Wearable Art! by Nicky Cresswell

So following on from Alison's fab pendant yesterday i figured you'd need a nice bracelet to go with it.

And not just any kind of bracelet either.. 

Oh no this one is made from grungeboard.

 And they are really easy to make, 

All you need is a sheet of grungeboard, a hitch fastner, a hole punch {i used a crop-a-dile}

Oh and some gesso, ink and stamps. {or whatever medium you want}

You want to cut your grunge into strips, 

You should be able to get 3 thick, or 2 thick 2 thin strips, depending what you want.

This one is roughly1½ inches and the length of the grunge.

I started by giving one side a coat of gesso, when this was dry I stamped 3 butterflies, 

The large cog butterfly and the small plain one both from the Tick Tock Butterflies plate, 

I then made a mask for each butterfly using post it's, 

I covered them with there respective masks and inked over the whole thing with barn door distress ink.

I then removed the masks... I found a little of the ink had bled in under my masks, but not to worry as i was going for grungy. 

Next I got some more gesso and carefully painted inside each of the butterflies, the 2 smaller ones only had one extra coat but the large one took a couple of coats to cover the cogs.

I spritzed over the whole piece with some perfect pearls to give a bit of a shimmer, which i dabbed off a bit creating the kinda distressed blotchy look.

Added one of Tims phrases, and doodled a few squiggles with a black permanent marker.

 I coloured the inside with just a black stazon stamp pad, not worrying too much about all over coverage. 

I punched a small hole in one end for the hitch fastener, and a large hole the other end for the fastener to pop through to hold the bracelet in place.

And there you go, something cool to wear..
And it fits in with this months challenge as the theme is 'Spring'.. Details can be found HERE

Thanks for stopping by

Stay Inky

Stampbord Pendant by Alison Hall

A little jewellery piece from me today. I was going to make it into a brooch, but it became a pendant at my daughter Beth's suggestion. I had to prise it off her yesterday, so that I could photograph & blog it! Lol!

Here's how I made it...

1. Take a large stampbord domino ( approx. 6.5 x 3 cm), sponge distress inks on to colour it.
2. Stamp the image from The Artistic Stamper Garden plate, using black archival ink. It's easier to lay your stampbord onto the inked stamp, to get the part of the image that you want.
3. Edge the domino with black ink, dry with a heat gun, then punch three holes at the bottom with a cropadile.
4. Triple emboss the domino with clear UTEE.
5. Ruche up some black lace with some thread, then glue to the back of the domino with glossy accents.
6. Glue eyelets into the holes at the bottom of the domino, then attach some beads, using jump rings.
7. Attach a bale to the back of the pendant, then thread it with a bead chain.

Thanks for looking!
Alison x

Fresh Eyes! By Nicky Cresswell

As keen crafters we always want our monies worth when it comes to stash, 

and finding alternative uses a great way to do this.

Take this Architecture 1 set of stamps for example, Your thinking, buildings, architecture etc etc etc.. 

And for a long time that was all i though too until the other day when i was flicking through my stamps and my eye caught one from a different angle and BAM it hit me... 

What i was seeing wasn't a fancy sconce but with my fresh eyes i saw 

An Owl

I can't believe i hadn't seen it before, but there he was bold as brass staring up at me.

I happened to have my stash of friendly plastic out so i immediately thought Pendant.

{this owl was dull gold FP brushed with different colours of mica powder paint over different areas}

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{this owl was just a patterned FP with some black stazon rubbed over the raised areas}

***

I stamped the sconce {owl} into heated friendly plastic and then let it cool and harden.

Next i cut it out leaving a little edge as best a could.

To create the pendant i attached the owl to a bamboo domino tile and wrapped more friendly plastic on the back to incase the tile and hold everything in place. This is somewhat of a tricky method as you have to be careful not to over heat and melt the owl.

I used a thin black cord stung down, across and back up through the tile to hang.

You could add a charm or beads to the cord, which i thought of only after i had threaded and put clasp findings on lol. 

You could also make these into brooches or toppers for cards. 

Try using UTEE or clay even, your only limited by your imagination.

So what will you discover with 'fresh eyes' today!

Bamboo Bling! By Nicky Cresswell

Hello my lovelies I'm back.. Did you miss me??

Wow september is just whizzing by isn't it.. soon be christmas!!!

So with that in mind i though i'd share an easy little gift idea... All you need are 5 bamboo tiles, some mica power paints, some glossy accents, a fun selection of stamps.. for this project i used the smallest birds from the 2 new birdie plates Birds of A Feather & Free as A Bird . 10 pretty beads {i've used round swarovski crystals} and 2 lengths of thin clear elastic.

Start by colouring your tiles with the mica paints.. {the mica comes in powder form but can be mixed with water to create lush glimmery paints} I have chosen to work with a rainbow colour scheme to fit in with this months 'RAINBOW' challenge of which details can be found HERE 

Once your painted tiles are dry, stamp you selected images how you wish.

I used black stazon ink, and i highlighted with an inkssential white pen.

Before you proceed make sure your inked images and the white highlighting is completely dry.

Right so now all your tiles are bone dry.. you can give each one a protective coat of glossy accents, I have only given a coat to the fronts of the tiles where i stamped. {the back side i just rubbed/buffed the excess paint off so just a hint of colour was left} But you can coat this side too if you wish.

All thats left to do once your glossy accents is dry is to thread all your tiles together.

Add a spacer bead between each tile as you thread the elastic through and once you have both ends tie tightly.. left over right - right over left knot {i'm sure there is a tec name for that knot but i don't know it lol}

{a good tip when using elastic is to stretch it first, this stops it from becoming all loose later on}

And there you have it, A nice hand crafted gift for family or friends.

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Before i go i just have time to announce the winners of my ATC giveaway draw..

{Winners selected by random.org} 

Steampunk ATC goes to 9. Piddawinkle

1st Punk ATC goes to 15. Shazza

2nd Punk ATC goes to 18. Sid

Thank you to everyone who entered and took time to leave comments, they truly are appreciated xx

Can the winners please mail me there snail mails {my e'mail can be found on MY BLOG}

Right thats your lot from me today 

But do come back again tomorrow as we have a brand new creative team member joining us...