The Magic of Christmas

Merry Christmas from blogland! Here is a configurations book I made for my mom and dad; it was really fun to make and to decide what to put in each section and basically it was any excuse to cover the entire thing in as much glitter and sparkle as possible!

The cover is painted mostly gold and a bit red inside with some added gilding flakes and chipboard letters painted and then some inka gold in red and them some glitter paint and inside some gilding wax and then I used red sparkle medium through a stencil to make the stars. The snowflake is 3d printed.

Inside the snowman is 3d printed and then painted; then the little tree and wreath I inked and then added some white paint to the tree for snow. Then I used some snowtex type stuff. Wooden letters to spell out noel with some berries. Mini bells, string beads, a 3d printed angel; the little green house is cut out on the cricut, mini pretend lights, a wooden 25th December decorated with gilding wax, glitter in tiny bottles; another little bell; a gingerbread man which is patterned paper and then loads of added glitter and sparkles. And it all couldn't have been done without loads of heavy body gel medium to stick everything down.

Sights around Britain

Another new project is to make a sort of art journal/scrapbook of places I've been around Britain, with photos, journalling and whatever else I feel like!

Here is the front cover and the first page. The cover I first painted with black gesso and then I stuck down various letters I had which I also painted over with black gesso. Once dry I added foil to the letters in Around and then paint the whole thing silver, then I added some gelato, inka gold and gilding wax to the letters. I added some washi tape and some distress ink before painting it all over with a layer of mod podge to add some protection and keep the tape glued down.

The first page I took two photos of Ynyscedwyn Ironworks in Wales and stuck them down and added a layer of washi tape. I had already painted the page with gesso to prevent any inks soaking through to the other pages. I added some blue distress ink and wrote on the title and journalling.

Mean while in the bird house a blue tit has been busy emptying out the contents and there's only a bit left in the bottom now. It went quiet for a few days and then a couple more blue tits came prospecting so we'll wait and see if anyone moves in!!

Canvas

Here's a canvas I decorated, I had quite a few books for Christmas to take some inspiration from and so this is a bit of experimentation.

So basically there's a whole bunch of paint, gel medium, modelling paste, grunge paste, mod podge, collage, Dylusions, pebeo, stencilling, gilding wax, scratching and probably some things I've forgotten.....

Faith

It's the last craft barn challenge.....this time the words are faith and harmony.....I found this quote by J M Barrie - All the world is made of faith, trust and pixie dust.

I wrote the words with paint pens and coloured in the sections around the edge also and drew a flower. I added some glitter and gilding wax also.

Edit: Inspired by the others who've created collages of all of this years challenges, here's mine....I forgot some of these were even this year!!

Christmas cards

Here are a couple of Christmas cards I've made....

I got this gingerbread house stencil last week and tested it out.....actually worked even better than I thought.....really love the effect. Basically you get two slightly different stencils that you use one and then the other with different colours to get this effect. It's made by That Special Touch. I used distress ink through the stencil is evergreen bough and festive berries. Then I just added a stamped greeting and mounted it on some patterned paper.

This one used a splodge away snowflake stencil with some clear texture paste and then I used silver distress spray stain plus some distress ink.....that must be evergreen bough as well I think and also some gold gilding wax. Plus a stamped greeting at the bottom (from Hobby Art). The paper in the background is patterned as well but you can't quite see in the photo.

Moon

It's Craft Barn time again and the words this time are moon or sensation. It was much more easy to find a quote this time.....hurrah! I chose a limerick by Edward Lear.

As usual half the background was already there from excess ink off the previous page and so I added some distress spray stain in peacock feathers to fill in the gaps. Then I used the moon from a Splodge away stenskape which I coloured gold with Viva Decor inka gold and precious metals. Then I used splodge away trees with blue inka gold at the bottom. Then I drew a man in a balloon with a black posca pen and coloured it with metallic molotow pens. Then I wrote on the quote with a silver molotow pen and finally I added some teal and midnight create expressions gilding wax around the edge.

Card

Here is a card I made....

An 80 cut on the cricut from patterned paper, inked round the edge. Some more patterned paper in the background. I stamped on the Happy Birthday and added some gems. I also added some ink and gilding wax round the edge.

Cards

Here are some cards I've made recently...

All my cards lately seem to end up the same colour theme.....I think it's because I've had a whole series of male cards to make. Anyway this on is using silk art paints and then Tim holtz little balloon stamp. Then I used a posca pen to write happy birthday and outlined it with a wink of Stella glitter pen. I edged the background paper with distress ink and then stamped on some spots and added a touch of gilding wax.

