Grungeboard Inspiration

Well, I said there was a chance of some more Grungeboard Flowers and here they are! I'm not going to share techniques with you at this moment in time as I have something in the pipeline which I'll tell you more about in a couple of weeks......

The basis of all my tags start with Distress Inks and anyone who's watched me demonstrate knows just how much I love these inks. You could take all my other inks away from me and as long as I have these and a Ranger Archival Black pad, I'd be as happy as a pig in....... (whoops)clover! But if you really wanted to make me happy I'd have to have my Adirondack dye inks too.

The flowers are made from sheets of plain Grungeboard or Grungeboard Basics to give it its correct name. You can do such a lot with this fab product from the man..... Mr Tim Holtz. It's very very robust and will stand up to inking, spritzing, crushing, hammering, being skwidged in the Cuttlebug and even put in the washing machine on a normal wash. How cool is that? Yep! you can sew it onto your clothes and continue to wash them as normal!! Just think of the possibilities. By the way, the Grungeboard Basic Pack is back in stock at Graphicus, it arrived from the USA on Friday so if you want some get it now, it's never on the shelf for long - just leave some for me!!!

Just look at these wonderful colours....... ooooooh so scrummy. The technique I use for laying down the inks is pure Ranger. Mr Holtz has taught this method for some time now and it is real easy but gives great results. Check out his web site, he has some real cool technique-based videos.The photograph above will give you a big clue as to where my inspiration came from for forming the Grungeboard flowers. This is a beautiful necklace that my Mum bought me for my birthday earlier this year. I loved it so much and thought it was a work of art in itself. I had been wearing it one day when I found myself in my studio playing with sheets of plain Grungeboard. I took my necklace off and placed it down on the worktop where I was sitting and my eyes kept going back to it glinting in the lights. I love the way the petals curl and it has such wonderful dimension and texture and that was it. I dragged out all my stamps with flowers on them, stamps that I could use for backgrounds and texture and I was off.......

This was the very first flower I created. Once I had my background worked up I added the flower and finished it with just a touch of Stickles.

Elusive Images stamps are brilliant for using on your Grungeboard. Try the Big Flowers Themeplate, or the brand new Ruby Tuesday or Diamante Delights Themeplates .

Here, I've mixed my stamps using some Blonde Moments flowers with Impression Obsession Swirls in the background and a little Hero Arts alphabet for words.

You can see the pattern and texture on the flower petals of the necklace, this gave me the idea to overstamp a layer of the flower.

I used EI's dots and swirls background stamp on the second largest flower which prompted me to use the 'Bandana' technique to pull the whole thing together. I love the 'Bandana' technique (devised by Robin Beam) and added touches to the stamped image on the tag using a Sakura pen.
Why stop at flowers? Butterfly's don't escape the Grungeboard either and they look great with a little dimension.

After a little while I spotted my Cuttlebug sitting on the floor and thought I'd try putting the Grungeboard in an embossing folder to see how well it would take, although I haven't included any photo's here I can tell you the results are stunning. Of course, Grungeboard Alphas and Elements do come in a range of textured designs but if you want different patterns... here's your answer.
On this sample, I put the tag in an embossing folder and ran it through the Cuttlebug and then inked the high spots and edges. This way, you really don't need to do any background stamping as the texture and colour is quite enough. Just add a few embellishments!

On this tag the background and the top layer of the flower have been spritzed with Glimmer Mists before assembly and you can just see the subtle sheen it gives to the otherwise dull surface of the Grungeboard.

Here are a few more pics of the culprit responsible for my Grungeboard addiction! This necklace was also the inspiration for a necklace that I made for Glenda's new TV Show: Glimmer with Glenda. I'll include it in my next post.

And finally..... NO GRUNGEBOARD! A very simple tag made predominantly with the fabulous Glimmer Mists. I started by spritzing lightly all over with Robin's Egg Blue and dried it completely. I then attached a Heidi Swapp Mini Damask Mask and spritzed over the top with Suede and let it dry before attempting to remove the mask. Finally, the tag was stamped with 'Art' words from EI using Walnut Distress Ink and a Fancy Pants Swirl stamp in Black Versa Fine.

