'What you do speaks so loudly, I can't hear what you say.'
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wednesday 30 January 2019

I just wanted to nip in quickly to join in the Art Journal Journey Geometric shapes Challenge one last time before it ends. I'm not even going to show you a full page, but I'll show you a partial page I made. I'd been looking at Kim Dellow's floral stamps (Paperartsy) and wondering if I could have a quick go at doing something similar, so I drew these in my Kraft  journal, then doodled - the rest of the page is very personal, so I cut it out... 😉 I know the corners are rounded, but I'm sure that doesn't matter.


I've been doing a lot of 'messing about' but not really completing much, though I have quite a few things which are almost finished.

This image has been in my basket of cut out images for a while, so I thought I'd use her on this interesting looking little snippet, to which I added a bit more stamping before using, just using the stamps within reach. I think she looks quite enigmatic. I cut off the corners but really didn't want to punch a hole and add fibres to it... 

That's all I'm sharing for now... 

Thank you for visiting
I'll be back soon
Cath
xxx

Thursday 24 January 2019

The challenge at Moo Mania and More this week is Squares. I was playing with Kraft card for the Inkspirational Use Kraft challenge, and had a nicely sized ‘scrapling’ left over when I trimmed my card, so I made this simple little card, drawing three rough squares and using Gel pens for the splashes of colour. I didn't know I had some washi tape with squares on it - perfect.


Some of the DT used photos for their squares, which brought to mind an old Time to Stamp plate, Photo booth. I rooted it out and played around a little, distressing the card with Oxides after stamping the squares along the edge. This is what I ended up with.

The card I used is part of a pack sold as Kraft cards - it really is NOT kraft - it’s more of a matt goldy colour - such a shame.
This card is for Inkspirational Challenge. It’s an old image, from the Stamp Man, but I love these flowers and thought they’d look good on the Kraft card. I coloured with Prisma Pencils, but it’s not so easy to colour ribbed card with pencils, lol.

I made this following a Mood Board for a challenge which had ended by the time I got around to scanning it - story of my life, lol. But I love the colour combination - beige, brown and soft blue. I used Tumbled Glass, Antique Linen and Gathered Twigs Distress Oxides on the background.
I used my Kraft scraps to try out this stamp I'd forgotten about, which is another of my favourite quotes... nothing fancy, just clear embossed Versafine and looking at it here, it isn't very straight, either. I may just have to cut this stamp up so that I can use the words separately.
Thanks for popping by
Back soon
Cath
xxx

Wednesday 23 January 2019

In the interest of science - of course 😉- and in my endless quest to find the perfect white inkpad, wanting to test out my new Squid Ink from Jane Davenport, I added some white to the Kraft paper in one of my journals, direct to paper. I wanted to see how well it covers. It's not a juicy ink and seems quite dry, but it does stamp okay, even if coverage dtp isn't perfect. 

I stamped over it using the black, after adding a bit of stencilling with Distress Oxides, then added bits of white gel pen for interest.


This is also a Blogger test for me... I'm just not used to it any more after using Live Writer for so long.

Thanks for looking
Back soon
Cath
xxx

Tuesday 22 January 2019




I thought I'd share a page in my 'Pray' (word for 2019) Journal today. 
While hunting for a stamp, I came across this one and realised it fits this month's Art Journal Journey challenge perfectly.
The background is white acrylic paint, with dtp Versafine Clair inks over the top, followed by stamping the image in Versafine Black. I played with etching words and shapes in the ink, using a bamboo skewer, but although the white paint showed up beautifully at first, once I clear embossed the page (because I'd used Versafine, which wouldn't otherwise dry) they disappeared. So, I went over the marks with a Gel pen. I added a few doodled shapes and some black and white colouring (Posca) to random parts of the image, then journaled my words.
2 pages side by side, followed by the page I'm linking:-




A few more cards for the 'Make Someone Smile' mingle...





I'll link one of these to the Bright and Cheerful Challenge at Sweet Stamping and to the Just Stamping Challenge at Daring Cardmakers




Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge is alcohol, drinks or inks, so I'll link one of these.
Finally, a man's card for Allsorts Make it Masculine, which also happens to be a CAS card, for SSS Wednesdays.










