Finished it ....

PHOTO HEAVY!!

.... Morning! It's been quite a while since I posted anything remotely creative! Well this morning, I'm sharing pictures of my completed black Dyalog insert book. I started working on this book when I came back to the UK last summer. I spent many happy evenings in different hotels doodling backgrounds, adding images and words to my pages. I shared some of those pages on the Facebook Dyalog & Creative Dyary group last year. I spent some time this past weekend in my craft room finishing off the last few papes - and it's all done now.

I'm going to enter the current Love to Craft Challenge - LTCCB#35 where it's Anything Goes. Here's one of the spreads I worked on:

Inks: Dylusions Spray Inks - Postbox Red, Polished Jade; Posca - White Paint Pen 0.7mm bullet nib
Accessories: Dyalog Black Insert Book #1; Image from Dylusions Colouring Sheets #1; Nuvo Aqua Shimmer Glitter Gloss

I started on the right-hand page by drawing the boxes by hand - hence the wobbly lines! I added lots of different doodle designs using a white Posca pen. I picked one of my favourite images from the colouring sheets book, cut it out and adhered it to the page. I doodled the border, added a touch of colour using my paint pens (Tim Holtz water brushes filled with Dylusions spray inks), and finshed off by adding the quote. Sadly, you can't see the sparkle on the little labels on her coat from the shimmer pen - it's so pretty!!

Here are the rest of the images from the completed book - I had such fun working on this and can't wait to work on more.

Apart from one "oops" I used only Polished Jade and Postbox Red inks as the spot colours, on the "oops" page I used Cut Grass and London Blue. Most of the stencils are also from Dylusions. I do hope you've enjoyed looking at my black Dyalog.

We are fully settled back into our house in Wales - so nice to be home, but I do missed Scrappy Chic and Stampeddlar - my local craft stores in Michigan. I am fortunate to have Dyan's shop - Art from the Heart, here in the UK, but it is a three hour drive from where I live. I will be visiting later this year - more of that later.

Life here is very busy. I'm almost recovered from the surgery I had on my ankle - cast off and now having physio and learning to walk with my new fixed ankle. We've done renovations on our two main bathrooms, and will be started work on converting a couple of rooms on the ground floor and the double garage into a suite for my mum. She can't wait to move into her new place. After that we'll be renovating the kitchen - but more of that much later.

That's all for now - thanks so much for sticking with me. I hope to get back into a more regular pattern of posts again soon. See you!

A special thanks ....

... Hello! When I moved to Michigan in 2012 I was fortunate to find a craft shop, Stampeddler, in my local town of Northville. And I've been a regular visitor since then. However, it took me somewhat longer to find Scrappy Chic on 8 Mile in Livonia - but I've really enjoyed it since then and attended several classes there. It's a fun shop. At the beginning of last month the owner, Chris, notified her customers that she was having close the shop. She was hoping to find someone to buy. In the meantime, we were all very sad, but completely under Chris's reasons.

Following the visit of Dyan Reaveley in 2015, a group called the Scrappy Chic Kitchen Roll Sprayers was formed and we meet on the last Sunday of every month at Scrappy Chic. It's been a fabulous time and we decided to make a thank Tag book for Chris. Michelle organised it and has, hopefully, given it to Chris by now. So I'm going to share with you the tag that I made for her.

Stamps: Dylusions - Background Love, Oh Deer!, Word Love, Around the Edge, Passage of Time, Basic Backgrounds, Graphic Background; Dylusions Clear Stamps - Clearly the Right Words, Mushrooms; Dina Wakley Stamps - Assorted Borders, Handwritten Quotes; Paper Source - Hamsa Hand
Inks & Paints: Dylusions Paints - Lemon Zest, Fresh Lime, London Blue; Archival Ink - Jet Black, Manganese Blue, Leaf Green; Distress - Walnut Stain; Stampin' Up! - Crushed Curry; Memento - Tuxedo Black
Accessories: Dylusions Media Media #12 Tag; White Lustre Card; Copics; Wink of Stella - Clear, Green, Yellow; Signo White Pen; Sharpie Black Pen; Stencil - Tim Holtz Mini Set 11; Black Aquarell Pencil; Glossy Accents; Fibres

I actually painted the tag during Dyan's last class in October using the baby wipe technique. Then I had lots of fun combining stamps and stencils to create the background. I stamped the Passage of Time woman on white card, coloured her with Copics, cut her out and adhered her to the tag. I edged the image with a black pencil and used my aqua brush to pull out the black paint. I finished by added some details with a black and white pen. On the back I added some cascading leaves which I coloured with several shades of green Wink of Stella brushes. I created a little scene at the bottom of the tag and drew in some lines for our message. To complete the tag I added some fibres from my stash.

