Stamp Addicts DT Cards - Christmas Again...

 Here I am again, Christmasing... never done this before this year, so it still feels odd. It's an odd day today, too, as it is 4 years since Pete died... it still hurts!! Anyway... back to Crimble - Pete loved it btw... This snowman is great. He has a cute face. I used the Sizzix snowflakes folder with sanded coredinations card, for the background.

 I love this cottage set. I used the dots background and clear ep, then smooched the shiny card through the blue inks on my mat... I also used one of the cloud/background stamps as snow (don't know what they will call it yet!!) I cut a circle round the sentiment then made a slit at the top so I could slide the paper ribbon through, made with an EK Success punch.

 This is all about the background... printed the large "twas the night before Christmas" stamp in embossing ink and clear ep, smooched through with the blue inks, then overprinted with the snowflake. I have actually used sparkly ep on this one!!! Dyed some seem binding here for the ribbon...

 I did not want them all to be blue, so deliberately tried to do different colours. This scheme is red/green and creamy. The paper is from a printed stack, so I stamped the tree straight on to it. The pears are painted with Viva Inca gold and the partridge is cut out and 3D in the branches.

 Ohhhh!!! I REALLY went to town on this background... I went all grungy and had great fun... I used a piece of grunge paper, painted with green acrylic paint and dried, then smeared some vasceline before painting with trad tan from Claudine Helmuth. The paint peeled off of course, to reveal some of the green from below. I smeared some gesso, then printed the "twas" stamp into the texture. Viva Inca gold and vintage photo helps to show the texture too... The trees were printed seperately, then decoupaged. The ribbon is seem binding, dyed with vintage photo.... ooo yummyness!!

This card was deliberately kept monochrome, using black archival and black soot distress ink... this little house is fab.. I masked the trees to make it seem as if the cottage is hidden in the forest...

I have had some more problems with mum again this week, so I have only just posted these to the girls at Stamp Addicts, for their show on Tuesday 9th August, so I hope they get there in time!!! I hope they like them too... I have tried to do some different techniques this time...

Thanks for looking and commenting
Love and light
Frankie
xx

WOYWW #113 - Metal Working

Hi everybody and welcome to desk hopper day, which comes round with greater and greater velocity each week - or perhaps I slept in too long and lost all those days since last Wednesday!!!...anyway, pop here if you don't know what I mean, to see the ineffable Julia...

Last week, I showed you a new toy - my blow torch... well this week's desk will show me using it!!! and voila !! the flowers wot I made!! tee hee...

 I made these beautiful copper roses for my TIO tag this week. You can see the whole project here now. The theme is Nature's Bounty, and I made these as part of that ...

 I used the TH tattered florals die, the flower here at the bottom in particular. I cut three for each rose. For the tag, they were all the same colour.

 I did not have enough of the paler one for the extras I made, so I used a darker one I bought from LB Crafts, earlir this year...

 I got this great idea from my idol Laura Denison of Following the Paper Trail... she is a wonderful papercrafter and scrapper, with fabulous ideas... she has made many You Tube and UStream videos, and all are inspirational and well worth a visit...

 I cut the indentations a bit deeper with my Tonic scissors to allow more movement ...

 Then I rolled down each petal round a paint brush end, then folded each along its length... this would later need some manipulation!!

 All three pieces are the same... you don't cut out sections when making the roses from metal, because they are able to be manipulated easily...

 So, take one flower and turn up 3 alternate petals and shape them round and together, to form the very centre of the rose. Then turn up the remainder...

 This is the centre of the rose, or it could be a bud if you need one...

 Repeat the process with the second piece, and shape it around the centre bud...

 The three flowers together will make the full rose as you see above... I think they are really beautiful just like that, but Laura has something else up her sleeve...

 Here I have taken the rose apart and placed the pieces on my gridle...

 And here comes the really fun bit - I used my new blow torch to alter the colour of my petals... woo, it was fabulous. I have never used one before, and the rainbow effect was brilliant...

So there it is, beautifully coloured and metallc, just waiting to be displayed on a project... If you want to see Laura's demo, here is her You Tube video... well worth watching... She makes the point that you can use alcohol inks if you don't have a blow torch, but what a lot of fun I would have missed if I had done that!!!!

Thanks for looking and commenting... I really appreciate all your lovely thoughts

Love and light

Frankie

xx

TIO and Simon Says Stamp and Show a Tag

Another week has flown round... and it's time for another entry to Simon Says Stamp and Show, and TIO... the theme are a tag an nature's bounty respectively. So the tag bit was easy peasy, and I decided to go with fruits, seeds, flowers, fungi, pearls, crystals and copper... hence these lovely flowers - more of them later...

