Paper Artsy by the Skin of my Teeth

Hello from Magpieheaven where my wings are flapping furiously to finish this post in time! Last week I couldn't find the time to play along with Paper Artsy, which I usually love to do and this week I thought the sands of time were going to run out too! Selling her house for her and now preparing to move her into a new flat plus my birthday and my son's this week and my daughter's next has made life hectic to say the least! But Liz Borer has been creating some perfectly lovely projects over at Paper Artsy, including a gorgeous rag doll - something I've wanted to make since I was a little girl - and a fabulously adorned frame with the most original embellishments! Click Here to see all the loveliness! I love the idea of printing on fabric so I've somehow squeezed in some crafting time and made these embellishments for future projects.

There was no time for step by step - sorry, yet again!!! Here, however, are some details of what I did. As ever if you click on the pics you can see in greater detail.

I die cut  different pieces of material with the Tim Holtz tattered florals die and stamped on one with a Paper Artsy Lynne Perrella lady. I then painted her with Frescos: Cheesecake, Vintage Lace and Rose. I also painted one of the flowers with Wannake Lake, the new Fresco. I liked the effect of placing the white gauze over the top of the stamped image. I finally finished the whole thing off with a glittery Prima brad to secure it. I found that adding fabric medium to the Frescos really helped with the flow and consistency of the paint on fabric.

For this one I made a shrink plastic button painted with Wannake Lake and stamped with a Hot Picks flower. I found that the fabric medium worked on the shrink plastic too, helping the paint to spread more easily.

Here is another play with different layers. The tie-dye fabric was sent to me by my Magpie cousin, Dianne. I secured my layers on this one with a glue dot.

I really loved playing along this week in my small way! Thank you for looking; I'd better get this linked without further ado and look at what others have been up to. Thank you for stopping by.

Welcome Stranger!

It's been so busy here in Magpieheaven, as we're helping my mum pack up to move. We've been contacting removal firms this weekend and making lots of 'to do' lists!  It looks as if the house sale is going through and she will be living in a lovely, spacious flat about ten minutes down the road from us. The kitchen is still on hold as Kevin crafts away at the cupboards (Well, I hope that's what he's doing) and this weekend our daughter kindly painted our bathroom and toilet. This is just as well because a new family member has flown over all the way from Canada and even if the kitchen isn't finished we felt at least we should try to impress him with the bathroom! Friday was my birthday and as well as presents and cards from my immediate family, I received a wonderful package from Dianne in Canada - my Magpie Cousin. She is the loveliest friend and I met her through WOYWW back in April 2013 when I was a really new blogger. She filled a package full of the most wonderful things that seemed tailor-made for me! As well as a lovely wooden box I can alter, there was this terrific tag, which you can see over on her blog:

Dianne has a great way of creating tags from recycled cards originally produced by an investment company to explain their pension figures. If you pull the top gently another tag within slides out...She sent me some of these back in the summer so I had better get busy and put them to good use because they look amazing when decorated! The background papers Dianne created herself are such deep, rich colours.

The sentiments she chose for the tag were just perfect and they all meant so much to me. Dianne is just the best recycling Magpie ever: I can't believe some of the wonderful images on this tag were from a packet of Tea Bags! There was the loveliest little bird-nest charm with eggs in it on the tag, which you can see more clearly on Dianne's blog; tea-dyed fabrics and lace and lots of brilliant shiny things... but there was also this little fellow sent by Dianne to live in my incense garden that I created for the #3UP Paper Artsy Challenge!

He has already made himself at home and, if it weren't for a touch of jet-lag, he would be blogging himself. From his place in the incense garden, he can keep an eye on the whole family; but he's keeping his distance from Daisy, the cat!

Here's a bird's eye view of him relaxing in his new abode. Thank you so very much, Dianne for making my birthday so special. May you and all visitors to Magpieheaven have a great creative week!

Artistic Outpost - September Referral

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven, followers and visitors, old and new. Last week at the big stamping and scrapbooking show at Alexandra Palace I bought my first plate of Artistic Outpost stamps. I had seen some wonderful examples of what could be done with these beautiful images and I had been wanting to own some of my own. I chose a plate with a spring theme, 'Birds of a feather' - not very seasonal, but I didn't think about that until I arrived home - I just loved the images, which I thought would be ideal for a project I had in mind: a handmade notebook for my daughter's twentieth birthday on October 4th. I should like to link this to the Artistic Outpost, September Referral Anything Goes Challenge.

