Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside.

The theme for the June ATC swap on the Paperplay forum is At The Seaside/Beach, these are the ATCs that I've made.

For the background I brayered clam shell, lake, blueberry, pumpkin and sunflower Eco Green acrylic paint onto some card. I stamped the main images onto some card, coloured them with Promarkers and cut them out. I adhered some orange material then the images to the ATCs. I stamped the postmark and added the sentiments and a few small shells.

The stamps that I used are

Creative Expressions for the main images.

Crafty Individuals for the postmark and sentiments.

I 'm entering the ATCs in the Artful Times challenge, Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside.

Furry Four Legged Family

Thank you everyone that joined in with our Birthday Blog Hop, we had some fabulous entries. I don't envy Julia having to choose her top three. I'll be putting names into my hat this week and will draw out the winner of my prize and I'll announce the winner next Tuesday June 19th.

The theme for the latest Craft Room Challenge is Our Furry Four Legged Family and this has been chosen by Zoe. The sponsor for the challenge is Tando Creative.

I have a cat and a couple of dogs at home and couldn't decide what to use on my card, then I remembered that one of my favourite stamps is a cat stamp by The Artistic Stamper, so I decided to use this on my DT card.

I covered a square card blank with two coordinating papers, then after rounding the corners I went round the edge with walnut stain Distress ink.
The latest Just Us Girls challenge is an acrylic distress technique challenge. I must say I enjoyed this doing this technique and will definitely be doing it again. I embossed some card with a Cuttlebug embossing folder, then I painted it with clam shell Eco Green acrylic paint, when it was dry I sanded the paint of the embossing and then sponged walnut stain over the top and removed the excess with a damp cloth. They have a tutorial on this technique on the JUG's blog.
The cat was stamped onto patterned paper with coffee Archival ink, then diecut and matted onto a larger diecut piece of card that I edged with walnut stain. I stamped the meow but have no idea who made the stamp. I embellished the card with ribbon, silver charm and flowers from my stash.

I'm entering my card in the following challenges.
Just Us Girls Acrylic distress technique challenge.
St Luke's Charity Challenge Our Little Furry Friends
Simon Says Stamp And Show Anything Goes

I'm looking forward to looking at your creations, the rest of the Design Team have made some lovely samples so why not pop over the the Craft Room to have a look.

Gecko Galz in May

Before I start I'd like to mention that Gecko Galz has a Design Team Call at the moment so if you would like to join the very talented and friendly team and also receive some fabulous collage sheets to work with every month then visit Gecko Galz to find out how. You have until June 1st to apply.
Gecko Galz also have a Papercrafting Group that have lots of challenges and swaps every month, the link to the group is in my left sidebar.

I'd like to share with you a couple of DT pieces that I've made for Gecko Galz.
The first one is an arch hanging using images from Etherial Beauties 2 collage sheet and Shrines, I also used some GG background paper.

I used a ready made papier mache hanging and painted it with white gesso, then I painted it with Eco Green blue patina acrylic paint. I adhered  the backing paper that I'd coloured in places with weathered wood Distress ink.
I resized the shrine so that the image would fit in the aperture. I drew over parts of the shrine with a gold pen and then covered it with Distress Crackle Paint. After adhereing the shrine and image to the hanging I added some gems, braid, dangly beads and some little roses.

My second piece is a Postcard from Paris using images from Parisien Jewels Dominos, Parisian Dreams Ephemera Sheet and the Eiffel Tower image from the Paris Flea Market decos.

I printed the Eiffel Tower onto white card and cut it to postcard size then I coloured the background with Pan Pastels and used a Crafter's Workshop mask to make a pattern. I stamped the Carte Postal with a Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous stamp.
I adhered the domino images to some moutboard and tripple embossed them, I tore the other image and edged it with vintage photo Distress ink.

Fairy Domino Book and Pendant.

These are my latest DT pieces for Gecko Galz. I used images from the lovely Pixie Dust Domino image sheet.

For the pendant I adhered the image to a piece of stampboard, punched a hole and triple embossed it with clear UTEE, I added glitter on the second coat of UTEE. I coloured the sides and back with a gold Krylon pen and then adhered the flower and leaves.

This is the front of my domino book.

For the front and back of my domino book I painted two dominoes with lake Eco Green acrylic paint and then adhered the images and triple embossed them with clear embossing powder.

For the inside I cut some card to size and coloured it with a selection of Distress inks then I stamped some images. I scored the card and concertina folded it. I distressed the edges of the images and adhered them to the card then I attached the front and back dominoes and some ribbon to keep the book closed.

This is the back of my domino book.

The stamps I've used are,
Carolines for the tiny fairies and fairy silhouette.
Stampotique for the mushroom.
Tattered Angels and Inkadinkado for the rest.

Linda Elbourne Workshop

On Sunday I went to a brilliant workshop run by Linda Elbourne at the Craft Barn We made a heart hanging using an Artemo wooden heart mobile and got very inky fingers.

I coloured the hearts with bundled sage Distress stain and edged them with rusty hinge Distress ink, then I stamped some script with black Archival and some flourishes with butternut Fresco paint. The butterflies and dragonflies were coloured and stamped the same way and then I added some gold Eco Green paint.

I'm entering my hanging in the The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog challenge. The theme this month is Hearts.
I'm also entering it in the Sunday Stamper Heart challenge.

Eco Green Canvas

For my latest CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS DT piece I've decorated a canvas and the frame that came with it using the fabulous Eco Green Garden Chic stamp set. They're lovely stamps to use and are made from recycled rubber. 

I also used Eco Green Acrylic paint, the colours I used are pistachio, clam shell and lake.
I started by painting the frame with pistachio, when this was dry I brushed some Eco Green Glue over the front of the frame and then covered this with clam shell, I dried it with my heat gun to form the cracked effect, then I used my finger to paint some weathered wood Distress ink over the cracks. You can't tell from the photo that I've put some butterfly tissue tape over the sides of the frame.
I painted the canvas with clam shell and lake acrylic paint, when this was dry I stamped the foilage with the pistachio paint. I stamped and embossed the butterfly in black and after I cut it out I covered it with orange peel Stickles. I used a black Promarker to colour some silver corners and attached them to the frame, then I added some punched flowers and leaves.

After I'd taken the photo I wasn't sure if I liked the corners so I removed them, I'm still not sure which one I prefer.