How did I miss this Challenge - Tag 9 - But I will catch UP!

Hello Friends

I was wandering around on the blogasphere recently and I came across THIS wonderful Blog which is Linda Coughlin's of The Funkie Junkie!  Wow!  I was blown away by all the loveliness on her blog and discovered that Linda hosts "The Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas" which if you click HERE you will be taken to Tag One which has all the deets on.  It is worth just going to see all nine tags, they are gorgeous.

I know Linda is currently on Tag 9 and there are only three more to go but there is still a while to go until the Big Day itself so I guess I can give it a go.  They are sooo scrummilicious I just have to join in!  There is also a chance to win a shopping spree as these challenges are sponsored by The Funkie Junkie shop.  Let me tell you, having had a peruse and a little shop there, having recently won the CC2C Challenge, it is worth the chance to win! 

So here is Linda's tag......

Didn't I tell you it was scrummy!

Now here is my take on Linda's tag.......

Instead of stars I have used hearts made from Snippets of SU Vanilla cardstock, die cut with a Sizzix die and stamped in Barn Door with my new Wendy Vecchi stamp (in love with these and they were a steal so it would have been rude not to have bought them!).  The burlap pieces were also Snippets from my Christmas Album project.  The key was out of my jar of odd keys and watch bits (I have been told by a high authority - Mr Hettie - that it was the old key for the shed) which I coloured with black alcoholic ink, along with the mini bells hanging on the mini hearts of course!

The Holly leaves were cut out of another Snippet of SU Vanilla cardstock (I keep every piece of the SU Vanilla cardstock in a separate bag as it is great to work with), inked with Pine Needles DI, a little Fresco Snowflake paint topped with glossy accents and some Hampton Art fine glitter sprinkled over the top.  Once dried I added a little more Pine Needles around the edges.

These mini hearts were die cut with chipboard then some Ferro and Puffed Paint were smooshed over and heated with the heat gun.  Love this Ferro.  It is soo schparkly in the natural light. I crimped some wire through the crimping tool and added the bells to the hearts and wired them to the key.  I also popped two star pins into the bow, which is a Snippet of fabric my quilting friend gave to me.

The base of the tag is Kraft cardstock which I ran through the TH woodgrain embossing folder.  I painted this with the Snowflake Fresco paint and once dried added a layer of TH Rock Candy Crackle paint and once that was dried I added some Black Soot DI.

A little TH ticket and some gingham ribbon and hey presto, my tag was finished.  Now then, which one shall I do next?

You have until 17th December to catch up with all 12 tags and there is a chance to win a prize  from the sponsor Funkie Junkie  Love their goodies and to be honest, postage was not an awful lot in the context of things and pretty quick to the UK (8 days from order to parcel!).

As there are a few Snippets on this I will be linking it up to my Buddie at the Playground.

Thanks for popping by and please feel free to leave me a comment.  Gotta love comments. And finally, thank you Linda for such a wonderful Challenge, I have enjoyed making this no end, and think it will live in my kitchen.  Anyone who has been in my kitchen will know there are a collection of hearts in there!

TTFN

Hettie

CC2c- Bees in My Garden!!

Good Evening Peeps

For anyone who has popped over here to see what I am showing you in my Scrappy Tuesday session, well I am afraid that for this week it will be a Scrappy Tuesday on Thursday!  The reason being is I have been working (albeit slowly) on my latest lickle project for my CC2C with the Lovely Linda.  Also, I wanted to try and tie in this week's piece with Sarah over at Mojo Monthly, as well as  Simon Says Stamp's Anything Goes as it has Snippets in there I can join in on  Di's Snippets Challenge.  So for once you have a four for one on this piece.   

I cannot tell you exactly what the challenge is with the CC2C Challenge, week 5, other than it involves Shattered Stains and can be found on page 48 in the new Compendium of Curiosities.  You may remember I had a go at this technique when I undertook the Creative Chemistry Course recently and absolutely LOVED this technique.  So when Linda announced on Friday that this was this week's challenge I put my thinking cap on and decided to try out a little theory which popped into my mind a few weeks after the Creative Chemistry course.  This was that I if I stamped an image using Archival ink I could maybe use a wash made with Perfect Pearls and water to colour an image in, to make a flimsy wing type colour for Bee wings.  Well, I have tried it and I like the effect.  Let me know what you think please. I should also mention that this week's Challenge for CC2C is sponsored by Simon Says Stamp!

