Christmas is finally here...........

Well it's been a busy year to say the least and I have finally got a little bit of time off to recharge the batteries.

I've had some ups and downs over the year, made some new friends and realised others are not quite as nice as they try to appear but in the whole scheme of things, I have nothing to complain about.

I make a New Year resolution every year to update my blog more regularly and every year I fail....but....I will be doing more crafting in 2012 so with that will be more blog posts.....maybe I might just manage to keep the blogging more frequent next year.

I used to love wrapping presents and would spend hours doing it but, as time is off the essence these days, I no longer manage to spend the time I did.  I made an exception for mum though and I'm looking forward to spending some time with her on Boxing Day.....here is her basket of presents that I'm taking up there, all wrapped in Vintage style.....just like mum hee hee!

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone and I wish you all the best for 2012 xxxx

Tando Creative Challenges...week 2

This month the theme is Winter Festivals.

I used the reverse side of a canvas and covered the inner areas with Modroc, the bottom part has been been packed up to give a different shape and texture.

Embossing enamel....lots of.... has been used and then I finished off with some Mini Houses and the reindeer and sleigh.

There's a prize up for grabs every month and you don't even have to use Tando chippie.....if you do though, you get double to chance to win :o)

A new online class.........

.........starting soon, over at Tando Creative.......HERE.

You could make this supercute little Christmas decoration :o)

Christmas Wreath Class

I'm delighted to be teaching regularly over at The Craft Barn. 

I'm doing the Christmas Village Class at the end of this month and in December I will be doing this Christmas Wreath Class.

If you're local to The Craft Barn and fancy having a go you can book a place HERE.

Hearts of Plaid at Bubbly Scrumptious

Over at Bubbly Scrumptious the October challenge is Hearts of Plaid.   There is a fab inspirational board so I thought I would give it a go....I so rarely enter into challenges but I had a day to myself today..no work for a change ha ha!!

 

Anyhoo, my Home hanging is, of course, made up of mostly Tando stuff, I've used the Octagonal printer trays along with a cupcake, flowers, birds, hearts, letters and mini houses.

Thanks for dropping by.

Tando October Challenge........

Over at the Tando Creative Challenge blog for October the theme is SPOOKTASTIC.

I chose to make a Halloween styled wreath with as many spooky Tando products as I could.  The ring is made from corregated cardboard and I stuck on a variety of chippie bits.  I glued the cobwebs across the centre and mounted the alphas across it.

Rustic Charm

Here is my entry for the Tando Creative September Challenge, Rustic Charm. 

I have used the plaque pack, stitches mask, flourish and leaf flourish...all Tando of course LOL.  I made it a while ago so I'm not overly sure what I used....one day I will be efficient and write it all down!!  No doubt there were Eco Green paints and Viva Decor products in there somewhere.

Village life.......

I'm in love with Modroc LOL, I have been using some for this mini Christmas Village using the Tando mini houses and it is fabulous.

I think I take after my Dad when it comes to model making, he loved it too.....he was much better at it than me though. 

Anyhoo, I will be taking a class in November to make a village similar to this one over at The Craft Barn.  I think I might be making a few more first though because I had so much fun.

New Challenges over at Tando Creative.....

...and here is my entry.  I have so little time to craft but I really should try and join in with the Tando challenges shouldn't I LOL.

For mine I have cut a panel out to the lid of a box and decorated the inside with a wild scene.  I had fun with masks and chippie here.

The outside of the box lid has been covered with torn up pieces of corrugated card and I used the sequin waste mask in between.  It was then painted with a mixture of Viva Decor Inka Gold and Precious Metal paints dabbed in between.

For the inside I used the Garden with a Watering Can mask on the background using paste to create a raised image and then lightly coloured over the top again with Inka Gold.

There are a selection of leaves and flowers and then the wildlife with an Owl, Dragonfly, Butterfly and finally a spiders web.....no spider though eeeek.

Ta for popping by.

