Merry Christmas!

Hey lovelies!

I would like to wish you all a very Merry and peaceful Christmas to you and your families. On a personal note, I am looking forward to enjoying a few rest days to regroup and refresh. It's been a very busy few months for me and December has gone by in a whirlwind. So all that's left to say from me is...

Also don't forget to check out the Prima blog for some fun and festive wishes from the design team!

Warm festive hugs,

xxx

Believe In The Magic - Prima PPP

Hello friends,

I hope you've had a good week. We have a new Prima Product Pick challenge launched today and isn't it a stunner?

This month's PPP palette is one is one of my favourite festive color combinations! Using  fresh greys and aqua pepped up with cherry red is perfect for this season. As is my love for the vintage and slightly kitsch at this time of year I created a Christmas card which sums up the festivites.

I've mixed Royal Menagerie paper with vintage music paper and corrugated card, highlighting areas with gesso, chalk paint, and smatterings of glass glitter.

I chose a vintage Santa image from the Victorian Christmas collection which I "framed" with a Timeless Memories metal frame and then painted with Egg Blue chalk paint to give it an almost patina finish. Lots of gorgeous embellishments include die-cut doilies, Crimson glass glitter, plus Prima berries and flowers.

Prima Products: Garden Fable-Evergreen 580827, A Victorian Christmas - Peace & Holly 583408, A Victorian Christmas - Midnight Kiss 583460, A Victorian Christmas - Christmas Eve 583439, Coy - Magda 581169, Color Bloom - Chrome 582562, A4 Paper Pad - Royal Menagerie 847449, Prima Dies - Crochet Doily 584054, Royal Menagerie - Matilde 58338, Watercolor resist tags-frames 58279, Art Ingredients-Glass Glitter- Crimson Red 962746, Chalkboard Paint - Egg Blue 577216, Art Basics - Heavy Gesso - White (8.5 fl. oz.) 961442, Art Basics - 3D Gloss Gel (8 fl. oz.) 961381, Art Ingredients-Art Sugar: Antique Silver 961787, Timeless Memories - Metal Trinkets - Memoir 579807

 

 Sending you warm wishes 

xxx

Inspiration Monday #11

Hello everyone!

Just a quick one today as I find five minutes to peek up from the desk of CHA project samples.
This inspiration Monday takes a wintery festive turn this week, thinking I should make the most of the season.

There are certain things I love about Winter (admittedly few!) and these picture encompasses many of them; wood, galvanised metals, chunky logs and lush evergreens. Beautiful!

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Personally I love all of those textures together, there is something so rustic and fresh about them.You can almost smell the wood, crisp greenery and hear the crunchy snow underfoot. There is something wonderfully nostalgic about it too.

The neutrel colours mixed with stark white and dark grey draw me in and they are something I like to incorporate into my Christmas projects and gift wrapping. I remember when I was growing up collecting greenery along with twigs to decorate and create with and it was such an enjoyable thing to do, filled with anticipation and something I still enjoy doing nowadays if I get the chance!

Do you have any particular favourite festive textures? Would love to hear them :)

Have a great week

xxx

Autumnal Earth

Hello again lovely readers!,

The creations keep a-coming this week, this time for my December feature on the Mixed Media Place blog. 

Although it is now Winter I was inspired by the rich rust coloured falling leaves of Autumn.  I wanted warm rich colours and thick, heavy, tactile textures evocative of autumnal earth. One of the things I like about that particular time of year is the way leaves peacefully fall down onto the ground below, almost feather like.

I covered the canvas with Heavy Gesso which was extra thick as I'd left the lid off for a few days (bad crafting trait!) so it was extra lumpy which makes for great ultra texture.

Once the gesso was dry I painted over it with Copper Crackle Paste then added glass glitter in areas to replicate grit in the earth. I then blended paints and mica powders around the canvas adding warmth with Prima pink chalk paint.  

To soften the composition I added mica flakes and scrunched up teared up book pages which I adhered to the canvas with 3D Gel so the paper kept it's dimension.



For the leaf, I die cut a piece of sheet copper then I hammered it for create indents then I've covered it with alchohol ink and black Ecoline ink to highlight and create veins on the leaf. Coiled copper wire was also used to create 3D leaf veins.

I hope you enjoyed the journey into autmunal beauty.

Hugs,

Prima 12 Days of Christmas: Crackle Paste Ornament

Hello!

