Bling Bling

Hey Peeps,

I got so inky and messy you would not believe..the state of my nails!!! Yuk!!!

But it was worth it cos I used my favest Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 stamps along with some Grungepaper, Distress Stickles and Glimmer Mists and made a really glitzy tag. The shimmer isn't showing up on the pics too well so you will have to pretend it is LOL




The colours are Shabby Shutters, Dusty Concord and Peeled Paint. There are Maya Road chipboard bits and some DewDropz too.




Thanks for looking... BTW, this is inspired by Linda...her art is perfection....you gotta go and have a look :O))

Hels x

Sunday Stamper - Week 68 - In My Life ... Plus Blog Candy Giveaway

Morning Stampers!

Thanks for joining in with the challenge last week...fab artwork as ever...and great to see some new faces too. The theme this week is actually going to last for a fortnight...but to make up for this... and also to celebrate my Blog getting 50,000 hits since I put the counter on I am giving away some fab alterable candy. The theme for this weeks challenge is my favouritest song ever - and the theme is LIFE. I have chosen it because BBC Radio 2 have a special Beatles Bank Holiday...and as The Beatles are my favest music ever it is a fab weekend for crafting and singing along to the radio :O)) To join in with the challenge all you need to do is make something and add the theme to it...and then just leave me a message here and I can pop and see your creation.

For my entry this week I have made another Shadow Box. I know! Like buses...none for months and then two one after the other LOL




This started life as a wall hanging that had a huge flower in the centre. I prised the flower out with a screwdriver **don't try this at home folks** and then sanded the surfaces. I painted it all over with .. guess what? Can you? Yep! Traditional Tan! LOL But, I changed my mind when this was dry and painted Spiced Marmalade CracklePaint on the sides and corners...then when this was dry, I added Spiced Marmalade and Vintage Photo ink and then spritzed with Antique Brass Glimmer Mist, drying between layers.




The middle is made from card and Grungepaper which I cut to make a patchwork. All pieces are coloured with the same inks and then stamped with Walnut Stain - using mainly Tim Holtz Collection stamps.




The metal bits are Idea-ology and a rusty heart and I added a watch winder...I think this once lived on a pocket watch...it has been lurking in my stash for years and I am chuffed I found a use for it! I added a couple of Fragments over the pieces to add a little dimension.




I added a little Memory Capsule and Frame to the design, filling it with DooDads and watch pieces and made a little insert to sit behind it...also using Tim stamps and Distress Ink. I made this as a pressie for Grim...and he likes it too...phew!





Above is the photo of the Candy which includes:
Doodlebug Chipboard House, Etcetera Chipboard Shapes, 2 pks Wooden Frames, 3 mini canvas, 1 pk wooden tags, Dominoes, Bottlecaps, 2 wooden hearts, Pot Fresco Flakes, 7Gypsies Tag Book and Purple Pansy Glimmer Mist.

To be in with a chance to win the Blog Candy, please click to follow this Blog, make a blog post or add the info to your sidebar and leave me a comment on this post. Also, a much better and more fun way to be in with a chance is to join in with the challenge...as ever, leaving me a link to the place you are showing your entry. The winner of the Candy will be chosen at random and announced on 13th September 09.....Have fun!

Thanks for looking

Hels x

Ta Dah!!!! **Doing a Happy Dance**

Morning peeps....

With a bit of luck this post will upload at 5.01GMT/BST....to coincide with a special announcement that is being made on Gingersnap Creations Blog.

Oh I am soooo excited! I am very honoured to be able to tell you that I have been chosen to be on the new Design Team for the Gingersnap Creations group.....hence the happy dance! I am in very good company too, with some incredibly talented crafters...if you click on the link above you will be able to see who else has been chosen too. Shar and Ali have done a fantastic "news" style announcement...and you just gotta look at what they did for us... here is the one for me...it is hilarious and so true!!



Because of all this excitement I just had to get my fingers well and truly inky and I have actually finished a project I have had sketched for months :O)) My clever mate Dan kindly gave me a shadow box to alter....ages ago...and whilst I knew what I wanted to do, I just hadn't got around to it.




