Book Club Part 2 - Eileen Hull

Hello Friends

I am a bit late posting this, but hopefully better late than never.  In my last post HERE I shared a project using one of Eileen Hull's latest Book Club release (Card Box, Planner Storage) and today I have another of the dies in the new release - Stamp and Photo Storage Box (Sizzix 662359).  It is a ScoreBoard L die, so it will easily cut through thicker card, such as Mat/Mount Board.

As many of you know already I just love Eileen's Journal die and when I saw the Photo Box, I immediately thought that it might just fit inside the Journal and so I went off to experiment!  Of course you may want to use it in the more traditional way, and use it to store stamps and/or photos!

Here is a picture of the finished project.  I created a travel watercolour box.

I started off by creating the cover for my journal and the box, using lots of paint, applied with a brayer and stamping here and there.

I used a Stampendous set of stamps to stamp out the paint brushes for the front of the Journal.  I stamped them and then elongated them by hand, drawing longer handles and coloured them in with watercolours.  The 'make art' was stamped using Tim Holtz's Worn Text stamp set.

I covered the Stamp and Photo Storage Box with some of the painted paper and plotted out where to punch holes, so that I could fit paint brushes onto the front.  I threaded through 3mm elastic cord and slid some old brushes in, temporarily.

  The Stamp & Photo Box itself measures 6.1/8" x 4.1/8" x 1/2".

I  constructed the Journal and then glued the box to the inside back and added some new paint brushes into the threaded elastic.  The box of watercolour paints fit very neatly into the Stamp & Photo Storage box.

I added one signature made up of watercolour paper and I used Seth Apter stamps to decorate the cover of the signature.

Here is a view of the inside with the paints slipped into the back.  You can't see it here, but there was room for a small water spritzer too, so anyone who loves watercolour painting will be all set!

I hope you like my slightly unusual way of using Eileen's new Stamp and Photo Storage Box!  All month Eileen is showing other Team Members creations using the new dies, I hope you might have time to visit HERE to see all the wonderful projects that can be made with Eileen's fabulous new Book Club release! 

As always, thanks so much for your visit.

Hugs, Anne xx

Grungy Love

Hello Everyone, this is one of two posts today...

The lovely Sara Emily is our host at Anything But Cute where we are celebrating Valentine's Day with a 'Grungy Love' theme.

In Sara's own words - "To celebrate St. Valentine's Day, we would like to see you make a Grungy Valentine's project for your sweetheart!  It can be a card, tag, or anything else you might give a loved one to show them how much you care.  Just make sure it's grungy!" 

For my Sweetheart's Valentine creation I used a 6 inch square wood base (purchased from Indigo Blu), lots of paint in some of  his favourite colours, some random stamping, a grungy crackled heart and some 'industrial' embellishing.

I gathered together some of the items I wanted to use.  DecoArt Media Gesso in white, Indigo Blu Gesso (Gee-so-good) in black and my favourite background stamps, Rugged Edge by Limor Webber for Indigo Blu.

I painted the wood board with a good layer of the white gesso and once dry I added a few pieces of Tim Holtz tissue tape.

I then added some colour, not too heavy, I just lightly loaded my brush, first with Tim Holtz Distress Paint in Scattered Straw and then some Indigo Blu English Cottage acrylic paint in 'Grandma's Teacup' - this paint goes a long, long way and you only need a tiny amount.

It was a bit too blue for my liking so I added some more of the white gesso to knock back the colour a little bit.  Next, I took a couple of the stamps and stamped randomly using the Indigo Blu black gesso.  I still wasn't entirely happy so I got out my Andy Skinner Industrial set of stamps and I stamped randomly over the entire board, using Wendy Vecchi's Archival Ink in Watering Can.  I love the way the gesso stamping comes to the fore and is slightly dimensional - and the Archival Ink stamping goes to the back.  I am happy with my background now.

Next up is the heart embellishment.  I cut a heart freehand and coated it with the Indigo Blu gesso in black.  Once dry I added a coat of my favourite crackle medium - Weathered Wood by DecoArt.

Once the heart was dry I painted the heart with DecoArt Qunacridone Magenta Media Fluid Acrylic, with just a tiny drop of Paynes Grey added in to give the heart a slightly more grungy look.

As with all crackle techniques it is best to 'seal' the crackle and I used the DecoArt Ultra-Matt Varnish, it really does give a beautiful matt finish.

To grunge the heart a little more I twisted some black wire and added two lengths to my heart.

I thought the base looked a little bare so I added some cogs to two of the corners.  The cogs were cut from some thick card using my new Memory Box Cog die.  

To make the heart 'pop' a bit more I went all around the outside edge of the heart with a charcoal pencil and then smudged it with my finger.  In real life it makes the heart look really dimensional.

To finish off I added some chit chat words by Tim Holtz.

I hope you like my grungy, masculine Valentine Project and I hope you will join us at Anything But Cute this month in our 'Grungy Love' mixed media challenge.

As I have used Indigo Blu stamps and paints I would like to enter this into Indigo Blu's latest challenge - where the theme is Anything Goes.

I would also like to enter into Countryview Crafts challenge where the theme is Make your

Own Background.

As always, thanks so much for looking, I have another project up already today - sorry for bombarding you but it is just the way it is sometimes!

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