Fabric Book on IACW

Hi everyone :)

My fabric journal is up on IACW today :)

~angela~

Competition Time!

Just wanted to let you know that Its a Creative World are having a competition this weekend, you just need to enter a comment in either of the posts today or tomorrow (or both!!!) to be in with a chance of winning some beautiful Bella stamps, they are pretty, girly ones... and you can never have enough stamps right?

~angela~

Happy, Happy Post Day

Met the postman on my way home from the market this morning. He laughs everytime he sees me now, cause apparently they have an on-going bet in the depot over how many parcels will be delivered to our house... today it was 5... I didn't ask who won...

Lots of yummy fabric :) oooh and photographs in preparation for some catch-up scrapping... one of the fabric parcels made me laugh - scrim from Purple Missus, she attached a note to the plain scrim saying that it was packaged separately due to a "peculiar odour" that is present until it is washed... she is very polite, I would have wrote "Smells like cat pee"...

~angela~

Still Creating...

Yes, I'm still around :) Just busy making stuff! I've been doing a good bit for IACW, which I can't show just yet, but here are some things I can show you.

First this morning I thought a Tim Holtz style faux batik background would look amazing for one of the projects I am doing for IACW... but it turned out too dark for the project, I love it though and will use it for something else... its all autumnal colours (not the look I needed for the project, lol)... a happy accident :)




Then I've been starting on Christmas projects, making some bits a pieces for family members, some pink things that aren't usually my style, but I know they'll like them:



And a wee sneaky peek of one of my IACW projects...



~angela~

It's Official!!!

I've had a bit of a secret for the last few days, but now it's official I'm able to tell you :)

I've been asked to be a design team member for It's a Creative World. I'm very excited about it all!!!


My first post will be up on Sunday.

... now to get back to creating...

~angela~

he makes my heart melt...

The wee man just said "Mummy" properly for the first time today... I mean he's said ma, and mamma, but today was a proper "Mummy" and I've got a grin on my face from ear to ear :D

I've been socialising this week and getting stuff sorted out before going back to work on Wednesday, lots of people to phone, getting appointments made yadahyadah, and a new photo for a new ID card for work... (My old one was in such a bad state that it looked liked it had been through the wash a million times)

Got some amazing wool the other day to make some scarves and I'm almost done with the first one :) Will post a picture when I do.

So much to do so little time... how on earth I worked full time I'll never know...

oh and to all my bloggy friends, if I missed an update on your blog, I'm sorry, for some reason my blog alert thingy is playing up :(

~angela~

Arty confusion

I showed my mum one of Daniel's paintings - she thought I had done it and that it was one of my strange arty things... she did pretend to like it though... I think she was relieved when she realised Daniel had made it... I was scared to show her some of the stuff I had made incase she thought it was Daniel's art work...

ah well... someday they'll "get" me...

~angela~

Another IACW day...

The girls over at Its A Creative World have asked me to do another guest designer spot. :)

~angela~

Crazy art

I'm in a bit of a crazy mood today...

I had this mask thing that I got cheap out of Asda a while back and I had all these visions of prettying it up... but you know, I can't seem to do pretty all that often... it looked nice when I adhered a gold/cream swirly napkin to it, and then the gold ended up aging and looking all green! So then I realised that the surface was shiney so it would take alcohol inks... a whole big mess ensued and to quote DH it "Looks like freddie Kreuger". It was thrown behind something and banished for all eternity, until I came across it last night while doing yet another much needed tidy up of my craft stuff, again I was subjected to the Freddie jokes. I decided to do something with it, so, covered the whole thing in gesso and adhered it to a canvas board. Once the gesso is dry I'll do something with it. I have a feeling that it is one of those things that will always look evil no matter how hard I try.




Then I dug out Maggie Grey's book and decided to paint some bondaweb to iron onto some dark velvet, so this is the first stage... it might never actually end up on velvet... lol... oh and I threw in some perfect pearls for good measure...




Another thing I found while tidying last night was my lino stamps that I made a while ago and never got round to using - that should actually read "was too confused to use them", all this talk of special lino printing paint which I couldn't actually find in the art shop... and after the serious error of asking another customer who seriously looked like she worked there, and her sniggering at me, I ran off and promptly hid the lino prints in the bottom drawer. I'm in one of those careless moods today, so I just wacked stazon on top and it worked perfectly. ha. no need for expensive hard to find paint. ha. admittedly I need some more practice at the actual carving, but its not bad for a second go (the first attempt being about 15 years ago in school)...




I've also gesso'd over the top of a precious old book, and removed some pages to start working on an altered book. It was very traumatic, I love books so much, it didn't feel right, but its done now, so just got to wait on the gesso drying.

how am I ever going to get anything done if the wee man stops taking his morning nap?