I made my first one of these notebooks the other day and I used the same basic technique using two thin canvas boards as covers and drawing book pages as signatures, coptic stitching them in with waxed cotton thread, which I later gilded with Treasure Gold.

I stuck a metal cog charm and a die-cut frame to my front cover and then Grunge Pasted through a Crafters Workshop ledger stencil, after which I applied an initial coat of Snowflake Fresco paint by Paper Artsy, followed by Nougat. This integrated all the elements on my front cover. I then made up some sprays in little spritzers of diluted Vintage Lace and Lake Wanaka and randomly sprayed my canvas cover. This was rather nerve-racking, as I'm not very accurate with sprays and I did manage to squirt paint over the dining table and chairs! You can see why I tend to avoid CAS crafting!  But moving swiftly on...

I stamped the image of the two little girls onto pale yellow linen and then, using Frescos and fabric medium to aid the paint's flow on the fabric, I coloured them in. I aged the edge of my linen with some French Roast Fresco. I then took the stamp with the script and the eggs from the plate and stamped lightly with it over the canvas not using the acrylic block, as I wanted a random aged look. The space around the frame, I accented in copper-toned Treasure Gold, while I accented other raised areas with White Fire and Classic.

For the back of my book I stamped the page with the eggs on it onto the under layer of some napkin tissue, heat set and then fixed it with Claudine Hellmuth Multi-Medium. I then fixed on other napkin layers.

And edged the book with just-melted UTEE in gold. There is a beautiful flowery flourish on this plate, which I made into the image for my own Washi-tape edging.

For the finishing touches I added some handmade paper beads on pink ribbon sprayed with Wanaka Lake and a tiny fan charm.

Here is the front of the finished book resting on a selection of lace. I fixed some sprayed lace along the top of the inside page so that it peeps out, but it's probably too difficult to see this in the picture.

Thank you so much for stopping by today. It's really grey and miserable here at the moment, so I hope the spring images and blue skies of this little book will remind you that April - the month I started blogging in 2013 - is only  six months away!

WOYWW - Old Mother Hubbard?

Hello and welcome, visitors to Magpieheaven, where life is busy with my tutoring starting again and the cupboards are not bare exactly  - but - a mystery picture for you: what are these?

 They are dinky little models of what our cupboard doors will look like, evidence that they are an actual work in progress now!!! Kevin brought them over last Saturday evening and Mr Magpie forgot to tell me until last Monday. They measure 6 by 14 cm and I reckon they'd make a nice little diptych with some hinges on them!  Last Sunday I left my unfinished kitchen behind me, spread my wings and fluttered by Ally Pally! I met some lovely crafters there and spent lots of money - ah well, it was my birthday treat! Since then I've been playing with my stash when I should have been reading 'King Lear' and 'Jane Eyre' for my tutoring! I loved the chipboard flowers on the Paper Artsy stand at Ally Pally; but my money ran out before I could buy any. I've been trying to improvise! I'll show you an idea I had - possibly for a Christmas decoration -  in a minute. First I have to say if you want to know the meaning of this blogpost title and to join in with the best bloghop around hosted by the incomparable Julia Dunnit then click HERE and head over to The Stamping Ground. I will try to be brief, as I'm sure you'll all be leaping from blog to blog, eager to see other desks. I was lucky enough to get Happy Mail from dear Darnell on Tuesday! She took note of a comment I made on her blog about loving Moons with Faces and she sent me these beautifully stamped images to use! Thank You, Darnell for your generosity! I'll give them a good home! They are lovely!

Today I want to start another homemade book, so I've got out my waxed thread, my little pack of canvasses for the covers and some sketch books for the pages. My daughter has asked for one for her birthday on October 4th so I have to get busy. I have told myself I'll do a selection for Christmas gifts. Is this too ambitious??? Everything looks neat and tidy because I have to get things out as I need them and then put them away again, but once I get started there will be quite a mess and it will spread everywhere. My dining table is speckled with Frescos - gives a whole new meaning to dining 'Al fresco' I suppose! Maybe this time next year I'll be in my very own summerhouse in the garden!

Here is one of my experimental flowers. I made it with heavy white card out of a TH Tattered Floral, painted with one of the new Paper Artsy blues. The underlayer is some waxed paper also from PaperArtsy. The image stamped in the middle is from a Lynn Perrella plate and it's coloured with Portfolio Pastels mixed with Glossy Accents. Here is what it looks like on the reverse side.

