ATC - 'You Can't Scare Me'

The current theme over on the Artful Idea's ATC flickr group is 'You Can't Scare Me'.

I remembered seeing this image of a woman on Pringle Hill Studio blog recently who fits the bill.  She looks pretty formidable and I don't think much would scare her!

The background is a mixture of old music score, an old baby wipe, distress ink, gesso and rubber stamping.

I called her 'Queen of Mean' and used a new font I found yesterday  from ScrapVillage where you'll find every sort of font you can imagine (for free!)

The font I used is called 'failure'.  I printed it off and coloured the edges with a little Distress Ink.

Her crown is a plastic embellishment I coloured with Perfect Pearls and a little Stickles glue.

Thanks for looking!

WOYW? Wednesday 71

Or 'What's On Your Workdesk' this Wednesday - the question asked every week by Julia on her blog Stamping Ground. 

Firstly, thank you if you stopped by last week and left me a comment.  I did manage to visit almost all of the desks last week which was a mammoth task I must say - but well worth it - I love having a nose around!

This week, on my desk is mainly flowers and leaves.

I thought I'd better use some of the new punches I bought recently so made some little Poinsettia flowers.

I punched out a lot of flower shapes from red cardstock then swiped them with a bit of gold brilliance ink.  Stacked them in threes glueing (or is it gluing) together with Glossy Accents.  I sprinkled a few glittery bits in the centre.

They're not the exact flower shape for the Poinsettia, but I think they'll do - I just need to make some dark green leaves to go underneath - then decide what I'm going to do with them!

I've also been making some leaves - after seeing a brilliant tutorial on a new blog I discovered this week called Ink Stains.  All you need is brown paper (I used an old brown envelope), Distress Ink and Glossy Accents - it is really so easy and produces lovely results.

This is the only leaf punch I have, but want to get some more now!

Can I take this opportunity to ask about how you upload your photos onto your Blogger posts?  The reason being I've had terrible trouble with this post - I could only load one photo direct from my hard drive on the post and after several attempts, had to end up using the 'Picasa Web Album' (which I didn't even know I had, and even more surprising to find it had over 700 of my photos already on it!)  It took ages and I just wondered if there was an easier way - I don't normally have problems and can load on as many photos from my hardrive as I like - but not today!!  Oh no sireee - it didn't want to play!!  Any help or suggestions will be gratefully received!

Thanks for looking and I'll try to get around as many of the workdesks as I can!

Dress Up - October

It's October and I'm still playing 'Dress Up' with Margaret over on her blog Alice and Camilla.  Only two months left then it's all over, how sad will that be!

I thought I'd design my dress this month with an Autumnal feel to it.

I started off with a black card base

Covered the front of it with silver self adhesive tape (the type electricans use I believe) and embossed it using one of the Ten Second Studio moulds.

I probably should have embossed the tape first and then stuck it onto the card, but forgot about that and embossed it once it was stuck down, so have a lightly embossed finish instead.

I then coloured the embossed dress with alcohol inks - Ginger, Terracotta, Raisin and Gold Mixative.

For the top of the dress, I used part of a necklace I bought in a Charity shop some time ago - I liked the little leaves!  I dabbed the alcohol ink applicator over the leaves roughly, so some have the same colour as the rest of the dress.

The chain is attached to the shoulders of the dress by copper coloured brads.

Here's a close up of what it looks like underneath

The vest part I coloured with some metallic rub on paste.

The weight of the leaves is a little too heavy for the card dress so I think I'll have to re-inforce it at the shoulders for better support.  

  I can just imagine doing a little shimmying dance in it and hearing all the  leaves move about - they make a lovely sound!  LOL

Thanks for looking - 10 down, 2 to go!

Look Who's Stopped by to say Hello!

It's Santa Claus of course! 

 He's on a tour around the blogs of the participants of the Countdown To Christmas matchbox swap being hosted by Linda on her blog called

 A Swap For All Seasons.

His visit is part of a 'Swap For All Seasons Santa Claus Blog-Along Giveaway'!

There'll be an early Christmas present for one lucky person - yay!!!

If you visit Linda's blog, not only will you see some gorgeous altered matchboxes, but you'll hear some lovely Christmas music!

Well, I'd better not keep Santa here any longer as I've a feeling he's going to be busy in the next few months!

(I wonder if he's got my 25 matchboxes in his sack - LOL)

Compendium Of Curiosities - Challenge No. 16 - Wrinkle Free Distress

The current challenge set by Linda on her blog Studio:L3 is to create something using the technique in Tim Holtz' book Compendium of Curiosities, page 33 he calls 'wrinkle free distress' which without going into detail is basically playing about with Distress Inks and a Craft Mat.

Here's a couple of work in progress photos which show the colours of Distress Ink I used for my two large tags.

I went for a Paris theme and the two rubber stamps I used were The Eiffel Tower (554J) by Auntie Amy and Paris Socialite (80436) by Stamps Happen

I also used an unmounted butterfly/Paris postage stamp from Crafty Individuals (got a bit carried away with stamping that on the purple one!)

They're not exactly Paris chic, more Paris grunge but that's quite fitting I suppose for the King of Grunge our craft lord and master Tim Holtz!

If you hop on over to Linda's blog you'll find links to lots of other examples of this technique as well as details of some fantastic prize giveaways!

Thanks for looking .... or should that be

'Merci pour le regard'

(thanks Yahoo translator - lol)