200 lovely blogglies.....and a GIVEAWAY....

WOW...Hi Folks

We made it  and goodness me it seemed to take forever to get the last five didn't it haha but we are here and I am very thankful to you all for being on this crafting journey with me. Huge hugs and thank you's for all your amazing comments and congrats too. I congratulate you too as without your support on this OUR blog I wouldn't be here with you all.
I am always humbled by your kindness.
Who'd have thought that its been 2  years and 2 months since my lovely son said to me one day, Mum... Mum have you thought about having a blog or something with all your cards and stuff ? hmm... the seed was planted  At that time though I was watching other people on blogs and not knowing how to blog myself so one weekend home from Uni he helped me set it up and for a few months kept an eye on the posts I put up and checked for mistakes etc but then once it was up and running he got mega mega busy in the land of study and teachville so left me to it and I soon picked up  on how to, as it were. I know he still pops in every now and then though so I am very grateful for that.
I thought we could get a little Nostalgic today looking back on a few favourites and do my competition/giveaway then tomorrow I can announce the winner and continue with a few older pics and do a How to tutorial with a what basics we need as we discussed this week.
Sound good?
good.... haha
I thought id go back and show you some of my personal fav's from older posts. This was the first card I ever posted back on August 25th 2012.

I was clearly in the Autumnal moment using the rich warm browns and inking with all the Vintage Photo. I still love the textures on this one.

Next on the 29th August 2012  I was trying stamping into some frantage embossing and rocking that Vintage vibe even back then .

The pictures are not great quality as back then I was using my phone only to take the photo and no editing to trim them down etc and make them all straight like now.

The next thing I'd like to show was on the 13/Sept 2012, I was asked to do a few cards for Stamp addicts tv show and I loved the little dragon they sent me and enjoyed colouring him and making him have a back ground from simply shading. Take a look.

I was still using mirror card back then haha, I am not so keen on it now unless its very distressed or and antique feel.
I then was starting to do the odd piece of work for Craft work cards and once piece that was featured a lot was a card I entitled Lace.

Even then I was using Creative Expressions lace and glue haha. This was Sept 30th 2012.

Of course there was many posts in between all these cards my bloggy family but I am picking which ones I find slightly more arty and exciting.

At this stage I was working on getting noticed by a design team etc...and then on the 29/12/2012
I was asked by Craftwork Cards if I would like to be on the team. So although I had made a number of items for them for different shows etc this was the first card I made for them officially being on the team.

You can still see those CE products along side the Craftwork paper can't you here haha.

I hope your enjoying this little Kim blog history haha....

On 10 March 2013 I announced I had been chosen to be on the Diesire team for Crafters companion which was good news at that time.
Here was some things  I made for them during my 6 months term.

 A wall hanging, i am so pleased I have grown since then with paint and texture.

 This was a box I made which I loved, its so spring and lots of flower layers from the original quilled flowers they first brought out.

Here you see the dimension.

Here was another wall hanging which really does not show all the effort that went into this piece so I am going to show you each compartment briefly before we move on .

 This started as a brown paper mache piece from the Range I believe and I used paper artsy paints to pull it together, check the cracks at the top right on the frame, doesn't it look like wood!.

 Sorry for the blurry phone pics lol , I had also gotten into air dry paper clay from Martha Stewart back then too, so the letters at the top and corner pieces I moulded and used Treasure gold gilding wax on.

On the 17th April 2013 I decided to enter The Heartfelt Creations DT comp and these were the items I entered with as I got to the semi's with some old blog stuff.

 A card using the Vintage floret flower dies and stamps and Timeless amour collection.

 A chipboard mini album using the same collection, it has many page inside , If you would like to see more of each item feel free to ask and I will at links etc to the original posts.

Lastly I altered a box which I loved, I think this shows my shabby chiq influences even back then.

On the 2nd May 2013 I found out I had made it onto the team and many many projects followed for them after that. Here is just a couple of my favs.

This was first shown on the blog on 19/june/2013, I loved this mixed media canvas , I still use this on my facebook home page now. Created with The Sun kissed Fleur collection of papers, flower dies and stamps and Paper artsy paints.

 Shown 5/March/2014 Raindrops on roses collection.