I sanded the box all over to get rid of the cornery edgey bits and painted it all over with Claudine Hellmuth's Traditional Tan (er...yes, that one again!!) Once this was dried I used Old Paper Cracklepaint and splodged it randomly onto a couple of the corners. To get the colour on the frame I used Walnut Stain Distress Ink and Walnut Gold Glimmer Mists, heating to set inbetween each spritz. Finally, I used some gold wax and rubbed this over the frame and into the crackles. As usual with my pics, they don't pick up the proper colour I have managed to get on the frame...looks better in the "flesh"




For the centre of the box, I cut a piece of card to fit and then cut it into small pieces to make a template for my stamping. Each piece was then coloured with a combo of Old Paper, Fired Brick and Walnut Stain Distress Inks, blended with Cut & Dry foam. All of the stamping was done using Tim Holtz collection stamps from Stampers Anonymous and I used Walnut Stain to do this. Most of the images are from the "mini" sets.




Finally, I added some chipboard, fragments, Idea-ology metal bits, a little glass vial and a teensy mustard spoon which I had altered with Precious metal paint and added beads.




Thanks for looking...and have a great day! I am off to carry on with my happy dance LOL

Hels x

A Grungey Rosey Canvas

Hey Peeps

I have been playing...guess what with!!! Yep...Grungepaper...again!

I used a little 4" square canvas, primed with Gesso, painted with that amazingly fabulous Claudine Hellmuth Traditional Tan...and then inked with Adirondack pigment inks to colour.




The little birdy and the house are Maya Road chip shapes and I made a little frame for the Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 phrase, which is one of my faves.




The Grungepaper rose was made by stamping the Grunge Rose image from The Artistic Stamper, three times onto the paper and then inking and colouring and cutting out and sticky together and then curling...I love this rose, it has to be one of my fave things to make at the moment!




The background stamps...(don't you just lurve the Houndstooth?) are from The Artistic Stamper as are most of the paints, inks and Maya Road too.

Thanks for looking..have an inky day!

Hels x

An Ink Splat Experiment

Hey Peeps,

I spent the day yesterday getting elbow deep in ink...yes, I actually managed to get ink on my fingers, toes, arms....oh and a little sneaky splat on my neck!

And how did this happen? I went to see Jennie and she got out her OH's compressor...and then some alcohol inks and some glossy card...and we got playing! I have done this with a can of air before but never with a compressor..and wow, what a cool effect...basically, drop a bit of ink onto the card and blast with the air...and hey presto...an ink splat!




I have stamped three of the pieces I made...using Tim Holtz collection stamps and Ranger Archival ink.




I love this one the most...I had used Metallic Mixative Gold on the cardstock and stamped the raven over the top....so it looks like it is flying across the moon...well, that is what I think anyway!




Jennie is doing a "how to" on her Blog...click here for the info :O))

Thanks for looking

Hels x

Any Old Tin? An Altered Project

Hey Peeps

I have been busy getting inky and messy again...this project is for a swap on UK Stampers...called ... Up Cycling. The remit is to take a piece of packaging and recycle it...so I have used a cigar tin for my entry.

Front Cover:



I covered the tin with two coats of Gesso to start off and then painted with Claudine Hellmuth's amazingly lush Traditional Tan paint...which is my favest ever!



For the cover, I cut some card to fit and the coloured with Distress Inks - using Scattered Straw and Dusty Concord. The layers were cut on the Slice and then coloured to match. For a change (!) I used some Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 stamps ... and the rose is made from Grungepaper and the fab flower stamp from The Artistic Stamper. The little bottle is full if beads and there is a little bit of Idea-ology on this layer too.




Inside Cover:

The insert inside the lid was made the same way...this time using some lovely background stamps from The Artistic Stamper...the houndstooth is my favest at the mo!


Card Inserts:


As with all the other bits, the stamping is using those gorgeous Studio 490 stamps...and some Idea-ology stash chucked in for good measure.




I then made some little cards to sit inside the tin...and made too many...once they were covered with the layers and then the Grungepaper flowers so I have a couple of them left over...perfect for making another tin!




I used Glossy Accents to jazz up the embellishments, adding flat back pearls and brads to the centres.

I am hoping that this piece will be ok for the swap...you know what it is like...you make something then start to wonder LOL

Thanks for looking...have an inky day!

