ArtyFartyAnnie

Hi Everyone, What do you reckon the collective noun for a group of snails should be?! A slither of snails? A crowd of snails? A herd? A rampage? A party? No, I have it - a trail of snails! But anyway, first things first ... It's already Week Three of Summer of Color 4 and Kristin has cooked up another concoction of colours to inspire our creativity. If you haven't joined in yet, there's still plenty of time - pop over to Twinkle, Twinkle  or check out the FaceBook page to see what's going on. Here's the colour palette for this week - Lavender and Grey with a Smudge, Splash or Pop of Plum A very elegant, monochromatic combination and not at all what I would usually choose to work with, but that's one of the many good things about SOC - it makes me try new things and even if it doesn't turn out quite as I'd hoped, at least I've learned something and most importantly I've enjoyed the journey and shared it with friends.  We can...

Hi Everyone, What a beautiful day it is today - the sun is shining and I have a whole day off work to do whatever I like. It's also Wednesday, so time to show you What's On My Workdesk ... I've been putting some bits together to start on this week's project for  Summer of Color 4  - the combo for this week is Lavender and Grey with a smudge, splash or pop of plum .... hmmmmmm .... not my usual colours at all, but that's one of the reasons why challenges like this are good for me. I pulled out my canvas paper, some scraps of patterned paper, various inks and paints - and a snail! Doris before her makeover If you were here last week, you may have been curious about what I was going to do with the snail shells - so now you know! I made bodies for them with DAS air-drying clay - one for each week of SOC4 - the plan is to give each one a colourful makeover in that week's combo. If you look closely to the left of my workdesk, you'll see Doris (week ...

Hi Everyone, I'm still running to catch up with Summer of Color 4 - if you haven't joined in yet, it's not too late, check all the details by clicking on the link. Click here   The lovely Kristin has come up with another fabulous colour combo this week - Coral & Teal with a smudge, splash or pop of Bright White ... I made my art journal page first, using canvas paper, acrylic paints, Distress Ink , Studio Matte Multi Medium, Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs , pearlescent glue, Stickles and a napkin I scrounged from a friend who made us a delicious lunch earlier today .... I didn't have much time to spare, so this was a very quick page ...

Hi everyone, If you haven't discovered Summer of Color yet, it's not too late to jump in! Every week for six weeks, the lovely Kristin over at Twinkle Twinkle will be giving us a new color prompt - this year it will be two main colours with a Smudge, Splash or Pop of an accent colour. The idea is to use this colour combo to create a project, then link up to share your work and be in with a chance of winning some fab goodies. Click on this link to see all the details ... You can make anything you like - from art journals to beads to cupcakes, from nail art to origami to patchwork - you name it, anything goes! I wanted to come up with something a bit different for this year's project and inspiration struck when I spied an empty snail shell in my garden. Check out  this post  if you would like to see more details, but to cut a short story even shorter, I ended up with this collection of cute critturs all ready to be transformed with colour ... The colours for ...

Hi Everyone, Have you heard of Loom Bands??? I hadn't until a couple of weeks ago, but chances are that if you have a school-age daughter you will know exactly what I'm on about! If you read this post from a couple of days ago, you'll know that we've recently returned from a lovely week away visiting family in beautiful Northern Ireland. One afternoon I happened to ask my young cousin Caitlin to show me what she was making and within ten minutes I was completely "hooked" (pardon the pun). Loom Band expert Caitlin Swann You can buy the packs of Loom Bands for around £1. They come with basic instructions (which we ignored), a little hook (which you don't really need) and some S clips for fastening your creations. This picture also shows some of the bracelets we made - aren't they cute? Loom Bands from The Works and Roys Supermarket and some finished bracelets Here is a YouTube video tutorial by Loom Band expert, Caitlin Swann ... On...

