I have been AWOL!

Oooops!  It's almost 12 months exactly since I posted last!  My Bad!

I could make many excuses but I am sure you don't want to hear them.  Are you even still there?

I will make a few posts that will be in random order on the timeline.  I have not been doin nothing, I can assure you.

I have joined up with some lovely local Hutt Valley ladies who asked if I would like to pop along to their fortnightly get-together.  Heck yes!  Why not.  What a fantastic group of new friends I have.  I am a happy scrapper.

I have started making some of the many awesome projects that are produced by Kathy (Orta) King.  Her blog is called Paper Phenomenon.  She sells tutorials for the most amazing boxes, mini albums and more.  I will show you some of what I have done in the posts to follow.

I spent an awesome two days helping out Lowri McNabb from Papervine, at the Wellington Paper Arts Show last September.  It took 3 of  us over 3 hours to set up and about 40mins to pack down, lol.  It was pretty frantic at times but it was great fun and so good to see so many crafters in one place.

Last year I also made it to Autumn Escape in Taupo for the first time.  It was a fantastic 3 days at Waiaraki Resort   One of the draw-cards for me was that Teresa Collins was teaching some classes there.

We are buddies now, don't ya know, hahaha.

Hmmm  .... what else happened in 2015?

Oh yeah ....  I turned 50!  Good grief .  At the time, I was officially twice my daughter's age.  A fact that she was pleased to remind me of.

We (James, Liam and I) went to Rarotonga, Cook Islands for a week, along with my BFF Andrea and her husband Ivan, 3 of hubby's siblings and their significant others, plus 2 nieces, plus a bonus Salisbury sibling (long story) with her significant other and her two just-adult kids. Add to that one Mother-In-Law and it was a full house!!

I did actually do a little bit of traditional scrapbooking too.  In July last year Liam was keen to go to Armageddon - a sci-fi fan expo.  I ended up taking him 2 days in a row!!!  He really wanted to meet Karen Gillian who is the actress playing the companion on Dr Who but sadly, I was not able to make that happen.  He really enjoyed be able to o out and about in costume and not being seen as being bit weird.

Well - that will do for the first sitting, I'm sure.  I promise not to leave it so long before I post again.

(Oh, just remembered one real reason it got too hard to blog - my stupid F,G & H keys, and some others on the middle row, don't always work and having to edit and re-type is bloody pain!  Note to self: get them fixed.)

Esther

Dragons Dream TIO #184

The challenge this fortnight over at Dragons Dream Tag It On is to use the colour Orange and a Letter. Orange is a having a wee bit of a revival in my world right now so I was pretty happy with the colour choice.

I had fun making the background with Liquidtex Acrylic and Ink in orange tones, dripping, misting and splattering.  I use a spray from Lindy’s Stamp Gang to colour the paper butterfly, which had started life as plain white.  The large letter “B” was hiding in my stash so all that was required was the stamping of the butterfly trail and the words.  Simple but effective.

Cheers

Esther

Dragons Dream TIO #183

This fortnight the challenge was to use Red and Flowers.  The usual rule of using at least one real stamp applies too.

Being of the school of “Refuse to do the Obvious” (Red Roses)  I set about making this challenge harder than it had to be.

I downloaded a great Silhouette shape of a young lady with flowers in her hair to start with as a base.  I cut it to use as a stencil first and foremost but the negative of the entire shape proved useful too.  Probably more so really.

I started by painting my tag red, then stamped a script text stamp through a honeycomb stencil to create my background.  I then masked the with the negative space left from cutting out the shape, filling it in with black gesso mixed with a crackle texture paste.  The crackle didn’t really show very well though.

The next step was to place the cut portrait over the black and add the detail of the roses and butterfly in white texture paste. Hmmm …. didn’t like it all.  Boring and flat.

So – out with the paper flowers and the distress ink pens on the butterfly.  Better. I then added the sentiment stamped in white on black card and cut out the banner (which is just part of the actual stamp).

