This and That

Hi there....
Today I have various things to show you,
Firstly I have my pages for The Craft Barn Alpha and Dictionary Challenge the letter this week is D and I asked my Hubby to choose a word...he said "Death" without even thinking. A challenge indeed!

On the brighter side I am doing Joanne Sharpe's Doodle Arts and Letters on-line course A lesson well worth every cent I paid!!
I really needed to get out of my art rut....and I needed to learn some new skills, so I am loving the class...2 of my pages....I have far to go!

These are Garden Doodles...I copied Joanne's page.

 

 Water colour doodles....a first for me....what fun...I want to try another using only 3 colours!

And lastly  some Greek Octopus.
I thought I would add some doodle inspiration...I took this photo today.....I would love to see what doodles you come up with

 

 

keep well.
Zeffy

Unforgettable 1st. Summer

Hi there..
I am very happy today because eventually I have scrapped one of my favourite photos from last Summer !

 

My title and page design was inspired by the lovely sketch at OUAS and my colours and embellishments as well as my journaling was inspired by the lovely Case File #82 at Color,Stories,Inspiration
For my evidence I have: rubons (unforgettable),hearts,doodlong,starburst,wet medium and lots of masking.
My testimony is written in cursive and it celebrates my G.S first Summer.
some of the journaling reads.
"I'll never forget how you loved the sea,you were always so happy. It was a hot August you were only 8 months old."
The journaling around the border of the page mentions some of the things we did that summer.
Keep well.
Zeffy

Some Findings and WOYWW 217

Hi there My Friends.

The end of July is here and we are well into the second half of the year...
My workdesk for WOYWW 217 is our topic today.

This is my table at my FIL house on the island of Lesvos...I went junking and have found more things to add to My Dress Form Birthday Challenge prizes

 

 My finds include 3 bound books for altering, they are perfect with  beautiful poetry.(will be difficult to cut themup!) Some white flowers, 5 spools for  making Brussels Lace,chrystals, some bling, some metal handles, got to love the bird...I love the leaves they are perfectly aged Iwant to use them on the dress form I am making...a bee..that will be stashed by me! And some metal decorations, that I will be sharing in my RAK
In the background are some clay dress forms that I made.
I leave you with some inspiration.....My favourite tree, The Olive Tree.

 

I hope to visit your blogs later today...off to do some housework.
Love.
Zeffy

Summer Fun

Hi there Friends.

I have been so distracted with my Birthday Challenge.....but today I thought I have to make a L.O.!!!
I have brought some photos with me to scrap and  I loved these 2 of my son Michael and my sister's son George....the Terrible Twins we call them. They were having crazy fun just before going home after spending the whole afternoon on the beach with the whole family...Michael is holding his shorts and Papou's house keys..

I was inspired by Case File No.81 on CSI and I decided to use the sketch form Sketches With A Twist the twist was to use plain cardstock as a base....here is a pic of my desk just before I started...

I always pull what I could use from my stash..you can see the buttermilk cardstock in the pile....I used an acrylic cork and some Walnut Stain Distress Ink to stamp the circles...

So my evidence includes Fleur de Lys, bird, jute/twine, circles amd textured paper...I thought that the circle stamp with the swallows was perfect for Summer...I love the way they dive down for water in the evenings!
I started with the 6 word testimony promt but then I landed up journalling all around the edges of the paper and I also journalled in a curve around the corners.

 The girls at Scrapbooking Greece have summer challenge on too, so I am also entering this L.O. there.

My Birthday..and My Dressform Challenge.

Hi there Dear Friends..
I hope that you are all enjoying your Summer, and those of you that are in the middle of Winter, I hope that you are keeping nice and warm and doing some crafting.

Seeing that I am always away from all of my friends for my birthday each year. I have decided to celebrate this year with a challenge and some prizes!
I have decided to host a challenge on my You Tube Channel.

As you all know I am on a dress-form mission....so I am challenging you all to make a tag or a card with a dimensional dressform on it...you could even use a silhouette or even alter a dressform, the choice is yours....I would like to see dimension, bling and some metal.
 Here are some of my dressforms.....details about prizes are at the end of this post.

 

 

 

Ok that is some inspiration for you...so now the challenge goes like this.....

I have 2 kits.

The first is for a lucky draw...all comments made on my You Tube Videos concerining this challege, will be noted and added to the draw. I will have a winner on the 6th of September the day after my Birthday

The second and bigger kit will be a drawn from the projects submitted to me..this will be drawn on the 12th of September.

