Out of the Journal .... week 3

Well I got to Week three of Dina's Out of the Journal challenge and I can't believe how much I have enjoyed painting on canvas.

I can't wait to hang them all on my wall when they are finished.

I don't even know where these styles are coming from although this one was a happy accident... trying to cover up something I didn't like.

I want more than four to put on my art wall but didn't have any more box canvases so I have tried a different style inspired by Dina's grungy girls.  I've done this one on stiff paper and I'm hoping I can mount it on some wood before hanging.

Fun... fun .... fun.... bring on week 4 :)
hugs
Chris xx

SCD challenge - Crowns

Well it's week 4 of SCD challenge's Birthday month and the DT have produced loads of fab inspiration.  This weeks challenge is 'Crowns' and I loved doing this one.  The stamp I used was a freebie from Craftstamper magazine.  I used it for the background and then stamped it in part again for the crown using distress inks to colour it in. 

I have a few re-inker bottles and I love to put some ink on a craftmat and then pick it up with my waterbrush and paint the colour in.  It gives a deeper colour this way and I can be precise.

I missed last weeks challenge...not being at home... but as I adore all thing to do with 'Paris' which was the theme... I had a little catch up.

I also discovered another little trick with the distress inks quite by accident.  That is that if you apply it to certain types of paper and card (you have to experiment cos it doesn't work with them all) and allow it to air dry and stamp over it with Stazon... you can remove colour from within the image to reveal the white base.

I use my waterbrush for this as it's more precise.  I paint the area just with water and then blot out the colour with kitchen roll.  You can then leave the area white or repaint with diluted colour.  Cool eh!!

hugs
Chris xx

ATC club March challenge-Garden Fairies

This months theme for the Atc club swap "Garden Fairies" was set by the lovely, talented Nancy. If you'd like to join in all you have to do is create 5 atc's to the theme... you keep one yourself and then send the other 4 off to Chriss by the end of March and you receive 4 swaps from the same theme... totally cool and I love receiving mine cos they are always so fabulous. More info can be found here.
I had a ball creating these... though it did take me a while. I made me a secret garden :D Tim Holtz distress inks on the go again...love them.

The fairy and daisy stamp (on inside of the doors) are Crafty Individuals.

I covered inside of my Secret Garden with rock candy stickles... you can just sort of see it on the fairies dress but it is lovely in real life and makes her look magical :D

hugs

Chris xx

Basic grey wedding dress - Dress it up challenge 2010

Well Valentines day is well and truly behind us but I must be in romance mode because for the March Dress it up challenge I made me a wedding dress...lol Well that's a must have for most girls isn't it so my dolly has to have one (well when I make my dolly that is).
This gorgeous Basic Grey paper was just screaming at me to be used and I guess a traditional wedding dress would be white or ivory...but hey what about the more mature lady... someone has to be on our side.

The gorgeous sticky

bling was a gift from DG and was meant for hand decoration (bit old for that...me) but it looks fab on my dress I think.

I added some silky fabric rosebuds to the bottom and as I love paper sculpture I thought it would look good along the edge as added decoration too.
Hope you like

hugs

Chris xx

Gothic Arch Challenge - Crackle

I had lots of fun with this weeks Gothic Arch Challenge 'crackle'. So much so that as usual I got a bit carried away...lol
The first arch had to be a bit on the 'love' thing as it's almost Valentines Day and I have done nothing romantic in my artwork of late so I thought this just might fit the bill. The words mean... "Remember Paris my love"... well I can't say I do cos I haven't ever been (cry...blubber...sniffle...maybe one day!!) Still waiting for someone to whisk me off me feet onto that private aeroplane (think Pretty Woman...heh heh).
Images are from Lisa's Altered Art (digital kits)

My next arch is a bit tongue in cheek... one of my sketches transformed digitally... 'tis sooo me.
I don't look like that(hmmmm although the hair thing sometimes goes on of a morning now my hair is long...lol) but I am definitely unique... one of a kind... and definitely a dreamer!!


Thanks for popping by...see you soon :D
hugs
Chris xx

Artist Trading Club- February challenge.... Cookies

Donna (Cookie Sunshine) is this month's guest designer at the Artist Trading Club and she has named her ATC's 'Cookies' after the blog she previously ran. Her Cookies are made up of art she has previously made including doodling, paintings and images etc, digitally collaged and then other pieces added after printing out.
Well I just knew I was going to love this!! So I painted and doodled my backgrounds...
scanned them... added my own digital image stamp

printed them out on canvas paper....

added some rub-on words and extra doodling...

and also some bling... lol

Cor I just loved it...it was so much fun.