I stuck the flower onto the bookplate from Tim Holtz's tag die and added another little flowery centre, I reckon the addition of some wings might suggest an angel and it could go on the Christmas tree. The flower is made of computer paper scrumpled, spritzed and then swiped through distress inks and when dry, dusted with Treasure Gold. This black floral fabric gave me the idea for maybe creating these flowers from linen, die-cut and stamped and painted with Frescos and fabric medium then stitched onto this fabric for a  project. What do you think?

 Oh dear, not enough hours in a day! That reminds me I must get those wings into gear and visit some crafty blogs to see what's on their work benches today! Thank you so much for dropping by. It's always a pleasure to read your comments - they brighten up my day!

Time to Play!

Hello Magpie visitors old and new! The title of this post is a little misleading! I didn't really have time to play today - I just grabbed some crafty time when I should have been doing other things! Two things 'made me do it'! First of all it's my son's birthday tomorrow and I wanted to make him something special and secondly I had all the beautiful new 'toys' I had bought at Ally Pally yesterday: I just had to try some of them out! What better than to create a tag with many layers? I covered the table with all my new treasures and I had intended using all of them, but that was sadly not possible! There are, after all, only so many hours in a day and only so much room on a tag! Anyway, here is what I created! It is the result of play with toys old and new and I should like to enter it for the Country View Crafts Challenge - Layers. First I made a tag from corrugated card, ripping away the top layer in places and highlighting the different texture with Treasure Gold.

I was in such a hurry to complete this by tomorrow that I didn't take pictures as I added my layers, so sorry: I always seem to be saying that! I will try to do better! Here are some details.

At Ally Pally yesterday I was tempted by some beautiful, little resin birds on the Paper Artsy stand. I had spent so much money that I decided against those; but today I made a little shrink plastic bird from a Tim Holtz die-cut and painted it with Treasure Gold. I was so impressed by the wonderful flowers on the Paper Artsy samples, created by Lin Brown, I think, that I decided to create some flowers myself. I used some old wrapping paper that has designs from an illuminated manuscript on it. I made lots of flowers from the Crunchy Wax paper I bought and rubbed them with Treasure Gold. What great paper it is, so mouldable and effective for flower petals! It was fun mixing and matching different layers to make flowers!

Here is one of the Prima embellishments with a dangling blue bead. I couldn't wait to use these. I painted the circle at the top with Treasure Gold and added a resin rose also given the Treasure Gold treatment. Underneath you can just see one of the Bo Bunny brads I bought. I used the same colour scheme with my Crackle on this frame for my tag.

I had been wanting the Paper Artsy die that makes hinges and a lock for ages so I incorporated this!

I placed one of my flowers at the centre of the padlock, which I cut from corrugated card, to create the impression of a shield coming to life!

This flower was created using the wrapping paper, some copy paper scrumpled, painted and highlighted in Treasure Gold and a little of the wax paper with TG. I fixed it onto an oval of Beach Hut Crackle Glazed and then painted with French Roast: I reversed the usual idea of a dark layer under a light and I was quite pleased with the effect. The border is  Treasure Gold.

The background script is a beautiful new Mini I bought from Paper Artsy with Gothic script on it! Now I will have to love and leave all my blog friends and visitors to catch up on everything I should have done today! Once again it was lovely meeting my new friends yesterday. I do  hope we shall meet again, and that at some point I will meet some more of the lovely crafting friends I've made, but have yet to meet in person.

Ally Pally - Land of Temptation!

This is probably going to be the shortest Magpie post ever!!! I love to chatter like away and I can't make those blog posts brief, but tonight I have to, if I don't want to be in serious trouble with the Magpie Brood! I am supposed to be cooking a roast in my still unfinished kitchen...but...today I went to Ally Pally for the first time! I thought I'd gone mad with purchases until I saw Helen's blog at StampingbyH - Thank you Helen for making me feel a lot better about my incredible extravagance! I can't wait to use it all!!! Sam asked me to 'fess up' so - here it is. Bear in mind, please, everyone, that I'm a bit of a newbie, so there was so much I wanted to play with - here it is...

I met some really lovely crafters and had a wonderful time chatting and 'ooing' and 'ohing' over Gillian's demos! So a big 'Hello' and 'Thank You' for making today so special to Leandra, Gillian, Alison Hall aka Craftytrog, Hazel, Lucy Edmonson, Petra, Laura from Laurart, Nikki and Lin from Art from Herts You have confirmed my suspicions that crafters are the tops! I must flutter off now, but I'll try to start using some of these lovely toys in time for WOYWW! Have a lovely Sunday evening!

