May 365 Journal

A few days off work (and lighter evenings) means that I got a bit of extra time to craft this week (hurrah) and I managed to finish my 365 Journal I started a couple of weeks ago.  

I added some gold mica sprayed and flicked across the page but it doesn't show up 

in the photo.  

I coloured the page with dylusion sprays and added stamped flowers which I coloured with watercolours.  I then added the details with posca pens (I love these as they are SO versatile as they can be used on paper, wood, glass, fabric etc).

All ready to start filling in.

Happy crafting

Kyla

365 Challenge Year 4

I often beat myself up for not sticking to things but one thing I have stuck to is Kate Crane's 365 Journal Challenge.  Every day you jot something down about the day, or even a small drawing to represent the day.  It only takes one minute which I think is why it works.

I have been doing this for four years now!  I know!!! Get me, actually sticking to something.

January's page is coloured with Dylusion sprays (I still love these products, such bright colours and water reactive) and the fir trees are made from a stencil I made by punching trees from some waste card and inking through.

I added some snowflakes, stickles glitter and flicked some white watered down acrylic paint across the pages.  The 'January' is die cut from an old cereal box, coloured and stickled so it screams bling and sparkle! 

The pages are filled in up to date, but I tend to take a photo before I start filling them in...lets be honest the daily humdrum life is of little interest to me let alone you!

If you have made any new years resolutions (mine are the usual, work less, create more, be kind to myself etc) then I hope you have made a good start to 2016.

Happy crafting,

Kyla

November 365 Journal

Just a quick update as I have actually finished my November 365 Journal pages in time for November and more importantly I even remembered to photograph them before I filled the squares in!

The page is coloured with Dylusion sprays and a few TH die cut leaves added with some other leaves stamped with archival inks in various colours.

I doodled around each of the squares with a black pen and stamped the dates-all ready to fill in.

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

 

January 365 Challenge

Hello peeps, I hope the new year is treating you well?

I decided once again to join in with Kate Crane's 365 Calendar challenge as I have loved looking back over the past few years worth and seeing short little snippets of my life or how I was feeling on a certain day.

This is my January layout

 

The letters are once again cut out of a cereal box and coloured, glittered then glossy accents over the top.  The main pages are coloured with Dylusion sprays dribbled and the icicles along the top are distress stickles and glossy accents with some of it dripped down the page.

Right....I am going to try and get ahead of the game and start February's pages this week (fingers crossed).

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

Knitting needles and brag books

Hello peeps, so here we go again with another roundup of some of the Christmas presents I made this year (looking back I didn't realise I had made SO many!).

This photo isn't brilliant, but its a knitting needle roll that I made my mum.  Its made out of quite heavy upholstery fabric so that it should withstand needles being poked in and hopefully stand up to quite a bit of abuse.

 This is a brag tag book for my Nan in NZ.  Its a chipboard tag mini photo album that my Nan can keep in her handbag and contains recent photos of me, my hubby, brother and his wife too.  The fern leaves are made out of air drying lightweight clay with a Martha Stewart (I think) mould and coloured with Dylusion sprays.

The letters are cut from a cereal box, coloured, glittered and then glossy accents to finish them and make them shine.

 

For family I also made a few more fabric covered notebooks

 

 and another quilted one (these really are a pain to make though as they take me SO long!)

I have more books to cover during 2015 but at the moment I cannot bring myself to make any more as, I think I need to concentrate on another craft for a while!

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

365 Catch up

 I had gotten a bit behind taking part of the 365 Journal challenge over at The Kathryn Wheel blog so I thought I would roll August and September up in one blog post!

I chose nice bright sunny colours for August and used a sunburst stencil and my dylusions white spray to create a feeling of the warm sun rays.  I added a few beach balls just for the hell of it.

 

 For September I chose more autumnal colours as this is when we see the leaves just start to change from green through amber, red and eventually rust coloured.

I added leaves die cut from some leftover snippets to the bottom of the pages.

