INSPIRATION STATION #89

I love our inspiration photo for you this month at Inspiration Station as I'm in full Autumn mode and looking forward to some cooler weather here in Wales.  I decided to create some home deco with some of Tim Holtz leaf dies Leaf Fragments. 

I used some old packaging - tearing off the top layer to reveal that lovely corrugated inside.  I added some gesso in places. I created the panel on some water colour paper.  I added some Distress Oxide Ink around the edges in Rusty Hinge, Ground Espresso, and Wild Honey.

My leaf stamping were from various sets - an old Clearly Besotted leaf set and some leaves from Tracy Evans at Aallandcreate. 

The leaves were cut out of backgrounds I had lying around - some were mop ups, some were card fronts I hadn't liked and some were stencils backgrounds.  I added some stamping with an old Hero Arts wooden stamp!  I don't often use wooden stamps but some are my old favourites and it's actually nice not to have to look for a block to put them on! I added extra stamping to the background.  

I added some material behind the word Autumn which was also added to the bottom of the piece.  I love these little hangers from Tim Holtz and I found the perfect quote which fit in the space. 

CREATIVE ARTISTE MIXED MEDIA - #130

Welcome back to Creative Artiste Mixed Media where we want to see your projects with at least 3 difference mediums added to make it clearly Mixed Media.

I'm sharing a journal page today - I recently purchased the Dina Wakeley Ledger Journal - normally I use my own but I fancied having a go at creating on something this large.  The pages are a little too yellow for me so my first thing is to cool them down with either paint or gesso.  I love how this page turned out - I never have an idea of what I want when I start any piece - I just seem to go with the flow and hope things will come to me as I go along.

I found these two Paper Doll Images in my Tim Holtz collection and the page started to make sense.  When I found the quote in an old quote book it was meant to be.  Alison Bomber has taught me to try and tell a story in my pages and that's what I tried here. 

I used Tim Holtz stamps from The Professor and some of his tissue collage paper Photographic.  The little strips of paper that say Tea come from my own family copy of a ration book from World War 2.  I photocopied them rather than use the originals.  

ADDICTED TO STAMPS AND MORE #525 - DIE CUTS/STENCILS

Welcome back to ATSM and our challenge of die cuts and/or stencils.  I've used both here.  I don't often use Die Cuts but if I do they are normally by Tim Holtz and his Leaf Fragments are some of my favourites.  I'm in full on Autumn mode even though I'm a bit early but I'm looking forward to the cooler days after the hot summer we've had here in Wales and the UK.

I started my tag off with an embossing folder.  I haven't used embossing folders in a while and the one I did use was for the first time!  I'm not sure of the make but it gave the 3d effect which was what I wanted. I then added some Embossing Ink over the raised parts and added Crackling Campfire embossing glaze over it.  I then used some Distress Ink in Weathered Wood and water coloured over the remaider of the tag.  I added various stamping by Tim Holtz.

I cut out some of the leaves from some background papers I had made and added extra Crackling Campfire to match the background.  These were also embossed to give the leaves some shine.  I then built up my collage using some tickets from Ideaology and some extra stamps from Tim's set The Professor.

I chose these paper dolls as I thought they suited the quote I found of The Chemistry Club.  I had earlier created some ephemera from book pages and sellotape which just happened to have the names of four gentlemen so I added that to the bottom.  

The ribbon at the top has been hand dyed using indigo plant dye.  I only used a small bit as I'm eeking it out!  

I'm adding this into the following:

Tuesday Taggers - Embossing - Heat Embossed and Embossing Folder 

Unicorn - Not Square 

NBUS - Embossing Folder 

Four Seasons - Autumn 

Simon Says Stamp Monday - get in shape - 

MOVING ALONG WITH THE TIMES #193 FOUR LEGGED FRIENDS

A fun challenge for you this month with us here at Moving Along With The Times - let's see your four legged friends featuring in your projects.

I've used these ever so cute guinea pigs by Anita Jeram from her set Paint The Town from 2022.  It's good to go back and reuse old stamps and show them some love.  I love how messy they are getting with that paint!  

I stamped the images first and then created a soft water colour background with my Winsor & Newton water colour paints. 

