Altering Objects

I have been enjoying the sunshine over the last couple of days, fair enough it is cold but I am a sunshine girl and seeing it gives me such a lift.
I get my happy head on and when I have a happy head I create.
I have to say that Julie and Richard liked, No LOVED the book I made for their guests to sign, phew what a relief. Just got to add the finishing touch, on the inside cover I found a music sheet on e bay titled "Here is the Bride" so thought that would finish it off nicely.

So the sun was shining and I created, wondering what I created ... take a peek.

Altered this bottle and added a grunge paper rose to the neck, it's amazing how just adding a few bits and pieces changes a bottle and makes it into something new and interesting.

and this one, if you have never done one of these and would like a bit of guidance
Nancy Maxwell James can tell you how with a neat little Pdf. This one I used a bit of the Ranger enamel  paint, so easy and effective. Paper Whimsy image used, have you seen the beautiful Paper Whimsy images, if not check them out.
And finally I altered this...

A dunhill lighter box, donated to my "stash" by my friend Natalie, she saves me all her rubbish, good stuff!

This is what I ended up with, a little shrine with a PW image, coloured the dress with my copic pens, added distress stickle to the hat and sash.
Then I used scrap paper and Tim Holtz tissue tape to cover the box, added a bottle with "Lifes Memories" on it, hung some found pieces of a house, flower and teddy bear. The finishing touches were the corners and the lovely donated flower...ta-da, that is why I love the sun shine, it makes me do stuff.

Thanks for looking and hope you come back soon
hugs Dawn

Guest Book for Julie and Richard

Got up this morning and thought about what to do today. Decided to make the Wedding Guest book that Julie had asked me to do, she wanted the colours to be teal and white.
The wedding is not till September but if we get the planning permission to put another level on the dormer bungalow I am not going to be of a calm mind to do it. Another reason I decided to get it done early was in case Julie didn't like it.
So I looked through my stash and started work.
The first thing I did was round the corners of each page inside the book and then use the scroll stamp you see on the cover at the top and bottom of alternate pages.

I had the cotton scraps with the images for so long, but thought they would be perfect for the book. I put a white cotton lace hankie as the base of the cover, oops, no I didn't I used some Bo Bunny scrapbook paper first then added the cotton hankie.
On top I added the cotton scraps and some Prima Marketing Calcutta Mini flowers, I did paint the centre with some teal from Viva metal paints.
I put white lace down the spine, added the Tim Holtz drawer knob and then hung some embellishments.
Fingers crossed it will get the seal of approval.

All that is left to do to it is add the words to their tune on the inside cover and then put Tim Holz metal corners on and ta-da done and dusted.
Thanks for dropping by to take a peak xxx

Dawn

THE DAY OF THE WORKSHOPS

The long awaited day arrived and there was a buzz of excitement in the air. After browsing in the shop and purchasing a few goodies we headed to the class room for the 1st workshop of the day. This was a workshop with Lin and Leandra.

here is the classroom with everyone waiting to get started. Lin, Leandra and all their helpers had worked tirelessly to put this workshop together, Karen who works for Lin at LB Crafts is officially the Queen of Kitting as she put so much in to making sure we had everything to be able to create...

 Fabulous hat made from Grungepaper - and Tim signed it for her WTG Francesca!

GABBY

Getting stuck in and hands dirty - HEAVEN!
Do you want to see what our morning workshop entailed? You do? well ta-dah....

this beautiful piece, which has pride of place on my mantlepiece. We used metal for the trees, grunge paper to make the hinges. The hinges were painted using a copper and gold viva paint and black archive ink to age it.
Paper Artsy have created a new line of papers and this was used for the backgrounds. We then painted the paper to change the colour of it using a new Paper Artsy range of Acrylic Chalk paint - the tree was washed with white acrylic chalk paint mixed with a bit of Adirondack colour wash. All the embellishments across the top were supplied with the class kit courtesy of our wonderful teachers.
We spent a happy couple of hours creating this and then headed for lunch.

Following lunch we headed to do the workshop with Tim. Gabby and I split up as there were not 2 spaces together on one table. I ended up meeting a lovely girl from Norway called Marianne - did I mention that Crafters came from all over England, Scotland and Wales and then Europe; the POWER of TIM!!!
We sat at our places where we found our kits. This was a travel pack of goodies from Ranger to use to decorate our CONFIGURATION Boxes... the excitement was palpable as we all opened our bags and checked out the boxes...