Here is a video detailing the prizes.

Please feel free to ask any questions you have concerning the challenge.
Keep well.
Love Zeffy
P.S PINTEREST

WOYWW.....

Hi there....
Yes yes I have MIA again....but you all know life happens...
It is Wednesday and so a good excuse to blog......As most of you know, I am at my FIL home on the island of Lesvos, and this is the photo of my desk....Videos at the end of post.

 

I have just finished my T page for The Craft Barn Alpha Challenge I chose the word Tissue-paper. It goes without saying that I collaged 2 layes of tissue-paper onto my pages....the tag say =new....texture.
The dressforms are for a challenge and a blog candy that I am preparing, seeing that it is my birthday soon, so stay tuned.

 

Here are 2 very shakey video of my holiday setting and the stash that I carted along.

If you want to check out more desks from all over the word pop over to Julia's Blog, 

Bye for now...keep cool if you are in the Northern hemisphers...and keep warm if you are down under!!
Love from a very windy Mytilene..
Zeffy

Red.....

Hello there My Friends...

I have been a very bad Blogger...and have neglected my blog these couple of weeks......forgive me I have been busy and also very very hot!
This is my tag that I made for Get Creative I am a Guest Designer there again this month. The theme for July is RED....I give you Julie in her summer outfit!

My latest investment is a Gellie Plate....your bad influence Eleni !.So I decided to see if I could come up with a respectable print to use as a background,,,this was a third printing usind a big Damask mask.

 

Then I needed  a silhouette...I used the stencils that I had bought from our local toy shop "Junko"
It goes without sayimg that Julie was too tall so I needed to shorten her a little to fit.... then I started writing on her all about Red Hot summers, cool swims, meals with family and friends, and I just journalled on her body then I cut her out.
Her top is made from Washi tape, and her skirt is made from 2 flowers and the little embellishments are acrylic dots from MME. The little metal piece is a tiny handbag charm! So cute.
The numbers are rub ons and I used 2 little wood veneer boats to add to the summer,theme....I wanted an anchor for my rope knot at the top, but alas I never had one in silver that was the correct size!

Ok, that is that...keep tuned as I have a RAK and a challenge up my sleeve!!!!...mmm no sleeves it is too HOT!!
Love.
Zeffy.

Hello Summer

Hi there Friends.
Just the other day we had our Summer Solstice....So I decided to scrap these photos, of Nino and Winston enjoying the morning coolness on the balcony.
My daughter, Faye grabbed  these special moments with her IPhone..

The color ispiration for this page is from CSI Case File #76. They have a sketch too this week....

Yes I changed up the sketch again...
I used numbers, circles,and the names of days.
My journaling refers to the love Nino and Winston have for each other....and I wrote on my photo to

Enjoy the rest of the summer.
Zeffy.
 

Some Dictionary Pages.

Hi There.
You all know that I am playing along with The Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge that is when life does not get in the way.
This month we have the letter U or otherwise known as Umbrella Man.... I chose the word Unzipped...mmm and thinking of ot now Umbrella Man would be a good page too!

This is truely a mixed media page...it has paper collage,modeling paste, gesso marking pens, both alcohla and water-based,Derwant II, acrylic paint and washi tape!
I create the pages of the letters that I have missed the dead-lines for randomly.....
Here is F Feathers, on this page  I colourizes my glossy paper the way France Papillion shows us on her video. Thank-you France,you rock!

I got a little carried away with the India Ink and my paintbrush on this on!

I did 2 pages for M....Maraschino Cherries...there is nothing nicer than a Rusty Nail cocktail on a hot, long, Greek, Summer evening...and the othere page is the word 'Mascara' which also means mask in Italian.

 

Keep well!
Zeffy

CSI Case File #75

Hi there Dear Friends.
I was a busy bee yesterday....
A couple of weeks back I had sorted my L.O.s into albums...a big job as I do not scrap in chronological order! So as a result I had a couple of pages empty.....So I needed to make flat, or should I say flattish (almost an impossibility!)pages...I decided to make 2 seeing that I has co-ordinations stash out...
My thinking process......

 

 This is the first L.O I made, it is for baby's album...
Evidence includes, chevrons, distressing, hearts, and flowers one being gold glitter .
For the Testimony I used the prompt Pop A Question, in fact I combined 2 questions using the word "today". In fact I started writing under my title and somehow moved upwards with each paragraph.