 Shown 11/10/2013 Sweet Juliet collection.

 Shown 8/January/2014. Floral key collection.

 Shown 16/October 2013.Sweet Juliet collection.

Shown 19/March/2014 Majestic Morning Collection.

Obviously I have many many more I could show over my time with Heartfelt Creations but I will break here from the pictures today and go on to the competition and pick up the "history" tomorrow when I announce the winners.

So.... I have lots of gifts to give away, One large one for the overall winner with lots of goodies from me and Some smaller ones for the next two winners and some of my creations after that. 

I also have kindly been donated a stamp set from Just Rite stamps and another from Heartfelt stamps from Lysanne at Creative Expressions because they also appreciate the support you give to us demonstrator/designers too.

The main prize includes , stamps, dies , mask, ribbon and more , I am not posting a picture of it all as I want to be fair to all, once we have the winners I will show pictures then.

Ok to enter ... all you need to be is a subscriber to this, my blog , (part of my Internet blogglie family that is.) Also leave just one comment on this post. Please make sure you only leave ONE comment so that it is easy when using random.org tomorrow. I will not answer any of the comments on this post til after the competition to keep the numbers specifically for the competition. Easy hey... 

I will promote it several times through today on Twitter, facebook etc to remind anyone that forgot I was doing this today.

I hope you enjoyed some reminiscing with me going through some older pictures of art and cards and that you will enter the competition and be part of our family here if you are new , tomorrow I will go through a little more of the blog history and announce the winners.

Good luck everyone 

Love 

and hugs

Kim 

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Creative Expressions Thursday.

Hi Everyone

Well I want to say another huge huge thank you to all you guys, you are so supportive of the art I do and I value you all and your opinions so very much. I love mixing it up and doing all different things and so today I have a card which still has a lot of texture but in beautiful natural colours using the Sew jo pad I love for the background paper and some scripted Kraft card , pearls flowers and a little dazzle too.
I hope you like it, It is of course using another of the new frame stamps Designed for Sue in the singles range we were sent for the design team goodies this month to play with. Werent we lucky. Creative Expressions really have some fantasic products don't they and some gorgeous things coming soon too. (I will be showing them in November hehe).Hinty hint.

So here we go.

I used the singles stamp called Curled Frame, and I know you can cut the sentiment away and use the frame separately but I love how these two look together. Very natural I thought.

 Here is the Black and White image to make it easier to see.

I took a piece of kraft card with this image of script on it, it can easily be made in large batches if you do not own any pre made and stored for little occassions like this. ( A little tip, Most often you will not see the middle of the card or if you plan your cards out ( I have never ever planned a card haha) before you start and know where you will see on the backing don't waste time stamping the whole page, simply stamp the parts you will see, as this reduces the over lapped pieces or incorrect gaps etc.)

I mounted it on to Milk Foundations card from Creative Expressions of course. I then added a small thin piece of burlap to the left hand side which I frayed and allowed to hang over the ends slightly.

 Here I took a piece of corrugated card and dry brushed some warm white acrylic paint onto it but not alot , I still wanted to see the card through it a little. Once done I dried it and cut it to size, to sit next to the Burlap added to the card, I inked all the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and mounted it onto the card with my cosmic shimmer glue. I took three pieces of Blue seam binding ribbon and wraped it around the card top to vertically over the corrugated piece and over lapping each other slightly, to tie the colour of the bow in also.

I then took my perfect medium and True white embossing powder and after running over the paper with an anti static pad I stamped out my image and tipped on my powder, tipping off the excess into the jar and heat set, I straightened the edges before mounting onto a piece of Milk card. I added that to the front of the card with  1 layer of mounting tape in the centre and where it was further away from the card due to the corrugated piece I added two layers to keep it at the same level for viewing. I also added it on a jaunty angle.

Once it was in the correct place I thought I'd add some strips of pearl string to the valleys of the corrugated car stock at the top and the bottom of the piece for me pearls just scream elegance which really is what I love.

At this stage I took a large air force bluey piece of paper with brown stripes and like clothing patterns on it which looked perfect on this project. I used it from the 12x12 Sew Jo pad from Couture creations which I love from my show a while back now. It also had some random white spots which looked fab with this too.

