Finish it Friday 16, its a circus!

Good Morning!

Thanks for popping in.

Friday again, so here goes...

I thought I'd use up a nice easy mop up piece!

Trimmed it to about 14cm, and used Black and Cornflower archival inkpads to stamp the various elements from one of Leonie's new Circus stamp sets.

Chop it into four pieces, edge in black sharpie pen, and mount it on another matching mop up piece, done!

Gotta run, need to set up for class this afternoon, pack for Catterick tomorrow, buy birthday cake, grab lunch with my boy, and I might just have time to brush my hair lol!

Finish it Good Friday!

Hello!

Thanks for popping in, hope your Easter weekend has started well. I took Tillypops to church! Well sort of, it was an outdoors service today, so I thought why not, and she was very good, except when she had a pee in one of the flower beds right in front of the reverends wife! #badassjackrussell.

Now if you remember, I said I would be giving away this weeks FIF project, so here is the project...

 I actually really like this very much, might make a nice class card.

 I started with a couple of white diecuts, and a piece of card that was sprayed with silver aquatint around the edges, that piece was left over from a aquatint class about 3 years ago.

I embossed the mannequin with my Mountain Ash stencil then brushed it lightly with a black ink to pick up the texture.

The aperture of the large cog was a good size to stamp one of the floral round stamps. and a few cogs stamped for extra interest.

See the shimmer in the sprayed frame?

Ok so you have one more chance to win the card, all you have to do is leave me a nice comment, and if you are a follower then you get an extra entry into the draw. I'll count up everyone's comments from the week and announce the winner over the weekend some time.

Ok, I have laundry to do now-I'm all rock and roll you know!

Maria x

Finish It Friday 15 and a little giveaway

Evening!

Better late than never, its been a crazy old week, but I was determined to find time to dig in that box today.

So this is what I started with...

A piece of gel plate print using stamps, sequin waste and a lid off something or other. Another gel plate piece that has a little touch of the same teal sort of colour. A little kraft tag that was clear embossed with Leafy Swirl stamp and then inked over with teak ink. And finally a die cut border strip, that's been in the box for many years since I worked for a different company (horrible man) I launched that set of Spellbinders on another tv channel (horrible people some of them) I was sent the dies about 36 hours before taking them to tv for 10 live hours, what a cock up!

I added a couple of die cut leaves and flower that were also lurking in the box. The stamped butterfly looked quite blah blah blah on the tag, so I cut around it with a knife to pop it up, and added glossy accents-its still wet in the picture.

Thanks for popping in!

I'm hoping to get back on track a bit now.

Next week on Finish It Friday I will be giving the project away to one of you, all you have to do is comment on as many of my posts as you like between now and then, your name will go in the hat once for each day you comment, and you'll have a bonus entry if you are have clicked follow my blog.

Maria x

Finish it Friday 14

Morning! I'm a bit late today, had a bit of a lie in, tired this week, but I'm on coffee number 2 now so normal service will follow shortly!

Today's FIF project is one I did a short while ago when I did a little batch, that way I have emergency projects for when time is not my friend, like today. It's also nice to have a whole session with my 'use me up' box.

I started with an inky piece, created with stencils and ink sprays, don't even know what stencils because they are so old. And the little tile was created with some board covered in paperclay, some mica powder and a cool floral tile Claritystamp. I chose these to go together because of the colours, good match?

And very easily they became this...

Another for my little pile, I only have a couple of birthday this month.

Ok go and get your scraps out and make something!

I have to do some cleaning up, finish the last bits for my tv prep for tomorrow (12pm and 4pm on Hochanda) Then I need to pack everything, then check Iv'e packed everything, then load the car and check again to make sure I haven't forgotten anything-yes i'm serious. And then I can go for late lunch with my lovely Pete-a Friday off work for him, unheard of!

Thanks for popping in, not sure if I'll manage a Stencil Saturday tomorrow or not, I leave for Peterborough at 6.15am, will be home at about 9.30pm.

Oh remind me over the next couple of days though, give away on bloggy next week, just for fun.

Maria x

Finish it Friday 13

Morning!

So Iv'e had my usual Friday delve through the mounds of rejected and abandoned bits and bobs in my box...

The bird piece jumped out at me, it was using one of the lovely A Little Bird cutting dies, I cut a lot of the design away, but it didnt look how I expected so it was banished to the box! I decided to pair it up with the Treescape die.

An inky background is what is needed!

I marked the card at  the corners of the aperture die, so I knew what was going to be visible.

And voila!

Now I like it.

Thanks for popping in!

Im off now to get packed for Catterick class tomorrow.

See you tomorrow hopefully for Stencil Saturday.

Finish it Friday 12

Friday again!

So after a quick dig in the box of heartbreak, I found these bits...

Both are Gel Plate bits with ink, the square one has been unloved for about 3 years approx, I remember trying to achieve a snowy look, which I managed, so this must have been a spare. The round piece was a demo piece from a gel plate class, I used the clean Leafy Swirl stamp to remove colour from the gel plate for a ghostly look, seems to be a ghost theme on my blog this week!

These bits really did not need much doing to them, so I just die cut a lovely Fresh Cut die to match the swirl and bingo!

Ooh that's quite a good pic for me!

Hope you like!

Gotta go pack and jump in the car now, I'm on Hochanda launching a One Day Special at 6pm tonight, maybe you can tune in?

Maria x

Finish it Friday 11

Happy almost afternoon!

Nope I haven't only just got out of bed, iv'e been busy, honest.

Friday then, when I trawl through the mountain of unloved, forgotten, rejected and generally abandoned pieces in my workroom.

I thought id show you two projects today, because the first one was already not needing much to finish it, it had already started out as a mop up piece then I added some stencilling, then for some reason just flung it back in the box.

