Monster journal page

 Hello again and welcome back or welcome for the first time, thanks for stopping by. Last day of 2012 here and I have to say I am glad the whole Xmas thing is over for another year, It was great but it does go on maybe a little to long, Sep-Dec is a tad silly.
 Xmas was great here, loads of new crafting goodies to learn how to use and I can not wait to have a good ol play with the new toys.
 Today I have another little journal page from my mole skin journal. Over Xmas I have been playing around with my copics, I have used them before but not felt very confident with them and the use of digi images so I thought it was the perfect time to sit and have a go,to see if I could get to a point where I was happy, it was also a great thing to do with the better half whilst watching the TV. We both coloured up some back grounds a little while back and printed some Octopode Factory images out ready if, you follow the link you can check out some awesome images, I have found them to be brilliant for my journal pages as they can be fussy cut quite easily.This image is called 'Frankie Boy'

The back ground was sprayed with dylusion sprays and then stamped with 3 different Tim Holtz stamps, the big text stamp from the Papillion set, the cob web from one of his Halloween sets and the frame boarder is from one of the new classic sets. I used archival inks, Light blue for the text, dark blue for the web and black for the frame. The Monster letters are from the Salvage stickers. Frankie was finished off by clear embossing, I find it really brings the colours out and helps to protect the main image from getting dirty in the journal..
 As always a great big thank you, I have now been blogging for 8 months and its the first end of year for me in blog land, It has been great fun but its the comments and visits from you guys that really makes it. So thank you very much and I hope to see you all next year for more crafty madness.

I would like to enter this into a few challenges.

Over at the Octopode Factory they are having an Anything Goes challenge.

Forever Night Creepy Challenges are also having an anything goes challenge.

I would also like to enter this into the challenge over at Simon Says Stamp And Show, they are having an Anything Goes challenge.


Crafting With Creative M are having an anything goes challenge.

Anything But Card Your Fave project from 2012 or Anything Goes

 Hello and welcome, thank you for stopping by.I hope you all had a good Xmas and are still enjoying some time off getting ready for the new year.
 Over at Anything But A Card we are looking back over the last 12 crafting months and are having a look at our favourite projects or if you like you can create something new, Anything Goes. (just no cards).
 This is one of my favourites from this year, It's my Elephant canvas, full details on how I made it are HERE.
 Although this was made in the summer I held onto it for an Xmas present for my girl friends brother, the last few years he has been giving us Scale models of some of the elephants from The Elephant Parade that hit London in 2010 and goes all around the world to raise money for the elephants and their natural habitats that are being destroyed.This year I was given one of the elephant that you can decorate your self so stay tuned so to speak, very nervous about painting him up.
 I look forward to having you come and join us and will enjoy re visiting your favourite past project from 2012.
As always a big thank you for stopping by, the comments you leave mean so much, so Thank You.

Soul Journal page

Hello everyone.Hope you are all set for Xmas and In good spirits.
Just a quick post today, I have been playing around with my Mole skin journal thing again, the paper is so nice to work on. This is my first attempt at mono chrome and I am quite pleased with the way it turned out.The main Image is from the Octopode Factory and is called Zombie Rag Doll, I was lucky enough to win her and a couple of others images last week over at their challenge blog. Details can be found bellow as I'll be entering this for their current challenge.
The mushrooms and leaves are from Dyan Reaveley, the leaves have been stamped with grey Memento ink, the mushrooms have been stamped in black and coloured in with Copics.I am still getting my head around using Copics but progress is being made slowely lol. For both the main image and the shrooms I used only the grey shades, both warm and cold groups for a little contrast. The rays behind Dolly are from a mask and I used some distress ink. The word Soul was added as I thought she looked like she was transcending to the heavens.Well in my little head any ways ;)
There, told you it would be quick this time ;)
Thank you for stopping by, I hope you all have a fantastic Xmas or what ever Holliday you celebrate.
I really appreciate all your time in stopping by and leaving comments.
Merry Xmas  Mark x

I would like to enter this into the challenge over at the Octopode Factory they are having an Anything Goes challenge.

