Happy Leap day :D

I just thought I would remind you all that as its the last day of the month its your final chance to enter Feb's challenge on the Happy Daze blog HERE
If you want to be in with a chance of winning a £15 voucher with free P&P leap on over and link a project using a technique you love using at least one product from the shop, its that easy :D

The new challenge will be launched tomorrow and I am really excited as I have the launch piece this month :D
I have been busy creating something really exciting so make sure you come back and visit tomorrow to see my project :D
Here's a sneaky peek to get you interested :DCan you tell what it is yet??? (in my bestest Rolf accent LOL)

See you tomorrow,
hugs'n'snogs,
Julie xx

Tim's tags of 2012 - Feb

Well you probably all already know this news but T!m has sadly decided to retire his Twelve Tags of Christmas with very good reason after listening to retailer feedback at CHA last month.
The good news is he has decided to make a monthly tag sharing techniques and tips :D

He launched the first of his tags at the beginning February HERE with the gorgeous Love themed tag below.

Unfortunately I didn't have any of the products T!m used, not even close LOL, so had to make some major improvisations with my tag as you will see LOL.

To start with I didn't have an embossing folder with a matching stamp so had to think of a way I could add colour to my raised image - I could have just swiped over the embossed image with an inkpad but I wanted to try something different.

I decided to try out my new distress markers, so coloured in the debossed images on the folder, placed my tag in, huffed on it to refresh the ink (that seems to be the technical term LOL) and ran it through my big shot.

Voila - once nicely inked raised image :D

In hindsight I wish I had inked my tag first as when I went in with my blending tool the embossed areas picked up a lot of the colour - lesson learned ;-)

As I was going for a sewing theme I diecut a piece of chipboard with the mannequin die and coloured the base and top with my frayed burlap ink pad, then added the same colour distress stickles.

I cut the body section from some of Claudine Hellmuths sticky backed canvas and this time coloured it with my Victorian velvet ink pad (see, I did learn my lesson LOL).

I then followed the same embossing folder technique using the Victorian velvet pen, the attached it to the chipboard base. I added some little stitch details with the fine end of my frayed burlap pen., then stuck it to my tag with glossy accents.

I decided for the lace die cutting to use a piece of glassine paper which I inked once crumpled with broken china distress stain, then attached with staples.

I didn't have any appropriate stickers for the tag so I cut the words from the Kraft 12x12 resist paper, inked it with my distress stain, then added faux stitching with my picket fence pen.

I was going to colour my ribbon with distress stain but didn't really want such a strong colour, so I scribbled on my craft mat with my marker pen, spritzed with water and ran it through the ink, giving it a much softer colour.

I didn't have any charms that worked quite right with my tag so I used my old faithful buttons but it didn't seem enough.

I improvised again and die cut the little cotton reels from clear shrink plastic which I coloured with Snow cap mixative and ginger alcohol ink before shrinking, then wrapped them with thread.

I think they look really sweet :D

Are you all joining in??

I will be trying every month and will be linking it via Mr.linky on T!ms blog for the competition :D

And for those of you wanting to try the distress markers Moira has them on order and I will let you know when they are in stock :D

Have fun,

Hugs'n'snogs,

Julie xx

Sunshine Smile for Happy Daze

I have had my eye on THIS gorgeous Paperbag Studios stamp for some time and when I was browsing them AGAIN this project jumped in to my mind :D

This months theme over on the Happy Daze blog challenge is a little twist on the usual valentines LOVE theme and is techniques you love to use.

I decided to show you my fave technique with one of my fave products Viva Decor Croco which I kind of invented (well I think I did anyway LOL)

I started by by stamping the image in black archival ink on to a piece of white tissue paper and ripped out the image so it had a nice random torn edge. I glued it in place on my canvas with Claudines matte medium.
I painted on some detail to the image with a little bit of wild honey distress stain.

I made myself a shimmer mist by mixing Wild Honey distress reinker and Perfect Pearls in Sunflower Sparkles in a mini mister and spritzed it over a Prima mask
I coloured these lovely Pink Paislee chipboard alphas, which have a fabby resist pattern on them, with Wild Honey distress stain and glued to the top of the canvas with the matte medium.

I tied a piece of white ribbon along the botom edge and knotted it.

I die cut my flowers from chipboard using Tims tattered floral die and coated them with the platinum croco.
When dry I dotted on alcohol inks in shades of yellow and left to dry again, this is important as we want the alcohol to evaporate before we heat them ;-)
When completely dry and alcohol free I squished them on to a versamark inkpad and made sure they were nice and sticky, then sprinkled on UTEE.
The daisy one is coated with pearl (which was a happy accident LOL) for one coat and then clear was sprinkled in while still hot and heated again - it gave it a nice mottled effect.
The other flowers were coated with three layers of clear with a little bit of glitter sprinkled in.

When cool I glued them on to the canvas and added buttons for the centres, then added three little buttons under the word Smile.

To finished it off I added distress stickles randomly in scattered straw to add a lovely subtle sparkle.
I think she is so pretty and definitely makes me want to smile :D
If you would like more inspiration and a tute on my Croco faux dichroic technique please visit THIS BLOG POST.

Hugs'n'smiley snogs :D
Julie xx

Mason's Canvas

This proved a bit of a challenge for me as my niece asked me to make this as a gift for somebody with modern style.
Tricky, because my comfort zone is vintage and grungey.
I spotted a really sweet layout on pinterest by Nicole Nowosad and used that as my inspiration.

I tried to keep it cleen looking but it just didn't work!!
She wanted baby blue and orange with neutrals and I spotted this fabby Authentiqe Gathering collection which was the perfect colours, and double sided so I only needed two sheets to get a nie variey of patterns.

I painted the canvas with acrylic paints and crackle claze.

The photo is printed on canvas paper, and I used the excess paper to cover the chipboard hearts before I painted them..
I really like the mini canvas at the bottom.

Its all spritzed with TH distress re-inker in a mini mister with a little bit of sunflower perfect pearls for some shimmer.

hugs'n'snogs,
Julie xx

Parisian flight for Happy Daze

This week for Happy Daze I decided to decorate one of these fabby WOODEN SHRINES with one of my all time favourites - Crackle :D In particular Viva Decor Croco which has to be the best crackle medium ever!!!

I started by painting the shrine with white acrylic paint and when dry spritzed it with cosmic shimmer mist .
I added some dimension with artists spackle using the Prima Eiffel tower mask from the Parisian set.
When dry I replaced the mask and spritzed again with the cosmic shimmer so that the masked area remained white.

I stamped my images from the Artistic Outpost Paris Exposition stamp set on to white tissue paper with black archival ink and roughly cut out the images and glued in to place with Claudines matte medium. You can't see the tissue when its dry so you don't see the edges.

I gave it all another spritz with a darker cosmic shimmer and dried it off with my heatgun.
I then added the croco roughly with a palette knife, making sure I caught my textured area, then dried it off with my heatgun. I repeated this until the whole piece was coated.
I the used Alcohol inks to add detail to some of my images and to tint the tower and the edges.

I tied a piece of ribbon around one side of the bottom of the shrine and tucked in a little stamped ticket.I love crackle mediums but Croco is my absolute fave, if you haven't tried it you really must :D
The colours are so rich and the lustre is so sparkly and pretty :D
Now then, have you been following the new releases that have just been launched at CHA???
There are some pretty amazing things coming our way soon, and these are two of my faves :D
Vintaj Patinas
Tim Holtz Distress ink pens

AND a little dicky bird tells me that these will be heading to Happy Daze :D

Hugs'n'snogs,
Julie xx