Have a fab day all and thanks for looking :D

hugs

Chris xx

Gothic Arch Challenge - Correspondence

This weeks Gothic Arch Challenge is 'Correspondence 'and I had to join in... as I had these lovely images from Lisa's Altered Art and I have been waiting for something gorgeous to use them on
and just for a change I've been using touchy feely stuff :D

This is a close up of those gorgeous images....

and I just had to show you a close up of this amazing lace that I received aons ago as a little gift from Karen at Scrapz I have had it forever!! but I couldn't bear to use it... I just wanted to look at it and stroke it lovingly. I mean come on...look at the g o r g e o u s bling encased within those special threads. ooooh I can't believe I used some but I had to so I could share it with you...lol

hugs

Chris xx

Art Creations Friday - challenge 28

When I saw this fabulous background to use for Art Creations Friday (challenge 28) I thought it was fantastic... so I just had to join in. My new found love of green is popping up again :)
The new Zeti-style images from Lisa's Altered art are really cool and this little girl was just waiting to jump on board... but hey how cheeky is that little bird telling her... her bum looks big in her cute outfit..lol
Just a quickie today as I am off for a visit to the dreaded dentist.... tooth hurty for a few days despite just having a filling so not feeling very happy. Hope to get round to bloghopping really soon... until then thanks for all your lovely comments and hope the sun is shining where you are :)
hugs
Chris xx

Valentine challenge

If you love stamping just look at these lovelies up for grabs over at Karen's blog I meant to let you know about it earlier but better late than never. All you have to do for a chance to win is create a Valentines card/atc but NO red or pink and email it to Karen before midnight tomorrow... Sunday 29th... check out Karen's blog for where to send your entry :DGood luck :D

hugs

Chris xx

The Papergirls Challenge - Alter a photo

It is Chriss's turn to set this month's challenge over at The Papergirls blog and she decided we would alter a photograph artistically... boy was I having palpitations over this one... especially as my mojo has been hiding under the bed...lol I have never created artwork with a photograph as the base but I must admit that once I got started I found it to be quite addictive and will probably use my finished pieces to create a couple of layouts very different from my usual style. I would recommend however that you scan the original before you start... even if it's not one of the best you've ever taken because you may find you wish you had kept a copy.

Ok my first photo to get the treatment was one of DD and DG and I had a few headaches with this one but I got there in the end :D I firstly covered a large part of the photo with gesso before colouring with distress inks and stamping with a squirl stamp from The Artistic Stamper. I covered part of the clothing too, so that I could trace part of the bodies and hand colour them to give a cartoony effect. Some hand cut head wear and lettering along with some doodling and a bit of bling completed my first attempt.

My second photograph of DG on his own had a very clear background so this meant I could alter it quite differently as I didn't have to cover up any dark shapes.

I had lots of fun with this one... I masked off DG and re-coloured the background with distress ink before using the tree stamp from Lost Coast Designs. I then added Dinosaur stickers from BasicGrey Archaic scrapbooking goodies (from my recent spend...tee hee...naughty naughty) and hand cut a speech bubble to add the wording (which took me all night to come up with by the way...lol) I was happier with this one and think it will look well cool on a layout with DG favourite Dinosaur jokes... don't you :D

Now here is a sneaky peak of the photograph that Chriss has altered but you have to pop over to the Papergirls blog to see the finished creation and to find out the rules for entering. The challenge has been sponsored by Caroline at Bubbly Funk and there are some fab chalk inks up for grabs which again you can see over at The Papergirls blog.

I hope you will join in with the challenge which runs until 30Th January... it really is fun and you gotta be in it to win it right :D

Happy creating

hugs

Chris xx

Gothic arch challenge-wee witches

Well I had a wonderful weekend away but more on that later... for now here is my entry for this weeks Gothic arch challenge which is 'wee witches'. Most kiddies love Halloween but my little witch (image from Lisa's altered art) don't look too happy ...lol Maybe she didn't get many treats... or maybe she's thinking she will have to share with her companions Mr bird and her faithful black cat so her candy won't stretch very far :D It could be however that she just doesn't feel too happy about wasting time having her photo taken when she could be out having fun trick 'a' treating... what do you think?