Left of Centre - No Designer Paper!

Hello visitors to Magpieheaven! Today it's a double, possibly a triple challenge for me! As visitors may know, my Magpie nature means I love collecting notebooks and when one that I bought at a gallery fell to pieces in a matter of days, I set myself the challenge to make one of my own! Challenge One then is to make a book! When it came to decorating it I noticed that many of the books created in YouTube tutorials used designer papers. I would take up the Left of Centre Challenge and decorate my notebook using only inks, paints and embellishments from my stash - no designer short-cuts - gorgeous as all these wonderful papers are! That was Challenge two! My third Challenge is that this is the first time I've entered a Left of Centre Challenge!
 I started with two thin canvas boards from a pack I bought at 'The Works'. I had always thought these would be perfect as book covers, but I'd not been sure how to attach them to the paper pages and each other! I then started to explore YouTube and found some amazing tutorials on Coptic Stitching! The one by Sea Lemon was really clear and she has a nice calm voice! I learned what a signature is - a page folded in two neatly with a bone-folder - and how these are stacked to make the book's pages and then stitched between two covers.

I used a an eyelet punch to make holes in my canvases and paper signatures. I was lucky enough to find some waxed thread we already had that we had used for hanging decorations on last year's Christmas tree, but there are tutorials around on making your own waxed thread too. This thread was orange and it hadn't looked right with out Christmas decorations, but it really dictated the autumn tints of this project. I was surprised that hand-stitching the book was not as terrifying or as frustrating as I'd thought it would be! My stitching is not as perfect as Sea Lemon's yet, but maybe with practice! The next step was to think about decorating my book with my own work! First I made my own washi tape using opaque and translucent paints: Butternut and Smoked Paprika by Paper Artsy on masking tape. I then stamped these with Archival Ink (brown) using images of keys and shells from Lynne Perrella Paper Artsy stamps. I also dug out my huge supply of paper beads made from pennants of paper cut from magazines, wrapped around cocktail sticks and clear embossed. I like to make these in the evenings after supper when we settle down as a family to watch old movies.

Now to set about painting and distressing my book covers. I used Butternut with a gentle dry brushing of Smoked Paprika Frescos then edged with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I found some distressed seam binding that I thought went quite well and I'll show you what I did with this shortly.

I decorated the back of my notebook first, using torn pieces of napkin - the very top layer, which I stuck on with Claudine Hellmuth's Multi-Medium. As well as fixing the tissue pieces to the cover, it creates a nice, glazed look. I then stamped over randomly with some script from a Paper Artsy Ink and the Dog, Flowers plate using Versamark and embossed this with copper detail embossing powder. I Versamarked the edges of my book too and sprinkled them with UTEE gold then finished off with then strips of brown/gold ribbon as a border.

Here is the cover of the notebook. I used my home-made washi tapes as a border. You can see I added a little UTEE to my handmade beads and attached them with ribbon. I used an image from the Paper Artsy Ink and the Dog Letters 5 plate which I clear embossed and then masked, filling in the background of the oval die-cut with leaves stamped in Olympia Green Versafine ink. The Tim Holtz book plate with the sentiment from the Letters 5 plate is Crackle glazed - Butternut over French Roast and the text reads 'All the things she never said.'.. which I thought would be the perfect sentiment for a notebook!. I used two pearls painted with Treasure Gold as studs in the book plate. The butterflies are from a Paper Artsy, Ink and the Dog, 'Wings' plate, clear embossed onto card. You can see that the seam binding is now glued to the inside edges of the book with some washi tape and  used as a tie up.

Now that I've done this once I have more of an idea how to improve my stitching and I have lots of ideas for different designs. I really hope I shall have some time to make some more and a few of these will find their way into Christmas stockings as well as a place in my handbag!

WOYWW - Making a Book!

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven! I'm sharing what's on my washing machine top with you this morning, but if you're in any doubt why I might be doing this, then hotfoot, or hotclick it over to the wondrous Julia's Stamping Ground HERE! You'll find 'deskers' from all over the world ready to reveal all - all that's on and around their work-places, that is! And you might just make some new friends too. Recently I bought a little notebook from a London gallery. I have a weakness for notebooks and I like to have an attractive one to carry around in my handbag - you see lovely quotes and beautiful things in the most unlikely places and I know I'll never remember unless I jot them down. This one had such a lovely cover, an early Picasso painting of a harlequin. However, within days all I had was a collection of loose pages; a piece of cardboard and what turned out to be no more than a postcard used as a front cover! I thought, would it be so very hard to do better than that? There are lots of Youtube tutorials on making books, and Monique over at Morgan le Fae's Trinkets makes some absolutely gorgeous ones of all shapes and sizes. I've been wanting to challenge myself to do this for ages so I'm now taking the plunge - and I have to say I'm loving it!

