Bad blogger

I have been neglecting my blog, and all my crafting materials, for the last few months. Life went very pear shaped a few months ago with my Father in Law being taken into hospital with what was thought to be something quite minor but he was in fact dying from bowel cancer. He fought for 6 weeks but sadly passed away on October 3rd. As a family we were just starting to get over Harrys passing when my Mother in Law was then rushed into Hospital with a very severe blood clot, she sadly passed away on December 2nd. These two losses have left all of the family in a state of shock and my first priority was my Husband and Children, so my crafting has taken a back seat, and to be honest I haven't really been in the mood, it is strange how shock and sadness affect us.

The year is now at an end and I have to say I will be glad to see the back of this one. I just want to say thank you to everyone who has visited my blog and left such lovely comments, my crafting is purely a hobby and a little bit of escapism for me, having people saying positive things does wonders for the old ego, lol.
I'll finish by wishing you all a wonderful, peaceful and happy New Year and may you achieve all that you want in your life in 2009.

Hybrid art

It was Karins birthday last week and I was a little stumped as to what to do for her card as the mojo is on holiday so I made another digi piece and then used it as a focal point for an actual real life birthday card. I forgot to take a photo of the finished card, but thought I'd show you the digi element.

There are some great free downloads over on Lisa Vollraths site.
Pop over and take a look.

EDITED to add a pic of the finished card, thanksKarin.

More digi stuff

I am really loving working with PS at the moment and this is a little something I made last night. I think the beauty of working digitally is I can work anywhere, all I need is my laptop, a large mug of coffee and off I go, the best bit is there is no mess to clear up at the end, lol.

Credits:- Ronna Penner, whos kit, Express yourself can be downloaded from Shabbyprincess

Tree brushes, downloaded free from Deviantart

Digi art

My creativity seems to of gone on holiday and left me feeling a little flat over the last couple of weeks, but after a few forum friends mentioned Photoshop I started thinking about how much I've enjoyed using it in the past so I thought I have a play.

I'm no expert, far from it, and in fact I've had to call on my techie son to put me right but I got the desired effect with this little piece in the end. Shame Halloween has gone as I think this has quite an eerie feel to it.

The Brushes I've used are from MissM, and the photo of the two boys I have no idea where that came from, so if I got it from you or you know where it comes from can you please let me know so I can credit the right person, thanks.

The colours of Autumn

I'm really pleased to be the guest host on MMM this week. The colours of Autumn is a favourite colour palette of mine so it seeemed a perfect choice as a theme.

I started with a plain luggage tag and covered it with acrylic paint, PVA glue and some spray mists. The woman stamped onto acetate.


I hope you enjoy my theme choice and enjoy taking part.

Butterflies......

is the theme this week on Craftaway-a-Sunday

I made this card for a friends birthday, I was late in sending it *tut tut* but I hope she thought it was worth the wait. I'm really finding it hard going to make cards at the moment, I seem to of forgotten how, lol, but this one came together nicely and I was really pleased with the results.

Blue and Purples

is the theme on MMM this week.

I love using these colours so this ATC was a pleasure to make. All the stamps are from ISCs ABOUT ME sheet.

Autumn

The theme this week on Craftaway-a-Sunday is Autumn

This piece is just under 2inches square, the background is handpainted tissue that is scrunched onto mount board. The leaf is made from UTEE, with a generous spraying of Glimmer mists over the top.

A couple of challenges

This piece fits two challenges this week, Created by Hands theme is dragonflies and Craftaway a Sundays theme is water.



again another little piece, 3x3 this time.

things I like to do

is the theme for this week over on MMM .


this piece is a combination of techniques I like to use, colours and images I love.

I've used acrylic paints, metalic paints, Alcohol inks, foil, UTEE, hand painted tissue paper and paper mache (for the heart)
This piece is about 2 inches square.

Dans Ma Maison

The theme this week on Dans ma Maison is flowers






The background is a combination of acrylic paint, PVA glue, ink, Glimmer mists and stamping.

All the stamps are from ISC

Stars.....

is this weeks theme over on MMM.

Joanne, the guest artist this week made a stunning wand and challenged us to have a go, so why not I thought.





All stamps are by ISC

nature

is the theme this week over on MMM

not a typical nature piece, but I like it, lol.

TGIF... well it's Tuesday really but.......

the theme this week over on the TGIF blog is Women. I only received this sheet of ISC stamps this morning and couldn't wait to have a play with them.

I ordered this sheet, and a couple of others, from Scrapz, a brilliant UK store, at about 7am yesterday morning and they arrived today, how is that for fantastic service.

forum challenge

Jo set us a challenge to make a set, that was it, a set of anything we fancied, so this is mine.

I have always loved this stamp and I haven't used it for ages so that was my starting point.

I'm finding time a little short at the moment so I thought if I made a few focal pieces I could put cards together quickly when needed.

