Inchies, ATCs and a sneaky peak.....

Ooh - I'm enjoying this creative malarkey! Thanks everyone for your very kind comments....

Along with the Little Book of Purple, I sent nine inchies to Sid for the November swap on UK STampers . The theme was Christmas - I guess these are more wintery, but I'd just seen some gorgeous serviettes in Tesco that were this colour combo, and was inspired. They're a more greeny blue in real life... The stamp is by All Night Media.



Then over on the Inchy by Inch blog we've had a Christmas Inchy Swap, where we've had to make 12 inchies. I can't remember where the stamps came from, some cheap and tacky set, but they are quite sweet, and the perfect size. Background is 140lb watercolour paper, with DTP background in Fluid Chalk Ink. Images coloured in with Twinkling H2Os.



Onto ATCs now - again, on UKSTampers there's an ATC swap - the theme being Da Vinci. Without running upstairs, I can't tell you where one of the stamps came from, but the other is by Cherry Pie. The papers are Joanna Sheen. I've distressed them a bit with Dark Brown and Burnt Umber chalk ink.



Last but not least - I'm finishing off a piece of art for the UK Art Raffle. This month's theme is Circles. I don't want to show the whole piece until it's received by the winner of the raffle, so for now, just a couple of sneaky peaks.

Sisterhood of the Blogging Stampers #26

Ok, so I've taken the plunge - I'm joining in. Hopefully my new sisterhood will nudge me and prod me and inspire me....

I've got to say a bit more about myself than is in my profile, apparently, so here goes. It might just be new and entertaining info for some of my longer standing acquaintances.

I'm mid-thirties (don't wanna give too much away now, do I), married, and living in Hampshire, UK.

I was bought my first ever rubber stamp when I was 17 years old, and I can still remember how it felt walking in that shop, a complete rarity at the time. They were still demonstrating heat embossing with a toaster, then! I still have that stamp, and it still gets used. And I still love it. Now I have an embarrassing quantity of stamps and I need to use them more and be more creative with what I do.

So there you have it.

Greetings, Sisters!

I've been tagged!

How cool is this? My first ever tag! Sorry it took me a couple of days to notice...LOL


Well, Stitchinwitch over at Stitchinwitch's Rat Cage has tagged me to list 7 weird things about me. Ok, I know I'm a bit weird, but am I THAT weird? Let's see....

1) I have double jointed elbows. Not completely, but enough that when I lean on a table with my hands, and my arms are straight, they're not, they bend inwards. And I can rotate my arms on a 180 degree axis in a way that makes people go "eeeewww".

2) I used to like eating plain chocolate digestives with salt and vinegar crisps.

3) I'm a medieval re-enactor. Not weird to some, but weird to a lot of others!

4) I spent the last winter solstice watching the sun come up at Stonehenge - and hope to do the same thing this year.

5) Not sure if this counts as weird, but in 2006 I appeared in Panto in France....

6) I called my first car Frodo...

7) I really was one of those sad people who bought Kylie Minogue's "I should be so lucky" on a 7" single, just so I could play it at 33rpm to see if she sounded like Rick Astley. And she did! ROFLMAO.

Ok. I hope they're weird enough. Now I have to tag 7 people too.....

1. Fi on Magickdiva
2. Jo at Siggi Shop
3. Jan at Die Cut Queen - time you blogged, hun!
4. Sandie at The Cockney Crafter
5. Storm at Simply Storm
6. Julie on Scrapping Away
7. Grendel at Scrapbook Widower

Phew - that was hard work!!!!

Now to let them all know I've tagged them.... tee hee

A Little Book of Purple

OK. Finally I have the time to blog about a little adventure I'm going on. Actually, it's probably a BIG adventure. And it's what I've referred to on Aunty's Forum as my "Rosie-ism", in homage to our fabulous artist over there, Rosie

Over on the UK STampers forum, a group of us have got together and are starting a Circle Journal. We've each selected a rubber stamp, and picked a colour. Mine is a stamp by PaperArtsy, from their Dolls 4 plate, and I've chosen purple. It's my favourite colour, and the colour of creativity. And so we're off.



I've done my pages and they're ready to post out on Monday - I just need to do some Inchies too, as the person I'm posting to is the host for the UKST inchy swaps (may as well kill two birds with one stone!).

First things first - here's a picture of the cover. My apologies if the pictures are a little dark - I need to work on the lighting in my "Studio"! The cover actually really gleams!

The backbones of the book, or rather the front and back covers, start out as chipboard. I've not included a pic of the back because it's the same as the front without the wording. I've covered the chipboard with a layer of tissue paper, glued on with PVA and wrinkled attractively, and into which I've liberally sprinkled Beadazzles and Judikins' ROXS. I've then painted over the lot with various shades of purple acrylic paint, including a metallic one. Once that dried, I rubbed over the top with silver ink to highlight the texture, and then created the wording. The letter "A" is just a sticker on some paper, the word "Little" is created from heat embossing on Mirri board, "Book" is stamped on Shrink plastic and shrunk, "of" is letraset on purple mirri board (though you can't read it due to reflection), and the "urple" of purple is dry embossed into metal - a piece of pie case, actually. The big P is a Basic Grey chipboard letter which I did with UTEE, and then Moonglow EP on top. Edged with Gold Twinkling H20s



Next up we have inside the cover, and the intro page. They pretty much speak for themselves, I guess. On the tag you can see, I have stamped the images I used in my pages.



Finally, we have my pages for the CJ. I'm into all sorts of things, so in picking my stamp (which came with a crown!) it was a natural progression to think of Crowns and link it to the colour purple, hence the Crown Chakra pages. It took me ages to think of what to do, but after a long while of contemplation, it finally came to me - and I just "saw" these pages. Not quite as they've turned out, cos I made a couple of booboos, but they're happy accidents... I'm not going to bore you by defining their meaning - I will leave that up to each individual to surmise what they will. Anyway, I've used the same purple paint for the background, and coupled it wit torn purple glittery paper. I've stamped "Field of Sand" across the background in Opalite ink to give the impression of waves, and used a scroll stamp to give the impression of clouds. I'm not sure where the moon came from - the page just needed something, and it happened! LOL









I like it - not sure anyone else will, but that is what art is all about, eh?


Next one coming to me is from Efemera (Gail), and her colour is "Grey". Oh my. I wonder what stamp she's used?

Diamonds are Forever....

or at least, they've for November over on Aunty's Forum Yep, that's the theme for the team challenge. Here's a few of my offerings...

The first is a bookmark made for a bookmark swap - and I've used some Argyle (diamond paper) in one corner. The second pic shows a close up....





This card is made using a switch embossing stencil.



The last one is done using some embossed paper created with a cuttlebug embossing folder... I love the Mr Frosty image - I got the stamp from eBay, so have no idea who the manufacturer is.

Musical Inchy...

Over on the Inchy By Inch blog, Fi has set the challenge of a Music Inchy in honour of her appearance in The Magic Flute in Newbury. So here's mine!

Medieval card

I don't know why - maybe it's because of my interest in all things medieval - but I seem to be most comfortable creating with this theme. Here is my latest card, which I've made for my sister-in-law's birthday.

I scored and folded an A4 sheet of black card, onto which I layered two different patterns of paper from the Robert Adams Medieval CD; the rubber stamp is an unknown I picked up from ebay, stamped in black versafine onto white card and layered up onto silver mirri. The metal embellishment was a pie case dry embossed using a Dreamweaver stencil. I love it, I hope Ginnie does! It's quite a simple card, but looks very sophisticated.