An Exciting Announcement !

Hello Everyone

I was so thrilled and honoured when the outstandingly talented Pamellia (My Little Craft Things) asked me to join her team as a designer at Anything But Cute Mixed Media Challenge, it took me about a nanosecond to say yes!  How exciting is that!

Over at Anything But Cute today I am sharing a little bit about myself and also few of my favourite mixed media projects and I would love it if you would go over and have a look HERE.

My first piece for Anything But Cute will be on 5 November.  I feel so proud to be part on this exceptionally talented team.  Did I mention how excited I am? .....

Now, a little information about us, if you have not visited before.  Anything But Cute is a mixed media challenge blog with a new challenge starting on the 5th day of every month at 7:00 am EST.

We welcome all types of crafts; cards, journal pages, scrapbook pages, 3D crafts, canvas art, altered items and any other handmade paper of mixed media arts.  We encourage crafters of all skill levels and styles - shabby chic, grunge, vintage, elegant, stylish, retro, you name it.  As our name indicates, the only style we are not showcasing - are all things cute and adorable.  There must be at least one mixed media product on your project somewhere, be that paint, ink, stain, spray, paste, crackle glaze... whatever tickles your fancy!

Here at Anything But Cute we just love to see all the seasoned and expert mixed media artists, but we also want to encourage those who are just getting their feet wet.  Our design team will always be on the lookout for these exceptional projects and artists.  You just never know when we might be giving out something special to a lucky mixed media newcomer.  We all have to start somewhere, right?

I look forward to sharing future projects with you.  

In the meantime, take care and have a lovely weekend.  Hugs, Anne xx

Tim Tag October 2015

Hi Everyone

A very quick post from me today as we have visitors.  You can see Tim's original 

tag HERE.  When the new monster dies came out I could not decide which I wanted to get, but since I quite like zombie films I had to go for that one.

I have already made loads of cards using the zombie and had a few spares

so it did not take much time to put this together.

I followed Tim's instructions pretty much to the letter but changed the background and a couple of bits here and there.

.I did use slightly different colours on the face.

So there he is, close up.

Right, off to see to the guests, thanks for looking and I hope to see you again soon (I have an exciting announcement on Friday..).  Apologies, I am a little behind in my blog visits but I will catch up!

Hugs, Anne xx

Click here to visit Everything Art.

A Vintage Journey - Destination Inspiration

Hello Everyone

I am sharing my Destination Inspiration - Terminal 4 post over at A Vintage Journey and I hope you will join me over there.

Just a sneak peek, it is a scary one for Halloween.... using lots of Tim Holtz products.

Thanks for (hopefully) looking - it's not that scary really!

Hugs, Anne xx

Art With Heart - October Hauntings & Holidays - Part 2 with Graphic 45

Hello Everyone

First of all I would like to say a big thank you to Graphic 45 for sharing my Apothecary Cabinet on their Facebook page, it is such an honour to be featured there!
.....

My next projects for Eileen Hull's Inspiration Team - October Hauntings & Holidays - using the wonderful G45 Rare Oddities paper pad, are some more Halloween makes.  I do so love Halloween!  You can see more of my talented teamies work over here.

A witches hat and using Eileen's Passport Book die, a little piece to celebrate all things Halloween!  As I have quite a few pictures, I will keep the words to the minimum.  I will start by showing the inside of the book.

G45 papers, Tim Holtz cat die, Tim Holtz web embossing folder.

G45 papers plus spider web (make unknown)

G45 papers and Tim Holtz die cut cage and Raven

G45 papers, Tim Holtz cat die, Memory Box fence die

G45 papers, Tim Holtz dies - Halloween people, fence and owl

G45 papers, Tim Holtz die cut words, Memory Box die village scene, cobweb sticker (unknown make).

And finally!  The back of the book, embossed with Tim Holtz's web embossing folder.  I just love how dies and papers from different company's all work so well together.

The front cover of the book is embossed with the Tim Holtz cobweb embossing folder and I dragged a black archival ink pad over the top.  The spider is a Tim Holtz die. The skull is from my stash....

The witch hat was simply made by making a cone shape for the top and a large circle for the brim.  I embellished it with a broom and pumpkin (a gift from a lovely friend).

There is still time to enter Eileen Hull's Art With Heart Challenge which you can find HERE.  I do hope you will share your October Hauntings and or Holidays project with us there.  Eileen always has great prizes on offer!

Thanks very much for looking and I hope to see you again soon.

Hugs, Anne xx

A Zombie Halloween ...

Hello Everyone

A quick post from me, if you don't like Zombies then look away now!  

When Tim brought out his three new monster dies, there was only one for me - the Zombie.  During my blog break last month I took the opportunity to make some Halloween cards for friends and family (well, the ones who appreciate the darker side of Halloween anyway - lol), 

I was thrilled when Tim's October tag featured the Zombie die, but I haven't got round to creating mine yet, but thought I would share a couple of cards.

I decided to stick to black and white.  I cut some of the elements in white and some in black, the die pieces are small but they are scored and incredibly easy to put together.  The card is bound together with Regions Beyond Design Tape.

I also used Tim's cabinet card dies and the new cobweb embossing folder.  Once embossed I highlighted the embossing with a white pigment ink.

The second card is very similar, just a different background and I used Tim's Idea-ology spider charms.  The bodies have been covered with  Distress Glitter, an idea I picked up from a project that Zoe Hillman (igirlzoe) did here, A simple but effective way to give the spiders a lovely 'glow'.  I hate spiders in real life though ...

I hope I haven't frightened you too much with my spooky makes...  DH had to stop me from buying a life sized plastic skeleton at the weekend.... yes, really...

