Such a long time

It has been ages since I have posted anything on here.  I have been busy doing stuff in RL, but I have found time to do a fair bit of crafting.

I have finally put he handle on this one.  I'm so pleased with how it turned out.

This started life as a pale wooden (pine I think) tea box that I bought on eBay.  I started off by staining it using Tea Dye distress stain.  Tea dye is my favourite colour in the distress range.  It gets used on almost every thing.

I then stamped it all over using vintage photo distress ink and a Tim Holtz script stamp.

I seen to have a thing about time lately.  Lots of cogs and clocks appearing on everything.  I love any thing that smacks of steampunk (NOT just sticking a cog on it) so I had a dig through my collection of steampunk charms and embellies.

I have added a few stamped clocks using brushed corduroy   The cogs and clocks where coloured using tea dye, vintage photo, aged mahogany and a bit of bronze acrylic paint.

A friend of mine gave me some stamped images.  This heart seemed to beg to go here.  It covered the seam of the box, so I had fun with a scalpel cutting it so that the box would still open.

I have another three projects on the go, so hopefully I will be posting again soon.

Happy crafting every one.

Chocolate Orange

If you caught my post yesterday, you will know that I am currently experimenting with my distress inks.  I've been eyeing up a few demos on timholtz.com to get some new ideas and I am starting to get a bit braver with trying things out.

Starting with a sheet of white paper I dabbed on Spiced marmalade and sprayed with water, did the same again with Tea dye and then finished off with Vintage photo.  I stamped the floral flourishes in Vintage photo and then embossed with some gold embossing power.  Now I don't have any distress embossing powder (definitely on my wish list) but I have attempted to get the same effect  by brushing some of the embossing power off before heating.

I loved the shimmer effect I got yesterday using the iridescent embossing powder, so I have done the same again (lightly sprinkle over some dabbed on distress ink and then heat).  It gives the paper a slightly rough feel and you can only see the glimmer when the card is facing a certain way, but I think it is worth it..

The colour scheme for this card came from the photo inspiration challenge at Paperplay challenges.  I don't know why, but chocolate and orange were the first things I thought of, so I ran with it.  That fit in very nicely with the chocolate challenge at Moving along with the times and the design came from the sketch at Everybody art.

If anyone has any comments tips or ideas for how I can improve my technique with distress ink, they are most welcome.  I love learning new things and blogging is a great way to do this xx

Framed for Mum

I love my mum to bits.  She has always been my rock and I can't imagine life with out her.  This is the card that I made her for mothers day.  Actually, it's probably the third, because I keep feeling that I could do better.

This one started life as an A4 sheet of white card.  I have added some cream textured card stock, which I have inked with tea die and vintage photo distress inks.  The flower and frame are fro Kanban I think.  The card stock that I used on the right hand side is foam flocked so all of the pattern is raised and very tactile.

I'm entering this one for the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge Blog - For a special lady

My Time To Craft Challenge - Ladies Day

Ooh La La Creations Challenge Blog - Mothers Day

Wonderful Mum

It's half term, so the kids have a week off of school.  We are only on day three and I am thinking about my mum all what she had to put up with from myself and my two eldest brothers when we were little.  The "He took my toy" and the "I'm bored".  Sorry mum.  Well anyway..... I wanted to make a card for a mum for either mothers day or a birthday and came up with this.

The design came from this weeks sketch at Papertake Weekly and the colour scheme came from the coffee and cream challenge at Simon Says.  I think it is also perfect for the some one special challenge at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge.

I am still working with old stash, so I don't know where my patterned paper came from.  I started off with my usual 5x7 inch white card blank (90%  of my cards are that size) and covered it with latte coloured coordinates textured card.  I topped that with a piece of distressed DP which I edged with tea dye distress ink, to this I added bronze card and some more textured card called cream and sugar (I think it is Bazzil cardstock).  I added bronze ribbon, chocolate ribbon at the bottom and backed my Penny Black stamped image onto some more of the latte textured card.  I have distressed all of the edges and coloured them with tea dye.  I wanted a bit of bling to finish so I have added some square chocolate coloured gems.

Maybe I should have called this card Mocha Latte!