The background to this piece is a canvas base which I have coloured using Mustard Seed DSs, and Rusty Hinge and Wild Honey DIs.  Edged with black and then the edges covered with papers stamped with my small Bee stamp and grunged using a piece of metal mesh which I "acquired" when I was in the shed some time ago.  Not sure if Hubby notices it has gone yet!  Shhh!  

I cut a piece of cardstock to size and used the Wrinkle Free Distress technique with the spritz and flick (love doing this too!) to obtain colour and depth to the piece.  Using Black Soot DI to stamp various flowers and flourishes and Archival to stamp the Dragonflies (first outing for them!).  I then adhered the background piece to the canvas.  

Using various different pieces of patterned paper (mainly snippets left over from the layout I showed you last Tuesday), cardstock and book pages, I used punches and dies to create (loads and loads of) flowers and leaves in order to make flowers with layers.  I inked most of them (when don't I ink ey?) and I scrunched, frilled and generally manipulated them until I got them in the shapes I wanted.  I then adhered them together using glossy accents and finished them off by adding a bottle cap with a punched middle, adding glossy accents before adding micro beads to the centres.  

To make the bees look like they are hovering I cut up small pieces of wood (you know those little pieces of wood you get with the canvas to wedge it?  well I sawed those up into little pieces), adhered them together with glossy accents and attached them to the canvas and adhered the bee to the wood using foam dots.  

To make the quotation, I inked up a piece of A4 cardstock about 3" and typed up the verse on my computer and printed on top of the coloured paper.  The reason I did it this way is I have learnt (the hard way) that if you print a sentiment and then ink it with DIs it smudges, even when I have tried heat setting it first.  Therefore, I colour first and print second.  It might not be the case for everyone but it is for my printer (HP)!

Well, I can honestly say I have had a few fun filled hours of learning and playing with this piece and have had a lovely piece to give to my Bee Keeping Husband to go in the porch.  

Please leave me a comment so I know you have Bee-n!  Why don't you join in the Challenges too!  

Hugs

Hettie

Ingredients:- Papers - Authentique, MME, Bazzill, Old books; Ranger/Tim Holtz - black Archival ink, pearl Perfect Pearls, Rock Candy Distress Crackle, Stamps, Glossy Accents, Distress Stains; Mustard Seed, Peeled paint, Distress Inks; Black soot, Wild honey, Rusty hinge, Vintage photo, Spiced marmalade, Mustard seed, Crushed olive (my latest favourite!), Antique Linen; Stamps - Paperartsy, Jo Capper-Sandon Stampotique, Autumn Leaves; Micro beads - Art van Go; Beer bottle caps; Recycled chipboard; Punches - Stampin Up, Martha Stewart; Dies - Tim Holtz, Paperartsy, Sizzix.

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 8

Hello Peeps

I am still trying to play catch up with this course and still LOVING it!!  I actually started these last night in between coming from home and going out to Dancing!! 

So Day 8 is all about Resist - No! Not resisting chocolate but paint resist.   Hope you like what I have done.....

I have to say that I love how these have turned out and the fact that the one on the left is a lickle curly is perfectly natural as Tim Holtz has told us - phew!!  The one on the right is a little larger than usual as it was supposed to be done with sticky back canvas.  I don't have any and cannot find my role of canvas so I used a canvas board and a larger stamp 'cos I could.  I think I will be fiddling with that later.  The third technique are some die cut flutterbies using chipboard and then turned into glazed flutterbies by magic!!

Off to see what today's Chemistry lesson involves now.

Hugs

Hettie

Ingredients:-  Stamps - Tim Holtz, Stampington; Distress Stains - Peeled Paint, /mustard Seed, Chipped Sapphire, Bundled Sage, Dusty Concord; Dabber - Snow Cap White; Dies - Butterflies and Tag - Sizzix; Distress Crackle - Rock Candy, Brushed Pewter (love it!)



GM 37 - Wearable Art!

Ahoy Peeps!

Wow - Grungy Monday 37!!  Good Grief - how did we get to this number?  I know I have sadly missed the last two weeks due to holiday and life but I was determined I wasn't going to miss another week.  So wear!! do I start with wearable Grungy Monday with the lovely Linda?

First of all I thought of a Pinnieon (apron to most people) but then I had a brainstorm (yes it hurt) and decided to jazz up a pair of flip flops, which I was given by a well known company when I had my feet nibbled and toes painted last year.  It had been raining before I set out on my day out to Bath so I wore my boots to keep my feet dry.  I hate wet feet.

