THINK PINK!

I just found this link online for Beverly's Pink Saturdays - this sounded so much fun, I decided to have a go! Click the link (top left of blog) to read all about it.





PARIS
Copyright Susie Jefferson







This is a waterfall card, with the waterfall running underneath the Eiffel Tower (you'd pull the pink ribbon, top left) then all the letters scroll away underneath. Much fun!

LIFE DRAWING CATCH-UP: LOUISE

Here are some drawings of Louise.

Louise Seated
Charcoal on Fabriano paper
Copyright Susie Jefferson




I still have some more drawings lurking in a huge folder under the bed, so I promise to defy the dust bunnies, dig them out and photo them too.


Louise Full Frontal
Charcoal and Conte crayon on Fabriano paper. This one was a difficult pose - I finally managed to get the foreshortening of the legs right.
Copyright Susie Jefferson



I think I can see progress here, and I loved the class situation and the critiques. One thing I did find out: I find it very difficult to draw "small" (ie: normal sketch pad size) and kept losing the feet! I seem to need those huge parent sized sheets of paper (A1 and A2) which then needs a huge drawing board and a sturdy easel. Not easy to accommodate in an average-size living room.

Never mind "back to the drawing board" I need to go back to the classroom!

LIFE DRAWING CATCH-UP: KEVIN

I thought it was about time I posted up the rest of those drawings I did at my figure drawing class (before Christmas).


Kevin
Quick studies (max 10 minutes)
on brown parcel wrap with chalks
Copyright Susie Jefferson



It's taken a while to get around to it, as I have to stick these huge sheets of paper to the back of the bedroom door to photograph them, then crop them down a bit, as I doubt anyone is very excited about masking tape!



Kevin
15 minute study
on brown parcel wrap
with fuchsia crayon
Copyright Susie Jefferson




I would have loved to continue with the course - but the new term is a long one, and as it was painting rather than drawing, more than double the price (although why I don't know... same hours, and we'd be bringing our own art supplies). So unfortunately I wasn't able to continue. Ah well. Still, at least it restored my confidence in my drawing abilities again, and I wasn't as rusty as I had feared.


Kevin
Pastel & crayon on charcoal grey paper
Copyright Susie Jefferson






Truth to tell, I'm putting so much time into the BladeRubber Blog and trying to rewrite my website, plus thinking up new classes and doing samples and writing notes, that I have kept pretty busy anyway.











Kevin
Two more studies on pastel paper with Conte crayon (which photographs very shiny, unfortunately)
Copyright Susie Jefferson

Anyhow, enough rambling, and here you are with all of the drawings featuring Kevin (these are 3 weeks' worth - unfortunately, I got them mixed out of order, so here are all of them). More to follow!


Kevin
2 studies, one on butcher paper & the other on a prepared background

copyright Susie Jefferson



In the next post, I will feature all the drawings of Louise.

COMPETITION!

Blade Rubber Stamps is holding a competition - with prizes!

For full details, go here.


Floral box
copyright Susie Jefferson










The theme is FLORAL, and it can be a card, ATC, scrapbook page etc... closing date is 31st March, then the best 10 will be put up on the blog for you all to vote on, with the winner announced on Easter Sunday (12th April).

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my little bit of the Valentine's Blog Party - go HERE to see all the blog links.

First of all is a project for you: originally written for Simply Stamping magazine, this was never published because the magazine went bust... so I have been saving it ever since for the right occasion - and this is it! Never seen before... I hope gives you some good ideas, maybe for some scrapbooking pages. Further down, there is a set of French postcards for you to print out.

EIFFEL TOWER CARD




EIFFEL TOWER
Copyright Susie Jefferson














Inside of card

Copyright Susie Jefferson

• Fold dark olive A4 card in half to make an A5 side fold card.
  
• Cut cream card slightly smaller than A5 and randomly stamp the calligraphy background in VersaMagic Thatched Straw. Stamp the Eiffel Tower in VersaMagic Sahara Sand.
  
