Tree Poetry

Hello all!  Just a very quick tag for you today.  I wanted to join in with Joan's lovely Trees theme at Tag Tuesday and, although it's been a busy week what with the Blushing Coral Butterflies and the Insect Instructions, if I don't post this today, it might be too late.

The background for this has been hanging around for months... just some Tim Holtz paper glued to a tag and washed with gesso.

I had stamped the Carabelle tree (it's only a partial stamping - the whole stamp is massive) and then ground to a halt, so there it sat on the craft table, just a bit grey and dull.

Then the Trees theme came up and I thought I really must be able to turn it to some good.











It helped when I added some spritzes of shimmering blue to the sky... a combination of Tattered Angels and Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays, but I'm not sure which colours.

I don't shimmer very often, but when I do I think I ought to do it more!










It's that time of year when the browns and oranges kick in, so I'd been spritzing and smooshing a couple of other tags with various autumnal shades.   (You'll get to see those larger leaves in action later in the month.)














I grabbed one of those tags and used Tim's leaf punch to cut some leaves to drift down through the sky...














... and gather on the earth beneath the tree.















On the tree itself I used a water brush and various Distress Inks to add a bit more depth and variation to the trunk and branches.














I stamped one of the quotes from my very first word stamps, PaperArtsy EAB01 Trees & Flowers, on a separate piece of cardstock.














The topping is some Distress-dyed seam binding tied with twine, and the whole tag is mounted on pale card.








And that's it.  I know... pretty short for me, but I did say it was a quick one!  I hope you've all been enjoying a lovely weekend, and I'll see you again soon.

Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.
Herman Hesse

I'd like to share this over at Tag Tuesday where the theme is Trees
At the More Mixed Media Challenge it's Anything Goes with an Optional Twist of Orange

A 100 Year Old Rose

Hello all!  Thanks so much for your lovely comments on my bright and dark posts - from the Sunshine Watercolour Dwellings to the Glint of Moonlight on Broken Glass.

We're moving from those brights and darks back into the gentle, natural colour palette which is more usual around here.  But the project itself is a rarity at Words and Pictures...  it's a card.

Not just any card, but the card I made for our next-door-neighbour, Rose, for her 100th birthday.

With a name like that, the choice of subject for the card is easy (just as well, since I find making cards really difficult for some reason).  If you follow Cestina's Dollshouses, you'll have seen the lovely miniature rose arbour she created for Rose's 100th birthday present.  And there's lots of rose-related music, trivia and ephemera in the post too.

Rose's favourite colour is green, so that took care of some of the decision making too.

The background panel is made with Tim Holtz's Floral layering stencil.  And it started out as a tag before I trimmed it.  (I've found that starting with a tag is a pretty good way of tricking my brain into card-making.)














I applied texture paste through the stencil and then spritzed some Tattered Angels sprays over it once it was dry... mainly English Ivy, but there's some Patina and some Shade in there too.















I'm pretty sure those are wild roses on the stencil (or dog roses as they are also known for some reason).













The paper roses are from my stash.  I needed the card almost immediately on my return from New York, so I'm afraid there wasn't time for handmade flowers.













But I did manage to squeeze the foliage punch onto the trimmed off top part of the tag to get a few leaves to add to the open bloom.














And I couldn't resist adding the Stein quote from my stamp set PaperArtsy EAB01 Trees and Flowers... well, it was inevitable really, wasn't it?!















It's stamped in Olive Archival to tone in with the background.













Tim's Simple Saying stamps earn their keep again, with the greeting stamped and embossed in Bright White Wow powder both outside... 














... and inside.











And plenty of white spatter finishes the whole thing off.

A fairly simple card, but I'm happy to say it's standing on the mantlepiece right next to the one from Her Majesty the Queen!

I'll be back in a couple of days with an exciting post, so I'll hope to see you again soon.

