Nan

I thought I would be OK typing this, but I'm not, so I'll keep it short. My lovely Nan died last week of cancer. It was a long illness, mostly controlled by morphine as it progressed, but a couple of weeks ago she became very ill, very quickly. Luckily I live fairly close by, and so I was privileged to spend some time with her in her last few days. She died at home, nursed by her three daughters and my Grandad, and she is much missed.
I am catching up on my stamping obligations, and have taken photos of my work, but until the funeral next week, I will be pretty busy, so please bear with me.

Weekend Music Video

This time it's Nine Inch Nails and Dead Souls, from the soundtrack for 'The Crow'. What is it about Saturday nights and nostalgic goth music?!

'Quotations' ATCs

I am so tired tonight, so won't waffle too much, but since I have a very busy few days planned, I wanted to show these photos tonight, while I have the time. These are this month's ATCs for UK Stampers, with the theme of 'quotations'. After much dithering about which quotations to use, I turned to the stamps for inspiration and realised that my favourite Cherry Pie images were once again begging to be used. I also wanted to make clear acetate the main material, and I am really pleased with the result. The lettering is all from the computer- if you print onto the wrong kind of acetate (i.e. laser or photocopier transparencies using an inkjet printer) the ink does not dry, giving the chance to add embossing powder. And between the front and back layer of acetate, I have used a simple image transfer of newsprint onto clear packing tape, just to add a little texture. The main images are stamped onto newspaper, and I love the idea that they will yellow and age over time.

Stamps: Cherry Pie, Paperartsy
Colour: Versafine, Stazon
Other: Laser transparency, embossing powder, newspaper, clear tape

Thanks for looking, and a special thanks to everyone who has left a comment. It really inspires me, especially when time to craft or blog is limited. I'll try to keep posting!

Latest CJ Entry

Here we are again, with this month's CJ entry for my UK Stampers 'just one stamp' project. We are so close to finishing now, only two journals to go, then our own finally come home! It's very inspiring to see each journal as it arrives, especially now they are so full of gorgeous artwork. There are some very talented stampers involved with this, and I feel lucky to be involved.

Anyway all waffle aside, this is my take on the little flourish stamp which arrived with this journal. I was inspired with the idea of recreating this piece of art "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" by 18th Century Japanese artist Hokusai, although I will 'fess up now and say that a previous entry to mine also was inspired by waves. The two pieces are totally different, though, so I hope the journal's owner doesn't mind.

I started off with an origami paper design which I printed onto some Japanese paper. ( The site I got it from has got some amazing free papers and projects to download). The waves were stamped and embossed onto the same Japanese paper, sponged with ink, then ironed to remove the embossing. Interestingly, the paper became transparent when embossed, and now looks like vellum. The background was embossed with the dots and sponged with Distress Inks. Mount Fuji was taken from the original print. Everything was cut and assembled (there was a lot of cutting!) then I added a copy of the original to piece of Stampbord.

Stamps: Flourish (unknown) Field of Sky (A Stamp in the Hand)
Colour: Distress Inks
Other: Japanese paper (Hobbycraft), white and clear embossing powder, Stampbord, Cut'n'dry foam

Prepare to chill out...

This Month's ATCs

The theme for this month's ATCs over on UK Stampers was 'Incorporating a tag', and I actually started these with two weeks to go before the deadline, as I was feeling inspired. Not like me at all, (the early start, not the inspiration!) as I usually find that time pressure helps me to work. However, I found once I started that I was *really* inspired, and took my time over these. I am really pleased with the outcome; I really feel that I expressed myself artistically, and I can't believe I made them! Let's hope it wasn't a fluke ;-)
I even made a slide show, so all of the hidden details can be seen:

Colour: Distress Inks in Broken China and Vintage Photo, Versafine, Moonshadow mist, Silver detail embossing powder, Cosmic shimmer lustre pearl embossing powder
Stamps: Paperartsy, Inkadinkado, Crafty Individuals
Embellishments: Star gems from Hobbycraft, Turquoise gems by Pebeo, pins, beads, wire, and ribbon from my stash
Other: Sizzix originals tag die, Sizzlits mini-tags die, Making Memories metal sheets (used to make mini-tags), Vellum from Lakeland, Silk dupion from Fabric Land, Vintage paper from old book
Thanks for looking!

Next CJ Entry

This is the next entry in the 'Just One Stamp' circle journal. We are not far from finishing now; we have three more to do until our own journals wing their way home, full of gorgeous artwork. And the really great thing about this group is that our organiser, Gail, has kept us all on track, so we have no missing journals to worry about, which seems to be a common problem in these kind of groups. Just to recap, here is the link to all of the previous entries.
The stamp which came with this journal is a feather. I don't know who it is by, but it is a beautifully detailed stamp. The previous entries were all so good, and I wanted to do something different, so I decided to turn the feather into a peacock's tail. White peacocks are thought to be incredibly lucky, and I know the journal's owner, Alison, is very ill in hospital and could do with some luck, so I had to make my peacock white. I also really wanted to use the turquoise, as for some reason it is my favourite colour at the moment and I keep using it on everything I do (even my new clock is that colour, and I hope to do a new header soon, too).

Stamps: Unknown (feather), Tanda (Peacock and Peacock feather)
Colour: Alcohol inks, Moonshadow mist, Sakura glaze pen, White embossing powder, Nick Bantock Inks
Other: Words printed on Conqueror Silica blue paper, ribbon from my stash, Self-adhesive metal tape from DIY store, Cuttlebug embossing folder

The background is alcohol inks on glossy card which I then sprayed with the Moonshadow mist. Because of the glossy coating, it beads up when sprayed, and when dried with a heat-gun, you get a gorgeous effect, with tiny dots of the turquoise mica powder (sorry, it doesn't really show up on the photograph). The patterned section is the metal tape, which I ran through the Cuttlebug then coloured with alcohol inks. I can see myself trying that again, and maybe using some glaze pens too- it could look great!