Back from Beyond with Subtle Splatters...

Hello! Do not adjust your screens... Yes, a blog post from Sarah. I cannot believe my last post was back in August. All I can say is 15 month old toddler in top gear. How can I have ever thought I was busy before I had Ruby. Never been so exhausted, but never been so happy!

Anyway, back at the inky ranch...
I'm here to share a little make for the Craft Stamper Blog Take it, Make it Challenge where it is all about the splatters. Check out the great feature by Paula Whittaker in the November issue of Craft Stamper Magazine (see below). We're inviting you to do anything you fancy with splatters and this is my take on things.

I just have to grab a few crafty minutes when I can these days  but sometimes that makes you just get on with things! I covered white card with lots of splatters of watered down Distress Paints before stamping just a portion of this lovely damsel and my flutterbys.

l cut them all out, edged them with Distress Ink and added three Chit Chat words to create a linking theme. Voilà! (I used all Mr. Tim stuff if you're asking...)

Here is the November issue of the magazine and I must do a tad bit of boasting, as I have made the cover!!!!!!!!!
I have  created a few cards inspired by Andy Warhol. Hope you enjoy them.

Well, that is it for now. Time for me to clear up the toys and flop into bed. I do hope you will join in with the Challenge Blog and shower us with inky splatters!

Thanks for calling by. See you when I see you is the best farewell at the moment. Happy weekending!
Sarah.

Spotty, dotty stuff...

Hello there. It's me again, along with my grubby craft desk, mat and fingers. I don't feel like  I have managed to get anything done at all this week so this WOYWW post is a complete midnight miracle.

I have spent EVERY waking minute chasing after a speedy toddler. Sigh. I used to look at mums of many and say, "Well, I can't be that busy, I've only got one baby..." Now, I don't care! One or ten... there just ain't any lounging around time folks!

Yesterday I realised the week was already running away with us and as it's hubby's last holiday week, I thought I would grab an hour in the crafty zone. Again, I am having to let go of all my OCD crafty thoughts and just get stuck in. No time to tweak,, fiddle or twiddle... 

I was feeling dotty in both mind and ink so all the more reason to join in the same themed fun over at Simon Says Stamp. Back to my vintage roots in colour and style...

I would have loved to have created something bigger but I only had an hour, so just a card. Otherwise it'll be Christmas by the time it gets finished. Hmmm, sounds like my housework. Hey-ho, put it on the list girl and go and watch TGBBO instead!
Right, time to sign off here. Until soon, Sarah.

Splodges, wonky bits and PJs...

is kind of how it is in both real and crafty life. Signing in at WOYWW to gently flaunt my oh so messy stuff. Yesterday, after a mad week of a teething toddler, I announced my retreat to the inky zone and so it was up to baby to walk the hubby. The kiddo has found her feet and is already in training for a marathon. I need eyes in the back of my everything...

As you can see I am a scrupulously neat crafter, I always clean up and put away my stash. Well once a leap year then.
I dived into a trio of tags inspired by a Wendy Vecchi post about using up your left overs. Seeing as that is all that is ever on my desk, it should be a doddle...

Gone are my former days of timeless inky dabblings, so I dived in and decided to just go for it.

Wonky stamping, splodges of paint, blobs of frisky glue... just embrace it girl. I even stayed in my PJs to win more time!

There's a great "Carnival" theme over at Simon Says Stamp (sigh, my old DT) so I decided a blast of full blown colour was just fine. Do all these colours go together?I dunno. In my Carnival imagination I see a hundred Brazilian Samba dancers jiggling their be-sequinned derrières and feathers. It's all voluptuous, glitter and neon catsuits...

Hmmm. Not the best pics of the colours... The sun was fading fast and Ruby was eating the fuchsias. Anyway, as said, I'm taking it as it comes today which is better than not getting it at all.

Thank you so much to all who called by last week and the lovely comments. I'm hoping to squeeze in a some blog hopping if I can blackmail the baby, oops toddler, into giving me the i-pad.

Farewell for now,
Sarah.

What, what, what's on your workdesk Wednesday?