I'm adding this into the following:

Retro Rubber - old stamp set - 2022 

Critter Crazy - AG 

Allsorts - All creatures great and small 

LOVE TO CRAFT #94

We are back with our penultimate challenge for 2026 at Love to Craft - don't the years go quickly! 

I'm apologising in advance because my project is a Christmas one - well winter one really. We have had so much hot weather here in Wales that I needed to cool down with a winter project lol!  It's a little accordion book which measures approx 3" x 2".  I used stamps by Tracy Evans Boutique Designs for the berries.  The Christmas carol quote is from Alison Bomber.  The little snowflake is from Tim Holtz Ideaology from a few years ago. 

I love making little books out of packaging and the cover of this was from an Amazon box.  

I've popped it on my Etsy shop and will probably make some similar over the next few months. 

I'm adding this into the following:

Outlawz Christmas - AG 

Outlawz Anything but a card 

12 months of Christmas - AG 

Merry Little Christmas  - AG 

Girlz Creative Christmas - AG 

PEARLY SPARKLES - #123 PINK, PEARLS OR SPARKLE

Welcome back to another challenge at Pearly Sparkles.  In honour of our founder Traci we always choose Pink, Pearls or Sparkle for our September challenge as they were her favourites. 

This is a challenge for me too as I don't have many pink things - or so I thought - and then I spotted 3 Distress Inks in Pink and a Versafine Clair Ink in Pink. I used water colour paper and smooshed the three Distress Inks of Spun Sugar, Saltwater Taffy and a touch of Victorian Velvet.  I then added lots of water to get the water marks.

I used my Lavinia stamps for this card.  I stamped the tendrils in Versafine Baby Pink and then clear embossed them. The fairy is called Seren, which means Star in Welsh, and I stamped her and embossed her in black embossing powder.  I added extra sparkle pens for her lamp and her hair.  I coloured her wings in Renaissance Watercolours which give a lovely shimmer. I added some extra Lavinia stamps to help ground her and the sentiment is from an old stamp set.

PAPER ARTSY GUEST DESIGNER - WHAT THREE THINGS

I was delighted to be contacted by Paper Artsy to be one of their Guest Designers for their What 3 Things slot.  How exciting - I had to say yes.  You can see my full piece on the Paper Artsy web site but here is a short snippet of what I received and what I created.

Click here to go to Paper Artsy web site for the full disclosure and to see what other crafters did with the same products.

What 3 Things - Fiona Whitehead 

For this challenge, PaperArtsy sends the same three items to 3 people from our blogging team. It is really interesting to see how each maker comes up with different ideas and techniques with the same 3 items.  Typically we will receive a stamp, a stencil and a colour product. We have no clue what PaperArtsy HQ is going to send, the whole idea is to do something crafty in our personal style restricted to these 3 items.

I received these three things - I received this delightful set by Sara Naumann ESN39, a Paper Artsy Stencil by Sara also PS203 and Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic in Wisteria opaque.  

I was intrigued by that Wisteria paint - that's not a colour that's really in my colour palette and teaming it with a Christmas theme was indeed a challenge.  But I ended up loving the colour and will definitely combine it with other colours in the future.

To see my whole process do pop over to Paper Artsy - especially as I had such fun with that stencil and created quite a few backgrounds to play with.  

Here's my finished card for the blog -  I love how that Wisteria colour looks - a cool shimmer for a winter's day.  I have created more projects with these 3 things and will show them on here at a later date.

I'm adding this into the following:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - AG

Unicorn Challenge - Layer it up  

Stencil Fun - AG 

Simon Says Stamp Monday - lots of layers 

Cupcake Inspiration - in the garden 

Inkspirational - Garden 

ADDICTED TO STAMPS AND MORE #524 - ANY OCCASION

Welcome back to ATSM and our Any Occasion prompt.  I've left my card with no sentiment so that I can use it for any occasion when the need arises.  

I've used the lovely new rose stamp from Alison Bomber's set AB059 for Paper Artsy.  I just love these roses.  Having watched one of Alison's videos she was talking about creating white roses with just a touch of colour.  I used my Winsor and Newton water colours to create this card - using a very soft grey on the actual rose.  I did a light colour wash of light blue around the stamp just to make the rose stand out a bit more and accentuate the whiteness of it.  The sentiment is from the same set simply stamped and is a quote by William Shakespeare. 

