GRUNGY MONDAY #31 - A BIRTHDAY CARD FOR TIM

Having won a prize from Tim this week, it would be rude not to say another thank you to him so I have joined in the Grungy Monday challenge this week.
Here is what I came up with:

I used a base card 8"x8" and covered the front with a piece of kraft resist paper which I painted with picket fence distress stain. I die cut the hanging sign from core'dinations card together with the autumn gatherings and letters from vintage market strip dies. All from Tim's core'dinations distress card. I also used his jump rings, glossy accents, DIs walnut stain, rusty hinge, peeled paint, shabby shutters, bundled sage and forest moss. I die cut some tattered leaves from shrink plastic, coloured them very lightly with DIs and shrank them in my melt pot using clear UTEE.
This was a lot of fun but quite worrying too. After all, making something for the King of Distress which is worthy was somewhat daunting. Hope it's ok.

YESTERDAY

No not the song, the day. I waited so long for yesterday to arrive and 'poof', in a flash, it went.  However, not before I'd had a brilliant time.

I actually managed some sleep the  night before and as 'peg leg' wanted to come to see the girls, we went in the motorhome so he could be comfortable for the day and watch a DVD or 2 and have a little sleep!! We arrived just after 9am and almost at the same time as Lindsay and David. Amy came out to welcome them and invited us in aswell. How sweet of her. Anyway, we had a brew and David and Lindsay got really busy with the set up of the workshop allowing me to help a little. That first hour flew and before we knew it, the others had arrived and we were ready for the off.

A great big welcome was given to Sioux (ArtyJen) who had driven up from Brixham, Devon. For those of you who don't know her, have a look at her blog and the SCD blog of whom she is a DT member. Some fabulous stuff there.

The 1st workshop was to alter a picture frame using melt pot techniques together with my favourite, Tim Holtz techniques. Where the time went was no bodies guess so none of us actually finished. Work in progress for me here. A few photos then of what I did manage to do.

Basically, we made little frames using UTEE and pictures, embellishments using moulds and cookie cutters, shapes by pouring UTEE onto the craft sheet, alcohol inked foil, alcohol inked tile with negative stamping - I like this one the best, sticky backed canvas transfer, gesso relief and more.

We seemed to keep our area tidy looking at the photos, but I know mine wasn't and I ended up with both inks and gesso all over the place. Good fun.

We finally stopped for lunch and some of us took off into the motorhome for ours as the shop had become really busy and there wasn't much room left. We also had been given our chunky grunge books by Heather, and just couldn 't wait to open them. You can see mine at the end of this post.

So back to the 2nd workshop - mystical shrines. This time we used patterned paper to cover a base card and a large matchbox. We used, paint dabbers - even some may have used mushroom dabbers eh Gez??!! A little joke between us. Also, alcohol inks, beads, wire, multi-medium, guilding sheets, but  most of all, beeswax. This was new for me, not anymore though. I liked this a lot. I had been collecting 'little' treasures for weeks and even made some faux porcelain flowers and a beaded dragonfly I was lucky enough to use them too.

Sorry, didn't get the chance to turn this photo round. Again, it's not finished. I still need to add an embellishment to the top part of the drawer plus a few little tweeks here and there AND my faux porcelain flowers have just dropped off!!!

The second challenge was to make a smaller version this time with opening doors. Time ran out completely so we all just took the parts away with us to complete at home. However, I managed to take a photo of Lindsay's which is just gorgeous.

The session ended with lots of hugs and smiles and Lindsay did the honour of taking group photos with everyone's cameras. Get ready for the line up then.

Left to right:  Me, Sioux, She, Gez and Heather.

Roll on the next time girls and a great big thank you for the lovely ATCs.

The first one is from She, cava queen is from Sioux, the torso is from Heather and the last one is from Gez.

Well, I know this is a marathon post but so was the day. I was so tired last night I fell asleep on the settee and didn't wake up 'til gone 1am. 'Peg leg' had gone to bed hours before!! Goodness knows how Lindsay felt being on her feet all day. But I got my book and here it is. Hope you enjoy it as much as I am.
For some reason Blogger won't upload my chunky book, so I'll try later on a separate post. Sozz..

IT'S BEHIND YOU

I am not making anything at the moment!! Shame on you, I hear you all saying. Truth is, I've lost my mojo completely and all I can think about now is what to pack to take away with me next week.
DH will be happily playing with his planes and helicopters at the modellers week in Flamborough, whilst I shall be sheltering from the wind and broken blades which no doubt will be cascading down! I thought I may catch up on my sadly lacking stash of ATCs so will pack goodies to make some of those. At least we are on a proper camping site for this event and will therefore have electric hookup. That means I can take a heat gun and my new melt pot, which DH bought me.
So, as it's WOYWW again and 'cos I'm not up to anything, I thought I would let you nosey in another couple of cupboards. These are behind me when I craft and are full of things both useful and not so useful. The latter will be sorted one day and I hope to give some away as blog candy to anyone interested. Watch this space for when I get back at the end of May. Here goes then.

