Making Waves at PaperArtsy

It's a very fishy week or so here! If you missed my Skype Craft last week using another PaperArtsy Fish stamp set you can find it here.

But tonight I am over on the PaperArtsy blog - for our Under the Sea theme - using stamps from Scrapcosy.

See you next time.

Nikki

'Out of limitations comes creativity' - Isolation Skype Craft 2

Hi everyone - how are you doing in these strange and difficult times. There are just a few things keeping me from going insane - exercise, craft and chocolate!

Saturday saw the second Isolation Skype Craft with Brenda Brown and Alison Bomber. Skype craft - crafting with friends over skype - is something we have done occasionally over the years but never twice in a few weeks! You can see Isolation Skype Craft 1 - here.

Usually we take it in turns to give an instruction to the others but this time we changed the rules and restricted ourself to limited supplies. We each got to choose 3 paints, 3 inks, a stencil, a stamp set, pre selected die cuts and an item recently purchased (bit of a wild card this one - as it could be a second stamp set / texture paste etc)

Here is my selection:

Now we all thought at first it seemed alot but then all panicked so allowed ourself an extra ink based product and paint:

There was still some good humoured stressing over limited supplies so I suggested we work with what we have and any point you could play your joker and use one more item (and the others could use it too)

So as the phrase goes -Out of Limitation Come Creativity - I made 2 tags using one of Gwen Lafleur's stamp designs from PaperArtsy.

Stamping the little fish in the backround with Chalk Fresco acrylic before smooshing some distress ink over.

Stamped with one of the circular stamp images in a mixture of ink and paint to make my patterned background here,

My JOKER was played - I needed my white posca pen!

I had 3 backgrounds made so die cut circles out of the tags to layer them up. Goldfish bowls maybe!

------------------------------------------

As always we all came up with very different designs, had a lot of laughs along the way and after 4 hours finally finished!

Here are Alison and Brenda's sneak peeks!

Alison

Brenda

Happy crafting everyone - hopefully we can craft together again soon.

Nikki xxx

Journalling with Gelli Plate Prints

Hi everyone - time for our April challenge at A Vintage Journey hosted by the lovely Julia Aston of Create with Me.

It's Gelli Time!

Yes, get those gel plates out and have a play.  Printing and mark making are unique and somewhat addictive when you start so let us see what you create and how you use it in your project.  Just remember to create your project in one of our preferred styles: vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk.

I love using my Gelli Plate and it's a bit of a go to - when my mojo is lacking! I love to experiment with textures and layers and just seeing what happens. No two prints are ever the same and that is its magic! 

I therefore have alot of prints lying around and decided to see what would happen if I punched some circles and created a montage.

I punched 2.5, 2, 1.5 and 1inch circles of 5 prints and arranged them on my page - this was a challenge! Once happy I stuck them down and then adding a little extra stamping, doodling and stencilling - including a little on the black background.

I am sure the girls at AVJ have some great ideas - so do hop over for some inspiration. We would love it if you joined in the challenge.

Stay safe everyone.

Nikki xxxx

Isolation Skype Craft 1

Hello everyone

What difficult times we are living through. I feel lucky to have a hobby to turn to where I can sometimes forget any problem or worries.

On Friday I got together (virtually of course) with two crafting friends - Brenda Brown and Alison Bomber for one of our 'Skype Craft' days - it's been a while since we have done this. What a joy to spend several hours crafting, chatting and laughing with friends.

I worked on a large canvas, Brenda on a similar sized board and Alison in her large journal. 

As we have done in the past we take it turns to select the next step. I took photos at first then got carried away and stopped!!!

1. All - Seal the substrate with a coat of gesso/tinting base.

2. Alison - Use tissue paper and/or tissue tape.

3. Nikki - Use a stencil for some texture.

4. Brenda - Add some text/number stamping in any gaps

5. Alison - Add more than one colour paint in any way you'd like to,

Here you can see my strips of tissue paper, Grunge Paste through a brickwork stencil, some stamping and some washes of colour (Paper Artsy paint) added and then dabbed to remove with kitchen towel.

6. Nikki - Use something to create a resist. 

I really wanted use my new Izink Ice Translucent Gels from Seth Apter - so scraped some over the surface and dried. I also added some candle wax in places for additional resist.

7. Brenda - Use a colour medium to reveal your resist areas.

I added lots more paint layers at this point to create more contrast and depth and also allowed some paint to drip. 

8. Alison - Add some more stamping but not text and numbers.

I used a wonderful leaf stamp - from Lin Brown - PaperArtsy. 

9. Nikki - Select a focal point and gather elements together.

 10. Brenda - Alter/colour up/prepare and position elements for your focal point/s.

I painted the back of the Tim Holtz Ideology transparent wings in colours to match my canvas and splattered the front with white and gold paint. 

11. Alison - highlight or refresh the original background before adhering the embellishments.

I continued to build up my layers adding some dry brushed paint and using my pallet knife to add more Izink Ice. Oh and some splattered paint of course. The brown I originally scraped for resist, the red in the bricks and the transparent yellows on the canvas is the ICE.

I love some of the textures I managed to create - not sure about the overall composition but love the texture !!!!
When we do these sessions it is amazing how different everyone's turns out. Here are some sneak peaks for Alison and Brenda.

Alison

Brenda

Sorry for this long post! We are hoping to Skype Craft again very soon - so look out for our next adventure!

Take care, stay safe, stay home (if you can) 

Nikki xxx

Making Marks at Paper Artsy

I am over on the PaperArtsy blog tonight with some masterboards and cards made using new stamps from Courtney Franich. To pop over to see more details.

Nikki

xx

Celebrating our Anniversary at A Vintage Journey

Hi everyone. A Vintage Journey is celebrating it's 6th Anniversary! I know blogs and challenge blogs have lost some of their popularity but this one is very dear to me. I have made good friends, many of who I have met because of this blog. I have also been inspired by many artists both from the Design Team and those who have entered our challenges.

Brenda who created and started this blog is our host this month. We are looking for Celebration themed creations - let us know what you are celebrating!

My card is for one of those crafty friends who celebrate their birthday this month.

My background is some printed paper which I added some washes on paint to to tone it down a little. I painted and crackled some corrugated card as the base for my Tattered Butterfly.

The butterfly was cut from greyboard and texture paste added which I randomly stamped into to create texture. Once dry I painted black, dry brushed with white and then added washes on paint.

Under the butterfly are some weird extra wings. These are actually part of a wildflower die that I altered and really wanted to use but it didnt work with my layout so I improvised. 

A few crackled arrows, some fibres....

and some little squares complete my card. I hope you like it!

We hope you will join us for our celebratory challenge. 

Nikki 

xxxxx

Books and more books!

Hi everyone. Just a quick post to share the bookcase and books I made for Lisa Horton's show on Create and Craft last week. I am sharing more details on one of these over on Lisa's blog this evening too. Here is a sneak peak!

Nikki xxx