New Joanna Sheen Stamps

I've been having a little play with some of my new Joanna Sheen stamps. Will get a lot of use out of these and have lots more things planned with them.

Pinkles Sunday Challenge

This week sees the start of my friend Hels' weekly stamping challenge. The theme for this first week is LOVE. I decided to make my weekly efforts on a 6" x 4" size so that I can bind them together to make a nice little book - here's this weeks rendition.





I started with plain black card for the background. Then spritzed a piece of white linen card with Tattered Angels Merlot and Gold Glimmer Mists, tore the edges and chalked the exposed white paper with gold chalk. I stamped onto vellum a heart fan from Joanna Sheen's new fans collection and embossed with Sparkle & Sprinkle Guilded Ivory embossing powder. I stamped the saying "Love is the bridge between two hearts" (a Thomas Kinkade stamp) in black Stazon and added a heart that I had triple embossed using Red Super Sparkle embossing powder.

Board Book for Eleanor

I've wanted to try altering a childs board book for some time and decided to make this one for my friend Eleanor in New Zealand and feature her little grandson Jacob. I covered the pages using K & Co's Tommy's Toys stack and PaperMania's Cool Tones Inspirations stack. Inked all the edges with VersaMagic chalk inks in Night Sky and Hint of Pesto. I wanted the overall look to be boyish so kept my ribbons to burgundy, navy, sage green and gold.




I embellished the front cover with Jacob's name in chipboard letters and a My Hero chipboard plaque. 3 eyelets with knotted ribbons completed the front. I found I couldn't use thick embellishments inside as the book wouldn't close, so mounted photos on labels or direct onto the pages.










A few sayings and word embellishments were added just to break things up a bit.











I am quite pleased with the overall effect of the book which I think depicts the fact that Jacob is very much a boy, full of mischief and full of laughter.

A couple of little holders for hidden photos on tags, again bound with the ribbons.

Jacob is just like his daddy (Eleanor's son).










Lots of ribbon tags throughout the book and 3 more eyelets inside the bag cover with knotted ribbon.










I wanted to personalise the back cover with a message for Eleanor so stamped 2 nice sayings onto tags using Tim Holtz and Hero Arts stamps. My book is finished, now I just have to get it in the post and it can start it's journey to the other side of the world.

For a Friend in Oz

I needed to send some of the latest photos of Mya to a friend in Australia. Instead of just shoving them in the envelope with my letter I decided to make her a tag book instead. As she is 87 there is little chance of her ever seeing Mya so I hope this will help. It was fun to make and very quick.

Envelope Book

Having decided I wanted to make an envelope book I settled for a black and white theme. I used handmade papers that I bought from Costco ages ago to cover the covers and envelopes and used 6 DL envelopes for the pages. 3 of the envelopes were covered in black and silver paper with gunmetal paper lining them. The other 3 were covered in gunmetal paper with black and silver linings. The covers were covered in a plain black crinkled paper. They were all then bound together using my Bind It All machine.








I punched holes in the front and back covers with my cropodile and added silver eyelets just for interest. Then I cut out two sprays of lotus blossoms from a Papermania Paper Pack and glued these to the outside of the front and back covers. I printed out the cameo toppers from Joanna Sheen's Dancing With Shadows cd and mounted them on matt silver card. I felt that the overall effect needed a little lifting so decided to add some bright pink accents. Hence the ribbons on the front cover and ribbon tags on each page. Bright pink crystals were also added to the front and ribbon ties to the spine.




A final touch to the front cover was the addition of two butterfly charms. Inside the front cover I mounted a quote from a Joanna Sheen cd onto silver and black card and added a flower to the corner. Each envelope has a tag which has been painted with H2Os and dusted with Blonde Moments Pearl Pigments. I havent written on the tags yet as I am not sure what I am going to use the folder for. The tags were fixed with bright pink brads.













To my amazement I haven't used a single rubber stamp or any ink on this project, I am sure I will make up for it on the next one though :0)

A Ribbon Folder

After all the joshing and joking on Craft Swap Forum last year about buying ribbons I decided I wanted to make Heidi (Sockscat) aka The Rev. Mother, a ribbon folder. I took the basic design from The Bound 2 Bind book and played around with it a little. The book is bound at the top and meant to stand as a display item. The front was covered with some pretty paper and a tag, flower and ribbons added just to bling it up a little.