Alice journal page

Hello again, Hope all is well where you are. It's definitely winter time as I have managed to make 3 posts this week, sorry about that, there may even be one more by the end of the weekend.
A little while back my gf bought me a Moleskin book after I saw the one Lindsay Mason had been working on, the paper is just lovely to work with.
 I coloured up a couple of pages a couple of months ago and left it there as I had no real idea where to go with it, I found myself looking through it last week and decided to do a little bit more blending of the colours, the initial colours are from the Dylusion sprays, last week I went over with some of the Distress inks, mustard and Persimmon just to soften the colour changes.The boarder was doodled on and that's when the ideas started to come, the blue/green felt like the perfect porthole for the Stampotique stamp and the Dylusion doodle stamps added to the boarder, I coloured a couple of the squiggles in as the page needed to be toned down.I also used the Tim hexagon stamp with some red archival ink to give more texture to the bg. For me this was having quite a trippy fantastical feel to it so I paid a visit to the Octopode Factory to grab a few of the Alice In Wonderland images, You can not fail to find something there that will float your boat, they do

rubber stamps as well as Digital images.
These are digi images, I printed them out and coloured them in with copic's and then clear embossed over the top just to make the colours pop and to keep them clean. The sentiment Is from Dyan Reaveley and reads 'the world of reality has it's limits but the world of imagination is boundless' I thought it fit quite well. Finally I added a few clock charms just to keep the Alice In Wonderland theme going.





I would like to enter this into a couple of challenges,

The Octopode Factory are having a Triangles challenge, basically use at least one triange somewhere on your piece.

Over at the Altered Alice they are having a share your Alice projects type thing this month.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you are all keeping well and all set for the xmas Holls. Your comments are very much apreciated and loved. Thank you. x

Fun With ATC's Pick A Song

Well another fortnight has passed and it's time for another challenge over at Fun With ATC's this week we are having a 'Pick A Song' Challenge,It can be any song you like, your favourite song, a song you grew up listening to or even something festive.
 Now I love Song/music challenges as I listen to lots of music, the trouble I have is narrowing it down to just one song or artist.
About a month ago my Gf and myself  took my mum to see a Roy Orbison tribute act at our local theatre, his support act was a Johny Cash tribute, Both were really good and it was a great night, I have listened to both for years but for some reason that night was the first time I heard the song Orange Blossom Special.
I knew this challenge was coming up and I could see this ATC as the song played it's self out.
If you do not know the song here is a LINK  It might make my ATC make sense.
I started by printing off an old american rail road map and sticking it to an ATC blank cut from mount board, this was distressed with old paper and linen distress inks, i then went in with a little broken china and painted in the areas which are water. the train was stamped and fussy cut out of normal card stock and colour was added with copics, I then clear embossed over the whole thing.The flowers were cut using Tim's strip die and embossed with frantage embossing powder. the music notes are from Tando, coloured the sam red as the train and again clear embossed. I also found a picture of a harmonica on the net, shrunk it down and clear embossed that as well just for good measure ;)
I also made a matching tag, I quite like to do this at times, it's a good way to reinforce the techniques you have just used, The only thing that is different is the train stamp, the one I used on the ATC was to small.
This tag was made for a swap with my blog friend Trace from InkyPinkyCraft
we did a swap earlier in the year and decided to go for round two, Hopefully my tag has made it to Trace by now.

Here is the beautiful tag Made by Trace, she has used the song Wires by Athlete as her inspiration.









As always it would be great to see as many of you as poss entering our challenge.And again as always such a big thank you for stopping by and taking the time to have a look around.Happy blog hopping. x

Anything But A Card seasonal challenge.

Hello and welcome, Today I have my DT piece for Anything But A Card, We are celebrating the Light or  Seasonal Holidays, there is still one week left and I am sure many of you have a seasonal project that can be entered, I would love to see you over there, whilst your there you can see the amazing work the other members of the DT have created.

Now as some of you know, Xmas is not really my thing, I love it when it comes round but the build up is way to long and I really can't do xmas carols, so I found this a real challenge, It took me ages to think of something I could make and then I thought of my favourite Xmas film Rare Exports, A Christmas Tale
Ok, now this might not be every body's cuppa but if you have a dark twisted sense of humour and like a weird kind of horror then this is for you.

I decided to make another distressed picture frame. The image is the logo from Rare Exports and was found on the internet, It was printed onto craft card and then given a faux enamel look, this technique can be found in Tim Holtz's Compendium vol 1.
the frame has been given a chipped tin effect, I learnt this on the on line work shop Time Worn by Andy Skinner.
The letters are from Tando Creative and have been painted yellow and then swiped over with some walnut stain.

Thank you all for stopping by, I know time is at a premium this time of the year, but hopefully I will see you over at Anything But A Card. Happy crafting.

