And more artiness!

Well who would've thought it?!

I discovered the amazing Tam a while ago on youtube and loved watching her videos. Then I found out that she had run a World of Whimsy course that I had somehow missed (not sure how as I follow her blog and all that?!?! lol) BUT luckily she decided to sell the DVDs of the course to those who couldn't make it the first time round. And here is the result!!! I made this for Natasha's new bedroom (not yet in existence!) which is going to be orange and white.

Oh, please excuse the bad photo. I did this on a box canvas, which doesn't really fit in my scanner, so I had to photograph it, which hasn't really picked up the colours properly. I've tried to adjust a bit in photoshop but I'm not exactly a pro at that either lol.



I have to confess to having two attempts at the background. The first attempt just turned into a muddy mess, so I gessoed over it and started again ... second time round was much better, but still a little touch of 'muddying' in some areas. I did this with Reeves water-soluble pastels (and some acrylics and a spot of stickles glitter glue), which worked ok, but now I realllllllyyyy want some Caran D'ache water soluble wax crayons!! I neeeeeed them, but the hubs hasn't picked up on the hints yet! I might need to become a bit more obvious lol ... Also the word 'yourself' is disappearing a little, so I need to fix that I think.

Dave says he never imagined I could do something like this, Natasha loves it and now Freddie wants one for his room too ... how on earth do I draw a boy though?!

A first!

If there is one thing I have always wished, since I was a little girl, it is that I could draw and paint and otherwise be arty, but it was not to be. In secondary school, I wasn't even allowed to try out for Art class! Finding scrapbooking opened my eyes to the fact that you could be arty in other ways, without the need to be able to draw like a master. And through scrapbooking I came to realise there were lots of other ways to be arty too. My recent forays into art journalling have been eye-opening as well as inspriring. And led me to this, my first mixed-media collage canvas! Ok, it's no masterpiece. And Dave is certainly not that struck on it. But I had such fun doing it and learnt a lot during the process. I used mediums, gloss and matte, for the first time, and used two different image transfer techniques. So to anyone who has been thinking about doing this kind of thing, I say just go ahead and jump right in!

A couple of things to share

For the past week or so I've been looking at lots of art journal pages and tutorials and techniques via the wonderful world wide web, and have started my own art journal (again). I've been following the prompts on Soul Journaling which have been a great confidence booster and I'm thinking about doing an online workshop that d'blogala is going to teach. But I have had time to make a card and a layout too!

I made this card for the Rosie-Dee challenge which was to make a card with the colours pink and lime green. I also followed Kathy's latest sketch



And over on UKScrappers, Shimelle is running a year long Scrap Like You Mean It challenge. I managed to do the first week way back in January ... and now I've done week 25 too! This week the challenge was to scrap in blue and green:



Oh! Have you seen the film The Hangover? Funniest movie I have seen in a very long time!

Cupcakes!

As mentioned in today's earlier post (yes, that's two in one day!) there's a huge pile of blog candy up for grabs on the Bubbly Scrumptious blog if you take part in the monthly challenge - which this month is cupcakes! Now, I did make a couple of cards last week but to be honest, they were pretty naff, so I had another go. This time I followed this week's sketch on Mojo Monday ... and here is the result: (please excuse the terrible scan ... because I've used stampbord which is quite lumpy, the scanner is having a hissy fit! I will try and take a better photo tomorrow!)

Not much to report

When I saw the Twisted Sketches design team call last week I decided to try out - what did I have to lose? So I sent in this layout



which I thought was pretty good, but I heard at the weekend that I wasn't one of the lucky chosen few. There are some pretty fab layouts among the winning team though, so do check them out!

Over on Something Completely Different this week, the challenge is to make a tag with the theme of 'home'. I made this simple quick tag this morning, but I think it's kind of cute:



Oh, and one more thing for now! Caroline over on Bubbly Scrumptios is offering a huge amount of blog candy if you enter the challenge - it's running over two months, so head on over there for the details! I have already made a couple of cupcake cards but I'm not that happy with them, so I think I'll make something else for the challenge!

I haven't really made a lot the last few days ... think I wore myself out with my mum's birthday gifts (which were gratefully received :)) but I have been doing some art journalling which I've really enjoyed. I'll think about sharing some pages here - but some of them are quite personal and not of the sharing variety!

Right, off to watch a little tennis!

Exploding Octagonal Box!

Annette is a super-talented regular over on UKScrappers. She spent ages working out some amazing instructions to make this gorgeous exploding octagonal box and posted them on her blog. As soon as I saw it, I knew it would look gorgeous with this month's kit from Bubbly Funk,(ordered yesterday, delivered today! Superb service! Thank you Caroline!) and decided to have a go at making one for my mum's birthday ... and here's the result!

It can't be summer!

Generally, it seems, I'm not a summer crafter. This year, however, I seem to have done more in the last couple of weeks than ever before! Actually, it's probably more to do with no longer being exhausted by work - of course, that is it!

Anyway ...

So The Next Level is a fab challenge blog I've recently discovered. This time round the challenge was to make a card following the sketch on the blog, which includes a removable tag. I took inspiration from the very fab and funky Kaz and made a bookmark/taggy thing to go with the card which will be given to my mum on her birthday:



Over on Something Completely Different the lovely Gez set a theme of hearts for the tag challenge this week. I came over all Tim Holtzy and did this little number - more or less completely following one of his 12 tag technique tutorial thingies ... but I have a curly heart - I think possibly trying to dry crackle paint with a heat gun because you're too impatient is not the best thing to do!



And finally ... this week's theme on InchyByInch is owls! The only owl-related thing I have is this little stamp - I used him on my swap inchies a couple of months ago too ... but I think he's cute, so a slight variation was in order!



And that's it for now! Phew!