Guest Designer - Angela Radford

Today we have the lovely Angela Radford as our Guest Designer



Hi all, my name is Angela Radford. Some of you may know my blog: Felix the Crafty Cat and I have a Facebook page too. I spent 33 years teaching Textiles and Art and since retiring I've been on several Design Teams and done a few Workshops too. I still enjoys learning new skill and then passing them on to others. I cannot remember when I started crafting as I've always been making something from being a child.

Style wise my work is rather eclectic though I particularly love anything a bit grungy be it 2D or 3D in paper or fabrics. I think I am technique obsessive and love to learn something new to add to my projects so when Susan said that this theme was Texture you can imagine that my brain went wild. I don't think that I could have got many more textures on this project but I did my best as you will see.

Anyone who knows me from my blogging would probably say that's her that makes the Masterboards and I include one on my blog most Mondays so it was the obvious place to start.

Details of how I made this are on my blog and hope you like it.

I started here:

 

 And I finished here:


Happy crafting to you all.

Angela x

Thank you Angela a Gorgeous project for our Texture Challenge. If you want to see more why not pop over to her blog and don't forget there is still plenty of time to join in with our August Challenge Susan x

Guest Designer Post - Jo from Let's Art Journal

Today we welcome our February winner Jo from Let's Art Journal

Hello Everyone, I’m so pleased and honoured to be here at Country View Challenges as Guest Designer for their Opposites challenge this month.

My name is Jo and I blog at Let’s Art Journal. I live by the sea in the North West of England with my hubby. I started Art Journaling in 2015 as a way of expressing my life through words and pictures and it has now become a passion of mine which I like to share with others. I’m captivated by the variety of techniques and materials that can be used to create so many different styles of art. I love nothing better than to experiment with different techniques and products, get creative, put my ideas into practice and have lots of fun doing so!

This month’s Opposites challenge inspired me to create an art journal page which features Colour versus Black & White. You can find full details of how I created this page and the materials that I used at my blog here.

Thanks so much for having me as Guest Designer. I hope that you are inspired by this month’s challenge too and are able to join in the fun!

Thank you. Jo x

Thank you Jo a Gorgeous project for our Opposites Challenge. If you want to see more why not pop over to her blog and don't forget there is still plenty of time to join in with our Challenge x

Guest Designer Post - Jackie Cornfield

Today we welcome our December Winner Jackie Cornfield

I am a mother of two divine girls and mama of one delightful girlie. I have a very indulgent husband who gives me free reign with time and money to indulge my hobby! I have been involved with art most of my working life. I worked in the Art Room at Denby Pottery for 17 years painting table and giftware. As that ended I moved into retail and now work for the Post Office.

Thank you Jackie, a Gorgeous project. Wow to having had a fabulous job working in the Art Room at Denby Pottery - a dream job for many I would think. If you want to see more from Jackie why not pop over to her blog

Guest Designer Post - Linda Walmsley

Today we welcome our November Winner Linda

Hi ….. my name’s Linda and I’m a stampaholic!!

I’ve been in the world of craft for nearly 17 years now, and I’m thrilled to be this month’s Guest Designer on the Country View Crafts Challenge.

My passion is rubber stamping, and playing with inks and paints, and I love anything from CAS (clean and simple) cards to grunge and shabby chic home decor …….. along with EVERYTHING ELSE in between!

Since moving to the beautiful Isle of Man in 2011, I’m so lucky to have the time to spend doing what I love!

Thanks again for having me as Guest Designer. 

Linda

xx

Wow, Thank You Linda - a gorgeous project and if you want to see more, pop over to Linda's Blog for some more wonderful creations

Guest Designer Karen

 

Hello everybody! We're delighted to welcome Karen from Karen's Crafting Obessions as our guest this month.  Karen won our challenge in December and today she's here with her take on this month's Pimp It Up theme.  You're going to love what she's created, so without more ado, let's hand over to her...

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I have crafted in one way or another since childhood and I’ve learnt that I am one of those people that need to create or make something. I love creating home décor, mixed media canvas, journal pages and tags and I like to design and create cards. I’m learning to draw and paint from You Tube videos and online tutorials. I’ve tried different crafts: candle making, silk painting, glass painting, fabric painting, origami and sewing. These days I’m obsessed with mixed media products and techniques.
 

I decided to recycle three old paintbrushes that had damaged and broken bristles.  Originally I planned to bin them until the idea for this project popped into my head.
 