There's also a Black and White challenge at Retro Rubber, so I'll link to them, too. The 'birthday' stamp is around 10 years old.

I don't usually use Blogger to post, but Open Live Writer has a problem with images at the moment, so I have no choice. For some reason, despite the ten or more times I've edited the font size, Blogger keeps changing it, so I've tried rewriting it completely this time around. I hope it works...

Thank you so much for popping by; you're always welcome.
Back soon
Cath
xxx

Good morning, peeps! Can you believe it’s already the 22nd January?  I think the theme of our brand new challenge over at Try it on Tuesdays, Time Flies., is very apt. Or maybe I’m just getting older, lol.

Here’s what I’ve made for the challenge…

The background is a mixture of Oxide and Distress inks, smooshed onto the cardstock after laying some down on my craft mat and spritzing with water, then a little more blended in over the top. Shading was added with Prisma Pencils.

The main image is from Paperartsy and the time text from Non Sequitur. ‘Time’ is from my old favourite company, sadly no longer in business, Time to Stamp. Rubber Dance have some of Kristy’s images, though they are often smaller than the ones I have.

Please go see the fantastic artwork from the rest of the team here

We would love you to join us in the challenge. Time is a great theme.

Look forward to seeing you there. You have TWO WEEKS to enter!

Back soon

Thank you so much for visiting…

Cath
xxx


Thursday 17 January 2019

I’ve been determined to do the 

CAS Mixup Bokeh Challenge
but didn’t have a lot of success with what I was doing, despite trying different white inks, etc. 

So here’s my first attempt, using Oxide inks.




I was adding way too many white circles! I’ve just finished this one, using Distress inks and I think it looks a bit better…even if I’m not ecstatic about the design. I’ll have to come back to this until I’m happy with it. It's not easy to get the variated effect on a CAS card.



Meantime, there are a couple of CAS challenges around, so I’ll link to those.

This morning, I tried out some new stamps I bought in a sale, using my faithful old Adirondack inks in Clover and Raspberry..


But I’ve mainly been spending time on silly cards, for the KCUK mingle and I got stuck on this one phrase, which I used with a few images.

There’s a lot of glitter on this one…I was really wishing I had the word ‘Honey’ or ‘Darling(s)’ to use on them, but I don’t and my Dymo wasn’t playing nicely, so I just used the words as they are.






I’ll also link to Tuesday Throwdown, Embossing with the third card, although all but the top one are embossed with clear EP.

I've been trying all day to upload this, but kept getting an error message, so I'm hoping I'll be able to do it in Blogger... if not, this post may be even more delayed...

That’s all for now -  I’ll be back soon with more to share. Thank you for popping by 😊


Cath

xxx

Thursday 10 January 2019

As I promised, here are a couple more Fun cards, using feminine images. These are the ones I really struggled to colour because of the glass… and no, I still haven’t looked up a tutorial on colouring glass but I really must do that!

For Fabulously Feminine at Stamping Sensations again, I made this one…the wine is a pale lemon (or cream) colour, but it’s hard to see.

WINE FLIES

This one was an attempt at Red wine…not quite as successful, I don’t think…. back to the wine words Winking smile

TOO MUCH WINE 1

I must apologise for the quality of the scans – they’re both the same white card and there aren’t any specks on them – that’s from the scanner bed, which I’ve tried to clean, but obviously still has some stubborn marks on it. I’ll put that on my to do list for tomorrow!

This is a page from my journal for Art Journal Journey and Alison’s Geometrical shapes challenge.. I stamped a few of the girl and crown stamp, so this is the first one… I made another rough background on a piece of card, using Dylusions Spray inks, then added a touch of Salted Ocean Oxide at the base and stamped a border. Again, I used part of the words from the first set I got because it fitted with the page and with my mood! I wanted to use it as a tip-in, so instead of using one of my book binding punches, I cut out the little rectangles/squares of card and stuck it into my 6x6 journal. I kept some of the cut outs and attached them to the bottom to pull the top and bottom bits together. I found one of my date stamps, so added that for fun.  I think this is an old one that’ has the date American style, with the month first, but I’ve used it the English way. I may go back and colour that honeycomb in black and white…I think it needs a bit more definition, lol.

