Grunge Paper Brooches

Have been doing a bit of experimenting with grunge paper and making flower brooches. First saw these done by His Lordship Tim - not in person of course - but on a You Tube video, and I thought I could adapt the idea by using flowers cut on my Cricut.

I cut the different sized flowers using the Cricut - I forget which cartridges I used for these ones as it was a while ago that I did them!!  Cut shapes from grunge paper and some pages of an old book then glued them together. Found that Mod Podge is the best as it still has some flexibility when it dries.

Used distress inks to colour the petals and distress stickles on the lower two (green and red) flowers. On the other two I used Kindiglitz as it gives a lot more sparkle. Fastened the three together with a brad then glued a brooch pin to the back of each one.

These three I completed today. I used more rounded petals on these ones - I think the cartridge was Plantin Schoolbook and cut the flowers bigger. The biggest was 2.5 inches wide. Again used distress inks to colour the flowers. The top one I used walnut stain distress stickles, the blue one, Kindiglitz and the pink one, I used silver kindiglitz and was very pleasantly surprised by the texture when I smoothed it out with my finger! Instead of using a brad to join these together, I used Glossy Accents as a glue and used bling for the centres of each of the flowers.

Quite pleased with the results!

Roses

This card was made for a Tanda Teaser with the theme of roses.
I used a square white card as a base then added a top layer of red which I trimmed to leave a white border. The rose stamp is a Tanda stamp applied to whote card which was trimmed with fancy scissors then layered on black. I put a lace trim down each side of the black card.
For the corners, I punched corners from red and black card then layered them to produce the wavy line. I used extra black corners to form the wavy square in the centre, on which I placed the sentiment.

I coloured the rose with copic markers.

Since the card also has lace on it, I can put it in the Lots to Do Challenge for this week as well!

My ancestors

Just found this on the internet and wanted to share it with my friends. This is the house my great, great, great grandparents built and lived in on Stewart Island, to the south of the South Island of New Zealand. Click on the link for a neat little video!

Lewis Acker and his wife, Mere Pii, a Maori woman, raised 9 children in this house which is a one room cottage. They originally had a lean-to kitchen at the right hand end of the house. Acker was a boat builder and trader when he lived here. Originally he came from the USA as a sealer.

Blogging again

Well it has been a while since I put anything new on my blog. I have been busy, just not doing crafty things!
I have been busy over the past few days doing some ATCs, Skinnies and Tags for a swap. I thought I would blog them before I sent them off.

These ATCs are designed around the theme - Oriental. I used distress inks to colour the backgrounds with the spray technique - layer colours of ink onto a craft sheet, mist with water then lay the card down on the inks getting a good coverage of colours.

I used the same ink pads to stamp the images. The coin was stamped then embossed with thick embossing powder then stamped again while the powder was still liquid. The stamps were from Montarga, Rubbadubbado, Kaiser Clear Stamps and Tanda.


I used the same background technique for the next set of ATCS (Theme - Time). Again, I stamped the images with the same inks that I used for the backgrounds, except for the word stamps. The stamps used here were from Montarga and Paperartsy.

These skinnies were based on a theme - Scenic, which I took literally! The ones on the left and right used a photo that I "photoshopped" to provide a mountainous background. The pictures were taken earlier this year when we visited Mount Cook. Distress inks used to colour the pictures and again to stamp the images (except for the cats!). The bird and butterfly were stamped then cut out and mounted. The middle skinny used a Japanese picture which I coloured using Tombow markers then layered onto Japanese paper. I punched flowers from the same paper (which is why they are hard to see!) and added a bling flower to the centre of each one. Skinnies are made from a 3" x 5" piece of card.

These tags were made for a swap with the theme Paris/France. Used distress inks to colour the backgrounds and stamp the images. The tag on the left has a flower made from scrunched up circles of paper. The centre tag is embossed on the grey bits with weathered wood distress embossing powder and has a deliciously rough texture. The tag on the right used a kaiser stamp on the background, with another kaiser stamp (chandelier) and a paperartsy stamp. The tickets were cut with a TH die and stamped with ticket stamps I bought at the Craft Barn, then attached with a brad.

