Steampunk and Fathers

The challenge for this months More Than Words challenge was  a 'challenging' one for a floral shabby chic girl like me!

The theme and word this month is Steampunk and Father.

The 'Father' part was easy. I chose this photo of me with my father on the Scotland / England border at Carter Bar.

The colours in the photo were then my inspiration for the steampunk mixed media masculine background.

You can view the More Than Words challenge here http://morethanwordschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/june-2017-main-challenge-father.html

With these pictures I will just show you some close ups of the items used in the layout.

These blue and grey cogs are a die set from a Joy! Crafts. I inked the edges with Black soot Distress Ink and finished of with a Tim Holtz Loop Pin.The anchor is from Blue Fern Studios and was firstly covered with Viva Inka Gold.

The Dusty Attic barbed wire was altered with Ten Seconds Verday Patina solution with the Verday Iron. This gives a great rusty look about the chipboard. I love these Tim Holtz trinket pins, this one has reacted to the mists I have used to create the colour reaction on it.  

Tucked behind the top of my photo and its layers is my journaling card.

The Dusty Attic chipboard cogs and gears cluster was covered with 2 products, some of the cogs had black soot ink rubbed over them and some had the Viva Inka Gold 'Old Gold'. The later gave the pieces a gorgeous golden metal look about them but was just to clean and new looking, they needed 'weathering'! This will be down to the mists again but I will tell you about those in a minute.

I used some chain from my stash to wrap around the top of the chippie chain. The Game spinner is again  from Tim Holtz.

The Blue Fern Studio chains were also altered with the Verday products.

The Tando Creative key was covered with the Viva Inka Gold.

I used a shaped torn piece of corrugated card in my background behind the photo , a great product for masculine layouts, it adds a great texture. I inked the edges again with the black soot ink.

I left the use of the mists till now......  the background paper is from 7 dots studio and I gave it a coat of clear gesso before the start to prepare it for all the misting.  I spritzed the design area with several different mists using colours taken from the photo, from the blues/green from the mountains behind to the rust colour in my coat. I let these mists run by tilting the paper and then dried with a heat gun after each colour application. I have listed them all in the products list but the main ones to mention here are the Cosmic shimmer mists, 'rich gold', which gave the orange rusty effect and then the 'Blue Lime', this is a fabulous product, it is essentially green but when sprayed onto certain surfaces reacts and turns to an electric blue colour! This mist reacted on the Verday and the Viva Inka Gold and on some of the other mists giving the whole piece a very natural weathered look that I couldn't have planned! I splattered these 2 mists over the completed layout again at the end.

I then finished off the by rubbing some French sage Artisan Powder over the edges of the photo layers, chipboard pieces and the paper die cuts.

The alpha tiles were cut out from a 7 Dots Studio paper, edges distressed and then stuck on with foam pads. You can also see the small bits of stamping done with black soot ink and the Finnabair Crackle effect stamp underneath the title. This was done over the design area before the misting.

Products used on this layout:

7 Dots Studio; Destination Unknown: under the stars

7 Dots Studio: destination Unknown: night sky

7 Dots Studio; Thoughts Keeper: No.3

Cosmic Shimmer Mist; rich Gold

Cosmic Shimmer Mist: Blue Lime

Prima Color Bloom: Tea Stain

Prima Color Bloom: Antique Gold

Perfect Pearls Mist: Blue Smoke

Prima Memory Hardware: Artisan Powder: French Sage

Tim Holtz: Idea-ology: Loop Pins

Tim Holtz: Idea-ology: Trinket Pins

Tim Holtz: Idea-ology: Game Spinners

Tim Holtz Distress Ink: Black Soot

Maya Road: Vintage Findings: Time Flies metal Charms

Chain

Joy! Crafts: Die: gears

Joy! Crafts: Corrugated card

Dusty Attic: chipboard: Birds on Barb Wire

Dusty Attic: chipboard: Cog Cluster

Blue fern Studio: chipboard: Anchors Away

Tando Creative: chipboard: Decorative Keys

Prima Finnabair: Small Clear stamp: Crackle

Ten Seconds: Verday Patina Solution

Ten Seconds: Verday Iron

Viva: Inka Gold; Old Gold

Clear gesso.

Thank you for stopping by today

Ginny  :)

***CSI - colour stories inspiration #232***

Hello CSI-iers!

It's time for another case file at CSI - color stories inspiration!

So get out your forensics kit and lets get investigating! :)

So here is the case file for June 15th

Here is how I solved the case!

Here's how.....

All colours of the scheme used

Evidence used;

* Woodgrain background

* Wood accents

* Mesh

* animals

* Trees  foliage

* Stitching

*Label

Testimony used;

* Document something about the outdoors

Now for the low down!

So the stars of the photo are my DS when he was a toddler with his Grandad down on the beach in Broad Haven, Pembrokeshire, out of season. Who says beaches are only for summer with bikinis! The beach was nearly empty and untouched, perfect for a little boy to muck up with his spade!

My journaling is done with tiny alpha stickers, a little fiddly but I like the look.

I used some masculine elements for my embellishment cluster with the cogs, some fencing and the shutters to frame the photo. The beaches and coastal areas in Pembrokeshire are always busy with bird life and this is a passion for my father so I included the bird. And ....well I had to add a flower or two, these are masculine coloured flowers!

