Fifty Shades of White

 


Happy New Year!  One of my resolutions is to use up all the stuff I have collected in order to 'do something with' - yes I know I have said that before, but this is the year!
Last year at this time, one of my work colleagues brought in an empty tin, which had contained a mug, because she knows I craft ....... it has sat in my craft room ever since.  However last week she made a remark about how she was going to organise her dressing table in the New Year, so I said 'right, you can have your tin back then... what colour would you like it?'  LOL.
Her bedroom is apparently all white, so that was a challenge!  I found this white diamond paper in my stash and proceeded to waste a piece because I wasn't careful enough while sticking onto red tape - it wrinkled and creased, I was lucky to be able to rip it off before it had stuck completely.  So then I cut four sections, and stuck those down one at a time, that worked much better!  I covered the joins with peel-off lines.
The paper edges weren't quite aligned, so I stuck silver lace trim around top and bottom.  For the lid, I punched out a scalloped circle in Bazzil Diamond bling and a smaller one from the paper.  Then I attached flowers, pearls, and a 3D butterfly, made by punching out two, sticking one down flat, then sticking the other just down the centre with red tape.
On the tin itself, I stuck another flower and butterfly arrangement (to hide where the paper was covering the lumpy seam of the tin!) and flat butterflies onto the other sections.
It took a lot longer than I thought it would do!  Not to my taste at all, I have to say, but I am pleased that it has turned looking pretty - and my colleague was very happy with it :-)

Whodunnit?

Another page which has been complete for months apart from the journalling!  In November 2011, we went to a murder mystery evening with our friend Sarah and her parents, plus a couple of her parents' friends.  The theme was a Mafia wedding and we all had to 'dress up' accordingly, so we went for combinations of black, white and red between us.  DH, Sarah and I guessed the murderer's identity, but while we stepped outside for DH to have a ciggie, the parents and friends changed our team answer and then handed it in!  We were gutted!
The page is made from a combination of scraps laid out in an Art Deco fashion, over what must be one of the first papers I ever bought, back in 2004 :-)  The border at the base of the page is die-cut using a Nestie lace border die, from a Bazzill gold cardstock which is sadly discontinued - I am hoarding my last scraps of it!  The journalling is done on safmat, laid over a piece of pearlescent gold Stampin' Up card.  I robo-cut the title and subtitle.
One of my favourite LOs from my 2011 album :-)

Third Time Lucky - Sarah's Cards October sketch challenge

I am entering the sketch challenge over at Sarah's Cards this month, the details are here:
http://sarahscardsltd.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/october-sketch-challenge.html

This page shows DS1's driving test pass certificate!  He passed on his third go and I am very proud of him - also he is now able to pick me up after an office girlie night out, which is very handy LOL.

The papers are Basic Grey "Two Scoops" - I bought lots of this when it came out, but had got a bit fed up with it, so it was nice to find a good sketch to use some of it up!  The title is robo-cut and the border is done with a punch borrowed from Scrappy Sarah at the Cardinal Colours crop last weekend - I thought it was very appropriate since DS1 is such a star for passing the test!  I stamped a journalling spot from Stamps Away.

Cardinal Colours weekend crop - "One of a Kind" class

I went to the Cardinal Colours weekend crop in Stone Cross at the weekend.  As usual, I had a great time, a big thank you to Jill and the team :-)
I chose to do one of the classes, a layout taught by Linda, details are here.  We punched, cut and layered to produce this beautiful page.  I especially like the 'shadow' effect of the butterflies, done by placing a black butterfly under the coloured one.  It was also the first time I had used a Martha Stewart punch around the page set, there is just one little mistake there ..... never mind ..... LOL.
Thank you Linda (and glamourous assistant Lynn!) for a great class!

Steampunk-ish triple frame

I bought this triple frame at one of those little warehouse shops which has a bit of everything - can't remember what it was called - when we went to York last year and it has been hanging around ever since, waiting for inspiration.
The lightbulb moment came when I was tidying my desk (something which doesn't happen that often!) and a whole pile of scraps from the Bo Bunny 'Timepiece' range came to light.  I put one torn piece against another, decided I liked the effect, and went from there!
The frame originally had the glass at the bottom of the recess, but I wanted to have some space for a dimensional collage, so I stuck the glass to the front of the frame with 'red' super strong tape.  Of course this can be seen through the glass, so I made a border of faux nail heads to cover it.  I liked the effect of a little shelf and decided to get some little bottles to go in the square frame.
The mosaic tiles are there because the frame is slightly chipped at the top - where we dropped it when unloading the car! - so I put a couple of tiles at the chipped spot and added others in various places on the frame, connecting them with black faux.nailheads.


The lower collage uses rosettes made from TH dies, a Dienamics flourish, a sentiment stamp, some pearls and an owl charm.


The square collage has the sentiment stamp, die cut with a deckled oval Nestie, edges inked.  Then some clustered pearl elements (can't remember the brand) and three tiny bottles, filled with polished glass chips. I had great 'fun' getting those chips into the bottles, the air was blue!


The upper rectangle collage is the one which started the whole train of thought, these were the two pieces of paper I put together.  I stamped a sentiment three times, the steampunk heart is stamped and embossed using a Technique Tuesday stamp,  Some pearl trails and a couple of charms complete it.

Not a cheap project this one, despite the collages themselves being made mostly from scraps and stuff I had hanging around - I did have to buy the bottles.  The frame itself was £8 and it took far more nailheads than I had thought it would - between 8 and 9 packets in total, so that's about £17 just in nail heads!!!  Probably would have thought of something else if I had realised that before I had started!

I love it in spite of the expense :-)

H is for Hexagons - Scrapology September challenge

Just sliding in under the wire for this challenge, the closing date is tomorrow!  You can find the Scrapology September challenge here.

I used some old papers here - the base layer is from the DCWV luxury stack, which I bought online and hated from the minute I got it, it's really too shiny for me.  But as a base layer it isn't doing too badly!  I cut an inner square from some old snow swirl paper, which I think I may have bought on one of my trips to America, so that's either 2004 or 2007!  The hexagons are punched out of a Craft Creations paper from a couple of years ago and matted onto Bazzill (Admiral?), using a Creative Memories punch.

I used a 12" border stamp from Hero Arts to go around the edges of the frame, wasn't sure how that was going to turn out, but I really like it.  The title is robo-cut and the snowflakes are done using a Martha Stewart punch, both out of Bazzill Bling in Diamond.  The snowflakes were made into 'bunting' to follow the sketch, by using white embroidery thread attached to brads at each end.

I am very happy with this one :-)

Sunflowers

A couple of weekends ago I went to the Paperarts UK retreat in Swindon.  Great fun, very hectic, with six classes to fit in!
This is one of them, taught by Rachel Elliott.  Not my normal style at all - you all know I don't *do* flowers! - but it was my favourite out of all the classes.  The papers are Prima, I think 'Sunkissed', and it was all about layering and fussy cutting.  The papers are used very cleverly - the base layer had the entire centre gutted out, then white cardstock over the hole, then the gutted part on top of the white as the next layer.  Somewhere in there is a bit of lace, just peeping out from under a layer - that was stitched on, which I have never done before and I think I will do it again, looked much better than trying to glue it.  All the flowers and butterflies were fussy cut out of the sheets and tucked under the photos, or layered on top.  The little date tag is slightly offset in the photo, I have since moved it to the centre, where it looks better .... thank heavens for repo adhesive!
The photos are of a visit to my Nanna, with my sister and her kids, I plan to put this into a box frame and give it to Sis for Christmas.