Chaos...

Well, sort of!
Been playing with new paints, LOVE the colours!!! Eco Green Lake and Waterfall to be precise. I've added in a little Pool Dabber, and some Cosmic Shimmer spray in a teal colour (can't remember the exact name but its FAB!) Of course my current favourite technique of black paint splatters had to be part of it too..... I made this..

Bit tricky to see the shimmery shine the Cosmic Shimmer has given this, but its there!!!
A Stampotique image and some ironic text (She SOOOOO doesn't look like she is capable of chaos of any kind!) , and it's done.

Very simple, and a nice quick make. Love the colour scheme though, tone on tone isn't generally me, but the tealy blues are great!!
Have a great weekend!
Trish xxxxxx

WOYWW173

Good morning! Another missing in action week last week...I will endeavour to get round everyones desk today though, promise!!
I've been trying out colour schemes for a project.... had an idea in my head which in the end didn't work out, which means I can show you as its not one of those pesky secrets!!

I did this by putting blobs of ink onto the card, then giving it a quick blast with the compressed air to splatter them. The black splats are watered down paint , flicked onto the card using a mini bottle brush. The resulting background turned out way too busy for the thing it was meant for......but I liked the effect so made lots! The finished piece I'll show you was from a previous background with more black splats...can't decide whether less black or more black works better!

I so much prefer doing the black bits with paint, inks just aren't dense and opaque enough for the effect I like best!

For any one out there who doesn't follow WOYWW yet, hop on over to The Stamping Ground , where Julia our esteemed hostess will share links to hundreds of crafty blogs...and then go have a sneaky look at what the world is up to today!!
Have a great week,
Trish xxxxx

Denim Smile....

What a strange post title! Well no, not really......what with me being a literal sort of person, I'm just pointing out the obvious...a smile made from denim!!!

I'm playing along with the CR84FN colour challenge, the current request is that we use Denim, Tan and Brown in our creations! I kind of went a bit literal with that too...and used actual denim not just the colour!
The base is a 20 by 20 cm piece of kraft card, sprayed and splatted to give a bit of texture. i added some corrugated and embossed card too...

I made the large flower by glueing a piece of denim fabric to some Clearly For Art modelling film. Once dry, I die cut some flowers from it. Once heated, the warm plastic can be shaped. I gently rolled and bent the petals ( be careful, the plastic gets hot!), and held them in position until the plastic had cooled. At this point the cold plastic will hold the shape! If you hate it, simply reheat and have another go.....

I also glued some denim to chipboard, and die cut some letters to form the word 'smile'....

The final touches were some rolled roses and fringed flowers, both with added denim ink and frayed jeans distress stickles!

A pearly embellishment got the stickles treatment too.....
Really enjoyed making this, lots of different textures to play with, and messy too! My kind of project!
Love Trish xxxx

Monday Sneak peek for Calico Crafts

Hello!
A little teaser picture showing my latest project over at Calico Crafts !

Please pop on over and take a look!
Love Trish xx

Emily is cold....

Hello!
Sometimes its the simple things that make you smile.....
I made this background a while ago, very very simple, smears of paint on a printed cardstock sheet, brayered and stamped. Then it sat there waiting for inspiration to strike..... needed something in the large blank area to the right....hmmm.... nothing I had seemed right, so I made it up!!!! Sometimes the daftest words somehow work!
Here is Emily....

Now, I know the stamp isn't really called Emily, but for some reason whenever I make stuff up like this, the *right* name to use is Emily! No idea why, I know no-one with the name, even my three daughters don't count an 'emily' amongst their friends!! Maybe I've created myself an invisible friend! eek!!!
Anyway, even brayering once can give you some fab texture....

Really recommend you having a go if you've never got a brayer painty before!!!
Have a great day!!
love Trish xxx

Sisters accordian book

I've been working on smaller pieces this week, or rather, I've been creating masterboards and cutting them down to use as smaller backgrounds. The finished project looks like this....

This is the book all folded up! The panels I used are only 8cm square, so little spaces to work on!
Once the knot is undone, the rest of the panels unfold....

To start with though, I made the masterboard by spraying and flicking paint and ink all over a 12 x 12 sheet of card....

The cut down box on the left is where I put my things I want to spray....it helps to keep the inks from going everywhere. I did most of the splats with my new toy...if you can just about see a blue 'thing' resting on my paint palette..thats him!! A small bottle brush. Came in a pack with a large one too, but the small one is PERFECT for loading up with paint/ink and flicking to get lots of splats on your work!!!
Once the masterboard was dry, I cut it into the small squares, and worked on each separately.
Closeups of the other three squares...

As you can see, each square was stamped with numbers, grid textures, dots and a grungy stitching stamp before I added more detail. Stamped and cut out images, or punched out paper, or text paper. Once I was happy with them I sewed them to a bit of muslin (dyed and grunged up a bit!)
The orange is a bit of a different colour scheme for me, but I'm trying to stop myself using the same shades over and over again!!!
As this is a small book, I'm entering it into the current Fashionable Stamping Challenge , as the brief is 'good things come in small packages' !!!
Have a lovely week, and stay dry.....you can't leave the house here in Blackpool without getting seriously rained on! Not fun!!
Trish xxxxx

A little extra for Calico Crafts!