Hels x

Sunday Stampers - Week 67 - Daydream Believer

Morning Stampers!

Thanks ever so much for joining in with last weeks challenge...it was fab to visit all your blue creations :O))

This week the theme is one we have had before...but I have a different song title for you to be humming...this one kindly suggested by Tina. The theme is DREAM. As ever with the Sunday Stamper, all you need to do to join in is make a piece of art, blog it, leave a link for me on this post...and then I can come and visit you. The challenge lasts all week so you have plenty of time to play :O))

For my entry this week you will never in a million, sqwillion years guess what colours and which stamps I used .... Oh .... you guessed already...am I that transparent? LOL **don't need to answer that one folks!**

Anyways, here is my blue/brown and Studio 490 stamped creation:

Front Cover:



To be honest, the stamps used for the embellishments actually don't belong to me *sob* ... instead, I grabbed a load of images when I was at Linda's the other day...they are the Make Mine Mini Art set...and I NEED them....NOW!!!




I used a Chipboard book from Jenni Bowlin as the base, colouring all the pages with Jazz Blue and Turquoise and Irridescent Gold Glimmer Mists and then once the pages had dried, I edged them with Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink.




I stuck the two pages together, back to back, to make them sturdier, so I now had four thick pages to work on.




The stamping on the back of each page is done using a Rich Cocoa Memento pad and all Tim Holtz Collection stamps.




The stamping on the front of the pages is again using the Memento pad and the Distress Pad ... and I used my Bug and Nesties to make the plaques for the middles. All of the stamps used on the fronts are by Wendy Vecchi.




I made the embellies from Grungepaper, curling and colouring and adding an old broken necklace of pearls to make the middles of the flowers...and stick on pearls for the butterflies. Once the embellies were in place, I used Broken China Distress Stickles to bling them up.


Back Cover:

Thanks for looking ... have a great Sunday and I hope you enjoy the challenge this week :O))

Hels x

Watch The Birdy! An Altered Bird :O))

Hey Peeps,

Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....I finally got to alter a bird! Tis a long story all about getting the birds imported into the UK...then paying an extortionate amount of import duty...but I can safely say it was deffo worth it...cos I looooved every minute of altering this little fella...and I got to play at Linda's house and I reckon some of her talent must have rubbed off on me...cos for the second time in a week I am chuffty tuffty with what I made!




I asked Grim to do the photo's with his proper camera cos the ones I took were naff...but I got let loose with Paint Shop Pro so blame me for the quality LOL




The bird started off as a Red Cardinal and as usual, I forgot to get a snap of him prior to the altering...but you can imagine...he was red and looked realistic and came readily attached to a little wooden block.





I had picked up a couple of little wooden cars in a charity shop a couple of months ago with altering in mind...and it was obvious that the bird needed to stand on one! Linda's John very kindly drilled the holes for me...he must have known I would have damaged something if I had been left to my own devices :O))




The bird came heavily painted and needed to be sanded properly...so after about 3 seconds of sanding I decided to just paint over the top...*patience is not one of my virtues!* LOL...I used Claudine Hellmuth's fabby Traditional Tan paint as a base and then Faded Jeans CracklePaint over the top of it...and then once all the paint dried and started to flake away and show the red thru again...and after a lot of laughing...I just slapped some watered down Traditional Tan on and hoped for the best!




The crackles have been filled with gold wax, so the red isn't so visible now!! I used Wendy Vecchi's amazingly wonderful Studio 490 stamps to add dots to the bird, car and for the headgear, wings and tail adornments...stamped onto Grungepaper...and then distressed.





The wings are a couple of Studio 490 leaves which have been held in by a gold tack...yes, I used a hammer...and no, I didn't hit myself with it!! ROFL The tail features a bottle cap filled with DooDads and Sepia Accents...and it says Trust Art...which I think is a perfect sentiment. I also made him some specs...using florists wire and a paintbrush...and then making them golden with Precious Metal paint. I think he looks rather distinguished!





The crown was made using a few Idea-ology bits and a fancy lionface doorknob thingy...and the Idea-ology spinner is there so you can point the bird in the right direction! The little car has also got hardware attached...to the hubcaps, the windscreen and I made a little "bumper" so it can be pulled along.



