You are currently browsing the Shirl's Artwork blog archives for the year 2017.
At last I managed to make some Christmas cards for the family …
Used two colours of Brusho’s on some of the cards, Light Brown and Grey.
First up is JP and Clare’s card.
Next comes Alex’s …
Lauren’s one …
… really tried to make this CAS Loz!!! Explanation here …
Amber’s …
Various other Christmas makes …
and now the fun make … another journal spread …
Entering the first two cards into the Stampotique Challenge SDC 288 – Christmas – Week 2
Thanks to my lovely DT teamie Avril for picking the fabulous theme this month at FSC she chose ‘Celebrate’.
This actually gave me the chance to get ahead of the game and make Alex’s birthday card early.
Can you believe that my favourite grandson is going to be 18 in January????
LOL … I can say my favourite because I only have one grandson
Would really love it if you hopped on over to see all the DT’s work as they are simply stunning.
Ink Art Designs Etsy Shop is sponsoring FSC and they will be offering a stamp for the winner of each new challenge.
When we came back from Australia and opened our front door the first thing that greeted us was half the ceiling in the hallway had fallen down.
We facetimed our son and showed him the mess, he told us not to touch anything as the rest looked safe enough to him. He would get out to Ireland as soon as he could and repair it for us
All the family turned up from the UK, got stuck in with repairing the ceiling and all the other little jobs that needed doing in the house. My grandson Alex is going into the same trade as his dad and it was such a joy to see them working side by side.
This was the start of Andrew and I getting stuck in with getting the house neat and ship shape again with a view to putting it on the market then moving back home to the UK. We got a skip in, cleared out the shed, had the house painted outside and started the big tidy up with the garden.
All was going really well until Andrew was taken ill and rushed to hospital.
That was two months ago, it was only yesterday that he felt well enough to go back to work.
With all life’s little lemons that have been thrown my way this summer the crafting took a back seat.
Yesterday was my time to have a well earned play in my journal. No thinking about where anything was going just playing with all the things I love most. Stamping, painting and stencilling.
This is probably my favourite page in the journal so far.
The painter turned up yesterday to finish painting the kitchen/diner, conservatory, utility room and cloakroom.
The house looks so fresh and neat again which makes me a very happy bunny.
For this month’s challenge FSC is going with the theme of ‘NATURE’ which has been picked by my lovely DT teamie Carola.
Made another art journal page for my FSC piece with trailing autumn coloured ivy leaves but check out those legs – how cool do they look?
I have been wanting some Viva Las Vegas Stamps for a while and Dot has now got some in her shop Ink Art Designs.
We still Skype each other two, maybe three times a week and I was soooo excited when she said she was getting these stamps in.
There are many different makes of stamps for you to buy from her shop but I bought most of the Viva Las Vegas ones.
Guess what stamped images you will be seeing in the coming months???
Ivy Wall from Inkylicious was stamped with a Big and Juicy ink pad called Spice, then ever so lightly spritzed with water. It was really a very fine mist because I didn’t want to lose the detail of the image. The ink pad is dye based and works just like DI’s but it has five tonal colours in one, the pad works extremely well with a brayer. Both the Inkylicious stamp and ink pad have been in my stash for years so it’s about time they started to see the light of day again.
Used the bird and leafy branch from a Stampin Up collection called Papaya Collage which is retired now.
Would really love it if you hopped on over to see all the DT’s work as they are simply stunning.
Ink Art Designs Etsy Shop is sponsoring FSC and they will be offering a stamp for the winner of each new challenge.
Came across some pretty white mulberry die cut flowers in my stash, pinched and tweaked them a little which added depth.
Peacock feathers and wilted violet D/O’s were patted onto my craft mat before being sprayed with a little water … the tweaked white flowers were dipped into it … also did the same with a white die cut circle.
Added the coloured die cuts to the centres of some more flowers but left these plain white. Placed the flowers onto the card with Pinflair glue.
The same two ink colours were used onto a piece of leftover scrap paper, did a little tonal stamping before cutting into strips.
Stamped an image directly onto the card before placing the circle die over her.
If you want to enhance stamped images even more, then delicately touch over them with a watered down version of the ink you have used.
So very clean looking compared to my last post.
For the October challenge at FSC my DT piece was a journal page.
Today my FSC inspirational make for the Time Waits For No Man Challenge is another journal page.
Because the two pages were side by side I soon realised that they were not gelling together. The monkey side was far to bright and colourful.
No choice for it but to tone the monkey side down a notch or two, good ole white gesso to the rescue.
Scroll to the next post and you’ll see how he looked originally.
Totally happy with the overall toning down, they sit side by side perfectly now.
Used two stamps from the Vintage Time set by Ali Reeve and the Gentleman stamp is from Flonz Crafts.
I never throw anything away that has stamping on it. Found a teensy bit of ripped tissue paper which had some clock numbers on it, placed this in the middle of the clock for a bit of added interest.
Also amongst my stamped tissue paper castoffs was a top hat which was put onto the ring of the pocket watch and the number 31 around the edge.
You still have until midnight on Saturday, 9th November to enter the FSC challenge so please hop on over as we would love to see what you make.
For this month’s challenge FSC is going with the theme of ‘Time Waits For No Man’ which has been picked by Moi.
Rather than making a card I decided to play around in my art journal using my DO’s – wild honey, peacock feathers and twisted citron.
Stamp used is from Katzelkraft but there is another side to this page with more stamping which will be shown later as an inspirational piece for FSC.
Would really love it if you hopped on over to see all the DT’s work as they are simply stunning.
Ink Art Designs Etsy Shop is sponsoring FSC and they will be offering a stamp for the winner of each new challenge.
For this month’s challenge FSC is going with the theme of ‘Use Your Inks Anyway You Like’ which the lovely Dot picked.
My card below uses inks from the 1st set of Distress Oxides – vintage photo, iced spruce and fossilized amber.
Also rearing their heads are inks from the new 2nd set – frayed burlap and antique linen.
My preferred choice of card, for inks, is watercolour cardstock which I use a lot more of since the stamp positioners came into play.
Ring stamp is from Stampers Anonymous and I did the Iron Off Embossing Technique so that everything lays flat on the card with no shiny bits.
The other stamp is from Dina Wakley.
Would really love it if you hopped on over to see all the DT’s work as they are simply stunning.
Ink Art Designs Etsy Shop is sponsoring FSC and they will be offering a stamp for the winner of each new challenge.
It’s that time again to show the class project for last week which is all about watercolouring.
You can get some lovely textures ebbing and flowing within your card with such little effort, the water and inks do all the hard work for you.
For my background I wanted the card to be very tonal so only used three colours from the same family of brush markers.
I never refer to black or white when mentioning colours because this is a very grey area.
– black is the absence of colour and is therefore not a colour –
– white is the blending of all colours and is a colour … go figure.
The layering up embellishments are from corrugated card and some stamping.
For last week’s class the girls all used their Gelli Plate for the first time with inks. This week they worked with paints.
As you know, when teaching a class, I always start something to show them what to do but never finish it until after the class.
It was such a gorgeous afternoon that I didn’t get to finish it so worked on it this morning.
Added some Distress Oxides for extra colour and hi-lighted the edges with white chalk paint to give everything a rather shabby distressed look.
Below is one of the cards that the girls made on Saturday.
Wife to Andrew (best hubby in the world), mother of 2 wonderful boys and hopefully the best grandma to three beautiful grandchildren, oh can't forget my other babies Penny Black & Chip!
