Tuesday 29 January 2013

Spectrum Journal Pages

Evening all .

Just thought I'd share my (finally) completed art journal pages.

I love the song "Spectrum" by Florence and the Machnine and thought that the lyrics were perfect for a bit of journalling.  I intend to use lyrics as journalling prompts in the future cos I love em!

Firstly I painted the pages with acrylic paints.  Once side was stippled in concentric circles and the other side was painted with random brush strokes.


I printed the words to the first verse on a little vellum, as I liked the stippled colour and didn't want to mask it off too much.  This was stuck down and edged with a black acrylic paint pen.

On the other side, I hand journalled the chorus, using a black gel pen and then another 'Painter' pen in white for the word 'shining'.  Whilst this was still wet, I covered it with glittery embossing powder and dried it off with a heat gun.


 I added a picture of Florence herself, with glittery hands, and stamped on a coppery fairy image - this didn't come out too well but that's ok.


It's very basic but it makes me smile :)

Monday 28 January 2013

Every Inchie Monday - Hut (and a thank you!)

Hey hey Blogeroos!  A very warm welcome to Love from Peapods and in particular to my two new followers, Queen Lightwell and Trisha Too!

How are you all?

If it's Monday then it must be Incie Wincie Inchie day!  Have a look here  Every Inchie Wednesday  to see what I'm whittering on about!

This week the theme is "Hut" so I decided on beach hut.  I found a painted image of a line of pretty beach huts on t'internet, printed it out and cut out one of the huts.  I promarkered (new word!) half of the inchie in blue for the sky, then rubbed Ancient Page ink over the rest of it for the sand.  The 'wave' is a bit of ric-rac and two teeny tiny shells from my DD's box of treasures! (Yes I had permission!!).

Here it is:-


Can I just say a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who advised me on the spam issue.  I hadn't realised there was a very easy option to block anonymous posts - this is now done and it has made a huge difference.                Thanks lots - here's a token of my appreciation :)



Friday 25 January 2013

Spam Spam Spam Spam

Y'know - there is nothing that makes my heart swell more than an email alert on my BlackBerry which tells me that I have a blog comment.  

And there is nothing that makes it deflate like a 7 day old party balloon upon opening up the email to see that an  "anonymous" comment has been left which usually confirms that the Spammers are out in force again telling me how interesting my writing is, waffling on in poor English then pointing me in the direction of their rubbish websites.  

I get around 20 each day.  In fact I get more spam than blog comments.  :(   It drives me nuts.  Thankfully I am able to moderate the comments before they got posted.  I know its the nature of the beast when posting publicly but I so wish that there was a programmed response which recognised them, blocked their power to send anything and for good measure sent them a huge "EFF the EFF ORFF" message by way of response. 


There's only one decent thing to do with spam. 



Make it into a big bloody fritter!









Yours, rantingly

K xxx




Wednesday 23 January 2013

WOYWW Painting up a Rainbow today

Hello darling ones!

Ooer - better get  wriggle on!  There's not much of WOYWW left!

Welcome to WOYWW  hosted by the lovely Julia  (go here ~~~> TA-DAHHHH! to see what its all about)(Alfie).  It's the crafty equivalent of twitching the blinds and nosing at the neighbours, or walking past people's houses when its dark outside and the lights are on inside and they've not closed the curtains yet. Oh don't look at me like that - you know you've done it too!

Here's my mess for a mad dog crafting station this week.

The journal pages are the second attempt at the project of my intention.  The first attempt was truly awful and ended up in the bin.  The background was fine and I was actually happy with it.  But then I introduced a brand new black Sharpie pen  to the Pearls misted gesso page to journal the song lyrics - and said Sharpie basically, recoiled in my hand,  stuck two fingers up at my page and said that it didn't want to play so there.  I think I was either sold a dud or the background had something on it that the pen didn't like and it just refused to bliddy work.  It skated over the page and refused to leave a defined mark.  I thought I'd try my (also BRAND BLINKING NEW) Inkssentials white pen to journal the chorus on the second page which just had acrylic on it.  And that refused to work also.  **insert very sad faced smiley here along with a very angry faced smiley with a red face, blowing steam out of its ears and possibly animated and jumping up and down on two BRAND NEW pens**   It's ok, thought I, I can paint the lyrics on to the page in white acrylic.

Oh har -de-bloody-har.

