Journal Time and Random Thoughts

Tidied the craft room yesterday, always a bad move, because when everything is neat and tidy I don't know what to do or where to start. But I decided to mess it all up again with Claudine's paints and do a page for my journal. I have been following Kate Crane's 3 part Tutorial in Craft Stamper and have also just taken delivery of a book called 'Journal Spilling' It's an interesting challenge, to try and realise and remember that no one has to see, let alone like or approve of what you are doing. With this is mind I gave myself a set of 'rules', Georgina obviously took what I was trying to do on board, because she was doodling (or as they call these days, doing 'Random Stuff' and she came up with the words above. Shame she wasn't a few mins earlier as I would have added her words to my 'rules' - but hey she got her own page!

So here are my Rules and I will try to follow them. The facing page is the back of the beeswax experiment, which was a piece of a jigsaw. - click on the picture if you would like to read the rules

Oh .... and you know what I was saying about cards, and not making them. Well I had to make an exception for Mr Bessie on Valentines Day didn't I - but ssshhh don't tell him cos its a complete secret and neither he or Mrs Bessie have a clue it was from me........ you can tell my DH though, cos I gave him exactly what he gave me - zilch, its a mutual agreement. I love him everyday!

ROMANTIC UPDATE!!

I take it all back about my DH and Valentines day...

I have just been brought tea and toast

This and Tat and a bit of the Other

Just a little something for ... well I guess some of you may recognise them (and the photo - I still think it is a lovely picture) It started out as one of those brown card blanks.. sure they have a proper name but I can't think what it is.
My favourite paints of the moment - Claudine Hellmuth Acrylics and after seeing a demo at Ally pally by Lin of LBcrafts, stamping into Viva Ferro paints, some stamping into Viva Ferro paints!
 Haven't had my shrink plastic or Friendly plastic out for a while, so added a bit of that, Some Tim ideology hardware (i must love these Guy's cos I don't use such precious stuff very often, I just like to look at it and save it for another day - I mean what would happen if the world ran out of Tim's sprockets and spinners??)

I was also very good and mounted all my new stamps on EZMount, so I had a play with some new stamps from Paperartsy. (arrggghhhh Just seen they have brought out yet more which I don't think were at AP - Lovely lovely but I must NOT spend anymore!!)

Added some gilding flakes I got from another favourite stall at AP Crafty Notions and a splodge or two of Tim's new Rock candy (thank you Jennie for remembering I was after it and bringing it to AP), oh forgot the spray of cosmic shimmers....
and there it is, another bit of tat for them - or in her words 'where on earth am i going to hang that?'

oh and just in case you thought you had got away with it... yep I have been making more fabric paper

Think I Am Getting Addicted!

Oooeerrr Missus this is fun! Complete serendipity! More linen on the line and I have very inky and painted covered hands ... I am in my element!

I used all my muslin and freezer paper yesterday (freezer paper is not an English thing - least I am not sure what we call it if it is - hence it is not readily available and horrors of horrors my usual supplier is out of stock, but I found a supply on Ebay at a good price if any of my fellow patriots want some!)

 Too impatient to wait for new supplies I have used some thin (ish) calico and some palette paper, hopefully that will work if not I am stuffed! I realised after yesterday that I was concentrating too much on what the base layer was, when in fact it's mostly going to be covered in colour, plus my first attempt was too much of a 'picture' so can't really be cut up. Its all a matter of experimenting and learning. Helli (author) suggests adding colour whilst the cloth is still wet, Belinda seems to prefer not to, so I thought I would add some colour to a couple of my sheets today and form my own opinion. They green one has acrylic paint added to the PVA and the blue one has been sprayed with Adirondack Inks - I'll report back!

Last night I had a play with the sheets I made yesterday. This one has been painted with diluted Claudine Hellmuth paints - I bought these at Ally Pally, wow they still keep their vibrancy even after being mixed with water. I also highlighted the words with permanent pens and framed the woman with 3d fabric paints but didn't like that so added some micro beads, don't like them much either!

Here is number 2 - before painted and after painted. Boy I LOVE this one, makes my mouth water! I will have to say the picture does not do it justice in anyway whatsoever. Adirondack inks sprayed on and sponged off the excess           I wanted it to be a bit glossier and experimented by covering one half with a gloss medium - well that didn't work, in fact it looks duller, so I sprayed the whole thing with Cosmic Shimmers. That made the half which had not been 'glossed' very vibrant and did improve the glossed area slightly.

and finally number 3, which was very purple/pink. It's not now!

In one of my insomniac moments last night I thought I would use green and blue on the ones I made today - colours I rarely use, but I am trying to get out of a colour trap - and then I realised that I never use Yellow.  So this is my Yellow one - oh no it's not  I hear your cry. in my defence it started off yellow and does look more yellow in real life, but I concede a bit of orange/red/copper/gold has crept in!! This is using acrylic paints and stamped with stazon with a bit of copper/gold/orange utee sprinkled on (doubt you can see that) I think its looking good.

Fingers drumming now whilst I wait hopefully for the other pieces to dry - not much chance of that on a dull autumnal day here in the UK..... will the palette paper work or not??


Stitching next - anyone got a machine I can borrow??