I find it hard to believe that we are coming to the end of the third year I have done this!

Kyla

 

April 365

Hello peeps, if you are in the UK I hope you are enjoying the fabulous Spring weather we are currently enjoying.

It has been fabulous and the sun has been shining all day....the washing has been having the breeze blowing through it all day-its a small pleasure but one that really does cheer my soul.

Another reason to cheer my soul is of course crafting.  Looking through my past posts I realised I had not shared my April 365 Journal Challenge pages-most remiss!

So here they are:

The nice and bright background was created with Dylusion sprays and the flowers along the bottom of the pages were coloured with inktense pencils and some water, when everything was stamped and some washi tape added I flicked some paint across the page to add some finer detail and the mess up the page a little (I am not too great with nice, clean and 100% perfect-house, craft room and journal pages!!).

If you'd like to see other pages then why not pop over to Kate Cranes blog.

Happy Crafting

Kyla

 

365 Challenge

 Hello peeps, I hope you are well and not too wet! 
Just a quick thankyou to the lovely WOYWW for their kind words regarding my annual roundup-it really does make a difference.

Onwards and upwards they say, so with that in mind after completing my 2nd year of Kate Cranes 365 Challenge I have decided to continue and do a 3rd year!!

So here are the pages for January all ready.  The month letters are cut from my cereal boxes and painted with pearl paint and then some distress glitter over the top for a vintage look.

I sprayed the background pages with my ever trusty Dylusion inks and added some darker blue DI through some stencils to add depth (including my new TH cracked glass stencil-thanks for my DH for the gift).  Then I added some pearl paint using the paint lid as a circular stamp and then added some die cut snowflakes and scribbled with some distress stickles to add a little bling

I added some stamped snowmen on scrap card and coloured them with posca pens. All ready to now add my daily journalings (is that actually a word?).

Here is my completed December pages

If you fancy a small daily project (once the the pages are made it only takes a minute or so to complete each day) then I can recommend the 365 Challenge over at Kate Cranes blog here.

Happy Crafting

Kyla

Bargain Mix Media books and inspiration stikes

 Hello peeps.  I hope you have all been keeping well?

Last weekend I had a free weekend (which is rare) and in Bristol we have a book shop where all the books are £2 each! Well imagine my surprise when hubby found a box of American mixed media books hidden under one of the tables!

Now, lets be honest I could have bought most, if not all of them....but I decided to show restraint (yes I did!) and bought these 2 fabulous books-what a bargain.

I haven't had time to browse them properly (I am saving that for my next ultra long bubble bath!!) but it did inspire me to mess up the Room of Shame (odd.....every time I type that I hear it spoken in a deep booming voice!!) and have a go.

This card has a patterned background, toned down slightly with some corduroy DI.  The tag is Dylusions and DI with some water flicked over then some script over stamped with pink DI.

The heart was a piece of watercolour paper which I added ephemera to then scraped acrylic paints over with an old store card and then wiped some gesso over to mute the tones a little.

I then die cut it, stitched round it and added it to the tag with some more stitching and ribbon.

The best part?  I cleared up the Room of Shame (ooh, there's that voice again!!) straight after so its still tidy!

Right, I think I need to have a lie down after all that tidying!

Happy Crafting

Kyla

 

Some new mail art

Hello peeps.  Just a quick update.  

So as you may know I have been dabbling with 'mail art' and sending naked art through our great british postal system!!

This is the latest one I have made and posted to a friend of mine.

I used my homemade stencil of a girl with dylusion inks, some texture paste and posca pens....hopefully the recipient has already seen this!!

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

April 365 Journal Challenge

Hello peeps.

I am running a little late this month (half way through already....where did April go?) and I hadn't realised that I had not yet posted my April page for the 365 challenge...most remiss of me!

So, to rectify yer 'tis (as they say in the west country!!).

I have used dylusion inks (such fabulous strong colours) and stamps and also an Octopode stamp (Alice in Wonderland).

