Crafty Goals for 2012

Like so many others I've chosen to see the start of the new year as the start of new things in my life. Like so many others I have set many resolutions over the year and kept none of them so why keep doing it? Well I don't like to give up and I like making lists and I like the idea of trying no matter what. I have quite a few goals this year but here are my crafty ones:

1. 52 Walks
The aim is as it says to complete 52 walks this year. On each walk we are to take ten photos. its really a photography challenge and there is a group on flickr, but for me I see it more as a getting out of the house to exercise and giving me something (else) to scrap!

2. Bust my stash
Another UKS group dedicated to getting through our mounds of stash and using up all those scraps instead of continuously buying pretty things and then smelling the papers or just looking at them thinking, "ahhhhhh, wooooooow, oooooooh". I haven't agreed like some to not buy a single thing all year - there are some products that come put that need to be bought - but Im making a conscious effort to buy less and use what I've got

and in that vein...

3. Make 10 cards per month
I've lots of toppers, a drawer full of House Mouse decoupage, a drawer full of Glitter Girls Goddess decoupage, two drawers full of Hunkydory kits, numerous CDs... to name but a few. Im going to make my way through that lot this year!

4. Make ten pages per month
This will include the weekly and monthly challenges on UKS, my ongoing "family" scrapbook, my ongoing "me" scrapbook and a new challenge called "Month By Numbers" which I think is a great way to remember your life.

5. Be inspired by those who inspire me
There are two scrapbookers in particular who BLOW ME AWAY - Perfectly Imperfect and Tworzysko Finnabair so with all credit in the right place I will be taking inspiration from these very talented ladies

6. Other Crafts
I'd also like to complete 2 Art Journal pages per month, continue with my swaps and CJS on UKS and finish all the classes I started in 2011!

7. Non-crafty
I had to mention this Declutter Calendar because its FAB and I will be having a go at that too!


If I manage all that this year I will be amazed. If I don't - well I don't! What are your new year resolutions?

Art Journaling Take 2

I blogged a post a few minutes ago with pictures of my art journal. Unfortunately upon clicking on the photos you could read what I'd written and the writing is personal and private so I've deleted the post. Im going to try again but this time I've blurred them using Craft Artist - with the exception of the first page as it has no journaling on it:

As I said in the last post I've no idea if they are any good. I just know I've written some important stuff (important to me) and its been very therapeutic and I've enjoyed every minute of it!

Happy 2012!

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!