Bird of Paradise Canvas

Afternoon All,

I hope your day is going well for you. It's not going too badly here. It's raining and the garden really needed it so I'm not complaining. Rain also means that it is warmer ... yippee!

I have a canvas wall hanging to share with you today. Another item from my aqua phase :))

Yes, I know, it's not hanging in this photo - but the photo taken of it hanging is not good ... scroll down to see why.

This is one of those canvas boards that you can pick up in a pack for a song at The Works (UK). Starting with a coat of white gesso, I painted and sprayed with a mix of Pebeo paint and shimmer sprays. I used some sequin waste as a mask. The bird of paradise topper is one of the last remaining items from a scrapping kit bought way back in 1997/98. I was able to use all the items except this and one other topper ... they just didn't fit with the theme of any layouts made with the rest of the kit.

Here's the less than lovely photo of it hanging up.

This is the wall that I always use as a background and in real life the canvas looks lovely on it - it just doesn't photograph well ... rather like myself :))

Really, all I did for the embellishments was raid my stash. The feathers, flowers, lace, seam binding and ric rac - all ready and just waiting to be used. And the die-cuts were gifts from my very generous crafting buddies ... the die-cut poppies I painted with H2Os and the white cherry blossoms were sprayed with teal Radiant Rain. To make the crinkly double bow, I dampened and scrunched up the seam binding first and then tied it.

Materials used: a white canvas board measuring 7"x5"; white gesso; blue Pebeo paint; Luminarte Radiant Rain, Teal Zircon; Cosmic Shimmer Mist, Pearl Mist & Blue Lime; H2Os, Just Peachy, Celedon and Sea Spray from the Summer Fun set; sequin waste for masking; the Spellbinders die-cut and die-cut poppies were gifts from friends; topper unused from a very old kit; feathers and pearls from The Works; white cherry blossoms (sprayed with teal Radiant Rain)and pink tinged hellebore from Wild Orchid Crafts; aqua seam binding from The Ribbon Girl; Marianne Vintage white cotton lace; Anna Griffin Hannah collection blue, ric rac; pearls from stash.

Oops! Almost forgot I wanted to submit this to the following:

Belli Challenge #167 - Pastels - the spirit of the Belli challenges is to encourage you to use your OLD and FORGOTTEN embellishments - I've certainly applied that spirit to my wall hanging :)

That's it for now - it's lunch time here so I'm off to grab a bite to eat.

Take care all. Thanks for visiting. Happy crafting,

Autumnal Themed Birthday Card ... for a friend's 70th birthday

Evening All,

When you are turning seventy in September what could be more appropriate than a card that has Autumn as it's theme.

I love these seasonal colours - golds and browns with hints of russet and white. The base card is a sheet of A4 White Linen cardstock, folded in half to A5 (5.75"x8.25") size. The backing is made from some leftover white cardstock stamped with a variety of leave shaped stamps in a variety of browns and sepias before being covered with a thin layer of white gesso.  It was then stamped with a dragonfly stamp (bought for a song at a car boot sale) brushed with the gesso to leave an impression ... you can just about see it in this close up (click on the photo to see it enlarged even further):

Once dry the edges were sponged with a sepia ink pad to tone down the white - it looked a bit stark otherwise. When done, I matted and layered onto brown and gold coloured textured cardstock. The sentiment is a recent acquisition ... a wee splurge at Handy Hippo ... from Stampendous. I think it is nicely positive for the occasion ... after all it would be too bad to give up dreaming, even at seventy :) It's stamped in sepia onto white card, the edges sponged with the same colour. The sentiment is matted onto a pearlescent die cut is from a mixed lot I bought on Ebay last year and because it is yellow, my most unfavourite colour, it was stashed away unloved and forgotten ... until now, that is. Still not keen on the colour, but it does look marginally better embossed with the pretty V&A design. It features nuts, acorns perhaps, and they look very similar to the filberts in the leaf sprays - cut outs from a page of digital stamps from Joanna Sheen's Pamela West Collection, Vol 2.  I added gold coloured card candy to the opposite corners just to finish the front off.

The insert is also from the Pamela West CD - chosen because the colours are similar to the front ... and the verse came from the book I couldn't do without - Words for Every Occasion by Judith Wibberley.

The back is made from the first insert I printed out - it came out wonky so got tossed to the side. However, I couldn't see it go to waste so I trimmed it down and used it, together with another, smaller, leaf spray, to decorate the back.