I hope your Friday is going well. I've got a fun festive ornament to show you for today's Prima 12 Days of Christmas feature which is showcasing Art Extrgance Crackle Pastes.

I decided it would be fun to upcycle an old bauble with crackle pastes, which were perfect for creating a frosty ice effect. I love hot pink, aqua, brown and teal used together and wanted to

I started out by painted the over the ornament with white crackle, left it todry and I then rubbed over the dry surface with Deep Teal Color Bloom (which I sprayed onto a wet wipe to apply.) Silver Art Ingredients micro beads add interest onto the bauble surface which I adheared with Soft Gel and used brown ink rubbed into the crackle grain to make it more pronounced.

The beautiful Prima flowers bunched together at the top of the ornamaent have been tinted with watercolour pencils and Color Bloom with a sprinkle of micro beads for texture.

Clear crackle paste has transformed the chipboard numbers (ancient Prima from my stash!) to give a cracked ice effect. I attached these to the bauble with Memory Hardware chains and jump rings. The holly leaves also got the crackle treatment with some platinum crackle paint and again I highlighted with watercolor pencils once dry. 

Tip: crackle paste works best when you leave it to dry naturally, created all those fabulous fine cracks whereas drying with heat tools it gives a larger fainter crack.





Texture Paste - White Crackle (8.5 oz.) 961503
Art Extravagance- Texture Paste - Clear Crackle (8.5 fl. oz.) 961541
Art Extravagance- Texture Paste - Platinum Crackle (8.5 fl. oz.) 961527
Art Basics - 3D Gloss Gel (8 fl. oz.) 961381
Art Basics - Heavy Gesso - White (8.5 fl. oz.) 96144
1.5 yard Trim - Posey 583033
Garden Fable- Sprout 580803
A Victorian Christmas - Snowflake 583484
Metals for wood plaque 5 (16 pcs) - 0583514
Royal Menagerie - Diana 583354
Art Ingredients-Mica Powder: Pale Silver 962517
Metals for wood plaque 11 (4 pcs) 583576
Art Ingredients-Art Sugar: Antique Silver 961787
Memory Hardware - Villeneuve Antique Rings 990626
Watercolor Pencils - The Basics 576714
Watercolor Pencils - Scenic Route 576691
Art Ingredients-Micro Beads: Silver 962562
Color Bloom - Deep Teal 580322 


Don't forget to enter your projects here

Have a lovely weekend xx

Prima 12 Days of Christmas: Festive Evergreen Card

Hello again sweeties.

I'm back today to share with a card I created for the 12 Days of Christmas feature on the  Prima blog which is now in full swing. Today we are featuring fabby watercolour pencils...

It's no secret that I love watercolour and I've been looking forward to creating some festive cards with the Prima watercolour pencils. fresh frosty evergreen boughs holly and ivy.

I started out by painting a square of Memory Hardware leather paper with white heavy gesso then added watercolour effects by highlighting the embossed pattern with pencils when dry. I blended using the watercolour brush set and adding a doily stencil for texture.

The velvet "Snowflake" leaves have also been tinted with the pencils and given some shimmer with silver mica powder mixed with Soft Gel.These leaves are divine, a Christmas craft stash must! I've added lots of luscious textures with stenciling, Memory Hardware beads, assorted flowers and die cut snow flakes with a sprinkle of Art Sugar glitter.

SIIC - Debutante 579364
A Victorian Christmas - Christmas Eve 583439
Alphabet Sticker Sheet - A Victorian Christmas 582371
A Victorian Christmas - Rudolph's Nose 583446
A Victorian Christmas - Snowflake 0583484
Art Ingredients-Iridescent Mica Powder: Green Opal Magic 963521
Art Ingredients-Mica Powder: Pale Silver 962517
Watercolor Brush-Pen Set 580421
Art Basics - 3D Gloss Gel (8 fl. oz.)0961381
Art Basics - Light Paste (8 fl. oz.) 961404
Watercolor Pencils - The Basics 576714
Watercolor Pencils - Earth Tones 0576738
Garden Fable- Everbloom 580766
Memory Hardware - Artisan Parisian Leather Paper 990411
Stencil 6x6: Doily#1 582845
SIIC - A Victorian Christmas 582333
Memory Hardware Glass Pearls 990398
Art Basics - Heavy Gesso - White (8.5 fl. oz.)I 961442
Art Ingredients-Art Sugar: Antique Silver 961787
Art Basics - Soft Matte Gel (8.5 fl. oz.) 961428 

