Tattered Flowers

These are some of the flowers I've created with my new TH Tattered Flower Garland decorative strip die which Rach0113 inspired me to get (along with lots of other things!!) when she shared her recent haul.

I then took them outside in the (don't faint) sunshine, and although there is lots of shade, you get a truer colour.

One thing I will do different next time I make some is sand off the card before running it through the die, I lost a few petals sanding afterwards!!!

Orange, Mustard & Navy

Over at Stampotique this week, Jane has informed us that she loves the colours orange, navy and mustard, so this week she has challenged us to use that colour combo in our creation.

My background is orange Dylusions acrylic paint together with Stewart Gill translucent paints, ochre and I used a credit card to apply the blue.

I stamped the Stampotique flower, dragonfly and little bee in perfect medium and coloured with extra dark blue (520.1) pan pastel.  I used my new Stampotique alphabet stamps to write the word 'freedom' in denim Adirondack ink.  I painted the edges of a piece of white card with denim acrylic dabber and mounted.

I did exactly the same with this piece but this time used Dina Wakley stamps.

ICHF Show - Manchester

I decide to try my hand at another show after the disaster of the last one so I went to the ICHF hobbycraft show at EventCity in Manchester.  The exhibitors were a mixture of paper craft and textiles. 

There were some lovely samples on display.

There were also some demo's going on but I didn't get any photos of those!!

And some fabulous costumes.

And more. 

After lunch it really emptied out.

A complete contrast to the previous show I attended at Donington.

And this is my stash!!  I finally got my hands on a set of the metallic distress stains. 

And when I got home, these were waiting for me too, my delivery from Oyster Stamps.  The white Posca pen was from Tiger Pens.

Artful Times - Challenge 13

Over at Artful Times this week Von has chosen the theme of 'make a tree the main feature'.  Now I don't know if I have succeeded in this challenge or not but here is my tag.  The background is permanent green (640.5) pan pastel through the Crafter's Workshop mini branches reversed stencil, outlined in a black fine nib pen.  (This is my tree!!)  Orange extra dark (280.1) pan pastel through the circles of the mini punchinella stencil top and bottom.  The arrow is coloured with raw umber (780.5) pan pastel, the word is  stamped in timber brown stazon and attached with brads.  The Stampotique Kamona was stamped on a separate piece of paper in timber brown stazon, cut out and attached to the tag.  Finally I used glossy accents on random dots.

New (to me) Stash

These were ordered from Cutting Edge Crafts.  The Scoreboard die, box candy drawer, the extension plates for the big Shot and the crease mat, along with the tattered floral garland.

And this pile of goodies were from the lovely Wendy at The Stamp Attic.  They are all from the Stampotique range, some of which Wendy kindly ordered in especially for me.

Can't wait to have a play!!!

Happy Daze - Steampunkery

This months theme over at the Happy Daze monthly challenge is right up my street - steampunkery!!

I decided to make a small canvas (5" x 7").  Covered the background with Stewart Gill translucent chocolate brown.  Used matte medium to glue down the clock face and the tape measure papers.  I used a Tando cog mask with texture paste to create the depth of the cogs bottom right.  Painted them with a mixture of acrylic metallic dabbers, luminere and Stewart Gill paints.

I added a couple of T!m cogs, a charm which started out gold, so got some distressed treatment and a key!!

Close up of the texture paste cogs using the Tando Creative mask.

Everything was assembled using glossy accents.

Don't forget to be eligible for the £15 voucher to spend in the shop, you have to use at least one product that Moira sells, which isn't difficult!!! 

This month I've used; matte medium, acrylic metallic dabbers and glossy accents.

TIO - In a Heartbeat

Wow this was a hard one!!  This weeks Dragons Dream TIO recipe is 

a beating heart, a weathered timepiece and a bit of grunge..

How on earth do you show a beating heart I asked myself!!!  So I came up with the above.  The hearts are cut from chipboard using T!m's heart wings die and have been treated with everything under the sun!!!  Aged mahogany crackle paste, dabber paint (red pepper, copper, pitch black), clear embossing powder, fired brick distress embossing powder, so they certainly got the treatment.  I wrapped copper wire around the bottom one but this still didn't solve my problem of a beating heart.  I would of loved to add a flashing light bulb but my physics skills (or lack of) did not permit me to even try!!  So I decided on a large crystal, but then it looked a bit too blingy (and I don't do bling), so I toned it down a bit with a piece of silver mesh.