Why not have a little look over at the Calico Crafts Blog today....I've just posted a little extra project over there! Another art panel using scrapbooking papers and lots of crackle glaze. Here's a sneaky peek...

Hope you like it!!
Love Trish xxxx

Indian Summer????

Er...nope...sitting here with the heating on, thank you very much!!!!
To try and get the warm feeling back, I've been playing with some hot and summery colours instead!

I made the background firstly by spritzing with Dylusions inks, then over stamping with some text,dots, sequin waste etc etc..

I cut the flower heads (a Memory Box die) and stamped them with text before glueing down onto the background. A little black shading to give a nice messy distressed look, and then a stamped 'sunshine' word to finish.

Does it make me feel any warmer? um....put the kettle on and pass me a woolly cardie!!!!
I'm entering this into The Stampman Challenge  "Summer Sizzlers -use hot colours".
Love Trish xxxxx

WOYWW171

Happy Wednesday everyone!
Today is a good day...FINALLY get all the children back into school! The high school my middle two attend has been rebuilt over the summer, so they went back a week later than usual. Peace and quiet reign supreme! Yay!
So.... my desk? This week is a bit of a puzzle for you... what on earth have I been making???

If you've seen some of the things I've been making recently it might be easier to figure out! Hmm..... stacks of buttons?
They're feet!!! Yep, lots of feet for a configurations box workshop on the horizon. Ten people, four feet for each box = lots and lots of buttons!!! They look fab when attached though, and its actually really relaxing glue gunning them all together!
Short and sweet from me today...will be round to see you all shortly!
Why not head over to Julias Place and have a wander around the craft desks of the world as well?!!
Love Trish xxx

CR84FN62- A challenge a day.......

keeps your creative brain ticking over!!!
Well it does with me anyway!!! I don't just mean blog prompt types of challenges, I'm thinking more about challenging YOURSELF to do stuff. Things like actually inking up those stamps that have sat for months still in the wrapper....trying out that technique you bookmarked because it looked interesting but then promptly forgot all about.....or just going totally 'off piste' and out of your comfort zone! The latter is the one I try and do often, and it's usually to do with colour.... I have certain colours I never use, which is a bad thing. Who knows how they'll look if you never have a play, right? Which leads me on to the creation I want to share. This week my favourite colour challenge over at CR84FN is all about one of those colours...Peach. Maybe its the photo of me aged about six in the most horrendous peach frilly bridesmaids dress that used to adorn the mantlepiece at home that has scarred me for life, who knows. The upshot is, peach is *so* not on my colour radar! But, challenge it is, so here goes.......

Peach, lavender with more than a hint of white in there too!
I smeared, scraped, stamped and stencilled the background with paint...

Added in a button flower made with white twine petals....

And stamped a word to add a finishing touch...

Very simple in terms of painty-ness, definitely not as busy as usual. Which is good though, another challenge to myself!!!
And will I be using peach anytime soon? Actually, I rather like the contrast with the purple, especially with the black, so quite possibly!!!!
Have a fabulous day everyone!
Love Trish xxx

Monday Sneak peek-for Calico Crafts

Morning! My turn on the Calico Crafts DT blog today...so as usual  here is a random pic of a small part of my project! Hop on over to The Calico Crafts Blog to see the whole thing, plus all the step by step pics on how to create it!

Have a lovely Monday everyone!
Love Trish xxx

Hello there!!!

I AM here...really!!! Just not had a minute to myself this week, so unfortunately no blogging time...boooo.....
So, what's new? Well, the most exciting news is that I've been chosen to be a DT member for Creative Expressions!! How fab is that! I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in and start creating, there are lots of very talented peeps on the DT with me, so watch out for some great projects from all of us in the near future!
I spent a very lovely morning teaching today, my winged mannequin class that I shared the sample for a while back. Lots of lovely painty messy fun! I can now unveil the sample for my next class.....

As a bit of a tie-in with my DVD, I'm sharing the painty canvas techniques I use, and we'll be making this winter wonderland piece. Snowflakes on the top..

Nice chunky feet.....

A fabulous snowman....

and some music paper/twine/text details to finish....

The best bit is, those attending will be entered into a free draw for a copy of the DVD!!! So, even if the class is full its still a one in ten chance of winning!
All class details can be found HERE !!!
I'm back in the swing of things now, so lots to share over the coming week!!!
Trish xxxxx

Little Monsters...

" Mum...here's the quote I want you to put on the canvas I want you to make...." Er, what? Nothing else forthcoming...no colours, sizes, images, themes.....fabulous. Just the kind of commission I love...not!!!!
So, armed with that brief...I made this....

I started off with a box canvas, and created a background with paints in green, turquoise, black and purple. Lots of smearing, stencilling, printing and stamping.....

I used button stacks as feet....

And a  flower under a door knob as a topper...

When it came to an image, I was a bit stumped. The quote (from Harry Potter) seems to suggest whoever is saying it isn't human......so putting a human figure on there as I normally do didn't seem right. In the end i decided on these adorable monsters from Stamping Bella!

My 'customer' arrived back from college and approves, so all is well!!! phew!!!
Love Trish xxxxx