Oyster Catcher Pendant

I love, love, love the Wetlands stamp set. Mainly due to this image which is of some wading birds that look like Oyster Catchers to me.  Which reminds me of my favourite place, Anglesey.

For the pendant I coloured the background with Stampin Up inks and an Aqua Blender on watercolour paper and then constructed the pendant. Lovely isn't it and the inks blend so nicely.

I wear this all the time now and have had some lovely compliments.  I've entered it into Michelle Last's creative challenge and you can vote for the entry over on her blog today.

Hope you like it!

Helen

Product List

Wetlands Clear Stamp Set

[126697]

£16.00

Watercolor Paper

[122959]

£4.50

Aqua Painters

[103954]

£15.50

Basic Black Archival Stampin’ Pad

[140931]

£6.50

Another 'Fascinating' Hair Clip

I'm getting quite into using my papercrafting bits and bobs to make jewellery.  This time it was a really quick and easy hairslide (or should it be 'Fascinator' seeing that they are so fancy!).  I made it out of necessity - 40th birthday party to go to, purple top and fabulous pink shoes donned ready, fringe too long and needed pinning back but had nothing suitable.  It was literally a few minutes to pop into the craft room, choose some pretty flowers and a sparkly brad and assemble it on a hair clip.  And to top it all as a result of wearing it I now have two commissions from friends for similar ones.  How cool is that?!

More Grungepaper - this time a Hair Slide

This was made last Saturday when I was thinking of what coordinated with my favourite skirt (see below) and I was lamenting that I have broken so many hair slides recently. I guess the advantage of crafting is that you can create bespoke pieces of jewellery relatively quickly and cheaply (especially when you have a room full of stash to use up!).

What got me started was that I still had the large Tattered Floral left from the bracelet from the last post, and I had covered it in the Antique Bronze Crackle Paint and it seemed to go. I then selected flowers that picked out the colours in the skirt and layered them up (about 5 layers this time). I covered the silver hair slide with more petals to cover the metal sticking out at either side of the flower, and then scrunched everything up so it is really 3 dimensional. Nothing like getting inky fingers on a lazy Saturday afternoon (when I should really be doing the hoovering!). Oh well, that's crafting for you... and I did need a break.

Here's how it looks with the skirt:



Let me know what you think by leaving a comment if you have time.

Grungepaper Bracelet

This is a bracelet I made using Grungepaper and some paper flowers and embellishments. For the band, the grunge paper has been inked with Milled Lavender and Dusty Concord Distress Inks, and stamped over using a Clarity stamp in the Dusty Concord. The fastening is a Tim Holtz ideology hitch fastener, and the holes were made using the Cropodile (small hole punch for the fitting, and the large hole punch for the end you push over the fastening).

The flower is made using two of the smallest 'Tattered Florals' Tim Holtz dies, cut out in Grungepaper on the Cuttlebug. These have again been inked with the two purple shades to achieve a more 3 dimensional look, and then coated in Crackle Accents and left to dry. I then layered them up with a Prima paper flower and a fancy brad and finally attached the completed flower to the bracelet using Pinflair glue gel (what else - it is brilliant stuff!).

Here's how it looks fastened:


Hope you like it!

Friendly Plastic Scarf Ring

This was made at my lovely craft group meeting on Monday, after some expert demonstrating from our group leader, Karen. She has been showing us how to stamp in friendly plastic and to use molds and cutters to shape them. There may well be a few more examples up here soon, if I can get the camera to behave! What I like about this is that it doesn't look plastic from a distance but is flexible enough to hold the scarf and won't rust or discolour which is fab. Some of the other things I made will never make it on here as they are total disasters - 'lump of toothpaste' has been used to describe one piece of artwork!!

Talking of the group, a group of us ladies meet up 2 or 3 times a month, mainly to do card-making. Most of the time we do our own projects but other times we have Karen show us a new technique. Sometimes (especially around Christmas) we get very little crafting done and we spend a lot of time chatting and drinking tea. I would highly recommend joining a group if there is one close by. Crafters are just the loveliest people, and even though I was terrified about going for the first time they made me so welcome. Now it'd take a lot to keep me away and I've made some lovely friends.