My Stampman DT Piece #20 and Grungy Monday #2

This piece is my design team entry at the Stampman challenge this fortnight... there are some wonderful pieces there, so why not have a look and join in??!! Neil is leading and has just joined our team and we are excited, cos he is so talented, so have a spy at his blog too... it's well worth it ... the link is there with his inspiration piece.

I am also entering this into the Grungy Monday challenge over at Studio L3 with the lovely Linda Ledbetter. For this, she asked us to base our piece on a video from Ranger for our edification!! Sir T!m showed us a different resist technique which I have tried here. I don't have any foamy stuff to make stamps yet, so I used a bought foam flourish stamp (can't remember where from) then swirled some vintage photo, spiced marmalade and such all over when the medium was dry... it showed up really well. So that's the background.

At the Stampman, the theme is embossing, so I decided to do dry and triple, just to be greedy. I whopped the musical folder through the bug - alas and alack my wonderful Vagabond is deceased... it is no more... it is an ex- machine!!! So it had to go back and there is no more stock yet... Opps, where was I???Oh yes, then I took a couple of alcohol inks plus gold, and dabbed like mad to fill in the indentations, followed by a generous swipe of archival black, to highlight (or should that be lowlight???!) the notes.

The triple embossing was done using clear UTEE, followed by several moonglow and distress eps, strategically placed to enhance the Aspect of Design botanical stamp. It's all finished off with a couple of pima flowers and a TH button, and a bookplate, in the coppery metal. The frame of the piece is made up of a few of the strips from the lost and found stash.

So there you have it... another much bigger piece, with a new-to-me technique, being the use of the medium to resist and a well loved one, which started me off in crafting in earnest, the triple embossing... Thanks for looking and please do leave a comment if you have time
Love and light
Frankie
xx

Simon Says Stamp and Show - and GCSP07"BlueMoon"

 And now for something completely different , to coin a phrase!!! I wanted to stamp, of course, but for texture, not image, so I decided to have a go with my new toy - a griddle - and some friendly plastic. A book with it's covers sprang to mind, and this is what I came up with... Opps.just realised I forgot to photogeaph the back, so will add that later... I used a sheet of 12"x12" paper from the lost and found stash, the floral one, to fold into a pocket book... I have also made some mini tags to go inside each pocket. They are not finished yet, but I will decorate and embellish them soon.

So the cover is friendly plastic, stamped with a Judikins floral cube from Stamp Addicts. I added the moon image from a mold set, and cloud clay which is a fabulous medium to play with and it air dries... I painted it with gold and blue to match the FP. Even the beads are made from FP... you just heat up the scraps, mold it in your fingers with the ribbon wrapped inside, then shape...The word "Imagine" is in the same set. A key, one of my mini watches and a pair of Sir T!m's wings finish off this fun project... Below is the inside...

Here is the inside as promised. with the folded book and the distress inked tags.  I shall enjoy stamping and embellishing them later this week... Woo, the brightness at the back of the photo is that funny stuff called sunshine!!! tee hee... Thanks for looking and please do comment, as I love finding out what you think. I just wanted something out of the ordinary this time... Below is the back of this mini book...

I also want to submit it for the Blue Moon challenge at Gingersnap Creations ... the idea is that there are not many months with 5 Wednesdays, hence once in a blue moon... so I looked at the back challenges and chose GC57 Wings... my "Blue Moon" (tee hee!!) has TH wings so I guess it should qualify!!?? Hope so!!!
Love and light
Frankie
xx

WOYWW #96 - Beads

Last week, I showed you the beginnings of the necklace for my daughter... I mixed all the colours together and made a swirly cane, then cut it into half inch pieces.

Here are some of the beads, swirled with all the colours from the other canes I made, for the flower. it's centre and petals...

These are the canes I mean... the green is the centre, the red/white is the petals - I  had 6 of those - and then the flower cane rolled thinner.

These beads were made in the melt pot... 3 looking like large pearls, and three Leandra beads from clear UTEE with additions of colour and wire...

One of my melt pots is just here to the left and you can see some rolled out clay.as well as some of the lighter, less black beads.

I am cutting slivers of the flower cane to stick on to some of my beads, and three of them have all the canes mixed in...When the bead is rolled, the slivers smooth and melt i to the rest of the clay...

These beads are now being topped and tailed with the beads caps, having been cooked in my halogen oven... this is fab as it does it really quickly and without any fuss!!

They needed a coat of finishing gel, so I painted them with two coats of a gloss from Liz Welch - the bottle is in the photo below... they are hanging to dry, tucked into some polystyrene foam, balanced precariously on top of my pasta machine!!!

Basically finished here, just waiting to be joined with the chain she asked for...

And here they are, joined and finished with the six UTEE beads..and a pair of earrings to match, made from the flower cane and some seed beads. I am really pleased with it and she loves it, so that's ok then...

The other thing on my desk was a steampunk project for a challenge at The Three Muses.. If you would like to see the details on this one, please feel free to have a look here at the bits and pieces of what I did, close up and personal!!

I really enjoyed both projects and am looking forward to starting some more challenge pieces, when I have finished having such a busy week... for those who are wondering what I am doing showing stuff on my desk, it is all the fault of Julia at Stamping Ground. Why not pop along and see all those desks on show, it is really interesting...

Thanks for looking, and for leaving a comment, I am always so pleased to read what you have to say

Love and light

Frankie

xx

A Great Day Out!!

Hi... something a bit different today. After two very busy days of preparation and a late night cleaning tack, we have had a wonderful day at the local horse show and won two firsts from 2 classes entered!!! lovely red rosettes made it all worthwhile...Here, Matthew, my younger grandson (age 5) was entered into best turned out rider and tack, and he won the class... He was SO chuffed and so were we. This is a photo of the official photo...

Here is my lovely Freddie, who trains the pony and the boys... he was also very chuffed to get first in a very large class with 9 entrants... this was Matthew's third show and Beau's second... the first having been 6 weeks after we had him last year... He is just SO pretty, and so sweet natured.... - that is the pony btw, NOT Freddie!!!! tee hee... Beau is just not keen yet to have a rider without a handler!!!! Oh we live in hope!! So proud all round then...

Hope you have all had a great weekend... off to have a cuppa and a well deserved rest before I try to do some dinner... might be a take away!!!! tee hee!!!...
 
Thanks for looking
Love and light
Frankie
xx