Turquoise Tags

The December Tag Swap for UKScrappers had a great theme - use turquoise, be inspired by jewellery and NO CHRISTMAS!!! Perfect! I enjoyed thinking about them and I enjoyed the process of creating them. Here they are:

1. Create Your Own Beauty - the first "create" was embossed with turquoise powder the second one I've added height with pinflair as you can see in the second photo

2. Bliss is a State of Mind. I created a "necklace" using Lapis Lazuli ultra thick embossing powder (wow) used three coats and then stamped Bliss in the middle.

3. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. Stampotique stamp

4. Unique is a diamond in the rough.

Stampotique stamp was embossed with indigo wow powder

5. Guardian. Created a guardian angel necklace with gems and charms

 

6. Create your own Riches. Used the same technique as above with the lapis lazuli powder. The background is tattered angels seven seas chalkboard mist.



Songs

My entry into Beth's Songs CJ for "Rock Ressurected" had to "Feuer Frei" - unusually it was my wedding song! I've created a little book on the right hand side for my journaling which explains the song choice.

Joy of a Boy

I've finally finished my entry for the UKS CJ "Whatever" in Sarah's book "Joy of a Boy" and here it is:

The theme is music because most of the men/boys in my life play music. Those that don't have a deep love of music. My husband was a professional musician until he fell ill, my nephew Owen plays the drums and is so good he is being put in a class for the exceptionally talented, Harry the younger nephew loves playing along on guitar or drums, my brother played drums in a number of bands in his teens and twenties and my dad doesn't play (well piano a bit) but he does love his music.

Maze Book Swap

Anothe swap for UKScrappers. This time using the free stamp from Craft Stamper mag. We stamped 14 faces colouring them how we wished then we received different faces back from everyone in our group. Here are mine before I sent them. They look gold but in fact 5 were silver, some were copper and the rest gold:

I uesd WOW embossing powders in silver, copper and gold, some regular, some super fine and some ultra thick. Then i coloured some in with pro-markers.

When I received the faces back I put them in my maze book. We were supposed to make a cover but one particular design looked so good as a cover that I left the cover off. Here's the finished book:

All so different but all so gorgeous!

Fake metal embellishments

I subscribe to 3 magazines each month one of them being Scrapbook Magazine but its usually a year later when I get round to actually reading them. Well I finally got round to reading edition 55 from summer (maybe not even this summer!!!) and I found a fab technique on page 33 to make fake metal embellishments and I made this:

And it was sooo easy! I got some grungepaper inked it up with versamark, covered it in gold wow embossing powder, heated it up and repeated this process 3 times. Then on the third time whilst the powder was still hot I stamped into it and viola!!

The article said you can rub over it with black alcohol ink - not sure I've got any as I don't really know one ink pad from the other in terms of what's in them - but I rubbed Black Soot Distress Ink over the top and managed to get that dirty metal look anyway.

Lovely! Maybe now I will stop buying so many metal charms?!

Maybe not!

Keeping in touch with my youth!

When I was asked to create a birthday card for a 12 year old girl who loves Cher Lloyd I really didn't have a clue where to start! What do I know about 12 year old girls? What do I know about Cher Lloyd?

My first port of call was Cher's website and as it happened that had everything I needed! On the colourful website i found a competition to create an album cover for Cher and to help you was a downloadable "fan pack" of Cher-style images.

And so the idea was born - I wanted to create a record and sleeve an idea that initiated from the "Rock Ressurected" CJ that I'm involved in. One of the participants Flo has asked us to create album covers. We also send CDs of our favourite music round with the CJ and another participant has used CDs that look like vinyl records.

So mash these ideas altogether and I came up with this:

It is the size of a 7inch single - for those of us that remember 7 inch singles!!! The record card slips out of the album sleeve just like a real record. The back of the album cover has the track listing which also doubles as the verse. I've used Cher's current single as inspiration for the verse.

The card has an A side and a B side. I attached the two "records" with some black mirror card.

Let's just hope she likes it :) Personally Im proud of it and thought it looked pretty amazing in the flesh!

Beautiful things...

I've just returned from a trip to Bristol and whilst I was there I decided I wanted to visit Glastonbury - I've always wanted to go and I was too close to pass up the chance. All the shops and streets are so pretty and full of lovely things. I didn't find a craft shop - not that I searched - but I did find a shop where the assistants dress like fairies every day and inside this lovely little shop was a beautiful beautiful book just waiting to be bought by me and used in an altered art/scrapbooking/crafting capacity.

So of course I "had" to buy it:

My plan now is to fill it up! So I will keep you updated as to how that's going - the main problem I have is starting - once I've got going I will be fine but what is the first thing you add to such a beautiful book?

 

Hopefully I will decide soon!

Steven Tyler's dangly bits!!!

I've just completed my entry into a Rock Resurrected CJ "I don't want to miss a thing" about Steven Tyler and Aerosmith. Here's the pics:

The whole double layout pic is followed by a lcoser look at the "dangly bits" on the microphone. The next pic is the front of a mini maze book I made using 8x8 paper. Inside the book are some facts and quotes from Steven Tyler. There's a quote from ST saying the scarves on his microphone would have pockets sewn into them so he could put his quaaludes and tuilins in them so I've sewn a little pocket onto the page and inside it explains what quaaludes and tuilins are. The last two pics are my signing in tour pass. Let's hope the owner likes it

In Pieces

I don't believe in just scrapping happy occasions. I want to leave my scrapbooks to my nephews and I want them to know that life isn't always happy, that it can be heart-wrenchingly sad. But that's ok its all part of the rich experience of life.

Im taking a class called "Pretty Paper Party" by the talented and lovely Shimelle in which she is encouraging us by fantastic prompts to use our pretty papers. So tonight I took the challenge. I used pretty paper, I cut into it and left it in pieces! Which is fitting for my subject.

My husband is often in pieces. He copes with problems many people can't conceive of on a daily basis. Im not sure he was ever given the chance to be whole. But I try to offer him that chance. So I chose to scrap about that.

Here are the papers when they were whole:

 This one is DOUBLE SIDED (see below)

Then I cut them into pieces:

And I came up with this layout:

inspired by Darren Hayes song, "Bloodstained Heart".

All the pieces come together to make a new whole. I think that's what happens when you love someone. You help them pick up the pieces and make themselves a new whole. There's no going back to who you used to be its about finding a way forward with people who won't leave you in pieces.