A little tip...... for a long time I was disappointed with the results I was getting stamping in black over shimmering backgrounds such as Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists or Firework Inks, Shake 'n' Spray and Liquid Lustre all by Sticky Fingers so I decided to sort the 'men from the boys' and test all my black inks to see which performed the best. I sprayed card with Glimmer Mists and overstamped with every black ink I possess (and there's quite a few I can tell you). I tried the obvious ones first: StazOn, Archival, Memories etc and still didn't get a nice solid black that stayed black. They all seemed to be affected by the metallic pigments on the card until I tried Versa Fine Black Onyx. There was a marked difference and a very crisp, dark image which dried well and stayed black. Perfect!

I'm Back (in a round about sort of way)

Well, I hate admitting defeat but I'm afraid for the last three months my PC has defiantly beaten me to a pulp. Little by little one thing or another would fail, not play ball or down right refuse to do what I asked of it.

Now I may not be a technology whizz kid but I know enough to keep my system clean and in good order. I regularly do my housework, back up my system and de-frag my hard drive. So you would think it would show some semblance of respect wouldn't you? Nahhh! To cut a long story short I've wasted so much time trying to sort out the problems and got absolutely nowhere. Norton and AOL seem to hate each other with a vengeance, blogger has blogged off and won't let me create hyper-links and the 'browse' button is inactive and won't let me 'browse' my photographs. To add insult to injury, the search page is all jumbled up and system restore won't restore.... time to call in the big guns I think.

Anyhow, by hook or by crook I'm going to update this blog if it's the last thing I do so I'm using my Mum and Dad's PC to get me back up to date while I work on mine to sort out all of the problems.

Going back to the end of March and beginning of April I had a weeks leave. So I thought what better way to spend a couple of those days than cleaning out and redecorating my studio? To be honest I should just say 'decorating' my studio as it has never really been finished properly.

I designed the room some four or five years ago while I was still designing kitchens for MFI and my DH made my designs come to life. He built everything to my specifications using a combination of kitchen carcases and custom built units. While he worked on making my designs a reality my thoughts turned to the interior decoration and I hunted down the fabrics and paper that I wanted to use.

However, I was so impatient to get the room into use to see if my designs would fulfill my needs that I never really got round to the decorating part and I turned a blind eye to the cracks in the walls that needed filling and flaking emulsion that had come off when I stripped the wallpaper off to start the refit.

I'm normally quite an organised individual and I don't like working in a mess but when your time is divided between work, looking after a house and all that entails and having an all-consuming hobby (make that addiction), sometimes you just have to ignore the mess and get on and create. But faced with this........I just knew that it really was time to gut the room, get the paint brushes out and re-organise. I thought a couple of days would see it finished and put back. Huh! how wrong could I be. First of all the paint wouldn't cover properly so I had to apply an undercoat - like this.......

and then I decided if a job was worth doing it was worth doing well, so I gave it two top coats of emulsion in a lovely rich shade called Brown Sugar. Then the paintwork had to be glossed etc. I wanted a simple white blind for the window, how difficult could that be?........ Very!

Magazines and books in abundance had to be sorted and catalogued..........

So I bought some nice new magazine files that would complement my new decor and set about sorting through mountains of American and English mags, keeping the American ones and ditching most of the others. Then, as I brought everything back into the room it was sorted and found a home (well most of it found a home). Some of it is still in the lounge and one of the bedrooms! I'm still trying to convince DH that he should custom build a large log house in the garden into which he could move his model railway and then I could convert the integrated garage and move my little empire into a ground floor room..... a bit more work is needed to persuade him I'm right.

OK, so back to my current set-up. As you can see, the room is very compact but I've tried to make good use of the space available. Leading on from the book shelves on the left hand wall is open storage from floor to ceiling. Originally, I had intended putting doors on but as the room is so narrow I decided against it and being able to see what's on the shelves helps me to use things that might not otherwise see the light of day. A portable 12"x 12" paper storage stands at the far end and is home to my two tier Clip-it-Up.

Lighting is extremely important and I have three different lighting systems built in. Phew! it can get hot in here when they're all on together.... but great in the winter!

Coming down the right hand side is an end to end work top with storage built in above and below. The narrow drawers on the left of the photo above house just some of my wood mounted stamps. As much as I love unmounted stamps, I also love my wood mounted stamps and couldn't bring myself either to part with them or to desecrate them by removing the wood - they just wouldn't be the same. Some stamps are just meant to be on wood! I also have my little TV, Video and DVD player mounted onto a bracket on the wall so if there's something worth watching on TV (like one of Glenda's shows) I don't have to stop crafting to go watch it in another room.Located under the work bench is more portable storage on wheels, and some A4 paper and card towers. At this end of my work top is a tall storage unit which houses a collection of Xryon machines on the top shelf, then DVD's and Videos and three shelves of A5 card and printed paper collections. The black wood display unit is going to go on the wall eventually.