Other fabulous entries can be found at the wonderful Kate Crane's blog here  

Happy Crafting

Kyla

 

Inspired by Finnabair

 Hello peeps.  Over on the Snazzy's DT blog (a fabulous craft shop in Swindon...I recommend it if you are looking for the unusual and are in the West country) they have a challenge to be inspired by Finnabair.

Well, let be honest, its not difficult to be inspired by her work (if your are unfamiliar with her amazing work check out her blog)

So I decided to do a page on thick watercolour paper (its so thick I though it would be able to take the gesso and all the inks I planned on using!!).

I have not tried anything like this before and I was quite pleased with how it came out.

I started by using some texture paste through a butterfly necklace pendant and some sequin waste.  I added some fabric, flowers, beads, homemade resin flowers and hearts, washers, 2 hot glue cogs (I LOVE using hot glue like this) and then added some hot glue lines for even more texture.  I then gesso'd the whole lot (but forgot to take a photo of this stage!!).

 

I then used a selection of Dylusion inks and Tim Holtz DI to colour the page.

 

I then flicked water to add some distressing and flicked some black dylusions too.

I added a photo of my dad and me when I was first born, scratching the ink away and adding a little colour to help blend it in.  I finished with a hand drawn frame around the picture.

I think i will definitely try this technique again.

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

WOYWW after a fashion

Hello, no photo of my desk this week as things are a bit manic at the moment at chez Kyla but I still wanted to take part in the lovely Julia's Whats on Your Workdesk Wednesday so I thought I would blog one of my recent journal pages.

I am all travelling here and there at the moment and rarely at my desk so my trusty travel craft kit and journal has really come into its own.  This page is made with dylusion inks and stamps and I added a tag and handwriting that I 'disguised' slightly by making it messy (I am left handed so its not too difficult!!) and then went over with white pen too.

Happy WOYWW all

Kyla

 

Feb 365 Challenge

Hello, are you having a nice weekend?  Even though I am super busy at the moment, I somehow have managed to surpass myself and have February's 365 calendar page ready!!!  I know, I cannot believe it either!  How smug do I feel?  (believe me it won't last long....!)

So this months pages are coloured with Dylusions, stencilled, stamped and splattered with white distress stain.  I stamped hearts and added oil pastels to colour them, edging them with a black china pencil and some white paint.  I added some pink sequins in one of the hearts for a little subtle bling (what would February be without bling?  The month of Valentines, pancakes and my birthday!!).

I also die cut some hearts from dylusion coloured copier paper and ran them through the sewing machine adding an outline of zig zag stitches and I left the threads dangling for some added texture.

I added some borders to the page with Tim Hotlz sticky tape (I love this stuff) and some heavily glittered letters to spell out Feb (bright red stickles add just the right amount of bling without being too in your face)-perfect for a stylish touch.

This is my second month taking part in Kate Cranes 2012 365 challenge, all the deets can be found on her blog here 

Happy Crafting

Kyla
 

WOYWW, a tikki and a mop up page

Hello everyone, how are you on this cold and snowy (well in the UK at least) WOYWW?

So, on my desk this week is my heat proof mat with some hot glue skull and cross bones and cogs that I have made ready to decorate my "Truvia" sweetner box (hidden at the back) that was on my desk last week.  The box is drying at the moment (I love multi medium as a glue but it really does take overnight to dry!) so I hope to post the finished box and another tutorial (I really cannot fathom youtube!) on how to make the hot glue embellishments later this week.

My "Man Bites Dog" cards this week are "Romantic suspect slays crazy naked star!"  They really do sound like plots for books sometimes!

I thought I would show you the snowman that my hubby decided to make....
 

Yep, a scary tikki head.  Placed at the end of the garden to spook the neighbours kids!!  I told him it was crafting...but in a manly way!!

The great thing about the snow is that I don't feel gulity about staying in at the weekend, catching up on housework and of course, rewarding myself with some serious craft time.
 