I'm adding this into the following:

Little Red Wagon - Quote 

Dream Valley - AG 

We love stamping - summer blooms 

Inkspirational - Garden 

Beautiful Blossoms - AG 

Creative Crafters - AG 

SCS - Nature

CREATIVE ARTISTE MIXED MEDIA #129

Welcome back to another challenge at Creative Artiste where we want to see your mixed media projects.  Please remember our rules state you must use at least 3 mediums on your project.  I am sharing a page from a recent book journal I have recently finished.

I used an old book that I had been using as book pages and once I'd used quite a few I decided it was time to use what was left of the book as a journal in its own right.  I recently downloaded some papers from Etsy - my first time trying this method of gathering craft stuff and I was delighted how it worked out. I downloaded Sam Poole's gorgeous bird papers so decided my book was going to be a nod to her papers and I used them through the whole book.  This is just one of the pages and I'm also showing the front and back of the book.  The book has now made its way on to my Etsy shop where you can see the rest of my pages if you are interested.

I started my page by adding white gesso to the book page and you can see a faint trace of the words underneath.  I then added some of the lovely Paper Artsy paint in Seaglass which is a lovely pale blue.  My sort of colours at the moment.  I added some Texture Paste in white through a Tim Holtz Stencil.  I added one of the birds from the papers.  I also added a pocket and added a tag for extra journaling. I finished the page off with various motivational sentiments.  

I'm adding this into the following challenges:

Creative Fingers - AG 

Paper Rock Scissors - AG 

Creative Inspiration - AG 

Ellibelles Garden - from the garden 

Unicorn Challenge - Layer it up 

ADDICTED TO STAMPS AND MORE - #523 - BIRTHDAYS

It's been a while since I used my Visible Image stamps so I had a dig through what I had and remembered this lovely heart stamp called Follow Your Heart which I thought would be perfect for our challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More this week which is birthdays. 

I stamped the image first then masked it off to stencil behind it with an old dotted stencil and Distress Ink in Squeezed Lemonade and Ripe Persimmon.  These colours remind me of old sweets we used to have as children called Fruit Salad! I used the same colours to colour in parts of the stamp.  The sentiment is from an Anita Jeram set called Birthday Wishing and I thought it was great to use on a birthday card. That reminds me that I should also get that whole set out and have another play with it as it's great for birthdays too.

I'm adding this into the following:

Simon Says Stamp Monday - Birthdays 

Neglected Stuff Challenge - AG 

We love 2 Create - AG 

Polkadoodle - AG 

Inspiration Station #88

Welcome back to Inspiration Station and I hope our lovely picture inspires you.  

I've used the lovely set by Tracy Evans Boutique Designs TE33 called Sunflower. I masked off the middle portion first and added the background with a leaf stencil from my stash.  I stamped the flowers the bee and the sentiment with Rusty Hinge Oxide and then clear embossed them.  I then added a wash over them all with Rusty Hinge Distress Oxide, Wild Honey and Iced Spruce.  I added the bird in black Versafine and added the sentiment just above. 

MOVING ALONG WITH THE TIMES #192 FEMININE

Our challenge this month at Moving Along with the Times is something Feminine.  I'm off to a friend's son's wedding next month and was creating this tag for their gift and thought it would be perfect for this challenge.  She definitely looks feminine.  This is one of Tim Holtz's Paperdolls. 

The base of the tag is from a gel press play with some Paper Artsy ink in Sea Glass and Steel Grey.  I then cut out some paper flowers and hearts and added them to the background.  I added extra detials with the word Happy and the Love which is a die cut.  The wording on the circle is from a book and I added an extra heart.  

PEARLY SPARKLES #122 - SUMMER HOLIDAYS

We are celebrating Summer Holidays over at Pearly Sparkles this month.  I remembered this very old Stampin Up set - one that I've kept for years as it's a firm favourite.  It's called Summer by the Sea and I love the image of the little boy with the sand castle.  

I created my background using watercolours by Winsor & Newton and using my new Fuumuui brushes. I added some birds to the sky from a great stamp set by Waffle Flower called Wild Birds.  The sentiments are also from SU from old sets I still use for scrapbooking.

I'm adding this into the following:

Inkspirational - Beach Vibes 

Allsorts - colour of summer 

Send a smile 4 kids - AG