I have a pull out shelf to the right of my sitting area and this is where I put my machines when they're in use. The Cuttlebug, Cricut and Sewing machine (for sewing paper of course) all fit beautifully on here but the Cricut Expression is a very tight fit.

Here's a better look at some of my wood mounted stamps. I have quite a collection since I bought my first stamp back in 1981 when unmounted stamps were unheard of. In fact, stamps of any kind were unheard of in the UK except for maybe foam ones for splodging on walls. My very first stamp was a Rose design from a lovely company called PSX but unfortunately they disappeared a few years back. Some of their original designs are now available again from Inkadinkado.

I need another set of these drawers putting in at the opposite end of the unit for all the stamps that are currently homeless and living in boxes. The runners are fully extendable so that you can get right to the back of the drawer box. Neat eh? DH's unique design! I just told him what I wanted and how it had to work and he made it happen.

A lovely little nick nack that was just waiting for a home in my studio..... another TK Maxx find!

Essential tools.... the Making Memories carousel, I can't do without it now, it's brill and more portable than you may imagine. My large Score-It Board, Mini Misters filled with Distressed Inks and of course 'Tim Hotlz Scissors' superb for cutting out unmounted stamps on EZ Mount cushion. Boy do they make life a whole lot easier with the amount of stamps I cut out!

The pull-out trolley is home to mainly ink pads and is great for standing the Ink Locker on when I'm sitting at the bench.... everything to hand.

And finally, back to the wall behind the door and leading on from the book shelves. The glass fronted drawer unit is home to large spools of ribbon, wools, tissue paper, fabric etc. Then more 'stuff' on the open shelves.

Since these photos were taken I've tweaked the decor and added a couple of nice finds which I'll post next time.

Well, I'm going to call it a night for now. My poor Dad thinks I've hi-jacked his PC for good..... little does he know that he may be seeing more of me than he would like (at least until I get mine sorted out anyway).

Back (hopefully) in the not too distant future.

PS: Most of my tools and gadgets can be sourced here.....

What a Difference a Day Makes (or 7 of them to be precise)

Having been away at the NEC, it's now seven days since I last made the almost 60 mile round trip to work and what a surprise I got this morning. In only seven days - Spring has Sprung (despite the fact that snow is forecast for Easter this weekend).

It was a mild morning and quite bright and as I drove along the very scenic route to work. I was taken aback by the beautiful blossoms in abundance on the trees, some pink and some white. These trees had been completely bare last week. Japonika and Forsythia bushes were in full bloom and the sunny yellow of their flowers made everywhere look stunning. I had to resist the urge to stop and take photographs - I'd never have got to work if I had.

Now, back to my adventures at the NEC:

Having got the first very successful day over with, I returned to the hotel in the evening. There were several other exhibitors staying in the same hotel and we made arrangements to all have dinner together. The company was good even if the food was just 'OK'.

Friday 14th: You could really be forgiven for thinking today was Friday the 13th not the 14th. Overnight, the hotel car park had been hit by a gang breaking into cars looking for lap tops and sat navs. Seven cars were targeted where I was staying and one of them just happened to belong to a colleague and friend also exhibiting at the show. They seem to have gone for cars that looked like they could be 'reps' cars. Mine was fine but as I walked out to it that morning I could see glass all over the ground and a car just one away from where I was parked had been broken into.

We later learned that just about every hotel car park on the NEC complex had been targeted.

Although the day had got off to a bad start for some, the show turned out to be another successful and enjoyable day. A bit of a strange day in a way as one moment the stand was completely inundated and the next the aisle was almost completely empty. It left you wondering if the hall had been evacuated and no one had told you! But then the next wave would hit and you couldn't see the stands across the way again.

Some more examples of some of stamps and techniques that I was demonstrating at the show. Sorry about the lighting on these examples, I tried using the flash but it was bouncing off the pearlescent card and the pearlescent paint on the Peacock feathers. The Peacock has been stamped on vellum and 'bowed' out from the front of the card to give it dimension. I adore the little Peacock Feather stamp around the border - it is so delicate. The background stamp in black on the card above is also on the Peacock Glory themeplate and gives such a lovely damask 'feel' when stamped repeatedly. This is a very adaptable plate of stamps and well worth having in your collection.

