Slightly addicted!

Oh wow, I am so hooked on making mini milk cartons! :lol:

Remember how I said (just yesterday?!) that I had a gazillion ideas for how to decorate these boxes... well, I've been trying a few out (and have plenty more whirling around in my head!)...

For this first one I tried something different and used the off-cut from die-cutting the butterflies from my first carton as a stencil and spritzed through it using a couple of drops of Stampin' Up! ink (from the refills) mixed with water in a spritzer bottle (I've been experimenting lately with using SU inks in this way).

For the next one I had the awesome idea of combining the milk carton die with this yummy embossing folder (also from SU's latest mini catalogue). I think it gave a fantastic effect (this idea in particular would be awesome for elegant wedding favour boxes). :)

I really liked the embossed design just left simple in white but I also thought it might look nice coloured in... so I used chalks to colour in the embossed designs.

Of course, the natural next progression in using the embossing folder was to use colour-core cardstock (in this case Whitewash Core'dinations) and sand the embossed areas.

And then I had the idea to use the bird's egg stamps from SU's Nature Walk set of stamps to make a little border around the bottom of a carton... and that led to this design, made using various stamps from the Nature Walk set.

These are so quick to make and so effective and I'm just addicted! :lol: I really need to stop making milk cartons and get on with some of my other projects! :lol:

How cute is this?!

I loved the look of Stampin' Up!'s new milk carton Sizzix die as soon as I saw it in the new mini catalogue and I just knew I had to have it! ;)

My order arrived this week and I couldn't resist having a play straight away:

I love these little milk cartons so much! I have about a million ideas for how to decorate/alter them. With this first play I decorated it very simply - I cut the milk carton from cream shimmer card and used the butterflies Embosslit (also from Stampin' Up!'s new mini catalogue) to cut embossed butterflies from the same card and attached them to the carton. Doesn't it look lovely?

I think these little cartons are so versatile. Great for gifts and imagine how fab they would be for e.g. really cute and unusual wedding favour boxes!

Wow! Twice in one month!!

I can't believe it! I've had another card published in a craft magazine this month! :)

I went supermarket shopping today and, as usual, couldn't resist browsing the craft magazines and I decided to get Papercraft Essentials. Got home and was flicking through the magazine and out of the blue, there on one of the reader's gallery pages, was another of my cards!

Papercraft Essentials is published by the same company who do Simply Cards & Papercraft and the card is another one of the three that I sent in to their cardmaker of the year competition last year.

Am so amazed and excited to have been published in two magazines in the space of one month! It's immensely gratifying to think that they think enough of my work to want to feature two of my cards. :)

WOYWW - 4 May 2011

Another Wednesday.. and it's May already! How did that happen?! Where the heck has this year gone - it seems to be flying by!

Anyhoo... Wednesday means it's once again time to peruse the workdesks of the world by following the links over at Julia's Stamping Ground blog. :)

Here's my desk this morning:

Nothing much exciting to look at really but the debris on the desk relates to some interesting projects. There are the Adirondack colour washes I used to make some CJ pages, there are the new journalling pens that I used to create an art journal page.... and there is a stamp mounted on an acrylic block... a stamp that I made myself using the Imagepac stampmaker goodies that I bought off eBay!! :D This stamp was a test - my first attempt at using the system - and it worked great! So now I am looking forward to playing with the software to create my own templates and make my own stamp designs. :)

There's also some random bits on the desk, like my youngest daughter's birth certificate that I need to take into the bank to open her savings account and a box of paperclips, of which I used one to attach my youngest daughter's passport photos to her passport application form!

Hope you're enjoying your Wednesday - it's looking like a lovely sunny day here in W Yorks... and I'm going to be spending most of it dashing around to various appointments!

Thanks for stopping by. :)

Art Journalling again

I've been at it again. Here's the second page of my art journal:

The background is a piece of scrummy Basic Grey paper and I drew the face, in pencil initially, onto plain white drawing paper, then outlined with a finepoint Sharpie and coloured in. Although you can't see it very well in the photo, I actually painted it with mica shimmer paints. I hand-doodled the word "stressed" on white shimmer card and stamped over it with some distress-type image stamps by Personal Impressions then hand-cut the letters out.

I rather like how this turned out. :)

I'm famous!! :D

Ooooh I'm so giddy! I've been published! :)

My subscription issue of Simply Cards & Papercraft came in the post today and I sat idly leafing through it while my daughter ate her lunch... I got to the Reader's Gallery page and immediately thought that one of the cards looked familiar... and then realised it was because it was one of mine! :D

I took a closer look and, sure enough, there was my name under the card and the details of the products I used to make it:

I submitted some cards for one of their competitions last year and although I didn't win the competition, the submission rules did state that they would keep all the cards submitted and may choose to feature them in future issues. I'd had no expectation of that happening and this was such a lovely - and unexpected - surprise! It's the first time any of my crafting work has been published in print. :)

And, even better, it says in the mag that all the readers whose work was featured on the page will receive £10 worth of stash from sponsor Abi's Crafts. Something else to look forward to.

But honestly, that's just an added bonus.... I am just mega giddy at seeing my work in print in a craft magazine! :D

A new addiction?

I've done it. I've made my first foray into the world of art journalling. :)

I've had a nice journal sitting around for months, since I came across it in a sale bin at Staples, waiting for me to make a start on it. This page is actually my second attempt at starting the journal... I had had a go at creating a background some months ago but it looked awful so I've painted over it with gesso and started again! This is the result:

I really enjoyed making this. I especially found painting on the page very calming... just sitting taking my time adding layers of paint into the doodled designs. I'm really quite pleased with how this turned out... especially as, as mentioned in the journalling, it turned out nothing like how I expected (not least because the spray inks I used for the background turned out a much paler colour when used on top of gesso). I should also point out that, as a newbie to the world of art journalling, I have been reading around for ideas etc and I have taken some inspiration for my page from the quite frankly stunning work of Rosie (check it out at her Rosie's Arty Stuff blog).

I think I am rather hooked on art journalling now and you may be seeing lots more art journal pages on this blog! :)