A bird-day card ;)

It's all play time on the My Stamp Box blog today and the theme is "Embossing".  Embossing is making a comeback to stamping with lots of jazzy, funky new colours of embossing powders and doesn't have the yawn factor that it did a while back.

For my card I used some Core'dinations cardstock to dry emboss a spotty background which I sanded lightly and the birds from the "Warm Tweets"  stamp set were heat embossed onto black card with a vibrant turquoise powder.

Check out the MSB  blog for lots more embossing inspiration.

Jaine

Jubilee journal pages Warhol stylie.

As Jubilee fever hits and UK gears up for a weekend of festivities, it's only right that Kuretake are celebrating too.  This week on the blog there'll be Jubilee themed projects and today I have the honour to present a couple of journal pages along with a mini tutorial.

The above print by Andy Warhol was the start of my inspiration as I love the colours and the way the image in true Warhol style is layered over the background.  I wanted to capture that style but with my own take on it and the following two pages are the result. I used plenty of Kuretake Zig products along with some bunting from Sarah Hurley's Britannia cd. 

You can read the full tutorial on the Kuretake blog.

Jaine x

A new beginning.

It's been a great week here with the sun finally coming out to stay and already temperatures hot enough for us to complain madly about it.

Anyway, I hate to say it but it's been blissful on occasions to have craft room time with the door open as I'm in the coolest place in the house. (cool as in not hot, not just cool as in...yeah man it's alright here)

This page is my DT entry to the latest Sarah Hurley challenge which has been chosen by Lisa.  The theme is "New beginnings".  I chose to interpret the theme a bit differently and made a layout in my journal.  My new beginnings are my need to try out new colours on my pages and even though I've still used turquoise and green, some red, yellow and pink has sneaked in.  The background is water colour and the papers are from Sarah Hurley.

If you're thinking of making any invitations or decorations for the upcoming Jubilee celebrations then check out the Britannia cd in Sarah's shop which has everything you'll need.

Have a good weekend

Jaine

Trying to get out of a colour funk!

I've made a decision to try try try and push myself out of this turquoise and green colour zone which has gripped me for so long now.

I'm trying my best here but it's so hard.  I got out my journal and started to paint the background but before I knew what I was doing I'd already painted on the turquoise and green.  Ok what can I say, it's just habit and habits are hard to break.  I deliberately chose a pink acrylic to put over the top and used a new stamp from My Stamp Box to create a background. That's the corrugated cardboard effect and the stamp set is called Backgrounds and comes with a bubblewrap effect too.

I also got out my Cricut machine which I haven't done in ages and cut the silhouette.  The flowers are all My Stamp Box stamps painted with water colour crayons.

When it came to the title I didn't have enough 'e's so I used the negatives instead. Don't throw away your sticker sheet negatives!!

Maybe it would help if my craft room wasn't painted green, maybe I should paint it yellow or just white perhaps!

Jaine x

Another journal done

Yesterday I managed to finish making another journal from start to finish. This is the cover using the super cute stamps from Dylusions called Doolally Dorris.  I chose to use my Twin Art and Graphic pens by Kuretake to water colour the image which is so easy and convenient to do.

I look forward to filling my new journals over the summer months and I'm sure I'll be sharing the pages here too.

Jaine x

A little tag.

It's challenge time again and on the challenge blog at Sarah Hurley's challenges the theme is 'Tags and Tickets'.

This one I have to confess was a bit of a quicky for me as all I did was take a craft tag and brayer over it with gesso.  I took a few of my favourite background papers which were already on my desk printed from Sarah's Britannia cd and layered them on top along with a sentiment also from the cd.  Incidentally, Sarah has done a very smart thing and now has all our favourite background papers in one place, the dots, stripes, chevrons, honeycombs etc can  be found together in all colourways here. 

Have a good weekend

Jaine x

Everything happens for a reason.

It's been a while since I made a journal page just for me so I was happy to have found some time this week to be able to indulge a bit.  The background for this one I actually did a while back so it was all ready to go.  The rest just fell into place really.  The image was tucked into the back of my journal as, at the time I had no idea where I would take it but for this page it seemed to fit right in and what's more it must have been calling out to me because it's actually a photo of my late Grandmother when she was a young girl and today - 4th May would have been her birthday.

Everything is for a reason isn't it?

Have a good weekend.

Jaine x

Home thoughts from abroad

Happy May Day everyone.

Today I'd like to share with you a mini made from one sheet of 12 x 12 paper which I pre-painted, stamped then folded to make a mini book before decorating with stamps from My Stamp Box and adding a little sewing.

My folding directions can be seen on the My Stamp Box blog today.

I'm going to send it to my Mum who I don't see enough of living abroad and it'll remind her of a song we used to listen to when I was younger called "Home thoughts from abroad" by Clifford T Ward.

Jaine