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

A little leaf...

Hello all and welcome, with an especially big welcome to the newest followers - it's lovely to have you with us.  

It's sneak peek time here again at Words and Pictures, for an offering which is over at The Artistic Stamper today.  If you have time to hop over and take a look, that would be great.

Hope you're all having a great week and I'll see you soon, either here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland.

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life. The rich colours of grass and earth were intensified by the mellow light of a sun almost warm enough for spring.
From A Taste for Death by P.D. James

Deeper Shades of Night

Hello all!  

Things are just about returning to normal here... thank you so much for all your kind thoughts and well-wishing recently.

It's time for the new challenge at Fun With ATCs, and the theme this fortnight is Night. 

If you hop over, you'll find lots of inspiration from my fabulous team-mates, and here's my starter for ten.

It's related to my Black, White and Red Lonely Leaf ATC from a couple of months ago - I think this could be the start of a series!

And it's a complete contrast to the multiple images of my Around the World in 80 Stamps ATC... this one is very simple.

I used one of my very few wood-mounted stamps - the gorgeous Tim Holtz bare branches - and stamped it in Jet Black Archival onto a Specialty Stamping paper ATC.

I hand cut a little disc of paper to use as the mask for my moon, and then inked Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink onto the ATC.








I worked more layers of inking towards the top of the ATC to get that sense of the gathering night overhead.














And then the little Hero Arts alphabet set provided the single word 'night' - an echo of the single word 'alone' on the Lonely Leaf - this is shaping up to be quite a dark set of ATCs!









And there you have it.   Do hop over to see what the rest of the team have come up with, and then we'd love to see your take, so come and share your 2.5 by 3.5 inch ATCs on the theme of Night with us at Fun With ATCs.  See you there!

The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.
From Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami






Oops, I forgot - there's also another (C*******s) card over at Artistic Outpost today...  Better late than never, eh?!

Too much craft stuff!!

Hello all.  I hope you're all having a restful, playful Sunday.  I've been unpacking.

I'm afraid I may have to concede my brother's point as he surveyed my craft boxes awaiting removal to the new (much smaller) rented property: "There's too much craft stuff," he said.













Well, having spent the last 24 hours trying to organise it all onto shelves, into cupboards and around my other "real life" work materials... I'm almost ready to accept that he's right!

But I'm pretty much there, and I thought I'd quickly share with you the new crafty space I'm inhabiting.









And at the same time, I wanted to show you some drawers I redecorated one evening a couple of weeks ago when I just couldn't face any more sorting and packing without a little crafty break.









I have a number of the Ikea Moppe drawer sets around, and generally I'm perfectly happy with the wooden finish.

But I adopted two ex-kitchen sets in the recent move, and not only were they already painted blue, but they also had a coat of kitchen grease which proved impossible to shift.










The only solution was to cover them... so out came the Tim Holtz papers, and this is what I ended up with.

Very happy with my altered storage!















And let me show you where they are now living...







I'm so excited, and very lucky, to have a room pretty much entirely dedicated to crafting - though, to tell the truth, my former room, which was a combined bedroom, living room and workspace did end up pretty much entirely dedicated to crafting in any case.






This was 8am Saturday morning... chaos, I think you'll agree, and so many piles of boxes - aaagh!









And here are some "before and afters" from 8am Saturday morning to 2.30pm Sunday afternoon.  (Remember you can click for a larger view.)

From the doorway... 

Across the room...

The desk...














... now ready for action, once I've recovered!

Can't wait to play in my new space, but there's still work to do in the rest of the house yet, sadly.

And the drawers look right at home I think. 

I just hope the shelves don't collapse under the groaning weight of accumulated craft stuff, Shakespeare papers, scripts and objects waiting to be altered!





Some of you have asked in the past whether I display my finished pieces at all.  Well, many of them sit in boxes, I'm afraid, or have headed out into the world.  But I adopted this glass display case in the recent move, and that will now be home to some selected creations.

They're waiting in the boxes on the top until I get my second wind, so I'll show you them in position another time, if you're interested.

I'll love you and leave you for now and, as things get more settled, I hope to get back to visiting you all more regularly again.  Happy crafting all!

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
Walt Disney

I do remember an apothecary...

Hello all, and welcome (back!) to Words and Pictures.  It's time for the monthly Artistic Outpost bloghop, and after all the excitement of the new releases, we've been let out to play with a Designers' Choice theme this month.  

We're in a Halloween mood here at Words and Pictures, after my Tim Holtz tag yesterday, but you'll see all sorts of makes as you head round the hop... Here's the full itinerary:

Gerrie, Lisa, Suzz, Tracy

Linda, Alison, Terry, Kate

I wanted to play with my new Apothecary set - not "new" new, but new to me, and such a lovely set of vintage images - not strictly spooky, but with a slightly macabre twist if you choose to think that way... so it seemed appropriate in the run-up to Halloween!

I started with a Manila tag and stuck some torn pieces of book page randomly onto it.

Then, I smooshed it around in some Distress Stains on my craft mat.  I'm pretty sure there was Pumice Stone and Frayed Burlap involved, and perhaps a touch of Antique Linen.

And of course an edging of Vintage Photo Distress Ink for that burnished, distressed look.

I stamped the word Apothecary and the building directly onto the tag, using Coffee and Black Archival on the stamp to give a bit of extra shading to the image.












I added a partial stamping of the prescription slip in the top corner - love how it's layered onto the Gothic script of the book page.

This skull and crossbones - a hint perhaps that you might not want to trust this particular apothecary with your health and well-being - is the larger Idea-ology one.  You saw the teeny-tiny version on yesterday's Tim/Our Creative Corner tag.










The apothecary himself, Mr Forrest, is stamped on Specialty Stamping Paper, and I used Vintage Photo DI to darken the background, making him stand out.














The poison label is also a partial stamping, and also on Specialty Stamping Paper.

A couple of other Idea-ology elements... the pen with which to write the prescriptions...

Who holds the key to the apothecary's secret cabinet?













The seam binding is dyed with Distress Stains - Pumice Stone, Vintage Photo, and a hit of metallic sheen from Brushed Pewter - and tied together with my favourite paper string.

I mounted the whole thing onto suitably dramatic black card, to give a touch more definition, and there you have it.




I do hope you'll find the time to hop on round to see what my immensely talented team-mates have been up to.  Should you get lost along the way you'll find all the details here.

House Move Update - for anyone who's interested!
The beds were moved by the removal firm yesterday, so we're now officially "in" the new place (having been shifting stuff ourselves on a daily basis since the beginning of the month).  We now have two days to sweep through the remaining chaos and clear it - either to the new house, the charity shop or the tip! - before handing over the keys to the new owners on Friday... nearly there!

Mr Forrest looks somewhat more prosperous than the apothecary Romeo seeks out, and I can't imagine he has tortoises, fish skins or stuffed alligators hanging in that rather elegant looking drugstore, but it's one of my favourite speeches so...

I do remember an apothecary,— 
And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted 
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows, 
Culling of simples; meager were his looks, 
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; 
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, 
An alligator stuff'd, and other skins 
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves 
A beggarly account of empty boxes, 
Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds, 
Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses, 
Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show. 
Noting this penury, to myself I said 
"An if a man did need a poison now, 
Whose sale is present death in Mantua, 
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him."

From Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

I'd like to enter this (belatedly) into the Something Spooky challenge at Country View Challenges