Another little plaque

Another creation from me today, I'm on a bit of a roll with these little designs, they are so quick and easy to do.  All Tando stuff......of course ha ha!!

I wanted a warm summer feel for this one....shame the lovely weather seems to have disappeared.

More soon xx

Music Plaque

This is the first of many projects I did while I was on a retreat recently.  It was in preparation for the Craft Barn Extravaganza that was held at the beginning of June.

The plaques used in these projects are very useful for making little items like these, they  make excellent gifts.  This one has combined stamping on the base, Viva Decor Croco on the inner plaque and Precious Metal paint on the flourishes.  The word music has been simply painted with acrylic and a layer of Glossy Accents added.

I have a few in this series to show you that I will post over the coming days.

A couple of projects......

I've been playing again with some Tando Chippie and Viva Decor Croco,  I so love Viva Decor products, I have lots of them now and of course I have a tiny bit of Tando chippie too LOL.

The first is one of the Tando oval frames which I have covered firstly with Silver Croco.  Once it had dried I used the fabby Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Drawing inks in four vintage colours and painted different parts of the croco.  The background is one of the new Impression Obsession Stamps in script which I then ran through an embossing folder to add some dots.

The birds (also Tando) were simply covered with patterned paper and the edges inked with distress inks.  A little dot of Viva Decor gloss gel gave the finishing touch to the eyes.  Gloss gel was also used on the stand.

The second piece has very similar techniques.  The chippie at the back again uses the Impression Obsession stamp and has been embossed as before.

This time I used 4 Tando wavy dominoes and a straight inchie for the Croco and Acrylic drawing ink treatment and then I finished off the piece with 2 Tando butterflies painted with Viva Decor metalic paint and the drawing ink to draw in the fine lines.  Oh...and gloss gel for the butterfly bodies.

Home Sweet Home

As Tando Creative have recently sponsored the Totally Gorjuss challenge blog 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 Tando's 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.

My attempt at one of the very popular Tando multi frames...it's very Tando based...no surprise there then LOL.  Virtually every piece of chippie used in this is a Tando product.  I have used a whole host of different paint techniques with my favourite Viva Decor products along with glitter, patterned papers, Eco Green paints, Glossy Accents and more.

Thanks for dropping by for a look.

A couple of cards.....

.....well, true to form, I'm pants at this blogging lark.  My trouble is, I make stuff and then don't photograph it which is a bit daft really but hey ho.

Anyhoo, I've made a couple of cards, using my trusty embossing folders that I absolutely love at the mo and I've hardly used any Tando, in fact it's almost "spot the Tando" LOL...now that's a shock.

First one was for Net and the second for Wendy....hope you had lovely birthdays ladies.

Art journalling .......... LOL!!

Now I love art, I used to paint alot before I got into crafting and eventually Tando!!

I've been intrigued by art journalling for some time and admire many peeps work.  As I'm full of cold and feeling pretty yucky I felt like curling up on the sofa last night and doing very little.  Now I'm no TV watcher so I decided to grab a couple of sheets of A4..ish paper and some paints and have a little dabble.

The art bit I can get, the journalling bit I can't.  I could of said lots of things about the journey of life and how you never know which path to take etc etc but I somehow couldn't get that down on the paper.

Anyhoo, my rather feeble attempt is below, I rather like the boots, I fancy a pair myself  LOL!  I thoroughly enjoyed painting a picture rather than painting a bit of chippie for a change and I think I will paint again whenever I can but I'm not sure about the journalling bit ha ha!!

Another house and mini book.....

....this one I will be making at a workshop at Bubbly Funk next month.

I treated myself to a Big Shot.....yes, yes, I know I'm miles behind everyone else.  I also got a load of embossing folders, they are fab.  Actually it was Zoe's fault, she very successfully embossed some Tando chippie and that swayed me to go out and spend "too much" money LOL.

I've used a couple of embossing folders for this....on bazzil rather than straight on the chippie and lots of one of my fave brands....Viva Decor.