Reflection of a Dragonfly

Hello all.  I'm glad you enjoyed my Flourishing Floral extravaganza over at Calico.  It's nice to let my opulent side out every now and then.  Watch out for more similar lines as I make further inroads on my craft stash through the year!

Today it's time for some more background-focus with my second piece of inspiration for Sue's brilliant Make Your Own Background theme at Country View Challenges.  We're just over half way through, so there's still plenty of time to play along, and here's a pair of tags which may nudge you in to action.

I've been at the wrinkle free distress technique again - nothing I like better than smooshing and sweeping through the inky colours to create endless variations on a splotchy theme!  I almost always have enough ink on the craft mat for at least two tags, and so I often end up working in pairs.  This time I planned ahead sufficiently to have one tag already primed with gesso so that my two tags would end up with even more variation from one another.

It's a colour combination I fell in love with when Wilted Violet arrived in the world last year... so there's some of that, obviously, along with Ground Espresso and Stormy Sky.

The dark tag was the recipient of the first smoosh, then the gesso'd tag went next, then I carried on alternating, dabbing and drying, until all the ink was used up.  Simple!

From there, I just followed my fancy.   The dragonfly always makes me happy, so he's embossed in white over the darker inks...

... and embossed in Bark over the paler background.  Some powder got onto the ink which wasn't quite dry in places, but that's what embracing imperfection is all about.

I added my all-time favourite Idea-ology pieces, the Word Bands, mounted over some torn book page fragments and secured with fine twine as well as a blob or two of glue.













I added some complementary scribbling too - white over the dark, and dark over the light.













A few wooden buttons add an extra dimensional touch, and even a bit of extra texture in some cases.

Crinkle ribbon dyed with the same inky colours tops the tags off...














... tied with the same fine twine as the Word Bands to create another echo within each tag.















The aim was always to try to let those inky splotches take centre stage...















This is a Backgrounds challenge after all!

Very quick, but oh so pleasurable.  I hope they give you pleasure too, and that they'll inspire you to Make Your Own Background too, and come along and join us at Country View Challenges.

As always, there's a prize voucher from Country View Crafts on offer to a randomly drawn winner - but you've got to be in it to win it!







Thanks so much for stopping by today.  This is one of several scheduled posts which will be coming your way - some of them new projects, some of them "Encores" of pieces which made their first appearances elsewhere and are going to be brought in under the Words and Pictures roof over the next few weeks and months.

It's unclear how reliable my internet access is going to be on my travels, but I will be doing my best to keep up with you all when I can.  After all, without access to my craft desk I'll need to get my crafting hit somehow... I'm counting on Craftyblogland!

We cannot see our reflection in running water.  It is only in still water that we can see.
Taoist proverb

I'd like to make this my third and final entry into Stamps and Stencils challenge, Splatter, Spritz and Smoosh - I do enjoy doing all those things - but this one is principally smooshing!

Flourishing Florals at Calico

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first of many, many scheduled posts over the next few weeks!  I'm off to far flung parts for a working adventure, but I've left you both new projects and some encores (all will become clear) to enjoy while I'm away.

I'm quietly doing quite well with my not-really-a-resolution-just-a-good-idea to use some of the many beautiful things hoarded in my craft stash.  And today over at the Calico Craft Parts blog you can see the not-resolution in action again.

I am a sucker for flowers and berries and, in addition, I do love looking at those extravagant cards and layouts laden with all sorts of things.  A quick look at the "cards I love" on my Pinterest board will tell you I have a secret hankering for that very pretty look (as well as revealing some of the influences on today's piece)... and that's what I've been playing with, along with some Calico Craft Parts flourishes.  I hope you'll have time to hop over to Calico and see what I mean.  I think you might enjoy it...  I certainly did!

Flowers really do intoxicate me.
Vita Sackville-West

If you're willing to hop to see the full reveal, I'd like to enter this...
In Splatter, Spritz and Smoosh at Stamps and Stencils - plenty of all of them in this one!
At Love to Create in their regular Anything Creative/Mixed Media theme

Head in a book...

Hello everyone!  I was so thrilled to be chosen as the Design Winner for the Craft Stamper Take It and Make It December challenge.  There's already been a feature on the Craft Stamper blog (Q&A here if you're interested) and I'm so excited that my Christmas Story Book will be published in the magazine.  And as if that weren't enough, I'm also very honoured today to be offering up some inspiration for the new TIMI theme - Text Me! - which is to use a text background, some script stamping or some text paper on your project.

Given my winning piece took the form of an altered book cover, I thought this time I would dive inside a book, so here are my journalling pages in an old unwanted hardback book.  I was one of those children accused of always having my head in a book.  Well, now I've found a new way to have a head in a book!

