Something Borrowed...

Today's piece is 'borrowed' in so far as it is based on a project I saw and loved in Craft Stamper (July 2010) by the hugely talented Linda Elbourne. Well, I say 'based on', it was at a time where my creative juices just weren't flowing so it's more of a copy than just inspired by!! It's an 8 inch square box canvas which I've painted with acrylic then added embossed and inked grungeboard squares. I produced a piece of stamped, inked and masked card then stuck fragments on to it. The other large elements are diecut grungeboard pieces which have been embossed through a folder, painted gold and then embossed with random patches of bronze embossing powder. I love it - thanks Linda! JulieD

A Touch Of Romance

Perhaps I should have saved this until Valentine's Day but I made it at the weekend and wanted to share it. OK so I missed blogging yesterday but I'm back today so it's better than my past record! My friend Sonia gave me two Ikea mirrors a couple of years ago and I made the Tim Holtz inspired one that I blogged earlier in the year and then painted the second red to match my bedroom - I put it in a bag and forgot about it til now!

I bought the black 'flower' in Boots in the summer - it's made of black feathers and originally had a clip on the back so that you could wear it in your hair! I added a Fancy Ideaology Accoutrement to the centre 

and one to the opposite corner - I knew I'd be able to bring myself to use them eventually with the right project! The black flourishes are die cut from black velvet paper and the letters are a mixture of chipboard and grungeboard. I have had the fabulous butterfly panel in my 'special things' box for some time - I made it on a UTEE workshop at the Stamp Pad and needed a special project to use it in as I love it so much.

So this is my first 'Something New' creation - hope you like it!

JulieD x

Something Old, Something New ...

I've been thinking about what to post on my blog as I need something to keep me crafting and wanted a plan to work to - I started looking at some of my random creations from the last couple of years and some of my recent Indigo Blu creations. A plan started to form whereby I would blog something old and something from Indigo Blu each week when this old rhyme came into my head:

Something Old
Something New
Something Borrowed
Something Blue

So I've decided to blog something from each of these categories each week! Ambitious, I know, but it should keep me focussed. For Old I'll blog one of my existing creations; for New I'll blog, well, something I've just made; for Borrowed I'll blog either something I've done when I've attended a workshop, something inspired by someone else's work (eg a project featured in Craft Stamper) or my Grungy Monday submission (borrowed from Tim Holtz!!) and for Something Blue I'll post a picture of my Indigo Blu creations for that week!

What do you think?

Ok, today I'll start with Something Old - I had a box frame with a really dull picture in it which I bought a few years ago because the colours matched our dining room but really it was very uninspiring and I was going to throw it out. Instead, I turned it over and created this collage inside the frame using the Graphic 45 range 'Steampunk Debutante', a lick of gold paint and a few appropriate charms. I've had so many lovely comments about this from the customers at the Stamp Pad where I had it on display for a while and it is a fabulous way of showing off the papers in this pack - I used the same ones in the box in my very first blog post!

There is lots of inking, tearing and layering going on but it's a very straightforward project. Hope you like it!

Back tomorrow with Something New.

JulieD xx

Indigo Blu Workshop

Hi! I've not been blogging recently - not really been myself but getting there and determined to get some of my crafting pieces up here. My job at the Stamp Pad has kept me sane these last few months and I'm grateful to Gwen for keeping me busy - I've designed and run several workshops over the last few weeks which has given me a boost so I thought I'd blog my creations from these events!

One workshop which runs each month at the Stamp Pad is 'Getting the Most From One Stamp' so I suggested that as I already design for Indigo Blu I could promote a plate of their stamps. We decided on Grand Tour II which is a fab selection of travel inspired stamps and this is what I came up with:

Apologies for the photography! This is my favourite of the three - my colours, my type of stamps! I love this image of the statue and thought it looked good stamped in black Staz-On on mirri. I made up a spray with Adirondack Wild Plum reinker and silver mica powder which I spritzed on a manilla tag and die cut the bottom with a Tim Holtz On The Edge die, stamped and embossed the quote directly onto the black pearl card and added a strip of distressed purple patterned paper. I love the purple bead trim too!

These other two cards are a bit more outside my comfort zone but I thought I ought to do some designs to appeal to a wide range of workshop participants and to showcase some of the products we have in the shop!

I inked a white card then stamped and embossed the church image on white card. I die cut this piece using a nestie and inked the image while it was still in the die. I did the same with the quote using the smaller sized nestie - they are a bit fancy for my taste but extremely popular with the customers! A bit of ribbon, a few gems and a grey card background and I was finished.

Finally, the really feminine one!

A bit blurry ... I stamped the butterflies in green Encore ink, coloured the flower (which started out white) with the same ink and then pounced with two colours of alcohol ink. I stamped 'Dream' in Versamark then covered in green mica powder. The background is a paper from the Graphic 45 range 'Once Upon a Springtime'.

All of the products I used are available from the Stamp Pad. Hope you like the detour away from my usual style! Enjoy your week.

JulieD xx

Grungy Monday 21 - Fragments

As usual I'm on the last minute - this time despite having loads of extra time to do the Grungy Monday challenge (because Linda at StudioL3 is going off on a cruise with Tim Holtz - I'm not jealous at all... ) This (extended) week's challenge is using fragments in one of four ways as explained on Tim's blog. I had decided to use all four techniques on a 12x12 panel but ran out of time so I'll be completing that and adding this to one corner of my panel at a later date (I will blog it to prove I get stuff finished - eventually!!)

I've used the collage technique on this coaster sized fragment. The background paper is a page from the first Harry Potter novel which I ended up with two copies of so have been altering one of them. I've inked the paper with Fired Brick distress ink and then masked with the Tim Holtz compass mask and inked over the mask with Dusty Concord. I've used a few of my (often overlooked) salvage stickers and an Adage Ticket then stuck the fragment to the collaged piece with Glossy Accents. A hinge clip and a vial full of black accent beads and the tile is complete. Enjoy! JulieD xxx