Butterfly flourish......

I'm working in my large Dylusions journal which gave me lots of space to create this pretty (but not too pretty) journal spread.

The spread is made up of flowers left over from a previous project (hate to see them going to waste!) and a few butterflies created with one of the new Bright Rosa dies designed by Paula Pascual.
As soon as I saw the large butterfly I new it would look great with my big flowers so I bought it, along with the large fern die which will put in appearance soon I think....
When I started creating this spread I'd added big flowers (from JOYF73 and JOFY72) but decided they hid too much of the lovely swirly flourished background so I took them off in favour of the background.

I suspended the large butterfly on a piece of acetate so that when the pages are opening it 'flutters' on the surface.

I made the smaller butterflies 'solid' by die cutting a butterfly cut from book text.  I painted this with Pearl Glaze - this gave a shimmer to the butterfly and worked as an adhesive to attach the book text butterfly to the black open work butterfly.  win win!

Hope this inspires you to use your 'waste' pieces and turn them into something lovely.

Here's what I used:
Die:  'Butterfly Band', Bright Rosa
Stamps: JOFY61, JOFY75,
Paints:  Fresco Finish in Butternut, Cerise, Sherbet, Snowflake.

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Remedy for a wintery day...

... a wintery day in JUNE!!  The heating has kicked in and I'm wearing a cardigan and socks! (and other clothes obviously but those noted are the NOT usual clothes for JUNE! in the UK!)... what is going on!!

Aaaanyhoo as a tonic to the dismal weather I sketched, stamped, painted and doodled this summery journal spread in my large Dylusions journal.

Stamps: in background, flower from JOFY77
Paints:  Cerise, Butternut, Snowflake, Stone, Caribbean Sea, Hint of Mint.
Pencils:  Faber Castell Polychromos


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Australia!!

Its not long now until I head to Australia -  well, I leave in just over two weeks but I know those two weeks are going to fly by! lol

I've been making piles of things & lists ... lots of lists... and I'm like Santa Claus:  I have lists and I'm checking them twice.. and some! lol

I'm really looking forward to this trip - to meeting lots of lovely people and getting inky painty with them!

Here is the schedule - I hope you can join me at one of these lovely locations... first stop Brisbane!

Hope to see you there!

Ombre Art Journal pages...

I bought the Creative Expression 'Bluebird Edger' die a few months ago.  Its a clever die - cuts positive and negative elements, the bird's and butterfly's wings are cut so they lift away from the cut panel - its clever.

I made a couple of cards using the die but what I really had in mind to create was a tip in page in my small art journal... and ombre journal spread.

I love how dramatic the die cut looks against the hot colours of the ombre background (Cerise, Coral and Butternut).

I really wanted to keep the clean and simple look of the spread - otherwise the die-cut get 'lost' (imho) and so I only added a few flowers to the left hand page.

These Sizzix Thinlit dies (Wildflower 664163) are great silhouettes.  I added a single stem to the inside of the right hand page positioning it so it couldn't be seen until the tipped in die cut page was turned.

Its a relatively simple spread but it packs a punch!  I might have to try another one - maybe with a vintage vibe...

I'm not sure I ever put the cards I made here on the blog so here they are (just in case)...

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ALBOTAT: 'Growing' the stamp....

Last week I travelled up to London on the train with my trusty junk journal for company... I had some of my new stamp images stamped out and was playing around with them...

I'd stamped the tri-petal flower from JOFY77 onto book text with the idea of paper piecing it onto a painted version of the flower.

After I'd done that I wondered what else I could do with it..  (I like playing around with the stamps to see what can be done with them).... its quite small... could I make it bigger?   Yes, with doodles.... and then, of course it can be changed completely by cutting it apart and using each petal as a separate 'flower'

Which is how I arrived at the journal page with its 3 seperate flowers...

Craft Stamper JULY issue....

... is out now!

Another lovely issue, and I'm thrilled (as always) to have an article in there.

Available from WH Smith and your local craft shop.

Its that time again......

.... for new stamps!  For this release I designed 2 plates featuring a couple more big flowers, and if you have big flowers you'll need a big butterfly and so on the third new plate there's one of those too... :o)

And three stencils....

I hope you like them as much as I do - the more I use them the more uses I can see for them! :o)

Head on over to the PAPERARTSY blog where I have lots of samples to share with you...