honoured to be guest designing for them today.  The current theme is one that made my heart sing when I heard about it... Triple the Heat - not for the heat, but for the tripling!  I love working in threes and trios and triptyches, so here's what I came up with...

The host, Suzz, is using the number three as the inspiration (you can read all about it over at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog), and I've got lots and lots of threes going on here, not just the three ATCs themselves.

There are three different insects, courtesy of the Tim Holtz Collage Paper glued on to the ATC backgrounds (and lightly gessoed over to soften the look).

There are three different mediums involved in making these... texture crackle paste, paint and ink.  Soft washes of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish chalk paints in soft purple (Wisteria, Forget-me-not and Lavender) and vibrant green (Lawn) bring colour.

There are splatters of the paint colours as well as washes.  The Ranger Opaque Crackle Texture Paste obviously brings the texture.

And DecoArt Quinacridone Gold mixed with Payne's Grey to create one of Andy Skinner's "dirty washes" soak down into the crackles, followed by a quick burnishing with Sepia Archival ink for an extra rusty look.

The most obvious of the "three of a kind" elements are the lavender stems, one to each ATC.  I picked them from the garden, but since they were already going over, I used the same Fresco paints to give them a fresher look.

And each lavender stem is accompanied by two inky/painty green stems, cut with one of Tim Holtz's Wildflower Thinlits dies, so that makes a total of three stems per ATC.

There are also three additional decorative elements on each ATC... a strip of Design Tape, a strip of lace, and a postmark label, stamped in Leaf Green Archival (from the TH Field Notes stamp set) and cut out.

Finally, and for me just as important as all the rest, we have the words.

The phrases are each three words long (but of course!), chosen from the Tiny Text stamp set.

They're stamped again in Leaf Green Archival to coordinate with everything else going on.

So, that's about that.  Many, many threesomes all built in to a trio of ATCs.  I like each of them individually, but best of all for me is how they work as a set, with the composition shifting slightly as the eye moves from tiny artwork to tiny artwork.

I hope that gives you some additional inspiration for the Triple the Heat challenge theme.  The design team have, of course, offered up glorious projects for you too, and you can see them all, read the challenge details and join in over at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Challenge Blog.

Thanks so much to the team for inviting me to guest design with them this time around, and thanks to all of you for stopping by today.  I hope you're having a relaxing and enjoyable August.  Stay safe, and happy crafting all!

Three things cannot long be hidden - the sun, the moon, and the truth.
Confucius

Nature's Paintings

Hello all.  I hope you are well and enjoying a peaceful weekend.  I'm here with another page for the Summer Countryside theme I'm hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month.  This time I've been imagining someone spending time wandering through meadows, finding somewhere peaceful to sit and read for the afternoon before heading home again... gathering wildflowers and grassy stems as they go, to take a little of the summer countryside home with them.

Sew far, sew good

Hello all!  I'm delighted to be putting in a guest appearance over at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog today for their new challenge Sew Sweet.  I was honoured when my Even Tinier Houses were selected as their winner a month ago, and that led to this invitation.

I say "delighted", but I have to confess the theme gave me a moment's pause.

Sewing is not one of my comfort zones... I'd happily leap in to ceramics, woodwork or even metalwork, but sewing machines break when I sit down at them.  (Yes, sewing machines plural - twice in my life it's happened when somebody's tried to teach me to use one.)

I used to put up my skirt hem with double-sided sellotape if it came down.  I also reduced my sewing teacher to tears in primary school when we used to do embroidery for half an hour each week.  (I'm starting to date myself there... visiting embroidery teachers in state schools these days, anyone?!)

But I do love the look of stitching on papercraft projects, and I would also love to be able to stitch a book spine or even knock up the occasional fabric project, so my motto as far as sewing goes appears here on this tag... never give up!











And of course there wasn't any actual sewing required for this challenge (though I'm sure you can if you'd like to) - just sewing-related stamps, ephemera and embellishments.  So once I'd located some PaperArtsy stamps in my stash that fit the bill, I was good to go.












I can't tell you much about the background here, I'm afraid - it's one I made a couple of weeks ago when I was playing with various embossing powders and inks and sprays.  (There was a whole flourish/embossing powder thing going on at the time.)

Frankly, your guess is as good as mine as to exactly what's going on back there!











I stamped the dress form from PaperArtsy's Hot Picks 1215 set onto tissue paper and glued it down so that it became part of that mixed media background.

I love how your eye suddenly notices it emerging from the swirls and flourishes.













I added a bit of script stamping in white Snowflake Fresco paint - it's the text from the same stamp set so the words are actually all about Victorian dressmakers.















There is definitely some gold powder involved in the background...















... so I brought that to the fore when I identified this object as a needle threading tool on the PaperArtsy Hot Picks HP1215 set.












I embossed it in gold, fussy cut it and mounted it on padded tape as one of my embellishments.















I promise you the tangled cotton thread is actually threaded through the slit I cut in the blade of the tool!















There is more thread providing a white accent and extra swirls and flourishes over the top of the background.














And I wound some of the same cotton around a tiny reel to add to the 3D collage.

The twist of lace is pinned in place with an Idea-ology Memo Pin.

Another twist of lace at the top and some distressed edges provide a nice shabby chic touch. 














The sewing packets tucked in behind are from another Hot Picks set HP1212.

I stamped them in either Coffee or Sepia Archival ink onto some card I'd inked with Antique Linen and Old Paper Distress Inks.











And here are those words, from one of Tim's sticker sets... affirming my determination never to give up with trying to get a sewing machine to play nicely with me for my crafting creations.












The tissue paper dress form had obscured some of the golden embossing powder in the background, so I used Tim's Resist Spray to create some more gilded droplets.

I think it's Ranger's Queen's Gold, but don't hold me to it!










I hope you've enjoyed this little sideways step into a different theme (what, no meadowflowers?!), but you'll notice I stuck pretty closely to my colour comfort zone to stay happy!

Thanks so much to Cec and the team at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog for having me as a guest, and I hope you'll check out all their amazing Sew Sweet projects and be inspired to join in over the next fortnight.











Thank you for dropping in today.  The weather is less sunny here, so my mood is a bit less sunny than it has been, but I really don't have much to complain about compared with many.

I hope you are staying safe and staying well, and finding ways to make the best of the strange times we are living through.  Take care, and I'll see you again (very) soon.








Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle.
From The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Not this woman!  I'm far more in tune with this second quote...

I couldn't sew on a day like this. There's something in the air that gets in the blood and makes a sort of glory in my soul. My fingers would twitch and I'd sew a crooked seam. So it's ho for the park and the pines.
From Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this week is to make something which is Not A Card
At Tag Tuesday they are playing Anything Goes for this fortnight
The More Mixed Media Challenge is playing Anything Goes + Optional Yellow - well, there's Gold and there's Antique Linen, and that's pretty yellowish for me!