My second  L.O is made on an existing page in my Daughter wedding album....it was peach, I added Moulding Paste, I masked and misted, and added pink and gold acrylic paint as well as Gesso.....
This L.O. is also going to be submitted into the Scrap Africa challenge that wants you ro use stencils,moulding paste and paint.....I got the lacy effect by using a Glimmer Glam mask.

 Afterwards I stamped using gold paint, then I used the same masks and sprayed with glimmer mist a home-made cocktail!...later I added pink paint, gold paint and gesso.

My Evidence for this page is lace, jewels, flowers, and gold. I struggled to add grey into this l.O. at the end I painted my white gessoed wood veneer birds with Pumice Stone.
My Journaling is not much as this is goiated the dng into an existing wedding album, but I documented the date. And I expanded on the title Follow your Heart.Saying "Faye may you always be happy and radient like today. Alwayss be true to yourself and follow your heart-and in turn everything will be fine. Love yourself and your family and your life will be amazing."
Once again I did not use many dimensional flowers as I wanted this L.O. to be reasonably flat.

Thanks for popping by.
Zeffy.

 

Guest Design work for Get Creative.

Hello Friends.
Today I have a tag to show you that I made for the Get Creative,June Tag Challenge..
This time it was a colour challenge and after all the colourful flowers from the previous challenges this was a little trying.

I played around with the Ideology Dressform, and Concertina Flowers dies. The little coathanger is made by my Daughter, Faye..,

-

Here is  a very bad picture of my tag skeleton...a video explaining all the details is posted at the end of this post,one is in greek and the other in English.

 

Greek Video.

English Video.

 

Please feel free to ask any questions. I am looking forward to seeing what you all create.
Keep well and have a great week-end..
Filakia.
Zeffy

Altered Matchboxes.

Hi there.
Yes I have been out of action for a while .but I am back....

Last week I was watching some You Tube ,when I came across this lovely lady who has the channel called Scrappin Happyxo. Pop over and check out her clever challenge, what a clever idea to make some Christmas decorations now, well before festive madness!

 

Yes ,you guessed, Jeanette challenged us to make altered matchboxes,with a dangle and a loop so that they can hang on a Christmas tree, and she wanted them in white,cream and gold.
I made my own matchbox.Using papers from DCWV called "The Performance Stack""  and I decorated the inside of the box with a tiny Nutcracker from Graphic 45. See videos below for more details

 

My Daughter Faye also decorated a matchbox, she used come white Bazzil that she embossed and misted, I love the way hers turned out, especially the stamped tickets instead of a dangle!

Here are the video links.

Faye's Matchbox

Keep well.
Zeffy.

 

Amaryllis and You

Good Evening...
I hope that you all have had a good Sunday...we spent our day at the seaside today....but before I left this morning I made my L.O. for Color,Stories, Inspiration I really enjoyed the color palette today...and I used the sketch as inspiration, even though I flipped it a around.
On the 7th of May 3 years ago I took a photo of my daughter on the day before her wedding....and the Amaryllis were in full bloom.....last year I took another photo of her amongst the Amaryllis, with her baby.....So it goes without saying that I needed to repeat the process again this year...even though it was late in the afternoon and both mommy and baby needed to havea bath and freshen up....

 

the papers I used were from Simple Stories "Summer Fresh"
For my evidence I have used white misting,twine and bicycles,I have doodles a tiny bit on the top and bottom of my yelloe paperand a little above my journaling.
My journaling is between the brackets and reads."Today I remember your mom 3 years ago a Bride-to-be,sitting amongst the Amaryllis.I remember you last year,on this table...
Today as you sit on this table,amongst the Amaryllis, I wish that your life will move forward in a good and positive fashion.Wishing you all the best, my Sunshine, my Joy, Sweatheart of my life. I love you! heart heart heart.
Here is his Mom 3 years ago.

and baby last year...

That is it for now ...I am off ...I have lots to do.....
Hugs.
Zeffy.

Flower Power

Hi there my Good Friends.
I have had fun the past 2 days...just playing and having fun.
I find making my own flowers very therapeutic...I love to get my fingers all inky...here is a project that I decorated with coffee filter flowers......