I would like to enter this into the challenge over at Poisoned Peas Please they are having a twisted holidays theme.

More ATC's and a tag for a couple of swaps.

Ok so I have a few more ATC's to share (and a tag), A little while ago a blog friend of mine Fiona My Artful Muse sent me some ATC's for my daughter She also sent me some as well along with a couple of beautiful pictures,  She is the queen of digital art, her work is always blowing me away. See below and you will understand what I am talking about.Like me, Fiona likes to play with the dark side at times so we decided on a creepy/horror style swap.
 This first ATC Is a digital image from Smeared Ink they have loads of amazing images and although I am not a big digi user, I can not help but grab several of their designs. After printing the image off I stuck it to an ATC blank cut from mount board, I used concord and persimmon and blended them, the whole thing was covered in UTEE and I glued a few spider charms over the top, these were picked up in the bead shop in Brighton.

The second ATC started as a single, Its a big stamp from Viva Les Vegas Stamps and after finishing the first one I realised I could cover 2 ATC's and make them a joint scene. This takes me back to when as a kid I would collect stickers and cards many of them being part of a bigger picture, if that makes sense?  I stamped the image and heat embossed with a fine black, the colour was added using Distress inks as paints. Nice and simple but has a real day of the dead feel about it.

I find ATC's the perfect way to try new techniques. I have been wanting to try some gold leafing and again decided to try and keep it simple and hopefully effective.  The image was stamped using the leafing glue, Its very sticky, so clean your stamps straight away, The gold leaf is from Indigo Blue. I sanded the edge of the mount board to reveal the white and stained the edge with the Persimmon stain and I added a few black gems for some understated bling.
The stamp is from Paper Artsy, one of their Halloween sets,  I really love this skull stamp.







For the first time I made multiples of the same ATC as I also had a Swap with another Blog friend who runs the Fun With ATC's blog Caro I hope they do not mind? I found it a good way to reinforce the learning if you are trying new things. I also made this tag for Caro.
Again I used mount board, It is just so much better to work with than normal thin card, Like the skull ATC I sanded the edges and used Persimmon ink to add colour, the web stamp is from Tim Holtz and has been embossed in fine white powder, the house, Boo and 31 are also from Tim, the Boo and 31 have been embossed with vintage white frantage enamel and the house was stamped with a wood grain stamp and embossed with a copper powder which acted as a resist when staining the house with distress inks, I added some transparent red paper for the windows and stained a bit of ribbon, finally I added a die cut spider.

These are the amazing bits of art that Fiona sent me, unfortunately I my daughter took hers home with her before I could take pics.


The first four are the the ATC's she sent me, the final piece is just a little smaller than A4 and sits on my craft room wall.






Thank you for stopping by, reading your comments always puts a smile on my face, so thank you.

Baby Doll ;)

Hello again and thank you for stopping by. today I have for you a porcelain dolls head which I have had a little play with to make it look a little less girly ;)
 I was inspired once again by something I saw on Andy Skinners blog. I  am wanting to create something a little bigger around the dolls head but I just do not have the bits and bobs I need so for now I have decorated a box frame for my doll.
 I started by heading to Oxfam where I picked up a horrible doll, went straight home and harvested her for the parts ;) The head was painted with acrylic pain and given a 2 step crackle finish, brown paint was rubbed over the top and wiped away so it would stay in the cracks.
 The light bulb fixture is from a box of car bits that was in the garage. It was mounted onto some card and glues in place to cover the hole in her head,It was given a rust finish that was learnt on Andy Skinners time Worn workshop. I also rusted the bottom, I wanted a chipped rusty enamel look.
 I needed to keep the fram light and simple as the dolls head is quite a heavy piece and has enough colour.
It was base coated in Paper Artsy's fresco acrylic in mushroom and then using deco arts peeled paint finish I top coated with one of Deco arts creamier whites. The Tim Holtz Number was aged up with some alcohol inks. I really love these numbers and can not stop myself from adding them to most things.
The backing paper for the box was cut from plain card, aged using old paper,linen and pumice stone distress ink pads, the images were stamped in pumice stone and frayed burlap. I went for cogs and a wire mesh stamped randomly just to add to the grunge and industrial look. The edge of the paper was distressed with vintage photo and walnut stain just to add more age and depth.

Hope fully she wont freak to many of you out ;)

Thank you so much for stopping by. It really means so much to have you stop by and leave a comment.