I painted the pallette with white gesso then added circles of texture paste with a stencil because I wanted it to look like there were puddles of paint on the palette.  Once the texture paste was dry I coloured each circle with a different colour of acrylic paint.  I attached a Tim Holtz stencil and added the wooden grain detail with Vintage Photo Distress ink pad and dried the ink.

 

I glued the three tatty paintbrushes together and gave them two coats of gesso before painting with white acrylic.  Once they were dry I added matt medium to the bristles where were rough and dipped them into glitter.  I used another MDF piece which I coated with gesso and then painted before stamping the sentiment onto it.

I then glued them together.



Industrial Guest Designer - Karen Petitt

Hello all!  We are delighted to have some extra inspiration for you for the Industrial theme this month, courtesy of our December winner, Karen Petitt of Karen's Crafting Obsessions.  We're very happy to have you on board to help us celebrate our birthday this month, Karen!

Without more ado, let's take a look at Karen's amazing creation, and here some more about Karen herself as well as her beautiful Industrial hanging, in her very own words...

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I’ve crafted in one way or another since childhood.  At school I gained a Needlework O Level but I had to drop art which is a story for another time.  I’ve dabbled in glass painting, silk painting, watercolours, fashion design and I attended many different classes at Liberty’s Sewing School in London.  With the exception of the Liberty Sewing School Classes I was not inspired by the other courses.

About eighteen years ago I found stamping and paper crafting and very quickly I fell in love.  I am a stamp addict who adores playing with inks and or paints too.  I started creating cards for my husband and to me they had to be perfect and I continued along that journey for about sixteen years.  About a year ago I started to feel a little bored creating cards and the odd tag.

After seeing many wonderful projects in and around Blogger I fell head over heals in love with mixed media.  I’ve been happily experimenting and learning about different products and techniques for the past year.  Also I’ve a new found passion for shabby style cards and tags which are the complete opposite of what I used to create.  

For the Industrial challenge, I decided to create a distressed mixed media hanging.  I used an A4 chipboard sheet cut down to 15 cm x 20 cm.  I added a layer of white gesso and once dry I used Tim Holtz Salty Ocean Distress paint, two coats, gently drying each coat as I didn’t want the gesso or paint to bubble.  I attached a stencil with Washi tape, and added layers of Distress Stain that I dried with my heat tool.  I painted Tando Creative Chipboard Cogs with Distress Paint.  I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment and cogs onto card and attached using Matt Medium.

I used Distress Stains to add more colour, sprayed with water to get layers of colour and distressed look.  I used a tube of outliner to connect the cogs to each other.  I coloured the outliner with Perfect Pearls Heirloom Gold.  I used a Crackle Paint on sentiment and chipboard cogs.  Once dry I used gold acrylic paint to rub into the cracks and added a final layer of Matt Medium to the whole piece to seal it.

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Do hop over to Karen's Crafting Obsessions and take a look at the project in full - it's fantastic.  And especially given what you'll discover there about her first reaction to the theme.  What a brilliant leap outside your comfort zone, Karen, thank you!

We hope that will nudge you to leap into Industrial action and come and play along with the birthday challenge this month.  As always, there's a prize voucher on offer from the wonderful Country View Crafts, and you could be a Guest Designer here on the Country View Challenges blog too.  We're looking forward to seeing what you create.

Happy crafting all!

Alison and the CVC team x

We have guests today

Hello everyone, it's always lovely to share what you have been making and today we have Moira and Asia who are our special Top 3 and DTMSM guests.

Moira

I am delighted to have been asked to do a Guest spot on the blog.

I started crafting in 2006 when I got married and wanted to have a go at making my own wedding favours.  Over the next couple of years I got into stamping and altering.  I then set up the Happy Daze online craft shop which I ran until I took early retirement die to ill health.  Unfortunately the blog I ran for many years was lost when I closed the shop, I have a new blog which commenced in January 2014.  The main focus of my work is mixed media including art journaling and altered art, journaling etc.  My work is usually quite bright and colourful with forays into the vintage and shabby.    I like working with paint, texture, stencils, ink sprays, stamps, coloured pencils.  

I am currently Guest DT for July and August for That’s Crafty and I was asked by Creative Cardmaking for a piece as they were looking for something more challenging for their readers and my card appeared in Issue 36.  

I am a member of the DecoArt Outreach Blogger Programme.