I've used, or attempted to use, I should say, coptic stitching with orange waxed thread and two mini canvasses from 'The Works' as covers; I've added my signatures - having learned what signatures are and I'm all ready now to decorate my little notebook! You can see what I'm using: I've been very busy making paper beads from magazine pages. I finished the little box - yes it was a box I started the week before last. I know that you're probably busy with visits to other deskers; but if you do have a minute and you would like to see how it turned out you can see it over at Our Creative Corner where I've entered it for the 'Forgotten Things' challenge. Thank you so very much those of you who have said such lovely things about it: it has a special significance to me.

Here is the other side of my notebook. I'm still working on top of the washing machine in the conservatory, although it's getting chilly! It's much lighter in here than in the dining room. To my dismay, we discovered last night that our kitchen cupboards are no closer to completion! We shall have to go on with cupboard carcasses along one half of the kitchen and the shabby falling-to-bits ones on the other side for a while longer, as Kevin has been 'snowed under' - with what I'm not quite sure! Ah well, at least I can cook fresh food; as I do have my nice new cooker and fridge. And we'll appreciate it all the more when we have it! Just hope it's before Christmas! My daughter is now back at Art College and making plans to study in Australia for a term next year. Terry, after taking early retirement, has taken on two and a half days' teaching teacher training students so this last week has been one of changes with him returning to work as if he weren't really retired at all. So many wonderful friends have sent us links, books and information on coping with Aspergers - so much hope and encouragement for our son! Now we have to look at it all with Isaac and chart a course for the future. Lots of activity in the Magpie's Nest then! And my birthday is not so very far away - September 27! My present to myself is a trip to the craft show at Alexandra Palace on Sunday - I've been warned that I will return penniless, but I'm so looking forward to it! I wonder if I'll see any of you there? Right now I'm off to look at some desks. Have a very Happy What's on your Work-desk Wednesday!

Forgotten Things - Our Creative Corner

Hello visitors to Magpieheaven. I don't know what it is, but ever since I was a little girl I've loved anything to do with Pierrot. When I saw that Our Creative Corner were challenging us to create using 'Forgotten Things', I recalled that when I first started crafting seriously back in April I began with decorating small, exploding boxes from Retro Cafe Art Gallery. I still had one left and a project I had never undertaken, still partially formed in my imagination - to create a Pierrot box! My forgotten thing that I should like to enter in this challenge is the exploding box kit I bought for this project!

I gathered together some bits and pieces that I might use. In the end I did not use the little house in the background or the wide black and white diamond ribbon! I painted the two sections that would form the body of my box with Paper Artsy Snowflake Fresco paint. I had some green wire, which I made into a little stick man. I wasn't sure if this would work, but I intended him to become my Pierrot and to sit on the little RCAG chair at the centre of my box.

Here is my lid in the early stages. I painted it with a blend of Mermaid and Sky Frescos, using a Harlequin stencil with Treasure Gold in White Fire and another Crafters' Companion swirls stencil, which I used with South Pacific Fresco. The butterflies are cut from Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante paper. I used some Coredinations canvas style paper to make a tattered floral from a Tim Holtz die. After decorating my inside layers with the same colour scheme, I added the top layers of decorated paper napkins.

Here is what would become the outside of the box. The little fairy Pierrette is from a Stampington, 'Clearly Embossed' plate called Petite Whimsies by Sandra Evertson. I stamped her onto tissue with black Archival and fixed it with Paper Artsy Satin Glaze. The diamonds are Mermaid Fresco painted through the Crafters' Companion stencil onto Guacamole

.I Crackle glazed the inner layer and stamped with some script in coffee Archival ink.

I had lots of layers of paper napkin left so I mixed these with water and multi-medium and began to layer them over the stick man to create some flesh on his bones.

I then added shrink plastic medallions, die-cut, painted with Mermaid Fresco and then stamped with a Lynn Perrella image from Paper Artsy and glazed with Glossy Accents. The white pom-poms are to suggest the decoration on a pierrot's costume and the black lace was for contrast. I also added some tiny RCAG dice as feet.

