The Golden Hours

Hello all!  I'm so glad you like the new sets of word stamps launched earlier this week over at PaperArtsy.  I've got a couple of new creations this weekend using stamps from the Time Edition, and here's the first of them.

It's doubling as my inspiration piece for the new challenge over at A Vintage Journey, hosted by the lovely Sara Emily, who would like us to work Against the Grain... the idea being to work with wood and woodgrain effects to create your projects.

So my golden clocks are set against a background of weathered wood planks.  Read on to see how it all came about.














The main inspiration for this wooden panel came from these words from my brand new Time Edition stamp set.  If you missed the launch post over at PaperArtsy earlier this week, sharing three new sets of quote stamps, do take a look.











The quote is by J.M. Barrie, whose most famous creation, Peter Pan, knew a thing or two about whiling away the odd golden hour.

I love how it sets up a problem or warning, and then answers itself!










The background was made with some printed woodplank paper - from a Craft Consortium pack called Wood Textures - but the planks were too wide to work on the size tag which is somewhere under here.  You'd only have had two and half planks, as you can see when it's set against the duplicate sheet in the pack.













So I simply cut them into narrower planks lengthwise.  I also cut a couple of them crossways so that I could have shorter planks adding extra interest.  I inked the edges and scuffed them with my scissor blade.













I mounted them on some thicker cardboard to give them a more substantial presence, and then glued them onto a large tag which I'd painted with a rich dark brown.  (I filled in the tag corner spaces with some more of the cardboard to keep it all nice and sturdy.)












I then had quite a lot of fun stamping labels and advertisements onto my wooden planks.  Some of these are Andy Skinner stamps...
















... and others are by Tim Holtz (I just typed him as Time Holtz... not surprising given how often I've typed the word Time in the last few days, what with the new stamps and all!).












I've been stuck in a bit of a rusty rut lately (see Hopes of Spring or Rusted Hope) and I wanted some more!  This is the other die-cut in the set with the chicken wire used on those earlier tags, and it looks just as good rusted up as that does.











I knew that as I was smearing the rust pastes on, there would be quite a lot of waste, so I did it over another piece of small card... and you've already seen that in action, trimmed to frame the words!

It's a combination of Art Extravagance Brown Rust and Imagination Crafts Rusty Patina, which has a more reddish-orange tone to warm up the brown.













I then started to gather timepieces to arrange on the wooden panel.  There are quite a lot of different sorts buried in the stash, in all sorts of metallic tones.











So it was out with the Treasure Gold waxes - my favourite White Fire and some Florentine Gold to bring everything into the same golden colour tones.

I'm generally more of a silvery kind of person, but I can't deny that the gleam of all that gold in the sunlight is rather lovely.

There's a large Idea-ology clock face (originally pewter-coloured, but now rather splendid in gold), complete with clock hands.














There are some actual watch parts, bought as part of a job lot.  I'm delighted to say that the tiny cog on this one still rotates when you touch it, despite the added waxes.
















I've used them occasionally on projects over the years, but then I tend to forget about them for months (years) at a time.















The large engraved circle is the back cover of a pendant watch which I actually used to wear as my watch.  Sadly, you can't replace the battery once it's worn down, so I turned it to crafty purposes.

And watch out tomorrow for the rest of the watch!!













The tiny glass brad on the top is from way back when - I think it may be by Bo Bunny.












Of course you need lots of cogs and gears to keep a clock or watch running well.

(I don't know what that flake of green paint is doing there - must have got in the way as I was photographing and I didn't notice.  It's not there any more.  Harrumph, and I've just checked and found it's in all the photos - bah humbug!)












Best to keep them away from rust, mind you... Oops!















There's lots of golden splatter alongside a bit of my customary white.  It has a spectacular gleam to it.















It's one of Jackson's Art Supplies drawing inks, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what else it can do.















I'm especially looking forward to combining it with other mediums, maybe adding it as some gilding on acrylic backgrounds... more to come soon, I hope.


















So that's me going Against The Grain - using gold, of all things! - but over a lovely weathered wood plank background.

There's lots more lovely woody grainy inspiration from my fellow Creative Guides over at A Vintage Journey, and we're looking forward to seeing your wood-grained creations this month.

Wood is universally beautiful to a man. It is the most humanly intimate of all materials.
Frank Lloyd Wright












I'd like to share this at Country View Challenges where the theme for February is Splatters, Splashes and Drips (something tells me this might not be my only entry!)

Brand New PaperArtsy Word Stamps

Hello all!  I'm absolutely delighted to be sharing my three newest PaperArtsy quote sets with you tonight over at the PaperArtsy blog.  The new collections are full of wit, wisdom and warmth.

There's EAB15 House & Home, EAB16 Magic & Wonder and EAB17 The Time Edition.  There are some really well known quotes and phrases amongst them, and also plenty of lesser-known delights.  I hope you'll be able to hop over to PaperArtsy and check out the new stamps.  As always, there are lots of samples to inspire and tempt you!

Words: So innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it until it begins to shine.
Emily Dickinson

Romance in the Ruins

Hello all!  It's Tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey, so the Creative Guides have been taking their tags out for a spin with no other destination in mind than a bit of creative fun and freedom.

As always, there are delights in store if you hop over to a Vintage Journey, and a link party for you to share any tags you've been making this January - we'd love to see what you've been up to.

You'll probably spot that my tag continues the nature/decay themes that have been running through the last couple of posts.  No rust this time, but some stone ruins being overtaken by nature's greenery...

I could also have called this tag "the mystery of the disappearing words"!















I started with some wrinkle-free distressing (Stormy Sky and Faded Jeans for the top part and Peeled Paint and Bundled Sage for lower down), and then stencilled some Gothic lettering on in the same colour tones.