Above are some close-up photos of the tag.

When we actually met last Sunday, we had some wonderful news about Scrappy Chic. So for all my crafty friends in the Livonia, Michigan area, Scrappy Chic is remaining open. Chris, who was the owner, has managed to sell the shop. We don't know who the new owner is yet, but the shop reopens on 4th November. Such great news!!

That's all for now - I'm off to my craft room to tidy up a bit and make some more Christmas cards. I need about 100 cards to send each year and, despite being on a Christmas Card design team, I still only have 54 cards made! So I need to get busy. See you soon.

Summer craft classes ....

... Morning! Kat and I have been lucky enough to attend a couple of really great craft weekends this summer. I should give you advance warning that this is a photo heavy post! Both weekends have been hosted by Chris and her fabulous team at Scrappy Chic in Livonia.

The first crafty weekend was in July when Finnabair (Anna) returned to Scrappy Chic.  Anna did a weekend last year, but I didn't go. Which was silly of me! However, I booked to attend all Anna's classes this year!

First up on Saturday 23rd July was a Mixed Media Canvas session. We had to bring a black and white photo - I took a photo of Kat - for the focal image. We spent the morning in mixed media heaven! I got thoroughly inky and messy and produced a wonderful canvas which I have on display in my craft room.

I had a great time creating this canvas - it's not something I'd normally do, but I'm absolutely delighted how it turned out.

The next session was to alter a clock frame. Again, this is not the kind of thing I normally do, but it was brilliant. We antiqued an old clock frame and decorated it with all sorts of embellishments. Then we got to use some wonderful mica paints to give it a beautiful glow. I decided to go with a black and lime green look:

This photo is a close up of the inside of the clock frame - you can see all the elements here.

Kat wasn't with me for the first two classes (she was recovering from Warped Tour!). However, Kat joined me on Sunday 24th July for the full day class where we worked on altering an old book. This was so much fun. We put gesso on the book cover so that all the crackle glaze and paints would adhere properly. This is my book:

You can see in the photo all the lovely crackle texture and the way we made the book look old and almost rusty.  On the inside we cut a hole in which we placed some ephemera:

We used tea to give the aged look. The inside really does look like it's rusted. It was a fabulous class.

I took a photo of all my projects together - they are all on display in the house:

Here's a photo of Kat's book and the inside:

Last week, Dina Wakley came to Scrappy Chic - her first (and hopefully not last) visit. I was lucky enough to attend the Back to Back Retreat with Dina and Dyan in Florida earlier this year, and when I showed Kat what we'd made, she wanted to meet Dina.

The first day was Friday 19th August and it was a long day for us all. We started off by creating a small board journal. We used the same technique I'd done in Florida, so this was lots of fun. I picked my favourite colours and made a lovely little book. It's not big, only about 5" x 3":

The next two sessions were about composition and colour - and we made some pages in our journals showing off what we'd learnt.

Saturday 20th August was a full day class where we made a bound book, putting into practise all we learnt the day before. Everyone had such fun and produced wonderful books. Here are a series of photos showing the pages in my book:

I haven't quite finished my book - the green textured page will have a tag on it and the last page will have a bit of colour on the image of the woman.

Finally, here's a photo of Kat with all her projects - you can see the size of the mini Board Book and the Bound Book here:

Kat with the book she made at the Finnabair class and the two books from Dina's classes.

Some pages from both Kat's book.

I am so pleased that Kat enjoys journalling and mixed media as much as I do. We are both booked to attend Dyan Reaveley's classes in October! So much to look forward too! That's all for now.