Wanderlust 2023 - weeks thirty-three to forty - Pigments and Powders

 It has been a rather messy seven/eight weeks, exploring pigments and powders.  For me, these included embossing powder (where you use a sticky ink to adhere the powder, heat it and it leaves a raised glossy surface.  It comes in a multitude of types now, metallic, clear, coloured, with glitter, with large or small particles.)  There is also embossing glaze which is a translucent powder, leaving just a hint of colour.  Pigments and powders also included Infusions (dyes with walnut ink added).  I have Brushos (watersoluble pigments which came as a powder) and Pixie Powders (Dye based powders with added mica for a lovely pearly finish).  Most of these will stain if you don't wear gloves, hence the messiness. They are fun to use though!

The first week was thinking of somewhere special to you (I chose my garden) and then enhancing the photos with gold embossing powder, having created a background using the powders.

I enjoyed all the making we had to do for this page - all about lichens.  We added powders to material and to threads and created background papers as well.  I added some embossing powder in white.

This was a bit of a tribute to my parents - Dad died in 2013 and we lost Mum earlier this year. The photo of Mum and Dad is from 1960, when they were guests at a wedding.  I wore the dress she is wearing (which she made) in the photo at her celebration of life service. Her favourite colours were turquoise blue and orange, so that's what I used.  We were using the powders to colour the texture paste.  

Week thirty-six was really enjoyable to make, using embossing powders and glazes and making bold marks with the sticky ink. On the right, the purple and blue glazes allow you to see the images underneath.

This wasn't one of my favourite pages. The teacher used lots of ephemera and her piece was created on a piece of wood. I used die cut shapes to add texture on my page.

I struggled with this page. The teacher showed us lots of techniques, which I enjoyed, but left the page design to us and I took ages to decide what to do.  

This page was by a teacher called Rachel Greig, a photographer and owner of a stamp company in Australia called Darkroom Door (really good quality rubber stamps). She was going to be leading this lesson, but so sadly, she died earlier in the summer, due to cancer.  After consulting with her family, there were two lessons put in place, from 2016 and this one from 2020, where we were stamping and I used powders which were made into paints to stamp with.  Underneath the tags is some journaling about doing something you enjoy every day and making the most of your time.  Two lessons I have certainly taken to heart.  

The Artful Musings lesson was about expressive writing.  The teacher discussed journaling (where you write about something that happened) and then expressive writing (where you write about how you were feeling).  I wrote about being resilient.

The final seven/eight weeks of the course are on Monoprinting and Carving, which I am hoping will be completely up my street!

Index-Card-A-Day (ICAD) 2023 - weeks 1 and 2

Here we are with ICAD 2023.  Above are (clockwise from top left) Sapling; Polka dots or Graphic dots; Espresso; Map.  

Here are Stripes or Zebra stripes; Wildflowers and Treble Clef.  So far, I've used pens and watercolour, inks and embossing, collage and stamps.

Week two was: Butterfly; Fuchsia or Magenta; Glyph (any kind of purposeful mark, representation of a character or an incised mark).  I used texture paste for this and tried to get the look of an old piece of plaster.  Signpost is the last one on this photo.

Moonlight (music from the 'Moonlight Sonata'); Superstition ( I have been practising the lettering I have been doing in my talking sketchbook online class); Typewriter.  

I am being pretty literal with my interpretations so far, but we shall see as the weeks go on.  On to week three...

#Printinktober 2022 - week four

The final week of #Printinktober and what an enjoyable challenge it was.  Chris gave me the purple and orange colour scheme for 'Big' above.  It is one of the biggest background stamps I have from Stamps By Me, so worked well for this. 

'Small' was lots of tiny images from Woodware, by Jane Gill, linked together, which reminds me of the TV game show 'Blockbusters'.  People in the UK of a certain age will remember this!

'Pretty' was all these pastels and a stamp set from Altenew called Nature Snippets.

Another Visible Image set for 'Orange' using Erica's Maple.

'Dots' was illustrated by this big stamp from Altenew.  

'Dark' was a bit tricky but as it means absence of light, I went for a clear embossed circle image which would show up when you tipped the page.  The stamp was one from Visible Image again.

'Botanical' was from a couple of sets from Creative Expressions by Sam Poole.  I have used these quite a bit and they have a lovely vintage feel.

'Wood' meant I could dig out my hand carved wooden stamps from Blockwallah.  This one is Birch Tree.  I have collected quite a few of these but they don't get used very often, which is a shame.

'On Black' gave me the chance to use a newish stamp from Indigoblu - William Morris Willow, which was heat embossed with white.

Finally, 'Favourite'. I couldn't really choose a favourite, as I like so many stamps!  However, Tim Holtz's Snarky Cats are one of my favourites.  They have been used quite a bit for my cat loving friends' cards.  I do have one more space to fill so am having a think about what to feature and then these will be bound into a book with a stamped cover, of course!

I will post an update once the book is finished and bound.

Index-Card-A-Day (ICAD) challenge 2021 - Week 6

We're nearing the end of the challenge this year - it finishes at the end of July.  Above clockwise from top left is: Treehouse (magazine collage) ; Oasis (watercolour and ink drawing, inspired by the illustrations in 'The Land of Green Ginger' by Noel Langley - EC, you share my love of this book, I think); Postcard (using up some of my paper stash).  

