A Paris Tag

I've had a busy weekend working on my college assignments but after I'd finished I allowed myself a little play time with my other new plate of T!m stamps.  I love the background one!!  I stamped everything with black stazon, for the background I swooshed the pad across the stamp to create a more subtle effect, for the tower I really inked the stamp to make the image bold and stand out and for the man, I stamped him onto a separate piece of card, cut him out and 3d foamed him onto the tag.  I went around the edge of the tag with walnut stain distress ink.

PanPastelsUK have a free theme this week so I am entering my tag.

Anyone who knows me will know that I am inspired by anything T!m (Tim Holtz just in case you don't happen to be familiar with him!!) so been as this tag is all about T!m, I'm also entering it into this weeks ABAC challenge entitled inspired by.

Holiday Pages

I've been chipping away at making some scrapbook pages from our recent holiday photos.  As you will see they are just plain and simple as I like the main focus to be the actual photos.

So I thought I'd share a few of them with you.

Added to this background is white dylusions spray ink and T!m's trees stamped in fresco snowflake paint.

I used stickers and lift passes picked up from the resort.

I also had a play with my under used Cricut machine yesterday, cutting words and images to add to the pages.

And finally, the last couple.

A serviette sporting the resort name and some Cricut images.

Faces

Over at Out of a Hat Creations this week they are asking for faces.  So here is another of my male cards using my new T!m stamp plate.

It's all about the writing!!

Over at Fun with Atc's they have a theme of writing, so I made this atc to join in with their challenge.

Grunge paste meets Stencil

Look what arrived yesterday!!!  I just had to have a play as I've heard so much about it and I have to tell you, I wasn't disappointed, in fact quite the opposite, I was extremely impressed.  I took the lid off and delved in but was really shocked at how liquidy it was compared to texture paste which I usually use through a stencil.  But I found it really easy to work with and love the texture. Can't wait to mix it with the fresco paints, but will save that for another day.

I used one of my shaving foam tags from the shaving foam technique shown by Suzz over on the PaperArtsy blog earlier this week and used the harlequin stencil using the grunge paste and was impressed how quickly it dried.

I took a blank tag and used part of a flower and a dragonfly stencil again using the grunge paste.  It gave a really nice crisp finish and again even though it was quite thick it dried very quickly.

Over at Stampotique this week their brief is simply to use a stencil, so I coloured the grunge paste with the base colours, beach hut, limelight and eggplant fresco paint.  I stamped some circles using pen lids, lipstick tops etc in the same colours and outlined some of them with either a black and/or white posca pen.  Added Stampotique image Gibi coloured with distress marker pens along with a piece of embossed and sanded core-card.

Basically for the background on this tag I mopped up the above colours using a piece of cut n dry to apply the paints to the tags.  I then blended them in using pan pastels in yellow, blue and purple.  I edged the grunge paste images with a white posca pen to make them stand out.  The bees are Stampotique images stamped in black stazon and the word 'beauty' is pinched from one of their sentiment sayings and again edged in white pen.

Neutral Colours

Over at Art Journey they have the theme of neutral colours so I was able to join in this month with my AJ grunge plate of stamps.  I used timber brown stazon for the main image and then various colours of distress inks for the background images.  To make it look more natural and distressed I used a paper distresser around the edges and inked it with walnut stain.  The backing is a piece of kraft card coloured with walnut stain and again distressed the edges.

Playing with Shaving Foam

Suzz is back on the PaperArsty blog and she has brought back an old favourite, shaving foam.  If you don't know what I'm on about, go check it out here and also check out my other blog here.  This time I used fresco paints and not inks as in my tutorial.  I used limelight, beach hut and eggplant.

As you can see I made a tag, (no surprise there then!!), the car is die cut from corrugated cardboard and the clock is die cut from chipboard and coloured with south pacific freso paint.  The map image is from IndigoBlu and the words are from the Ink and the dog, Travel plate #1.

Thinking of Spring

Can only think of it as it's not happening any time soon even with Easter just around the corner!!

Sue over at Stampotique has chosen a theme of Spring and across at the PanPastelUk challenge site they have a photo for inspiration.

The background is a mix of wild honey, ripe persimmon and mustard seed distress ink and splashed with water.  The background script is stamped in olive green stazon.  The flower is stamped in versamark and embossed in black embossing powder.  The dragonfly was stamped onto a thick vellum in black stazon and cut out.

A Vintage Card

I felt I had to do something today even though I still don't feel well.  I've had a couple of new sets of T!m's stamps for a week or so now and not had the energy to do anything with them.  So I stamped a few images and coloured them with distress inks and a water brush.

