Steampunk Bird Tag

This week Basically Bare featured my Steampunk Bird Tag on their blog, and I wanted to share it here too for anyone that may have missed it...

I made the base of the tag look like rusty metal using a copper paint dabber and the fab Letraset Alcohol Inks and used Basically Bare elements and Kuretake Pens to create my mechanical bird, there are also some Tim Holtz elements in there too - how I could I make a grungy project without them!

You can see the full details on how I made this here on the Basically Bare blog.

Thanks for looking!
Sarah x

A New Week!

A new week always feels like a new beginning, a clean slate whether the previous one has been good or bad and another whole 5 days to catch up with the never ending "to-do" list!!

Today I realised that one of my favourite papers from 'Woodland Whimsies' I hadn't even used yet!! so I decided to make a quick 'Timmy Tag' (named of course after the fab Tim Holtz) these are a great way to have a quick burst of creativity, get your mojo back or try something new, I just LOVE tags! Here is my home one with my favourite paper and one of my flowers from the CD.

The pattern is so retro and reminds me of an old 1950's apron or something you would see in an Enid Blyton book. This is on the 'Woodland Whimsies' CD - there are oranges and apples. I've inked this one round the edges to make it look more grungy and vintagey. The great thing about working with bright colours is that you can always do this, distress it and make it look vintage. If you start from vintagey / grungy you can't go the other way!

Tomorrow the Christmas CD - Christmas Cheer - goes off for production and I'll get them all a couple of days later - can't wait to get these out to the DT team, I'm so excited about this CD - I thought it was just first time nerves with the first ones but it seems I really do get *this* excited about every product and design!! That can only be a good thing!

Tomorrow I'll have another sneak peek for you and later in the week I'll be telling you about something else I've been working on!

Tomorrow and Wednesday I'll be looking through the DT applications and e-mailing everyone so keep an eye on your inbox!

Wednesday or Thursday we will also be spending a whole day looking through the Afternoon Tea applications and will contact everyone after that.

This is SUCH a busy week but I'm not complaining! Luckily I have a fabby team helping me and I'm really grateful to them for all of their support.

This weekend we will be launching the Challenge Blog with a Blog Hop - so look out for details - there are some fab prizes to be won!

Lastly I HAVE to share the CUTEST pic of Fuzzybutt, we were playing scrabble last night and of course she just had to join in.....

isn't she just the most adorable little thing?!

Sarah x

Layouts & Timmy Tags

Going through some of my Scrapbook pages this week (in a vain attempt to tidy up, ha!) I noticed that I don't have a single one of me and B (my other half) can you believe that?? and after we got engaged last year and everything - sooooo much I could have scrapped about!! Anyway, to quickly right that wrong I made a quick layout of us - ahhhh bless, arent we sweet, LOL

I have also ordered some more prints of our lovely mini break in York last year and of course of my gorge engagement ring, so plenty more luvey dovey scrapping to come - yay!

I've also been experimenting with some rubber stamping this week with my lovely new distress inks and some of my old favourites - Im still in love with my Adirondack inks even though I've had them forever! The colours are just lovely - especially Stream - I'm obssessed with it. Taking inspiration from Tim Holtz and as I'm very impatient I decided to do some "Timmy Tags" gives me a chance to play around and experiment without messing up any of my lovely stash. I used some of my Tim Holtz stamps and a new set from Prima that go so well with them (available from Scrapshed soon!) I'll be getting a couple of the other sets next week now, I was well impressed and I really wasn't expecting to be as they were so cheap!

My faves were this one:

Note the use of 'Stream' for the music notes (one of the Prima stamps I mentioned) and this one is my absolute fave:

Only because I got to use the scary eye gouged from a dolly - mwahahahahaha! Doing this also made me reflect how my style changes from day to day - one day making cutesy stuff using lines like October Afternoon and My Little Shoebox (2 of my faves) and the next day grunging (yes, it is a word!) it up with Tim Holtz stuff, bits of old metal, melting dolls faces and gouging their eyes out etc..... I'm either versatile or quite mad - I'll let you be the judge!

Right, thats all for now, got to go and whip up a card for B as its his Birthday tomorrow!

x