Saturday 15th: Such a sad day. The show got off to a great start, it was busy from the word GO at 9.30 and by 11 a.m the hall was heaving. Then tragedy struck. I'm not going to go into too much detail, you'll understand why. One of the exhibitors collapsed on his stand and a very serious medical emergency was declared. The show was temporarily closed while the paramedics gave assistance and the air ambulance was brought in but I'm very sorry to say that every ones efforts were in vain. This very sad event cast a subdued air over most of the exhibitors I spoke to that day and our thoughts and commiserations are with his wife and family.

On a happier note, everyone I spoke to who stopped by the stand appeared to be enjoying the show - many people, even late into the afternoon had not stopped for lunch in fear of missing something good and they kept walking the show.

I got a lot of enquiries about the ink pad storage system I was using. It's called an Ink Pad Craft Locker. I knew that we didn't have many left back at Graphicus and some of you have been on the phone and placed your order for this very nifty little locker since seeing mine at the show. When I got back to work this morning I checked to see how many we have and there is ONLY ONE left now. So if you were one of the people who wanted one and you haven't secured yours yet, do it now! I know that we haven't got any more on order at this moment in time.

Sunday 16th: and the final day of the show started quietly, probably due to a combination of heavy rain and the fact the it was Palm Sunday. But again, by 11 a.m. we were in full flow and it was fast and furious. I love the buzz of the show, to hear all about the exciting things people have found to buy and what you have planned for using them. I was also really delighted to see how many 'young folk' we have coming into the crafting community - and boys too. Maybe the next Tim Holtz was standing watching my demo's over the last four days - who knows?

All too soon, it was time to pack up my demo equipment and head off back up the motorway in the direction of home. I'm pleased to say that the heavy rain of the morning had passed over and the driving conditions were relatively good. My little Punto did it's 'Transformer' impersonation and turned into a Porche and I was home in next to no time. Exhausted, but at the same time wired with enthusiasm to continue creating and I have lots of plans for the next two weeks to get some 'eye candy' ready for our Open Days at Graphicus on the 04th and 05th of April.

Here's a peak of a work in progress.... this is how it looked when I put all the elements together to get started, it's looking a little different now that it's about half way to being completed. Any ideas? I'll show you when it's finished!

And last but not least, I did get back in time to see the end of the final of Dancing On Ice. Wow, what a show. I'm sorry I missed the fly wire performances but what I did see was spectacular and on a completely difference level to last weeks show. This series has been the most brilliant entertainment and has given Sunday night viewing the sparkle it has sadly lacked for many a year now. Just a pity that they can't find a show to do the same for Saturday night viewing! The great British viewing public pulled it out of the hat again and the results were spot on. Hurrah!

Hobbycrafts Show, NEC

Last Wednesday (12th March) I packed up my car, said goodbye to the family and all at work and headed off down the motorway to Birmingham for four days at the Hobbycrafts Show taking place at the NEC.

As you may remember, we had some pretty atrocious weather last week and a journey that normally takes me about 2 and a half to three hours took me a gruelling 4 and a half hours. I arrived with cramp and a stinking headache but at least I arrived safely. It was a drive that really tested my driving skills to the max!

I was going to be demonstrating Elusive Images stamps and Artylicous CD Papers on Joanna Sheen's stand for the four days of the show so I went straight to the Exhibition Centre to drop off my demo equipment. The stand was all up, stocked, dressed and looking beautiful when I arrived but as it was so late, everyone had gone. So I stashed my kit and took myself off to the hotel where I promptly crashed out for the night.

Thursday (1st day) was a very busy day. I got to walk the show before it opened and most of my favourite exhibitors were there, although LB Crafts weren't this time - a shame as I really love their things and Linda is a brilliant demonstrator. It was really great seeing everyone from the show circuit again.

The show was due to open at 9.30 a.m. and at 9.25 a.m. they drew back the big entrance doors and from our position on the stand we could see everyone lined up and ready for the off when they officially opened the show. Virtually from the word 'GO', Joanna's stand was heaving - all day.

I don't know where the day went, it was so hectic that before I knew it, it was late afternoon and time for a sandwich and cuppa.

Here are some of the cards that I had such fun making whilst demonstrating. These are made from one of the new themeplates 'Flora Bella' and the Poppy is from 'Flora and Fauna'. I really love Flora Bella , they are very definitely my fave stamps at the moment and they work brilliantly with the Adirondack inking technique that I favour so much. It lends itself so beautifully to simple 'black and white' layouts too.

