A swallow's journey

I used my Rubber Dance stamps again, and this time I used this gorgeous swallow stamp stamp on kraft, coloured with Prismacolor pencils and masked to stamp some background before die cutting with a Sizzix stamp die. I added some Tim Holtz paper string to one side of the die cut and a boat charm to the waves.

Then I decided to add another background, using a stencil and Distress Ink I sponged some waves and stamped the bird in Ranger Van Dyke Brown. On the Kraft card it is stamped in black, as is the shell and the "waves". 

The card I used for the card blank is textured and that showed through the inking. My bird is on a migratory journey over the sea - can you tell?

This card has swooped into the following challenges:

Rubber Dance Blog - colour and travel (July)

Craft Stamper - take a stamp anything goes (Jul)

Left of Centre - use texture (Fri)

Graph'it Markers - colour Duos (Fri)

Love to scrap - anything goes (Aug 2nd)

We love to create - #15 anything mixed media/creative/inky goes (Sun)

Vintage Stamping - #34 travel (Sun 3rd)

Papertake Weekly - take your pick blue and green (Tues)

A Sprinkle of Imagination - anything goes with something from the shop (Jul - Aug 11th?)

Fab n Funky - no patterned paper (Aug 11th)

Fussy and Fancy - #144 things with wings - picked randomly to be GD

Carousel - altered art.

I posted this photo of my partly painted Carousel ages ago, last year anyway. It is a Kaisercraft Carousel that came in white, or off white anyway. I thought it was just crying out for the big white spaces round the edge to be decorated, and I started it - but other stuff got in the way and it stayed on the floor under other stuff until yesterday. I had a kind of life changing moment, which is described in the previous post!

This is the carousel on my desk right now. I can't turn it due to the stashberg next to it, so the next task is to sort that out a little, and I have the pink "Stuff Bucket" which was in that spot before. I went through that and moved a lot of stash over to the carousel, and already I can find it better and organise it better. I found stuff I forgot I had and haven't seen for a long time as well as a couple of mystery objects!

I got my stencils out and "Air Brush" marker spritzer and my Promarkers and Graphit markers and got to work. The stencils are all Creative Expresions ones. I love poppies, and airbrushed them in two colours. I think I need to add a butterfly somewhere, a charm or a stamped one maybe.

This panel has birds on overhead wires and I overstamped with Visible Image feathers, birds and a saying, it is hard to read the saying which didn't work well but it says "free your imagination". You can see the spritzer in the organiser.

This was the first panel I did last year, I didn't have the spritzer then so I used Cut n Dry foam to dab it, then over stamped it with the cogs.

I love this stencilled effect, I used a Graphit turquoise marker to air brush this one. Needs something else.

 Raindrops, I will have to find an umbrella to add!

Finally part of a scene, just the houses.

Then I painted round the rims with some Plaid Folk Art Acrylic paint in burgandy, it doesn't go right the way inside the drawers. The rest of the paint is either by Indigo Blu or Paperartsy. I painted two coats of burgandy then this morning doodled on it with gold Permapaque pen, which was one of two pens I chose with a gorgeous Stampendous stamp as my prize from the Woodware challenge I won.

I think there is more to do to this, more to add to the stencilled panels, more doodling and those drawers look a bit bare now don't they? I am thinking of adding brass charms maybe to the panels.

I have entered the following challenges:

Anything but a card - #38 repeating patterns (Sun)

Allsorts - masking and stencilling #272 (Sat)

Pan Pastels - #20 bold and bright (14th Sept)

Through the Craft Room Door - Anything goes (Aug 25th)

Stamping Sensations - anything goes (Aug)

Visible Image - anything goes with a Visible Image stamp (Aug)

I'm Quirky well late for the reminder!

I'm late for the reminder, but I will tell you why in a minute.

I decided to use Grafitti by Paper Pretties for my reminder card because the stencils I used went with her perfectly. I enjoyed playing with my new spritzer to achieve something approaching an air brushed look, or trying to, so I played with it again. It is funny that I ordered this from Create and Craft - first thing I have ordered for a couple of years - and they rang me afterwards and tried to interest me in joining their club at £80 per year on free 3 months trial, it was difficult persuading them I really didn't want to do this!