Tim had come up with a nifty way of prepping the papers that we were going to use to decorate the Configuration Boxes so we only had to do a bit of cutting on some scored papers.
After cutting and snipping and applying the papers to the boxes we used the new Tissue tape to hide the edges of the boxes and ended up with this...

All the time we were busy working away Tim was walking around giving help and guidance where needed, chatting away to us - what a FUNNY GUY he is.
After this part of the workshop we went to a Tea Break. When we came back, WOW!! what a surprise. We had a calico bag and when we opened it and tipped it on to the desk there were so many OOHs and AAHs and excited giggling, here's why...

A bag of Tim Holtz idealogy goodies... stuff that hasn't even hit the shops in the States yet - we were the 1st to get our hands on them - HAPPY DAYS!!!!
Can you believe the generosity of Tim and Ranger, we sure couldn't.
Our next task was to assemble the goodies into our Configuration Boxes. I will show you my end result now...

Look at it all, the bird cage, the glass bottles, the sewing spool, keys oh let me shut up and feast your eyes, down to the metal feet for the box - we were SPOILT!!!!
I didn't add all my goodies, the Charlotte doll that came with the kit I gave to my friend Lorraine who didn't attend because she loves them. Oh I must say also that the watch in the centre was a gift from the lady at the Guest house we stayed at, I had shown her Tim's book and she said "Well if you like to take things apart, you may have this" How nice was that!!!
Tim signed my book, and Lorraine's too as I brought it along - he signed it "Dawn, Be Curios, Tim Holtz 2011" FANTASTIC.
Oh yes and another thing we got given a sticker - not any old sticker, but you know the new Vagabond, well there are stickers to customise it (if you haven't seen it, it looks like a suitcase) but this sticker is unlike any that will be owned by girls in the US - this sticker is a British flag with Vagabond written across it... so cool, wonder how many people will put theirs on e bay!
So there you have it my fabulous time at the workshop organised by Artsy Crafts THANK YOU so much, couldn't leave without showing this...

Me with the Duke of Distress TIM HOLTZ

The Twitter Maestro, Mario

Tim, Alain (from Ranger) and Mario

THANK YOU GUYS FOR THE BEST TIME

Hope you enjoyed sharing my special day,

Till next time

Have fun, Dawn

HAPPY DAY!!!

for me today, got e mail confirmation that I SHALL be attending a class organised by Leandra and Lin with the wonderful TIM HOLTZ in February... HAPPY DAYS!!! I know that a lot of people thought it was expensive (via posts on FB) BUT I have dreamed about doing a class with Tim for so long and here it is a chance to do it here in the U.K. - Priceless in my opinion!

To CELEBRATE and to reflect my sunny mood I thought I would share these photos taken in France as we drove down to Spain this summer. Feel free to use them in your art if you wish, and if you do I would love to see what you create with them.






I have been feeling flat after coming home from Spain and have things I would love to share so I will take time out this week to do just that... watch this space.

Dawn xxxx

ATC WOOD BLOCKS

A few months ago I promised a little something created by me to the 1st 5 people to sign up for my P.I.F on Facebook and voila here are the pieces that will be going out to the 5 this week...
They are all ATC size wooden blocks, I love the way you can make the ATCs self standing doing them on wood blocks.
This 1st one is a gyspy theme - I know you would never have guessed right? ;). Basically a painted bg with images and I created a crystal ball with one of the Tim Holtz acrylic round tags, then I transferred an eye image on to it. The reverse has a 5 pence piece because we all know that you have to cross a gypsy's palm with silver for a reading...


This block I love, mainly because of the simplicity of the bg - can you believe that it was created with a napkin... fabulous! A little acrylic paint and a delightful PW girl and there you have it. I recently received lots of napkins as part of a swap (have I told you that before - if I have forgive my repetition lol) and they inspired me..


This one again has a napkin bg with paints added (told you there were so many styles) and a rusty star with the word wish - that's what stars are for huh, wishing on...


This block, well this block is for a special girl who has just graduated and loves keys - so this is a little gift just for her.


This again has a napkin bg, some stamping and an Eiffel Tower charm, simple but sweet I thought - never had Spring time in Paris but i can dream, dreams are good right!


