Jiggy Mermaid .... continued!

I think I may have made my last post too long as part of it didn't appear!  I can't remember exactly what I said now, but here's the additional pictures. 

She is wearing a matching necklace and belt!  Her hair is the same as her clothing - actually part of a scarf I bought in Primark in the sale (it was only a couple of pounds)

Here's a close up of the tail, you can see the netting under the Matte Accents.

There are some random droplets of Glossy Accents over the background and into some of which I dropped blue sequins.

I attached her arms to her body with brads, and they are still moveable - well, she'll need to stretch her arms and have a swim now and again!

Jiggy Mermaid!

'Alter a jigsaw piece' is the theme over on the Flickr group 'Art 'n' Soul' and the theme is 'monochrome ... interpret any way you wish'. 

I used an old jigsaw piece from a child's puzzle measuring approximately 5" square at it's largest points.  Rather than going with black and white I used different shades of blue.

I peeled off the shiny picture from the jigsaw piece and coated it with some gesso.  Once that dried, I sprayed it with some Colour Wash (Stream).  I rubber stamped around the edges and embossed that with two different colours of blue.

For the mermaid, I coloured her (air dried clay) face and (card) body with some alcohol ink (Pool) and dressed her with some nylon netting type fabric.  I cut her tail from card and stuck on some of the tissue I had used to protect my desk when spraying on the colour wash.  Over the top of that I stuck some more of the blue netting with Matte Accents and sprinkled in some Beadazzles.

As there wasn't much contrast between the background and the mermaid, I sprayed her with some Glimmer Mist (Marshmallow).  On reflection I probably should have used Glossy, rather than Matte accents on the tail, but it has given it a dry, grungy look - just like it's been underwater too long!

Getting Messy with February's Dress!

Here's the dress I've created for the Dress Up 2010 challenge - for February, and as I got messy in the process I've also linked it to this week's challenge on Tuesday's Taggers which is getting messy! 

I started off with a card dress shape and slapped on top of it some Rigid Wrap Plaster Cloth - which I needed to wet then mould into shape to create some folds in the skirt.  I coloured it with some Starburst Stains (the colour is called Sweet Violet Purple Teal) As the bottle had a sponge applicator I wasn't able to get into all the grooves so the dress became two toned.  The other colour being white. I also sprayed on Glimmer Mist (Pashmina and Marshmallow) I edged the neckline with some of Ranger's Liquid Pearls (Lavender Lace colour) and finished it off with a ribbon sash around the waist and two tiny heart shaped buttons (well it is February's dress for Valentines - albeit a little late!).

Just to prove I did get messy here's a couple of pictures. 

About the pictures, in reality my hands are beautifully slender and both the same size (well, they're the same size anyway!!).  I've no idea why the second photo has appeared that way up as it was saved to my computer the right way up!  Maybe that large hand was at work behind my back - LOL.

Ooops, I forgot to mention that this week's Tuesday's Taggers challenge is being sponsered by The Craft Barn and a £15 voucher is up for grabs for one lucky randomly picked winner who enters this weeks challenge and puts a link to The Craft Barn in their post.  There, I've said it now!

OWOH winnings!

This week I've received two more giveaways from the 'One World One Heart' global event organised by Lisa on her blog ...A Whimisical Bohemian..

The first was a set of three original photocard illustrations from Gabrielle in Canada.  They are so beautiful that I don't think I could actually use them, frame them perhaps.  I love the altered tag she made too.  What a talented lady and you can see lots more wonderful things on her blog 'Gabrielle Madsen, the result of my inspirations' 

I also received a pack of assorted papers from Tara here in the UK in West Yorkshire.  I love the black cat piece you can see sticking out.  You may not be able to see it, but to the right of the cat's head there is a label which was stuck on the back of Tara's packet - it has a picture of a hedgehog on and reads "I'm not scruffy.  I'm recycled"  What a brilliant idea.  I always try to re-use packets where possible and must admit to having quite a collection in my craft cupboard - along with several other 'collections' - but I guess if you are reading this you may have a few yourself!

Tara also has a lovely blog called 'Sew Gorgeous' with lots of interesting things on and is well worth a visit.

Thank you again, Gabrielle and Tara and not forgetting Lisa too.

Playing Dress Up

I couldn't resist joining in with the challenge set by Margaret on her blog Alice and Camilla in which you create a dress for each month of the year - anything goes really.  Margaret has created a beautiful wardrobe for her dresses by altering a wooden cigar box - you can see it on her post here.  Her own dress for January is fabulous and she's set up one of those Mr Linky things on her blog so you can easily view dresses made by other players - and the ones I've seen so far are all lovely.

So here's my dress for January - which I think must belong to Cinderella as it's in quite a distressed, tatty state.  The card base of the dress I coloured with distress inks (dried marigold, scattered straw and frayed burlap).  There is some rubber stamping around the hem and the sleeves.  The apron is made from an old page of music and coloured in the same way.  There is an under apron of muslin and a lace edging on the dress.  As it's poor old Cinder's dress, she only has a piece of string to tie her apron!

