Saturday 23 January 2016

Let's Fly to a Happy Place...

Good Evening.


Today was a good day crafting. First on my list was to complete the paper cutting from yesterday. I am pleased the way it came out and I think I may actually frame this one ... The butterflies were the cutest thing to cut out and put on the design and my nephews and kids names cut on on the tress makes it just that much more special.


Yesterday while clearing my room I came across this cute, gorgeous  Craftwork Cards Julie Loves Bird Wall Hanging Kit which I had bought a while ago and it went straight into my bag to be created today.


So as soon as I finished the paper cutting I started on making the bird hanging (I don't think the Candi fixers were in the kit but jumped into the photograph from the Candi i had taken out to stick on later as a little extra). Love the sentiment "Choose to Be Happy".

With the kit you can make 2 bird hangings but I decided to make it into 1 longer hanging and instead of decorate just one side, I embellished both as I decided, instead of hanging it on a wall, I was going to hang it from my work room door frame. Here is my finished creation and a close up ...

  


Everything else on my list for today,  such as finish the doodle from a few days and the pattern for Parchment Craft Magazine, did not get done as making this was way too much fun. Really really really enjoyed making this so great huge thank you Julie Hickey and Craftwork Cards. 

Lots of Fun, Love and Laughter Tina Cox

Friday 22 January 2016

Paper Cutting ...

Good Evening.

Once more I am doing this late ... Everyday I tell myself i am going to do my write up early and each day I get distracted with life.

Today I actually spent the morning/afternoon at my place. I was going to catch up on some rest time but instead I started sorting out my work room from 7.15-3.30. I am one of those lucky people who had converted my spare bedroom into my craft room when I moved into the house. But over a space of 10yrs the room started shrinking and all my stuff stopped fitting in there. So about a year ago I decided I needed to convert the dining room into my new craft room ... After all I can still have diner in there while I am crafting. I had cupboards put in the dining room a year ago and I had not been able to sort anything out due to my parents ill health. But today I feel content and happy I actually got some stuff moved. Hopefully I will be able to complete this task sooner than another year.

By 3.30 I was exhausted so got me a cup of tea and decided to finish my doodle from 2 days ago ... But was not motivated enough. I think I lost the flow of it. So instead decided to do some paper cutting which I had not done in ages.

I had a pattern designed for me that has my nephews and kids name on a tree that I have been wanting to do since the summer...

Back

Unfortunately as I started quite late, I was not able to get a lot done ... I learnt, I do not like cutting circles and maybe cheating with different size eyelet hole maker would have been a better idea. However, here is how far I got ...

                                              Back                                                           Front
      

There is a great satisfaction in cutting the bits out with a scalpel instead of using my machine that would have done it for me automatically if I just scanned it in. Really enjoyed this little bit I did today and yet another thing to add to my uncompleted projects to be finished one day soon.

Lots of Fun, Love and Laughter Tina Cox

Thursday 21 January 2016

Butterflies, Glitter and Lots of Purple ...

Good evening.

Today I did not get time to do anything crafty so I will share with something I found in my parchment makes stash ... Something I had created years ago and had forgotten all about.

I had bought a flip album from Lakeland to make an album with photos of my kids as I loved the way some of the panels would flip out creating more of a 3D-ish album. However, it did not quite work out like that. I ripped off the clear pockets so the panels would be open, put together lots of my old parchment cards and other parchment makes that were just lying around in different folders around the house. Combined with other card making products such as die cut flowers,  tags, gems, ribbons and tons of glitter I gave some of my makes a new home. Here is the front cover ..


Here are the photos of the pages inside ...














It was really nice to flip through the pages and remember some of the moments that stayed in my memory while creating some of the cards and elements. I think I need to create another album soon ...

Enjoy.

Lots of Fun, Love and Laughter Tina Cox




Wednesday 20 January 2016

Not what I had planned ...

Good Evening.

Having spent almost 12hrs in the hospital with my dad who needed fluids, I can safely say I am feeling a teensy weensy bit tired ... Or maybe absolutely exhausted. I had gone quite prepared this time with my phone fully charged, iPad fully charged and my doodle journal in which I was determined to do a page as I had a feeling this morning we would be longer than a couple of hours.

I played a couple of games but was getting too distracted by being sent from one dept to another so gave up and just sat and people watched for a long time. I did not want to start a scribble until I knew what was happening and how long we were going to be there because I don't like stopping and starting.

