Thursday 31 March 2011

Bunting & Butterflies




My daughter took this photo of our Papillon and I think it looks like she is smiling! I wanted to create a nice bright layout, so have used Echo Park Little Girl papers, covered the bunting with paper and coloured the butterflies with ProMarkers and added some bling






Wednesday 30 March 2011

Home Sweet home



I have coloured the words "Home Sweet Home" with a black ProMarker and covered the bunting, heart, home and plaque with Echo Park for the Record Papers. The little flower stamp and the girl with the sunflower are both Tatty Button stamps




Tuesday 29 March 2011

Basket with a handle

Looking for inspiration for a Spring Time Project this fabulous Tando Trug proved perfect.    No Chocolate eggs allowed here this year but it would make a love presentation box for one.

Gave the chippie a coat of white gesso for a base and then painted it with acrylic.   Stamped and embossed with Cosmic Shimmer coloured the pansies with Promarkers.  Assembled the parts and glued the base on the handle comes pre pierced and just needs attaching with split pin brads.   To finish all the edges run over with gold leaf pen.  


Now I've got a neat little storage bin for bits and pieces that looks much nicer than the usual cardboard box!   and its a useful size the base is 17cm x 10cm (6 7/10" x 3 15/16") and it is 11.5cm (4.5") deep.

Sunday 27 March 2011

altered cheesebox

Whilst browsing the net, as you do, I stumbled across some blank cheeseboxes and thought they would be ideal holders for presents...so, here's what I've done with them...


The centre piece is one of the gorgeous new bookplates.  These ones have been painted with acryllic paint and then a crackle glaze painted over the top.  Do take a look at these new plates, these two boxes use one of each design from the small pack and you get three of each! how fab is that?

TFL xx

Friday 25 March 2011

Mini Bird House


Di sent me some more Tando Chippie to play with the other day including this fantastic Mini Bird House.

First thought on seeing it, Ring Box.  OK so it is a tad deep but with a handy cushion (round makeup sponge) the ring can just peep out of the little hole.

Cut down some paper to cover the roof attached to the roof sections with a strip in the middle to make a hinge.   Slotted the 4 side together and painted them with acrylic and then when dry watered glue and more acrylic while that was drying decided it was too pink and loud so added a thin coat of sludgy green and then wiped all the sides with a baby wipe.   When it was all dry stamped and embossed the walls then outlined the design with Sakura pens.   A Stainless Steel washer stuck on the front arount the hole.   The butterfly was stamped onto the roof and then onto vellumn cut out and just the body attached to the roof.    DI inks were used on the roof to tie it into the body of the box.   If you look you can just see the glint of a ring inside.

There is a regular sized bidr house and now this Mini one which is the same design just smaller.

Thursday 24 March 2011

Ink pad storage

On our retail site we sell a variety of storage solutions made from MDF and greyboard.  I received a lovely email yesterday from Belinda who purchased one last week.  She has very kindly emailed over pictures of her new storage....just look at how much you can get on there!!

Fabulous, thanks for your email Belinda.


Tuesday 22 March 2011

Christmas Trees

A lovely lass by name of She is hosting a chunky Grungy Book swap.   Unfortunatly a couple of people have had to pull out and She is making extra pages to complete the books for the rest of us.   Having to send a repaired page to She it occured to me that no one will be making an extra page for her.

The theme for She's book is a Grungy Christmas.   The trees are more Tando Chippie.   First off the chippie was coloured with AI and then sprayed with GM.   More stripped cardboard also coloured with AI and then spared with GM.   Silver Viva Ferro paste spread over lower third trees stuck into it.   White puff paint for snow on the branchs and along the bottom.   Baubles of Viva Gloss paint.




If you are already thinking about your next Christmas decorations and cards these Contempary Trees might just be your 'thing'.

Monday 21 March 2011

Something round

 
It is now officially Spring in the Northen Hemisphere with a riot of colour, flowers, birds, and new coats for our furry family! The lengthing of the day and brightening of colour inspired me to decorate the round frame.

Basic frame, back and stand painted with acrylic paints and the sunflower built up with stamps, coloured pens and inkpads the top coat of the petal's is acylic paint. The outer frame stamped in white with the small bunch of flowers, yellow sakura souffle pen. Finally Karen's flowers these come in packs of four with disks in their centre. Only needed three here these were coloured with Promarkers.



Saturday 19 March 2011

Golden Wedding Anniversary

It's my parents Golden Wedding Anniversary next week so I've been creating with someof the fabby chipboard pieces.


I've used the hearts from the ~{Valentine Symbols}~ set and one of the ~{Square Clipped Frames}~


I ran them both through one of the Cuttlebug embossing folders and was amazed at how well the embossing turned out. Having been one of the guilty ones who has bashed the chipboard about, and it not breaking, I was worried it was too robust. But, no, it's great!

They have been painted with gold acrylic paint and the edges coloured with a plum coloured metallic rub-on. I then attacked both with silicone glue, flowers and leaves!

Kaz xxx

Thursday 17 March 2011

Workshop and demo update

We have added some exciting news about demo's and a workshop to our Workshop page HERE.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Mothering Sunday

In the UK Mothering Sunday this year is 3rd April, for us card makers now is the time to start making cards for these very special women.

For this card I used one of the 3 adorable MUM words.   This time the base chippie was painted with white Gesso.   When dry the toes and top foot were relined with fine marker pen.   The letters were then coloured with Promarkers and finally blasted with Glimmer Mist.   For this special lady nothing is too good so little self adhesive gems for the toes and a little heart.