This central portion is an Artimeo stamp and I left it uncoloured, except for a wash of old paper distress ink and the coloured flowers down the side...

This is the whole thing, front on, showing all the bounty, including those flowers!!

and here they are... if you would like to see exactly how I created them, please pop to the WOYWW post above this one... I used a blow torch and had great fun making them. The idea came from my heroine Laura Denison of Following the Paper Trail.  They are created from sheet copper, and they look even better in real life...

I used an Elusive Images sheet of fungi, honesty and conkers etc to layer up my tag... this ...mushroom in the corner is a real fave of mine

I added some dyed seam tape as a bow, and hung crystals and pearls from it... all nature's bounty too. This tag is a larger one than the size 8, to give enough room for all the layering I wanted to do.

I really enjoyed all aspects of this tag and hope you enjoyed looking at it...

Love and light

Frankie

xx

Stampman DT ATC - Show Some Sewing

 This is my DT piece for the Stampman challenge this fortnight... I was saying the other day how much I LOVE the TH sewing room set, so I had to use it again for this challenge. But it had to be different from last time, so I decided to shrink it!!

 The idea is to show some sewing... well actually I can and do sew, but not for pleasure!!! After Pete died and I could not carry my old machine around, and finished up making a nasty mark in my conservatory table when I dropped it!!!! I decided to buy myself a new, light machine with self threading - cos my eyes are not what they were either!!

 I knew, then, that I was going to do faux stitching, and there is only one set in my repertoire which fits that bill, and its the Creative Expressions one... there are zig zags and straights, so I did a bit of both...

 So here they are, printed on the ATC in vintage photo distress inks... These buttons come out SO well when shrunk!!! They look like real  shirt buttons. I printed all the elements and put clear ep on top for some texture... it worked well, once the pieces were shrunk...

So there we have it, as they say - that framies stamp looks as if it's seperately placed but it's not, it's just the way I printed and coloured in... and I liked that effect too. I coloured the lace with vintage photo and the ribbon with distress ink, to finish... hardly complicated, but I really enjoyed the constraint of working so small for a change!! Not made an ATC for ages...

Well, thankd sor looking and commenting - much appreciated!!
Love and light
Frankie
xx

PS... my new Vagabond has arrived today, let's hope he is not such a whimp as his brothers!!!

Sunday Stamper - Back to Black - Tribute

This black tag is made for Hels' Sunday Stampers  challenge, as a tribute to Ms Winehouse... quite honestly, if she -Amy that is, not Hels... oh I don't know!!!... had walked into my crafty room before Saturday, I swear I would not have known who she was. I had heard of her antics, but not really listened to her music.... oh, so young, bless!!!... But I did look, and I did listen and was inspired to do this one...

 I made some black UTEE in my melt pot and poured it into a mould... All the stamps are TH - well they often are eh??

 It's a very dimensional piece, and layered as I love to do, but it was a challenge to keep it monochrome. I used archival back and black soot, with clear ep - another shock choice!!!

 The face, from a moon set, came out really well, from the mould. I rubbed it with some silver Viva Inca Gold - sounds like a contradiction in terms!!! and it made the features pop even more... then surrounded it with a circle of silver mirri and a matte black tattered floral flower piece...

 As, I said, it is very layered and dimensional, and rubbed round with the silver. I used some sequin waste to rub my black soot through, for more interest in the background...

 The letters are TH grunge board letters, mounted on his new double thick grunge pieces, and painted black... after drying and sanding, I smooched silver on them too... I used the silver thickly through the sequin waste in the corner ... I really liked the effect...

The saying from TH seemed to jump off the sheet for me... sadly it IS too late for Amy, but it made ME think, especially in light of the problems of my mother's increasing dementia!! However, on a lighter note, she has been generally more lucid this week - my mother, you understand!!! and I have not had any real bad phone calls, fingers crossed!!!

So I hope that Amy is now at peace, Hels likes my tag and my mother continues to be a bit better...
Thanks for looking and commenting, I really do appreciate it
Love and light
Frankie
xx

I shall also put this into the
Simon Says Stamp and Show - anything goes challenge, even though I have already entered a piece of jewellery - what the hell!!! It's only art!!!!
Creative Stamp Friends - monochrome

WOYWW #111 - Jewellery Making and V V2 Demise

Well, I am not a happy bunny just now as my No. 2 Victor Vagabond has gone and wented!!! Died, deceased, defunct, is no more, has gone and stopped working!!!! Can you believe it?? I made a lovely rosette one day and the next but one, he would not do ANYTHING!!!! Nothing, nada, zilch !!!