I should realise my limitations and renowned caggy handedness before I embark on such delicate operations.

T'was at this point that, fueled by raging PMT and lack of chocolate, said pages were ripped out, jumped on, driven over, set fire to, buried in the garden, dug up, jumped on again, and put in the bin.  I may have stuck my tongue out at them too.

So I did em again.  I may have to sneak up on them and take them by surprise to get the journalling done.

Any pointers on pens, both black and white, that will write on anything would be mahoosively appreciated.

I thank you.

TTFN
xx


Tuesday 22 January 2013

Another Beautiful Sunrise

I took some swoonsome photos of the sun rising this morning.  I don't think there's anything more stunning than a winter sunrise above snow.  The photographs don't do this justice - it was truly beautiful and made my heart pop.  The landscape changes so quickly as you stand watching.  Click on them to enlarge.









In other news (!) if you're of a crafting persuasion and would like a chance of winning a whole load of crafty goodness, why not take a wander over to the Scrapology blog by pressing your excited little finger HERE and follow the destructions to take part.  Hurry up though - I think they're drawing the draw (eh?) tomorrow.

Here's a photo of what you could get your mitts on!


Best of luck xx

Monday 21 January 2013

Every Inchie Monday

Yo - Yo Bloggios!  *snaps fingers in a gangsta styley*

(didn't know I was down wid da kids did ya eh?!)

 Ahem.

It's Monday.  For me personally it's bliddy MOANY Monday but I shall desist from burdening you with my annoyances and continue with the job in hand!

Every Inchie Monday has rolled around again - See Here for Lots of Lovely Inchies.   I had convinced myself that I wasn't going to be able to take part in this week's challenge as the prompt word was "Stone".  I was completely discombobulated and being creatively challenged at the best of times, didn't have a clue what to do short of digging in the snow for a bit of gravel to stick on a square of paper.  Some lovely furry friends of mine slapped me vigorously however, and hinted at looking at the prompt from a different angle (I'm still recovering from standing on my head).  See - this is my problem - I don't think outside the box!

ANY-way.  Here is my tinchy Inchie.  Tis a semi-precious 'stone'.  Tis my birth-stone - Sapphire.  Yes it is.  It is.  It's a REAL SAPPHIRE I tell you.

A blue inchie, some patterned paper, a blue pro-marker edging,  my precious, and some twinkly glue!

Ta-dahhhh!

See you next week Inchers!

Sunday 20 January 2013

Scrappy Snowy Sunday(!)

Hello there!  Come in, kick off your snow boots, put your coat on the radiator and grab that cup of hot chocolate!  Marshmallows? Whipped cream?  You got it!

You'll be pleased to know that after yesterday's appallingly unimaginative title, I thought I'd carry on in the same alliterative (but still highly unimaginative) vein!  Well - its snowy.  Its Sunday.  And I'm scrapbooking!  So there!

Before I go off rambling - I'd like to say a very warm welcome to three new lovely followers, Nicky, Lori and Sheba.  **Waves**.  Thank you for joining me here in my mad little corner of blog-land.

I thought I'd share a layout with you that I've had on the go for a couple of days.  I completed this late last night whilst the fellas were watching some manly, shouty rubbish on t'tellybox.  

I'm often in awe of people's artistry and creativity and tend to scrap-lift quite a few layouts because a) I'm not naturally artistic and b) I know that if I follow the basics of a layout I like, whilst my work won't be original then I know that I'll be happy(ish) with the results.  My latest "scrapping crush" is Gabrielle Pollacco whose "shabby-chic/vintage" style appeals to me very much.       One of her latest layouts Click here to see her beautiful original layout was just what I was looking for to inspire my own creation.


I've had this photograph of my daughter for a while - I think she was about 13 at the time and I've always loved it.  Like a lot of people though, I uploaded it to my computer and there it stayed for years.  This year I am making a conscious effort to print more photographs off.  

I'm sure that you will agree that there is nothing nicer than going through a box of old photographs of your loved ones.  It is wonderful to have lasting images of those we love and it is so important to preserve them for future generations. 

Take more photographs of the people you love.  I have found this particularly poignant after the death of my Dad last year.  As he was so often the photographer - indeed it was a big hobby of his - there is a dearth of photographs of him from the last 20 or so years. 