In the end, by the time the fluids were started on dad, it was 3.30 and it was going to be a 4hr session so got myself a second cup of tea of the day, pulled out my journal and micron pen and began to scribble. Started off with an idea in my head that included the sun, some flowers and maybe a butterfly or 2 but it obviously did not go in that direction. A few hours later this is where I stopped (unfortunately unfinished as ran out of time) ...



A troubled, thinking too much, confused mind? I'll finish this maybe tomorrow, or day after ... or some other day in the future.

Lots of Fun, Love and Laughter Tina Cox

Tuesday 19 January 2016

Love ...

Good Evening.

A  bit late today as it has been a crazy day which actually involved a nap this afternoon which stole a few hours from my day. I had spent the morning starting a new design which I was unable to complete as I was not feeling well and for a while I thought I was not going to do anything do Blog wise as it seemed like too much effort.

However, by evening I felt like having a play with my stamps which are available from http://www.cccollection.co.uk as I have not touched these in over a year. Yesterday I had the Groovi plates being demo-ed on Hochanda and was dying to have a go at those too but the card I wanted to make I do not have plates of so used one of the others I have available from http://www.claritystamp.co.uk.

Here is the card ...


The image has been stamped on with Staz-on and coloured with Steadtler triplus fineliner on the front. Each layer has been mounted on black card using brads. Of course, I had to add ribbon and glitter to finish it off before sticking it on the main white scalloped edge card. I have not done something on parchment for a few days so had great fun with this one and on the whole it took me only about an hour ...  which is quick for parchment.

Enjoy.

Lots of Fun, Love and Laughter Tina Cox

Monday 18 January 2016

Home ...

Good Afternoon,

I started my crafty session determined to do something parchment, started and then it did not work out as I saw it in my head when I first started and got rid of it. I ran out of patience and was getting no inspiration on how to fix it so moved on to something else.

Today I had Meg at home as she is on study leave and had no exams today. So we sat and made little quirky houses using lots of patterned papers, a bit of doodling and adding extra colours with watercolour paints. Needless to say lots of fun and giggles were had this morning making these ...


Not sure what to do with these at the moment but At least I will have one home on hand when I need one ... If I can find them at the time once they go into a safe place.

Lots of Fun, Love and Laughter Tina Cox

Sunday 17 January 2016

Bringing Summer Early

Good Evening.

Feeling very clever ... I have set up (all by myself) Parallel on my Mac so that I can run my Xara design program on it as it is not available for Mac. Now I am really looking forward to tomorrow when I actually try using it from my laptop instead of going back and forth from my dad's laptop to mine and converting files. It will, fingers, toes and everything crossed, a lot less tedious ... If it all works as it is supposed to.

Once again I only had time for a very quick card which once again I made using products from Craftwork Cards, Create with Candi Colouring Pad. I painted the image with watercolour, added a bit (Ok lots) of glitter, some dimensional glue on the Candi and stained the edge of the card with distress ink stamp pad. I loved simply sitting there and painting in the image ... Stress reliever and great fun ...


Looking outside the window and looking at all that snow, as much as I love snow, my bones felt pretty frozen so I decided to choose these colours simply to bring the feeling of summer warmth.

Lots of Fun, Love and Laughter Tina Cox

Saturday 16 January 2016

Quick finishes

Good Evening.

Today I had to put a big cross against craft shopping in my diary as I ended up going to Hobbycraft with my baby girl. I needed buttons to finish a crochet hat I had started ... I ONLY needed buttons!!! Needless to say lots of other things fell into my basket including some more glitter glue as if I was ever going to run out of it with the stash I have at home in this lifetime.

First I set out to create a quick card as I have not made one in ages and I love making cards. I used products from Craftwork Cards and definitely a company and products I am obsessed about especially the Candi. The paper are absolutely stunning and excellent quality. So here is what I created with Craftwork Cards products. I mixed and matched various packs ...



After that, I finished the crochet hat for Meg (It's a bit big ... actually VERY big) ...


So on the whole lots of creative fun was had today. A good day. Not sure what I want to do/create tomorrow but we will see what takes fancy...

Lots of Fun, Love and Laughter Tina Cox


Friday 15 January 2016

Flower Dream

Good Evening ...

As mentioned yesterday, here are the photo step by steps of the card I showed yesterday.



Materials:- 
Regular parchment paper
Embossing and Perforating mats
White, Fuchsia, Green Tinta inks
Mapping pen
4-Needle perforating tool
Stylus, Extra-small ball, Hockey stick, Mini shader Embossing tools
Parchment scissors
No.2 Kolinsky brush
Sponge
Tear-off palette
Perga colours exclusive (or any water soluble felt pens)
Rainbow card and White A6 folded card
Low tack tape
Double sided tape
Glue dots
Ruler
Brads
Ribbon
Candy and Candi fixers
Quickie Glue Pen
Ultra fine glitter powder

Trace:-
Attach the parchment paper on the design using low tack tape. The word 'dream' and zig zags on stems with mapping pen and fuchsia ink, stems with green ink and the rest with white ink.