Please click on the images if you would like to see in a little more detail

And the box opens to reveal Pierrrot playing with the pair of die that will govern his fate. I wonder what the white dove is whispering in his ear? The butterflies with girls' faces are shrink plastic stamped with black Archival on a 'Lost Coast' stamp.

 Here is a shrink plastic charm from a Spell-binders keyhole die-cut. The medallion just peeping above the butterfly below is a Pierrot and Pierrette image from Paper Artsy.

In the end I decided not to use the little house, as I wanted to emphasise Pierrot's solitude.

 

Perhaps my little man is something of  'a forgotten thing' himself, just like my box: the object and its theme have become one. In the same way I took up my 'forgotten box', I hope that one of the little Pierette's from the lid will come dancing along when we are sleeping and, like the fairy-tales, they will live happily ever after! Do check out what other crafters have been doing with their 'Forgotten Things' at  Our Creative Corner.

Giving the Ancestors the Paper Artsy Look!

Hello visitors to Magpieheaven and thank you for popping by now the autumn is here! Over at Paper Artsy a new designer is guesting and, over the months that I've been visiting in Blogland her fabulous blog 'Words and Pictures' has become a favourite of mine - Alison aka Butterfly! The combination of her flair and the wonderful Paper Artsy stamps and products have made this a really exciting start to a new semester! Please do pop over to Paper Artsy and see Alison's inspirational work. I loved the trios idea of all Alison's impressive projects and I wanted to use embossing powder with paint or play with acetate; but time constraints have made me shelve those projects for another day and go with Alison's second project idea! This is very much an interpretation because I do like to learn from Designers and then flap my wings a bit and take off in my own direction! Last Sunday, while helping my mum to sort out her belongings prior to moving, I found a couple of photos of my great-great grandparents - I don't even know their names yet, only that they were the parents of my great grandfather on my mother's side of the family. My father's parents were Jewish and came from Poland and I have found out a little bit about them and his East End roots!

While I was out on a walk absorbing all the lovely autumn tints, scents and textures I thought about how I might present these ancestors, and Alison's second Botanicals project came to mind. I loved the neutral tones of this and I thought they would go well with my ancestors! I have scanned my ancestors into the computer and I think these images are going to turn up in many projects in the future. I really would like to use them in a shadow box but that's for another time! In this arrangement you'll see some of the bits and pieces I gathered on my walk. I wasn't sure if I would use them at this stage, but I loved their colours and textures.

I die-cut some corrugated card and some heavier white Smoothy card with my Tim Holtz tag die. My plan for displaying my tags was a little different to Alison's, but I still wanted to use corrugated card: I love it and have hoarded away loads! I pasted pages from an old Encyclopedia to the tags. As you can see, the paper was thin and ripped in places; but I didn't worry too much, as I told myself it added to the distress - the tags' not mine! I painted with washy Snowflake and distressed the edges with Distress Inks. Alison suggested a blend of different shades, as this adds depth and she's absolutely right! I used Peeled Paint, Frayed Burlap and Walnut with just a touch of Soot at the very edge. I wish I'd had Gathered Twigs like Alison, as I think it would have gone very well!

 I always get carried away and don't stop enough to take pictures - when will I learn? I expect people have done this before, but I wanted to see what it would be like to make a TH rose from Fresco Paint and Crackle Glaze! I painted some regular Smoothy card with French Roast then Crackle Glaze and then a coat of Butternut - now no longer available! Then I die cut it. Here you can see my experiments with elements before sticking anything down. I've die-cut the ancestors - copies, of course - into ovals and coloured them with a mix of Frescos and DIs. I've also used the little bird stamp from the Hot Pick plate used by Alison and some of the flowers. Like her, I used Coffee Archival. I was a little panicked at this stage because the tags didn't look great to me. Adding the birds, though, made such a difference and I began to like the effect!

So here's what I came up with! I know the acorn will wither and perish eventually, but this particular project is not a 'forever' one! You'll see what I mean in a moment. First, here are some close-ups.

Once my rose was in place, I added just a blush of Blood Orange.

I was so pleased with the look of the tiny feather I found. The distressed scraps of brown paper were torn from a parcel that had just arrived!

I cut out and added the little moths from the Hot Picks Plate. I had some curly hazel twigs...

And here is what I did with my tags - an autumn arrangement in my Royal Doulton vase, which my late Granny picked up in a junk shop in the 1960s

Thank you so much for looking in today! You are so welcome! And thank you Paper Artsy and Alison!