~angela~

Creating Cavases

Here's the post that I had up on IACW. Thanks everyone who left a comment :)

Hello :) It's Angela here again, thanks again to the IACW girls for inviting me back.

Today I want to show you a couple of Canvases that I have been working on over the last few weeks.

Supplies:

12x12 canvases
PVA glue
String
White tissue paper
Ribbon
Lace ribbon
Gesso
Foam stamps
Adirondack Paint daubers in various shades
Daler Rowney's Interference Mediums
Metallic Rub On waxes
Brilliance Ink
Script Rubber Stamp
Golden Gel Medium
Photocopied Image

For the first canvas I covered the entire surface with PVA glue I then got two piece of thick string and tied knots in them. This was then stuck to the canvas again with PVA, and a piece of textured ribbon was adhered along the bottom. This was then covered with a layer of white tissue paper, then added more PVA glue and then another layer of white tissue.




This was left to dry.

I then painted over this using Ranger's Paint daubers in denim and stream colours, dabbed randomly and then mixed on the canvas using my fingers, and sponge paint brushes. Once this was dry I highlighted the string and ribbon covered areas with some more stream coloured paint. Once this was dry I used Daler-Rowney's blue interference medium over the top. Once this was dry, I rubbed over the raised areas with blue metallic rub-on wax to pick out the detail.



The finished canvas looks like this:



For the second canvas I used gesso (gesso is a substance used to prime surfaces for painting - it is like a thick acrylic paint). I applied the gesso using a palette knife, making sure that the edges were covered in a heavier layer of gesso. I stamped into the edges using foam stamps. It is important that you wash your stamps through thoroughly immediately so that it doesn't dry on your stamp and damage it. I then cut two thin strips of lace and adhered them to the top and bottom of the canvas by setting them into the gesso, I then covered this with gesso using my fingers, dabbing it into the holes in the lace to make sure that it is properly stuck down.



Leave this to dry overnight.

Again this was painted with Ranger Paint daubers in Cranberry, butterscotch and a tiny bit of stream. This was worked into the canvas, into the ridges left by the gesso and into the lace.


Once this was dry it was highlighted with red and gold interference medium by Daler-Rowney.


The stamped areas were then highlighted with metallic rub ons in green, gold and red.



This is the main technique for the backgrounds. I was happy with the first as it was, it didn't need anything else added to it. The second canvas had a large area in the middle that needed something, so I did an image transfer using golden gel medium and a photocopy of an image of my son and stamped with a script stamp using brilliance ink onto the side of the canvas.



These techniques are really simple and easy to do and give great effects, they would even work on book covers and many other surfaces. 

~angela~

Photo Updates and Bug hunts :)

Here's some photos of the stuff I have been doing over the last couple of days - I finally got up off my lazy behind and photographed them :)

First of all here is the canvases that I started last week - still need to add something to them.




Then some scrapping - trying to use up old stash!








Here is the filofax I mentioned as well:






Playing making tags :)




And finally the big bug hunt :)







~angela~

The king prawn

We have acquired a new shrimp... Last week we convinced Colin to buy the expensive one in the fish place - we as in me and Daniel... me:"oooooh its so pretty" Daniel:pointing :"Sh! Sh! Sh!" (we took that to mean "Shrimp") It was really pretty all red with a white stripe down it...

I'm a bit of a muppet's fan, I love Pepe the King Prawn:



"I gotta go, okay, the diva's having a meltdown!"

So I convinced Colin to call it Pepe...

4 hours later it was dead.

gah.

So the kind man at the fish shop gave him a new one when he told him today, though it is not as pretty or as expensive, it was very nice of him, so now we have Pepe II.

:)

~angela~

I said I wouldnt

but I did...

I've been doing that a lot recently...

remember my ranty post down there somewhere about the pink papers... well I used some.... oooh and I enjoyed it!!! rotfl... I covered a mini filofax from Asda, to make into a travel journal, and I have another one waiting to be covered for the course that I hope to start at the end of this month. I'll get pictures later.

oooh and I had a fabulous day with Teresa on friday, we went to Crafters and Co (ooooh lovely :D) and then to meet her amazing family and beautiful grandaughter. So I was saying to Teresa that I didn't fancy that new Basic Grey.... so it makes sense (not!) that this morning the Mellow and Obscure 6x6 paper packs fell into my shopping basket... the more I looked, the more I could see potential, but they are more for art journaling than scrapbooking... though the Mellow ones would be nice for autumnal scrapping... see if I talk enough I can justify it...

I've started 2 more canvases, again, no pictures just yet... how lazy am I today?

~angela~