I'm sorry about this...

I apologise to all about this, but since I had a very bad cold/flu/whatever over a month ago, I've been behind in everything in my life. It's only now, as I sit in a nice hotel room in Sydney, that I can post things that I should have over a fortnight ago.

One of these things is a card for Get Creative Challenges Challenge #62, that has a theme of Autumn/Fall.

I hope you can see the background design I tried to achieve with a stencil, double-sided tape and various containers of gilding flakes. The stencil is a gorgeous one by (forget the name but I'll fix up when I get home) with a leaf pattern over it. I lay some wide double-sided  tape over some white cardstock, positioned the stencil over top and then tried filling in the leaf patterns with a bronzy mixture of gilding flakes. There are some areas that represent the sky/void space, which I covered with silver; and then after removing the stencil, I filled in the leaf outlines with a greeny mixture. One thing with gilding flakes is that when you drop a piece on double-sided tape, there is NO chance of picking it up to try again. Anyway, that's it for the background. The image is AliciaBel's Felicity that was coloured using my Copic markers to tie in with the autumnal theme. You should be able to see the other accoutrements I used to finish the card.

This challenge is sponsored by Angie's Digital Stamps, AliciaBel and Fred, She Said Designs. Winners of this challenge can win 2 digistamps from Angie's Digital Stamps or a $10 voucher to spend at AliciaBel or Fred, She Said Designs.

Join us at Get Creative and see what Autumn goodness has been created. Make a card and join in the fun.

Bye for now.

Love,

Angie's Digital Stamps Challenge #2

I made my first Halloween card for Challenge #2 of Angie's Digital Stamps blog. 

Being in Australia, there's not a real call for exchanging of cards on this occasion as we've only just started with the Trick or Treating; and decorating of the house. (Though this year I will be decorating the entry porch for the neighbourhood kids when they come visiting on the night.)

Using a cute image from Angie called "Daisy May with a Candle", I coloured her with my Copic markers and then placed her on a printed spider's web page design (that I found on the internet) that was coloured with Distress Crayons in Seedless Preserves, Peeled Paint and Chipped Sapphire, with a little black thrown in (which in hindsight wasn't a great idea, as it made the colours too muddy and dark). To rectify this, I sprayed the colours with water and then tried to lift off some of the colour. I layered the cobweb paper on top of some frayed muslin and some pewter blue shimmer cardstock.

A circle blended over with some Ripe Persimmon and Fossilized Amber Distress Ink, sprayed with water, blotted with paper towel; and then when dry, brushed over with some clear Wink of Stella; became the halo of candle light behind the fussy cut image. To finish I heat embossed the sentiment in silver on black cardstock; and made some little bats that I coated in Wink of Stella as well.

My idea for this card was to have a little girl trying to fend off the "nasties" of the night with a candle.

Anyway, please head over to Angie's blog and share in the fun with a Halloween twist.

Bye for now.

Love,
Janelle

Midpost of Ch. #111- Use Buttons or Bows

Once again I'm back for Simply Create Too Challenge. Challenge #111 saw me using buttons, Color Bursts, a stencil, cutting machine and cutting dies, white Uniball pen, gold embroidery floss and Wink of Stella. Did I mention Nuvo Mother of Pearl Embellishment Mousse? I used it on the cardstock that the sentiment was cut from. Does this card qualify for the term "mixed media"? Is there enough media in it?  :)

I love the intensity of the colours obtained with the Color Bursts. I used Ultramarine Blue, Lemon Yellow and Pthalo Green. Yum!

I loved how this turned out because the card was inspired by Sarah Moerman's card (shown below). While Sarah's card used sprays over a stencil, I thought it would be just as cool to draw the circles through the stencil instead, using my white gel pen.

                                 

Join us at Simply Create Too Challenge and see what our fellow crafters have created. Bye for now.

Love,

Janelle

Mothers' Day card (I know it's late)

Just a quick post to show you the Mothers' Day card I made for my MIL. I CASEd a card from Karolyn Loncon (below) and loved the effect of the tilted panel and the mass of roses.

I wanted, though, to try out my Ken Oliver's Color Burst colours using a stencil. So I dug out Tim Holtz's Scribbles Layered Stencil and used it along with Lemon Yellow and Alizarin Crimson. It was cool to see the touches of orange and pale pink that appeared on the panel. 

Because the stencil is more narrow than the background stamp Karolyn used, I ended up with the left side not covering the edge of the card blank. To make it look like it was meant to be like this, I faux-stitched with a black multi-liner around all of the edges

I love the "Happy" sentiment die cut that was popped up using multiple layers of pink cardstock and just offset to create a shadow. It comes from Hero Arts Happy Stamp and Cut set. As does the stamped sentiment.

The butterfly (that happened to be my MIL's favourite bit) is a Kaisercraft cutting die. 

Anyway, thanks for visiting. See you soon.

Love,

Janelle

Watercoloured Backgrounds

Here are a selection of cards I created for Practical Publishing a while ago that demonstrated techniques that could be used to watercolour backgrounds for cards. I used salt, over white heat embossing, wet-on-wet technique, using embossing folders, with stencils (lifting colour) and over the top of texture paste.

