ArtyFartyAnnie

Hello my friends in Blogland, When your Mojo is MIA, a challenge or a sketch is often just the thing to kick-start your creativity, and CSI is one of my favourites. The Major Case File comes out of the 1st of every month, includes a sketch, and you have until the end of the month to complete it and link up, share your page and be in with a chance of winning a fab prize. Here's the Major Case File for November ... There is a new twist beginning this month, where you can choose to investigate the Scene for yourself and draw your own inspiration from the image. I like the traditional clues though, as shown above - use all the colours in the Scheme, at least three pieces of evidence and one from the testimony list.  Here's how I solved the case ... The Scheme : all five colours are there, plus a tiny touch of leaf green, neutral browns and gold. The Evidence : stripes, watercolour, leaves, stars, hearts, wood/woodgrain, vellum, something fuzzy, white rub-ons...

Hello my Arty-Farty Friends, It's a beautiful day again here in Norfolk UK, crisp and sunshiney. I'm writing this ready for tomorrow when, whatever the weather, it will be time for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. Hop on over to Julia's Stamping Ground if you would like to join in. My workdesk looks a bit different this week, because I'm just back from a wonderful weekend in Wells-next-the-Sea, where I spent the whole weekend scrapping with these lovely ladies (and no, it's not some kind of Fight Club) ... L-R: Karen, Mel, Emma, Trina and Moi.  We stayed in a gorgeous house called Regal Cottage which was just a stroll away from the beautiful beach, fab shops, fish'n'chips on the quayside and the Golden Fleece where we had the most delicious Sunday lunch. When we weren't eating, drinking, walking or shopping, we were busy scrapping. Luckily, there was a huge dining table at the house, which we totally trashed within about five minutes...

Hey everyone, It's been a while since I've had time to join in with regular scrapping challenges, but CSI is still one of my favourites. There is a new twist starting this month, where you can choose either to investigate the scene yourself and draw your own inspiration, or follow the traditional clues to solve the case. Here's Case File #242 .. .... and here's my solution ... Clues I followed - Scheme : all five colours included. Evidence : text pattern; textured paper; clothes peg and paperclip; leaves; tag; bird; ruler; string; fussy-cutting (you may particularly notice the window frames, which came from a very old CSI printable image I had been hoarding) Testimony : I bottled out of handwriting straight on to my page, so wrote it on the back instead.  It reads as follows,  " This photograph was taken from our front door, after I'd walked home from work at the hospital early because of the snow. The whole world was muf...

Hello Bloggy Friends, This month's challenge over at GoGoGetaway is a mouthwatering mood board designed by Madie ... Isn't it gorgeous?! I loved the colours, and I have a thing for beach huts and tassels ... couldn't wait to have a go at this. Here's my take ... The photo shows Yours Truly almost 30 years ago (I had to double-check that, it really doesn't seem that long!!) on holiday on one of the beautiful Greek Islands. There was so much inspiration to be taken from this mood board - for my page, I used the holiday theme, the juicy colour scheme, the arrow, map, beach huts, pineapple and of course those tassels! The beach huts were from a Tando Creative die-cut greyboard pack, finished with scraps of paper and Distress Inks. I made the tassel myself, with embroidery floss glued into a metal tassel top and then threaded onto a paperclip (I could get addicted to making those!) Several of the embellishments came from the Challenge Jar my lovely ...

Hello Bloggy Friends, Here's a fun idea for what to do with all those old envelopes, rather than just chucking them in the recycling bin - turn them into dinky mini window envelopes to hold journaling cards for scrapbook and PL pages. These are all about 2" or 3" long ... After opening the envelopes out flat, I used my WRMK Envelope Board to cut and score them (you could make them without the board, but it does make life a lot easier!). Some I turned inside out as I like the look of the printing.

Hello everyone, Hope you're all enjoying a happy and creative week out there. My friend Trina and I recently went on a trip to Ally Pally to see one of those giant arts and crafts shows and we had wonderful time. We bought loads of stuff we really really needed and got to do some "make-n-takes" as well. One of these was at the PaperArtsy stand, where we tried out several stamps and had a go at colouring them with Distress Oxides. Yesterday, I decided it was time to do something with these sweet little images, so I finished colouring them and turned them into a set of quirky Christmas cards ... I didn't buy the stamps - only because I'd already bought several other sets of stamps by that stage - but I did buy three colours of Distress Oxide, which I used to create the backgrounds for these. I cut the solid shapes out and mounted them on foam pads for dimension, adding the scribbly lines back in by hand with a Micron pen. Final touch was a subtle sh...

Hello Fellow Deskers and Bloggy Friends, It's been a while, but I'm back in the room:o) For those not in the know, it's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday and you can find out all about it over at Julia's Stamping Ground . It's been AGES since I last joined in, largely because my Mojo has been missing. I have still managed to make a HUGE MESS of my desk though ... ... and it's not just the desk. Take a peek to the left .... ... and behind me... Sigh. I really need to tidy my room - again. Maybe my missing Mojo is hiding in there somewhere ... Anyway, if you would like to show the world YOUR workdesk, or just have a nosey at other creative spaces all over the world, just pop over to Julia's , everyone is welcome. See you there!  Thanks for visiting me today, see you again soon :o) Annie xxx

Good Morning Lovely Bloggy Friends, Another beautiful though chilly Autumnal day beginning here in Norfolk UK and I have a fun day out with my good friend Trina to look forward to. My Missing Mojo is just beginning to think about tiptoeing back into the house I think. I've beeen enjoying playing in the art journal I made out of recycled Amazon packaging a while back - it's become my collage book and even when I can't seem to do anything else, I can always do a bit of cutting, sticking and colouring in there. Here's one I finished last night ... For this page, I used a combination of printable collage sheets from Crowabout StudioB which I bought from Mischief Circus , pieces cut from magazines, and some of my stash of alphas.

Hello Everyone, It's been a strange few weeks for me and not much at all going on at the ArtyFarty Front - due to a combination of lack of time, lack of energy and a Missing Mojo. All is not right with my world if I'm not doing a bit of something creative every day, so it's been a bit weird. Anyway, I thought I'd have a play with some alcohol inks and Yupo paper, inspired by a lesson with the lovely Azoline for Week 35 of Wanderlust 2017  - It was a bit of a battle, I couldn't get it to come out "right" at all and it's NOTHING like Azoline's beautiful, whimsical piece, but hey, at least I had a go and it was fun to play with the inks on this strange shiny not-paper stuff. Today I plan to pack my kit ready for a couple of crafty jollies I have coming up - hopefully that will get my creative juices flowing again. Meanwhile, I'll go tidy my room in readiness ... Thanks for popping in to see me, see you again soon. Have a wonderful ar...