Graffiti v Elegance

Look at this gorgeous graffiti canvas purse I made at Art from the Heart recently....



I had so much fun with the canvas, and what do you think to this Jill I'm really proud that I mastered the sewing machine when it came to stitching the lining... pretty basic alongside your fantastic mixed media pieces of course, but I shall soon be picking up my Aunt's bequeathed machine and intend lots of 'messing around' creating more arty pieces using gorgeous material like this... (I had a bit of a dilemma when it came to choosing my lining from the lovely pieces that were on offer!)



I added an abundance of gesso circles to get that graffiti look, here's a close up...



Now that was messy play, and messy play makes lots of mess! Yes, I make lots of mess! When I'm journaling, even when I'm designing scrapbook pages for my classes... so I shall soon be having to deep clean my work area to ensure there will be no 'contamination' when it comes to making the wedding invitations for our daughter's wedding next year. On that note, we had our first wedding shopping outing earlier this week - albeit, we were only choosing card etc, to make up all the paraphernalia that will be needed on that special day, we managed to pick up a few bargains from Confetti in Leeds



I had a go at making up sample cards (which I'm not allowed to show you because they aren't being sent out until Novemberish!!)
It was really strange doing elegant as opposed to my normal grungy, messy, hand staining look. But I do love how elegantly 'classic' they look. Now all I have to do is make them all, alongside the order of services, the table names, the table seating planner, you get the picture. At least I know I have lots of creative friends if I get under pressure with time...

New Stamp = Journal Page!

I teach scrapbooking at the Craft Box in Elsecar. On Friday, when I went to take the class, Lynn had just taken delivery of some Stampotique stamps.......I couldn't resist purchasing one (or two) She also has a sale of some Paperbag Studio stamps so a couple of those dropped into my basket too! And then there was the new stencils for my art journaling...
The downside of all this is that I spent more than I earned! That can't be good can it??!!

Anyway, I had a play with one of my new purchases, I altered her dress using an image from Dyan's Downloads and the borders are by Marsha of Tumblefish Studio, go here to check them out




I love this fish stamp which I bought a few years ago from Blade Rubber Stamps in London...



A close up of my new gal...



We are in the process of packing for our impending move in September but my art supplies are going to be packed LAST... I hope I can keep snatching a few moments to journal and of course I HAVE to create pages for my classes!

I'm up for this!

For a chance to win some Tim Holtz blog candy go here Looks like a bag full of goodies to me!

Bliss!

I'm feeling pretty peaceful today after another play date at AFTH. Lots of art journalers creating pages and chatting together and generally having a good old 'time out' from the mundane everyday stuff we all have to do. Olive even managed to put up with the Country music Dy had on today even though she didn't like it!

Today, Dy set us a challenge - we had to use some dressmaking pattern paper and a paisley swirl stencil - if we managed it, we got to take home some of the dressmaker paper...

So yes - I managed it - evidence!



Although this isn't the page I made - I loaded the 'photos in the wrong order!

This one is in my A4 journal...





Here it is - can you spot the dressmaking paper? Christine brought a bag full for Dyan- we loved it - some of the patterns had her name on - she has had them since she was a school girl - how amazing is that...just goes to show, all that stuff we all hoard does eventually come in useful for something!

I shall still add to this page but I like it already, Mrs Blackett is very bemused about her hat....



And then I just used the altered original spray inks to start this background - aren't the colours just gorgeous?



Right, I'm off to mess around a bit more...

Play Dates for Grown Ups!

I've set aside some time for myself. I've written the dates in my diary (and I don't like crossing things out so it would have to be mega important for me to change these dates I can tell you!) Well the ME time is a few play dates at Art from the Heart.
I'm really loving the opportunity to get away from it all and play. I can't be interrupted by the telephone, I can't be interrupted by unexpected visits (we get a lot of those!) so while I'm at Dy's, I can allow myself to get completely absorbed in messing about...



Last week I posted a few backgrounds I'd made at the play day, today I started to build a couple of pages... I will still add to these two pages, but I like how they're coming together...
I don't know why the colour of the page below isn't showing true but I love these collage images from Dyan's downloads (see button on sidebar) and they are very appropriate for this page as we will be moving to Durham in September, so this page is all about that.




This one shows a new stencil I found - I used the altered originals spray inks to test it - pretty cool don't you think?



And this is a work in progress - I'm MAKING gifts for a few people that I know I won't see very often when we go to Durham and I love this paper from 7Gypsies....



Hope I have more pages to post real soon!