Swap Book

Hilda, over at the Lots to Do forum, organised a book page swap, and because I was going to be in the UK when the pages were due, I thought I could save some postage by delivering them  by hand - hopefully!

The pages here are (clockwise from top left): In a tangle (zentangle), My love of art, Take flight, and She loves to dress up.

The zentangle is done in pen on white paper and shaded with pencil.

For the background to My love of art, I created a pastel abstract design over which I stamped some arty stamps and added the word.

Take flight depicts a bird escaping from a cage and surrounded by butterflies.

I was really stumped for the last one of these, then I had the idea of getting a downloaded paper doll image with clothes that you can dress her in. I remember playing with these paper dolls in my childhood - many years ago!LOL

The final four pages are Smell the Flowers, All sewn up, Bricks and Mortar and The Wheels go round.
For the flowers, I stamped a Hero Arts poppy  stamp, masked it then stamped a background script stamp. Coloured with copic markers and added the title.

Enjoyed doing the sewn up page as I had lots of sewing themed stamps to choose from. Used Toodles and Binks stamps on a sewing pattern background paper, then  added the dress form stamps from Claudine Helmuth. I stitched a piece of cream linen on the page along with some lace, ric rak and an edging.

For the Bricks and Mortar page, I stamped the buildings onto cardstock and coloured them using copic markers, then cut them out to attach to the page. The background was embossed with a texture fades embossing folder which was then inked up with fired brick distress ink. Cut the title out using the Cricut and attached to the page with foam squares.

The clock page represents the wheels of time going round. The background was embossed with a clocks embossing folder from Sizzix, then distressed with my favourite bundled sage, wild honey and rusty hinge distress inks. Added the weather clock die cut and a time sentiment from Tim Holtz.

I can't wait to see what the others have come up with for the swap!

Turquoise and Lace

The challenge over at the Craft Barn for this week's Calendar Challenge is Turquoise and Lace.

The biggest challenge was actually finding the turquoise colour. There are so many blues and greens and shades thereof that it was hard to find the right colour. Eventually, with the help of a turquoise ring I was able to find a paper to match!

The stamped images are from one of Claudine Helmuth's sets - stamped with a turquoise ink then overstamped with Versafine Onyx Black. The edge of the tag is coloured with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The lace bow has been attached to a Nellie Snellen Lacey Circle die and layered onto a scalloped circle in black. The butterfly is a wooden button I picked up in Kuala Lumpur and threaded with a piece of baker's twine. The ribbon is seam binding coloured with Tumbled Glass Distress ink.