Anyway back to the card, I printed out Grafitti on white card twice, cut one out for a mask and applied spray repositionable glue, when it was dry I dabbed it on my arm a few times so it wasn't so sticky then stuck it over the image. Then I used a Creative Expressions "That special touch of..." mask of a scene with clouds, a sun and roof tops - perfect to go with a new rainbow. I taped it down and used my spritzer and three colours of blue Promarkers to spray the sky, then two colours of yellow for the sun, and a darker blue for the house windows.

Without removing the first stencil I put a Prima raindrops stencil over the top and spritzed grey through it - you need some rain and sun to make a rainbow after all.

Then I removed the stencils and masks to reveal the image (thankfully intact) and coloured it with Promarkers. I didn't colour it first in case the stencilling went wrong, I would rather throw it away without having done all that colouring (or rescue it maybe but that wasn't necessary). I cut it out and matted it onto dark blue leather effect card, added one of the sentiments that comes with the image and a piece of ribbon, sprinkled with glitter to mop up any stray DST!

Paper Pretties is one of our three sponsors at Quirky Crafts this time (the other two are Limited Runs and Robyn's Fetish), and all you need to do is use a stencil or mask or feature a mask or masked character on your project, or cheat like Lyn!

I have entered the following challenges:

Tuesday Throwdown - anything goes

Simon Says Wednesday Challenges - anything goes

Creative Fingers - Anything goes #41 (Fri 4th July)

AllSorts - Summer Girls (paint a rainbow) (Sat 5th July)

Pile it on - outdoor fun (Sun 6th)

That Craft Place - anything goes (Sun 6th) with blog hop

Paper Pretties - follow your rainbow (Wed)

Coffee, Chocolate and Cards - Summer Days (Fri 11th July)

Ditzie Digi Designs - anything goes (Sun 13th July)

Fussy and Fancy - Summertime (closes 10th July winners 18th)

Graphits Markers - anything goes with an alcohol marker (Winners 18th July)

Crafting at the weekend - anything goes (Month of July)

Cards Galore - use a digi (Month of July)

So why was I late? We attended a fete for Canon's House in Devizes yesterday, I spent all week making Aunt Sally then getting stuff ready for my stall, and all day there yesterday. Canon's House is a short stay respite home for disabled children and is a wonderful place for them, and it really needs some funds to do parts of the garden up and buy equipment.

I think it was the 40th anniversary, I could be wrong, anyway the theme was the 70's and the scarecrow trail.

 These are a few quick cards I finished off, I had already done all the ribbons in the apertures and just needed to stamp them with the Doodlebug stamps I was using.

Shaun, Mum and Dad looking for jobs when we arrived.

Dad sweeping the front path, Mum supervising!

In the front room some of the scarecrows waiting to go to their places, I know this guy! 

 Princess Leia with Olive, the scarecrows were in pairs and people bought a form and went round trying to identify the characters to try and win a prize.

Batman with Fred and Wilma.

I have no idea who these two are, many people felt the same but one girl told me she was certain they were Torville and Dean, I was thinking Dolly Parton!

Darth Vader not wearing his helmet - just chillin'!

 The chainsaw carver who was at the fete, was here last year too and made this for the home from their own tree trunk, it is fantastic! (He will be there next year as well).

This is the back of it, it says Tree Pirate.

This was my stall set up, Mum supervising again!

I bought myself a wire card stand which arrived just in time, last year I borrowed some cardboard stands but I think they have gone from the shop now. I actually have my entire card stock here due to the committee not approving of any of it for the shop, although it has been selling in the shop until recently! I decided to have a special offer - buy 5 for the price of 4. As it happens I sold the grand total of 4 cards which was a big improvement on the 1 card I sold her last year! If I had had a 60th birthday card and silver wedding anniversary card I would have sold 6! But never mind - it was an enjoyable day and lots of people came to look and talk and loads of them liked my cards.

This was the surplus craft supplies side of the stall, I had a buy 3 for the price of two offer here but only sold a couple of things, and you can see Mum shopping - yes she bought £5 worth and got her freebies. I didn't really expect to sell anything much - I didn't last year and it isn't really the right place but it got me to sort it all out.

