DragonsWeb

Welcome to my blog. Please take a look around and enjoy yourself. I hope my work will give you pleasure and inspiration, but please be kind and don't use any of it as your own.

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Then pop over to DragonsDream Tag It On and DragonsDarkerSide

Friday 20 May 2011

Stampman Challenge DT - Recipe and Simon Says Stamp and Show - an Old Wive's Tale

This week, over at the Stampman Challenge blog, the theme is a recipe... there are some tasty alternatives to choose and I chose blue / torn,ripped / die cuts... yummy, it made me feel hungry to get into my room and cook up some inkiness!! - goodness who writes this girl's scripts!!!!?? Anyway, in the back of my mind was the makings of an idea for Simon Says Stamp and Show an old wive's tale, more of a proverb set really, but who's counting... tee hee. I fancied using the clock and the umbrella man, and the picture I wanted popped, fully grown, into my mind, when I read "blue" on the aforesaid recipe!!! Et Voila...

 Time and Tide Wait for No Man...

I started by taking a piece of thin white cardstock and smooshing it through a mixture of all my blue distress inks, plain perfect pearl and blue haze perfect pearl mists - just luurrve these for the sheer opulance and glimmery shimmer without changing the inkiness... then roughly painting with a mixture of pool and denim adirondack acrylic daubers, but with a brush, keeping the actual colours seperate on the craft sheet... this way, they mixed on the work, quite naturally... After drying with my trusty heat gun, I splodged on some Claudine Hellmuth gesso, with my finger... I find this so satisfying, like eating with your fingers seems to taste much nicer, the paint seems to glide like magic - oh my, she's off again!!! 

 Then I began on the backer, which is a goodly piece of cardboard, nice and chunky, as befits a recipe of this sort... Can't keep away from this fab paint / pva glue / paint sandwich crackle technique... It never fails to keep me amused and satisfied - little things eh??!!   This adorable ickle pocket watch charm was made to make time fly with the help of a pair of wings from Sir Tim's largest papillon ...

 The large clock was painted with a mixture of pool and denim, as before, with the addition of blue patina from the Eco range, so it is quite shiny and glossy... This picture also shows up the ripped card which comprises the "tide"... it tore VERY satisfyingly - is that a proper adverb?? - leaving a great white core showing for the waves...

 And here is umbrella man - tada!! Not sure if I have used him before?? He seems to get everywhere... I contemplated cutting off his umbrella, but that seemed really unkind, bless... He is stamped in vintage photo, using the papillon backing sheet, and embossed in clear ep - well that's a technique she rarely uses eh??!!!

 This is another of my wonderful, newly acquired steampunk clocks, with some chain linked to it, to suggest sand / pebbles on the beach, but it is also under the man's feet, chaining him to time - OMG, where does she get it from?? that's very esoteric, and not a little pretentious my girl!!! move on please...

The whole thing is full of texture, colour and movement... I made it in a very short time, for me... probably just short of 2 hours... that's because the whole thing was fully there in my head, whereas I am usually adding and changing, and making it up as I go along. What about you, how do you do your creations I wonder??

So there you have it. I am very pleased with the way it turned out and I think it fits both challenges very well - modest with it too, ain't she!!??  For those of you still here, a gold star my friends, and the news that my ickle bug won't actually go away, even after three days of the antibiotics... should have gone to the doc sooner I hear the fragrant Freddie cry!!! too true.. However, my head is a lot clearer and I have stopped shaking and being sick, and the other!! Just the cough, which has settled in to annoy me!!!

Off to try to sleep now,  trouble is I start coughing as soon as I try to lie down!!  Anyway... enough... hope to see lots of you here, having a look, and leaving your wonderfully encouraging comments, which I greatly appreciate. Please pop along to both challenges and have a go - prizes and prestige await you!!!
Love and light
Frankie
xx

Wednesday 18 May 2011

WOYWW #102 - More for TIO and Grungy Monday #7

 Yet another Wednesday rolls round and finds our little desks exposed to sight... thanks Julia for this continued opportunity to share ideas and thoughts with so many others... This week, I am still reeling in the throes of that ickle bug which started off last week, making me cough and sick etc...  Still, I have had some antibiotics today, and hope to improve from now on... The stuff on these pictures is for the tag I have made for TIO and Grungy Monday... Writing /Postage for TIO, and a Tim Holtz technique for GM...

This technique entails the use of distress inks - oh how horrible!!!! and unusual!!! - and blocking as Tim shows us here... I used a bright selection on my background, then layered some lovely stamps from the selection above. This is a favourite way of working for me... just stamping and layering... gudd stuff!!

 So this is what I made. A layered tag with some extra additions... a metal tag and an unusual wired bead...

 Some coloured TH rose trim and pen nibs add little touches

 and a postcard, finished in the same blocked colours... I love this stamp because it can look grungy or vintage, depending upon how you finish it...


So there it is... one tag, two challenges. I wish I had felt well enough to enjoy making it!!! But it will do and my teamies on TIO have made some fabulous art to tempt you, so why not drop in and have a look... you might be tempted to dream with us...

Thanks for looking and leaving your lovely comments - I really appreciate them all...
Love and light
Frankie
xx