I’ve got your number

 

Wood Door Hangar

Gesso

DecoArt Modelling Paste

Number Stencil

DecoArt Media Acrylic Fluid  in Cobalt Teal, Cerulean Blue

American Multisurface Neon – Green

Eclectica EM12 stamp by Paper Artsy

Small number stamp  from Grunge stamp set by Art Journey

Archival Inkpad Jet Black

Pitt Big Brush Stamper PEns

White Sharpie Pen

Text stickers

Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs Numbers

Treasure Gold – Renaissance

DecoArt Media Texture Crackle

 

1.       Coat  the wood hangar in gesso

2.       Spread DecoArt Modelling paste through the number stencil with a palette knife

3.       Stamp the Eclectica stamp on the hangar and mask

4.       Apply  a thin layer of the Texture Crackle in odd spots here and there.

5.       Paint with the Cobalt Teal, Cerulean Blue  and Neo Green paints blending as you go

6.       Over stamp in a random fashion with a number stamp using the Pitt Big Brush Stamper Pen in green.

7.       Remove the mask and colour in the stamp with  Pitt Big Brush pens and pick out white highlights with the Sharpie pen

8.       Go over outline with black pen to ensure it pops

9.       Add text stickers

10.   Highlight the stencilled numbers and edges with Treasure Gold

Asia King

Hello everyone!

My name is Asia and you might already know me from my blog Under a Creative Spell. (link http://underacreativespell.blogspot.co.uk)

I'm Polish but I now live in the UK with my lovely hubby and an adorable cat Kropek. I work full time as a property manager and my crafting hobby is a real blessing after a long day at work. I am really lucky to live on the doorstep of the Cotswolds, a truly magical part of England and I often draw inspiration from its traditional vintage and country cottage style. 

I've always had a creative bug of one form or another. But my crafting adventure really took off after my wedding 6 years ago. It all started with our wedding stationery, then I made my first scrapbook album with the wedding and honeymoon photos. After that I just couldn't stop crafting!

Today I am a happy stamper and card maker, occasional scrapbooker, mixed media fan and handmade home decor lover.

My inspiration today is a wedding card I made for an amazing couple who celebrated their special day in a Château in Chef Boutonne in France. The area is known for its picturesque sunflower fields and these graceful blooms were chosen as the flowers of the wedding. No surprise then that they also had to feature in my card! :).

For more details and close-up photos of my card please hop over to my blog Under A Creative Spell.

permalink: http://underacreativespell.blogspot.com/2015/09/chateau-style-birthdays-and-sunflower.html

Thank you so much to Chris and the DT for inviting me to join the September's challenge. I hope my card has inspired you to play along with the Numbers theme! x

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Thank you both for your fabulous contributions today and providing more inspiration to our lovely readers. I am on the road today but I will be over to leave some love asap and I am sure some of our fabulous readers will be too.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. We will be back on Sunday with another brilliant project from one of the design team. See you then.

hugs Brenda and the CVC Team xxx

Hazel's gone all out summer colours!

Hello dear friends!

This morning we're delighted to welcome Hazel, a previous Top 3 winner, who is joining us to share her interpretation of our 'Summertime' theme...

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Hi, my name is Hazel Agnew and I have been crafting for a relatively short while!

I have always dabbled with art, and began experimenting with this altered art style when I retired from work recently! 

I have found so much inspiration from fellow “artists” on Facebook and Twitter and several Blog challenges…not least Countryview Challenge which has an abundance of talented designers with a wealth of different styles. I am most comfortable with messy art and work quite spontaneously; often not knowing where the mood will take me! I get ridiculously excited while crafting and my long suffering husband has adopted quite a few encouraging phrases when a piece of work is thrust under his nose!

 

I was over the moon to be in the Top 3 of the CountryView challenge in May. It was my very first award of any kind.

 

 

So, the topic for August is Summertime, and chosen by the extremely talented and inspirational Alison Bomber. It was Alison that encouraged me to join in with the Country View challenges!

I decided to play with the new stamps by Emma Godfrey which are holiday themed. They are so easy to use for this theme and I decided to use very bright summery colours.

I used the Paperartsy fresco paints by Lin Brown which have Bougainvillea in them! A colour that is now a must have, plus Glass Blue.

I worked in my journal; using drippage; Portfolio Pastels through a stencil; making washi tape; painting flowers and adding a recent holiday photo.

 

You can visit my blog for more details at www.craftroomgran.blogspot.com

 

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What a fabulous project Hazel, fab colours and great composition, a beautiful project - thank you!

Come on folks, time to get a shimmy on if you haven't joined in already as we're almost at the end of the month!

We'll be back on Saturday with our last post and one certainly not to be missed!

Chris and the CVC team xxx

Jenny's our guest today!

Welcome friends!

