Cullercoats Charms and Curios

  Owl card and Framed Picture Going my own way! I have a busy job and life so often feel too tired to craft or my brain just lacks creativity and inspiration.  You tube and Pinterest can be a useful source for ideas and new techniques.  However there is so much to look at and view that my hobby has become watching craft tutorials and ideas rather than doing craft and creating projects!  I am now making an effort only to watch a couple of tutorials and choose something that inspires me and actually get crafting.  I found a pretty butterfly art journal page by artful evidence that created a background using smooching and stencilling.  Inspired I got out my distress inks ....  However after using a cog stencil my background felt a bit dark for butterflies!  So I went more grungy and reached for an owl stamp.  I think this is an example of using a tutorial to set you on the road to crafting a project but then taking a different direction and goin...

Chronology Embossing folder Technique 2  For this technique an image is stamped onto the card before it is embossed.  The embossing acts as a background rather than the main focal point. Materials Docrafts X Cut Tri boss chronology embossing folder. Robert Addams all Occasions Dies - cogs Craftbox Steampunk Stamp Hunkydory for the Love of Stamps: Time to celebrate stamps. Ranger Tim Holtz distress ink or Spectrum Noir aquatint pens Papermania Kaleidoscope Butterfly stamps 5" x 7" card blanks Black card Patterned paper Choose an image that co ordinates or compliments the embossing folder you are going to use.  Stamp the image onto a piece of card which has been cut to the size of the embossing folder.  Where you postion the stamped image will depend on the design of the card and how it best fits with the embossed image. Place the card in the embossing folder and run it through your die cutting machine....

MIXED MEDIA 8 X 8 CARD Materials Sheena Douglas A little bit sketchy Hare stamp. Crafters Companions wild at heart flower stamp and sentiment. Sheena Douglas dissolving planets stencil. Visible image scripted streets text stamp. Torn edge rectangle die. Stamping card Black versafine ink (or other waterproof ink) 8 x 8 papers Watercolour paints White acrylic paint Gold spritzer  Distress inks 8 x 8 craftcard card. Stamp the hare onto stamping card.  This needs to be thick enough to cope with watercolour paint.   Use watercolour paints to colour the hare.  Watercolour pencils or markers could also be used depending on what you have. Colour the background with light yellowy brown wash.  It does not matter if it is patchy!    Once the background is fully dry use bundled sage and forest moss distress inks with a stencil to create a dappled background.  I used a dissolving planets stencil by Sheena Douglas but anything that creates dapples would work. S...

  Miniature Guitar   Made for recycled cardboard   I was asked to make a special 60th birthday card for a colleagues wife.  She plays bass guitar in a band and likes travelling, flowers and hedgehogs.  After a bit of research I discovered that Gibson released a new model of bass guitar in 1961 the year she was born.  I thought a guitar case would make a great 3 d card and decided to have a go at making a model guitar to put in it.  YouTube provided lots of tutorials on making cardboard guitars.  After getting some ideas I made a start. The guitar case was made from cardboard from an Amazon box.  I covered the outside with a leather look paper and the inside with flowered paper.  I made personalised stickers to decorate the outside of the case.  One is the name of the band she plays in.  I even got a little hedgehog on there for her. Initially I printed out some front and back views of the guitar to use as a template. ...