Aunt Sally joined Worzel Gummidge on the swings!

 These guys were behind us, Charlie Brown and Snoopy I presume.

 70's costumes were on display, this bric a brac stall had some real bargains - I bought a book, and a pineapple peeler, then a bag full of choo choo trains for Kenny, and a couple of books for Kenny too!

 Sonny and Cher snuggling on the tree seat in the front garden.Erny and ???? maybe, Sesame Street I think!

 Scooby Doo and Shaggy, bit spineless but then they were! They are sitting on the wheelchair swing.

 There was candy floss and sweets as well as a stall selling that awful slush stuff, and hot dogs and burgers, no hog roast this year. In the background you can see the fairground organ. Later on the Major Wrecks performed and there was a marshal arts group performing and marketing their classes.

 Winnie the Pooh and Piglet in front of the cream tea stand.

 Here is the Chainsaw Carver with some of his gorgeous creations, hard to believe that something so intricate can be created with a chainsaw!

 I'm Popeye the Sailor Man..... (with Olive Oyl).

 One of the chainsaw carvings, I love this!

 Do you think they are Torville and Dean???

Batman and Robin, Robin seems to be a bit bigger than Batman!

 Another 70's diva! This was the silent auction, there were some great things on offer including the hairy rug and child's desk set. We bid and won on two theatre tickets and something else. We bid and lost on a lot of other things!

 More disco divas, this time doing the raffle draw, amazing prizes here such as a trampoline, a Kindle Fire, and Chris won a Charles Wothington Big Hair thing, sort of hairdryer - well it could be a Christmas pressie for someone who needs one!

 Disco Diva Tina collects her rug from the auction.

I missed some of the scarecrows in the sensory garden, Miss Piggy was still here but Kermie had left at this point.
Look at the view behind!

 Are these those two cleaning ladies, Aggie and someone?? I think one of them looks just like Alan Carr!

 Miss Piggy making her way back to the house.




















This was a very friendly dog who was with the steam organ people.

Quirky masks and stencils - how do you wrap a hug?

It is Quirky challenge time again, and Gemma set the challenge although she hasn't recovered enough to join in yet. The challenge is stencils or masks, use stencils or masks or feature masks - a masked character or a mask.

I used Emily with Huggle from Limited Runs on my card. This was my third attempt, the first one I tried with spray through the stencil and masking the image with masking fluid - I am too heavy handed with sprays it seems (or was I spraying too close?), and the whole thing was saturated, then the masking fluid when peeled off took the image off too!

Second attempt - I didn't clean the die off and it messed up the panel.

So this is what I did, printed the image then die cut it and embossed it for a deep edge. I taped the die cut and die to my glass cutting board, and then cut out a mask (from attempt 2) applied repositionable glue to the back and when dry I stuck it over the image. Then I used a Memory Box stencil and my new little hand held "air brush" with a couple of different colours of Promarkers. Finally I removed the mask and coloured the image with Promarkers. Then I removed the die which also acted as a stencil to keep the edges white. 

I cut a card blank in teal, rounded the corners, then added a purple layer, some pink LOTV paper and some orange polka dot ribbon. Then I added the die cut, a bow and some tiny buttons.

I stamped the greeting with a Penny Black stamp using Marvy Wet Looks pens and clear embossing powder.

So how do you wrap a hug?

I didn't manage to make a second example today, due to a wedding, but I should have one for you later.

Anyway we have three great sponsors (Limited Runs, Paper Pretties and Robyn's Fetish) for this challenge at Quirky Crafts so hop on over to see the exampled and join in!

This card is cosying into the following challenges:

Crafty Ribbon - lets go spotty with ribbon (Thurs)

Art by Miran - Anything goes 8 (Jul 4th)

Creative Fingers - anything goes (Fri 4th)

Pile it on - Kawaii Cute (Sat)

Stamping for the weekend - anything goes (last ever challenge 5th July)

Crafting at the Weekend - anything goes (month of June)

Ditzie Digi Designs - anything goes 6 (Sun 29th June)

Bunny Zoe's - Layers (July 14th)

Die cut Diva's - colour challenge (June)