I would like to enter this into a couple of challenges.

Smudgy Antics are having an Alter Something challenge.

Crafty Emblies have just switched to an Altered Art challenge blog and they are having a Vintage Shabby Chic challenge.

Over at Raise The Bar they are having a Blue And White challenge. Maybe not what they were thinking? ;)

Frilly And Funkie are having a Light in the Darkness challenge.  The light bulb is my light and what I have done to Dolly is the Darkness lol ;)

Fun With ATC's Embossing

Well its that time again over at Fun With ATC's The new challenge for the next two weeks is 'Embossing' You can use any type of embossing that gets you going, heat embossing with the wide range of powders and enamels out their or by using embossing folders. Or any other ways you can come up with ;)
 We had a great turn out for our Faces challenge and hopefully we will get even more of you along to play this fortnight.
The Dt have come up with some awesome ATC's for some great ideas and inspiration, follow the link and stop by.

For my ATC I used both heat embossing and a folder.I started as always by cutting my ATC from some mount board and colouring the bg with Distress inks, orange and yellow, I then stamped over the whole ATC with a Cover the Card stamp in orange archival ink.The main image is from Lynne Perrella's range from Paper Artsy, I have been looking at this range for ages needing an excuse to get a set, Very hard to choose as they are all brilliant. She was stamped in black archival. I then went round the edges with black Distress ink to give a boarder and to even out the amount of black ink. The whole ATC was then covered in UTEE  I love doing this as it really brings the colours and details out. the cover a card stamp is now much more visable because of the UTEE, she now looks like she is wearing Adam Ant make up ;)
I die cut a fleur de lis and used distress inks to colour it blue, it was ran through an embossing folder and then gone over with darker blues and then a tiny amount of black distress ink to finish it off, you can also just make out some vintage script in there as well, this was stamped with blue archival ink.The fleur was cut to fit and glued down with some silicon based glue. finally I added the dream token and the Tim Holtz crown to tie in with te Fleur de lis.

Thank you for stopping by as always.Hopefully I will see you over at Fun With ATC's

I would like to enter this into a couple of challenges.

Artistic Inspirations are having an Anything Goes challenge.

The Crazy Challenge are having an Autumn Colour challenge. reds and oranges always remind me of the leaves, and the blue is for the nice crisp sky's you get on cold days.

Totally Stampalicious are having an Anything But A Card challenge.

Over at Try It On Tuesday they are having an Anything Goes/Let's Get Inky challege

The Octopode Factory are having a Words challenge, I have used the word Dream for my ATC

Atc's With Attitude are having an Anything Goes challenge.

Anything But A Card, By the sea/ inspiration pic

Morning all, Thank you so much for stopping by.
Today I have my first DT piece for Anything But A Card  I have been a big fan of this blog since it started a few months back, An awesome DT and was honoured to be asked to be a part of it.
 We are having a By the Sea challenge, you can either use this picture 
Or create a sea side inspired project.
 I decided to use the sea side as my inspiration.As a child we would have our family holliday in the New Forest camping, many of the days would be spent on Bournemouth beach or at Pool Harbour, Dad and myself would go on one of the fishing day trips whilst my Mum and Sister would decorate plates in Pool Potery.
For the frame I used one of Andy Skinners Time Worn techniques for peeled paint, I wanted the washed out shabby beach hut look. The Stamped image is from Paper Artsy, they have so many fantastic images to choose from, this trawler reminded me of the days out fishing with my Dad. I painted it with Distress inks and then matt glue n sealed over the top so I could ink the back ground with out the colours being affected.The back ground has been done with distress inks in Old paper, linnen and pumice stone, the edges have been done with vintage photo and then walnut stain to give a shabby feel. I finally used the water drop technique to give it an even more aged look.
The seven seas stamp is from the same set as the boat, I also used a Tim Holtz stamp to add some texture,behind the boat, I quickly cut out a mask for the boat and stamped over the top.I adde an old shell and A crab the was stamped onto shrink plastic, Again he is from the same Paper Artsy set.

For even more inspiration head over to Anything But A Card to see what the other DT members have been up too.  There is still one week left to get your projects in, I look forward to seeing as many of you joining in as possible.
As always a big thank you for stopping by and leaving comments.

I would like to enter this into a couple of challenges.

Challenges 4 everybody are having an Anything Goes challenge.

Crafty-Emblies are having a Vintage Shabby Chic challenge.They also sell some amazing chip board products.