Louise Sims Papercrafter

As said on a previous post, I am new to the whole Tim Holtz "tags of 2015" thing .... I know he's been doing them for eons but I have never felt confident enough to enter or even give it a go. Strange thing is I have bits and pieces from Tim but not a huge arsenal and I thing that is what has put me off. Anyhow here is my version of his 1st tag for 2015, January ...it is my inspiration piece for the " Love 2 Create " anything goes challenge ... I began by covering a tag with a piece of script paper. It has been added using white pearl and black coarse pan pastels. I then used the colourless blender to do just that, blend them so that they would not appear too harsh against each other. Next I used some vellum quotes I found ... again another thing I forgot I ha! They have been randomly layered over the background and then "aged" )using the same pan pastels as before). The lettering are some "found stickers" which I covered in

"It's all about the journey and not the destination" I know, rather reflective post title but do love this quote. Not sure why but it is does speak to me ... okay, weird button has now been switch off. Was out in the garden putting out the washing the other day and noticed how much my Ceanothus  bush was in full flower. As it is at the end of the garden, it doesn't always get my full attention which is a shame on my behalf, as it is striking. The colours were bold, vibrant and striking; it spurred me to use blue to colour up Oddella Twig from Ickyink Art from Polka Doodles. Okay, haven't gone quite as vibrant as the Ceanothus but there's still blue on my tag ... okay blue/green/jade ... I made my tag and covered it with a piece of paper from my scrap box (Teresa Collins ?) I then cut out the Honeypot die from Couture Creations, sticking this to my background paper. Next I created a border along the bottom using another piece of blue scrap paper.

After my mammoth colouring session the other day, I have decided to go for "print and cut" to create my DT project for Polka Doodles Challenges . It's inspiration week for the current challenge, "Girly with NO pink" and I wanted to create something for a teenager. I've gone a little grungy using Bonbon Belles ... The skull is from the cutting files section, which I have recoloured in Word and the skulls border, is one of the brushes (again recoloured in Word). See you don't have to have fancy packages to edit your images and can use what's on your computer! The sentiment is also from the same CD (again recoloured in Word). I have cut out all the letters, layered them up with 3D foam and then glittered with my GraphIt Shake pen. As a finishing touch, and I suppose the girly element, added sequins and gems. Now after seeing my card, I realised that it might not be as girly as girly could be, so quickly whipped another one, which is softer i

The other night I thought I'd get my pencils out and do some colouring. Normally for me, I colour quite quickly as like to get that bit done so I can get on to the card making (which out of the two, is my favourite part). Anyhow I decided that I would actually spend a lot longer on my colouring and add a background, highlights, glitter .... yadda, yadda, yadda! Well .... whilst I enjoyed myself, I'm not sure I could do this everytime I wanted to colour an image. My eyes were knackered.com. I "bow down" to the full time colouring crafters amongst us, as you have the patience of a saint and probably a lot more besides. Well here she is ..... Serenity Stardust from Polka Doodles ... After colouring her, I rather bravely (or stupidly) decided that I wanted her to be placed amongst the stars, so set about creating my star shaped background. I've done a simple tutorial to explain what I did to create the shape. Step 1: Cut a piece of card slightly smaller tha

"Enjoy each moment" is definitely a mantra I need to take heed of more often. Sometimes life throws us a real "curve ball" and you can take your eye off what is important, so this sentiment is a perfect reminder to take stock. For this weeks new challenge over at " Love to Create ", I have made a quick CAS card ... I'm not sure why CAS scares me so much as I actually thrououghly enjoyed making my card and found it liberating. No embellishments to rummage through and distract me from my task. I know I should do this more often but embellishments do seem to call out to me .....! I have used the PCB STOP stamp set to create my background with a mixture of distress inks and pan pastels. I used Antique Linen distress ink to stamp my bricks background and whilst still wet, went over with neutral grey and neutral grey shade pan pastels. I buffed off the images before doing the same thing with the leaves but used chromium oxide pan pastel to add colou

Well what an epic adventure I had making this tag. Lots of fun mixed with a huge "boo boo" that made me wonder if I would ever get it finished. My journey began by checking out Tim Holtz's blog as fell in love with his May tag idea. However, I decided that I would try and start from the beginning and have ago at making the other Tags of 2015. March 2015 tag caught my eye and after reading all the explanations, I began. So off I started using tissue tape and distress inks to create my background. Tim wanted people to use distress paint but surprisingly, I don't own any, so had to make do. To give a paint effect, I covered the background in white pan pastel pearlescent medium. Next I stamped my images: "falling flowers" from Honey Doo Crafts and a butterfly from Indigo Blu. On Tim's tag he used gesso to create his stencilled layers but instead I have used Maimeri Glass Gel and Premium Art Brands 12" characters stencil. I masked off