PERFECTLY IMPERFECT

Thank you for popping in – it’s lovely to ‘see’ you!

Back soon

Cath

xxx

I was ‘chuffed’ (to little mint balls, lol) to be asked to do a Guest Designer piece for Words 2 Craft By when I won a challenge there and even more chuffed (sorry, I’m a Northerner through and through) to discover the challenge was one of my all time favourite quotes from Emily Dickinson:-

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings and sings without the words and never stops at all.”

I made a simple card, using part of a Penny Black stamp and a stamp of the above words (I like them so much, I have two stamps in different fonts/designs, but the other one isn’t the complete quote) over a smooshed Oxide background of Spun Sugar and Hickory Smoke.


.
Please pop over to the W2CB challenge blog to see the fab art the Design Team have created on this theme. I know they’d love you to see you there 😉 and it’s a great challenge if you like quotations.


Thank you so much for letting me join you for this one!

Thanks for visiting
Back soon
Cath
xxx

Wednesday 9 January 2019

There’s a new Challenge Blog, which appeals to me because it really IS a challenge – CAS Stencil. CAS isn’t something I’d normally associate with Stencils. In fact, when I use stencils, I just throw on more and more layers of ink – most of the time. So I thought I’d try it…

The first challenge is Sponging, so for CAS Stencil, I made this… but also with Make My Monday’s Use a Sentiment challenge.

YOU ARE BRILLIANT 1

I used one of my favourite stencils – don’t know why I love it so much, but I love these higgledy piggledy rectangles and squares. I used Twisted Citron and Peacock Feathers Oxide inks.

I’m running a ‘Make Someone Smile’ Mingle on KCUK, so I thought I’d make another one, with a fun slant, this time stencilling only the corners.

SMILES ARE CONTAGIOUS

My link to the ‘s’ is a bit ‘off’ – looks almost like an ‘r’. Must do that more carefully next time!

With the mingle in mind, I also made this one, adding spots and dots for the Sweet Stampin’ Challenge.

WINE DIET 1

I also had Stamping Sensations’ Fabulously Feminine Challenge in mind when making this one and the next, although I really wish I hadn’t added the extra bubbles to the next one… it looked much better as a CAS card. I’ll do another one when I’m in the mood… I didn’t find this one easy to colour! I made another couple using another stamp I didn’t find easy to colour…I need to find a tutorial on colouring liquids and glass!

SORRY THAT'S WINE 1

Just in case you’re wondering, while I do enjoy a nice glass of wine – or two – I don’t drink that much! In fact, I still have wine in that I bought for last Christmas and never got around to opening, despite taking a couple of bottles to my son’s on Christmas Day! But these words just make me chuckle, so I’m hoping they’ll do the same for the mingle recipients. WARNING… there are more to come!

The wine word stamps are new, so I’m pleased to be able to link to the Creatalicious ATG with optional ‘Something New’ challenge, SSS Monday Challenge and SSS Wednesday Challenge .

That’s all for now…

Thank you for popping by

Back soon

Cath

xxx

Tuesday 8 January 2019

Our first challenge of 2019 at TIOT is a lovely way to start the  year.

Something Old or Something New; use something you may have not used for a while or something that is new and has never been used… with a few words about what you’ve used and whether it’s old or new.

I chose to use a new set of stamps in my new 8”x8” Kraft Journal. I love these stamps, designed by Andrea Ockey Parr and this is my third set so far. I bought them from Inky Antics but you can also get them from Simon Says Stamp.

Firstly, I (roughly) added some gesso, then used Picked Raspberry and Twisted Citron Oxides for the background colour and random stamping. I used Posca paint pens to colour her hair, dress and crown. The random stitching is from the same stamp set, as are the incomplete circles and most of the words. The imperfect splat words are from another set and the ‘She alters everything she touches and everything she touches alters her' stamp is from Stamp Camp. Random bits of personal journalling in Signo white pen.