Or maybe........ the Peacock is my favourite? Oh soooo much choice. I'm just so lucky that I can play with them ALL!

These three envelope cards were made from the Artylicious papers and closed with interlocking hearts from the 'Damask Hearts' themeplate. The closure idea was inspired by a card made by one of our DTM's - Sandra Taylor. Nice one Sandra and thank you! The photography just doesn't do the vellum hearts on the middle card or the butterfly on the bottom one, justice. They were embossed with a truly fabulous set of embossing powders 'Sparkle and Sprinkle' that Joanna Sheen sells. I used the 'Black and White' set, the results are fabulous and the value is astonishing.

I really had fun with these embossing powders and vellum - now I just need to convince Glenda that we really do have to have them in the shop!!! The only problem is....... there's 104 different colours to choose from and they do Glitters too.

Well, I don't like admitting defeat, but Blogger is playing silly beggars tonight and it's taken me an hour and a half just to get this far. The photo's are taking an age to upload despite reducing them in size for posting to the blog. I do have some more to show you so I will continue tomorrow night providing Blogger decides to play nicely.

Before I go, I would like to say a big 'thank you' on two accounts. The first 'Thank You' goes to all of you who have left comments on my blog recently. I really do appreciate it and I love to hear from you so if you haven't left a comment yet - don't be shy, pleeeease DO. The second 'Thank You' is to all of you who came to say hello and watch the demo's at the show. I met so many bloggers, Graphicus Guild members, Sheenies and dedicated Craft Addicts - all lovely people. The time you spent watching and chatting (not to mention 'buying', I said not to mention that)! was fantastic and now I can put so many faces to the names I see attached to the comments both here, on the Graphicus Blog and Glenda's Blog.

Back again soon!

Don't Ya Just Love It?

Just got back from demonstrating at the HobbyCrafts Show at the NEC, Birmingham. I'm on a high but very tired after a long week and a long drive home. I will take some photos of some of the cards I made during the show and put them on my blog with an update - hopefully tomorrow.

But for now, I was just checking my emails with the TV on in the background when I got distracted by the most amazing ad. I have put on here for you to have a chuckle at too if you haven't seen it already....... it's so good it almost makes me want to buy a Polo.

Sorry - Video No Longer Available

Wild Weather

What a day it has been weather wise. I know that we've not had the extreme weather that the south has been experiencing, but it's been pretty wet and very windy. My brother lives in West Sussex, about 25 minutes away from Brighton and he's been telling me how bad it has been there. Now, forgive me while I have a moan but..... a few weeks ago here in the north east, we had some really extreme weather with winds gusting in excess of 80mph. It was so bad that someone I know from work had his car lifted off two wheels whilst driving in a cross wind! Then it snowed horizontally as well. Did any of this make the national news? I will say no more.

It does however, bring back very fond memories of this time two years ago. We (the Graphicus Show Team) were all up in Glasgow at the SEC for the HobbyCraft Show when it snowed overnight. Boy was that fun, it's a long time since I've seen snow that thick. It was so bad that we couldn't get the van out of the hotel car park and had to walk to the Exhibition Centre. What fun we had that weekend!

I haven't been doing too much on the home crafting scene of late. It has mainly been projects for the Graphicus Guild News Letter and a stitched ATC book for Glenda's TV show last Friday. I don't have photos at the moment as it was a rush to get the book finished in time.

I have been doing more organising in the craft room and found some nice things on a recent shopping expedition.

This lovely little distressed letter rack with drawer makes a great storage unit for tags, blank ATC's, bits and pieces etc. I'm really pleased with it. I also found this in the same shop.....

I've been back again since finding these and have bought some more, I love them and they look great dotted around the studio. Must get more room to display stuff! I'm definitely going to have to move into a bigger room.

This is a great Christmas pressy from Glenda and Adrian. Everyone at work got one and all the mugs have different sayings on them. As you can see, I'm a 'Party Animal'...... uhmm...... the less said..... but the reason I am showing you this is the tin. I love the mug but isn't the tin just crying out to be altered?

So the next time you see this, Jamie will have disappeared and there will be something entirely different in his place. I haven't decided exactly what yet, we'll just go with the flow and see what happens. I think it may have to be a touch of the good old alcohol inks. I'll let you see what happens.