Bottles Up!!!

After a rummage around in the glass recycling box I rescued this maple syrup bottle for the challenge over on PaperArtsy this week.

Gave it a coat of chalky paint, wasn't sure how this would stick but it was fine. 

Several coats of paint later and after some stenciling, this is the front.

Added a symbol from a stencil on the back mixing raw umber media paint with white modeling paste and before adding the string which was coloured with gathered twigs distress stain, I gave the bottle a couple of coats of ultra matte medium varnish.

Party, Party - You're All Invited

It's a sad time over at Artful Times as this is their last challenge ever, so being as I was a former founder, I felt it only right to say goodbye and party along with them.

So I am inviting you all to party and play along with this last challenge.

Follow Your Art

Background is a mix of mustard seed, ripe persimmon and a dash of festive berries distress stains applied with a brayer onto a piece of white card. The gaps were filled in using the same colours of distress ink and flicked with water to create a water mark effect. Various images randomly stamped in black stazon.

Our Creative Corner have a theme of Summertime and A Vintage Journey are asking us to stain it.

Imagination is Boundless

Over at Country View Crafts challenge this month Alison has chosen the theme of 'word play'. The background of the tag is a mix of picked raspberry, salty ocean, seedless preserve and pewter distress stains. Words from a TH stamp plate, hearts Dina Wakley and Hero Arts.

Altered Tin

Over on the PA blog it's a new semester, which means a new set of designers and first up is Liesbeth Fidder who altered a tin which you can see here. First thing needed was a bonfire, so off Martin went and stoked up the chimnea.

He put the cigar tin the chimnea and the burning process began.

Charring nicely!!

These are the tins after they have cooled down.

For the inside pages I burnt them with lemon juice.

Then I decorated the tin, this is the front.

The inside using the burnt lemon juice pages, LP and PA stamped images and metal embellishments.

And I wanted to keep the back quite plain to expose most of the fab colouring on the tin.

First tag of 2014

T!m posted his first tag of the New Year and what a cracker it was too. I mostly followed what he did, but used the alarm clock as opposed to the stop watch.

The embossed cogs and idea-ology parts, cogs, spinner and gears.

The ticket was stamped with part of a saying from my new classics #5 plate. I also flicked on some Dylusions graphite ink. I think this colour is now discontinued as it's in the old style bottle!!

And finally my embellishment.

Tag Along have a theme of tickets this week, so I'm going to enter over there too.

More Metal Effect Atc's

Destiny - I embossed the sticky silver foil the wrong way round so the pattern was in fact de-bossed but it didn't matter, it just meant the alcohol ink sat on the top.

I stamped into a piece of the foil covered card, not very straight, but it worked out okay. I also gave the brads a bash with T!m's hammer.

New Beginnings - Before I stuck down the sticky silver foil I put some glass micro beads on the card for extra texture.

Discover - More micro beads, wire, washer and eyelets.

And here are all 3 side by side.

Autumnal Paris

I was having a play around with patterned paper and my T!m stamp sets and created this hanging.  I stamped in picket fence distress stain and timber brown stazon.

Anything but a Card have a challenge theme of Fall into Fall and the colours of the changing leaves, so I thought the browns, oranges and reds fitted perfectly.

PanPastelUk have a theme of anything goes or something altered.

Country View Crafts have a theme of letters.

Simon Says Stamp Monday has a theme of, got ink and are asking for any kind of ink to be used on your project. I used stazon.

Day 2 - Mixed Media Layering

Day 2 of CC102 was all about T!m's new layering stencils of which I do not own any!!  I improvised and used what I had.  Now down the left I've used the mini ledger but you can't see it as I used antique linen through it.  I put broken china through the mini cubes.

Coloured the background and you can just sort of see parts of the ledger stencil.  I think next time I probably need to put a bit more paint on!!

Added various colours of distress ink and flicked some water over it. You can still just about make out the original stencilling.

And finally went back in with a bit more stencilling.

Secret Garden

As you can see, I've been drawn into flowers lately, but they're not just flowers, they're fab grungy flowers from the PA Eclectica range by Lin Brown aka Yours Artfully.  I was also inspired with one of Lin's projects which you can see below.  This is my version of it using the grungy flowers.

