Cheery Up Atc

A friend is a bit under the weather at the moment, so I made this Atc to hopefully help to cheer her up.  I only found out recently that her favourite colour is purple, so I got out my pansy, mushroom and nougat fresco paints and set to work.

Experimenting - Distress Markers

Over the weekend I was experimenting with my set of Distress Markers which I recently picked up at a fabulous price on Ebay.

I wanted to try them out on different papers, ie water coloured, glossy, speciality stamping paper and also using different techniques, ie direct to paper, wetting the paper first, using the water brush with the detailed nib, blending on the craft mat.

So here are some of my results:

This is a light weight water colour paper.  The top 2 images were stamped in black Archival and the bottom 2 in black Stazon. They blended okay, top right is just direct to paper, bottom right and left are using the water brush to drag the ink across and top left is taking the ink from the craft mat with the water brush and sort of painting with it.

This was using much heavier weight water colour paper and personally I didn't think the ink blended as well.  The ink seemed to sink into the paper very quickly.

This was using the Inkssentials speciality stamping paper.  Again it blended quite nicely using all the above techniques explained at the top.  Although it's quite glossy the ink dried pretty quickly.  Stamping on it was lovely both with the Stazon and the Archival.

And finally random glossy paper.  For me, this worked the best.

As you can see, I don't go in for shading and the like, I just like to scribble and I'm not bothered if I go in or out of the lines!!!  Life is too short!!!

Halloween Atc

PanpastelUK are asking for Halloween themed creations for their challenge this week.  I started off with black card, gave it a coat of orange Dylusion paint and added brushed pewter distress stain to create the background.  Stamped the main image in black Stazon, masked it of and over stamped the tomb stone and stamped the little saying.

A Little Notebook

I really love this Paperartsy crackle glaze, it really does do what it says and it's great to stamp on afterwards.  

This is the front after a couple of coats of the gloss glaze and with the binder in place.  I used eggplant for the bottom coat and guacamole mixed with nougat and Irish cream for the top coat. (The rest of the photos were taken when it was hailing.)

The back is Irish cream over the eggplant.  I stamped in black Stazon.

And this is the book open showing back and front.

Over at Out of A Hat Creations this is their last week of Christmas and this week the theme is gifts, so I am entering my little notebook as I think it will make a lovely gift. 

Paperartsy Inspiration

When we went to The Dome last Sunday a friend was admiring this piece on the Paperarsty stand. Leandra told us that Lin created it. So I recreated it in my own way. 

I went for a time / steampunk theme instead of the flowers, used prestuds instead of buttons and the paints take lovely to the metal pieces and the lace.  

A Tag & A Fat Page

I used texture paste through a stencil on the bottom left of this tag.  I painted the tag with chocolate pudding fresco paint.  Rubbed onyxite treasure gold over the whole of the tag, then went back over the textured part with pewter treasure gold.  Using the same stencil I sponged through onto the top of the tag with Irish cream.  I stamped the image in timber brown Stazon onto kraft card. I used the crunchy waxed craft paper to make a sort of cravat.  I stamped the bottom image in white Brilliance ink and used a white Posca pen to hi-light.

I cracked the background of this fat page and stamped the heart image in timber brown Stazon directly onto the background.  I stamped the other image onto kraft card, used nougat fresco paint and onyxite treasure gold on the crunchy waxed paper and stapled them together.

Crunchy Waxed Kraft Tag

This was another attempt at the crackle effect but because the top colour was too watery, it didn't work to the same degree.

But all is not lost, I used the pewter and onyxite treasure gold over the top.

I stamped the banner and the image from the Lynn Perrella collection 005.  I used some crunchy waxed kraft paper and gave it a smudge of onyxite treasure gold.  Can you tell I've just got T!m's tiny attacher too!!!  I can't stop using it.

Sorry about the colours on the photos, but it's been awful weather, foggy, dull and gloomy!!

A Little Tree

I wasn't going to join in with this weeks Out of a Hat Creations challenge as I didn't have anything suitable, but I picked up this little wooden Christmas tree on Sunday from the PaperArtsy stall and thought it would do perfectly.

Obviously it's nothing stunning but I wanted to play more with the crackle technique but on wood, so I gave this a go to see the effects. I used London red for the base, guacamole for the tree and pumpkin soup for the star.  I used treasure gold and enhanced some of the crackle, but unfortunately you can't really see it on the photo.  I then stamped my Stampotique cube of mini Christmas ornaments, cut them out, coloured them with Adirondack pens and stuck them on.

Halloween Crackle

I decided to have a play tonight with the crackle technique that Leandra showed us yesterday, mainly before I forgot what to do - lol.  Anyway, I think I got some good crackle going here.  I used eggplant for the underneath and a mix of nougat and guacamole for the top coat.

I used the words from the Hot Picks Halloween 01 plate and added fibres in lime, orange, black and purple.