I was making some jewellery this week and my desk looked like this...

 These are the makings of my first pendant. I put a metal butterfly into the frame and poured in UTEE.. You can see the finished piece here....

 For the second piece, I used some other Vintaj bits, a round blank and a large dragonfly.... This is how I found out my Victor had stopped working... I wanted to put the round blank through the machine in a folder, but the engine just went "phutt" and that was that!!! It didn't even try to put it through. So out came the trusty Cuttlebug!!! Thank goodness I kept it, because I would be stuck everytime the Vagabond decides to stop!!!

This is my trinket box - well one of them... I started with this one, and have gone on to have many others, but none bigger than this one... I am making jewellery this week to try to forget how upsetting my mum's behaviour is just now... she is getting worse, progressively, but today she was everso lucid, so that was nice for a change!!!

 So here is that piece, where I popped the two together on the same  ring. I made a hole in his wing with my newest TH toy - a hole maker, which you will see shortly... the folder is a small, flowery border one, then I rubbed and polished to show up the pattern...

I said yesterday, when I showed this piece, that I would make some earrings and wrap the hook, so I did that today and here is what they look like now...

The earrings have these ickle pearly beads inside the flowers, so I used the same ones to add to the copper wire wrapping the hook, and the square beads are the same as those on the necklace.

So here is my desk on Tuesday evening, with that necklace and earrings ready to photograph - opps, already done that one!!! - and what can you spy here then??? My ickle TH hole maker thingy, AND a blow torch!!!! Yup, I am getting ready to try some copper working and want to alter the colour when it's done... so that might be what I show you next week... and why would I do that?? Because that's what we do, who subscribe to Mistress Julia's wonderful world!!! It's such fun, you should look if you don't already!!!

Well thanks for looking, and for leaving your lovely comments, which always make me SO happy...
Love and light
Frankie
xx

TIO #89 - Pressing Matters

My tag for TIO this week, is very simple, for a change... Helen asked us to emboss this time, so I decided to do dry instead of my usual stamping or triple!!! I did minimal stamping, actually, just some circles to enhance the embossing... then I just found circular metalic stuff to echo those circles...

So this is how I am feeling these past few weeks, as if going in circles - mum is getting worse and rings me constantly, crying and shouting... she can't help it, but it's very distressing... need to begin to make some hard decisions next week. My, but crafting helps to take you out of yourself, eh??
Thanks for looking and leaving your comments
Love and light
Frankie
xx

Making Jewellery Again

I have been making some different bits and pieces this week... and trying not to get upset by my mum's behaviour... she can't help it, but it's still very distressing... so I am making jewellery so I don't have to think about it!!! The make at Simon Says Stamp and Show is anything goes, so I shall enter this piece into their challenge...

 This is a close up of one side of the central piece. I have two bits of chain here, and the flower is attached to the smaller chain. I wrapped the roses, and hung them from the other piece of chain...

 This is the whole necklace, with the large pendant, which is an encased butterfly!!! - Well, I poured UTEE on to it, inside it's case, after I lined it with a piece of Sir T!m paper...

 And of course it had to have a tag!!! - top right (your right that is...) The butterfly is quite sparkly with his UTEE jacket on!!!

 This bead cap is fabulous, and opens enough to wrap around this lovely faceted bead... I ordered some more today!!!

 I used some Sir T!m leaves to wrap this bead... same colour as the large round one we saw earlier...

 The whole thing again, and  pair of earrings above, made from the same sort of glass beads as in the necklace...

 I used some of the wrapped roses as drops with the beads for the matching earrings... I really enjoyed designing this set, and look forward to wearing it... So, this will be my piece for SSSS this week. No for number 2...

 This pendant is made from a Vintaj round blank, popped through a texture folder and my Cuttlebug - thank goodness for him cos my Victor Vagabond Mk 11 has gone caput !!! So that's two since Crimble, or whenever they came out!!! I don't think I shall be replacing him, cos it's SO disappointing when you use him one day and he is dead the next!!!! boo hoo, poo!!!

I joined several layers of Sir T!m flowers and foliage to make this drop...

 Same here at the back, but a Vintaj rose in front... I made this necklace to fasten at the front, with a large hook. I am thinking of wrapping it, or altering it in some way...

 This large metal bead has great texture...

So this is the whole piece... it jangles really pleasingly, and I got to use my very newest tool to make some holes - the punch from Sir T!m.... it's great and does lovely ickle 1/16" holes just right for jewellery.. I have a couple more of the creamy cube beads to make a pair if earrings... that will be for tomorrow... off to post this post on the SSSS site before I change my mind!!!
Thanks for looking
Love and Light
Frankie
xx