• I downloaded copyright-free images from Art-e-Zine and resized, printing repeat images of the boy onto vellum.
• Trim, run through a Xyron sticker maker and adhere to the card as shown.
  
• Position the ruler (K&CO Life’s Journey sticker) 4cm up from the bottom, leaving 1cm excess at either side.
• Layer to folded dark olive card and fasten with eyelets as shown.
  
• Trim away excess ruler paper.
  
• Print the girl onto glossy photo paper and trim closely; adhere with double-sided tape and position over the edge of the Eiffel Tower to give a feeling of perspective.
  
• Draw around the outer edge of the Eiffel Tower with Inkessentials Matte Accents to create a border, then flood inside this outline with more Matte Accents (this stops it running over the edge) and set aside to dry.
  
• Stamp “Do you remember” onto cream card using gold pigment ink and emboss with Gold Detail powder.
  
• Cut out with deckle-edged scissors and edge with gold metallic marker and mount using pop dots.
• Finish the inside of the card with Cream French scrapbook paper (HOTP).
  
• Cut the same height of the card x 2/3 the width, so the eyelets are covered neatly and the paper overlaps the right half of the card by roughly half.
  
• Adhere with double-sided tape.
  
• Print the boy onto glossy photo paper and attach on the right-hand side using black photo corners.
  
• Stamp “Do you remember” using gold pigment ink.

SUPPLIES FROM:

Do you remember 445D by Catslife Press

Calligraphy Mat No 6 by The Atistic Stamper

Eiffel Tower 94089-x by Inkadinkado

FREEBIE PHOTOS FOR YOUR ARTWORK

These French postcards will be slow to load because I scanned them as high resolution jpgs.

This gives you huge files, but you will then be able to print or manipulate or do whatever you want with them! Copyright-free of course (and if you happen to use them in your artwork, I'd love to see a scan).




































Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

CRAZY QUILT PURSES & IMAGE TRANSFERS

I've just found the greatest new page on Art-e-Zine: Pat Winter's Crazy Quilt Purses (handbags, to us in the UK) which are absolutely phenomenal, so I just had to share.


Purse
copyright Pat Winter









These have a lot of image transfer work done with a heat transfer tool onto fabric, so the work doesn't run, bleed or fade. I'm wondering whether my little quilting iron would work... I'll have to experiment and see!

VALENTINE'S DAY COUNTDOWNS

I can't believe I have posted nearly a full month of Valentine's Day projects on the Blade Rubber Blog!

I put up these two Japanese stab-bound albums, as everyone seemed to like the last one, so rather than repeat all the general instructions here, perhaps you'd like to check them out via this link.


Joyous
copyright Susie Jefferson










All photos shown from Joanna Sheen

This is one of my favourite book forms - hard or easy, depending on what effect you want to achieve.


Baby Brag Book
copyright Susie Jefferson







Originally published in Simply Stamping magazine, 2007.
"Say It With Flair" UM plate by Stampsmith.
"Mainly Babies" UM plate by Joanna Sheen

Easiest is to paint, gesso or swipe inkpads onto mountboard or greyboard (chipboard, Daveyboard) , then go ahead and collage/stamp over the top, as with the Ruler Book, below.


Ruler Book
by Susie Jefferson








Originally published in Simply Stamping magazine, 2007


Inside of Ruler Book







Stamps by PaperArtsy & Elusive Images
"Say It With Flair" UM plate by Stampsmith

Harder is to cover with paper, as you need to create a separate spine. The results are so worth it!


Oh Happy Day
by Susie Jefferson








Originally published in Simply Stamping magazine, 2007

"Say It With Flair" UM plate by Stampsmith
German scrap from PaperArtsy

JOURNALING WITH PAM CARRIKER

I've been looking at Pam's art for a while, and really like her stylised ladies etc.

So you can imagine how delighted I was to find that she has been doing a YouTube tutorial on journaling with doodles! And wow, what a brilliant page she has produced!