I stamped the skull from the same plate onto a piece of acetate and placed a piece of card behind it painted with a mix of autumn fire and smoked paprika, cut it out, stuck it down and added the spooky crystal eyes.

I could of done lots lots more to this tag, but I wanted to show the fab crackle on the background.

I took inspiration for this tag from the 'eerie inspiration' board over at this weeks Simon Says Stamp Challenge. Especially the m&m's!!

Also Happy Daze have a something wicked theme this month and you are allowed to submit 3 entries, so been as I used Stazon to stamp onto the acetate, I'm going to enter into that challenge again too!!!

Doncaster Dome & Birthday

All in one day, what more could I ask for?

I got up this morning to thick fog and a stack of cards and pressies.

From my crafty friends.  A lovely notebook and some tissue stuff I need to try out from Chris, a box with all sorts of fab stuff inside, a postcard and a twinchie from Chrissie, a keyring from Von and a tub off sparkly fluff from Neet - Thanks guys.

And then this absolutely gorgeous scarf from Burn.  I'm guessing it's somehow knitted as that's what Burn does.

And these my wonderful cards - thanks to you all for making my day special.

Thanks to all my twitter friends for their birthday wishes too.

And to make it even better, there were actually 2 craft shows on today, one at Lincoln and one at Doncaster.

Now unfortunately this isn't a very good photo, but it's the only one I have, this in the black jacket is Sue the Iron who I have never met before but it turns out we've been to loads of the same craft shows!!  Great to finally meet up with you Sue!!

Caught up with Clare again too, but she was working the IndigoBlu stall.

And in the background you may of spotted Mrs PaperArtsy, which is what swung it for me choosing to go to Doncaster instead of Lincoln.  Oh and there were a few other reasons too!!

This is the fantastic Paperartsy stand.

This is Leandra showing us how to use the liquid leaf.

Texture paste through a stencil.

Then Leandra showed 'us' how to use the crackle glaze.  So I had to go shopping for a third time on the stall!!!  Good job I had birthday money to spend!!

When I say 'us', I met up with Emma, Tracie and little Bella again which was brilliant.  I can't believe how good Bella is, she is like a text book baby.  Sleeps all the time, has a feed, says hello for all of 2 minutes and goes back to sleep again!!! Unfortunately I didn't get any photos this trip.

So I guess you wanna see what I bought then - here you go.

Most of the stuff is from Paperartsy.

Okay, so to finish off a perfect day, I am now going out for a meal.

Keeper of the Key

Been playing a bit more with my new Fresco Paint colours, the pinky range!!!  Yes Kate, I got some 'pinks', rose, very berry, claret and london bus.  I outlined the canvas in cinnamon which unfortunately had to be covered several times as I tried to stamp on it, twice and failed miserably, so had to recover it.  The canvas is actually rubbish, it doesn't touch the wood on the front, hence making stamping difficult, so gave up on third attempt.  Instead I stamped all the images onto a separate piece of card, coloured them and cut them out.

The sides were much easier to stamp on.

All the images are Stampotique.

****Edited****

WOW, what a difference sunlight makes.  I took this this morning and it shows off the colours much truer that the above photo taken last night when it was dark outside with the light on.

A Textured Heart

I was making a shopping list for Sunday over at PaperArtsy and I remembered I'd bought the puff paint at the Harrogate show.  So being very brave I challenged myself to use my new blue shades of Fresco paint and the puff paint.  I gave the mdf heart a coat of gesso and applied the puff paint and heated it.  It did as it said and puffed up!!  I gave it a coat of beach hut and wasn't that impressed, so I touched it up with some south pacific, hmm...still not that impressed and the puff paint appeared to get lost.  I then lost it and added some green (hey pesto), it still didn't enhance the puff paint..hmmmm...  So then I took some bubble wrap and used it with the pumpkin soup.  Took a white posca pen and outlined the shapes.  Still not that impressed and then I remembered the treasure gold (olive bronze) I also picked up at the Harrogate show.  So I went for it and used some over the puff paint and WOW what a difference it made, it's fantastic stuff. Well you can see it for yourself on the photo.

It's all in the background

Carol has chosen this weeks Stampotique theme of backgrounds using stamps.  This theme is right up my street as I love to use stamps to create the background as well as the main image.

Shock, horror, I haven't used any Stampotique stamps on this tag, even though I have quite a healthy collection of them now.  But with the news rules they have introduced, you can use any make of stamps, so I used various Tim Holtz images.

The background was created using the marbling technique with the distress stains.

A Couple of Tags

Have been playing with my distress stains again, creating backgrounds on tags.  Autumnal colours gave me inspiration for this one, and so as not to cover it all up, I simply stamped the bird and the foliage from T!m's urban stamp plate.