Hello there and welcome to my blog and desk...both back from the brink of beyond! Finally, I managed to scrape a few spare moments together and say a brief bonjour to my craft room (albeit with a feisty baby tugging at my leg and little fingers trying to sneak an ink pad off the table...) Seems like life with my little one just gets busier and busier lately. I think I might have to wait for the infamous teenage years for a day off or a lie in. Anyway, I'm glad to join the ranks of all the other mid week exhibitionists over at WOYWW?  This is my desk and debris after a dabble with a tag or two...

As I have no brain space for thinking, let alone inking, I needed a bit of inspiration to get going, so I decided to play along with the August tag from Mr. Tim. It's another huuuuge tag but I think I will turn it into a card by adding a tag shaped base. Another one for the collection then. My craft room is at bursting point as all the projects and design pieces room from the last few years pile up. What do you do with all your "stuff you make"???

Well, the clock ticks on and I am determined to visit my bed before silly o'clock arrives. Here's to a week with plenty of what you need, like and fancy! Be seeing you soon... Sarah.

Craft Stamper Make it Challenge and Stuff...!

Hello Everyone,
By golly I blinked and August appeared from nowhere! I have been a bit AWOL for the last two weeks... Summer holidays, busy babies and an "oh so messy" house do not leave a lot of time for inky stuff but I have found a few moments to create a little something for the Craft Stamper Take it, Make it Blog Challenge where we are inviting you to play around with acetate in any way you like! Check out this months Craft Stamper Magazine to see a great flowers and shakers article by Kim Costello for acetate inspiration galore!

So, if like me, you are a bit short of time, this is a fun and easy idea to create an eye catching design. These Wendy Vecchi butterflies are my favourite "go-to" stamps and I knew they would look great teamed up with some bright Alcohol Inks.

 I pounced Wild Plum and Pool Alcohol Inks onto an acetate sheet and then stamped the Butterflies in Black Archival Ink. Heat set or leave to dry. You must stamp on the opposite side otherwise the inks will react. Trim closely and bend slightly for extra dimension.

My card base has been splattered with a dose of Vibrant Turquoise Dylusions Ink Spray, then I added a few lines of random stitching before glueing the butterflies in place with Matt Medium. The Mr. Tim sentiment is stamped in Dusty Concord Distress Ink and a few Chit Chat words add a pop of brown. Round, distress and ink the corners and we are done!

 So there you go, a little weekend inspiration with acetate. I do hope you will join in our challenge and make a play for this great prize...
Thanks for calling by. See you next time...
Sarah.

WOYWW????

Firstly, I am going to be a real Brit and wave a flag and a nappy for the new Royal Prince. Welcome your royal highness. Blue blood or not, they all do great bottom burps in public!

This WOYWW? post comes in full holiday fashion live from the Belgian coast where it is also...phew, a scorcher!  Just a short walk from the sea and hooray a breeze too. After the terrible packing palaver (sigh...) and enduring a testing lifetime (well, so it seemed) entertaining my "Why am I held hostage" baby in the car, we skimmed over the Channel and on to   Blankenberge which is as traditional as you can get as seasides go... Ice cream, chips, holiday shops full of twaddle, promenade jammed with kiddies on bikey stuff, and the entertaining full range of brown, red and white bodies...
So not much of a craft desk to see...  I just managed to grab some magazines in the hope of finding a few moments to let my mind imagine what I might create during a fantasy free day of inkiness... Who knows? Maybe I can alter those stacking cups or emboss the
Lego?

Right, time to go, it's taken hours to write this on the iPad with a random Internet connection I found floating past the window. But, hey, I made it!

Bye for now. Leaving you with Ruby on the ferry who was so excited to see so much floor space and  water... I was excited to see a cuppa and a catch a whiff of Eau d'holiday...
See you next week my dears.
Sarah.

Wednesday's child...is never asleep when I'm blogging...

So the fact that I am even able to get a WOYWW post up at all is a miracle. Hubby is away on a school trip abroad so this is going to be a sweaty, skinny and speedy post indeed. It is HOT, HOT, HOT! I won't start the debate of love it or hate it.. It all depends on what you're doing and who with. Nuff said.
Here is my desk which is in constant limbo at the moment. A quick sweep up of the scraps seems to be trying to tell me something!