My leaf/ foliage element is a flourish die from Cherry Lynn, I did this in white, as there was a lot of colour going on anyway and I wanted them to just be a subtle effect not in your face! The eyelet tag is my wood accent along with the background paper, which is obviously my wood background as well. I love this paper, its like a stable door!

My paper layers, which hold all the colours from the Scheme, are all strips and oblongs of various sizes all layered up on top of each other. These have been left in inked and not even distressed! But I thought there was enough going on with all the patterns!

I do love getting my sewing machine out on my layouts, I wanted to keep to the shabby chic, mixed media feel to the layout so I did random whizzing with my machine rather then a neat line or border. I liked the effect it gave. The brads added a little final touch in the needed 'green'. 

I really like adding straws at the moment, they add a very different look and look quite striking and again great for a masculine page. Mt background stencilling was done with a Mesh stencil in Distress Grit Paste. I also added some splatting with a red acrylic paint to finish the background off.

Products used on this layout:

* 7 Dots Studio: Destination Unknown: Walk the Plank

* Carta Bella: Bundled up: 6x6  pad

* Live & Love Crafts: Straws

* Memory Box: Stencil: Mesh

* Kaisercraft: Tiny Alpha Stickers: Black

* Cherry Lynn: Die: Small Swirl Flourish

* Indigo Blu: Acrylic Artists Paint: English Cottage; PostBox Red

* BoBunny: Chipboard: Bella Rosa

Darice: Rustic Accents: Rusty Tin Fence

Prima: Wood Tickets #554422

Tim Holtz: Distress Grit Paste

Kay & Co: Green Patterned Paper

Petaloo Flowers: Darjeeling: Anemona Mix

I hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog today, have a goo look around whilst your here!

I look forward to seeing your creations for this case file on the linky on the CSI blog

http://csichallenge.blogspot.co.uk/

Here are our sponsors for this month

Ginny  :)

*** Let's Get Sketchy - June 1st Challenge***

Hello!

Its June the 1st! Can you believe that!

I don't know where this year is going to!

BUT that does mean its time for a new sketch challenge at Let's Get Sketchy!

Here's the sketch.....

And here is my layout created with this sketch.....

I loved the design of this sketch but wanted to soften it a little bit into my 'style'.

So I have softened the lines by tearing my papers for the corners and made them larger to overlap the central design. All the other edges have been distressed with a distressing tool. I use a Prima one.

Most of the edges have been inked with distress ink Vintage photo, apart from the grey cardstock which I left not inked.

The central design I have layered up as per the sketch including the tag, I then slipped it under the corners so the corners act like a frame to it. The corner sections are popped up on foam pads which is more noticeable in real life then on the photos.

The patterned papers are from a 7 dots Studio collection called Nature Walk, which I thought fitted the scheme with my photo perfectly

I did a little bit of stencilling with my Distress Grit paste. (my favourite thing of the moment - I love this stuff, it dries so quick and gives such a wonderful textured look - I am nearly at the end of my pot - I need a new one!!) So I used a new stencil to me, I have been eyeing this one up for a while, I used it because here in the UK we often see poppies growing in our wheat fields, so to include this stencil in this photo of cut wheat bailed seemed ok!

Can you see the texture from the grit paste? Love it! Thinking about it now I could have rubbed some ink gently over the top to catch the rougher bits and create a whole new look - I will have to try that out next time!

So this gorgeous flower is from BoBunny. It's been in my stash for a LONG time a) because I love it and didn't want to use it ( just love the centre of it) and b) because I don't usually like yellow tones and struggle to do a yellow layout so it hasn't been used anyway! But this time the layout and theme seemed perfect for it!

This flower came as a set with 2/3 others, I have used 2 of them with it, the little crochet flower and the rolled material rose. I added some twiddled up twine and some sprigs of dried flower behind them.

I also ran the Prima vine from behind this cluster too and had it sweep across the bottom of the photo. I then added a few cream flowers to the vine and a couple of golden straw coloured leaves behind the corners of the photo.

The title is a laser cut piece from Wycinanka. I left this untreated as it fitted the layout just as it was,

These photos are from back in 2014 but they definitely need scrapping! The kids had such fun being hoisted up onto the them so I could take photos!

Products used on this layout:

* 7 dots Studio: Nature Walk: Cotton

* 7 dots Studio: Nature Walk: Cloudy  (both sides)

* BoBunny: Blossoms: Buttercup Dahlia

* Prima Marketing: Lovely Fabric Leaves #547509

* Prima Marketing: Decorative Border: Cinderella collection Crown #549206

* Anna Marie Designs: Dried flowers

* Tim Holtz: Distress Grit Paste

* Tim Holtz: Distress Ink Pad: Vintage Photo

* That Special Touch: Stencil Poppies

Wycinanka: Be Happy

Coredinations: Cardstock: Harvest yellow

Wild Orchid Crafts: cream flowers

I hope you have enjoyed visiting my blog today and take a look around whilst you are here!

And I hope to see you entering your creation into

our sketch challenge this month. Don't forget we have another challenge out on the 15th of the month, so please come back to see the next one!

This months challenges are sponsored by Creative Embellishments!

Don't forget to link your layout up to the linky in the side bar on the Lets Get Sketchy blog to enter.

See you all soon!

Ginny  :)