If you saw my stencil tutorial on my last post, I thought I would share with you the 'mop up' page.

This is the page I pressed the leftover of my inky stencils onto.  I really liked the page (I find it difficult to leave white space, I love the effect, but it is something I am really going to concentrate on experimenting with during 2013).  I then did some scribbles in black ink.  It does actually say something meaningful (to me at least) but I have tried to scribble it to disguise the words a little.  For a leftover page I am really pleased with this.

If you would like a legal snoop around desks across the globe you can join in here

Stay safe and warm and happy crafting

Kyla
 

A Dyan and Dina inspired stencil tutorial and journal page

Evening all.  I awoke to snow this morning!  Now I know for some of you that is not unusual, but here in the south west of the UK we don't get that much, and certainly not that fast, 5" in a few hours...its covered up all my weeds and dead plants in the garden and it looks so pretty now!

Have you been watching the CHA 2013 video's on the web?  I know I have.  They are so inspiring and I now have a rather long lust list of Tim Holtz new goodies (his new paints look fabulous) and Dylusions (WHITE spray ink!!  I need it, plus ALL the new colours!!).  

However, after spending SO long clearing out my craft space I vowed that anything coming into the room needed to be productive and get used (that includes me!!  I admit I often sit here, Spotify or BBS6 music playing and before I know it an hour has passed me by!!)  and the fact that January is rather a lean month, so I thought I would use up some more of my stash to see if I could make new stash.

Inspired by both Dina Wakely and Dyan Reavley (they are both so talented) I decided to make a figure mask from some leftover plastic.

I chose a figure from a magazine

I traced it with a permanent marker

and cut it out so I had both a postitive and negative image.  

I inked through the stencil with Dylusion inks and then used black acrylic with gold interference paint to add some depth, using the figure cutout to protect the image.
 

I stamped through with a Dylusions background stamp (I use these all the time they are so versatile) and also stamped it with white stayz on using the stamp without an acrylic block so I could bend the stamp slightly and use part of the image.

I added circles of white paint (using the dylusions ink lid as a stamp).

I love the effect, the stencil is no where  near as good as the dylusions one (in either detail or quality) BUT its a great way for me to see if it is a product I would use in the future before I look to making the investment (which lets face it will probably happen quite soon!!).

That's it for now, I am off for a warming cuppa (or maybe some mulled cider.....much more suitable with the snow outside I think!).

Happy crafting

Kyla
 

 

A dylusions icy tag

Hello, I hope that you are all prepared for the festive season...and for those that believed the world would end today...oops, looks like you need to get pressie buying quickly!!

I thought I would post a photo of my latest tag.

I coloured the tag with inks and used craft stamper magazine free cover stamps (I thought the hanging stars look a little like icicles with stars hanging off them) and a dylusions quote (I do love her quotes).  It doesn't show up in the photo but I added some glittery icicle stickles to the stars....after all we all need a little bling at this time of year!

I am entering this into the http://thestampmanuk.blogspot.co.uk/ the theme of which is "In the bleak mid winter", which is my all time favourite carol and one that if I hear it at Christmas time I belt it out......much to the horror of those near me (and the local dogs!!) and I think the cool blue colours and icicles are reminiscent of a bleak winter.

Merry Christmas 

Kyla

ooh get me all Christmassy for Charity

 Hello peeps,
I hope you are all having a lovely weekend....nice and crisp here today and not a sniff of rain (well I suppose it had to happen one day!).

I have decided I had better get my backside into gear and start making some Christmas goodies....after all it is December now (not a fan of making Christmas stuff so these makes are a good start!).

As you know, I love a tag, so I have made most of my cards with tags (now there's a surprise).  I thought some nice an festive (!) blue cards would be spot on.  I used dylusion inks for the background and over stamped with my new TH stamps (a cheeky purchase in london last week!).  I added a die cut deer, some pine pine cleaners attached with my tiny attacher and dyed the staples red with promarkers (loving the tiny attacher....it is coping well with everything I have thrown at it so far).  I finished it all off with a little blue foiling around the edges of the tag and the card for a little subtle bling.