The first fact about the celebration of birthdays is that it is a good way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive.
G.K. Chesterton




In a bit of pretty serendipitous timing, the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is celebrating its 7th birthday by playing Happy Birthday this week, so I'd like to share Rose's 100th birthday card there

Sparkle and Shine

Hello all!  I'm back with my second sparkly and shiny offering of the month to inspire you to play along with Doreen's Sparkle and Shine theme over at Country View Challenges.  It's a tag trio full of mixed media textures.  We're photo-heavy today, so grab a cup of coffee!

I cannot tell you how much fun I had with these tags! I may have trouble remembering the ins and outs of their creation though, as it's quite a long time since I made them - late July, I think.

I had to get them done before setting off for New York the first time.  I tried to take photos as I went, to remind myself as much as anything else, so here goes…

I was inspired by these fabulous tags by Aida - owner of the very cool Polish 13Arts store.

I suppose mine are a combination of the two sets in the post I've linked to, but since there was no step-by-step, I had to sort of "reverse-engineer" my version - pretty much making it up as I went along to create something similar.










I started with three standard tag backgrounds, stamped with some of my favourite Tim Holtz meadow grasses and a flourish, and then inked with Distress Inks.














Over that I painted a thick coat of multi-medium and then pressed the tags against one another to create waves of texture in the medium.

As well as the texture, the medium "seals" in the Distress Ink colours, so they won't run during any of what follows.













While the medium was still tacky, the next step was to add some more dimensional textural elements.












So at this point I glued down some cheesecloth, some tiny beads, and also some white paper roses as I knew they'd take the inky sprays well once I got going.










I added some glass bead gel medium too for extra sparkle.













While the tags were drying, I stuck some green glass pebbles to some book text.

I was quite precise about picking the words to highlight - I wanted lots of sparkling positivity!












Once dry, the medium gives you these fabulous transparent ridges over the inked, stamped background.












Time to glue down some more embellishments.

I added some buttons and some wooden ornaments, and I also tried out the positioning of my glass pebbles.











I quite liked the arrangements even in the "naked" version, but I was after some more shimmer and sparkle, so it was time for some spritzing.













(I hadn't glued the pebbles down yet, though everything else was stuck in place.  I took them away during the spritzing so that their surfaces would stay free of any inky splatter, keeping the words clearly visible.)













As well as Dylusions and Ranger ColorWash for intense colour, there are various sprays involved: Perfect Pearls Mists, Tattered Angels and Cosmic Shimmer - basically anything that was to hand which would add a touch of mica sparkle.











I was really pleased with the effect of the ridges of texture… 













… so I highlighted it by rubbing some Silks Acrylic Glaze and some Treasure Gold over the top.













And I love how the glass beads took the colour differently from the background so that they stand out.













The last step was to add the ChitChat stickers - again lots of positive thoughts about the adventures to come (New York being still ahead of me at that point).  So there's hope…














adventure… 













and possibility…














… to go with the positive glass pebbles: remember (which I'm not good at - I definitely live in the moment!)…

beautify...

and amazement.

See - I knew those roses would look good all inked up - and the glitter still works through the new colours!












The loose woven ribbon at the top was something I picked up somewhere along the line - it was already a vivid shade of lime green so I added some Distress Stains to give it a multi-shaded tint.  I like how it echoes the cheesecloth on the tags.










I'm really pleased with how the colours of the cheesecloth vary so widely, from a bold vivid green to the softer blues.

And I'm very happy to finally have pressed those beads into action!












The same goes for the wooden ornaments which soak in the ink for a matte finish.  I considered glossing them up with a coat of glossy accents, but I decided we had enough sparkle on the go...

… though I will admit there are touches of Treasure Gold just about everywhere, giving a gilded finish.



So that's my sparkly trio for you - I hope you like them.  I certainly had a ball getting really inky and messy, and even getting into the swing of Sparkle and Shine.

I hope you'll come and play along with us at Country View Challenges this month.  There's a prize generously sponsored by Country View Crafts, and you still have two weeks to get sparkly!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll see you again soon.

Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars.  Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait.  The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas.
Henry Ford

Float like a butterfly

Hello all!  

This post is for me rather than all of you, I'm afraid!!  Many of you have already seen this project, which was my first piece as Guest Designer for The Artistic Stamper in February of this year, and I was so thrilled with all your amazing comments and feedback.