SUCCESS AND FAILURE

I have crafted all day today so I suppose I had better do some housework tomorrow, yak!!
Yesterday I upgraded to Internet Explorer 8 after trying to change my blog background for the second time in 2 weeks. When I switch on and log onto my blog, the new background works like a blinkie before reverting to the old one, and the instructions advised this upgrade. However, I now can't alter the size of the font, I can't copy and paste anything and I have to keep clicking to open other blogs etc. That isn't the failure bit though.........
Having been on a Suze Weinberg melting pot workshop and finally amassed a stash of UTEE, flex, etc. I am now in a wonderful position to start making embellishments and the like. Today was the day. But..... my melt pot element has given up the ghost and I've only used the thing a couple of times. I think Ranger may just receive an email.
The success bit was a weight off my shoulders. I have been thinking about another chunky book page both whilst awake and asleep!! Today saw the 'heavy metal' page finished - front and back.
yippee!!!! No pictures though. I'll save that one.

BLOSSOM

First of all, may I say a big thank you to Artyjen for replying to my plea of where to buy a project pan for my melt pot. I've ordered one from Graphicus and it's already on it's way. Now that's service.

Only 3 more lots of penicillin to go to clear up this skin infection that suddently appeared on my cheeks - face cheeks that is LOL. I thought this year was going to be illness-free after the awful time I had in 2009, but so far, I've had that awful stomach bug and now this infection. Anyway, I will not be pulled down again by illness, just 'cos I get my prescriptions free now doesn't mean I have to have any!!! Onwards and upwards I say!

Back to crafting. The challenge this fortnight on Lily of the Valley #47,(http://liliofthevalleythursdaychallenge.blogspot.com/) is a lovely sketch. I love these challenges because, for me, half the work is done. This is my entry. I've used PM papers, Prima flowers, a peeloff I coloured with a white Sakura souffle pen, ribbon and buttons from my stash, my Nellies frames, the beautiful Sugar Nellie stamp - Blossom - hence the post title and my Copics - of which I now have a grand total of 142!!!! Whoopee!

I have used this weeks Copic Colour Challenge #52 colours; C3 - cool grey, R11 - pale cherry pink, G21 - lime green. Click on the link on the R/H of my blog to see their challenge blog and, hey! have a go.

MY MELT POT SAMPLES

I've just been on Facebook to see what Suze Weinberg has been up to at the other workshops she was doing before the NEC show, and found out that she was only in Burnley. I wish I had looked earlier because she was working with beeswax, which is what I wanted to learn how to use in the melt pot. She did tell us however, that really you should use a removable project pan for this technique. Anyone know where I can buy one??

I hope the photo I've taken comes out clearly, - not uploaded it yet - 'cos all my piccies have been rubbish lately. Anyway, here goes:

The first thing we tackled was the small frame. We cut a picture to fit and simply poured clear UTEE into the inside of the frame. Once dry, this can be removed to use again and the embellishment can be used on any project, including a jewellery piece.

The large oval face was fun to make. For this you need a greased cookie cutter which you simply place over an image and again pour clear UTEE into the cutter. Once dry, remove the cutter and trim around the picture. I love this sample.

The shiny mis-shaped piece on the right is actually made from a CD! Heat a CD with a heat gun, stamp an image onto part of it using Archival ink or similar, then cut out a shape. Add a few drop of To Dye For to melted clear UTEE and using metal tweezers, carefully submerge the piece in the liquid. Lift horizontally and allow the excess to drip off before placing on a craft sheet to cool and set. This is gorgeous.

We then added some black UTEE to our pot. The picture of the men is trapped between 2 pieces of memory glass. We then put each side into the front edge of the liquid, dragged it forward, lifted it for a second or 2 before continuing all round. This made a fake frame. It actually looks really good too.

The larger of the frames was fun but had I taken more notice before I began (sometimes hard to watch everything at once in a workshop) I would have known to use a rubber stamp with a lot of deep detail to it. Choose one with detail, place a frame over the part you wish to capture and pour the UTEE into the frame. Allow to cool and set for few seconds before removing from the stamp. You could ink the stamp first to give a different look. We then brushed Perfect Pearls over the image and added stickles and beadazzles.

The fun bit came when we each chose from Suze's bag of trinkets, an image with which to make a mould. I first picked out a cat's head - wonder why I was drawn to that? - but then I saw a white face and immediately thought of masks with feathers and semi-precious stones etc, so I picked that. We then blended together the 2 parts of the mould and pour substances and once ready squeezed it round our trinket. This substance is similar to the stuff dentists use to make impressions. It's ready to remove if a nail print does not make an indent. Then we simply poured UTEE into the mould and waited for it to set before removing the mould which can be used over and over again. I absolutely love the face that came out and will be chuffed to use this mould again.

We then added some colours to our pot and once melted simply poured the lot onto our craft sheet and quickly placed cookie cutters into it. It dried really fast and some lovely pieces appeared. Suze gave us all a brooch fastening so that we could super glue it to the back of our favourite piece and hence we made jewellery too.

All in all a really good time was had by all, plus we got an extra hour's class. Can't wait for QVC craft day next Tuesday, when Suze, along with many others, will be demonstrating her techniques again.

DAWN'S DEMO WEEKEND

Here are some pictures of some of the unbelievable cards Dawn was making yesterday plus one of Lindsay and another of Leonie.

My head is spinning with all the things I saw and unfortunately, now want. Been out this morning to buy a packet of straws. I guess I shall be blowing ink all over the place later. Also managed to book Lyndsay's workshop on 14 June. Can't wait for that. And, my melting pot may get it's first use following Dawn's demo, in which she made it look easy and not so daunting - she says!!

Can anyone tell me how to upload photos inbetween paragraphs or at the end of a blog? I only seem to be able to make them appear at the top.