See what I mean?

I paired it up with an inky mop up that id stamped a butterfly on.

Bit of shimmer on the butterfly and a sentiment...

Done! I really like this one.

The stencil is called Floral Heart.

The next project matches quite nicely I think...

More orange, my favourite! And more inky butterflies.

The waste from a big Sizzix postage stamp die cut, and a piece with heat embossed sentiments sprayed with inks for a resist, that has been in the box forever!

I really didn't know what to do with the resist piece for so long, but I got there in the end, and I love this!

When I create the cards from my F.I.F box, I make them just for pleasure, no deadlines, no work projects intended (although there's been a handful that iv'e considered for class), just pleasure, and then I find I don't want to part with them, but do give them away to nice people who I like!

Hope you like! Now go raid your scraps and make something cool, just for pleasure.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you can come back tomorrow for Stencil Saturday.

Maria x

Finish it Friday 10

Its Friday again, so you know what that means right? Time to rummage amongst the mountainous pile of rejected, neglected and forgotten bits bobs and unfinished crafty projects!

 So this is what I started with...

A background using the Mountain Ash stencil, masked so the middle is left empty.

A stamped panel, now I remember this, I was playing around trying to work out what I was doing for one of the New Design Club stamps (The little lillies that are upside down in a vase) I decided not to incorporate the larger lillies, but i'd already stamped and coloured them, so in the reject box it went!

And with the little die cut frame, I thought these pieces were made for each other.

The only problem is my composition, do I want to be all neat and symmetrical....

Or do I want to be all rebellious and jaunty...

Can you guess which way I jumped?? Can ya? hmm?

Whether you are a conformist or a rule breaker, I hope you like it!

Thanks for popping in, have a great weekend.

Maria x

Finish it Friday 9

Good Morning and happy Friday!

The weeks are flying by aren't they, I cant believe its week 9 of FIF, so here it is...

This is what i started with

The motorbike is an older Clarity stamp, paper is from Paperartsy, and iv'e no idea where the embossing folder is from.

I die cut a nice big leafy sprig from an amazon package, If you have any of those and you get to see me in person, can I have them please?

I didn't want to do much to the motorbike, so i just used my sparkle pen with a tiny touch of brown ink.

The book page looks warped in the pic, only because the sparkle and ink is still wet.

That's it, done!

Thanks for popping in.

No idea if i'll manage a Stencil Saturday tomorrow or not, got a very busy day today and Shrewsbury tomorrow, but i'll definitely manage a Speed Craft Sunday.

Finish it Friday 8

Hello and Happy Friday!

I have had my usual rummage through the reject box, and I actually found a few bits to use, but my decision was influenced by the challenge over at Country View Challenges, the theme is Black and White plus one.

So this is what I started with, the black and white was easy...

I started with the piece of black card with the Elderleaves stamped in white with splashes, that's been in the box forever! and the large white piece has been there just as long maybe longer, I was doing a pattern building piece with a single corner stamp, but then abandoned it.

I didn't really need to do much to make it work, I just trimmed the black piece so it would fit in the frame, wrapped a piece of twine around, added the Line Sentiment stamps in the corner, and of course added a pop of colour, I am quite liking yellow at the moment.

Done!

Thanks for popping in, have a good weekend.

Maria x

Finish it Friday 5

Good Afternoon!

Its been a challenging week, but I seem to have survived it, and now its time for another Finish it Friday project...

 This is what i started with, an old demo piece where id used white paint through the stencil then coloured over it, and the other piece was a mop up piece from using black ink on the gel plate.

I managed to line the two pieces up to match. stamped the Birthday in purple ink but as you can see it doesn't look great, sooo

I stamped again on a piece of white card and tucked it in to cover the original stamping.

Its a bit random but i quite like it!

Thanks for popping in, i appreciate it.

Maria x

Finish it Friday 4

Hello and thanks for stopping by for another Finish it Friday.

Iv'e really been looking forward to showing you this one.

I was prepping some samples for Leonie's Hochanda shows (Today 8am and 4pm), her new frameless stencils are very cool.  So i was playing with the Gel plate and ended up with tons of surplus bits-great opportunity for a Finish it Friday project I thought!

So this is what i started with...

The more colourful piece was the 'blot', the pale piece was just cleaning the stencil with a spray of water, and the lovely die cut is from the Daisy fresh cut die.

I trimmed off a strip of the colourful piece and brushed a little Blaze ink to take the whiteness away. Edge in black sharpie.

For the pale clean up piece, I just laid the stencil back over the card, lined it up and brushed a touch of Blaze ink and some lilac ink, i left the edges alone so the colour faded away.

Add a few splatters using the same red and lilac ink on a paintbrush.

Edge the card with black sharpie, add the brighter strip and tuck in part of the die cut.

Add a die cut sentiment, maybe a couple of 'coffee cup' style stains, wrap some twine around and bang the whole thing on an 8 inch card blank!

I loved this one so much played with the gel plate some more so i could replicate the card so i had one to give Leonie for her show and one for me to keep for my birthday card stash.

Hope you like it!

Maria x

Finish it Friday 3

Good Morning!

And welcome to another Finish it Friday, when i dip into the box of unloved and abandoned bits and bobs.

I actuallly collected another box full of said bits from work the other day, yes i have more than one box of crap-dont judge me! So i had a root last night, i was very excited, wanna see my desk?

Are you judging me again? I can feel it...

So this is what i chose.

I remember that little stamped piece, it was from a Aquatint class. The stamp set is available here, its rather nice.

I need some sort of background, maybe this one...

Or this one? how am i supposed to choose!

In the end I went for the crackly painty stencilly one...

Which one would you have used?

I think I might enter a couple of challenges with this, ill go and look for some and come back.

Thanks for popping in, hope you can come back soon.