ArtyFartyAnnie

I was so taken with the inspiration image for this week's Case File #91 over at CSI - it's really whimsical and quirky and right up my street :o) - you can click on the image to enlarge it. CSI Mastermind Debbi Tehrani comes up with a new Scene (inspiration image) for us to investigate every single week - I don't know how she does it! From this image she takes inspiration for colours, design elements and journaling. In order to solve the case, you need to make a scrapbook page using all these clues ... All 5 colours in the Scheme At least 2 items of Evidence At least 1 piece of Testimony Here's how I solved the Case this week (you can click on the image to enlarge it) ... The Scheme: all the colours are included, as well as neutrals and a couple of tiny splashes of brighter green and deeper yellow. The Evidence: wet medium; stripes; border punch; tearing; thought bubbles. The Testimony: My journaling is written inside thought bubbles and I used th...

This week at T ag Tuesday the theme was Egypt - such a HUGE scope that I couldn't decide which idea to go with, but in the end I chose to play with hieroglyphics ... After consulting with Professor Google, I had a go at some real hieroglyphs and developed a real respect for those scribes in Ancient Egypt! All I can say is thank goodness I didn't have to carve them in stone. Hopefully I haven't written "I'm a steaming cowpat" ... Vulture - mouth - loaf - two reeds  ... ARTY Horned viper - vulture - mouth - two reeds ... FARTY Vulture - water - two reeds ... ANNIE Loaf - vulture - pedestal ... TAG Then I added a few of my own - can you spot the tools of a tagger's trade? The eye was drawn freehand with PVA glue, then once it had dried to the tacky stage I covered it with gold leaf flakes. After brushing off the excess and giving the whole thing a good burnishing I was quite chuffed with the result. I finished the tag with a simple piece of ...

Here's a gorgeous picture of my little grand niece Leila - soooooo cute! The layout was inspired by a challenge from Liz Hocking at Soul Scrappers to create a page using packing materials - right up my alley!!! Here are some of the bits and bobs I used .... Front cover of a patterned paper pad, Starbucks coffee cup holder, various tags (including one made of grungeboard which came with a pack of grungeboard numbers), tissue paper, hanging display cards. The base was a sheet of bright pink cardstock, to which I added layers of gesso and tissue paper. From my stash - assorted inks,paints and multi medium matte, polka dot flower, vintage buttons, stamps, masks, Viva paper pens, butterfly punch, Dymo labeller. Thanks for coming, see you again soon ! :o)xxx

I'm such a berk - after scrabbling to finish my FrogDog September challenge just in time for the deadline, I went to upload it only to realise that the deadline was in fact yesterday doh! But never mind, I had a lovely time playing with neon colours in my art journal anyway ... The neon Smiley sticker has been lurking in my drawers for years, so it was great to finally put it to good use. Just realised looking at this picture that I forgot to use the gorgeously bright neon hole reinforcers which were also inmyt FrogDog kit .... I loved the neon pink ink and the contrast of neon colours against black and I really enjoyed using the Viva Paper Pens (I used the fine nib on the black one to do the writing and I think I will be using this a LOT). Thanks for popping in - see you again soon :o)xxx

WooHOOOO!!! If you've ever fancied being part of this really fun and friendly design team, now's your chance! Check out the details here   - there's still time, s why not give it a go? :o)

Case File #90 over at CSI is all cool, retro, nerdy - perfect for a picture of my son Tom and his mate Rowan doing what they did best 15 years ago - playing computer games with the curtains drawn to shut out the daylight :o) Here's that Case File (click on the image to enlarge it) Got to be quick today, but just briefly in case you haven't come across CSI before, the idea is to solve the case by creating a scrapbook page using all 5 colours in the scheme, at least two items from the evidence list and one from the testimony list. Here's how I did it (again you can click on the image to enlarge it) ... I used a brilliant sketch by Ali Parriss for Scrap365 - it was in the PDQ gallery and it really was PDQ - this page was done and dusted in well under an hour. So did I follow all the clues? The Scheme: all the colours are there The Evidence: stripes; tie something swhite space; two different alphabets; polka dots; something transparent; something that on...

Today I went off for a jolly with my scrappy mate Trina to the Big Stamp & Scrapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace - we had a fab time and brought one or two little treats home with us .... Here's my haul ...   I had two things in mind - chicken wire and flowers! I found three kinds of chicken wire ... A 12x12 mask from TheCraftersWorkshop.com A die from cheerylynndesigns.com A stamp from inkylicious.co.uk And after scouring the whole place for reasonably priced flowers I found these ... ... from scarymarycards.com priced very reasonably from 90p - £1.50 a spray. Here's Trina's haul ... ... top RHS you can see a sheet of acetate butterflies just begging to be coloured with alcohol inks or sharpies and cut out to flutter across a scrapbook page ... After a couple of hours' serious shopping, we stopped for a break ... Trina ... also we had to eat the picnic to make space in the trolley for more shopping! ... please note t...