This card is made much the same way but I used a stamped image of the elf balancing the pressies...I love this stamp it is so cute without being bleeuuurrg!
 

I have also been making actual tags (to put on gifts rather than cards) and used real mini pinecones (they are so dainty).
 

Finally, I have made some leather keyrings (this is just a small sample), they are 100% leather and attached with 2 part rivets....I don't own a small anvil or a rivet attacher...I must admit I just hit them real hard with a large hammer on my wooden chopping board and it seems to have worked a treat!

So why this flurry of activity?  Well, tomorrow my hubby is putting on a gig with 5 bands and 2 DJ's in Bristol, for those who have a facebook account details are here: http://www.facebook.com/events/419404098121518/ 

Its all to raise money for a charity my brother and his fiance work with in Ecuador-http://www.thephoenixprojects.org/

A great cause where they provide sustainable free education and nutrition to the poorest children-fingers crossed we raise some money (if not, guess what the family and friends are getting for christmas.....I have a LOT of these keyrings!!).

Happy crafting
kyla

 
 

Dylusion background

Happy weekend everyone.  Its a fabulous sunny autumn day down here in the south west (shame the sun has lost its summer heat...but still fabulous).  After a couple of hours gardening I decided to make a card for my friends birthday.  She loves frogs, newts, snakes....basically most animals and creepy crawlies.

So inspired by the garden I thought I would use another of my dylusion backgrounds and hand colour a stamped image of a lizard, die cut a tattered floral and a velum moth.

I am loving making my own backgrounds, dylusions makes it SO easy.  One tip is I use a wet wipe and rub it over sequin waste, it removes a little of the colour, but not as much as spritzing it with water.

Why not have a go yourself?  It's really easy,and the great thing is that you can have any colour combination your heart desires not just the paper stock you happen to have to hand.

Happy crafting

Li'l Pidge x
 

Cracking weekend

 Hello peeps, did you all have a nice weekend?  I know I did.

I travelled down to Exeter with my hubby for a visit to the 'Crikey Its Vintage' fair.  We are both influenced by the 1940's and 50's and love the whole rockabilly style, and lets face it as crafters we tend to be hoarders too....so a vintage fair is a great day out!

 I fell in love with the black and gold tea set below but was very restrained (well its only 2 pay packets until he big NEC craft fair!!), there was also a fab combo on double bass and guitar called The Bonneville Barons that were playing swing music during the day, complete with a record stall (which kept hubby happy!), retro makeup and hair parlour and LOTS of lovely jewelry and clothes....a fabulous day out, all for an amazing £2 entry fee.  I have been to LOTS of vintage fairs and this is the BEST.

I was lucky enough to also manage a quick dip (it was quick as the sun was setting) in the sea at Sidmouth, the reason I wear a bright yellow cap is so boats and fishermen can easily spot you!

I finished the weekend off with a spot of crafting.  Fellow Coven member, Trace, had her birthday yesterday so I made this card for her.

I created the background with dylusion sprays, stamped a TH grunge background stamp with distress stains then used a baby wipe through sequin waste to 'lift' a little of the colour then used the spray and flick technique to lift a little more colour.

I matted this onto a card and added a torn page from a marine engineers instruction manual (gotta love these finds!) which I aged with distress inks.

Then I used some of the leftover homemade background and cut a tattered flower, added a crystal pin and 3 gems in the centre and added a motorbike brad (as she is a biker).  Then finished it all with a hand coloured witch that I cut out and added a little glossy accents to.

I must admit, I have never been a fan of making my own backgrounds (they always look rubbish when I make them) but the dylusion sprays are so great and the stencils and grungy stamps make it much easier, I think I will have another go!

Anyhoo....off to catch up with this weeks Dr Who I missed!

Happy Crafting

Li'l Pidge x