The girl was cut out of a magazine, the wings are a" Mariposa" butterfly and the jat of elixer is a little die cut ...oh yes and the big swirl is a Bo Bunny chipboard element, if I remember correctly, as it was in my embellie box....
The little flowers were cut with a punch using Tim Holtz mistable craft paper...
The Gals over at Get Creative  are having another tag challenge....still time to play along if you so wish....
And here is one more photo...this time taken inside, next to my hand-made jars...

Amazing how photography can change the feel of a project!!!

Have a good week-end.

Love .

Zeffy

 

WOYWW 206.... At Last!

Hi there guys..
Especially you guys from The Stamping Ground and WOYWW....we are a bunch of people that enjoy looking at each others desks!
I eventually sat down and made myself 2 album boxes...I have been hoarding my kit boxes for ages....

 

Lesson learnt, do not be in a hurry...the second box I covered in music paper from Ikea..I was a little high from the glue..so I have not applied glue too well and I have some air bubbles...that irritate me!!

I also put some order onto my scrapbooking shelves...all in all I am happy as I have filed about 40 L.o. in my 2 new boxes amd I also had 3 bought albums that are half filled...getting there!!
Keep well...will pop over and visit your desks this afternoon!
Zeffy

Is Our Hobby Kitsch??

Hi there.
About 3 months ago we had  conversation with friends discussing how kitsch scrapbooking can be....and I imagine that my juvenile "art' may be even  more so!!
But, you know what?......I DO NOT CARE....it makes me HAPPY, and that is what counts!!!
So without further ado I give you my K page for Alpha/Dictionary Challenge at the Craft Barn
Yes, yes my faces need so much work...but I am working on them...maybe I need some tutorials??

I leave you now, as I have decided that, this week, I need to make some albums for my LOs.
So I am a busy, busy bee.
Be well, and have a good week.
Zeffy

Mothers Day

Hi there Dear Friends.

Today I decided to make a L.O. and honour my daughter Faye that is such a good Mommy...
I used the colours from the CSI Case File 70 and I decided to use some of my Websters Pages....

 

I have used flowers, circles,( I made my little bunting) a fence and some lace for something woven, a metal brad..I have journaled about what a good mother Faye is and how she makes us proud....

My sketch was inspired by Sketches With A Twist

 

This morning my son changed his Facebook profile photo...I knew I needed to scrap this photo!

I used some of the free printables from CSI CF#70

Have a good Sunday....

Hugs zeffy

 

WOYWW 205

hi there...WOYWWers....I have been missing in action......
Action bring the word of the day...I have had a hectic day...I took these photos early today....only posting now...Better late than ever!!

Yes people at The Stamping Ground the place looks tidy today...I did a quick tidy up before bedtime,last night, after I finished my L.O.

My friend Amalia Petrou, challenged us to make a L.O with our scraps,Scraps Only Challenge I have a box with pieces that are about 15x15 cm....I chose papers from there...I need to make  at least 10 layouts to make a dent in the scraps!! All the embellishments were also just lying around in bowls on my desk and in my ATC drawer... The only thing I took out of its box was the pink ribbon, as these photos (they were also already printed and not used) were taken to be used in my Breast Cancer mini in October 2011.
Even the pieces of chipboard that I used to make the blocks was scrap!

And this is the book that you see in the corner of my desk....It is my dictionary for The Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge.....this is the letter P, which is long overdue and the challenge closed , but I did it for me as I knew exactly how I wanted my PRINT word to look!
Keep well...I am off to pack kits.
Zeffy
P.S Will comment on your desks later tonight!!

Guardian Angel

Hi there ...
Christ is Risen, or as they say in  Greek, " Χριστος Ανεστη!" This is the customary greeting for the next 40 days after Easter....yes we celebrated Easter this past Sunday.
I had a lovely break on the island of Lesvos, with its beautiful olive trees.
So  I got back yesterday and after a quick tidy up here I got down to some journaling......this is my A page for the Alpha/Dictionary Challenge at The Craft Barn

ANGEL

I went to a convent school in Pretoria and each day at the end of class we would pray and ask our Guardian Angel to guide us safely home......I journaled the prayer as a background......
I am sure my page does not do justice to magnificent Angels....but anyway....

Here is a photo of a beautiful, old olive tree......I feel in love with olive trees 10 years ago when I arrived in Greece.....and I still love them!

I am off to journal my P page, I am doing PRINT...even though it is way past the due date...
Keep well.
Love.
Zeffy