Day 6 - 29 Faces Art Challenge Sept 2015

Day 6 flowers in my hair.  Some say she looks sad.  I think she looks thoughtful, maybe dreaming of another place and time. 

Find out more about the 29 faces challenge here. 

Summer Of Colour 5 Week 4

The heart theme continues and this weeks colours lend themselves very nicely to it - 2 reds and 1 metallic.  I chose to use a primary red and cadmium red deep hue with gold accents.  The heart was cut made using some oriental text paper onto which I stenciled some gold flowers and added some red gems to the center.  I've stamped some random abstract designs around the edges of the canvas and added some red stars to finish off.  I may come back to this one at a later date as I feel it's still unfinished but for this project it serves it's purpose.

Want to see what other artists have created using this weeks colours?  Then head on over to TwinkleTwinkleLikeAStar's blog.

Tweet Tweet - Day 7 of 100 Happy Days

I've just been sorting out some of the greeting cards that I have and I found this one little birdie card all on his lonesome.  I made and sold quite a few before Christmas.  I had so much fun making them and each one was different in colour and design.  I wonder if anyone will claim him and give him a new home?  

#100happydays

What's On Your Work Desk? Wednesday #294

Hello to another WOYWW and time to nosey on over to Julia's blog the Stamping Ground to see what's on everyone's work desk.  You'll also find details of how you can join in the fun.  I like a bit of a nosey around don't you?

I'm afraid I have nothing to show on my desk this Wednesday.  This is how I left it before going off to the gym.  So here are the remains of the items I'd been using to make some inspirational cards for my gym buddy.  Packs of gems, my glue sticks, bottles of paint and a selection of rubber stamps which still need to be cleaned up - yeah I know I should do them straight away but hey I was on a roll.  I'm liking how my clean off paper is looking - that will go towards a new background to a canvas or something.

Here are the 2 inspirational postcards I made for Angela (my gym buddy).

Happy Wednesday 

Anita

Oh and just a reminder and apology for the 'NOT A ROBOT' check instead of word verification you can ignore it.  It can't be removed unless you have a Google account which I do but have no idea how to remove it.

TAg YoU'rE IT Tutorial- Handmade Monday

Hello everyone hope you've had a wonderful weekend. The weather has been kind to us here in the UK and it stayed dry for the Walk of Hope stroll around Tatton Park yesterday for The Christie Hospital -you can see a pic here

Today I've been playing with some floral stamps from Oak House Studio.  The stamp is part of the Big Christmas collection and is proving to be one of my favourites - there is a positive and negative so great for creating different textures.  All the products I've used in this tutorial are available from Oak House Studio (ribbon and gems are from my stash).

I've made a step by step tutorial if you fancy having a go at making these tags. 

So here goes - 

1.  Gather all your ingredients.  

2. Apply spray inks in your colour choice - I've used citrus orange, totally turquoise and regal claret. Randomly stamp the text with black ink and add ink around the edge of the tag with the sea blue ink pad - just run the ink pad directly onto the edge using a gentle stroke.  Put to one side.

3. Cut a piece of card which is smaller than the tag.  Stamp the solid flower using the dusky pink ink pad and then the outline stamp with the sea blue.  You'll notice that there are a few lighter solid flowers - I stamped these after the initial flowers had been stamped and there is usually a little bit of ink still on the stamp (no point wasting the ink right?).  Add a border again using the sea blue ink pad as in the previous step.

4.  Next we need to add the leaves.  Here I've used the Oak House Studios acrylic inks and a nail art brush (which you can get from Poundland yep you read that right :) )  Dipping the brush lightly and making sure you don't have too much ink on the brush all you need to do is gently stroke the brush in the areas where you want grass/stems and leaves.  You don't have to be too neat to do this.

5.  Glue the smaller stamped card onto the tag (on this one I've glued it off center and to the right.  I've added a few lines of acrylic ink along the left side of the tag using peridot and amber inks with the nail art brush.