On my arch I used Cosmo Cricket Halloween goodies... just love the squirly rub-ons and the black chipboard letters...


and as all wee witches need their own little black cat companion... mine's a die cut with eyes that glow (didn't have bling small enough so opted for shiny silver pen).

More Halloween goodies to come this week leading up to the witching hour cos I had heaps of fun making some more to share with you last week... but you only get to see them one at a time or you will be here all day :D

Now then... my weekend away was totally fab... what do you get when you put together 4 kids on their best behaviour who decide to play together nicely (and that's a miracle on it's own) and 3 women who have shared a lifetime of memories and are the worlds best at being skitty with each other (in a nice way of course as only sisters can) ?

I'll tell you what you get... a totally wonderful couple of days filled with cupfuls of laughter, reminiscing and fun AND not a bit of alcohol in sight I may add... but then we really didn't need it I assure you :D We laughed 'till we thought we could laugh no more... only to start again to the point of hysterics... it ended up being painful but at the same time just what the doctor ordered. Even the kids were joining in...though most of the time they hadn't a clue what we were laughing at!!

The highlight of the weekend for me was a moment when I was laughing so hard I was forgetting to breathe... when my 10 yr old niece turned to me and said in an ever so serious voice "Auntie Christine you need to stop laughing so loud because you'll disturb the lady who lives in the flat below" "Oh is she an old Lady" says I... thinking that the noise would maybe be a bit much for her and feeling a tad guilty... to which the reply came "No but she's just passed her driving test" !!!!!!!! The result was to send me into another bout of spasmodic...gut wrenching laughter from which I thought I would never recover... Kids' don't you just love 'em. The only regret I have is that I forgot my camera because I was rushing around at the last minute to go away and missed so many fab opportunities for brill' photos... but I guess you can't have everything eh :D

Thanks for popping by... see you soon

hugs

Chris xx

Papergirls altered envelope challenge.

The winner has been announced for the altered envelope challenge over at The Papergirls blog and Femmy is a really worthwhile winner. Pop over to the Papergirls blog and check out the winning entry and the other girls' creations there are some amazing ones!! The next challenge is to alter an old cd, adding words from a magazine and I am really looking forward to that one. Anyone can take part so if you are up for a bit of altering then get your entry in too :)

This was my altered envelope entry... did you guess...lol
The images are all stamps from Crafty individuals except the lady on the phone (nabbed from a magazine) and the telephone and wire which I drew and cut out. So different from what I usually do but I am enjoying experimenting at the moment.
Just a quickie for today as I am off to take DG home... had a lovely weekend but am shattered, don't know how I got through raising DD sometimes lol
Have a great evening
hugs
Chris xx

Mixed Media Monday challenge...What you love to do.

First of all my apologies because this is going to be a loooooooong post but what I love to do.... is play.... altering anything I can get my hands on right now and I enjoyed altering this 'Bird Feeder' so much that as usual I just couldn't stop adding things. The Mixed Media Monday challenge gave me the perfect excuse to play to my hearts content and as I haven't done any scrapping for a while maybe this is the next best thing :)
Tearing doodling and painting took a big part in my 4 hours of altering, curling edges and rolling paper was fun and the black and silver scroll paper from Anita's 6x6 Christmas paper pad just had me drooling and I just had to make a little birdie...

a bit of doodling and hand cutting flourish shapes took me ages but I felt it was worth it...

hand made flower shapes and bits of bling from Habico gave me my touch of 'pretty' :)

This is the finished front view... I have scrapped this photo of DD and DG before but my altered bird feeder is going to take pride of place now so I can look at it all the time. I didn't have any black flowers so changed the colour of one of my Papermania white fabric flowers with a black ink pad.... fab that you can do this because you can then have any colour flower you like to fit with your creation.

A bit more cutting and paper curling completed this flower and the squirls for the first side...

and then I tore some paper circles and added some bling...

to add as embellishments for the other side :)

More gorgeous paper and a white Papermania fabric flower for the roof of the reverse side of the bird feeder with some hand cut lettering for the sentiment behind my photograph...

some chipboard letters from Scrapz, more lush paper and doodling and extra bling and I was one happy bunny...lol Absolutely worn out I was by the time I had finished but once I start creating something sometimes I just can't seem to pull the reins in and stop.

I have to admit though that all of the time and patience I put into altering this item gave me a total buzz and I am really happy with the outcome. Sorry I forgot to take a before photo... but once I started to paint the naked wood I was lost and it just slipped my mind. Thanks for sharing with me and for getting to the end :)

Have a great day

hugs

Chris xx