I loved this Tim Holtz monastery stamp from the moment I saw it, and it's done good service so far... often with ivy involved.  But you can see that at the point of stamping it, the stencilled text was already starting to go.















It's stamped in Watering Can Archival and then embossed with my Wow Earthtone Pepper powder, which I thought would give a nice stony effect.
















I die-cut the ivy from some suitably dark green kraftcore.  With a little light sanding, you get a nice weathered look.















I made sure to apply the glue mainly to the stem, so that I could scrunch the leaves upwards for some extra dimension and a more lifelike look.















There's plenty of moss surrounding the ruins too.  I'm having a bit of a moss-thing at the moment... 













There's an upcoming Guest Design project where it plays a big part, so it's been around on the desk rather than tucked away in the stash.














And of course there are my much loved dried flower stems winding their way through the greenery...
















... adding a touch of 3D white spatter effect - I guess that's probably why I like them so much!















I added a couple of small glass pebbles to catch the light, glued on with Glossy Accents.













Actually there are three of them... the rule of odd numbers in composition is a good one.
















I love how they magnify the inky patterns behind them.









I'm really happy with the dimension on this tag, and the shabby edges, distressed with the blade of my scissors.

It's a very pleasing tag to hold and move around to see from different angles, letting those pebbles catch the light.







And the words... I almost forgot the words!  They're Nathaniel Hawthorne's (just the best name for a writer ever, don't you think?), and they're also embossed in Pepper.













You can find the quote on the very first of my PaperArtsy stamp sets, EAB01 Trees & Flowers.















Some fine twine finishes things off at the top of the tag, and it's mounted on some off-white card for a nice framing effect.

So we have some wonderful words at the heart of the tag, but as you can see, the Gothic stencilled words have pretty much entirely vanished from the background - yet the wrinkle-free distressing hasn't faded or changed at all.  I'm very puzzled!

Despite the mystery, this tag brings me a sense of calm and serenity, just like the last time I combined the monastery with ivy in Silent Strength.  I think that was a Tag Friday tag too - and it used the flower stems and one of my quotes...  I'm playing variations on a theme!

Speaking of quote stamps - keep your eyes peeled in the next few days for exciting news.








I hope you'll hop over to A Vintage Journey and see how much fun my fellow creative guides have been having with their tag playtime.  And do share any tags of any kind that you've been making this month in our Tag Friday link party.

We'll be picking a Pinworthy from those tags, as well as a trio of Pinworthies from our main challenge, We're All Getting Older.  You've got one more week to try out those ageing, distressing and weathering techniques to make something new look old.  Hope to see you there... and happy crafting all!

The stones here speak to me, and I know their mute language. Also, they seem deeply to feel what I think. So a broken column of the old Roman times, an old tower of Lombardy, a weather-beaten Gothic piece of a pillar understands me well. But I am a ruin myself, wandering among ruins.
Heinrich Heine

Even though the words are about romance flourishing amongst the ruins, it's still romance, so I'd like to join in at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where this week they are All Loved Up
And at the Bleeding Art Challenge it's Anything Mixed Media Goes

Hopes of Spring

Hello all!  I'm still in slightly rusty mode after my Rusted Hope tag the other day.  And I couldn't resist having another play with the chicken wire die - this time rusted slightly differently.

I made this tag to celebrate having completed my tax return.  It really was just a chance to play after sorting through invoices and receipts all day.

(Yes, I know, if I were more organised through the year, it would all be much simpler at this point... but that's just not how I work I'm afraid.  I'd rather restrict the financial admin to a couple of days each year than think about it all year long!)



















Like Rusted Hope, this tag plays with the contrast between the rusted "manmade" elements and the forces of nature. 















And it's well worth encouraging your hopes not your fears here, because nature definitely seems to be winning out this time round!














The background on this tag is really rather full on.  It started with some wrinkle-free-distressing with Broken China, Stormy Sky, Peeled Paint and Mowed Lawn Distress Inks.















Over that I stamped the teeny tiny text from Tim Holtz's Entomology stamp set and embossed it in bright white.

I then did some multiple stamping of two of the insects from the same set in Pumice Stone Distress Ink and embossed those in clear.













As always, I love how the glossy embossing captures light.














The chicken wire (or honeycomb, whichever way you want to think of it), cut from card, has had a coat of Finnabair's Art Extravagance Brown Rust Paste (grabbed in the sales).














Such a simple way to get a rusty texture... and I added some variation in colour with other paints and mediums.













The two delicate grass stems are cut from the mop-up tag created in the wrinkle-free-distressing earlier.  I brayered white paint over the top of my blues and greens, so the stems are lighter in tone than the vivid inks in the background.















This Paper Doll has been hovering on the desk for a while.















I'm worried about how serious he looks... as though he's wary about what life is going to throw at him next.













So I've grounded him on some tape to give him a safer standing in the world.














And I thought he could do with the reassurance provided by this particular Word Band.














If you read my previous post, you'll know that I'm feeling the need of the same advice.

I've been feeling very gloomy about the state of the world, but I have to stay hopeful that the power of nature will triumph in the end over all our attempts to destroy her. 













The butterflies are carrying my hopes on their fragile wings...













... as they hover over the lush greenery, and point us in the direction we need to go if we're to save this miraculous planet of ours.














Some simple rustic garden twine tops the whole thing off...
















... and I mounted the tag on some thick waste cardboard before inking the edges with Vintage Photo.  It gives it a really pleasing sturdiness.

That'll do for today.  I hope you're all enjoying a lovely weekend, and I look forward to doing some hopping to catch up with you all now that the tax return is done and dusted... yay!!  Happy crafting all!

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.
Leo Tolstoy