Maybe as the year progresses, I'll make her a beautiful ball gown.  In the meantime I'll need to think about a dress for this month, February and also look out for something to make into a wardrobe (unfortunately, I don't know anyone who smokes cigars!)

Thinking Time!

This is a birthday card I've made for a male relative which has a time theme.   Over at Tuesday Taggers the current challenge is to create something with a 'Time' theme so my cards fits!  This is the first time I've entered anything into their challenges as I'd always thought it had to be tags, but no, I believe it can be any project (I'm sure someone will put me right if I'm wrong!)

I used rubber stamps from Paperartsy's Clocks 3 set onto a background of distress inks and glimmer mist.  The main background of the card is again distress inks with rubber stamping from Stampers Anonymous 'creative textures' set.  The fine figure of a man deep in thought on the card you may recognise as Rodin's 'The Thinker'.  I cut this out of a newspaper ages ago and it has the look of one of those photo stamps I think.


Whilst making the card I was reminded of the time when hubby and I had a weekend away in Paris about 12 years ago (yes, we were romantic then - LOL) and visited the Rodin Museum.  John couldn't resist striking the pose - well he almost got it right!

OWOH - I won!!

As well as visiting some amazing new blogs, I was lucky enough to win some prizes along the magic carpet journey during the One World One Heart event.

The first arrived this morning from Jan whose lovely blog Jan's Arty ATC Journey is well worth a visit - she has certainly inspired me.  My prize in her giveaway was a brand new Crafty Individuals rubber stamp and an ATC with a theme of my choice.  I chose 'sewing' and Jan's ATC is perfect!  I've since discovered that Jan lives in the same part of the country as me and we were both at the stitch and craft exhibiton at Excel recently on the same day! What a small world it is! 

I also won a lovely 'Gypsy' digital collage sheet from Lorri in Australia.  I'll post photos of my other prizes once they arrive.

All four of my giveaways were claimed and are now on their way to the winners via air mail.  They were sent out on Wednesday 17th February.  I hope they arrive safely.

Tag Art Swap

Vixykins is hosting a tag art swap. There are ten members in the group and the theme is 'Vintage Ladies'. Each member sends 10 tags off and gets 10 different ones back.

For mine, I inked and rubber stamped the base of the tags, then stuck some old dressmaking patterns over the top and painted a thin layer of Gesso to tone the whole thing down. I photocopied some images from the covers of various vintage dressmaking patterns and stuck them down. Finally I machine stitched around the edges and added some scraps of material and lace - and not forgetting a button or two!

OWOH Giveaway Winners

Well, I think everyone who took part in Lisa's amazing magic carpet ride this year is a winner having had the opportunity to visit so many wonderful new blogs and meet new blogging friends.  I am now following so many new blogs I really don't know if I'll have any spare time left to craft!  I'm not complaining though and am really thankful to Lisa for organising this event.  Thank you also to all the new followers of my blog, I hope you'll come back and visit me again.

I was amazed to have so many lovely comments - over 400 and was going to print the names out and put them in a hat, but that would have taken far too long so I used the random number thingy instead and here's the results..............

1.  Jade Perez (Newagedolls) in Canda (received)

2.  Debra (It's All Good) in USA (received)

3.  Rebecca (Sugar & Spice Art Confections) in Connecticut, USA (received)

4.  Leslie Anderson (My Life & Times) in Ohio, USA (received)

Congratulations to you and I'll be emailing you for your mailing details so I can get your prizes off to you.

Stampotique Challenge!

There is an exciting new blog called 'Stampotique Designers Challenge' which offers twice monthly challenges plus a lot more.  Here's an extract "The designers, have been working diligently behind the scenes to bring you this fun forum where you will see a lot of great ideas for Stampotique images as well as the chance to challenge yourself and to try some new techniques, themes and sketches! In addition you can win some Stampotique Swag just for playing along!"  How good is that!!  As I recently acquired some of the lovely Stampotique rubber stamps (courtesy of Santa, as I was a good girl last year!) I couldn't resist playing along.  The first challenge is to create a 'love themed card'.

My card is simple and has a background of two different scrapbook papers (the pink hearts were cut out and stuck on top of the red paper).  I rubber stamped the image onto another scrapbook paper and cut that out.  I further rubber stamped images onto white card for the face and neck and pink paper for the cute little hand bag.  The wording is Dymo tape.  Not forgetting the cute little heart shaped brads in each corner.

I like how the card has turned out and would be pleased if I was given it for Valentines!  Hubby and I don't exchange cards for Valentines (my idea) and when he ventured into my craft room today (only to change a light bulb I might add, he doesn't normally come in) I pointed out the card to him and promptly told him it wasn't for him - 'well who's it for then' he asked in a bit of an aggreived tone - I had to laugh, which aggrieved him even more.  I'm such a tease - hehehe!!  I could be really mean and give it to him tomorrow anyway knowing that he won't have one for me - but I wouldn't do that to him - I'm not that bad!

Happy Valentines for tomorrow everyone xx