We're delighted today to have Jenny (aka Buttons) as our guest.  Jenny is a previous Top 3 winner and she's taken time out to make something special to share with us...

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Hi there, Jenny Marples here of 'Pushing The Right Buttons'; Mixed Media Designer, Educator, Demonstrator, Design Team lead/member, for several companies/challenges, Craft Stamper Designer and all around busy bee!!! I was thrilled to have been chosen as one of the Top 3 way back in May and had a ball creating this Summertime project.

How many of us get back from Summertime holidays with photos that we do nothing with? I decided it was about time to make use of one, a shot of Jardin des Tuileries from a recent trip to Paris. Having covered the image with a thin coat of Glue n Seal to protect the surface I used Wendy Vecchi Silver embossing paste through Tim Holtz Wildflower stencil to add to the floral border (and obliterate some random strangers in the background!) To add colour Wendy Vecchi's Archival Inks were blended over the stencilled areas. Then it was just a case of using botanical Remnant Rubs, Industrious Border Stickers, a Small Talk sentiment and some Idea-ology Foliage to add to the design. You'll find all of these products in stock at Country View Crafts.

I hope this tempts you to make use of those holiday snaps in a more creative way and don't forget to enter the challenge to be in with a chance to be a Guest Designer too! Jenny x"

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What a great idea Jenny and a beautiful project - thank you!

Do take a hop over to Jenny's blog to see all the details if you can.  We'll be back again on Sunday so we hope to see you then but remember to keep those entries coming!  >:o)

Chris and the CVC team xxx

Two guests today!

Good morning friends!

Today we have two guests sharing their projects and inspiration with us!

Firstly, apologies to Cass, a previous winner, for not including her project on August 1st (totally my fault).  Cass is joined by Amanda, winner of a Top 3 badge, and they are both on top form as their projects will demonstrate...

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Cass of Cass Creating Now

I'm known as Cass in blogland, and lucky enough to be on a few Design Teams.  Although I am still working, I manage to create something everyday, keeps me sane and stops me annoying my husband.  And, luckily he puts up with the mess as I go from room to room, some of my projects can take several weeks and I sought of spread out.

I have made a get well card, with a summery feel of flowers and bright colours.  Hope it suits the Summertime theme.  The image from Faery Ink has been coloured with Copic Pens and mounted on a diecut doiley.  The papers are from Close to My Heart's Taste of Summer and Blossoms collection.  The sentiment is a silver sticker which has also been coloured with copics.

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Amanda of Treasured Moments of Inspiration

Hi everyone I’m Amanda Southern, I am delighted to join you on CVC as a GDT and be part of this months “Summertime” challenge.  I love creating all sorts of projects that range from getting really messy with paints and sprays right through the crafty spectrum to clean and simple. I have an addiction to collecting rubber stamps and can see no let up on being cured on that one! I also love all things mixed media whether that is a card, altered item, canvas etc. It is one such mixed media project that I have to share with you today that captures the Summertime theme for me.

 Summertime memories for me, from being a child, are about wandering over the cliffs and finding hidden sandy coves, collecting things on the beach, playing in the sand and sea and generally have a fab day.  Hopefully this mixed media piece I have created captures that memory.

I started off with just a cheap white picture frame. With I covered with a mixture of bead gel and bandage fabric.  I then covered it all with a layer of gesso. Once that was dry I coloured with distress stains.  Then to start on my centre piece, I raided my bag of beach collected items and chose to use some pieces of driftwood that I had collected which I mounted onto a piece corrugated card.

 I then put a layer of gesso on it to make it easier to add the colours. I then painted the beach scene using Paperartsy Fresco paints.  To give it some foreground detail I stamped Katzelcrafts seagull both on card and tissue, card to cut out and colour and on tissue so I could add the stamped detail of the post to another piece of driftwood so the post was 3D. The flying seagulls were also stamped onto tissue and added using gel medium. All of the tissue stamping was coloured again using paperartsy fresco paints.

I made my “To the Beach” sign using coffee stirrers painted to match the colours. My final quote that I  added is from Tim Holtz Chit Chat sayings.

I hope you like it and it’s been great to be part of this months challenge inspiration

Love

Amanda X

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Wow Ladies, two very different styles and two terrific examples of our theme.  These are both beautiful, thank you so much!

We're delighted to see so many of you joining in already, great projects, thank you!  We hope to see lots more of your ideas and makes and remember,  everyone has a chance of winning the £20 shop voucher so generously sponsored by Country View Crafts.

We'll be back on Saturday with another post so see you then - have fun!

Chris and the CVC team xxx