Get entering your creations to win some fabulous prizes! You can choose to make a Prima-based card, tag, or ornament to triple the fun! The rules are simple:

   1. Create ANY Prima-based card, tag, and/or ornament with one of the 12 product challenges.
   2. Upload your project photo (using the inlinkz link provided on the day's post.)
   3. Include which challenge day (1-12) you are entering in your title.(Ex: Sharon- Day 1-Memory Hardware)
   4. You can enter as many times as you wish by December 14th, 2015, at 23:55 ET!
   5. We will pick 12 lucky winners in late December to receive a special Prima prize!

Thanks for stopping by xxx

Inspiration Monday #9

Hello my friends,I hope you are having / had a good Monday. For today's insprational post we're talking about creating from the heart as opposed to the head. I always find this subject an interesting one...

 

 

[source]

If you're feeling it and are not overthinking it you're winning. Do you find projects never work so well if you're thinking everything out too much? Creativity is about freedom and expression. It seems getting too wound up in the ins and outs just results in you feeling stifled, which is so far removed from what art is supposed to be about. Thinking seems the foe of artistic endeavours...


The best projects I've ever created (in my own opinion) are ones that I seemingly "threw" together hap hazardly with complete freedom and enjoyment which were not overly planned or particularly thought out. For me it feels resourceful, fun and free .

I know most of the projects I struggle with are ones where I'm thinking, thinking, thinking and possibly over complicating things. Creating in an almost absent minded sense means you end up creating more intuitively which always produces an end result that works and falls into place. 




How do you like to create? Do you have creative issues? Would love to hear!

Hugs,

Creative Gym - Exercise #14: ATC's

Hi lovelies!

I hope you are well. We are back with a new challenge over at the Mixed Media Place blog today. And we're getting festive...

 As we are fast approaching Christmas here is our new Creative Gym: Create an Xmas card, tag or ATC (only small forms are allowed). Fun, fun, fun!
 

So this month's challenge was perfect for me as I love creating in miniture. When I think of Christmas I see glitter, shine and metallics. Which I think work beautifully with white, beige and brown and is a favourite festive combo of mine.




I've used acetate as a base for my ATC's and stuck to natural tones to let the shine and sparkle do the talking! I created texture with Light Paste and Gesso adding in old sheet music, book pages and gorgeous glass glitter.

I just doodled a star onto sheet music paper, snipped around the outline and added some fine liner outlines. gorgeous glass glitter

For the second card I stippled Light Paste onto the actate base with a palette knife and pushed a piece of torn book paper into the wet paste. I stained with tea

My final ATC uses scraps of mesh and materials along with more book paper which I adhered to the acetate with Prima Art Basics Soft Matte Gel. I finished with more doodling on the flower and tea staining.

 These little cards are so much fun to create, I encourage anyone to have a play with ATC's!

 xxx

Inspiration Monday #8

Hello lovelies,

I have a somewhat reflective and different inspirational post for you today, featuring a poem by William Butler Yeats. 

 

The poem reflects on an idyllic natural scene, of fleeting time and permanence as the world careens and changes around the author. I hope you enjoy.

 

Have a lovely week

xxx

 

Inspiration Monday #7

Hello crafty friends!

Time for a little inspiration for the beginning of the week. The quote I chose this week needs little introduction as it's speaking very loudly for itself.

[source]

Going into your creative zone is to kick off the restraints of life - whatever they may be and retreating into another world. So many times I have heard people say they went into their craft room / studio and didn't realise 4 hours had passed by! When I first started making cards, it was like entering into my own little world and I was completely immersed in the moment.  To switch of and connect with yourself.

And if you think about it, it is true freedom. If you have a blank piece of paper or canvas in front of you, you can literally do whatever you want with it and that's the exciting part. There are no rules, no restrictions or pressure from anybody else but yourself. And there are not many things which can put claim that.


Art = freedom, letting go and creating your own bubble away from everything. And that is pretty cool thing to be part of.

Do you agree? I'd love to hear your views!

Creative Hugs,

Mixing It Up

Hello sweeties! I'm spreading a little brightness today with this card I created for the Mixed Media Place blog.
  
Winter is most certainly back! What with the dark nights, dreary days and general dullness I wanted to brighten up the Winter days, hence the inspiration for this card was to make something that was texturally rich and colourful whilst being resourceful.

