PAPERARTSY BOTTLES CHALLENGE - GREAT AUNT MAUD

Morning all. Hope you had a good bank holiday weekend.

Like a lot of people, I've spent the weekend doing DIY.  Of course my mind is never far away from some kind of crafting project so, rather than just chuck everything away, I collected a few bits and bobs for a steampunk type art doll as I went along.

In the back of my mind I had PaperArtsy's current topic and challenge, which is Bottles, so when I found a small perfume bottle at the back of a drawer it set the little grey cells working and I squirrelled it away in my craft room for later. I always love Leandra's overview of the upcoming topic and the bottle with the keys on it really inspired me to do something different. When I found an old sewing machine bulb which I thought was kind of head shaped and, fortuitously, it fitted inside the perfume bottle; perfect! Now I had a head and a body and Lin's Bob Sprocket project was instantly brought to mind....

We had to say goodbye to our very comfy and much loved bedroom sofa but I couldn't part with some of the fabric and the lovely wooden legs, which looked remarkably like a lady's skirt when turned upside down. Maud was taking shape in my head.

Why Maud? I have absolutely no idea, but that's the name that popped into my head for her and when I looked up the meaning I found it's an old German name meaning "powerful battler". I decided she must have been a Suffragette and, as you can see, she still proudly wears her Women's Suffrage Movement medal. Votes For Women!

She lives...

 

 Check out her cute feather bustle (the chickens still aren't speaking to me :oD)

You should be able to see a chair leg (skirt), a perfume bottle (body), a light bulb (head), a curtain ring (arms), some picture hangers (earrings), some belt stud fasteners (ears) and I added a handbag charm, bead spacers for her eyes, cogs for her eye glass and badge and a couple of metal flowers I got in a scrapbooking kit for her hat. I had such fun making her AND I've still got the other three chair legs to play with :oD

Lx

I'm also going to enter this at Ecclectic Ellapu where the challenge this month is Steampunk

No posts for ages and then you get two at once. Please scroll down for my Dragons Dream Tag. New challenge starts today...

DRAGONS DREAM TAG IT ON CHALLENGE #192 - PURPLE AND CIRCLES

I was so pleased to be asked by Catherine if I would be a guest designer for her challenge at Dragons Dream Tag It On, which is Purple and Circles (here). Thanks Catherine. I really enjoyed it.

As you know, I'm trying to make my tags with what I've got in my scrap box. The challenge is to follow the prompt AND use one real stamp. My starting point with this challenge was actually that I've recently had a birthday and top of my wish list were some beautiful Tim Holtz butterfly stamps, so I was itching to use them. When I found a half piece of gorgeous purple card nestling among my scraps I knew where I wanted to go with it, so it was out with the Purple Concord Distress Ink and I set to work...

Here's what I made

I pondered for a very long time about whether to make the tag in a different colour, wash it with gesso or go for broke and use the same shade of purple throughout. In the end I decided to challenge myself and go for the same colour throughout which would mean I had to make the butterflies stand out on the purple card purely by making the texture and shading work for me. With this in mind, I used a very old Sizzix embossing plate for the tag itself and coloured it with Distress Ink to bring out the texture. Then I stamped the butterflies in black archival ink and clear embossed to accentuate the detail. I used my Prismacolour Pencils to colour the butterflies. I was thinking Purple Emperor butterfly but they're probably not so accurate as I just coloured from (dim) memory. Keen Lepidopterists, please forgive me :oD

Just as the sentiment says, I decided to keep the tag simple. I stuck to a palette of three colours: dark grey, white and, of course, purple. I cut some foliage in dark grey and punched a few simple flowers in plain white card, adding pale green pearls in the centre.

I loved making it; I'm pleased with how it turned out and I hope Catherine will like it too. It would be great if you would visit us and join in the challenge too.


Lx

I would like to enter this tag into the challenges at:

Colouring Crazy Challenge - Pearls and Bling
Polkadoodles Challenge - Girly but no Pink
Simply Create Too - Keep it simple

DRAGONS DREAM TAG IT ON #191 - YELLOW AND TEXTURE

Here's my tag for the current challenge at Dragons Dream. Not, I have to say, a big fan of yellow so I was hard pressed to find anything yellow in my scrapbox. I was beginning to get a bit worried and then I found a modest piece of textured yellow card, just big enough for a couple of balloons... RESULT!

Here's the texture bit... I tore up strips of blue card and rolled the edges before layering them down the tag

and here comes the yellow...

Still plenty of time to enter. Why not give it a go.


Lx

Masterboard Magic

I had a go at making a Masterboard recently for a challenge set by my crafty pal Debbie. The challenge was to use cool colours and to make a Christmas themed project with it afterwards.

Here is my Masterboard. I used Distress Inks in Broken China, Black Soot and Peeled Paint for the background. The snowflakes were stamped in blue and green and I used plain old white gesso to stamp snowflakes and make lines over the top of it all.

I cut it into six fairly equal pieces and edged each piece with Black Soot Distress Ink

and here's one of the batch of six cards I made. The snowflake die is by Tim Holtz for Sizzix. The Sentiment is by Tonic.

Lx

DRAGONS DREAM TAG IT ON #190 BLACK AND STENCILS

Another great challenge at Dragon's Dream I've had such a lovely time making this tag. I wanted to think of a twist for the stencil part so I decided to use part of the actual stencil on the tag. I'm hoping this constitutes a clever twist on the theme. Here's the stencil I used

and here's the tag

As usual I coloured my image with copics and added detail with my Prismacolour pencils

I used some lovely kraft card from my scrap box, Perl by Stampotique and another great Dylusions sentiment. Couldn't resist adding a bit of hardware in the shape of some cogs and a gorgeous Tim Holtz arrow and I thought the flowers were a nice contrast.

Still plenty of time to enter a tag if you fancy having a go. Why not give it a try.

Lx