Hanging Art with Mr Holtz!

About a month ago, I attended a workshop with Tim Holtz. We all got to play with the new alcohol ink colours! Yah! and are they just the best colours. We also got to play with the refillable pen, and a bit of sticky backed metal. Here is what we made.

This is the top piece, using Tim's new stamps, and the alcohol ink pens, which were used to highlight the stamp.

The middle piece is die cut letters and flourish in card, covered in sticky back metal, rubber down with a paper stump, then alcohol inked, and sanded off to reveal the metal. The final piece used metallic alcohol inks,( you need the minutest drop) creating an agate style background. ( which doesn't show up on the photo) and some more of Mr Holtz Stampers Anonymous stamps. Finally we added prima clear paintables, and secured with glue dots. All of the squares were covered in the largest of the fragment tiles and held together with books rings. A fab workshop!I am waiting for delivery of all of the new inks from Ranger, and of course all the new Idea-ology range too! Meanwhile, if you want to stock upon your alcohol inks, because I know you will want all the colours, as they all go together you can find them here in the shop. Special offer for this week only is 15% OFF of orders over £25.00 with discount code spring. Just add it to the discount code box when you check out!

Happy Inking

Mother's Day

I have been very lax in blogging this week, and my blog is very neglected. I also noticed that my SBS sisters links have been stolen by blogger along with my blogs I visit! I will have to do a bit of detective and repair work!

Today here in the UK is Mother's Day. Lots of people dismiss this day, as a commercial institution, but I think it is right for us to celebrate our mothers, and grandmothers. For me, it is a day where I indulge myself, and hopefully get dinner cooked for me??? mmmm don't think either of my men will be cooking for me! So I am afraid I will starve or be forced to ask them to take me out or have a takeaway in!!! My indulgence will be sitting reading my book or newspaper or just crafting! Or an indulgence I love, doing absolutely nothing on the sofa!!!

This is a card I made my mother, who I saw yesterday . Love you Mum!

I made it very quickly , and used thickers for the letters, and added our very thin sticky backed metal to them. I then alcohol inked them and sanded. The paper is one of my favourites from K & Co. The flowers are Primas, with added beads glued down with glossy Accents.

Happy Mothers Day to all who are mothers, and to all who are not, take a day, indulge yourselves, put your feet up, and do absolutely nothing!

Ring a ding a ling!

Apologies about the title... just popped into my head when I thought about this gorgeous rings I made recently at a workshop at the Birmingham Trade show with Suze Weinberg. She is such fun, and her workshops are always a pleasure. We made them using the meltpot, (now available on the website) and utee, and some great little face moulds that Suze brought with her from the USA. Melt utee in the pot, pour into the moulds, then allow to cool. Pop out the face , and cut to the size of the ring. Superglue in (the last thing you need is it falling out while you are wearing it!) . Then we filled the outside with stickles and little beads. Allow to dry. Mine ended up in my handbag for a while, so I re stickled them when I got home, as the glue dries and shrinks.

A great little project , and an even better one for me, as jewellery is my first love. I will have the rings on the website later in the year. P.S. Hands not my own , much too dirty and inky! , but DD's who claims hers are horrid too, so I cut them off, the hands in the pics...silly! personally they are much better than mine and cleaner.

I will have the project I did with Tim Holtz on the blog later in the week, what fun that was too!

Blog Candy Winner!

Been a bad week this week for blogging! I haven't even had time to do a challenge or even get out a stamp or inks! I shouldn't complain, as DD is now home for a few days to work on her dissertation for the end of her degree, (love having her home, so I can feed here, talk complete nonsense to her, and have huge hugs!) Then I have been helping Mal put up a greenhouse in the garden ( hands now like ice blocks!) , and working hard all week doing orders. Everything else seems to have taken a back seat. But I have chosen the winner of the blog candy, and if

JENNIFER

would like to email me, I can post it off to you.
I have lots of ideas in my head for the challenge on Objet D'art, and would love to see your creations too. All you have to do is alter/decorate a box, and post a comment on the blog.
Off now to get warm by the fire, and contemplate my yet to be decorated box!

I like a Challenge...

when I find  I am in a rut creativity wise, that often a challenge sets the mind in a direction. I have been very busy this week, (seems I am not getting enough me time here!), and just getting to play hasn't been an option. Finally today I thought I would make something for the Arty Girlz challenge. The theme is Blue and yellow. A friend of mine made me some blank gekkos in white shrink plastic for me a while ago, and I already had in mind a project for 2 of them. The inspiration came from a project someone did on Crafts by Carolyn forum.

I punched some holes in them , and shrunk them down. Here the trouble started! Because they have curls and are thin in places, they curled right up, and I could not uncurl them. Serves me right for not doing them in the oven. I had used a heat gun! Finally they behaved, and I coloured them with alcohol inks after shrinking, and used blues and yellows, which mixed to be green! Then while adding the beads, one of the tails snapped. This is because I had punched holes in them, and the shrink doesn't take kindly to very thin pieces. So for purposes of the picture, I have very carefully pushed the tail together! Methinks, I will have to make another one!
I see quite a lot of possibilities in shrink plastic and alcohol inks. Thanks girlz for the challenge, my creative juices are flowing again!

P.S. Don't forget the blog candy on both this blog, and Objet D'art.