Hi everyone, We just returned from a lovely sunshiney week in beautiful Northern Ireland - it was totally relaxing and we had so much fun. Of course I took lots of photos and brought back some keepsakes for my scrapbook, a magnet for the holiday wall at work and a tin whistle which I'm hoping to learn to play ... One of the highlights of our stay was attending an awards ceremony as guests of the Mayor of Antrim (my Uncle Roderick) - a brilliant evening full of sparkling entertainment, great company, delicious dinner, oh and maybe a glass or three ....

Hi Everyone, If you happened to see my WOYWW post this week, you will have seen these empty snail shells on my workdesk and wondered what on earth they were doing there. Here's a little clue ... I wanted to come up with a novel idea for my SOC project this year and inspiration struck when we returned home from our holiday in Northern Ireland last week. The very first thing we did was to check our little garden and when I spied an empty snail shell loitering by the strawberry patch - BINGO!!! Light Bulb Moment :o) My endlessly patient husband did not quibble when I asked him to gather up any vacant snail shells he found, and he did not question the necessity for an Urgent Mission to buy some air-drying clay Right Now . I had to wait until the next day to put my Big Idea into practice ... ... I had so much fun that I went on to make six of them - enough for all six weeks of Summer of Color 4 ... Here they are, awaiting their destiny - each one will be transform...

Hi everyone, Well, I had a lovely time away in Northern Ireland last week, but it's great to be back and today I plan to do some serious catching up in my workroom. Here's my desk all ready and waiting ... If you're wondering why I'm showing a picture of my messy workdesk - that's because it's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday, when crafty creative types from all over the place link up at Julia's Stamping Ground .  In front of the resident clutter of pens, brushes and glues is a little bottle of Masking Fluid (haven't used this stuff for years, but I think it will be fun to play with in my art journal). At the back, to the right of the "tape tree" is my vintage book pen pot from a tutorial by Jennifer Grace and to the right of that is the swatch book I made following Jill Foster's excellent You Tube tutorial on Gelato techniques. To the right on top of the guillotine is the little blog hop prize I'm getting ready to send ...

Hi everyone, If you've seen my previous posts, you'll have noticed how much I enjoyed the free blog event Refresh Your Craft & Soul over at Jennifer Grace Creates this weekend. It's not too late to enter the giveaways and challenges and they're all open internationally too - click on the link to catch up on all the posts. This is my last RYCAS project but it's a biggie! I was inspired by one of the many posts over the weekend to make a set of Project Life cards and I'm also going to enter it for the Teal Orange and White challenge . Here's what I came up with ... As luck would have it, my latest parcel from SJ Crafts arrived on Saturday and it included a pack of Becky Higgins PL Pocket Protectors  which I'm very excited about. There were two big variety packs to choose from in the shop and I decided on Pack 2. I also had a set of the Becky Higgins PL nesting dies  waiting to be played with ...

Hi Everyone, Me again - I don't think I've ever done so many posts in such a short time! This project combines two of the many fun challenges in the Refresh Your Craft & Soul free blog event over at Jennifer Grace Creates this weekend. The first was to create something small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. The other was to put a refreshing phrase in a box. Here's what I came up with ... I started out with one of my huge hoard of empty boxes and a pile of scrap paper.This one's an Avon one. Firstly, I covered it inside and out with patterned paper ... ... on both sides ...

Hi everyone, You may have noticed that I have spent most of this weekend Refreshing My Craft & Soul over at Jennifer Grace Creates . I've been in my room for hours cutting and sticking - getting my craft fix before we go away for a few days! I have been outside as well - I sat out in the garden with some sewing and watched the birds (we had a new visitor to our bird table today - a Middle Spotted Woodpecker!) Refresh Your Craft & Soul is a free blog event, it's open internationally, and there's still time to enter the giveaways and challenges - click on the link to catch up on all the posts you've missed. A couple of years ago, during another one of her fabulous blog events, Jennifer shared a clever idea for turning a vintage book into a storage solution. I was lucky enough to win one of the giveaways, which included a vintage story book and chipboard to make your own version of this project. Today I was inspired by this post to make some pretty storage,...

