Meanwhile, somewhere in the Netherlands...

(this one is a project long in the making. a true labour of love.)

Last year, we planned a surprise 30th birthday trip for two friends to come see us, and then go see a favourite band in the Netherlands. It was such an intricate plan, with us only telling them at the last minute that they'd need to pack their passports, and such an exciting secret to be keeping.

The band, The Slackers, were playing their end-of-tour gig at a bar in Sittard, where they'd previously recorded two live albums, and we were going to be part of it.

Their flyer started me off on my colour scheme - black, white and yellow.

Their own 'tagline', from one of their songs, gave me the title. I used an acetate cover to add more interest and dimension to the front page.

Their singer, with his odd, funny in-jokes, gave me the style: he kept talking about events in comic-book terms ('meanwhile, somewhere in the Netherlands'). I went heavy on the layers for the front page, too - loads of paint, ink, gesso, newspaper and glue.

 

And the genre of music gave the pattern: ska. Behold the ska car! First I painted this wooden car shape with white acrylic paint, then stamped the checkers on. After I covered it with a layer of crackle glaze and waited for it to dry.

 I love this photo of the three best friends.

We got a bonus band, too. The New Town Kings.

I used the Fun Days kraft patterned paper and chipboard pieces from MME. They were a perfect background for the stamping, painting and inking.

The filler for this frame was an awesome find from my mum - wrapping paper from Tesco!

An amazing double gig ended with us partying with the two bands in the cool May evening air. What a day. What a brilliant surprise.

A Litte Misty-Eyed

Last week I mentioned Revlie's class and how great it was to be in that freedom-to-create-without-boundaries environment... I also mentioned how I was a long way off finishing either of the projects...

...yep, OK, you guessed what's coming - I finished one of them!

love is... embracing the new

This mini album was made with a focus on Tattered Angels products in mind.

I don't know how many layers

I am so very, very happy with this project and I want to tell you why:

• During the class, Birgit did some demos for us and then we'd go away and recreate a page with her techniques. It was so useful to actually see first hand how layers can be built up. (What was also very sweet was that some of the ladies were translating into my ear as we crowded around to watch Birgit... who was speaking Dutch, of course, since we were in the Netherlands.)

yep - it's punchinella making another appearance!

• Having the free run of the whole product selection was a joy - but more importantly, it made me realise the gulf in quality between these mists and the ones I currently own (Cosmic Shimmer Mists). Tattered Angels' mists still clog sometimes, but the fineness of the glitter, the smoothness of the spray and the blendability of the colours is far, far better than anything I've used before. (Interestingly, I've just ordered some Dylusions, so we'll see how they compare. In fact, I am going to go and buy a Tattered Angels pack from the art shop down the road once I get paid, so maybe I can do a product comparison video...)

I really have fallen in love with these products

• I was so happy during the class just to be creating, with no pressure from anywhere. One attempt that I wasn't happy with even got redone (my attention span is such that I am hardly ever (read: never until now) able to redo creations).
• It has opened my mind to lots of other products, to techniques, to different canvases and to the option of using colours and motifs that I usually avoid.

pink AND a butterfly, on the same page? Who are you and what have you done with Cheryl?

• It made me realise that it is actually pretty comfy outside of my comfort zone.

in for a penny...

Basically we did our work on a sheet of paper, and once it had dried, we stuck it onto a sheet of cardboard (cut from a box), and then punched holes and fixed the pages together into a book.

So what did Birgit teach me?

• I learned how to employ screens with spray, ink and sponge, gesso and credit card, Glimmer Glam and Glimmer Glaze.

the swallow is a screen that was painted with Glimmer Glaze, stamped onto the page and then left to dry before misting over. It acts as a resist and comes in a large range of shades.

• I learned how to use gesso and Glimmer Mists together.
• I learned how Chalkboard Mists and I are a match made in heaven.
• I learned that all of that mist and glaze and ink is pretty hard to clean off hands and nails.
• I learned how to forget about patterend paper.
• I learned how to start thinking properly about mixed media art.
• And, most important of all, I (re-)learned how to have fun. I've been putting too much pressure on myself lately, and now I know I have to sit back and have fun sometimes.

Watch this space for news on the Tattered Angels vs Dylusions face off. If anyone wants to throw in some Mr Hueys too, feel free!

Dublin in Mini

...nope, not in a mini, just in mini. In a mini album, in a mini weekend, in a minimally tourist and maximally family visiting kind of way.

I fancied folding some pieces of card to make a mini album of all the fantastic photos I was gonna take when we went to visit Dublin... but then I got ill, spent the whole of the Thursday in bed in the hotel, and then most Friday and Saturday with family. Plus my SD card decided that no, the nice photos I took on my solitary stroll around on Friday morning were not good enough, and converted them into randomly gigantic encrypted messes. It was easier to try to recreate the stroll and the photos than to work out how to save them from my evil SD card.

So the result is a mini album so far empty of photos but eagerly waiting. I happened to film the process for Gauche Alchemy, and you can also find the video on the 'my videos' page on this here blog of mine.

There are two more videos to go along with this one. They show specific techniques used in the making of this mini - but you'll have to wait! They'll be out later this month. For now, a little taster of the mini album:

I spy Gauche Alchemy products!