The background is Graphic 45 paper which has been sanded back.  Then I remembered I needed to include some stamping, so I stamped the word passion with timber brown stazon, cut it out and coloured it with black (800.5) and red (340.5) pan pastels.  But duh!!! the banner was stamped in timber brown stazon onto a piece of T!m's kraft resist, so I did have some stamping on there - never mind!!!

So I'll leave it to you to decide if I have accomplished the brief of a beating heart!!! 

Out of a Hat - Corrugated

Now those of you who know me, know my love of corrugated, so how could I not join in with this challenge from Out of a Hat Creations.

Having waited nearly 6 months and totally forgotten about my free Derwent Artbar sample, it actually came on Thursday.  It seems everyone got the same colour on the same day!!  Anyway, back to the challenge over at Out of a Hat they are asking for Recycled Packaging.  So I decided to use the packaging from my free sample Artbar.  The piece of corrugated is from the inside which housed the yellow Artbar.  

The outer background is the inside packaging and the inner piece with the image and the heart are from the outer packaging.  I was going to paint it, but when I was assembling it, I quite liked it raw, so I left it.  The string is also recycled, but I can't remember where from!!

And the bit I had left over from the inner packaging I used to create the above.  Again the heart was die cut from the outer packaging.

Happy Daze

Wow, look what came today.  I was lucky enough to of been randomly selected for a £15.00 voucher at Happy Daze for entering their August challenge - circling the world.  So I chose some more Stampotique stamps but these ones are by Jo Capper-Sandon as opposed to my usual stash by Daniel Torrente.  So thanks to Moira from Happy Daze for sorting out my voucher and order.

Film Strip

Using my new Stampotique characters I created this film strip using a die cut from black card, a sheet of acetate and a background using Dylusion sprays.  The hearts banner, swirls, ART and faces were stamped in black stazon directly onto the acetate.  All the images are on top of the acetate except the second character (Smile) he was placed under the acetate.  The remainder of the Art quote was stamped onto black card with picket fence distress stain.

This weeks Stampotique challenge is to combine stamps so this fits in perfectly.

Mousetrap!!

Over at Out of the Hat Creations a couple of weeks ago they had a challenge to decorate of all things, a mousetrap!!  Now I struggled to find one so wasn't able to join in.  Florence from the DT kindly offered to send me one to try, so I accepted her kind invitation.  After a couple of further emails a huge box of mousetraps arrived at my house, so I had to have a play.

Now a new challenge site was launched on Sunday - ABAC - and a new challenge will be set every 2 weeks.  ABAC stands for anything but a card, and this week they are going with an easy one, 'Anything goes', except obviously anything but a card!!!  So I'm entering my mousetrap.

Now my mate Nicky (aka Altered Inker) was part of my inspiration for the above and she is taking a workshop called Trap Happy on Saturday at Snazzy's for this very same thing, if you want to find out more, check here.  The other part of the inspiration was T!m's September tag.

All About Stripes

This week the PanPastelUk challenge is to include stripes in your creation.  The background of the tag was created using various colours of Artbars.  The border was created using a black sharpie pen and a white posca pen (these are some of my stripes).  I stamped Rocky onto a separate piece of card, coloured the 'stripes' on his outfit with Adirondack pens.  Stamped the words onto kraft card with picket fence distress stain and outlined them with black pen.  And of course, I had to use pan pastels somewhere, you don't have to to enter the challenge, but if I can, I like to use the products of the sponsor, so his face and hands are lightly coloured with burnt sienna tint (740.8).

Timmy tag

Oooh I love T!m's tag for September so I just had to have a go.  I don't have the typewriter so I had to improvise!!!  

Favourite technique or product

Well Out of a Hat have really challenged me today to choose a favourite technique or product.  Well the product was easy, I just had to try out my new stash of Stampotique stamps.  But as for the technique, there are so many.  I have actually just re-found my love of ink sprays after re-visiting one of Dyans Dylusion YT videos, so now feel I'm getting the best out of them.  I also used pan pastels through a stencil on the background and stamped in picket fence distress stain, more of my favourite things to do when playing on a tag.

Eggplant Hues - Stampotique

Over at the Stampotique Designers Challenge this week Sarinda has chosen a colour theme of eggplant hues.

I used my Dylusion sprays and the ghosting effect with a stencil to create the background. I stamped the 'art' quote in the background.

I stamped my new Stampotique images onto separate card, coloured them with adirondack pens, cut them out and mounted them onto the background.