Row Houses

Well, I know these little row houses are very popular, and are popping up all over the net, but I had real trouble with them!!! I needed to make 26 for a swap. I looked at other people's, and loved them all, but couldn't quite get my own take on them straight. I have dabbled and dabbled, which is why there are several little groups of differing styles within the pictures.

When I finished, although they don't seem to have a cohesive 'style' I was happy with all but one. Can you guess which???

Update - I mailed these to the swap hostess in two batches (because I left the top 5 on the scanner bed and didn't find out till the next day). And only the set of 5 arrived. Somewhere in the British postal system, reside my 21 row houses, all unappreciated. How sad is that?

Angelic pages 2

These are the other 3 angelic pages I made for the Angelic Tall & Skinny book (which is going to be the fattest skinny book I have ever seen!)


Group 4 pages - I started with some dark pewter flower patterned/textured cardstock, and smooshed a black inkpad over the textured pattern to bring the pattern out. On the other side of the card, I used a magazine page to dab various shades of metallic, transparent and opaque acrylic paints onto the page. The paints were a mixture of Golden fluid acrylics and Jacquard Lumiere paints. Once dry, I stamped over them with some antique text in Galaxy gold Brilliance ink.

The angel on the left is actually Victory, it is a photograph of part of a a Roman bronze relief plaque found at Caerleon Roman Fortess in south Wales. I separated her from her background in Photoshop Elements.

The angel on the right is a scan of a half finished angel as used for one of my previous pages, before I added the upper body. I rather liked it, so I used it as one side of this page.


Group 5 pages - the images are both Tiffany stained glass panels. I love Tiffany glass, the coliurs are so rich and the designs are beautiful. I didn't want my background to detract from the beauty of the glass, so I just crumpled some black tissue paper, smoothed it out, and stuck it to cardstock with gel medium. I smooshed over the top of the creases with Versamark, then used 2 colours of Moonglow embossing powders mixed together - Angel Peacock Wings and Desert Moon Copper Pine. These turned into gorgeous deep green pearlescent highlights on the page.


Finally, my Group 2 pages. The page on the left is another crumpled background - this time it is crumpled copy paper. I coloured it with colourwashes, dried it, crumpled it, and used a Pearlescent Purple Brilliance pad to highlight the raised areas. I took the photograph of the graveyard angels, and turned them purple in Photoshop Elements before printing onto transparency. I used gel medium to adhere the transparency onto some iridescent textured gift wrap, which just adds some glittery sparkle behind some parts of the image.

The page on the right is a digital collage of a child graveyard angel, layered onto a background of a faded wall with ferns growing in it. I stamped the phrase using pigment ink.

Time tip in page

The theme for the CC Swaps monthly tip in page is 'Time'. I am still playing with fantasy film, so thought I'd make my page embellishments shine. I used 2 colours of film, and inked up some time themed rubber stamps with black Stazon ink, laid 2 layers of fantasy film on top, a layer of copy paper on top, then ironed with a dry iron on the cotton setting. This fuses the fantasy film layers together and heat sets the ink into the film. A quick trim around the edges, and you have gorgeous shimmery embellishments. Stamps by Non Sequitur and Invoke Arts.



The backgrounds of the pages were plain cardstock, painted and daubed with Stewart Gill Pearlise paint in Mermaid and Paua Shell. They are all shimmery. I stamped the 'time' background and embossed it with 2 different embossing powders - and interference one (which doesn't show up because the background wasn't dark enough), and a gorgeous pearlescent one from Simply Craft in Cardiff. The owner has had her own range of embossing powders made to her own specification, and they are gorgeous. They are a little more expensive than the ones I usually use, but I think they are worth it. Finally, I stamped the 'time spiral' using turquoise Stazon ink.

Angellic skinny pages

What was I thinking??? I signed up for 6 sets of 12 pages for this skinny book. Each set has to have a different design. Mind you, that's better than doing 72 pages all the same, which would have driven me nuts. But it is stretching my brain, thinking up new designs. I think each page is marginally better than the previous one - so the last one should be GREAT - unless I peak early!!!


The front of this page has a fantasy film embellishment, the back is the same design, stretched, and printed onto transparency. The background is pale blue cardstock, dabbed with iridescent medium.


This angel is based on a Diana Twedt template - I shrank it to fit my page, then covered it with printed paper and overlays of stamped tissue. The printed paper is pretty unique - it comes from a very old New Testament, which has each page printed in Welsh, with the English version on the other side. I thought it appropriate for angels. Her upper body is a combination of stamped tissue and stamping. The wings are only glued under the body, so they are free to flap... The hair is Golden mica flakes. The back of the page combines elements form the front - mica flakes and the printed pages, with an angellic cherub stamp (Bella Rosa).



This angel is a photograph of a ceramic sculpture that I photographed in a gallery a couple of years ago. The background is colourwash sprays, overstamped with chocolate Brilliance diamonds which are made up of fine swirls (Innovative Stamp Creations). The cardstock is textured on the front, so the background looks slightly different on the back. I stamped the angel wings all over (Invoke Arts) then added detail with a white pen.

3 sets done, 3 to go - and 2 of those are half done, just waiting for the postman to bring more printer ink and a new stamp!!!

Sweetpea's deco

I was looking for something new to try, and wanted to use an interesting background. Rachel Bland made a gorgeous background for the background swap a while ago, so I thought I'd give her background technique a try. I covered a piece pf copier paper with 2 Radiant Rain dauber colours. One daubed much better than the other, so in the end I took the dauber off and used a paintbrush... I let the paper dry, then crumpled it up and smoothed it out again. At this point, I was supposed to spray it with webbing spray, but my webbing spray is inaccessible, so I just smooshed a Galaxy Gold Brilliance inkpad over it to highlight it. I added some crumpled gold paper and some stamped embellishments.

For the back, I used the same paper, but made the embellishment by ironing fantasy film onto a stamp inked with Stazon. The stamps are both by Stamp Diva, and remind me of some Paperbag Studio ones, but I like the sentiments on these. I added my name using a child's dymo machine!

Angel with lace

I am involved in a big skinny book swap with the theme of 'angellic', so I have been exploring ways of representing angels. This angel is a Christmas decoration (why did i think of this in July???) based on an idea and template by Diana Twedt. I have made it from cardstock instead of the foam core board and matt board Diana uses - because I wanted this angel to be light and flat for mailing. I used stamped tissue paper to cover the angel body, and brown and embossed torn papers for the torso and arms part, which lays over the body. I thought it would be fun to use faces clipped from magazines instead of stamping a face, and the wings and halo are made from Sheer Heaven, which will take any amount of punishment.