However, when you post your pieces you can only put a sneak peek on your own blog and since I use this place as a sort of virtual scrapbook of what I've made and how I did it (hence the massively long posts the whole time!), I asked if it would be okay to post the full thing on Words and Pictures at some point in the future.

And this is that day... so please don't feel you have to comment all over again!!  This is just so that I can get all my work "under one roof"...

Now my "crafty" name of Butterfly was pretty much an accident as anything else - I've never really been much of a lepidopterist, but having adopted the name, I do seem to be drawn to them, craftily at least, quite often.












I'd seen quite a few "specimen cabinet" projects on my travels, and when I decided to work with the amazing Insects and Butterflies plate that was sort of what I was thinking of trying.













But in the end, I couldn't bear to pin them down, and so I decided to try to find a way to let them fly free - why do we create these difficulties for ourselves?!?














It all started with a little floristry frame I bought in the Czech Republic.  I got three of them at the time, and last time I used one - for the Semi-Controlled Mayhem of my Big Top Circus - it gave me headaches, so I knew the chances were it would go that way again!

I experimented with stamping the butterflies and dragonflies and colouring them in various ways, but it wasn't really taking off for me, so I decided to try it the other way up and create my colours first.

I did lots of wrinkle free distress technique with a mixture of Distress Stains in blues, greens and turquoises.







I also added Cosmic Shimmer sprays and Glimmer Mists both to the craft mat and onto the paper as I was drying it so that I could create lots of iridescence within the colours.














Then I got busy stamping...  I used Archival inks, mainly in Cobalt, Olive and Library Green - either individually or blending them on the stamp...












...and occasionally I even zhuzhed it up a bit with some Aquamarine!

Then there was lots of fussy-cutting - absolutely NOT my favourite thing to do!  

Some of the images are virtually symmetrical, so those I was planning to glue back to back and colour any edges that were still showing.









But others were too asymmetrical for that.  I toyed with stamping on tissue and using the reverse, but in the end I decided to go for something more abstract.

I used my Viva metallic paints - one in Turquoise and one in Golden Green - to paint the backs of the asymmetrical insects.  These are some of the most beautiful iridescent paints I've ever seen!

I used the lovely Calligraphic Mat stamped in either Library Green or Cobalt Archival to provide some decoration across the gleaming paint.












Then it was UTEE time!  And this was where I had one of my accidental brainwaves.

As I was adding the UTEE - great for protecting vulnerable antennae, and adding beautiful glossiness, as well as having the effect of intensifying the colours - I realised that it made the wings mouldable.

So once everything was safely coated on both sides, I went through again, heating lightly and shaping the wings for flight.



Let's skip over the part where I tried all sorts of ways to string'em up - raffia, twine, gold wire - and go straight to the elegantly simple solution: ribbon.

Not only easier to thread onto than most of those others, but also they were all far more prepared to sit nice and perkily with just the folded ribbon holding them in flight... no need for knots beneath each insect, or glue.

Still fiddly - don't get me wrong! - to get them all threaded in the right order, the right way up, balancing the different insects and heights.  But eventually I was pretty happy...

Once the "flying" insects were sorted, I needed to have some perching ones, some who'd just alighted for a moment on top of the mobile.  

Cue lots of fun and swearing as I attempted to glue minute portions of glossy butterfly to a single twig within the frame at exactly the angle required.

And then a couple just balancing on the upright tower part at the centre... more angling, more bad words, and a bit of cheating by tucking bits of dragonfly into the weave of the twigs!










Thank you for sticking with me through one of my trademark lengthy posts.  I've tried to give you some idea of the journey and some idea of the finished piece... 

Of course the real joy lies in the movement as the butterflies and dragonflies flutter in the breeze.  (Not when you're trying to take photographs of it in a biting wind, though - it was February at the time!)  

Thank you for dropping in today... and indulging me in this little revisitation.  

I hope whatever you're up to today brings you joy, and I hope to do some catching up in Craftyblogland over the next few days.




Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
Nathaniel Hawthorne