They were unfortunately very slow in our treatments, despite having booked in advance, so we did not get a chance to sit down afterwards and drink a cuppa whilst the polish was drying.  We had to leave straight away or else we had a two hour wait for the train.  So they gave me a pair of flip flops to wear home.  Fortunately it had stopped raining but there were quite a lot of dirty puddles!!

They were pretty boring and were going to be thrown into the recycle bag but thanks to Linda they have been grunged up and look far prettier.  So here they are.......

....and note the sunshine streaming in through the window on the flip flops!  I need to clean the windows now we have had sunshine to show up the dirt though!

A lot of fun to decorate, using grungeboard, tattered florals, Stampers Anonymous stamp, Rock Candy crackle, distress stains, distress inks, glossy accents, (I cannot remember the make of the flip flop stamp!), brad and braid.  I declined putting them on to take the photo as my toes are not exactly photogenic!

Don't forget to pop over to Linda's to see some of the other wonderful work which has been done for the Challenge and why not join us! Also, of course, there is the Lord of Grunge himself's website HERE where you will find lots of ideas and inspiration for making art!

TTFN

Hettie

Grungy Monday 34 - Mayhem Magic - ATC

Hello Peeps

The Lovely Linda of Grungy Monday fame gave us two weeks to complete this week's Grungy Monday Challenge.  You may see the post HERE.  But before I start, can I ask a question?  Why is it that when I have a week to produce and post a Challenge I do so on the last day.  When I have two weeks I STILL post it on the last day!  Hey ho!  It would have been yesterday, but more below.

We were sent by Linda to watch Tim's video HERE to watch his little clip talking about Distress Crackle Paints.  I am already disadvantaged because I only have the one - Rock Candy.  Never mind, do the Challenge I will.   And, as I have recently fallen in love with the concept of ATCs thanks to Sarah, I will complete the Challenge as an ATC! 

So, here it is.....

The background was made by layering papers which I inked using Picket Fence and Chipped Sapphire Distress Stains (DS).  I have to make a note to myself to buy the Distress Ink (DI) of Chipped Sapphire!  Then I took a piece of masking tape, adhered it to the top layer at random and then tore it off, which subsequently tore some of the paper off.  I did this again in another spot, then I went over the background again with Chipped Sapphire and Picket Fence.

Here you can see some of the layers torn and also the bottom left curling up.  I like that!  

Then I added the Distress Crackle paint, having added water to it, as the Man himself told us we can do.  How cool was that?  Mine had gone a little gloopy and lumpy and I was considering throwing it away and opening the new bottle, but at least I have now got one more project out of the bottle, maybe another.  I left it to dry as we were told and then applied a little heat from the heat gun at the correct time.  

I then inked over the whole ATC with Faded Jeans DI in order for it to be worked into the cracks made by the Crackles.  I stamped the background with this lovely lady and the lickle stars - both Graphic 45 and unused until yesterday!  The lady did not stand out as much as I would like so I stamped her on a separate piece of card, inked her with Faded Denim DI and then added the white Perfect Pearls in order that she would shimmer in the spotlights.

Then came the magic part.  I used Perfect Medium to stamp the stars on the background as I intended to use gold Perfect Pearls  to add even more shimmer.  When I brushed over the stars, the Perfect Pearls went into the cracks and made the whole area look golden and shimmery.  I really liked the effect so I did not rub the crackle to remove the ink and pearls hard, just enough to remove what was on the surface.

I added the lady using foam dots so she would pop a little, made the sign and then proceeded to make the frame, on my own and with no supervision, other than Monkey who sits on my desk!  I deliberately did not colour the inside of the frame as I wanted to ATC to stand out.  Colour may have dulled the ATC I think.  I used Chipped Sapphire and Picket Fence DS on the outside of the frame and then stamped the frame using Archival ink.  A little Indigo wax smudged with my finger and attaching of the sign and off to photograph it.  Unfortunately, I had to photograph it twice, as I was not totally happy with the flash so wanted to photograph it again this morning in natural light, hence why I did not post this last night.  

Hope you like and please do not forget to leave me a comment and also pop over to the Lovely Linda to see some of the other entrants to the Challenge.  Don't forget you can always pop over to Tim's blog HERE to get even more wonderful ideas.

TTFN

Hettie