 TIOT NEW CATH

I should have printed the words I wanted but don’t (yet) have…’If the crown fits, wear it…!’

Please pop over to the TIOT Blog to be inspired by what the rest of the Design Team have made … I do hope you’ll join us for this challenge – it would be lovely to see you there. You have two weeks to take part, so no excuses Winking smile

There’s also a Something New Challenge at SSS Mondays, so I’m pleased to be able to link to that and Use Stitching is the theme at the Alphabet Challenge.

I’m also (reliably) informed that this fits the Geometric Shapes challenge at Art Journal Journey, though it seems to be a very tenuous link to me, even if the journal is square, lol. Thank you, Susi Winking smile

Thanks for visiting

Back soon

Cath

xxx

Saturday 5 January 2019

My mum has a milestone birthday this month – she’ll be 80 - so I made this card for her… I really hope my NZ family doesn’t try to put 80 candles on a cake Winking smile

NEW CATH 2

A couple of my friends have birthdays this month and next, so I have a few cards to make. Here’s one…

HOW OLD CANDLES 1

I’ll link this to the Feminine Anything Goes challenge on the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog,  an ATG challenge at Creatalicious, with the option of using Something New and a Something New Challenge on SSS Wednesdays… the image stamps above are both new. The challenge at SSS Mondays is Let’s Party!

One more simple Thank you card, using Smooshed Oxides.

THANKS RESIST 1

Mix it Up Challenges  are asking for the Sentiment to be the main focus, so I’ll link to that.

My ‘Word for the Year’ is ‘Pray’, so over the year, you may see some journal pages with this theme, as I explore it a little more. My words for last year were ‘Brave’ and ‘Kind’. I had no idea just how brave I would need in order to be kind - and think kindly - until the past year… some lessons are easier to learn than others.

So my first shared journal page is this one, to remind me that prayer is a dialogue – not a one way conversation.

PRAYER 2WAY

I just realised that because I stencilled squares and circles, I can enter this into this month’s Art Journal Journey, where the theme is Geometric shapes Smile

Thank you so much for popping by… I LOVE reading your comments and appreciate each one.

Back soon

Cath

xxx

Tuesday 1 January 2019

2018 was a year of intensely emotional events for me and for one of my brothers… there are times when things you believed were written in stone crumble before your eyes and it can feel as if the ground beneath you is disappearing...and sometimes the consequences of decisions made change the landscape of our life (or someone else’s) forever.

I’m VERY happy to leave it ALL behind and to embrace a new year and a new start – which means letting go of the past and accepting the changes.

With that in mind – and Alison’s chosen challenge theme for January 2019 at Art Journal Journey – Geometric Shapes – this is the result of my reflection on both years in an 8x8 Kraft journal…

(Edited… this page started life as a crossroads, which is why there’s a white ‘path’ of China marker, lol (which resists the inks over the top AND most pens!)  and my aim was to use the signpost. But it wasn’t the right size for that. Smaller numbers may have made that a bit clearer. (The black handwriting is my evaluation of 2018, the white writing is about 2019.)

I must point out that there were also some absolutely brilliant times and some wonderful events in 2018 – I’m truly very thankful and incredibly blessed! 

HELLO 2019

JAN1ST2019

The (stencilled) swirls represent emotions and the way they sometimes make decisions difficult… sometimes we can’t see the way ahead because we focus on the past or even on the future, instead of on the present!

There’s an Anything Goes challenge for the New Year on the Artistic Stamper’s Blog, too.

A page from a couple of days ago… for That’s Crafty Anything Goes challenge…

SHINE 8X8 20189

Another card for Allsorts’ Thanks a Bunch challenge and for SSS Wednesday’s Anything Goes challenge… I enjoyed colouring this…

THANKS A BUNCH 2

…and a black and white ‘Celebrate’ card for Time Out’s Inspired by Words Challenge.

BW PASSIONATE DREAM 1

I wish you all a very happy, healthy, creative and colourful new year!

Thank you for visiting

Back soon

Cath

xxx