I really enjoyed playing with these, but I must make some more cards!!

New Challenge Blog

Just found a great new challenge blog here - Craft Your Days Away - now that is really what I like! The first challenge starts on August 7th - so make a note of it in your crafty diary!


Please take a minute or two to go and have a look.

Thanks.

Challenge for Jude and Carol

A couple of weeks ago, while chatting on Card Making World with Jude and Carol, I suggested a challenge using the flower stamp from a recent Craft Stamper magazine. The challenge was eagerly taken up by both Carol and Jude. What was the challenge? To make three completely different articles using the stamp - one of which could be a card. Jude, unfortunately did not have the stamp, so carol and I both sent her a heap of stamped images to use in the challenge.

The first article I made was an altered tin. I painted the edges of the tin with copper coloured paint (Adirondack Paint Dabber) first. Then I took some metal, stamped the image 4 times then embossed it from the wrong side to get the raised image. I also embossed a separate image for the add on flower. I painted the metal the same colour, but on the add on flower, I used a pearl paint as well to get a lighter image. I used a bright yellow copic to colour the centre of the flower then added some kindiglitz for sparkle. I mounted some leaves (cut with the Cricut) and glitzed them then added the flower with mounting foam to make it stand out from the tin. The metal strip was fastened to the tin with DS tape and tied with fancy yarns from my stash.


The card was made from a bright pink card base that I found in my stash of goodies, layered with an off-white paper that I punched to provide a fancy edge, then stamped the flower image 3 times with worn lipstick distress ink and embossed with clear embossing powder.
The lace edging was a piece of white cotton lace that I coloured using the worn lipstick distress ink then topped with a ribbon. I have not added a sentiment as I couldn't find a place to put it without it appearing too much!!



The third piece for the challenge is a pair of ear rings.
I stamped clear shrink plastic with black stazon ink, cut the flower images out then coloured with a pinky-coloured copic. I shrunk the images which then came out at about 1.5cm across. I added the beads and silver coloured findings to make the ear rings. (They actually are the same length - the picture is a bit off centre!)

SENZ

Well, it was SENZ weekend here in Christchurch and it was the place to be for stampers and scrapbookers!

Lots of displays by retailers from all over NZ and lots of classes and demos for people to attend. Some of the Crafty Girls met up yesterday for a guided trip around the retailers and went home very happy with lots of goodies and a lot less cash!
I bought a few things, as you can see from the picture at the left - some darkroom door stamps, clear stamps from Kaisercraft, some plastic face moulds, distress embossing powder, a leaf punch and some other stuff!

Today, I went back again to do a vintage clock class. Mel and Ali from Kaisercraft in Australia were running the class and they were just lovely.

This is the clock I finished at home - it always takes longer to do something like this for the first time. The clock is a pre-designed set available from Kaisercraft and is made from MDF. Covered the square base with Kaisercraft paper and distressed around the edges with Walnut Stain. Others painted around the edges, but you know me and my penchant for distressing!! Added pearls to the edges which had been coloured with alcohol ink to make them look a bit more vintage. The keys and the numerals were cut with a cricut then coloured with walnut stain DI and painted with Distress Crackle paint. The frame was covered with another KC paper and the edges again distressed. I cut the flowers from another sheet of KC paper, rolled the edges and distressed, then shaped them a bit so they would stand out from the base. Glitzed with gold GM and attached using glue for the bigger flowers and foam mount for the smaller ones. The photo mount has some beautiful cotton ecru coloured lace along one side and the keys are attached with ribbon. The pictures in the photo mount are from a Victorian Birthdays CD that I sort of adapted to provide the sepia look.  Of course, it looks so much better in real life than in the photo and I am quite pleased with the end result. Thanks Mel and Ali!
The other great thing that happened was that I won a prize in a draw in the class and came home with some lovely goodies from Kaisercraft - Thanks Kaisercraft - I shall really enjoy using them all.