Cake, Tags and Challenges

Hi you all! Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

I decided to do some crafting  and bake a cake today. After a nice, long soak in the tub I started on my pineapple upside-down cake. I have been planning to make it for weeks, but never got round to it till today. It's a wonderful recipe, where you first heat sugar and water with butter to make a caramel to bed the pineapple in, and the cake itself is made with ground almonds and lots of other good ingredients. It definitely isn't anything for people on diet, but it is delicious. If you are interested in the recipe, you can find it here. 

While the cake was baking I was able to make some tags. They have both been made of cardboard, treated as usual with gesso, ink and Utee gold. The first tag is for the challenge at Art Cards Challenge Blog, where they want to see Moos  and/or inchies. I have stamped my Mona onto speciality stamping paper, coloured her with sparkling H2Os  and then chopped her into three inchies, which I have mounted with foam squares over various scraps used as matting.

The second tag is also made with inchies, and therefore also something for the Art cards challenge, and I am also linking to Fashionable Stamping, 'Show some love', and the 'friendship' challenge at Crafty Individuals.

The background has been stamped with a text stamp from Lost Coast Designs, and the inchies, which I popped up with foam squares, are from a   CI stamp.

That's all for today, I need a cup of coffee and perhaps another piece of cake....

Have a great day, take care, and thanks for visiting.

Alpha Challenge, Second Try

As I was not so happy with my clocks, I started on a second page with 'Cherub' as my word. Then the page disappeared under one of my many piles....I found it again, and have now managed to get it finished. The page has been painted with gesso, before sponging on some metallic paints and inks  and letting them drip and smudge. The cherub is a stamp from LaBlanche. I just used the middle of the stamp, and went round the edges with a fine liner before adding some colour. The text in the scroll at the top is from the first chapter of the book of Ezekiel. where he describes cherubs. Underneath I have written 'Cherubim' in Hebrew. The definition has been placed  in a cloud, highlighted by some symbolic sun-rays.

I am linking to the  Craft Barn Challenge Blog and  Journal's Journey

Have a great day, take care and thanks for visiting!

It's Friday already....

Hi you all! Where did the week go? Time has been flying by this week as fast as the clouds chased each other over the sky - with wind, rain, a little sun and plenty of storms blowing over us. At least it wasn't boring!

For Paint Party Friday - hosted as always by Eva and Kristin - I started this painting, but it is not yet finished. The background has been painted, sprayed and dripped with metallic yellow, spiced marmalade ink and a dark red Adirondack spray, plus a few drops of gold ink. The flowers have been stamped and painted, but need to be worked on. The blue is a lovely metallic colour, the photo does not do justice to it. I am not yet sure how I will finish this - time will tell. I am calling it 'If you are going to San Francisco'.

This piece has been made for the Alpha Challenge at the Craft Barn. I chose 'C' for clock. I used too much paint and spray, and the dictionary page has almost disappeared from view, so I typed the definition and added it. The background has been painted with turquoise metallic paint, then sprayed with Adirondack ink. The clock motives have been stamped and embossed with white EP.  I have started a second page but do not know if I will get it finished in time!

Here's wishing you all a great weekend, take care, and thanks  a lot for coming by!

Moo Mania - Postage Stamps

Hi you all! Thanks for the good wishes yesterday after my fall; I have been taking it easy at home, and am being VERY careful on the stairs!
At Moo Mania the challenge is to do something with postage stamps, so I thought I would give it a try. I have a box full of envelopes with lovely stamps, but couldn't bear to cut any up for the challenge, so I am happy to say that no real stamps were harmed to produce these moos! The Moos have been made from scraps  pasted onto old moo cards and stamped with mail-art stamps using Archival black and red.

This one has been made from a scrap stamped randomly with various stamp and postage motives, and some added cut-out pieces. 

For this one a used a scrap of black/brown patterned DP, which I stamped and embossed with white EP before adding the cut outs with foam squares.