Kevin the Teenager is a nightmare - he has to be in totally the right frame of mind to consent to having his photograph taken.  At 14 years old I guess it's just an age thing but what he doesn't realise is that as his Mum, pictures of him are precious to me - so whether he's scowling or not he gets his photograph taken. I'm sure that some European directive will say that this is a direct infringement of his human rights but hey  -  I can at least blackmail him with mean and moody photographs to show my grandchildren in years to come!

There is also a real danger in this digital age, that great big chunks of family history and memories will be lost if we don't continue to keep printing out our photographs.  I know from experience that many photographs have been lost due to corrupt hard drives, or pressing the delete button accidentally.  The beauty of digital photography is that you can weed out the bad shots and just print the good ones so this keeps costs down too.  Print them. Preserve them. Make a little note on the back of when and where they were taken. Scrapbook them - even if they're just stuck into a little memory journal.  It's so important.  

Ok... soapbox is about to give way!!   

Anyway - back to the plot!




I started off this layout with a sheet of blue cardstock, and distressed it by sanding it back to the white core with some of Lovely Man's expensive sandpaper!! (Shhhh!!).   An emery board will also do the job just as well!  





Next job was to tear some beautiful paper.  EEK!!  I took a piece of Basic Grey Lily Kate "Twinkle", gritted my teeth and tore it quite randomly around the circumference of the sheet.  I then dampened the edges with a sponge, and gently began rolling the torn edges back with my fingers, then placed it by the radiator to dry for a while.  After a lie down in a darkened room and a reviving cuppa, I further distressed the edges by rubbing-on some metallic 'rub-ons' that I've had in my stash For. Ever.  This is THE year to use up what I have!



The paper was then stuck on to the card stock and some Anita's peel off snowflakes were added to the larger of the exposed areas. (Silent scream here as the snowflakes were a nightmare to remove from their contact sheet - a little patience was required!).   Some metallic, filigree photo corners were added to the photograph (again something I've had for years!).





What next?  Ooh time to get inky!  A chipboard scroll was inked to within an inch of its life.  I used a mixture of Versacolour and chalk ink to get the colour I wanted. 

More snowflakes now with the addition of some Poundshop bling to the centres.   

Once the chipboard was adhered, I used some Stickles glitter to highlight the swirls, added some blue clear glass gemstones, a little padded butterfly (which I rubbed with blue chalk ink so it blended in a little better) and some blooms.


This little filigree die cut was cut from a cup cake holder - I've already used half of it as a mask for inking over on my last journal page.  I'm glad I saved them after the cakes were scoffed!

And here we have the finished article.  A diecut title, inked and stickled completed the layout.  I'm quite pleased with this result.  Thank you Mrs Pollacco for the inspiration.


See you next time.

Oh - it's ok.  I'll wash up your chocolatey mug!

Sigh.




Saturday 19 January 2013

Snowy Saturday

Howdydoody everyone!

So - this snow malarkey!!  Ah it's verrrry pretty when you don't have to go anywhere and can just sit and look at it isn't it?!    

My sun-man bird feeder  made me laugh yesterday - it looks like he's about to blow  that snow off his hands!

Harvey and I had a bit of a yomp yesterday - he adores the snow and dives into it with his front paws sliding underneath it - very funny to see.  He would be out all day in it if we let him.  I'm sure he must have some husky in him.    I got very frustrated trying take decent pics of him though - he's just too much of a live wire.  Most of the photographs look like this:-


How rude!

These, however, were a couple of lucky shots!

He's looking very handsome in that last one isn't he?!  Good job you can't smell him - he bloomin' stinks.  Methinks a bath is required tomorrow!

Bins with snow caps!

Shedcicles!


I don't think our neighbours planned to go very far!



Hope your thermals are keeping your extremities toastie!  

See you soon x

Friday 18 January 2013

Snow Joke ...

Some Friday funnies for your delight and delectation which have come up on my FB newsfeed today.

Have a chuckle on me!









Hope you're all keeping warm 

Lots of Love 
K x

Wednesday 16 January 2013

WOYWW - 189

Evenin' all

**bends knees in a policeman styley fashion**

How are we then?  Very well I hope! We're in the midst of the big freeze that's hitting the UK at the moment.  I do hope you're keeping warm and cosy wherever your work desk may be.  One lovely thing about it though - dark, cold and yuksome nights make stopping in and crafting SO much more fun don't you think?

