Creating with BaRb Blog-Stampin'up-The Open Sea-Altered notebook/day journal

The Open Sea-Altered notebook/day journal
Hello

 

I have often found when travelling, that it really helps to carry a small notebook/journal to jot down routes, times, locations etc, and to have somewhere to tuck in brochures, tickets, etc.
I covered a small notebook with open sea paper, made a pocket inside the cover, some tags for pageholders, and various clips etc. to hold items in place. I added an elastic to hold the book closed.
The cover was embellished with stamped images from The open sea set, which were matted to card, then taped flat to the front cover.
The whole journal is small enough to fit into a handbag or pocket.
Enjoy,
BaRb

Merry Christmas

Hello Everyone

To all those people in our part of the world, we hope you had a really enjoyable Christmas day.

To the rest of the world have a wonderful Christmas .

BaRb and ShEll

Dusty Attic - Dreamcatcher

Good morning and here's hoping you had good dreams....

I have always had a fascination for Dreamcatchers - my Son has a couple in his room - they just always seems so calming.  Before I started this blog, I looked up Dreamcatchers on Wikipedia and here are some parts of their meaning:

"Two spider webs were usually hung on the hoop, and it was said that they "caught any harm that might be in the air as a spider's web catches and holds whatever comes in contact with it." "Only good dreams would be allowed to filter through… Bad dreams would stay in the net, disappearing with the light of day." Good dreams would pass through and slide down the feathers to the sleeper. The feathers placed at the bottom of the dreamcatcher also had meaning. It meant breath, or air, it is essential for life. If an owl feather was used, it means wisdom, which was a woman's feather."

Beautiful hey....  Many Native Americans feel that Dreamcatchers have been over-commercialised - in this world I guess what isn't??

I fell in love with Dusty Attic's Dreamcatcher and I knew straightaway what I would make with it....

      

I bought a canvas and painted it with black Gesso and then I watered down some gold paint and dribbled it down the canvas.  I did say down the canvas - I then decided that the Dreamcatcher got 'lost' in the gold at the top so I turned my canvas upsidedown and was happy... even though my dribbled gold now goes up!  Painted my Dreamcatcher - the photo shows it not yet finished, added a gold charm in the middle with a green glitter brad.

I played around with different ideas for the canvas - ended up spritzing it, added a leaf vine with roses, a double layered die-cut steampunk butterfly, ribbon, lace and chain.

After I glued the Dreamcatcher in place - I added detail to the feathers, some rhinestones, perfect pearls on the strands to represent beads and I painted some glitter paint onto the hoop.  It was a little difficult to take a great photo - because of the spritz on the canvas and the metallic paint on the green leaves!  I then added the word "Dream" to finish off.

The hoops of the Dreamcatchers were generally made from willow and they were decorated with everyday findings - feathers, arrow heads, beads etc.  What a beautiful tradition...

One of my Dad's sayings is "Keep your Nightmares in the Stable" - 

maybe we just needed a Dreamcatcher!

They say if you have a good day - you will have good dreams -

in that case....

Have a great Day...

Shell

xox

Kaisercraft Reindeer

Hello
Christmas and reindeer naturally go together, so when I saw this reindeer form I just had to add it to my collection (I have a few).

 

The fact that I needed to decorate him added to his appeal. Two loves in one go.
I first painted him in gesso then added two coats of brown paint round his body and to his legs, and two coats of gold to his antlers.
I covered his body with paper from Stampin'up,
I then assembled him using a silver embossed doily for his blanket, and a plaid and emerald green ribbon round his neck to tie on a bell and metal bow.
His antlers have added glitter glue and his nose is red Stampin'up dazzling details. A black rhinestone is his eye.
I feel he is a wonderful addition to my reindeer family.
I hope you enjoy him also. Why not try making one of your own?
Till next time
BaRb

Tags and Inspiration Jars

Hello Beautiful Crafty People

Today I/We have some inspiration (hopefully) for you.  As a Christmas Gift for our monthly Crafty Club Members BaRb and I made an Inspiration Jar for each of them....  With a gorgeous tag to suit....

 These are the large #8 size tags - they are a fantastic size for creating this sort of Gift Tag.  I used many products and techniques for these tags - I based the design on all of them around the white doily, chose my image/style for each person, then chose the colours and went from there.

We scrunched a piece of tissue paper in a colour to match the tag (you can even use the tissue paper in any multi media type project), then we added lots and lots of inspirational goodies....  Made a cloth and white doily cover and die cut glitter snowflakes to sit on the top of each jar.

Inside the jar - we piled heaps of ribbons, charms - birdcages, hearts wishing wells and more, buttons, flags, flowers with bows, lace, tickets with words, tickets without words, resin flowers, beaded stick pins, flower stamens and centres,  lots and lots of crafty goodness to inspire our friends!!  Phew, and we crammed it all into the little jars....

Here they are all lined up in a row, with their co-ordinating tags...  We were soo happy with the way they turned out!

Now, our friends will have to decide which products to use first - little bit like a child in a toy store told to pick whichever toys they wanted!!  What's that saying? "It's a bit like a kid in a candy store............."

Need an inspirational Gift for your Craftly Club Members???

Guaranteed to inspire....

Shell

xox

Kaisercraft - Large Desk Organiser

Good Morning,

Have I told you before.... probably many times... that my favourite colours are Red and Black??  Well just in case you missed it - my favourite colours are Red and Black!!  Hehe....

This is one of my latest projects - Kaisercraft - Large Desk Organiser.  I painted the majority of the edges in black.

Except for the drawer fronts - which I painted the edges of these in Red.

Then I papered the parts that you see from the front in 2 different papers - one is black with white butterflies and the other is white with black butterflies - had you noticed the difference??

The sides are papered in plain Red paper.  I have not added any embellishments to the fronts of the drawers as yet - I am still undecided as to whether I even will.

I should probably take a photo of all of my 'organiser' type off the page projects that are black, red and white.  I am sure it will look amazing.  And, no, sorry to say my Craft Room is not Red and Black - I wish it were so, but when the storage containers and paper drawers that you buy are colours or multi-coloured - my Craft Room has Red, Blue, Pink, Black, White and even Orange storage - so it is a bit of a mix of colours.  Oh well - doesn't seem to affect my Creativity!!!! Luckily ......

Hope you like my Organiser,  Off to make space on my Desk for it,

Have a Creative Day,

Shell

xox

Stampin' Up Secret Garden - Pillow Boxes

Hello,

I have some little Pillow Boxes to show you - I was inspired to make these by a picture in the current Stampin' Up catalogue.  I changed it of course - to make it a little more Christmassy and I think the acetate Pillow Boxes in the catalogue were a bit bigger in size than mine were.

I used a strip of Christmas paper from my stash and added a red cardstock edge punched strip down each side.  Then I used a narrow silver ribbon down one side, which I tied in a bow at the top.

I used various colours for the flowers stamped from Stampin' Ups Secret Garden Stamp Set and the beauty of this stamp set is... there are matching framelit dies to Suit!!!   How great is that?!?

The Labels  Bird Frame is a Stampin' Up Set - Four Frames.  The label is a Stampin' Up Punch - Decorative Label .

I found lots of small Christmas Baubles and Bells to fill my Pillow Boxes with..... because not everybody likes chocolate.... I know!  I did just say that out loud! Scary huh....

They make an ideal little Christmas Gift and were lots of fun to create.

Christmas Baubles and Bells / Chocolate...

Which would you rather receive???

Shell

xox