Still not sold on it, but it’s done.

Thanks for taking a look.  Hopefully my next tag will be a little more exciting.

Cheers, Esther

Real Life

Yes – I have had a bit of that in 2014 and the last half slipped away from me altogether!  I wasn’t my best year despite my intentions.

2015 has started of with hernia surgery and I hope that is the end of my days as as a walking hospital waiting list, lol.

So, back into doing some crafting at long last and I have started with the first Dragons Dream Tag It On challenge for 2015.  The recipe called for Turquoise with Bling, and of course the use of at least one real stamp.

I started with laying down a few strips of scrap paper (9th wave collection from 7 Dots)

 

Then I set to, mixing paints until I was happy with the colour

I slapped on the paint and sprinkled with Magical for added bling, spritzing the powder with water to bring out the colour and the sparkle.

I the distressed the edges and added Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I then stamped around the edges with a new stitch stamp plus the word LIFE and added chipboard letters from my stash that just happened to be the perfect colour – I love it when that happen,  It justifies having a stash, I say!

I also added some Prima bling from one of the monthly kits ( I have no idea which one though)

Here are a couple of close-ups that show the different textures.

It felt good to get my fingers stained again, I must admit.  Thanks for stopping in to take a look.  I really do appreciate it.

Happy New Year!

Esther

How Long Has It Been?

It seems like forever since I took part in a crafting challenge and did a blog post to go with it.

In my defence, I do have my left arm in plaster again.  I have had corrective surgery to the broken wrist that I had in January this year.  I will be out of the cast before Christmas, thank goodness.

However, I am not very good at sitting around doing nothing and have managed to make something for the current challenge at The Craftroom which is to create something, anything, in 3-D.

I purchased this cutting file from the Silhouette store hoping it would be easy enough to construct in my current disadvantaged state, lol.  I’m pleased to say that it was.

I do have another 3-D project almost completed, just waiting for the finishing touches to arrive in the post.  Hopefully I will have time to share that one too, before this challenge ends.  If not, I just may share it anyway.

Thanks for stopping in to take a look – I am off to rest the wrist.

Esther  xx

New Tag : The Letter J + Die-Cuts

The current challenge at Dragons Dream Tag It On is to make a tag incorporating the letter J and die-cuts.  Having the Cameo means that I can pretty much die-cut anything – I love that!

I had several ideas in the first five minutes, as you do, but this is what I went with.

My son has been learning Japanese at school for three years now so I kind of had to really.

The Japanese Doll is a shape from the Silhouette Store.  She does look a bit cross-eyed, I admit, but still quite cute.  As per the challenge rules, at least one stamp had o be used as well.  I dug out the Japanese text stamp from Kaisercraft and the lantern of one from a set of about 6 different lanterns but I have no idea of the manufacturer.  Few coloured sprays of ink and it was all done.

Esther xx

The Letter “O” and Rust–TIO #173

Julie Ann has set the recipe for this challenge and while I has all sorts of ideas for the rust factor, I got somewhat stuck on the “O” factor.  I had a word floating around in my brain that refused to go away so I decided I simply had to work with it.

I knew I had a stamped Magnolia image that would be perfect (I don’t actually own stamp, I had stamped several that belong to Shell quite some time ago) but it took me forever to find it amongst my treasures.

I already had the textured tag ready so I hand drew the wall for the patient to sit on.  I used Rust Hinge and Wild Honey distress inks to colour the tag and Gelatos to colour the image.  I used Archival Sepia to stamp the dragonflies and the stars and Archival Black to stamp the text onto fabric.  A few droplets of water onto the inked tag and it was good to go.

A big thanks to the team at Dragons Dream Tag It On for placing my Party Dress tag in the Top 3 for the last challenge.  Still haven’t wiped the smile of my face!

Please pop on over there to see what the design team have done – they rock!

Esther  xx