Bamboo Dominoes for friends

One side of the book mark - varnished and edged with gold - with a bit of highlighting

Another bookmark for another friend - these have all been received, so I can blog them now.



The reverse side - a cute little vintage image, varnished several times, edged with gold.



Finished off with beads to match the colour of the little girl's Rose on her coat, and shells, I superglued on to the cord to weight the thong. The 'loose' beads slide down to the seashells.



The back of a little bag charm/keyring. Painted with Lumiere paints. Stamped and varnished

It a pretty pearlised charm, with white pearly beads and the pink one matches exactly. Not very good photos.




Front




This is a lovely little image of Venice - Hmmm nice memories of Venice - my husband proposed to me at the stroke of midnight one New Year many years ago.


Painted with metallic Lumiere paint. Varnished and edged with Krylon Gold pen.

Its a bookmark.

Lulu's blog candy alert

Lulu's had a birthday and is generously giving away some blog candy - you have to be in it to win it!

BIA Note Book - for Vallen

At last my friend in the USA has received her parcel of my little creations so I can post this on here - without fear of spoiling her surprise.


I took inspiration from a tag book which was featured in Craft Stamper this month, which was created by the very clever artist Jo Capper-Sandon. I am a relative beginner so do not aspire to emulate her - just to get inspiration from her.

I wanted to make a note book - so here's what I did.
This is the back cover.




This is the 'undressed' front of the assembled book.

I inked the card, and shaded it with Ecoline inks - then gradually added more shading to get the depth of colour I wanted. Brushed over some colour through sequin waste at the top. I didn't have the lovely stamps JSC used so had to improvise.





I stamped my interpretation of a 'grass' background in grey so that it was not too bold.

The little flowers were a stamp by Crafty Individuals - which had a block frame around it - so I stamped out the flowers on Japanese newspaper which had tiny calligraphy - then cut them out of the frames. The centres I painted with the same ink which I used at the top of the cover page - and added several layers of embossing powders. I then shaded the petals with the same colour used on the cover too.

The butterfly was improvised with another tiny stamp in a frame - so I cut out the butterfly, painted it the same yellow as above,inked on 'feelers' and embossed its body.

Not having the lovely velvet ribbons shown in the magazine page - I used what I had and found a toning little purple one .



Then I had to punch the holes of the covers and inner note book pages, add the wires - chunkier than I usually do as it is a fat book - and add a few things more.

The final touches were ribbons and threads in co-ordinating colours and a silver charm and a Japanese vintage silver bead above the key.

It took me a few days to make in stages - but I feel it is the very best one I have made - and my friend was very happy to receive it.

This Thursday Challenge - Whiskers.

It's great to see the This Thursday Challenge up and running again.

Here is my entry to this weeks theme of 'Whiskers'


It is slightly lighter than this photo shows - more like a crushed velvet deep wine colour. I wanted it to look very vintagey and old and it does n natural light.


I inked the background, stamped and embossed a page of prose.



I used my flash for this photo - so you can see the details better, but it is nowhere near this bright in daylight, but just a shade lighter than the darker photo above

I decided that the page looked a bit 'plain' so used a T.H. clock mask to add a bit more interest.

I painted a vintage image and tore it and adhered it to the background - then darkened it with re-inker black until I got it the shades I liked.

I feel a bit foolish now - as the other entrants I have looked at are cute animals with whiskers.

Never mind - I love this very whiskery Victorian man - he looks very serious - and needs his moustache to tickle his nose and make him smile - don't you think?

Alter a tin challenge

Over on Objet D'art the challenge was to alter a tin.



Having never tried this before it was quite a challenge.

I painted a little old cigar tin that someone gave me years ago - with white acrylic.
Once dried I painted over with 'Chill Blue' metallic paint quite thickly and heated it up until it bubbled.

Added a colour coordinating image, and painted over that with metallic chill to accentuate the face and distort the background. It then got a few coats of Shellac before adding the layers of different coloured fusible film and finally the sequins - which I must add are exactly the same colour of the blouse of the girl, and the copper centre one is another exact match of the copper fusible film in areas - but the flashlight had made them look bright. In fact it's made it all look brighter because of the shellac.

I also added the swirl embellishment which I painted antique gold - thank you to my friend Ginger for that.


Forgot to show you the back - so just taken another photo.

New Store Launch

Paper Jewels is a launching a new store selling her paper jewellery.

She is also giving some away to celebrate.

Pop over and have a look

How could I lose the ATCs for the Metal swap?

But I did - so have been frantically making some more. I bet I find them once I have posted the new ones off. Grrr



I made the grungy paper background - in daylight it is a deep red. Stamped on the car and the lettering and embossed the latter and the border.