And then I got my greens out and this background evolved.  I dug out a Creative Expressions stamp plate that I haven't used for ages and collaged the stamps using timber brown Stazon.  I over stamped some of the images in picket fence distress stain.  I dried them immediately so as to retain more of the colour.

Favourite Things

This week Simon Says Stamp and Show are asking for your favourites, so for those of you who know me you'll know my love for corrugated and I also have a bit of a thing for pan pastels too!!!  So I decided to combine the two together.  The background is a mixture of pearl, silver and snow cap acrylic dabbers with of course the top layer peeled off the corrugated.  I ran the world embossing folder through the big shot and lightly coloured it with pan pastels.  I cut the word journey from the movers and shapers die in black card and mounted it on a piece of mesh.  I stamped the word world, cut it out, coloured it with pan pastels and glued it on.

Duck Egg Blue

Decided to get my sewing machine out yesterday and have a little play and I made this little piece.  The back piece of fabric has been stamped with script in walnut stain distress ink.  The image and the music script have been coated in ice resin and machine sewn onto the fabric.  I added a piece of sparkly ribbon to balance it out.

ABAC - Challenge #4

Over at ABAC this week they are asking for Halloween or fall or the colours associated with it, so I decided to have a play around with my pan pastels and Dina Wakley stamps and came up with this.

Artful Times - Challenge 15

This weeks theme over at Artful Times is Fur or Feathers.  I decided to give Moth Fab a feathered outfit.  The skirt is a blue feather and the top is a green and black spotted feather.

Hop across to the challenge blog to see what Neet and Von made.  Don't forget if you want to join in, as long as you follow the guidelines you are in with a chance of winning a £10 voucher from our lovely sponsors, Oyster Stamps.

Simon Says .........

Use a punch or a die, I chose the latter.  The Cuttlebug cut and emboss RIP tombstone die.  The tag is made from black card and the background created with white picket fence distress stain and orange dylusions translucent paint.  I stamped the main image from the TH Halloween blueprint stamp plate with white Brilliance ink and the mini webs in black stazon.  I stamped Linda onto a separate piece of card and coloured her in with Adirondack pens.  Added white writing to the die cut shape and stamped the trick or treat.

This is a close up of how fab the white Brilliance ink stamped out.  It's the best one I've found up to now.

Christmas Packages

Remember my custom stamps from last week, well I decided to use them again.  This time to make some little packages with the TH movers and shapers pocket envelope die.  I am going to use them to put some money in for my niece and nephews for Christmas.

And this is the back which I left plain, as they will just throw them once they have taken the money out!!!

This week Out of a Hat Creations are asking to see Christmas wrapping, packages or boxes.

October T!m Tag

Oooh lots of improvising going on this month with T!m's tag.  Firstly I don't have the tissue wrap, so made my own from tissue paper and stamping, secondly I don't have either of the alteration dies he used and thirdly, I don't have the ticket die nor the stamp to fit it.

So here's what I used.  I stamped the long strip of words from the 'stuff to say' stamp plate several times on a piece of white tissue paper and glued it to the tag.  Coloured it with orange and purple dabbers but instead of the baby wipe, I mixed the paint with water on my craft sheet and applied it with a sponge as not to wet and tear the tissue paper.  Edged it in black and when dry went over parts with spiced marmalade and black soot distress ink. I then gave it a spritz of biscotti perfect pearls mist. The 'B' and 'oo's are stamped onto white glossy card with stazon using my new Stampotique altered alphas, each letter was cut out and then I glued them all together to make the word.  I stamped the bat from the 'Halloween blueprint' stamp plate onto kraft card, cut him out and coloured him with black paint dabber.  Then I did the making your own colour glitter bit, by taking some dry rock candy glitter and mixing it with pitch black alcohol ink and stirring til it had mixed, great technique.  Then I covered the bat with it.  I made the ticket shape myself and stamped the monthly record stamp over it from the 'going somewhere' stamp plate.  Coloured it with spiced marmalade and tea dye distress inks.  Took a word, wrote October and circled 31 in red, attached with a bulldog clip.  Added some fibres - voila, my finished tag.

Happy Daze have the theme this month of 'something wicked comes this way' so I am entering my tag for this challenge too.

***Edited***

I won myself a little something with this tag - thanks T!m / Mario

http://timholtz.com/12-tags-of-2012-november/

I won a $25 gift cert from Inspiration Emporium

Whatever the Weather

Over at Stampotique this week Sue has chosen the theme of 'weather'.  I found this really difficult hence the reason I'm just getting in on the nick of time!!

I used the brolly from the TH umbrella man alterations die and honeycomb paper to create the canopy part. For the background I tried to re-create the colours in a storm (not sure if I achieved this or not, but I liked it anyway!!!) using the distress stain marbling technique.  Then of course there are the little Stampotique characters hiding under the brolly from the rain.  The rain drops are petals from a few flower gems which I'd never use!!

This is the brolly canopy from a different view.