I'm a nosey so-and-so on the quiet, and love nothing more than a good old snoop to see what other people are doing. What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday -  (Check out hosty lady's glorious blog over here WOYWW) is, therefore, my idea of heaven!  You can travel all around the world without leaving your armchair, drool over other people's stash, get lots of ideas and have various attacks of the vapours at all the talent and creativity out there!

Right then - here's my "Workdesk" this Wednesday.

Now- for 'workdesk' please read, kitchen table/laundry station/outer garment displacement zone/general dumping ground.  On my desk are some new Distress Inks which arrived today from the E of Bayness.  Huzzahh!  I've wanted some for ages.  I just have to work out what to use them on/how to use them now!   My beloved Pro-markers nestle there too - and stuff from my last project which really should have been put away by now.  My journal pages are drying from the application of some gesso.  I've misted one of the pages very lightly whilst the gesso was wet to apply a very sheer amount of pigment.  I'm planning to journal the lyrics from one of my favourite songs at the moment "Spectrum" by Florence and the Machine so if it works out I shall share the finished item at some stage soon.

However  - poor old down trodden, jack of all trades kitchen table will soon be devoid of any crafty malarkey because my crafting palace is in the final stages of creation!


Yep - Craftpod is nearly ready!  Lovely Man has insulated it and cladded it inside.  A new (old) desk has been spruced up with a nice paint job and all the holes and draughty bits of the shed have been blocked up.  Frozen fingers pending, we hope to give it a lick of paint inside at the weekend and also get the shelving upso that I can move my crafty stuff and stash to its new home!

Excited much?!

Thank you for visiting Love from Peapods today - hope to see you again very soon!

Monday 14 January 2013

Every Inchie Monday - Girl

Hello everyone!

Monday has rolled around really quickly again hasn't it?   If its Monday then it must be 'Inchie Day'!

Check out the challenge at THIS lovely bloggy lady's blog!

The prompt for this week is 'Girl'.

Here is my effort - an inchie cut from textured cardstock, coloured with promarkers and topped with a tiny girlie image clipped from an old craft mag. Tiny typewriter key font alphas were cut out (eek not very carefully looking at this effort ( I'm blaming new nail extensions and chronic myopia!!)  Don't look too closely now!! ;)


Sunday 13 January 2013

Snoozesome Sunday

Hello Bloglies and a very warm welcome to my new follower Christine.

 I went out to my firm's 'Winter Party' on Friday and as a result had a bit of a late one.  I was very, erm,  'tired and emotional' by the time I got home - I personally blame the poisoned carrots **smiles innocently**

I've given myself the weekend 'off'  from houseworky type duties.  I find this very difficult to do and always seem to feel guilty at sitting and doing "not-a-lot".  I always feel like I should spend my weekends cooking, cleaning, shopping and washing but this weekend I've played hookey from the lot of it - apart from a  quick top up food shop this morning.  I spoke to a friend yesterday and we were both bemoaning the fact that we feel that we have to justify being a little lazy from time to time.  After a busy working week, no-one should have to justify a little R&R time.  I  decided to use this feeling as a prompt for a page in my art journal.

I really do struggle with 'art' - and I mean that most sincerely (folks).  What I see in my head refuses to transcribe itself onto paper and I often end up feeling annoyed and frustrated.  I'm trying to use the journal for the purpose of  'therapy' and escapism however and so I'm just going to have to learn to be a little more kind to myself and accept that whilst I am no great artist - art journalling means that there are no expectations, limitations or boundaries.  Once I get over that obstacle in my head and stop with the silly comparisons to other people's work, then perhaps I'll feel more able to express myself a little better.

Any - this the entry I created based on the feeling that I really have enjoyed just being at home this weekend.

Initially I sprayed the pages with Perfect Pearls mist  in pewter, as a base.  I dried this off with my heat gun, before inking up some bubble wrap and pressing this onto the pages. I sprinkled some copper embossing powder over this and heated it to set it.   I then spritzed the page with some pink lustre shimmer mist and stamped "It's OK to SIMPLY BE" using an old alphabet stamping set I had.  I used two 'cog' wheels I had been sent in a swap and heat embossed these in copper  I then wrote the word 'unwind' around the cogs.  Using a couple of miniature stamps, I stamped butterflies and the word 'Bliss' randomly around the pages.    The little blue starry patch at the bottom of the first page was actually a die cut cup cake wrapper which I had saved from when I went away recently - and although the cakes were lovely the wrappers were far too pretty to simply throw them away.  I used one as a mask and inked over it, then flipped it over and pressed the inked side into the page.  I finished off by sticking a couple of sentiments on and the wrote words associated with relaxation around the page edges.  Thanks for looking!