Why not make a matching set of card and gift with these?



Tuesday 15 March 2011

Large cog hearts

This is the sketch book I made for a blogland friend.   The cover is Grunge paper coloured with Nick Bantock inks and stamped with SU images.   Some clock parts have been stuck over the images.   A Tando Large Cog Heart has been coloured with the same inks and run through the big shot with the cuttlebug cogs folder the raised images were highlighted with rub and buff type paint.   A couple more clock parts attached,    The book was bound in my Cinch and finally a little fly wheel hung from the binding on a chain.









As with the small heart cogs these great chippie pieces come in sets of four.

Saturday 12 March 2011

White lined board articles

Carol Plume and Joanne Allison put together these articles last year.  They have been on the website for some time but I wanted to bring them into the forefront again.  Viva Decor products are becoming very popular and they have used a variety of Viva Decor in some of these articles so will make very interesting reading once again.

The really exciting thing is that Carol and Joanne are currently working on another series of articles for us and will be featured on the blog soon so keep checking back.

You can find the page with the articles HERE or just click the link at the top of the page.

Friday 11 March 2011

Great titles make great pages



I am just in love with those Tando Creative huge titles- they actually make my whole page jumping to the best design level ever
My new  page-  made with Me title is  this just this kind of a page
I covered the title with patterned paper and then with Ranger 3d glue and then inked the edges with some chalk ink and here it is- a real beauty.
So all scrappers:Tando huge titles (and some small ones too) is all you need for your pages!

Thursday 10 March 2011

Musical wall hanging

The Bandana technique is a new one for me, on these fun Tando shapes it makes a bight and vibrant wall hanging.

The two stars and the word Music in the middle are are Tando Chippie, the colours are all stayzon inks and the images were stamped in black stayzon. Multi coloured ribbon makes the wall hanging.

Simple, easy and fun to do.










Here is what the music set looks like before you get your hands on it.

Monday 7 March 2011

Plant kindness....gather love.

I thought this little saying was cute and it inspired me to make this altered chipboard piece with one of the bare sheets of chipboard available from Tando.  The chipboard stands up to a lot of battering and is an ideal base for the crackled paint effect using pva glue and acrylic paints.


I applied the glue and paint quite  thickly and got a fab result with some really deep indents which I love.


Adding some flowers and watering can seemed in keeping with the saying and I did intend to make a hanger with my piece but I have decided to use it as a cover for an altered book containing some favourite quotes now... so that I can keep out on display because I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

Thanks  for looking
hugs
Chris xx

Sunday 6 March 2011

Julie's Home Sweet Home

I love handmade home decor things and Julie's canvas is just gorgeous.  She has used our very popular and versatile Tando Town kit to great effect.

You can find all the details on the Bubbly Scrumptious blog HERE, I've added a link to Julie's blog in our sidebar now too so do pop over there from time to time.



Saturday 5 March 2011

Home Sweet Home

We have recently sponsored the Totally Gorjuss challenge blog and Net asked if I'd like to be a guest designer for the week...what an honour :o)  Do pop over there and take a look, the DT are a pretty talented bunch.

So, the challenge was Black and one other colour and, luckily for me, I didn't have to do a card...not one of my best talents is card making LOL.

I really fancied decorating one of our latest releases, the Home Sweet Home Plaque.  In addition to the pack I added some chippie flowers and some hearts for the roof.  I had great fun with this and really enjoyed joining in with the Gorjussettes for this challenge.


Friday 4 March 2011

Pony Love



This layout features my wee girl Lauren and my friend's minature shetland Pony Eve (awwwwww she is so cute), I have used Echo Park's Springtime papers and stickers. I have also used a chipboard flower from Tando Creative's Floral Grab Bag which has been covered with paper and some bling added. I have also used one of the Karen's Flower Frames which has been sprayed with Mica Mist.




Wednesday 2 March 2011

Grungy ink storage

I'm on a mission to get my craft supplies a bit more organised and this ink pad cabinet is just the job! I confess I've had this for a while and have only just got round to decorating it. I've been using it though and it's been very useful!

I wanted to keep the surfaces pretty flat so that it's practical and I can stack stuff on the top if needs be. As you can see - there's room for lots of pads and Distress reinkers fit into the little compartments at the sides.

I've gone for a shabby look - firstly I sprayed the outside black and the shelves with Glimmer Mist. I made partial impressions with a background stamp and then used white fine detail embossing powder. Once I'd melted the powder, I brushed a little thinned down gesso over some areas to shabby it up even more.

I spread Viva Decor Ferro in a few patches and once it was dry I rubbed over very lightly with some silver Rub n Buff to highlight the texture. I used the same silver on some chippie letters that I coloured black with a marker and stuck them down the side to spell "inks".

It's mounted onto the side of a cupboard in my craft room so the side with the wording is facing out into the room.

You can find the ink pad cabinet and other storage solutions on the Tando retail site {here}.

If you're interested in the list of supplies I used, I've blogged them {here}.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Tuesday 1 March 2011

Sew colorfull cotton reel mini album

When I asked Di to send me this Tando creative  cute mini album I didn't realy thought what it will be like when it's done.. So here it is: all colors of buttons and everything is Sew Colorfull .
I add some inside photos too- still no picks on the inside pages, but they will be added with the same page colors.
Great mini  and fantastic trendy item- this dress forms, spools and buttons are just " in"
I also used the spool from the sewing set- but the spool only on the cover, as I have an idead for other items for another project. So I used some shop chipboards here and keep my Tando pieces for later.
 Hope you like it and it's a great use of all buttons we love and keep and never use.