I made this around the same time as my Hidden in a Book creation for the PaperArtsy round-ups just before Christmas... I was on a roll with the whole book niches thing I think!

There's a shimmer of gold across the whole page spread, which makes it tricky to photograph of course.  It's created with a combination of DecoArt Media Fluid in Metallic Gold and Treasure Gold gilding wax in White Fire.














For this niche, we have another PaperArtsy image - this time a Lynne Perrella stamp, adorned with gilded hair ornaments.  As I did with the last one, I stamped the image on tissue paper in order to get it inside my carved niche.














It really helps to move the thing around in different lights to show the effects - but I've still not progressed to videos, so you'll have to make do with extra photos as usual!













The gilding wax is great at picking out the texture of the Crackle Paint Harlequins which dance across the page.












Obviously, we have my favourite blue and brown combination at the heart of it all.  This time I created the soft blended colours of the first layer with Fresco paints.













I like to work with watery washes and some paper towel/baby wipes standing by, so that I can apply paint and wipe back repeatedly until I'm happy with what I've got.












Next I added some heavy gesso with a palette knife for some extra texture...















... before heading in with some darker tones of both paint and sprays...














... always making sure not to neglect the interior of the niche.  It would be no good keeping that pristine - you need some depth behind the tissue paper to come.















Wanting some highlights, I started out with pure DecoArt Metallic Gold, but the tone was a little too brassy for my liking with this particular colour combination.














So I began to apply White Fire Treasure Gold over it, and again played around until it looked okay to me.

In addition to the LP image, I stamped some Hot Picks branches as well as a PaperArtsy Mini of some medieval calligraphy.














The sentiment is from Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, a poem I've loved for as long as I can remember... so it's lovely to have it available as a stamp in one of the PaperArtsy Urban Snapshots Nature plates.















Some white splatter?  Don't mind if I do, thank you very much.  I never tire of how it seems to add life and depth to a piece.














I'm really happy with the textures and the overall atmosphere of the pages.

And despite all the paint and alterations, I promise there are still places where you can see the text paper underneath.







I hope you'll be inspired to play along at Craft Stamper this month.  There's more inspiration over at the Craft Stamper blog, of course, where the amazing team have been in action.

For now, I'd like to say a huge thank you to them and to Trish for this fantastic opportunity, and I'll wish you all a wonderful weekend.

When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

What are you capable of?

Hello all!  I'm hoping you're capable of at least a bit of hopping.  I'm over at the Country View Crafts Projects blog today with some art journalling.  It's nothing radical - just a bit of playful exploring without any particular agenda in mind.

I'm not entirely sure about the results.  From a distance it does look like the last stages of recovery of a rather impressive bruise, but I do love the close-up paint and ink effects.  Why not hop over and see what you think...

Hope you have a lovely week everybody!

Ability is what you're capable of doing.  Motivation determines what you do.  Attitude determines how well you do it.
Lou Holtz (American Football coach)

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.
Mahatma Gandhi

Imagine Simplicity

Hello all!  I've taken a turn for the simple today...

I've been aware for some time that there's a big difference between the multi-layered, mixed media, busy creations I seem to make most of the time, and the simplicity and minimalism of the things I actually like to have around me or that are, for instance, pinned to my "beautiful things" or "how do I want to live" boards on Pinterest.

I love the creative extravagance of all the mediums and paints and textures, but I think at some point there will be a journey for me to take exploring simplicity.

A little touch of that reared its head this week as this tag formed itself on my craft table.

Ironically, it arises out of a very full-on piece on which I used some of these lovely natural sprays of dried wild grasses for the first time.  (You won't see that for a week or so yet, I'm afraid, but keep an eye out at Calico Craft Parts!)

Since they were sitting on the table, and since I'd adored how they looked on the other project, I found myself wanting to use them again.












It was a short step to one of my all-time favourite Tim Holtz stamps, and the background is a piece of Tim Holtz paper (I think from French Industrial).

At this stage, my brain was thinking, "Ooh, well, I could add some stencilled texture paste in the background, and ink around everything, maybe layer in some inky stencilling and stamping,", and I had to be quite firm about replying that actually I really liked it just as it was!












In the end I did alter the paper just slightly with a touch of gesso and then a tiny bit of additional text stamping in Pumice Stone because the gesso had obscured too much of the original script.  I could have left out those two steps altogether!













Some gesso'd book page butterflies hover around...













... and the Game Spinners which form their bodies give a simple metallic echo of the word band below.