Then I discovered that Over at Out of a Hat Creations this week they have a game going on as it's their first birthday.  Now I have to admit I haven't stuck to the rules entirely as you are supposed to make a spinner and whatever it lands on go with that theme.  

There are six different themes and one of them is vintage, so I am entering my vintage male card into the challenge.  I haven't given it a sentiment yet as I'm not sure what it's going to be used for yet. 

Brighter than Bright!!

So between the sniffles and the snuffles I've found time to play.  Linda's second technique involved using the portfolio pastels, which I just happened to pick up whilst in Utah.  Linda created a journal page, but as you'll know by now, I don't do journalling, so I used the same techniques but on the old faithful, a tag.

To see how it was done and to join in the fun, hop over to the PaperArtsy blog.  

I've also just stumbled across a new challenge site over at Country View Crafts courtesy of looking on Julia's blog - thanks Julia.  So I am also entering my tag as their first challenge theme is 'pick n mix' and lots of things have definitely been picked and mixed on this tag!!

The Mystery House

Linda Cain is back again over on the PaperArtsy blog.  To say she is a favourite of mine would be an understatement, I love how she bases most of her art on tags, probably that's why I'm a fan!!!

So this tag has used some of the techniques Linda has incorporated.  Linda does state in her post that it was a shame to cover most of the background, so I didn't!!

The house looked lost on the tag so I mounted it onto white card and cut it out with a border.

I used various stamps from the Ink and the Dog plates and Urban Snapshots.

Into Spring with Green

To continue with the St Paddy's day celebrations I made another green based tag using the distress paints.  Over at PanPastelUk they are asking for a touch of green and ABAC are asking for spring / colours and I think green is very much a spring colour with all the new shoots of the flowers popping through and of course the birds merrily chirping away, so I am entering this tag into both of these challenges.

Totally Green

Still not feeling great, but how could I resist the challenge over at Dragons Dream TIO this week as the recipe is green, cogs and a die cut.  And being St Paddy's day it seemed a very fitting theme.  

I used my 4 colours of distress paint to create the background, stamped the cogs with olive green stazon and the numbers were swiped with jet black.

The LP image was stamped in black stazon onto a piece of kraft card and coloured with crushed olive distress ink.  I mounted it onto a piece of text script paper picked up on my hols.  The heart was die cut from metallic card and coloured with meadow alcohol ink.  Everything was stuck together and wrapped in green string.

An Altered Tin

So I this is what I started off with, a cigar tin and 3 wooden spoons.  

Following Helen's technique, the guest designer over on the PaperArtsy blog, I used irish cream, cinnamon, chocolate pudding, claret and honey dew fresco paints.

I stamped a couple of the images from the Ink and the Dog, Man of Numbers plate #6.  And blanked them out with snowflake paint.

Stamped over them with black stazon.

Coloured them with south pacific and limelight fresco paints.  I did start off with guacamole but it's not a translucent one so instead of showing through the image it covered it up (you can see on the bottom two postmark stamps).

Now for the inside.  For the top of the lid I used some of the papers I got from Michael's.  Stamped the banner from the LP stamp plate #5 onto a piece of kraft card and cut it out.  The ticket is from a T!m pad I picked up from JoAnn's and added the chit chat words.

I covered the inside of the tin with another piece of paper from the same paper pack from Michael's.  I painted the wooden spoons firstly in snowflake and then brown shed and chocolate pudding.  I stamped them with the script stamp from the backgrounds plate #2 in black stazon and then coated them a couple of times in satin glaze.  Stamped the hand onto white card, the ticket onto kraft card and the heart onto metallic card.

This is the inside of both the lid and the bottom.

This project was inspired by Helen Chilton's first technique on the PaperArtsy blog and an article I read in Stampers Sampler.

Shopping in Utah

First stop was Michaels at Park City.  Got a nice selection of wooden stamps and picked up some very cheap Vintaj pieces.  I sent Martin through with the scissors to get 40% off, mine came off the scrapbook.

Next was Hobby Lobby at Sandy.  Martin went through with the paper pad, again with a 40% coupon.  I love their own range of stuff, Spare Parts and Paper Studio, so I picked up a few bits!!

And our final stop, Jo-Ann's at Redwood Road.  I love this shop, it's absolutely huge and even better ALL the paper crafting stuff had 50% off, so as you can see, I stocked up on my T!m stuff.  I would of got more, but it had been ransacked and at that price no wonder!!!

And everything arrived home with us today safe and sound.

More Utah Scenery

Another gorgeous day after a snowy night.

Then it was a bit bleak!!

Then the sun came out again.

This is an Aspen tree holding the snow.

More lovely scenery which we skied through.

Quite a bit of snow had fallen again.

And then even more!!

And then the sun came out again.