By putting the sides of the pages through the Bind It All Machine and then just cutting the edges away I was left with slots for the ribbon to be wound through. I again used some simple backing paper with just a quote for embellishment.








I then wound ribbon round each of the 6 slots on each page, ready for Heidi to use.












I liked the finished effect of the folder and am now thinking of other ways to use this design.














The completed folder was duly sent to Heidi, who loved it.

An Exploding Box

What do you give the husband who has everything he wants for his birthday? Well I couldn't come up with a solution so one of his pressies is an exploding box. I added pictures of his beloved grand-daughter and lots of sayings about grand-fathers to the inside....

....some nice expressive peel-offs to the outside. Some pretty flowers to the top and a tassle to open it by. A beautiful quote called Angel Wishes finished off the top and another project was completed. Now all I have to hope is that he likes it ;0)

An Altered Chest

I have some little cardboard chests and decided to 'alter' one. I painted it with a pale green emulsion and aged it with light dustings of black ink. I needed small 'old' pictures so went back to an old trick I used to use. I split a 3 layer paper serviette and cut small pictures from the top layer. These were applied to the top and sides of the chest and a thin coat of matt varnish painted over the whole thing. The varnish wrinkles the pictures slightly and ages them.

I added gold strapping to the top of the chest and a mock catch. Then just for the fun of it I stamped a dragonfly onto shrink plastic and tinted it with chalks. The 'shrunk' dragon fly was attached to the corner of the chest.



























Just to finish things off I made a tiny book on the meaning of plants to store inside the chest.

Jigsaw Book

I wanted to make a jigsaw book so purchased a childs floor puzzle from the pound shop intending to use the pieces with straight edges binding into a book with my Bind It All. But then I started pairing the other pieces together and found I have identical pairs that I could use - 22 pairs in fact. I cut 3 pieces of card in the same shape and had the bases for my book.

The 'covers' were covered in dusky pink and teal papers and embellished with a flower in the same colours and pink heart ribbon. I then cut out pairs of very small and small jigsaw pieces, sandwiched them together with pieces of wire. The ends of the wire were fastened to the front of the book and arranged to make a burst of jigsaw pieces.

I decorated each small jigsaw piece with toning crystals just to add a bit of 'bling'. The 'inside' pages were tinted with shades of teal and dusty pink inks and pigment powders. I then stamped words and small flowers in navy chalk. The pages were then double embossed with ultra thick embossing powder and took on a translucent look.

Pieces of ribbon were added along with small butterfly and flower embellishments.

A hole punched in the top of each piece was threaded with a book ring to assemble the whole book.

small pieces of toning ribbon were knotted to the book ring together with a silver bee charm. The book is complete and I am really pleased with it - the bonus is I still have enough jigsaw pieces to make another 21 books - not bad for a £1 buy.

My Little Princess will be 1

It is my grandaughter Mya's first birthday on the 23rd and I had bought a crown album at the NEC in November to make an album of her first year for her. I covered each page with pretty papers from DCWV baby pack and outline each crown with peel offs. The front cover had her name own which I made using a Cuddly Buddly alphabet and added a couple of pewter ribbon charms and some large crystals to complete the crown effect.

The first page covered her mummy and daddy on their wedding day...

Mya's first official photos at just 6 days old.

and her tiny hand and feet against her daddy's hand at that time.

Then pages on her immediate family - firstly her maternal grandparents........

...her paternal grandparents.......

her daddy's brother - Uncle Perry - and his fiancee Auntie Sheryl.......

Uncle Perry with Mya's cousin Emmie who is just 4 1/2 months older than Mya......

her mummy's brother - Uncle Simon - with Auntie Caroline. Cousin Sam who is 1 1/2 years older than Mya.

Who is hiding behind the door?

It's Mya's pals Harley and.....

....and Lola.

Then followed some big events in Mya's first year - her baby blessing.

...bath time...

smiles and games ....................

....her first holiday........................first

solids..................

in her walker and on her fifi truck.....

and for the back page some shots from her latest photos.