See that ouchless cardboard? The coaster? The foil paper? All GA, baby! Go have a look at the GA blog and shop, and at my video too. And do let me know if you've had any annoying or even heart-wrenching experiences with digital images, cameras and SD cards. In my experience sharing is cathartic (plus it'll make me feel a little better to know I'm not the only sufferer).

The (Mini) REVolution Event

On Saturday I spent a fantastic day with Revlie Schuit, who had organised a day full of craft classes up in The Netherlands.

There was a great, cute mini album made from fabric and felt, and a Tattered Angels workshop by Birgit which was just amazing.

my workspace before things got messy

I am so glad I went - what an inspiring, creative day! I brought home so much from it - ideas, knowledge, a warm heart, a smile, new friends, some random Dutch vocab... not to mention two projects that are so far from being finished yet that I can't even show you!

Thanks, Revlie - I'll see you next time for sure!

For A Little Girl

Today I'm going to share a project that I worked on in fits and starts last year, in between wedding planning and decoration making. The trouble with projects like this one - and I'm sure you've had the same - is that although the idea forms early on, say, with a new collection (Crate’s Emma’s Shoppe, in this case), the execution of it is slow and spread out, and even worse, the date on which it can be made public is far away because it’s a gift being made well in advance.

Emma's Shoppe was made for little girls

I gave this mini-album to my best friend’s daughter as she turned two. It’s empty, ready for mummy and daddy to fill with cute pics and tales of their princess. Of course Emma’s Shoppe was perfect for this. 

I chose the gatefold design to take advantage of the husband's binding services

I loved making this album - even though I find it almost impossible to pre-make albums. All my pages and minis are designed around the photos, so whenever I sat down to work on this project, even though the concept was there, all my ideas went aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! and ran away. It took me ages to get over that, and to get over the feeling that I was somehow leaving it unfinished.

this reminded me of my books when i was a little girl

I'm sure she doesn't need a book to tell her this!

You wanna know the best part about this project? Better than the thought that went into it, how beautiful it is, or how the little girl will be fascinated by the different layers and pages? Better than all this is the fact that my husband has a binder at work. One day he looked at what I was making, and knew what I wanted to do with it. He knew what a Bind-it-All was before I even had to explain and - get this - offered to bind the album for me! So one day in November he was seen entering the office with a cute floral stack of papers, taking them to the binder, punching them and binding them together for me!

a gatefold with varied layers makes for an interesting book for a little girl

I took many more pictures - because I loved the paper collection and what I did with it. But I also hope to see the princess soon and see what she and her parents have done with it :-).

Time Travel

Hop in. I'm going on a short journey back to May, before we got married, before we (and by 'we' I really mean 'I') lost the plot and spun off into a crazed wedding-planning-induced stress, before my bout of blog neglect, and before I'd even considered the issue of identity and name being, somehow, inextricably interlinked.

A calm before the storm, you might say. (We did actually have a storm on our wedding day. It was forecast for the afternoon, but because I obviously didn't have the time that morning to check a weather report, I didn't have anything to worry about. I woke up to bright blue skies, and as far as I knew it, that was all there would be. All day. Ah, the power of positive thinking. The skies remained bright blue until they turned dark blue, and it wasn't until most people were inside and the band was playing that the heavens opened and the lightning forked and the thunder crashed, although not as loud as the drummer in the band drummed his drums.)

Anyway, in May we took a short trip to Copenhagen. Not the best of weather, and not the lightest on the pocket, but it was a welcome break and we had a mad 'quick, let's fit in as much touristy stuff as we can' weekend to bring the trip to an end. So there were lots of nice photos that made it look like we were there for 8 nights, not 4.

I knew from the moment I flicked through the photos on the way home that I wanted to make a mail art-inspired album to put them in. I also knew I wouldn't have time to do it until after the wedding. Meaning I had a lot of time to think about it, and that anything could happen in the meantime.

So what did happen in the meantime? Well (*grins*)... I made this awesome video, and became a video tutorialist for Gauch Alchemy, who then released a mail art kit called Going Postal (new this month!), and only went and sent it to me to play with, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Look out for the video tutorial for this album on the Gauche Alchemy blog soon!

Sharing the Love

As we're approaching the end of February, I'd like to fit in one more love-themed posting: this time, I'm moving the focus away from me and sharing the love with My Talented Family instead.

First up, my little bro. You may remember me gushing about how my brother's surprise craftiness blew us away at Christmas. Well, here are the photos to prove it!

The vinyl bowl and picture frame:

 

 

And the bag he made - replete with French seams:

Next up, my mum. This is only a tiny snapshot of her talents. Really, she should write her own blog to show them off. She made me a bag for Christmas too:

And when we first announced our engagement, she set to work making a book in which we could record all the developments as we organised the wedding. It took us a couple of years, but we're finally able to use it:

 

 

 

 

 

And now for my dad. He's been involved in the crafty stuff, too. Unfortunately I can't get to the Christmas decorations I wanted to show you so we'll just have to make do with feathers and glitter (yep...!):

 

 

 

'What the....?' you may be thinking. Well... he likes to go fly fishing, and tying flies is a pastime of his which would often see him coming to me to borrow nail polish, old tights and hair ties. I can assure you that these flies look exactly like the real insects they're imitating (in other words, really quite gross).

And finally for now, my fiance. He plays guitar and, along with a trumpeter friend of his, has been playing to crowds for the last year and a bit. A bit of blues, a bit of ska, a bit of everything - but all interpreted in their own special way. They sound amazing - take a look at them in action!