Hi everyone, I really have been busy today! This is a really quick idea inspired by the Refresh Your Craft & Soul  free blog event over at J ennifer Grace Creates this weekend. If you haven't joined in yet, there's still time - click on the link above to check out all the challenges, giveaways and inspiration so you don't miss anything. One of the creative prompts inspired by this post was to paint some embellies, so I thought I would take these lovely but rather dull chippies ... and give them a makeover, using the signature colours of the Refresh Your Craft & Soul event - Teal, Orange and white ... ... much more temptacious!!! I've photographed them against a sheet of sky-printed paper I've had foy years and somehow never get around to using ... I think it may end up in an art journal. Thanks for popping in - I still have more RYCAS - inspired projects to post about before we go away to Ireland for the rest of the week, so I'll be b...

Hi everyone, I was inspired by this post , which is part of the Refresh Your Craft & Soul  free blog event over at Jennifer Grace Creates , to make a really quick and simple pair of PL cards, using only washi tape and sticky words ... All I had to do was to cut some scrap card to 3"x4", round the corners with my Corner Chomper, add strips of washi tape and finish with a word sticker ... I was all done in five minutes - FABulous!!! Thanks for having a look, back in a min :o) xxx

Hi everyone, It's been a very busy and inspiring weekend over at Jennifer Grace Creates . If you haven't joined us yet, it's not too late to Refresh Your Craft & Soul  too - just click on the link to check out all the challenges, giveaways and bright ideas. It's all free, you still have time to enter and they're all open internationally. One of the many fun challenges was to make something using a resist technique , so I decided to finish off the PL style cards I made as part of my blog hop post ... First I scribbled on some watercolour paper with PVA glue, then when it was dry I washed over the scribbled design with watery Gelatos.

Hi Everyone, Welcome to my leg of the Refresh Your Craft & Soul Blog Hop - hopefully you've arrived here from Jennifer Grace Creates , but if not, you should pop over there now and start from the beginning to grab all the details and make sure you don't miss any of the fun. If you visit all the blogs on the hop and then pop back to Jennifer's to let her know, you'll be in with a chance of a FABulous giveaway - more details at the bottom of this post :o) This is just the start of a weekend-long free blog event, which promises to be full of fun, inspiration, challenges, prizes and giveaways AND it's open internationally too - WooHOOO! Jennifer has loosely based the theme for this event on her word for the year, which is "Cleanse". Over the course of the weekend, we will be exploring a variety of ideas inspired by this word, including watery themes and trying new things.  Trying something new always refreshes my craft and soul, even if it d...

Hi everyone, Well it's a rainy day here today, which is actually perfect, because I have Big Plans, most of which involve shutting myself away in my room and getting on with some serious cutting and sticking. Here's my desk as it looked this morning ... ... quite tidy for me, with a lovely clean, brand new cutting mat which I got at a very good price from eBay. But the exciting part about my desk is those three gorgeous ATCs from the WOYWW swap, which I am thrilled to bits with. This is going to be a longer-than-usual WOYWW post, because I just HAVE to show you my happy post :o) Here's a closer look ...  First to arrive was Laura's , which came in this cute little matching envelope  ...

WooHOO! It's time .... Summer of Color Four is here! Check out the all the deets by clicking on the link below ... I cannot WAIT to see what Kristin has in store for us this year ... See you over at Twinkle, Twinkle Annie x

Hi everyone, The new challenge for June over at SJ Crafts is a lusciously vibrant colour combination of delicious hot pink, mouthwatering tangerine, soothing cream (or other neutral) and a luxurious touch of gold. Straight away, this palette put me in mind of the colour scheme for our wedding flowers, so this was a perfect opportunity to get another wedding photo scrapped at last!  With a lot of help from our friends, we did pretty much everything ourselves for our big day - from the stationery to the bunting to the favours to the catering and of course the flowers. It was hard work but worth every minute and we ended up with a day that was very much "us". We had to learn a few new skills along the way, and flower-arranging was one of them.  Floristry did NOT come naturally to me - there were a lot of practice runs - but with the help of good old YouTube I got the hang of it eventually. A couple of days before the event, several boxes of flowers were deliver...