This is Lin's original which I took the inspiration from.

PanPastelUK have a colour theme this week, which is blue, so I'm entering my corrugated piece for it.

Atc with Orange

Been playing with stampboard again!!  I coloured the background with ripe persimmon distress stain and also rusty hinge and ripe persimmon distress inks.  Stamped the LP image in black stazon and added hi-lights with the black and white posca pens.

Bright & Cheery...Bring on Spring

Over at the PaperArtsy blog it's Michelle's turn again.  She's made a wonderful vibrant tag, pop over here to see what colours she used and how she did it.  I used London bus and smoked paprika (orange), then pumpkin soup (yellow) and beach hut (blue), I got the green by putting the blue over the yellow as Michelle suggested.

I used the oriental text stamp from the Ink and the Dog Asian #3 plate.  I stamped in blazing red, pumpkin and mustard stazon on the co-ordinating colour sections.

I stamped the birdcage from the Hot Picks 1004 plate onto acetate and cut it out.

I stamped the same oriental text stamp with versa mark ink onto black card and brushed with various colours of perfect pearls.

I then mounted everything up after stamping the main tag with a crackle stamp inked with tarnished brass distress stain and added the little quote from the same Hot Picks plate.

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.

Queen of Hearts

I'm trying to play along with T!m's 12 tags for 2013 and so far this year, I'm keeping up, yes I know it's only the second one!!  Did have a bit of improvising to do as you can see!!  I used a couple of mini playing cards and doodled around the outsides!!

Also over at Anything But A Card they have a theme of 'share the love', and I think this tag fits in perfectly.

And Happy Daze have a theme of 'love is all around' so I'm entering over there as well.

A Personal Challenge

I have just joined a wonderful on-line craft group called 'Creativity Venture' set up and run by the lovely Sandra.  Now Sandra has put lots of work into the challenges to make us think 'outside the box'.  She collected personal information from each of us at the start.

So my personal challenge for this month was to take inspiration from the above tin which she sourced from ellenskaartjes.blogspot.com, do my own rendition and add as much of my own style into the piece as I wanted.

So off tin hunting I went and found this;

a mini whisky tin

and the inside.  It's quite a nice size and quite deep.

So I set to work collecting a few pieces, stamping some images.  The background is a piece of kraft resist from T!m's stack covered with picket fence distress stain.  The stamped images are from TH plates, the cogs are from the movers and shapers mini gears die and the arrows are from a cuttlebug die.

Once I'd placed them where I wanted them I put them all at different levels as you can see in the above photo to give some dimension.

This piece is going to make the inside of the lid, using some T!m papers, his cogs and stamp!!  I used the metallic distress stains on the cog and around the words.

Then I started working on the front (ie the lid) and this is where I took inspiration from the photo I'd been sent using the lacing and the torn and curled edges.  Again everything on the lid is from the T!m collection including the tissue tape around the edges.

So these are the pieces from earlier, now housed inside the tin and the bottom of the tin around the sides has been edged with card.  I haven't done anything with the inside edges of the lid, else it won't close properly!!!

And finally the outside edge looked a bit plain and boring as the paper I'd used only had very faint text script on and not all the way around, so I stuck on a strip of burplap.

Thanks once again to the Creativity Venture group and Sandra for challenging me - hope I've come up to scratch!!!

I also want to enter this piece into the Out of a Hat Creations challenge.  This week they have a bingo card and you have to pick a line.  Each of the lines includes a hat, still in keeping with the hatters tea party theme.  Can you guess which line I've used?

Shades of Green

More texture paste and puff paint through a stencil onto the tag and heated.

Coloured with olive green lumiere paint.

The top section has been accented with olive bronze treasure gold and the bottom section with onyxite treasure gold.

The embellished tag.  The image is stamped onto a crackled background cut with a nesties spellbinder. For some reason the light has really picked up on the colour of the crushed olive distress stain used to colour the lace.  It's nowhere near that bright IRL!!!