Joanna Sheen August challenge

The challenge is to use masking. Well that had me stumped!! I did my research and thanks to a Tim Holtz tutorial on YouTube I got an idea. I have no purpose made masks so followed the lead from another Sheenie and used leaves as masks. As I was foraging through my stash of pressed botanics I realised I had done masking lots of times before but I just hadn't given the technique a name!
I chose three small chrysanthemum leaves as masks and laid them on top of a printed background paper. (Freebie me thinks, from a magazine). I used ground pastel chalk to colour on top of the background paper and then removed the masks. Rather than use a pastel fixative I used a spray of Printguard. I have found this method gives the effect of a wash rather than the matt effect of pastel chalk. I then enhanced the outline left by the masks by drawing a squiggly line in brown fine tip pen.
My masking design was finished and all I had to do was mount it onto a Kraft card from Joanna Sheen to create a notecard. I drew a line around the layer with a  brown fibre tip pen and hand wrote a message underneath.

Thats another notecard to add to my collection. Please feel free to leave a comment (smile)

Trip to Scotland

We were booked for longer but only managed two days because of the rain. I'm not an avid camper at the best of times. I'm getting too old for that lark but I did manage to get some photos of the lovely countryside, parks and gardens at Kailzie Gardens and Rosetta camping site near Peebles. I've put them onto a slideshow at photobucket for sharing, click here to view.

Hope you like

Lace Christmas Box

I'm usually rushing at the last minute to create something for the Bah Humbug challenge but this time I'm rushing early because I need to go stay with my daughter who is poorly. I had to get it finished tonight as I so wanted to 'think outside the box' literally (smile).

 The challenge this week is to create something with lace and I chose to decorate a star shaped box. I first painted the box with two coats of emulsion in pistachio. I then threaded a double strand of thin brown organza ribbon through a length of vintage lace and made a gathered skirt for the box I then adhered the top edge of the skirt around the top edge of the box with glue. It was easier than I expected considering I had to attach the skirt in and out of the five pointed star and I secured the ribbon in a bow.
 I decorated the lid with a gold pine cone, leaves and dropped pearls and then added some gold glitter to each point of the star.
I enjoyed making my Christmas box with lace. Thank you Humbug Hall for the challenge.

late night ramblings

We have visitors this weekend so I am cleaning up as if royalty was coming! I'm behind schedule because I've felt so yuk today but I'm not going to get too worried about that (she says). My crafty things will be out of bounds as my craft room will be my guests' bedroom. Thats OK as long as I don't get withdrawal, lol.

To keep the old mojo inspired I sometimes look back at some of my pressed flower artwork and amaze myself. 

tropicana10001, a photo by florafinity on Flickr.

Did I do that????            How did I do that????               Must try that again!!!

Like this fantasy flower pic created back in 2002. I love them as much now as I did then, they are like old friends, made at the start of my journey into pressed flower art. I share one with you here.

Hope you like

Bah Humbug Beads

This weeks challenge at Bah Humbug Christmas item challenge is to use beads. I went for a black and white look using black card stock and a snowflake background paper. I think I made the background design myself but its been hanging around in my puter for so long I could be wrong.

The vintage image is from an old postcard I picked up at the market. Doesn't she look warm and cosy in that big hat! The hat has some kind of tassel on it so I decided to make it more prominent with silver beads. I finished the card off with a silver ribbon and an insert printed off with the same snowflake design but in draft. 

Here is a detail

Please leave a comment. I love to hear from you.

Note Cards

In this age of email and mobile texting, I think one of the nicest things is to receive a handwritten letter from some one. When its in the form of a pretty card its even better!

I have some Kraft cards and envelopes I had intended making into rustic greetings cards using pressed flowers, printed paper scraps and some distressing but that idea has been shelved for the moment. I spent some time playing with them today and decided they would make nice note cards. The C6 size is just right and the rustic colour is different. I thought a black border would work printed directly onto the note card and found just what I needed  in my pressed botanical artwork. I gave them a digi twist sketch effect and got rid of the colour and made a digi stamp of the image. 

My first attempt looked a bit intense so I lightened it and printed out a faded image. The latter just cried out for colour and so I highlighted by hand with Sakura and Marve le Plume pens. So now I had two cards, one with a dark print and one lighter and coloured. I found an image to use as a topper and mounted it onto the cards and added bronze coloured peel off lines around the toppers. 

The problem is I can't choose which one I like the best! I want to make a batch of them but can't decide which to use. I hope someone will decide for me.

Kraft cards and envelopes from Joanna Sheen
Topper image from Crafty Computer Paper

flickr

bookmarks, a photo by florafinity on Flickr.

Ooooo, this is useful!
I am browsing through my flickr account and discovered I can share direct to my blog. I love the bookmarks I created in 2007. I gave several to friends I meet up with on holiday and I'm touched to know they still use them. Simple gifts yet worth so much in friendship.


Via Flickr:
pressed flower arrangements printed