This one I found a piece of paper that had remnants of dylusions on the background, I then used a stencil and some gelatos to create to sunshine effect, then I sploshed on a little blue colour bloom spray, added a little distress ink to get rid of most of the white paper and finally added a craftwork cards greeting,

Card

Here's a card I made for my niece.....I mixed various UTEE's in the melting pot, poured them and stamped in this stampotique stamp. I then added some gilding was as well. I glued it on to the card and drew on the greeting and coloured circles and added a little distress ink in the corners.

Things and things

Helllooooooooooo

So here are a few things I've made recently.....

This one was a flower I stamped ages ago and I finally got around to turning it into a card, adding a touch of glitter and a greeting.

 This one is mostly Tim Holtz papers, with some gilding wax, a few fibres with some gold mod podge and a gem

 I made some Mars Bar crispy cakes for Easter, any excuse to put little pink chicks on things hehe!

 This one is a stencil, I just used distress inks and a craftwork cards greeting

Just messing about

Well I bought some canvases from Hobbycraft yesterday.....my mom says what you going to do with those? Erm not sure I say....just mess about.....so here is what I have created on the first one.....

So I started off by using some grunge paste (love this already it's thicker than other texture pastes I have so I think it might be using this a lot!) through some stencils, then I sprayed some dylusions and added some paper artsy fresco paints (mostly from the limited edition JOFY set I just got - ace colours) and then also added some definition over the texture paste with some peacock feathers distress ink. Oh I also tried out the technique from paper artsy of stamping into the grunge paste with my tiny little lavinia stars. Not sure if you can it from the picture but it's in the squares on the top right.

Next I used clear texture paste (creative expressions) over the spodge away owl in a tree mask; and then some more grunge paste through the moon stencil from the same splodge away set. Once dried I added some mustard seed distress ink to the moon and also some gold gilding wax. I also used black distress ink around the tree to highlight the owl.

I then mixed some more grunge paste with black paint and used the mountain mask from the same splodge away set to get the mountain in the bottom corner.

I then stamped on the bird (tim holtz) and the fairies (lavinia) and the trees (paper artsy jofy) and the ivy (lavinia). I used paper artsy fresco metallic glaze on the bird and fairy wings. I also stamped some stars with silver distress paint.

I added some stampendous fragments and some other glitter in the bottom corners. I highlighted a few areas with white gel pen. I added some distress ink around the edge. Then I finished it all off with silver gloss paint to highlight the edge, the mountain and a few others spots. I drew on the little birds on the moon. I think the moon is my favourite part.

Somewhere beyond the sea...

Hello!

Well it's my birthday and of course that meant new craft goodies.....so here's a little creation I made mostly playing with new stencils to create the background......using various mediums - texture paste, paint, distress ink and Dylusions sprays. I cut the pictures out of a magazine and used gloss mod podge to glue them down - haven't used glossy in a while and I keep seeing things on other blogs where people use things out of magazines and then I forget to try it out and I finally remembered.
 I also used some gilding wax on the turtle. Finally I stamped various stamps and added a touch of white gel pen here and there. Really love Stencil Girl designs - and when I saw Seth Apter had designed some a few month's ago I couldn't wait to get hold of one - just my cup of tea.

Razzle Dazzle

Greetings!

A new craft barn challenge is upon us - the new words are Silence or Dazzle.....I was like ooooh good words.....but then I searched and searched and could hardly find any interesting rhymes or poems and nothing to inspire me, however, I did spend all day singing "Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle" from Chicago and so that's what I've done. Basically any excuse to make a sparkly page really.

I used a background of Dylusions in two different pinks. I stamped on the the first letters in purple archival and then I drew the razzle dazzle. I used some sparkle medium through a stencil and I tried to paint the sparkle medium on the big letters too but that didn't work as well. I outlined the big letters with a gel pen. I used green gilding wax and gold gloss paint around the edge, as well as painting glitter paint in all the spaces and I added some sequins with pearlescent glue.

Final alpha challenge....

Phew the alpha challenge is complete - here's the link to the Craft Barn

The final two letters were X and I.....

Now there were about 6 words beginning with X, one of them being the letter X itself so not much choice so in the end I went with Xylophone. There was already a some ink on the page from Y on the next page so I also added some blue paint. I cut out rectangles and glued them down and then made a beater from a pipe cleaner and some card. I stamped a few music notes as well.

 Then for I, I chose a word I found reading the dictionary and that is Ichthyology the scientific study of fish - picture has a little too much reflection in it but the background is distress stain in blue and some silver round the edge and then I stamped some fish on some paper I had already inked and then cut them out and stuck them down and drew on some lines and measurements etc.

 Finally I finished off the front cover by painting it with gesso, then I made use of a few things I had for Christmas one was the cricut mini so I cut out some letters for A2Z and inked over them and I used some gilding wax around the edge, also some distress stain and then I painted the whole thing with gold shimmer mod podge and sprinkled on some glitter before it dried.

Wow and that's the whole year done!!