 I did manage to grab a little time to make just one card inspired by Tim's July tag. Takes me two weeks to finish a card these days...

A little close up, the pictures will have to do the talking 'cos I sure ain't got time...

To finish a quick snap of a rather sweaty baby on the loose in my craft room! Help! I think my days are numbered.

Enjoy the desk hopping and have a good week.

Happy WOYWWing to all...
Sarah.

What's on your workdesk Wednesday?

Good morning to the mid week crafty moment known as What's on your workdesk Wednesday? hosted by Mrs. "Bust-My-Big-Shot" Dunnit. I can't believe I am here for another week as I thought last week might be a one hit wonder. Every week I think to myself that life with a baby can't get any busier. One little person is intent to prove me wrong and now that Ruby's nap phobia and i-pad envy have set in, my visits to Bloggy land are like gold-dust.

Meanwhile back on Planet Desk we have a few signs of life. As usual a very grubby craft mat and this was the clean side. A tag in progress. A huuuuuuuge tag at that too. I think I mis-read the measurements in my haste to get an order in and ended up with these whoppers. A rather kitsch clock too, thanks to car booty hubby. Tis a wee bit too Michelangelo for me. Hmmm, the jury is still out on a possible revamp.

I just played around with paint, ink and sprays on my tag to keep the fingers and mind well-oiled. After a pretty organised and disciplined life, I am still learning the art of go with the flow in my now very domestic domain and that led to me making up this statement. It seems to me that getting the pink spray ink out is a cue for a needy baby moment. I should have taken up Origami.

Well, I will love you and leave you as it is Silly O' Clock yet again and time doth ticketh. Thank you so much to all who called by last week and welcomed me back. Hoping to catch up with you all soon.
Farewell for now,
Sarah.

WHAT'S ON YOUR WORKDESK WEDNESDAY???

Well goodness, gracious me...scrape me off the floor...'tis a miracle. After many mummy months of missing in action I am returning to the realms of WOYWW? I have always been a very much 'on the go' type of gal, had a career in theatre and I really thought I knew what tired and busy felt like. Then I had a baby... Which has caused me to redefine rather a lot of words in my dictionary of life. Tidy being top of the list... I must say my house is not quite as bad as my desk but I wouldn't put any money on it long term....

After a fabulous long stint of designing for Simon Says Stamp & Show, I have decided to step down from DT land, go down a crafting gear and just be a mum.... AND rekindle the pleasure of doing a bit of inky stuff just for me. I really hope I can find my WOYWW groove again as it is always such a welcoming and fun place to hang out in! Whatever state life and crafting finds you in...

My fingers are still recovering from many years of vintage, grungy crafting so I  decided to visit the opposite spectrum and with a CAS card for an old crafty haunt of mine "Less is More". .

I figured I could soon whip up a card in my ultra-skinny free time but I had forgotten that white space and my desk had parted company many moons ago. The theme is a birthday card for Jen Nelson. Very different to my normal style but I loved it all the same and it was all for fun, so that is a good start to my new 'go with the flow' crafting journey...

And here is the reason for the shift in my universe... a familiar face to many vintage WOYWWers... my Ruby who just turned one last week Loves to clap, hates to nap, on the go, never slow, can't stop talking and started walking! Still a charmer and full time bag of beans until late each night. Yaaaaawn. Gets away with everything with that face.
Well, I am still in shock that I have managed this post so I shall depart in a state of elation and see you all soon...
Happy WOYWWing to all! Sarah.

A Crafting Curtain Call...