Thanks for looking, hope to see you soon 

Hugs, Anne xx

Art With Heart - October Hauntings and Holidays

It is such an exciting month at Eileen Hull's Art With Heart, we have been given the opportunity to use fabulous cardstock from none other than Graphic 45 for our October Challenge - Hauntings and Holidays!  Personally, I am in card heaven, the G45 papers/cardstock are absolutely stunning (and they smell wonderful too...).

Those of you who have followed me for a while know how much I enjoy working in 3D and I wanted to show the versatility of one of Eileen's fabulous dies (Candy Box) by turning it into an Apothecary dresser/cabinet.  Apologies, this is a very picture heavy post, you might want to grab a drink!

Above, you can see the finished cabinet, I will take you through some very brief steps on how I created it.

I cut six Candy Boxes and then some mat/mount board pieces for the cabinet sides, back and shelves.

I painted all of the pieces, inside and out with the gorgeous DecoArt Americana Decor Chalky Paint in Carbon Black.

All of the pieces were then glued together.  I left it overnight to dry.  The cabinet measures approx 8.1/2" wide by 12" tall fully finished.

I used the fabulous Rare Oddities cardstock from Graphic 45 - the hardest part was deciding what side of the cardstock to use!

I covered each of the drawer elements, the whole of the sides and back of the cabinet and each of the shelves with the G45 papers.  I thought you might like to see some close-ups of the different areas of the cabinet.

Starting at the top of the cabinet, I fussy cut some of the papers to provide the 'bookshelf' background, the three faux books on the left, the birdcage, the label '31' on the bottle and the 'Toe of Frog' bottle on the right.  The beautiful top 'Rare Oddities' has also been cut from a sheet of the cardstock.  I cut out a couple of bats and placed them in the domed glass and added a fussy cut 'bats' to the front.

A close up of the items on the top shelf.

On the lower shelf I used some of the cardstock to create a handmade book (on the left), a bottle filled with snake venom, a dome with two skulls inside and a very large spider.  To the right you can see a bottle of Witches Brew, a dome covered in Tim Holtz Clear Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint and coloured with Alcohol Ink.  The dome contains another skull.  The small bottle at the front contains some blue beads and the domed skull to the rear has been cut from the Rare Oddities cardstock.

Behind the embellishments, for the back of the cabinet, I took a strip of the patterned cardstock, fussy cut a number of the elements from the cardstock and decoupaged these up to create some relief to the cabinet.

A close-up of the book I created (using a real book from a charity shop, cut to size) with elements of the cardstock attached to the front.

A close-up of the bottom shelf to show some of the relief at the back of the cabinet.

A close-up of the finished drawers, I used elements from the cardstock to create the labels where were placed inside some Tim Holtz Idea-ology drawer pulls.

A final view from the side.

If you have got this far, thanks for staying with me, I really LOVED making this cabinet, Eileen's dies and the G45 papers made it so easy.  I will be back again soon with another G45 project.

I hope you will join in Eileen's 'Hauntings and Holidays' Challenge, there is always a fabulous prize on offer, together with lots of inspiration from my teamies throughout the month, see HERE for more details.

Unusually for me, I have found a few fantastic challenges that I can enter with my apothecary cabinet and these are:

Anything But Cute Challenge #6 where the theme is 31 days of Halloween where we must use the number 31 somewhere on our entry.  31 features twice on my project on the top shelf bottle and one on the main shelf, also on a bottle.

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #17 is Word Search.  The words I have chosen which are incorporated in my entry are: Bat, Skull and Orange - there are several bats and skulls and the shelves are covered with orange patterned cardstock.

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the theme is Autumn is in the Air.  I am entering my Halloween themed project.

Thanks so much for looking, I hope to see you again soon!

Hugs, Anne xx

A Vintage Journey - Art Journalling with Tim

At A Vintage Journey, the lovely and talented Alison is our host this month.  Alison has chosen Art Journalling with Tim as her challenge topic.  Here is what Alison has to say:

"We would love to see some art journalling from you, Tim style.  Your journal can be any size, format or type, but let's see some Tim techniques, grunge or vintage style, and of course any Tim products are welcome."

It was with some trepidation that I joined in as journalling is not something I do, but it was the 'push' I needed to have a go in my new journal, a gift from my bestie Jenny (Buttons)!  I stayed well within my comfort zone and used my all time favourite Tim dies.  

I did a lot of research and also followed some great tips and techniques that Jenny (Buttons) has shown on TV and in classes and demos that I have attended.

To start, I gessoed the pages, ripped up some plain paper and glued this down and gessoed again.  Apologies for the lack of step by step, but I was really just experimenting!  Next, I used a wet wipe to smoosh several different colours of Tim's Distress Paint over the whole piece.  Once dry, I dribbled some more DP across the centre and let this drip down the page in both directions.

I stamped across the central area with an Indigo Blu border stamp, and I usedanother stamp from my stash to create the bubbles from the seahorses.

The seahorses, starfish and sand dollars were die cut from heavy card, painted with Distress Paint and then coated in Tim's Clear Rock Candy Distress Paint - I love the vibrancy of the colours!

I needed some greenery so I stamped a few greenery images and then die cut more greenery from various Tim dies, in different shades of green and attached these.  To finish off I added some splatters of paint and gesso, stamped bubbles above the seahorses and added the words 'always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder from Tim's Small Talk Stickers.

I really did enjoy creating this page (thank you Alison!) and I won't be so worried about having another go.  If you have never created a journal page before, I would encourage you to try, it is great fun!  I hope you will go over to  A Vintage Journey and see what my talented teamies have created. 

At A Vintage Journey we are having a Design Team call, full details can be found here.  You have until 5th October to apply, so if you are interested, you only have a few days!

Thanks for looking and for visiting after my blog break, I really appreciate it and I will do my best to catch up with you all soon.  Hugs, Anne xx