More from the Aall and Create Workshop

We spend the most of the first day making journals, using an Eileen Hull die and then decorating them with brayers, acrylic paint, stencils, baby wipes, stamps, rub ons, stickers and pens. Lots of layers to build up to the finished result, which I was reasonably happy with. I pushed myself out of my blue/purple comfort zone which I think is why I'm not madly in love with it. It was a great fun day learning though.

The Flower Challenge - Pink and Grey Reminder Post

It's time for our reminder post over at The Flower Challenge and we want to see your beautiful pink and grey creations still. Please remember to check out out rules to make sure you're in with a chance of winning.

I used the Altenew Dahlia A & B stencils to create my card. I applied a Dreamees Dinky Inky pink ink with a blending tool through the first stencil and then blended Weathered Wood distress ink through the second stencil. I then trimmed them down a little to add a small pink and grey mat behind and glued them onto a 6x6 card. 

As per usual I got some inky smudges on it and so I used a large wooden word from Papermania/Docrafts to hide some of them. I rubbed over it with the Weathered Wood ink pad and once dry glued it into place, that didn't quite hide all the marks and so a few sequins rescued it!

Willow and Herb

Willow and Herb complained that they were not getting enough attention and so I promised to share some photos of them, especially as I haven't finished my project for today! Please excuse the scattering of poo, I'm just hoping that the new bunnies are better at toilet training than these two are.

New Additions...

No crafting today, but the title of my blog does allude to bunnies so.... In 3 weeks time when they're old enough to leave Mum, these two adorable bundles are coming to be house bunnies. As I'll be coming home to an empty house, I wanted some bunnies for company. Williow and Herb are happy outdoors, I think Willow would enjoy being a house bunny, but I think it would be too much for Herb. He's built up his confidence massively, but still doesn't really like much human interaction. He flops out happily snuggled up to Willow though. 

The new bunnies, two male Netherland Dwarfs, will live in my kitchen and lounge so thankfully, I've got a few weeks to bunny proof it! They're agouti (wild rabbit coloured)  and so are less brown and more grey than in the photo, the only problem is going to be telling them apart! 

MFT You Are Mermazing

I made a 6 inch canvas board using the MFT You are mermazing stamp set. I stamped the images on paper and watercoloured them before cutting them out. I painted the board with starlights paints, which give a wonderful metallic sheen. Once dry I stamped the small fish in black archival ink.  I then applied some sparkle paste through a Dutch Doobadoo stencil to add waves. I glued the stamped elements in place and added a touch of stickles to finish. Hopefully you can see some of the details better on the following pictures.

Another InkBuds Project

Woohoo! Friday at last and not a moment too soon. Working full time again is very tiring. Although, I have to confess, that I do have it on the cushy side on Fridays. I normally work in a nearby city, so it's about a 40 minute drive to work. On Friday afternoons however, I run a clinic in the "village" I live in, so I get paid to drive back to the village and then am back home five minutes after I finish there!

I'm looking forward to the weekend though, I need to rediscover the kitchen table and then I'll have space to craft in, rather than using the cooker top! I'm also looking forward to catching up on all your fantastic blogs.

So, onto the project, this was one of Hels Sheriden's sessions. We covered a cardboard journal cover in fabric and then used stencils and distress oxides to decorate. The inside is decorated too, which you can just get a peek of, but I forgot to take a photo and I've no idea where it is now to take another one! We die cut Fleurs flower forming foam to create the flowers and leaves. We added wooden and metal embelishments and lace to finish.

InkBuds Project

Although I've been AWOL from my blog, I have managed to get to some crafting events. This project was made at one of the InkBuds weekenders in Preston and was the project that Pauline Wheeler taught. Mum liked it so much that she stole it and it's hanging in their lounge. Mum seems to be stealing quite a lot of my workshop makes these days!

Clearly Besotted Poodle Around

Another card from the "I don't *think* I've blogged this, but maybe I did and don't remember pile".

I stamped all the images from the now retired Clearly Besotted Poodle Around stamp set on a 6x4 card in black archival ink and then coloured them in with zig clean colour pens. Very simple and fun to colour. 

Especially for you...

I don't think I've blogged this card that I made last year yet, but if I did, sorry!

I know it's an Altenew stamp set, but can't remember which one sadly. I stamped the individual elements using Dreamees Dinky Inks and probably a memento ink for one of the greens and then stamped the outline stamps in black archival. I then cut out the images to arrange on the card.

I used the inks squished onto my craft mat with a drop of water and with a wide flat brush painted stripes on a piece of white card. I then used a tattered lace torn edge rectangle die to cut it out. 

I used foam tape to adehere it to the card to give some height to it and glued the flowers and leaves in place. I found some co-ordinating card and die cut one of The Paper Boutique's sentiment dies and glued it into place. Simples x

More Aall & Create makes...