I mounted it  onto 2 layers of milk card with foam in between for a little dimension and height to the card.

 I folded over a piece of burlap in matching tone to the peice on the main body of the card.I took a piece of blue seam binding and cut it in half lengthways and frayed it to make it look shabby and added that onto the Burlap. I tied a regular two layer bow to which I mounted a Dazzler in a lovely frosty blue which is very oppaque.

I used our Sue's stamps and Matching Poinsettia die to make these two Little leaves, and cut them out with the corrosponding Die and added three 10mm flowers from my stash just to tie in the sentiment really.

The finishing touches were simply three 8mm ivory pearls which I love in that size, it makes it so easy to stick them down onto a small bead of cosmic shimmer to hold it permanently.

So this is a fairly simple one for you to have a go at after yesterdays truly arty altered frame, I just love it all, isnt it nice to play with goodies.

So Yesterday saw us get to 200 finally on the blog and I could not be more pleased, Huge hugs to all who follow the blog and we stumbled over the fact I call you all lovelies and bloggers too so you ended up being Blogglies for all the new dolls to know who recently joined.

Come back at the weekend for a special post with goodies to be given away to those on the blog and who leave a comment on that post , it will be open for comment just for 1 day and at the end of it I will choose a winner with Random.org to keep it all fair to you all. I will also have some cards and Kim makes to give out as extra little prizes so more than one on that day too. It is so I can give something back to you all because I truly appreciate every single person who takes the time to leave a comment and to come back daily to check if I have posted and for being the kind lovely folks you all are. I am proud to call you all my "blogglies", my internet family.

I have been asked recently for several basic type tutorials ie the right paint, a beginners list of goodies, my ideal goodies lists. How to's for embossing and making flowers my way etc so I thought I'd start incorporating one a week if you are all happy with that as this is your blog too and I would really appreciate any ideas of what you would like to see so moving forward we can prepare for the videos I will be creating. So the post at the weekend will be an intro to some of the above and some other bits and bobbies hehe.

Have a lovely Thursday and huge huge thanks to you all.

Love and hugs

Kim

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Visible Image wednesday plus 199.

Hello my lovely crafty peeps.

Good morning , I have a gorgeous altered frame for your today ( well least I hope you all think it is gorgeous anyway.)lol
I always reach for my browns and blues lately so just for this time I went for purple and green tones, lots and lots of texture and some gorgeous flowers to add to the mix too. I have a step by step for you today as this sort of frame can look daunting if you aren't really a mixed media boff like me but would love to have a go at it.

Before I go into the tutorial I am soooo close to the give away I can almost taste it haha... 199 of you lovely blogglies on here now and 1 more is all we need to get the ball rolling on our little celebratory giveaway  for me to give something back to you my Internet family and let you know just how much I appreciate you being here with me. If you have popped over from facebook to have a look today all you need to do is be a subscriber and we will have  the giveaway which I will use random.org to pick the number to make it fair for everyone entering.

So here is my Create Your Future altered frame for The amazing Visible Image.

This picture doesn't show off the subtle greens in the spritzes but they are there and you will see them as we get further into it.
So I started with this blank frame which was in a grey sort of lime washed shade and I covered it in a light coat of off white paint as my base to blend into.

 My brush was almost dry and I wanted to keep the grain in the wood as you can see above.

This is an Imagination crafts stencil that I saw used with the ferro paste in a demo and I loved how it sparkles like crazy for other projects but for today I wanted to use it purely because if you heat this stuff lots it swells up and does not collapse as it cools so it creates something that stands off the sundrie and look great as is or painted as I did on this occasion.

 This is what it looks like before heated and I just wish you could see the Graphite sparkles cos it is pretty amazing. do any of you have this product? I know it comes in lots of colours but isn't easy to find.

Next I took this Dreamweaver embossing crackle paste and smeared it loosely over the frame, thick in some places thin in the other and heated it til it cracked like crazy, here it is before heated.

Here is is after heating so on to the next step. Are you keeping up lovelies?
Do you think you will try this with me?.

I Took a regular old cheapy tissue and separated the plys so I just had the 1 thin ply and took my Music Background stamp and used Versafine archival ink to stamp and Image which I then heat set to prevent smears. I ripped it out of the tissue and you want raggedy edges.

