365 Calendar 2012 finished (well almost)!!

It’s 31 December 2012 at 22:42hrs and you could say I’m cutting it fine but I did finish my calendar pages in 2012 – just about.  I created November and December’s pages on 24/25/26 December so it was only just in time. Sorry the photos are not great quality I don’t have much luck with cameras.

I was going to do a ‘Movember’ themed page but it just didn’t happen and I just used a rainbow of Dylusions inks with a dragon fly stamp by Squiggly Inks.

December had a little more thought put into it, I used Dylusions inks for the background and some freebie stamps from Craftstamper. Then I drew fairy lights around the edge and coloured in the baubles with some promarkers that I got for Christmas.  The day squares were a parcel stamp that I used just the bow on in a rainbow of inks.  I drew the letters for the month and coloured them in like candy canes and in ‘real life’ it doesn’t look quite as manic as it does in this picture.

I really hope I can keep up with this challenge in 2013 as I have really enjoyed doing it.  I am determined not to let work get in the way which has been my main issue in the latter part of 2012.

Right now time to go and see the new year in!  Happy New Year everyone!!!

August – wow I’m late!!

August page for the Calendar challenge.

I just about did August in the right month. Although saying that I still haven’t written ‘August 2012’ on it yet. I wanted to do it as seagulls in the sky but I’m not sure how yet.

I was totally uninspired until I went for a short holiday to Falmouth in Devon and woke up one morning and realised that I wanted to use the thousands of little boats in the harbour as the days of my month.  I got a Michael Powell stamp in Trago Mills (brilliant sells everything shop) with a picture of a similar town and a lighthouse and it grew from there.  I didn’t use the stamp in the end as the scale didn’t work on my page but I drew my own version of some of the houses and the lighthouse on vintage music paper coloured in with Inktense pencils instead.

I used Dylusions inks, crafters workshop templates and a stamposaurus brick template for the background and then drew the buildings.  The boats were a light bulb moment in the aforementioned Trago Mills decorating department on my last day in Falmouth when I saw all the paint charts and thought I could use them for something.  I cut them into triangles and voila – boat sails! I think the white strips look quite nautical!!

The first day I went to Trago Mills I saw a familiar looking lady and then recognised her dog from her blog and realised that it was Kate Crane of the Kathryn Wheel blog! It was lovely to meet her, and such a nice surprise. Completely random to meet in Cornwall as well. I was so astounded that I forgot to take a photo though.

 

Orange everywhere!!!

See these mild mannered yellow shoes (£9.99 in New Look) – well they became these!!

I wanted a pair of orange Converse but couldn’t find any and was also a little bit reluctant to fork out another £40 for some as I’ve just treated myself to pair of green ones.  (I have a bit of a thing for Converse!!).  So when I found these yellow cheap ones I thought I’d get them and maybe embellish them with sewing or something to make them orange.  Suddenly I had a light bulb moment – ping! and realised that I could paint and stamp them.  So I did.  I used Dylusions lemon yellow and satsuma sprays first. Then I sprayed a bit more through my Crafters Workshop swirl stencil and a dots/stars one.  I then mixed a red and yellow fabric paint by Stewart Gill together to make two shades of orange that I stencilled through the stars and let it dry for a day.  I also used a bottle top to put some mustard Dylusions acrylic paint in places.  I stamped them with a flourish using Archival jet black ink and touched it up with a permanent marker.  Finally I stencilled some Galactica artic Stewart Gill fabric paint through the stars again to give it a bit of twinkle.  They are sprayed with scotchguard but to be honest I wouldn’t wear them in the wet anyway so they didn’t really need it.  So what do you think??  My mum loves them and I now have a blue pair to make for her.

And as I’m stuck in blue/orange world this is my April calendar page for the 365 Calendar Challenge.  The houses were drawn on music paper and painted with water colours and so were the letters for APRIL.  The background is sprayed with Dylusions blue and turquoise ink and I tried to add some orange paint but it looks more like a muddy yellow to me.

Detail of houses – I made the windows reflective by putting Glossy Accents on them.