I'm doing a lot of envisioning at the moment of how I'd like to shape the next stages of my life, so this word band is a useful bit of encouragement, and the torn gesso'd book page just makes it pop a little to catch your attention.

Simplicity rules for the topping too - some crinkle ribbon, lightly spritzed, and tied with fine twine and all is done.

Of course there is white splatter - seems I can barely do without it these days - but even that is done in a very minimal way.  Still, it does seem somehow to bring things to life.

Some Hildegard von Bingen playing in the background, this tag coming in to being on my craft table, and some gentle sunlight breaking through the clouds... simple things which make me very happy.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I wish you all a weekend of things which make you happy.

Simplify, then add lightness.
Colin Chapman

It's minimalist rather than messy, but the splatter plays a big role here, so I would like to enter this in the Splatter, Spritz and Smoosh challenge at Stamps and Stencils.  I expect I'll be back with something altogether messier later in the month!

Full of Possibilities

Hello all, and welcome to February!  February?  Yup, I'm afraid so...  I know, don't ask me where January went.  I feel as though I barely saw it.

We're starting the month with double trouble.  I've a project for you here as well as one over at Calico Craft Parts... yes, it's a stop AND a hop!

First of all, there's a new theme for you at Country View Challenges and the fantastic Sue would like you to Make Your Own Backgrounds.

Well, there's a challenge that's full of possibilities...

It's rare that I don't make my own backgrounds, and very often the background is my favourite part - whether of my own or of other people's projects - so I'm very happy to put the background centre stage!

Of course there's lots of inspiration from my lovely team mates today, and more throughout the month at Country View Challenges, and for my first offering I've gone with one of my all-time favourite inky background techniques - the good old wrinkle free distress technique.

I love the delight of different colour combinations, the relative lack of control, the infinite variety of results.  Over my blues and greens I stencilled some Picket Fence Distress Paint through the Lattice stencil, and decided that was my background done!









Umbrella Man seems to come out at transitional times for me.  There's something in his demeanour which seems to hold many emotions.  I've known him look back in wistfulness, but he can also look forward with both trepidation and hope.

In a couple of weeks, I'm setting off on another travel adventure with work, and I'm definitely in that "getting ready for take-off" mode of fluttering butterfly attention - finding it very hard to sit down and focus - I feel there's always something I should be doing somewhere else at the same time.









And there's always uncertainty when you work with a new company, and here I'm diving in with a well-established group.  How will it all work out?  We'll all be spending many hours together in a pretty pressurised environment.  And that's intensified when you're a long way from home.











At the same time, it's a real adventure - we're going to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and then I'll be back in the fabulous New York City for six weeks (I know!!) - so it really is full of possibilities and excitement.

I'll definitely be staying curious and trying to make the most of any spare time I have from the theatre.  I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity for such adventures, so there's some upbeat scribbling around too...










(I just wanted to say I'm rather taken with how the Picket Fence Distress Paint stencilling gives some extra patterning even under the Archival stamping.)

In any case, both Umbrella Man and the Small Talk stickers are pretty much on the money with where I'm at at the moment - some trepidation but a great deal of excited anticipation too.











I hope you'll be inspired to come and Make Your Own Background with us at Country View Challenges.  As always there's more inspiration over at the blog today and throughout the month, and there's a prize voucher from our sponsor Country View Crafts to be won, so do come and play along.









But don't go yet... as I mentioned, I've a hop for you too today.  If you'd like a bit more inspiration from me, I've been making a completely different kind of background over at Calico Craft Parts.

This background started with tissue tape and went all the way to antique crackle, so do hop over and check out my Steampunk ATCs too, if you have the time.  Happy Crafting and Happy February all!

We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realise.
Thich Nhat Hanh

Calico Cogs

Hello all!  A quick one tonight, as I'll be back in the morning...  Just a sneak peek to try to tempt you over to the Calico Craft Parts blog where I've been playing with some cogs.

There's a weathered and worn look to my Steampunk ATCs which I rather like.  I hope you'll have time to hop over and check them out.  I'll love you and leave you for now but, as I said, I'm going to be back before you know it.  Happy February everybody!

Colours must fit together as pieces in a puzzle or cogs in a wheel.
Hans Hofmann

To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.
Aldo Leopold

If you don't mind going over to Calico to see the full project, I'd love to enter these...

In the ATC Challenge at That's Crafty Challenge Blog
And at Sandee and amelie's Steampunk Challenges, where it's Anything Goes - Steampunk/Industrial
And at Love to Create they're playing the usual Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes, so I'd love to play there too
And at Scrapki-Wyzwaniowo they are looking for Masculine Projects - I hope with all the cogs and gears, these will fit