Hello there! Well, this weeks post is both a little inky and teary as this will be my LAST design piece for Simon Says Stamp & Show. Sniff, sniff and gulp indeed.
After much thought and quite an emotional struggle, I have decided to take a break from the fabulous but also demanding world of DT life and spend more time with my family. Not any DT though.The amazingly, wonderful, awesome team here at Simon Says Stamp. I have had THE most incredible time and I couldn't have wished for a more rewarding and fantastic creative journey. I am truly honoured and thankful for such an opportunity. I just want to say a HUGE, heartfelt thank you to Heidi, Steph, May (and Linda Elbourne!) and all my wonderful team-mates who have become good friends. I will miss them dearly.
As many of you know, I became a mum to Ruby last year and she will be one this week already! Everyone warned me that my crafty time would be scarce. I was ready for that, but I wasn't quite prepared to completely lose my heart to my little gal! Also, as much as I still adore designing, I have found it increasingly difficult to combine family life and quality time to create on a level with which I am happy. Yes, I am a self-confessed perfectionist. My uber-fab hubby works long hours so I can be a SAHM and we need more time at the weekends to all be together. As I said to my team-mates, my ink-pads will wait, but Ruby's baby days won't. I still plan to create, just in a lower gear, so hopefully it is just farewell, not goodbye.
With that, let me make the most of today and share a bit of Krafty crafting...

This week is all about Kraft - in every shape and form. Be it some yummy cardstock, an office envelope or even a lunch bag, let the brown tones rule! I ended up dabbling with Kraft tags, corrugated cardboard and some Amazon book packaging!

I decided to break open my still uninked set of classic Tim stamps and pondered how to combine the three images in one piece. A pear, a dragonfly and a compass. Hmmmmm. After thinking on a more symbolic level and using wording, I thought they all could represent phases in life. How apt for my own moment in time!

I started by stamping the images onto scraps of Mica sheets in Archival Ink. I heat set them and also let them dry overnight to avoid smudging.

 I didn't worry if the image was incomplete. I like the fragmented look! Then I set to work on creating the tag bases. Good old stitching and stamping!

To create more dimension and to allow the images to stand out, I used torn cardboard to create layers adding gesso for more contrast. They needed a bit more interest and depth so the string was a good trick to achieve that and give support to the Mica.

If you don't have any Mica you can use a roughly cut piece of Acetate sheet and colourize it (on the back so as to protect the stamped image) with a little Alcohol ink. I glued the mica to the tags with Matt Medium. I  carefully applied small dots on the back where the stamped image was so it would not be seen from the front.

These are definitely my favourite and signature tones so I just had to dive into my Idea-ology stash, grunge them up and let myself get carried away in metal fun

Trinket pins, Philosophy tags and Swivel Clasps are all so versatile and great to play with. I have used Alcohol Inks to darken the metal.

The base for the tags is a piece of Tissue Wrap which I have white washed with Gesso and then aged with Distress Ink and splatters... I added a length of old crochet lace for texture and what I call "grounding" for my tags. The lace connects the tags to the base...

Here you can see the words I added to each tag to create the right mood and connection. I used my typewriter which gives me all the wordy freedom I could wish for....

Seasons, grow, fleeting, flight, destiny, journey... plus a few vintage buttons and inky ties for good measure.

The white base is then set on a piece of sturdy cardboard. I think the Amazon book packaging is  fabulous for this kind of thing. It is so sturdy! They breed under my crafty table... as do dirty stamps and ribbon rage bags. I finished the piece with the word 'Voyage" which really tied it all together.

Here is a more angled view to give you an impression of the layers. I really enjoyed creating this piece and felt very inspired... and happy with the finished piece. That was a great way to round off things, don't you think? On a high...

Let's stay on a happy note and allow me to say such an enormous thank you to ALL of you. So much support, so many wonderful visits, loyalty and compliments. You are all so good to me. I appreciative all your time and words. Thank you is not enough. I just hope you have been inspired along the way. I will now love you and leave you with a picture of Ruby, which kind of says it all. She is my joy and I am so blessed to have been given her.

So now it's over to you and time for you to get busy with some Krafty Crafting! Take a look at how the rest of the Design Team played around with the challenge here! All their creations are fabulous as always. Do join in! Simon says Stamp are on the hunt for the top three artists and there is this very generous $50 voucher to be won too.

As I said, farewell, not goodbye. Until the next time. Stay healthy, happy and inspired!
With much love,
Sarah.