Wednesday 28 January 2015

Going over to the Dark Side

I don't know what my muse got up to whilst on her extended vacation, but she has been whispering strange things to me ever since her return. Use colour, she says, unusual objects, don't think pretty, think dark. So it was no wonder that my tag for this week's Tag Tuesday challenge turned out the way it did. 

The theme was FEATHERS, and after rummaging through my boxes I found that the only feathers I had were shiny black ones from a feather boa. Having shown them to my muse, she immediately whispered " Dark Angel " to me. I had to obey, of course.

I used a tag I had previously covered in various Treasure Gold colours. It seemed to be a fitting background for those wonderfully shiny feathers. They became the wings of the Dark Angel, who was bound in chains of copper wire. I stamped the background in just a few places, added some texture paste dots which I glammed up with Treasure Gold and added a fragment of black millinery netting -






I hope you can see at least a little of the shiny background and the gorgeous shimmer of the feathers, it was so difficult to photograph.

Because of all the shimmery shiny goodness, I am also entering the tag in the Paper Artsy 'SHINY STUFF' challenge. That Treasure Gold stuff inspires so many ideas. I love it. Next on the TG to do list is beads......

Toodlepip xxx


Monday 26 January 2015

Paper Artsy Challenge No. 2 - Shiny Stuff

How could I resist a challenge like this, when I had just received those lovely shiny Treasure Gold waxes? In the end, I used very little Treasure Gold, but all kinds of other shiny stuff as well. 

To start with I had no idea of what I wanted to make. I knew I wanted to use Treasure Gold on something, but what? After looking through a few boxes, I came across my box with fish leather pieces. And I knew that fish leather was what I wanted to use as my main piece.

I gently rubbed some different coloured Treasure Gold waxes over the fish leather and then started looking for a suitable background. I found this stunning piece of silk in my stash ( from my lovely bloggy friend Alexandra ), and that sort of set the tone of the whole piece. I am not quite sure how it happened, but when I look at the piece now, it looks like an underwater scene to me. The lace etc is seaweed, the leather piece a rock, the silver French knots little fish darting about, the bead flowers sea anemones growing on the rock, the shiny beads dotted about colourful little fish, etc etc, you get the idea. It wasn't meant to be a sea scene at all, but thats all I see now, arrgghh -








Thank you all so very much for your get well messages in emails and comments. Much appreciated and all those good wishes worked, yay, I am feeling much better. Still bunged up and coughing, but up and about and doing things :-).

Have a great week, everybody!

Toodlepip xxx

Saturday 24 January 2015

When you are feeling poorly...

... there is nothing like a surprise package arriving on your doorstep to make you feel way better! And if there is one thing which could almost cure the common cold, then its a pressie from Dorthe!

I have always admired the fabric rolls which I have seen in blogland, but I have never actually held one in my hands. Until now. Dorthe created the most beautiful nature themed fabric roll for me, and I am completely in love with it. It is just so much fun slowly unrolling it and seeing more and more beautiful images and embellishments emerge. It is stunning, and words are really not needed, the photos say it all. Firstly though, I want to show you the beautiful card and the fabulous way Dorthe wrapped the fabric roll -







Incredibly beautiful details, right?

And now to the most delightful fabric roll -







Stunning inside and out -





Thank you, darling Dorthe, for my very precious gift, which almost cured the commong cold, lol. I feel heaps better now :-).

I hope you are all having a grand weekend,
toodlepip xxx

Friday 23 January 2015

Parisian Beauty ATC Swap

I was so happy when I read that Kimberly at ArtJoyStuff was hosting a new ATC swap. I love her swaps, she is such a lovely hostess and all the participants are always so talented. The theme is PARISIAN BEAUTY, lovely!

As I can never tell how quickly or slowly an international item will get to its destination, I always try and get stuff on its way asap. So I started straight away as soon as I read her post. And promptly came to a complete stop the day after I had started, because I came down with the most horrible cold. I sort of surfaced from the bedroom yesterday and added bits to the ATCs and finished them off today, as I was up and about -






Wishing you all a very lovely weekend, toodlepip xxx

Sunday 18 January 2015

Quick and easy brush holder

Funny how one thing leads to another. I saw a mention of Treasure Gold somewhere, can't for the life of me remember where. Never having heard of it before, I googled it. Then I watched a Paper Artsy video on Treasure Gold, and was hooked. I realised I needed brushes, so I dug out my old stencil brushes which seemed to be ok for these waxes. Then couldn't find a pot/jar/glass/anything to hold them. Everything was either too tall or too short or too wide or too narrow. Then I saw a couple of used up sellotape rolls and that was the lightbulb moment, lol. They were just the right width and two together were just the right height as well. All I needed was some paper, a few trims (washi tape, fabric flowers and bling), a little bit of time, and I had the perfect holder for my stencil brushes, yay -





My muse must have made a brief return to my desk because I also made the tag for the next Tag Tuesday challenge. Before Tuesday! In advance! Lol, yep, I surprised myself as well. The theme was TEXTURE TUESDAY. I loved it -






 I embossed, used crackle paint, scrunched up dress pattern paper, curled up string, used ball chain, a tiny velvety flower and of course those gorgeous Treasure Gold waxes for highlighting the crackle paint and the embossed area. I added a bow made from copper jewellery wire and finished it off with seam binding and string tie ons, decorated with a small chandelier crystal. 

Now I just have to persuade my muse to hang around. But she is a flighty little thing and I am not sure she listens to me...

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Wishing you a great week ahead, toodllepip xxx


Friday 16 January 2015

A tag or two or.......

A lot of my crafting time is taken up by making tags, mostly tags I send out with orders from my Etsy shop. They are fairly simple tags, but hopefully they will come in handy either as a book mark or a gift tag. And I also try and play along at Tag Tuesday. Almost every week, lol. This week's theme at TT was DIVA. That word conjures up images of glamorous women, fabulous gowns, sparkling jewels and above all drama. I just had to go with a dramatic black and silver theme for this tag.



I had some lovely black paper with a raised silver design, which I used for the background. Then I went to my bling box and dug out some vintage Swarovski trim for the bottom of the tag, and also cut up another vintage Swarowski trim and used the individual flowers on the tag. And of course she had to have a very blingy necklace ( a tiny length of diamante trim ). I framed the word DIVA with the tiniest bit of red, for a teensy splash of colour. I thought this very decorative silver trivet from France made a suitably dramatic background to photograph the tag on.

And here is a bunch of customer tags I have made recently. Most of the time I forget to photograph them, or I am too rushed to get a package in the post to take pics, but you got a few here -










Toodlepip xxx