I find mixing bold bright colours is very uplifting. Add in different textures, great embellishments and it is something that I find irresistable to work with. Do you always have a colours or elements that call to you? One of mine is orange, blue, mixed with denim and cardboard. Love!



For the background I blended a selection of Distress inks which I stenciled over with Chicken Wire and Dots & Stripes stencils with black and Broken China blue ink. I mixed 3D gel with orange paint and gave a final textured layer to the card. Layering stencils is a great way to create backgrounds and interest to projects.

I have also, as I quite often do, recycled bits and pieces off my workspace to create this card; a denim circle, bubble wrap, acetate and lace. 

The chipboard star was painted with crackle paint and highlighted with ink once dry, I then decorated with Mechanicals embellishments. 



What are your favourite uplifting colour schemes? I'd love to hear!

 Thanks for reading and I hope you have a creative weekend

xxx

Inspiration Monday #6

Hi everyone. It's that time of the week again! November seems to have rolled around already and it is suddenly very wintery, damp and misty here in Derbyshire and very eery!

[source]

So, onto our inspirational post for this week which is a fab little statement I found.

Do any of you ever think "is this just too random or off beat"? This may be a reference to art you create, clothing, or your tastes in general. I know I do. I started to wonder why we think this at times. Isn't the point of an idea to create or to like something there for a reason?

Surely the whole meaning of these things is they make up who you are and what you're about. All those "bizarre" little quirks or ideas. Not to think should I change /should I play it safe with this and not do what I truly desire because I think people will think it's a bit, well weird.

We should go with the flow of the ideas that are calling and happily accept that this me so why try and change it or deny that. If there is a strong sense of your own style whatever it may be, hold on to it and run with it. Don't dilute it.

 I found two wonderful quotes which sum this up perfectly.

"In order to be irreplacable, one must always be different." - Coco Chanel


"The things that make me different are the things that make me." - A.A. Milne

Have a lovely creative week x

Halloween House of Horrors

Hello and a Happy Friday to you all!

Today I have a special little Prima  project to share with you using Sandra Evertson's Relics & Artifacts resins. I love creating projects for Halloween, it's so mad and fun!

This spooky haunted house started off as a Prima Bird House Altered Metal Frame which I painted the outside of the house with gray chalk paint and added texture with Graphite Paste. The inside has been painted in black gesso used an empty Prima embellishment box as shelving which I've filled with some "creepy" goodies! Just to show you that you can alter your Prima embellies to fit into any project for any occaision .

A Relics and Artifacts skull was highlighted with a waterproof pen and suspended in an old jar which I filled with water tinted with Emerald Color Bloom spray - this is so simple but very cool!

I've used a Relics and Artifacts Figurehead which has been turned into a scary Beetlejuice style head with some help of watercolor pencils and we also have a R&A (severed) green hand on the shelf.

Check out the little bat made with Mechanicals wings and a brad... I upturned the fastening backs to create ears!

To make the spider webs I used PVA glue piped onto baking parchment, added Art Sugar glitter over the wet glue and left to dry. Peel off the dried "webs" and you're good to go.

 Just to show you that anything can be altered it's so much fun to try!


Memory Hardware - Montpellier Apothecary Vials 4pc 990619
Altered Metal Frame - Bird House 961336
Color Bloom - Sultry Shimmer Emerald 573928
Color Bloom - Vintage Metal Precious Stone 573812
Art Ingredients-Iridescent Mica Powder: Blue Opal Magic 963545
Archival Cast: Figureheads 941628
Archival Cast: Milagros 941581
Art Basics - 3D Gloss Gel (8 fl. oz.) 961381
Art Basics - Heavy Gesso - Black (8.5 fl. oz.) 961459
Art Basics - Heavy Gesso - White (8.5 fl. oz.) 961442
Art Basics - Soft Matte Gel (8.5 fl. oz.) 961428
Art Extravagance- Texture Paste - Graphite (8.5 oz.) 961497
Art Ingredients-Art Sugar: White 961800
Art Ingredients-Mica Flakes: Frosted 961749
Resin - Bugs 892524
Memory Hardware - La Vie Antique Cloches 990312
Metal Cast Iron Shabby Chic Treasures  892418
Art Ingredients-Micro Beads: Black 962555
Mechanicals - Wings 0962432
Watercolor Pencils - The Basics 576714

Spooky hugs,