On the Sunday afternoon of our weekend workshops with Abs, we played with acrylic paint, stencils and baby wipes to create some backgrounds. As per usual we ran out of time to stamp on the backgrounds and add foreground images, but I managed to start a couple. I do feel slightly guilty about the number of baby wipes we got through though, the list of items to bring stated "baby wipes, at least one full packet". He wasn't kidding! 

More Sweet Dixie Honey Bunny Cards...

For some reason, I decided to make individual cards for all my colleagues when I left my job, rather than ones for each team. 27ish cards later, remind me not to do that again!

I stamped one of the bunnies from the Sweet Dixie Honey Bunny set onto some white card and then coloured them in with zig clean colour pens. I then hand cut every one of them out, quite why I didn't stamp them straight onto the 3" cards, I don't know! I did stamp the Clearly Besotted sentiments from their So To Speak stamp set directly though, think I'd learned my lesson by then. 

I doodled a border round the card with a black fineliner and then glued the bunny in place. I added some stickles in places to each of their outfits and to finish off googly eyes. A lot of effort, even more so when I rembered I had to write in each one of them. I ended up making a few spares as well, just in case I'd forgotten anyone.

Inspired by the Tracy Scott Workshop...

You may remember that I did a workshop with Tracy Scott from PapertArtsy last year. I wanted to make a piece of art for a friend of mine and so used the techniques from the workshop to create it. Don't ask me what stamps etc I used as I haven't a clue!
If you couldn't be bothered to follow the link back to my post about the workshop, this is the piece that inspired me.

The Flower Challenge #28 - Pink and Grey

Yep, it's time for our first challenge of 2019 over at The Flower Challenge and this time we want to see you use grey and pink. 

I used the Stamps By Me Think Happy stamp set in black memento ink and then coloured it in using my copics. I added some extra details with a white gel pen and black fineliner. I then used the co-ordinating die and backed the flowers with a piece of grey card. I added it to a card base with foam tape to add some dimension. 

We can't wait to see your creations - please check out our rules and make sure that florals are the main image of your card and link back to the challenge. We'd love it if you can include our cue card too x

Aall and create stamp 141 and 146

In December, I was lucky to be able to attend the Aall and Create workshops in Carnforth, Lancashire , run by the very shy and retiring Abs - see below - yep, his jumper lit up too!

On the second day we created this piece in the morning using the new stamp set 141, which is the black collage style stamp. It's actually one of two seperate stamps on this huge A4 stamp set.
After stamping it in back archival we coloured it using watercolour pens. We then stamped the text part of stamp set 146 ink distress oxides and used water brushes to move the ink. We then added some shading behind the main image and some white highlights to finish. It was great to see a way to use these type of stamps as I often think they're fantastic, but don't know what to do with them.
It was an entertaining and informative two days of crafting and Abs is really inspiring and a great teacher. He also speaks brilliant English and was, shall we say amused by our schoolgirl grasp of French, although we managed to shock him with some of the apparently incredibly rude French words we knew!

Wonky Tonk Tahlia

I used a large grey board tag and painted it with various shades of starlight paint. Once dry I stamped the Wonky Tonk girl, Tahlia in black archival and also the leaves and stems from Polkadoodles Regal Peacock stamp set. I painted in the foliage with green acrylic paint. I then stamped the background stamp from PaperArty JOFY 62 in white acrylic paint. I splattered some PaperArtsy gold paint onto the tag and spread some of it around the edges before heating it with a heat gun until it bumbled to give more texture.

I stamped the girl onto a piece of card in black archival and coloured her in with a mixture of paints and spectrum noir sparkle pens. Once dry I cut her out and glued her over the stamped image on the tag. 

I painted some "colour puddles" or circles of acrylic paint on white card and them stamped the flowers from the JOFY 62 set in black archival and then added detail with back and white pens. Once dry, I cut them out and layered them up with gems then added them to the tag. A bit of purple ribbon finished the tag. 

A New Year's Resolution - To Craft and Blog More Often!

Well, a new year has started. The fireworks at midnight woke me up. As my Mum said, I didn't stay up to see in the new year, but it let itself in anyway!

Last year was an, um, *interesting one*. Lots of changes, not all ones that I wanted unfortunately. On the positive side, I started a new job as a Specialist Occupational Therapist in October. It's a promotion, but also means that I'm back to working full time, so less time to craft and blog. As things have worked out though, financially it's a blessing. The job is incredibly challenging at times, but it's been the right move for me. Bunnies (Willow and Herb) are both happy and healthy and I love spending time just watching them do bunny things. I spent Christmas with my parents and my sister and her family which was wonderful. 

Crafting-wise I've been to a few workshops this year, so will share the results with you soon. I am going to try to blog more this year, oh and spend less money on craft stuff that I want but don't need - let's see which resolution gets broken first!

I did actually make a few cards last year, including these two made from a Sweet Dixie stamp set. Can't think why I bought it! I coloured them in with my favourite copics, fussy cut them and then stacked up the bunnies and glued them onto DL size cards and drew in some borders with a fineliner pen. 

I hope you all had a great Christmas and that this year brings health and happiness with it x