 Like this .

This product is a runny gluey item to add tissue and other things to frames etc, if you have Mod podge, decopatch glue, slap-it-on , cosmic shimmer watered down a little or even a regular old white pva glue with water added any of those do the exact same job, I prefer a matte finish but you can go for gloss, sparkle and all manor of things and I will be showing you how to make your own texture pastes and gesso's etc very soon too. So add a layer quite generously but not too much to the areas you want to add the tissue then lay the tissue on and coat a thin layer on top to seal it and then heat it up to set it or walk away and make that tea, and I have 1 sugar and milk if your offering, thank you muchly.lol.

 So these are the sprays I chose and they are ink spray misters without mica so they do not clog although if you have the ones that do please remember to store them on their side as it is easier to disperse the mica and do not shake them up and down because you send the mica straight up the sprayer and block it before you even start, while the bottle is on its side roll it between your palms until the mica mixes and you will get less blocking although due to the nature of the product you will always get some. I know though if they are Creative Expressions ones you can always ring them and they will replace the sprayers if you are having issues of that kind. The colours I used here were , Grape mist,Soft Moss and Evergreen.

So after spraying the above colours in layers drying in between coats I took my off white paint and a dry brushing technique to bring out the raised details in the frame and all that texturing we did.

Here is the frame after doing all the above, the frustrating thing is in person you can see the music still through the ink but you cannot see the layers on cam I'm afraid. So now I wanted to work out what I would put in the frame with the sentiment I had chosen.

I cut a piece of card in Milk colour and randomly stamped the Music Background stamp irregularly all over the piece of card with Vintage photo Distress ink. I dried it and added some of the crackle paste to the top left corner and the bottom right corner and dried, I spritzed it lightly to match and dried (see the theme  lol) I used my vintage photo all around the edges of this little piece too. I took another piece of the same card and stamped with the same ink my Create your Future sentiment , I cut it out on the trimmer and inked all the edges again same ink and added all to the frame with glass in from and a picture stand on the back.

 I went back to the frame and took my Grunge flourish stamp , versamark ink and gold embossing powder and added a little detail around the frame first then i went back over the raised pieces and added a little white fire Treasure gold wax to parts of the patterns which we added our off white paint too earlier.Next all that is left is to embellish and add the beauty.

 I took a large Wild Orchid craft white rose and sprayed some of my misters onto the craft sheet and just used my finger to dip in an add to random petal edges on the flower , once dry I added a little white paint and spritzed with water , the ink bleeds onto the paint and gives an interesting effect. I dry it completely at this stage and add a little wax again to make pretty.

Here you see my flower in the centre and the rest of my arrangement for this corner, including green wire twirlies and little buds and stamens etc and I spritzed three leaves to match too.

 The frame came with a little hanging heart which I crackled and spritzed the same I then added a little sweetheart blossom and some bling to the centre , a little bud and a wire twirl, I also cut some seam binding down the centre to make it fray and tied it too the cord the heart dangles from and added more bling to the bow so it isn't showing a naked knot.

I moved the Little heart out of the way here so you can see the centre section and the white and gold on the raised textures also some inking to the edges of the frame and some of the grunge flourish too.
I also added a little angel/cupid in the centre of the aperture at the bottom and a little bling in the hands, Maybe hes holding his halo lol.

So here we are guys My finished Create your future altered Frame from start to finish, although my heart had twisted in this picture ..arggg.

Here we go this is the completed piece. Is it for you? what would you do different, what colours would you use?

Back to the first picture , oh the measurements for this frame is 6x6 inches and the stamps I used from our lovely Visible Image were.

                      Grunge Flourish.                                           Create your future.

                                                                Music Background.

Well dolls I hope you enjoyed today's altered frame and that you will give it a go with the products you have at home and of course your stunning Visible Image deeply etched stamps make life very easy as they stamp so perfectly every time.

Who is going up to Birmingham in November for the NEC then?

Thank you to everyone for being here with me i appreciate you all so very much, welcome to any new bodies joining and I hope you have enjoyed looking through the items I have created since I started the blog.

Have a great Wednesday and I will see you all tomorrow . Also look out as I will have more days and blog posts coming soon too.

Hugs for now

love

Kim

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