And the last one, I don't know why but Lady Macbeth came to mind and I just had to use the piece where she is trying to wash out the spot of blood from her hand... I read Macbeth at school for my English Literature exam so maybe that is why it came to mind, who knows but I just went with it.


Happy to share these with you - Thanks for dropping by xxx

Do you want to swap...

...this is the question I was asked over on Facebook by Dawn Marie - I agreed and we said we would do it for about mid April.
Well I have had this frame hanging in my art room for well over a year and today it just said to me.... "use me, make something of me" so I picked it up and created this Birds Nest piece.

The frame has a mesh body. I stuck the music sheet behind it, after all what is a bird without music. I decorated the eggs with Tim Holtz acrylic dabber paint, color Juniper and stamped with a Paper Artsy mini stamp, using Tea Dye Distress Ink.
The eggs and the frame were purchased from Paper Whimsy and have been as I said a part of my stash for so long... you know how it is, you see it, you buy it and then you can't use it cos it is "good stuff". I have decided now is the time to use my "good stuff"
All the wonderful encouragement I have had recently has really got me thinking "hey I am not that bad, I can make art..." what a fabulous feeling and it is all THANKS to wonderful friends I have made here in blogland and on various art groups.
Anyway back to the Birds Nest... the rusted bells were given to me by my friend Lorraine... Thanks Lorraine - I used them!
The rusty bird was bought from Retro Cafe Art and the lace was from some I bought in Spain.
The words were made using the typewriter font to use with the cuttlebug
Now all I have to do is put together some bits and pieces and send it of to her...

Thanks for dropping by, hugs...

One World One Heart

Welcome to my post for the OWOH GIVEAWAY - I just want to point out that the cut off point for comments is 12 midnight GMT... Due to the fact that so many of you have left comments I have uploaded pictures of the 2nd Giveaway I have made below this post
BUT...
YOU MUST LEAVE COMMENTS HERE TO BE INCLUDED IN THE DRAW... ON THIS POST, OKAY :-) IF YOU HAVE ALREADY LEFT A COMMENT ON THIS POST YOU WILL BE ELIGBLE FOR THE DRAW ANYWAY BUT IN THAT CASE FEEL FREE TO TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF THE 2nd GIVEAWAY, FEEDBACK IS ALWAYS WELCOME

AND
I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT THE BIRDHOUSE IS NOT PART OF THIS GIVEAWAY, IT WAS WHAT I WAS GOING TO SUBMIT BUT DUE TO RESTRICTIONS IN OTHER COUNTRIES I CHANGED IT TO THE PENDANT (SORRY FOR ANY CONFUSION)
THAT IS IT... XXXX




Thanks for dropping by to see my Giveaway for ONE WORLD, ONE HEART
There are so many wonderful participants in this years blog give away and I wanted to make something, to be a part of this inspirational, annual event.
The top image of the fob watch is my contribution.It has an image inside of 2 girl friends; embellished with a dragonfly brad and flowers. I have attached the word Destiny to the fob with sari ribbon.
If you would like to win this then leave a comment with your name and blog, if you do not have a blog, then hey now worries you are welcome to join in - just leave me a contact e mail and I will put you in the draw. The draw will take place the 12th February There are lots of other great bloggers participating as I said, click on the title of the post to be taken to the home site and you can see links to the other participants. (sounds like I am rambling so I will shut up!!)
The bird house was up for consideration as the giveaway but unfortunately I had to rethink because of the feathers, I suddenly remembered that there are countries where feathers cannot be admitted.
Never fear, the Bird house has gone to a new home and I am so proud to say that it has gone to live with my friend Lorraine. Why proud? well put it this way, Lorraine buys a lot of art, she has work by Kelly Rae Roberts, Paulette Insall and Joanna Pierotti adorning her walls. When I showed her the Bird House which is called "Listen to the Songbird" she absolutely loved it, no kidding... she genuinely did. She made me feel so good, especially as I have not created for a while after some negative comments so basically she lifted my spirits and made me Believe in myself. So Thanks Lorraine for loving my piece, but more importantly for giving me back my confidence which has been awol since before Christmas - xxxx
The bird house itself was purchased from Theresa Martins Etsy shop The bird image is from Digital Collage Sheets
Tim Holtz journal word "Soar" and "Listen" tag. The buttons and feathers are finds I made in my favourite haberdashers in Spain...

Good luck in the draw, hope whoever wins loves it Hugs xxxx Dawn