Ink Stains Charm Swap

A couple of months ago, the very talented Roni from Ink Stains called for interested crafters to take part in a charm swap.

I thought (just quietly) “I would so love to do this!!!”  So, I did!  Yay for me.

Being in New Zealand, we sometimes feel so removed from the “real world” of scrapping and scrap-related artists.  Well, I do anyway.  Having a little piece of art from the other side of the world is actually a really big deal.

The brief for Roni’s general charm swap was to create 5 charms the same or at least similar.  Send them off to her and receive not only 5 different charms in return but also a pin to hang them on.

These are the charms I sent off to the USA in June.

I used tiny bottles, beads and charms and re-purposed costume jewellery.  I filled each bottle with a co-ordinating glitter.  I was pretty chuffed with them to honest.

I was thrilled to bits today when I received my return charms in the letterbox!!  I admit that I squealed out loud, quickly looking around to see who might have observed me acting so strangely at the front gate, lol.

I ripped into the parcel (carefully preserving the very cool postage stamps for a future purpose) and fond the most gorgeous goodies inside.

Oh, the talent and time that has gone into the making of these is simply a treasure in itself!  Thank you so much to creators of my charms (I am wearing my pins as I type).  To have such an amazing individual piece of art jewellery give me a real buzz.

I will be in for Roni’s next charm, without a doubt.  Lets see some more followers of Ink Stains from Down-Under!

Dragons Dream TIO #122 – A Nightmare

I lieu of a dream this fortnight, we have a Nightmare over at Dragons Dream Tag It On.  Check out what the DT have done – Impressive!

The inspiration was to include: Murder of the Crows, a Blue Moon and a Chill Wind and , as usual, to include at least one “real” stamp.  I’m really going to have to invest in some scary/Halloween stamps!  It would have been so much easier.

The stone arch is a Magnolia stamp,the vine (stamped in both Archival Jet Black and Forest Moss DI).  The crow is one of  Tim Holtz ones, as are the bids flying across the Moon.  I also stamped the crow on shrink plastic to make a charm.

I’m not sure that macabre is my style but it might grow on me, lol.

Thanks for taking a peek, I always appreciate your comments.

Esther xoxo

12 Tags of 2012 – August

Time Holtz was quick off the mark this month and as I was home with my son today, I had a chance to get stuck in to it.

Typically, I did not have a single one of the products he used so I had spent quite a bit of time finding stuff to make a tag that looked similar.

To create the tag with the die-cut end I turned to my trusty Silhouette Cameo.  It took a bit of fiddling to merge two file together the way I wanted to but I got there in the end. Then I found an un-named frame stamp, that I embossed with detail black embossing powder.  The cameo stamp was a freebie with a magazine.  I was thinking they might be a bit small but they were what I had so I just got on with it.

I created an embossing diffuser using the tag file with an oval cut into it (well, 3 layers of really).  It worked quite well once I sorted out a sandwich + shim for running it through the cuttlebug.  I mixed a bit of Stormy Skies Distess Ink with Picket Fence Distress stain to wipe over the raised pattern then added some Tattered Rose.

I cut 3 different spiral roses on the Cameo, along with some leaves.  I creased the leaves in a vein sort of pattern and inked the creases with Vintage Photo.

Not entirely satisfied I had a 2nd go.  This time round I took a slightly different tact and made better use of the Silhouette Cameo.

I created the frame from a slightly modified Oval Doily and the cameo figure from a modified Print and Cut file.  This time I used the oval shape to mask the tag before stamping the text/flourish background that was then heat embossed.  I added Tattered Rose and Victorian Velvet inks to the background and edged with Peacock Feathers from the seasonal range.  I used a flower that I had already made and cut the “branches” using the leaf vein part of the spiral rose cutting file from my first tag.

 

Personally, I prefer the 2nd tag even though I forgot to add any words.  What do you think?

Cheers, Esther  xoxo

TIO #121 – Alice & The Rabbit

The challenge this fortnight at Dragons Dream Tag It On is pretty self-explanatory really.  I did have a slight panic because I just don’t have any Alice stamps and yet it is the second time I have wanted them for a challenge.  So slow to jump on the trend bandwagon sometimes and wish now I hadn’t missed the trend altogether!

Nevermind – I usually find a way round things and I managed to come up with this:

I inked the background with some of the Seasonal Distress Inks from Tim Holtz and used a Bo Bunny pocket watch stamp in Sepia Archival.  The images are actually paper doll freebies from Dover that I grabbed probably a year ago now.  The rose is another of my hot-glue creations, this time painted with nail polish.

So, thats it!  I am reasonably happy with how it turned out in the end.

Thanks for stopping by.

Esther xoxo

Two more layouts

Unbelievable! “My” baby girl is 2!  Briar is my god-daughter and very special to me as I was there at her birth.  It was an amazing experience that I will treasure till the end of my days.

Her Mum, Kelly, invited me to the family dinner on the night of her actual birthday.  Family gatherings there are always full of fun, noise and laughter and kids galore!!  I never fail to feel included.  Thanks for that Kelly (and extended family), love you!.

I just had to do a layout of James being at his domestic best, lol! 

The hidden journaling reads:  James does his own ironing these days although why he always leaves it till he runs out of shirts, I will never know!

Actually – Mum has been known to do a fair number of his shirts every time she is here to stay – Bless you Mum xoxo

Thanks for stopping in again so soon.  I really appreciate the comments you leave.

Cheers, Esther

Layout catch-up

It’s been a while since I posted up some layouts so I thought I would do a catch-up.

Back in April this year my daughter graduated from the University of Canterbury with double degrees.  One in Law and one in Science, Majoring in Geology.  She did all this in one year less than it should of taken!  I am so proud of her!  She is clever, hard working and simply beautiful, inside and out!

I used the Sketch challenge at Scrapbook Dreams for this one.  The Graduation Mortarboard is a file from the Silhouette America shop.  She wears the law graduation colours as this was the ceremony she chose to attend.

A couple of weeks later she was Admitted to the Bar at a ceremony in Dunedin.  I didn’t get to that one as she didn’t want to make a big deal of it.  She has no real intention of practicing as a lawyer and has taken a post-grad position with a gold mining company as a Geologist.

I received this photo via phone and because it was naturally a bit grainy, I changed it to sepia and came up with this layout, which I really love.

I should have posted these ages ago but wanted to check that it was ok with her to do that and I just kept forgetting to ask.

Love ya Tas!  xoxo

Thanks for popping in to take a look.

Cheers, Esther

Dragons Dream TIO – Considering Steampunk

I do love steampunk, I’m just not so good at producing it.  I am happy with my outcomes overall but there is just something not quite steampunk-ish enough happening.
Oh, well …..
This fortnight’s recipe at Dragons Dream Tag It On is : “Fantasy, Inventions and Victoriana” and this is the tag I came up with.

Far more Victoriana than anything else.  My stamped image of “Mrs Walker” is coloured with Aged Mahogany and Victorian Velvet (naturally) as is the hand-made flower. I used various other stamps from my collection, adding the wing to the dress form.  I used distress markers to colour this too.  I am enjoying having a play with the markers to work out the best ways to use them.  I added clear dimensional product to the gear stamps, wee bird and the crowns and popped an automotive fuse into the flower.

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments on my past posts!!  Boy they give me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Happing crafting.
Esther