Fleur de Lys Tag and WOYWW

 I had a lovely, relaxing 'play' session in my studio yesterday and made this rather fussy tag for no reason other than the fun of it.  I flung everything at it - I stamped, crackled and foiled!  I then added some vivid blue glass beads simply because they are my latest passion!   

  

I'm linking up with Julia this week over at Whats On Your Work Desk Wednesday.

A Birthday Card for my Nephew and WOYWW

With my nephew turning 16 and not surprisingly preferring money to anything I might choose for him, I decided to make him a card that presented the cash in a more innovative way than just popping it in an envelope!  

This card is soooo not me!  Apart from the fact it's not my usual style, the whole rigmarole of paint techniques is not my strong point either.   

I covered a piece of card with foil tape, embossed it and covered it with black antiquing cream - in my ignorance little did I know it would all come off in flakes with absolute minimal contact!  I 'glued' the remaining black bits onto the silver with varnish, while keeping my fingers crossed it would all stay on!  So far, so good!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW, and if anyone out there can advise on what I should have done to stop the black paint flaking yet control how much I rub off then I'd love to hear it!

Beach Collages and WOYWW

 I really don't do the beach in summer, although I do spend many hours at our local beach out of season and love it.  Somehow the three little backgrounds I had left over from last weeks collages just screamed 'seaside' at me, helped along by me finding a piece of sea pottery with a pretty wave pattern on it! 
  

It also gave me the perfect opportunity to use more of my old clay pipe stems - they make a perfect breakwater!  The gold foil I used on all three is not showing up very well in the photos but in one of two of these detailed shots you can see the light glinting on the gold of the coral, the sea glass and the stamped seashell.

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

Three Little Collages

I was intrigued to find a piece of old crackle glazed sea pottery with what looked like a raised flower stem on it - I knew I had use it, and these three little card toppers, made on blank ATC's are what resulted.  

I lined up the little ridge in the pottery with the stem of the die cut flower, and I used the orangey/blue colour of the old crackle glaze to influence the background inks and the crackle stamping on the the die cut stems.

I'm linking up with Julia this week, over at What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday.

Autumn Leaves Tags

 Tags are made - that's the autumn birthdays dealt with, now back to Christmas card making!

 You can see the shine and detail of the foil more clearly in these close-up pictures - it was quite difficult photograph.

I'm linking up with Julia over at What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday this week.

Autumn and Halloween

Well here's a rare photo of my desk - I'm in the middle of making some autumn gift tags and as I'm making 3 there seems to be loads more mess on the table than usual.  I have been using foil and die-cut leaves - I feel they look promising but to be honest anything can happen!  They will either be finished by next week or the whole lot will be dumped in a box and never seen again!!

I've also just finished a birthday card...

...and a couple of Halloween cards.  They are all using the same three colours and the same Physalis/Chinese Lanterns die, but hopefully the birthday one (above) doesn't look too Halloweeny!

I'm finding this little church die very versatile and have used it in previous posts here and here for Christmas cards.

...and finally a Trick or Treat bag for my sister - I always try and have some more grown-up sweets for her when she brings my nephews round Trick or Treating !

I'm linking up with Julia over at What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday, why not pop over and see what other people have on their desks today.