 The green one that was done using an embossing folder is actually ombre in effect (very subtle) but accomplished by laying progressively darker shades of green down the embossing folder before closing it to run through the diecutting machine.

I think my fave is the one at the top where I added salt to the multicoloured panel while the paint was still wet. Lovely effect.

Hope you enjoy these.

Bye for now.

Love,
Janelle

My Box of Inspiration

As part of my rehabilitation of my creative juices, I watched a video from Sandy Allnock where she talks about the creative process. I especially liked a quote by Picasso  (originally heard from Kristina Werner), that she spoke about, 

At the time it really resonated with me, so I made a tool box and festooned it with that quote. 

I used a Kaisercraft chipboard BTP Scrapping Organiser that I covered with patterned papers from the Base Coat Collection. I painted the edges and drawer front with some Airondack Copper paint. After applying the quote using some old basic grey micro mono stickers, I painted over the quote with some multi-medium matt gel to seal the letters in place. To complete it, I added some strips of Papermania's Madame Payaud's patterned craft tape across the drawer.

Not only have I now got something to contain all of my craft stuff that I can carry around the house with me; but I have something to keep me going when I'm not feeling so inspired. This is really so great as I've been trying to contain all of the stuff I regularly use. There's a section for my embossing and stamping stuff, a section for glues, etc; a section for tools, pens, etc; and at the back there's a deeper section for scissors, ruler, heat gun and rolls of adhesive strip. The drawer is going to be for the ink pads that I regularly use as well as blending sponges etc. You should see my craft bench now!  :)

Thanks to Sandy Allnock for your inspiring words. I can't fully express what they really meant to me at the time.

Anyway, bye for now.

Love,
Janelle

Cards from Craft Expo 2015

I'm posting some cards today that I made during the Craft Expo back in June this year. I did a number of classes with the gorgeous, talented and funny Rachel Greig from Darkroom Door. She's been a favourite of mine for a long time and I look forward to learning from her each year.

 

(Sorry Rachel that it is such a bad photo. But at least we can't see my wrinkles!)  :)

The three cards above are from a class I did with Rachel that dealt with painted Backgrounds. We used Dylusion Paints, Dina Wakley Media Paints and Perfect Pearl mists to create multi-layered cards. You may not be able to see it in the photos, but the backgrounds have been sprayed with Perfect Pearls Mists and are just gorgeous in their sheen. The Dylusion Paints are also tremendous with the vibrancy of their colours and the amazing coverage, A little goes a long way and you don;t have to worry about recoating as one layer has plenty of depth to it.

I loved the layering with brayers, stencils, background stamps etc that makes these cards look so amazing.

The card I gave to my husband for our anniversary was also from this class.

I'll be back tomorrow with some more cards from the Expo.

Bye for now,

Love,

Janelle

Back at last!

So many times over the past months, I've made up blog entries in my head, only to have something come up before I was able to get it typed up. From sickness, family issues, computer failure, magazine commissions, lack of inspiration - you name it - I've had it!

I have so much to tell you about, but to start off, I'll tell my Aussie readers about a little shop in Brisbane where you can get your sequins at an amazing price. The shop is called Bead Trimming and Craft Company and is found at Stones Corner. They have a wide range of colours, sizes and shapes of sequins.

About a month ago they had a fire in their upstairs section that housed the Doll and Teddy Bear Hospital, but apparently all is fine and they are back in business.

The selection of sequins you can see in the photo show a few that I picked up when I was there. I bought 2g of each colour and that's probably heaps to last a long time. Check them out.

I also took advantage of the Scrapbook Expo that was in Brisbane (June 6-8). This year I went the entire three days and did heaps of classes (concentrating on cardmaking techniques (of course) but also doing a couple of scrapbooking classes with a girlfriend on the Monday.) Next year, can someone please remind me not to go the whole three days - it almost killed me! I could hardly move on the Tuesday and it took over a week to fully recover from it. My CFS just isn't up to such abuse!  :)

It was worth it with some fantastic classes and heaps of ideas. I'll be including some photos of projects I did over the next couple of days, but I'm going to show you this card I made during the Expo. As soon as I saw the stamp used on this card, I just knew I had to give it to my husband for our anniversary this year. It was part of a set I made with Rachel Greig from Darkroom Door and used some of Dina Wakley Media Paints. These are great for multi-layering with stencils, brayering and stamps.

(The colours aren't quite right - they are much more vibrant IRL.)

Bye for now,
Love 
Janelle

For a change - a layout!

Here is something else I did at the craft expo I attended recently.

I made it during a class called "#Boys" with Tracey Kielty. The photo was taken in April of this year when my son, Alex, came second in the Lego Challenge final held at a local shopping centre. He was chuffed and you can see it in his face.

The layout uses a piece of cardboard box as its base, with some top layers torn away. It's been painted with gesso and then coloured using Glimmer Mists, etc. As you can see, there are a variety of techniques going on in it, including, stencilling with Viva Decor ferro Steel, stamping, using die cuts, using acetate, using flyscreen and using hardware. It was very intensive (brainwise) but I love the result - so totally different to what I usually do. I especially love the grey stencilled brickwork (very tactile).

Bye for now,
Janelle
  :)

P.S. It was square, but my photo came out odd-shaped trying to prevent glare from the acetate.