6.  I finished off the tags with some ribbon and gems which I added to the middle of the flowers.

Here are a couple of cards I made using the same flower stamp.

I hope you've enjoyed the tutorial - You can find the stamps here

and the ink pads, sprays and acrylic inks here  

I'm linking up with the Handmade Harbour for Handmade Monday and Creatives Mondays 

Happy Crafting

Anita

Take A Hand or Two or Maybe Even Five

Do you remember when you were little and you traced around your hands and then coloured them in?  Well this is the same thing only you now have bigger hands and the art is a bit more sophisticated.

Why am I tracing and decorating my hands?  Well why not it's just another shape of paper/card on which to create art and you might as well make it unique............right?

I've made these for a swap over on ATCsforAll (Artist trading card site).  It's nice to have an alternative shape other than your basic shapes.  I think they add a different aspect and design element and also makes you think about how and where to place your designs.  I can't wait to see what I get back in return.

So what do you do with them I hear you ask?  Well you can make them into an altered book, add them onto a ring binder or even hang them up as a mobile (hence the decorated backs) or string them like you would bunting. The possibilities are endless -I've had mine on my art wall before packing them up - I'm hand delivering these to the host of the swap..................yes your eyes aren't deceiving you - I'm off to Rochester NYC in a few days for a weeks holiday and art weekend with around 20+ artists.

So here are my hands all using mixed media - acrylic paints, neo II colours, rubber stamps, etc. there are too many to list.

Even the backs have been decorated.

See you all soon.

Anita

Day 7 Face #7 for 29 Faces Art Challenge

Face #7 for the 29 Faces Art Challenge.  I took some time making this one as I wanted to see if I can draw and colour/shade her in correctly.  I don't think there are any hard and fast rules but I struggle with highlight and shadow so I looked online for some shading inspiration.  I obviously need more practice and try to erase the outlines so they don't show up as much.  But all in all I think she's turned out okay.  

I've added some punched flowers to the hem of her dress the background is stamped and then some pearl gems to finish her off.

You can see more artists work here.

Anita

Purple Butterflies

I love butterflies!!!  They are so pretty and delicate.I made this card with two of my favourite rubber stamps.  I have many butterfly stamps but I keep going back to these two.  I've embossed the cluster of butterflies directly onto the base card -you can just about see them.  The tag has the same cluster of butterflies and the larger single butterfly has been stamped, cut out, glittered and wired.

Blog Dedicated to Weddings

Hello just a very quick blog today to let you know that I now have a blog that is dedicated to all things wedding.  Not just my jewellery and accessories but things that I have come across on the web.  I want to show things which are unique like today's post which is all about Skull wedding toppers - although they can be used just as home decorations if you wanted.  Here is a link to the new website hope you will come and join me over there to - Itsamistry Wedding Designs

Aren't they just fantastic?

Anita

You Lift Me Up

Just a quick post today showing one of my cards with a sassy corset.  The corset is a rubber stamp design by Pink Cat Studio - Lingerie set.  I've painted it with my favourite Derwent Inktense watercolour pencils and added some jewels to the front.  The tiny flower stamp is also part of the set and makes for a great border and as we all know you can never have enough bling I've added the tiniest of gems to the centres.  I like this set of stamps as they are sassy and quirky and make me smile.

Cupcake Cookie Tags

A few months ago I was commissioned to make some tags for a bride who was having cookies made for her guests.  The spec was that they were to be vintage style & colours.  The tags were attached to the cookies which were then put into containers on the tables.  I don't have any photos of them insitu but here are the pictures I took before I sent them off - 

This is the lovely email I received from the couple -


Anita 
Well, what can I say. Amazing, amazing, amazing......

The cakes and cookies went down a storm and the guests absolutely loved their name tags on the cookies. It was such a special and personal touch.

I cannot thank you enough for your help.

Carla & Mark.