This one has been made using tiny strips of some stamp-printed DP over some matting made from various scraps.

The background has been made from the stamp-printed DP, over which I stamped, and then added a penny black cut through diagonally. I hope that doesn't count as treason!

The last one has been made from a scrap of old book paper, which has been gessoed, distressed, stamped before adding some cut out stamps.

I had fun making the little moos, they seem to be rather addictive!

Have a good day you all, take care, have fun and thanks for coming by!

Tags made of this and that

Hi you all! Here it has THAWED! It's already 13° this morning, wild, wet and windy, but not cold. The birds are singing again; when it was so cold I only saw and heard the ravens, jackdaws and magpies, and they are not very musical. They sit in the trees behind the house, and watch  my their balcony to see when I put out food. It's really entertaining to watch them.

The first tag is for Tag Tuesday, where we are doing 'D' this week. I chose d for dream, as we all need our dreams. The background has been made from paper, covered with tissue and mod-podge, and then pushed about to give the structure. Then came several layers of gesso, paint and sprays, and some inka gold in copper to highlight the texture. The little girl is a stamp from LaBlanche, which has been fussy cut, coloured and popped up with foam pads.

I made these two tags a couple of weeks back, and lost them under a mound of other stuff. I found them yesterday while looking for something else....

I have used cardboard, Utee and scraps again. I am really enjoying working with cardboard just now.

Yesterday I oversaw the last step when going downstairs - I wanted to go for a walk - and fell. I managed to get up again with the help of the banisters, and then crawled back upstairs to nurse my bruises. I don't seem to have sustained any bad injuries, but I have a lot of aching parts now that I could have done without! And the moral of the story is - take care! Have a good day, and thanks for visiting!

Three Challenges

Hi you all! It has started thawing here, but the snow hasn't gone yet. The rain falling on top of it has turned it into a sheet of uneven ice, very unpleasant to walk on. My walk today was rather shorter than usual, it was just very strenuous balancing over the ice and trying to tread into the foot prints others had left to make the going a bit safer!

This piece is for two challenges, At Fashionable Stamping Challenges the ladies want to see some love shown, and at Sugar Creek Hollow they want to see lots of layers. The background of my hanging has been made from cardboard - partly peeled, gessoed, and embossed and stamped with Utee gold. I used various papers for matting. The background for my tag has been distressed with Antique Linen and Vintage Photo DIs, and stamped in Adirondack Espresso with my 'love' script stamp and some flourishes. The tag has been stamped with the same colour, and matted onto 2 layers of bronze and brown paper. I added some ribbon and lace in coordinating colours, and a stick-pin.

The second piece is a tag made for the 'Clocks' challenge at Out of a Hat Creations.

The cardboard tag has once again been peeled, gessoed and 'gold plated'. I stamped various clocks onto my background paper. The small clocks, also stamped, have been mounted onto painted and distressed jigsaw puzzle pieces. The skull is a reminder that clocks count the hours, days and years that pass so quickly. The winged clock, and the other stamps used are all from Paper Artsy, and the clocks here have been fussy cut and glazed. The little brass charm says 'Life is measured by moments'.

I think that was enough for today! If it's still icy where you live, take care! Have fun, and thanks a lot for visiting!

It's warming up....

Hi you all, after the extremely cold and snowy days we have had recently, it feels positively warm today - 2°C! By the middle of the week we have been promised spring-like temps of up to 15°C. There's still a thick blanket of snow outside, so I am hoping they are right! I Have been keeping up my long walks each day, and am really proud that I managed to get out in spite of the big freeze, pains and not wanting to go anywhere.

Today I have some notebooks that I altered to share with you. I made these a few weeks back, but never got round to showing them. They are A6 size, with matching book-marks. Two have been decorated with TH's Umbrella man, Two with wooden ornaments from Crafty Emblies, and the last one with pen nibs, fancy cut from the paper, rolled and glazed to make them look genuine.

Hope you all have a great Sunday, take care, and have fun!

Thanks, as always, for coming by!