Perforate (Shallow):-
Using the 4-needle perforating tool, semi-perforate (shallow perforate) the lace design. Remove the parchment from the design.


Emboss:-
On the back of the work, emboss all the white traced lines with a stylus. I gently embossed the flower petals and centres with a hockey stick. To make the ends of the flower petals slightly whiter, I embossed using a mini shader tool. The flower centre also has stippled dots done using the stylus. All the circles have been embossed using an extra-small ball tool.


Paint:-
The flowers and stems have been painted using Perga Colours Exclusive and on the back. You can use any water soluble felt pens for this technique. Rub the colour from each pen onto a tear off palette. Using a damp No.2 Kolinsky brush, paint wash in each section with the colours you want. Make sure the brush is not too wet as it will cause the parchment to buckle. 

Back:                                                  Front:
  

The reason I did my painting on the back is I wanted my white work to show up as white work on the front. Had I painted on the front, the white embossed work would have taken a lighter shade of the colour of the felt pen used in area. Normally if I want a vibrant colour on the front, I do not trace with white ink but will use black ink (or coloured ink) to do my tracing with and then paint on the front.

Perforate (Deep) and Cut:-
Using the 4-needle tool again, re-perforate the lace design from the front, this time with gently pushing the needle all the way down to create bigger holes. Cut the 4 needle perforations using parchment scissors (or Perga cutters).



Finish:-
Thread a piece of ribbon through the perforated slots. The ribbon I choose for my threading is slightly wider than the slots because I like how it crinkles between the slots.
Cut a piece of rainbow card slight larger than the parchment piece and use brads in the corners to attach them together. Stick this piece on the folded white card with double sided tape.
Stick a bow on the threaded ribbon and using candy fixers, stick candy over the knot of the bow and on the top left corner of the card.
To finish use the quickie glue pen to put glue on all the circles and sprinkle ultra fine glitter powder to add sparkle to your card.


Please excuse the spelling errors or grammar mistakes as I have not read through all this and the next thing on my list is calling out to me. The pattern can be downloaded free from http://www.tinacox.co.uk/free-patterns.php.

Enjoy.

Lots of Fun, Love and Laughter from Tina Cox

Thursday 14 January 2016

Early Start

... Too Early ...

It was an early start today with various hospital appointments which means I can get this piece done early ... Feeling very organised already.

Let's share today a doddle I did in my doodle book last week, which is ...



Since this blog idea started this pattern has been swimming alongside it in my head ... I thought it would look nice as a parchment card and I could put it on the website as a free pattern. After the scribble on paper, I felt it needed a bit of tweeking and redrawing in the drawing package and created the doodle into this ...





But then I thought why stop there. It was calling out for a mini tutorial on how I went about making the parchment card ... So tomorrow I will post the pattern on www.tinacox.co.uk and the photo step by steps on here ... I hope.

The rest of my day consists of one more hospital appointment this afternoon and then play time ... I go see my kids this evening so very excited. Love them to bits and then some more.

Lots of Fun, Love and Laughter Tina Cox


Wednesday 13 January 2016

Ramblings and Rattlings

... in my head ...

Okay, second time at this first blog post (I deleted the first one by mistake ... Duh!!) and edited it to this one as I have no clue what I had written in the first one (note to self: learn to back-up!!). And to think my first piece I created was going to have to a 'Wow, I did this' effect. Actually I can believe I did this - DELETED the first piece after publishing it and with no clue how!!!

I have no idea why I wanted to start a blog over the last few days or whether I will be able to keep it going due to time restraints but at least it is a start. All I know is I have lots of stuff, things and ideas in my head I want to share ... I want to share lots of photos of things I may be creating at the time or created in the past. In future posts, I want to include step by steps. I want to share lots of giggles and quotes that go "Ping" in my head or heart.

Here is the first photo I want to share simply because it has two things I love and where the name for my blog comes from (yes it is a bit of a mouthful) ... It has a butterfly, lots of glitter and for fun you can even rock it. Flutterfly Kisses pattern can be downloaded from www.tinacox.co.uk.


Having rambled and rattled a bit and lightened the weight in my head by starting this blog after days of it weighing me down I will sleep a bit better tonight knowing I am on a new journey in which I can not only share with you but learn a lot from everyone.

Lots of fun, love and laughter Tina Cox.