Thankyous

I have been lucky enough to recieve a couple of awards over the last two days, this one from Jo
and the second one from Debby , a big thankyou to you both

The rules are...
This award is for blogs you really like to visit. As most of the awards go, you are to nominate seven blogs with their blog links, email them, post this award on your blog with the link going back to the person who awards you the award, and then they nominate or award seven blogs.
I love all the blogs I have linked but I will play by the rules and name just 7 so here goes

Lana

Ingvild

Joanne

Donna

Penny

Sharon

Louise

THE RULES FOR THE JAVABLU AWARD are:1. The winner can put the logo on their blog.2. Link the person you received your award from.3. Nominate at least 5 other blogs.4.Before listing the nominees give a brief reason why you chose them.5. Put links of those blogs on yours.6. Leave a message on the blogs you have nominated.

These blogs I've nominated have all had art on there that has made me go wow at some point or another, in fact these blogs make me go wow pretty much every time I visit them.

Jo
Anne
Caroline
Marilyn
Kathy

Dream

The challenge this week on Created By Hand is to use the word Dream within your creation.

I made this last week as I enjoyed making the dragonfly stampboard piece so much I wanted to make another. The stampboard is coloured with alcohol ink and then glimmer mists sprayed over the top, while the glimmer mist was still wet I sprinkled in some UTEE and then melted it, it gave a lovely soft watery effect to the UTEE.

This Thursday it's all about wings

This Thursday is a challenge blog I haven't come across before so when I spoted it on a friends blog I went off to investigate. The theme over there this week is winged things. If you look through my blog you will see I love using two kinds of winged things, dragonflies and butterflies.

This is a two inch piece of stampboard coloured with ink and sprays, and embellished with beads, foil ,UTEE and tiny stars.

The dragonfly stamp is by Paperartsy.

been on my jollies

Last week we packed our car with our tent and the rest of our camping equipment and headed off to Ilfracombe in Devon, a lovely part of the country with lots of secret coves and rugged cliffs.

The weather started off so wonderful, perfect in fact, but that was short lived and the heavens opened on Tuesday and didn't stop so by Thursday we had all had enough so packed everything up and came home. We didn't get the week that we had planned for but at least the five days away were relaxing.

These photos were taken from our campsite in Watermouth cove and also in Watermouth harbour.



Doesn't this cove look inviting, just what we thought so we headed down the very uneven and steep steps that are cut into the cliff face, not too bad going down but coming up, OMG there should be oxygen bottles placed at intervals on the way back up, lol.

La mer

is the theme this week over on Dans ma maison

I used a large list of things to make this collage, including mulberry paper, UTEE, water colour pencils, Glimmer mists and stamps.

thanks for stopping by.

It was a very dear friends birthday this week and this is the little hanging I made for her.

She is a very talented lady who can turn her hand to most crafts, from paper crafts to amazing stitched pieces and in the 5/6 years I've known her, her work has always filled me with wonder, which is kind of where the inspiration for this piece came from. Sadly she doesn't have a blog but she does have an Etsy shop, so you can see some of her wonderful work there

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5970002

An envelope and tag I made for Lana. It involved lots of layers of paint, ink, sprays, paper, and stamping.

Do you wanna dance?

The theme this week over on MMM is dance.

I have had the sheet of ballerinas I downloaded from Lisa Vollraths site for ages waiting for the chance to use them, well this weeks challenge over on MMM gave me that chance.

My background is made from a dried up babywipe, sprayed with glimmer mists, sprinkled with embossing powders and UTEE and finished off with a few micro beads and a spot of glitter.

Thanks for looking.

Asia

is the theme on MaMoT this week.

Altered

is this weeks theme on the Created by Hand blog.

I have altered a very small wooden domino, it is only about 1.5 inches in length.

I've used UTEE, micro beads, textured paper, rubber stamps, and metalic rub ons.
I haven't decided what I am going to do with it yet, either a keyring or maybe an addition to a handbag charm I have on my current favourite bag.

I enjoyed making the first domino so much I had to make another, lol.

Places.....

is this weeks theme on MMM.

Now I could of picked anywhere in the world, but seeing a my head is still a little full with memeories from last week in Italy I thought I had better not fight the urge so Italy is my 'place'

The background is an image transfer of a photo I took last week, I played around with the colour and contrast a little before using the picture. This is the original

where's the time gone

I last posted 10 days ago, and the time has flown by. I have to admit to having escaped off to Lake Garda for 5days visiting my daughter who is working out there for six months this year. What a gorgeous area, the lake and mountains are stunning and all the towns with their castles dotted around the lake just ripe for exploring, stunning.

I have a major fear of heights and so when it was decided that we would take a trip on the cable car up Mount Baldo I was a little terrified, but it was worth the fear as we were rewarded with stunning veiws, when the cloud broke enough for us to see through it.

I did make a card for my friend Lana, whos birthday it was while I was away, hope you had a wonderful day Lana.

and also was my friend Jackies birthday, hope you had a wonderful day too Jackie

Women

is the theme over on Sunday Postcard art.

By the sea

is the theme on Mixed Media Monday this week.