Hope your weekend was a good one.

See you soon! :)


Monday 7 January 2013

Every Inchie Monday

Hello lovelies

One of the promises I made to myself for 2013 is to do more crafting.  I am, however, Queen of Procrastination, and if I don't have a specific project to work on then I tend to just ....well... do absolutely nothing at all!!  My good friends over at the bears blogged about a challenge they're taking part in called 'Every Inchie Monday'. Details of this challenge can be found HERE where lots of inspirational words are used for the weekly 'Inchie challenge' - which is basically to create a piece of artwork on a base of one inch square.

Goodness me - crafting on a square measuring 1 inch by 1 inch is very flippin' difficult!  I have a brilliant punch which I thought would do the trick and be the perfect size - however on measuring the punch out I found out that they were more than twice the size of the inchie size we are supposed to be working with! EEK!   Ah well - it was a challenge after all!  This week's inspirational word is "star".

Anyway, here's my 'effort'.  A square inch of textured card stock, sprayed with Perfect Pearls Mist in pewter for a little shimmer factor.  I then paper pricked the rear of the inchie with a paper pricking tool into a star shape and used some pink embroidery floss to stitch the design and edge around the card.

Here's the tadahh!!


Tadahh!!

Ah well - I tried!  On to the next one!

Sunday 6 January 2013

Scrapping Sunday

Hello there

A very warm welcome to my new followers AJ and Monalisa - many thanks indeed for becoming followers of my whitterings.  :)

There's not much to report from Peapodland right now.  I went back to work last Wednesday so my days were taken up in the latter part of the week with the mundane goings on of a law firm.  Move along there - nothing to see!!

Project Shed-pod is coming along nicely, with the insulation and cladding all but finished.  The painting can start then and after that, the flooring and shelving.  And then I can bliddy well get in there and do stuff!!


As there is a dearth of photographs to share from the last few days, I thought I'd share some scrapbooking layouts with you which I created at the Cardinal Colours retreat back in September.  Please excuse the shocking picture quality.  I've decided that the GE X5 really is the most rubbishest (!) of cameras known to man. I've tried very hard to love this camera but truth be told  I'm so disappointed with the picture quality - particularly those taken indoors.  It takes about 20 shots of the same subject to get once half decent one.  The macro function is awful.  The focus is terrible and the lag in taking an actual photograph is far too lengthy.  I'm really not impressed and shall be looking to replace it as soon as possible.  Photography is a hobby of mine and I do like taking close up shots which this camera doesn't cope with very well at all.

Anyway - I digress.

Shocked, aren't you?!

Here are the layouts then.




















It's quite difficult I find to create teenage boy layouts without them looking too 'girly'.  This was a scraplift from a magazine (so sorry I can't remember who to credit :( ) but I found that the simple lines of the circles and 'ribbons' worked well on a simple grunged up white sheet of card stock.  Rather than use flowers (heaven forbid!) I used a red button on some chipboard shapes to give a bit of interest but kept this one very simple apart from the patterned papers.





This one was adorned with buttons and twine, some black ric-rac, sticker letters and some copper letters I'd had in my stash for about 8 years!



















Sticker letters cunningly chosen to match the Motorhead font on his tee-shirt!  (It's not just thrown together yer know!!)



















I was pleased with this embellishment which I created by covering a chipboard shape with some chalk ink, and then covering it in diamond glaze which gave it a porcelain-like quality.  Blue cabachon glass stones were kindly donated by a friend at the crop.   I also covered the little hearts with some iridescent stickles to 'pop' them a little.  

And finally, just a very simple layout with the photograph matted up on onto some contrasting card stock, then onto a beautiful piece of Kanban card which I had 'glittered' a little.  Matting and layering on to more card stock was all it needed really.  




So there you go - Its only taken me three months to show you!  If you click on the photographs, hopefully the should enlarge a little.  

Have a good week!  






Working from home

I've taken a precious day of annual leave today.  I've really struggled this week with feeling so yuk and I needed the restorative ...