Available to purchase
Quilt No. 026: Rotating Squares

I made this quilt back in June and was due to teach it this weekend. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people signed up for the workshop and the session has been cancelled. This frees me up to share the quilt, and more importantly, the pattern!

It is my own design and pattern. If you’d like to buy a copy (£5), click the button below. You will be shown a download link on completion of the order. The link will also be emailed to you with your invoice – if you don’t receive it, please check your spam folder. The file format is a PDF.

By clicking on the download button, you acknowledge that once you have paid you are not entitled to cancel the order or receive a refund (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 – digital downloads). Continue reading

Card Craft
Card Making: Distress Oxide Collage

It’s been a long time since I regularly made greetings cards, back in the heady days of peel offs and basic rubber stamping. My style and media choices have changed significantly since, and last night I had a few moments to have a play during my Come & Craft Session: mixed media collage cards.

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Art Journal
Bible Journaling: Sparkle

Next month’s Bible Journaling Session has the theme ‘a bit of bling’. There are some verses and illustrations that just scream out for some sparkle. A quick search using biblegateway.com came up with this gem: the only verse in the NIV translation that has the word ‘sparkle’ in it.

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Layers, layers, layers

Next month’s art journal session is all about layers. There will be an unofficial ‘challenge’ to see who has the most layers on their page by the time the session finishes. I think my example had upwards of 20 by the time I had finished. The layers include acrylic paints which were stamped, stencilled and monoprinted using textured wallpapers. Over that were stamped archival inks before the title was stamped and matted onto the page.

Layers upon layersIt’s a bit of a melange, but I guess that’s the point of the exercise. I wondered after if keeping to a complementary colour palette may have worked as well – perhaps something to play with during the session next month. Spaces are available if you’d like to get inky and paint-splattered!

Used in this layout

  • Various acrylic paints
  • Ranger Archival Inks – various colours
  • Darkroom Door stamps
    • Watery Washes [DDRS162]
    • Alphabet Medley [DDRS026]
  • Stampendous/Nathalie Kalbach stamps: Marks [NKCRS06]
  • That’s Crafty stencils – various
  • Hero Arts mounted stamp – Italian Poetry Background [S1832]

Altered Art
Altered Art: ‘Stained’ Glass

stained glass effectI’ve been playing around with some 15cm square mounted glass plates I had lying around the studio. I found some 3mm self-adhesive lead strip and used a template to stick it down. Rather than soldering the joins, I overlapped them and made sure they were well burnished. Then it was a matter of using some alcohol inks on the reverse of the glass to give the colour/’stained’ glass effect. I used isopropanol/rubbing alcohol to remove the alcohol ink from areas I didn’t want it.

Top tip: when cleaning fingerprints off with alcohol, remember not to wipe the reverse of the glass or some of your stain will rub off too…

The contemporary cross panel is available to purchase here.

Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Beautiful Leaves

Beautiful LeavesIt’s just about time for the leaves to fall… the weather is distinctly autumnal (read wet!) and the leaves are turning. This art journal spread started off with a Distress Stain Spray background that I hadn’t used up to now. Next, stamp some fallen leaves (Tim Holtz/Stampendous CMS097) in jet black archival ink. Fill in around them with black acrylic ink. They didn’t particularly look 3D until I added some shading with Black Soot Distress ink. I’m not entirely happy with the quote placement. I can always paint it out if it aggravates me next time I look at it!

Other Art Pieces/Techniques
Printing: Christmas Linocut

I’ve recently been asked by a friend to teach him how to do a linocut. That got me thinking… ‘I really ought to review how to do a linocut’! The last time I did one was a school humpty-hump years ago. Things have moved on a little since then – the tools are the same, but there are various different hardnesses of lino and even a lino replacement. I chose to use Speedball’s Speedy Carve block, a (4×6″) piece of pink rubber which is softer to carve than lino. I designed the cut in Illustrator and then transferred a laser copy to the rubber by ironing it on face down. Top tip – wait until block is cool before peeling off for a better transfer.

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Mini Stamps

Mini Stamps art journal pageNext month’s art journal session (spaces are available) puts to use the small clear mini stamps that are available on the front of Craft Stamper magazine. Over the months I have collected a fair number of them, and the challenge is to use them in an art journal spread.

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