Don't forget to check out all of Pam's website and blog (by the way, Pam is now offering online classes!)

BIRD JOURNAL

The lovely people at Stampington have just released this gorgeous little Bird Journal by Vanessa Spencer.



Bird Journal by Vanessa Spencer
for Stampington


Here's the link for you to download the template and see the step-by-step photos too!

What a lovely project - I can see so many possiblities for this, and will be dusting off my Bind-it-All immediately! This could be made from any paper - I can imagine this in earthy handmade papers, raffia, rope twine etc ... or a heavyweight watercolour paper, white on white, stamped and embossed... Then again, there are so many absolutely gorgeous scrapbooking papers out there... Or use up all your odds and ends of card and paper by using the template (cut it out in mountboard or even the cardboard from cereal boxes) and collage on a mix of papers, seerendipity-style, then trim down.

The possibilities are endless!

HOW TO USE PUNCHES

Blade Rubber Stamps has just published my article on "How to Use Punches" on their website.


Shelf liner
copyright Susie Jefferson








There are three projects included, so I hope you'll take a look - including the shelf liner, above.

I hope you'll find this a useful resource - it'll probably tell you more about punch art than you ever knew you needed to know!

There is also a troubleshooting section for jammed punches, blunt punches etc. If you have a tip not included in the article, please do email me!

MORE SNOW PICTURES

Well, I just couldn't resist!

I actually wrapped up specially and went out to take more pictures of the snow. I managed to get my husband to take a couple of shots of me - in between dodging snowballs (he's 58 going on 7) and although he thinks I'm mad (that's a given, LOL) he graciously obliged. (I hope you're wildly impressed by my hand-knitted scarf - 5 balls of wool - as it's the first thing I've knitted in over 40 years. The last item was a sweater for my Sindy doll).

So here's a little gallery of more Snow Day pix all (not so boring as wading through one by one, if this isn't your thing).

I'm enchanted by it all - I was brought up in the tropics so Proper Snow - as opposed to a light scattering, is still a novelty to me.

I was an Army brat: Singapore at 6 months, then Kuala Lumpur, Port Dixon, Singapore again... then back to the UK aged 4 for 9 months, then Paris, and Singapore again... back to Blightly at age 11. The first time I ever saw snow was aged 4; we were in Brighton on the south coast, and demanded to be taken out to see it - it was swirly down, virtually a blizzard - so after having been bundled up in every wrapping known to man, my long-suffering mother took me out... only to have me scream to go indoors again 30 seconds later. I think I somehow thought it wouldn't be cold...

SNOW DAY!

It's a given, snow just doesn't happen in London - so naturally everything has ground to a standstill: no planes, trains or automobiles as per the title of the film.




Image copyright Tack-O-Rama

I've cancelled my appointments, battened down the hatches and I'm IN for the duration... but oh, it's so pretty! Here's the view from our windows this morning (9.00am).


View from the bedroom window (front of the block)









































Views from the living room window (at the back) into the gardens below - even the neighbour's garden table opposite (sheltered under that huge umbrella) has snow on it!















I'd reckon we have at least 4 inches of snow!

Just think, in Canada, Scandanavia, Norway - even the north of England, it's business as normal (in Scarborough, North Yorkshire - where my husband comes from, they have the grit wagons out at the first signs of snowfall) but here in London it's so unexpected that everything travel-wise has collapsed!

It's still snowing as I write this blog (10.28am) and we have a Severe Weather Warning - blizzards! I don't think there's been a blizzard in London since the Old Master paintings of people skating on the River Thames back in Elizabethan times:


Oil by Hendrick Avercamp 1585-1634

BLADE RUBBER BLOG LINK

OOPS!

Album copyright Susie Jefferson






I put the wrong link on my groups email re the Valentine's Countdown project for a Japanese stab-bound album: you need to go to the BLADE RUBBER BLOG.

You'll see the full project details there.

Sorry about that - it's what happens when you cut&paste in a hurry! Then you hit the Send button and it's gone before you can do anything about it.