I think that is about it...it took a day to do but I looooved making this so much...and ... I have one more bird left to play with too! Oh, and this is a photo of my hand...after a day playing with ink n paint ... I somehow don't think I would ever get a job as a jewellry model :O))




Thanks for looking....please pop over to Linda's blog...cos her bird is making its debut there today too!

Hels x

Art House - Studio 490 Inspired

...So...I said to myself, I can either spend a day in the sunshine or...spend a day in the Room of Stash, getting covered in ink and paint...guess which one I chose ????? Yep, I am still as lily white as before...except for my hands...which are a most disgusting colour of blue and brown ... with a bit of white thrown in for good measure...but I think it was worth it cos I made something...start to finish... and I like it!!! LOL **did you know that Crackle Paint, if left on a finger nail, will eventually crackle?** :O))




This started life as a plain wooden photoframe...complete with the glass in it to put the photo behind...and it has now ended up as a grungey crackled arty piece...minus the glass!




The ingredients I used for this creation are: Picket Fence Crackle Paint - which had gone almost rock solid so I added water, mixed it up...and it worked! Then I used Glimmer Mists to add colour over the top of the white crackles...I used Jazz Blue and Antique Brass, drying inbetween each layer with a heatgun.




I used some golden wax to bring the crackles out and then made a little arty bit to fit inside the frame...using more Glimmer Mists, Distress Inks and yep, you probably noticed by now that I have yet again used those amazing Studio 490 Stamps by Wendy Vecchi...infact, all the stamping is using them. This piece is totally inspired by Wendy's fab artwork....I got so many ideas and tips just from browsing thru her Blog...you really must have a look, it is unmissable!




I used some Grungeboard for a flourish and Grungepaper for the butterfly and flowers...using the Glimmer Mists to colour the Grunge and drying it off to set it. A few Idea-ology bits have found their way onto this one...and a bottle cap, filled with a Salvage Sticker and some Glossy Accents...and finally, some Diamond Stickles, Distress Stickles mixed together ... oh ... and a few beads!

Thanks for looking....two posts in one day again :O))

Hels x

Sugar Bowl Sketch - Little Gretel Girl

Hey Peeps,

Cor, it is roasting hot here today....so instead of being sensible and taking it easy, I have been cooking...when will I ever learn eh? Anyways, onto to todays offering....art - not food LOL

This card was made using a sketch by Judy for The Sugar Bowl Challenge.




I still had those fab Gretel papers out...you know, the ones I used last week....am sooo untidy! So I decided to use them for this card too.




I used a Gorjuss Girl, coloured with ProMarkers, then added some faux stitching to the papers. The remit on this challenge was to also use some handmade flowers...so I used a few punches and put some matching paper flowers together.

Thanks for looking...hope you having a good day too :O))

Hels x

GingerSnappers Challenge #19 - Chipboard

Hey Peeps,

I have joined in with the fab new challenge set over on Ginger Snap Creations. This time we have a "supply" challenge, which means delving into the stash to find the bits n bobs needed. The theme for this challenge is Chipboard.




I have some fabby little Maya Road birdy chipboard pieces from The Artistic Stamper which just needed to be used!




I started by cutting some foam board to make an ATC and a small hangy piece. I used Claudine Hellmuths amazing Studio paint (in Altered Orange)....Oh, wow, if you haven't used this...you need to, it is soooo smooth and the colours are heavenly. Anyways, I used a spatula to kind of splodge and slide the paint about the surface of the board....I mixed some white paint in as well to get different shades and patterns.




Once the bases were dried I got stamping...First of all, I used white paint with a Crafty Individiuals diamond stamp and randomly stamped onto the painted surface...once this was dry, I used a babywipe and smudged more orange paint over the top and then once this was dry, I used some sandpaper and brought the relief of the diamond back to the surface...don't think this shows up too well on the pics tho :O( Then, I used black StaZon and some Tim Holtz collection stamps and Wendy Vecchi stamps for the backgrounds and sentiments.




I added a little blister pearl to the wing of the bigger birdy and a little Idea-ology bit to the ickle birdy and then edged the sides and edges with the StaZon.

Thanks for looking!

Hels x