Clockwise from top left: Nautical (inks and stamps); Train or Train set (inks and stamps); Silver (acrylic paint, stamps and embossing powder; Message in A Bottle (watercolour and stamp).  A bit of a neutrally coloured set this week - apart from Nautical.

On to the last two weeks!

Good advice and Art Journal 2 (part one)

 Before I start, just to say that I hope all are well out in blogland and that we will get through this.  The advice on the mug above seems particularly appropriate at the moment - I think a lot of crafters will be doing just that. 
Huge thanks to all the workers who are continuing to keep the country going too, in very difficult circumstances. 
I won't dwell on the situation but will post about my second art journal instead.  I made this journal out of recycled packaging and have used stamps, paint, paste, stencils, pens, glitter, embossing powder and anything else that took my fancy.  It took me a year to finish, doing a bit as and when I felt like it.  Here are some of my favourite pages, with more to come in the second instalment, which will follow shortly.

 The front cover is all about lines - scaffolding or buildings? 

This page was made after watching Creationsceecee on youtube, who made something similar but using watercolour.   My version is acrylic paint and stamps. This was a bit out of my comfort zone as usually I like busy pages!

 This page was inspired by Kate Crane who uses bright colours and mark making but then will break the backgrounds into strips or smaller shapes.

 This page uses a dramatic Visible Image stamp as well as texture paste and gold embossing powder.  The eye was stamped onto tissue paper and then glued onto the page, so that the background can still be seen behind it.

 This is a Woodware stamp which I heat embossed in gold and then painted in.  The background has hexagon shapes of card on it (leftovers from another project) and lots of stamping.

Finally for now, a page which for a long time had only the background on it as I wasn't sure what to do next. I stamped patterns and added some of my collage sheets - the figure, the circles and the patterns in the top right. 
I so enjoyed creating these pages - they don't necessarily have any meaning and the process making them is as important (if not more so) than the finished product.  If I don't like a page,  it can always be painted over and that is very freeing.
I look forward to sharing some more pages with you shortly.

February Artists' Trading Card (ATC)

Here is my February ATC (Artists' Trading Card), the second in my monthly projects.   I am really enjoying the whole process of making these - gathering the ideas, deciding on colour schemes, choosing images, making the gemstone pieces and using some of my stash! 
The base of the card is recycled packaging cardboard,  which is gessoed to give a lovely surface to work on.  My art journal is also made using this card for the pages.  The card has a gel press printed base of purple, white, silver and grey paint, with stamped 'rain' on half of it.  Half of the card has stencilled raindrops with clear texture paste and added glitter and the other half has stamped puddles, and raindrops with clear embossing powder.  The hearts stand a little away from the surface and are made from the cardboard, with satin board which has been embossed with an industrial pattern.  The gemstones are clear quartz, fluorite, kunzite, rutile quartz, white moonstone and an amethyst charm at the bottom.

The back has stamped raindrops with glossy accents over them to add a watery shine, a stamped snowdrop and the February verse. 
Now to start thinking about March...

Cakes and cards

 In amongst preparing for the craft fair, birthdays of friends and colleagues have come and gone.  My colleague, Leanne, had a big birthday last year and I made her the cake above with birthday bunting.

 This year, it was the same 'Russion Roulette Revels cake', minus the bunting.  I have written about this cake before and it is a great recipe, keeps moist and has the most delicious chocolate fudge icing, but works equally well with chocolate buttercream.  The Revels are a chocolate coated sweet, with various fillings - honeycomb, toffee, orange, chocolate, raisins and coffee.  The last two are my least favourite and I usually get more than my fair share of them!  Leanne says she always looks forward to this cake.

 I have also been making cards, again with bunting (a bit of a theme is developing here, but it is very celebratory, isn't it?).  This was for a birthday in September.

 This was Leanne's card this year.  I used glossy accents on the bunting to make it shine and used a kit to create the card.

 This is for a colleague's 50th birthday this week and involved stamping, heat embossing, glitter and glitter paper.  It was very enjoyable to make too.

 I added a few stamps and die cut numbers to the inside too.

The great thing about using stamps is that the envelope can be decorated too.  I have a feeling that I may be making more cards in the future... in fact, my mum is 80 in less than a month, so that is a perfect reason to make another card.

Learning New Things

 I have been learning some new crafting techniques - this time, stamps, embossing powder and a heat gun.  I have been investigating the internet for 'how to' videos (of which there are many, as you'd imagine) and decided to have a go.  This technique wouldn't work with polymer clay due to the direct heat required, but as I already had lots of different stamps and some pigment ink pads, I thought, why not try?  I can use the technique for cards, tags, and decorating notebooks (all useful for blog swaps and birthdays!).  Above is an embossed stamp pattern (the embossing powder when heated forms a raised surface), painted with iridescent acrylic paint (Pebeo Studio Acrylic Iridescent).  The magic happens when the light hits the paint in a certain way and the metallic element shines out.

 Hmm, I may have to be a little more careful where the paint goes as I seem to have gone over the lines a bit!  The gold paint looks very shiny here.

 Here are some of the gorgeous paint colours.  The paint covers well and is nice and thick, but can be thinned with water as required.

 Even the water used to wash the brush gets some added sparkle.

 Here are a couple of hummingbird stamps, embossed and then painted with the acrylic paints.

 I really like the blues and greens, but then I would!  I am looking forward to more experimenting with black background paper and other stamps as I  really enjoy learning new skills.