Because a fair amount of snippets and leftovers were used in the making of it, not to mention the wonky print-out which would have been consigned to the bin any other time, I'm submitting this card to Jule's Crafty Snippet Challenge - Week 36

As this card is going in the post I deliberately avoided any embellishments that could be crushed in the post and/or not go through that slot that is so beloved of the Post Office nowadays - as it is, it will go into a jiffy bag and should slip through a treat.

Right, I'm done for the day ... there's a new series starting on TV and as it's adapted from the novels of one of my favourite writers, Tess Gerritson, I'm off to watch it. So, if there is any glaringly awful spelling/grammar mistakes put it down the me being in a hurry to finish up tonight :)

Happy crafting folks,

Hellebores - Week 14 Christmas Roses Card

Good evening everyone,

Well, I've done it - completed my weekly Christmas card before Friday. It makes such a change not to be rushing at the last minute as I usually do. And, it is the card based on the beautiful yellow sunflower card created by Brenda, Floral Fantasies, which I so admired - you can see it here and compare :) I particularly liked the background made from nothing more than copy paper, plus stamping, tearing, sticking and white gesso - sounded like fun and just had to try out the technique.

Fortunately, I had a huge tub of white gesso tucked away just waiting to be played with, lots of lovely stamps and plenty of copy paper. So once I'd thought about what was the most suitable ink pad to use, I chose waterproof Archival, I dived in and it was a lot easier than I expected. First, stamp the copy paper fairly randomly with a selection of stamps, leave to dry, then tear into strips, mine are about 1" wide. The strips are mixed up, glued to backing card, then given a thin coat of the gesso. When the gesso was dry I trimmed a 1" panel of the bottom for the greeting, then came a further trim of both panels to fit the pink matting card, and finally gave the edges a touch of TH distress ink, Spun Sugar.

The hellebore decoupage and insert were printed from a CD Rom on to smooth matt paper. The original frame for the decoupage was brown but with a VersaMarker pen and heat embossing with silver powder it was transformed. Once that was done  touches of iridescent glitter on the leaves and hellebores and red glitter on the holly berries gave it sparkle. A spray of Spray & Shine ensures that the glitter doesn't rub off.  And, just to finish the card, the back has a panel of the gorgeous paper.

I'm entering this card for the usual challenges:

• Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #14 - Christmas Foliage and/or Flowers
• Snoflakes Christmas Card Challenge on Docrafts.

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Papermania Premium Textured Cardstock. 2 shades of pink for card and matting; a piece of leftover embossed card in silver for matting; a scrap of black cardstock to back the decoupage frame; a piece of  recycled white Christmas card to back the copy paper, it's going to be well covered so it really doesn't have to be your best cardstock.
• Paper: Print IT Super Smooth Matt Paper, 100gsm; Asda copy paper, 80gsm
• Design Paper & Decoupage: Crafter's Companion Vintage Christmas CD Rom
• Stamps: For the gessoed background - Penny Black Winter Bow; Hero Arts, Flowers are Poetry; Wavy Stars; Crafty Individuals, CI-302 Postcard, Imagine, Be Like The Bird; Sheena Douglass, A Little Bit Sketchy, Best Friends Swirls; the greeting is from Joanna Sheen Giordano, Wonderful Christmas GIO714; the insert sentiment is a ClarityStamp, Christmas Wonder.
• Other Materials: Archival Ink, Jet Black; Boldmere white acrylic gesso from The Works; Heat It Up embossing powder in silver; iridescent and red glitter; Crafter's Companion Spray and Shine; Wild Orchid Crafts ivy leaves and hellebore flowers; the pink beaded twigs were a pound shop find.

I think the finished result is really pretty feminine card - not exactly what I set out to make but the Christmas roses cried out for pink so I just went with it. I definitely use the backing paper technique again, easy but effective. The only difficulty I had was in deciding what stamps to use :)

We've had a beautiful day here, warm and sunny, and I'm told that the weekend is going to be even better so that's something to look forward to. I took a wee stroll round the garden today, taking my camera with me to record the flowers that are now in bloom. The wildlife border is looking promising, lots of fresh green growth and a few early starters. I'll leave you with this photograph of a delicate pulmonaria, common name lungwort, which has grown from seed sown last year. If you look closely you can also see the leaves of a lupin and an aquilegia plant amongst the grasses - can't wait to see them in flower!

And with that I'll say goodnight.