WW #48 - BLACK & WHITE & ONE OTHER COLOUR

I had such fun with last week's card, 'back to school'. Not only did I win a top 3 place from Wicked Wednesday, but I also won one from Just Some Lines too. How chuffed am I. Thank you to both challenge blogs.
This week's theme can be interpreted in so many ways. I decided to go along with something I saw in Craft Stamper magazine where different layers and Gesso formed the background.

I used a piece of mount board (for my US pals, mount board is used to frame pictures etc) and covered it with a thin layer of Gesso. Whilst drying, I managed to cut the orange oval from card. Not an easy task when the dies you have are all the wrong size!! I then arranged a torn piece of white doily, a torn piece of water colour paper - just the bit that was fastening it to the spine - and stuck them all down with glue and seal from Ranger. I stamped the flowers at the top right using black Archival and then stamped some tiny flowers and swirls onto 1 layer of tissue paper using black Stazon. I roughly cut these out and carefully stuck them to the card using more glue and seal. The tissue simply disappears leaving the stamped images. A quick squirt of Perfect Pearls copper and a black marker around the edge to form a frame - done. This technique is a great way of using up tiny left overs and can make some rather appealing results.
Right, I'm off to await the sun and then I have to paint some wood preserve on my greenhouse before the winter comes, although in the UK, we are still waiting for summer!!!

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATCs #36 - PANTOMIME or EXPRESS FEELING WITHOUT WORDS

Another big thank you to Jenn and her DT for picking me as one of their top 3 last week.
I had more fun with this week's challenge. KennyK downloads was my source for an image having chosen the theme Pantomime. My image is called Jeannie and she is perfect for an Aladin ATC.

The background is stream Adirondak colour wash sprayed through a mask, dried then spritzed with a little water to make the ink wick, dried again then over sprayed with perfect pearls. I printed Jeannie on to thin card and coloured her with metallic Sakura pens. These added a bit of sparkle. I cut the images out, used 3D foam to stick them down adding a little bit of fairy fibres behind the lamp.
This one worked well and I am pleased with how it all came together.

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATC - #28 - EARTH DAY

Over at Wicked Wednesday ATC are some lovely cards from their design team. The sponsor this week is Just Some Lines and I have been honoured again to share the images and make a couple of cards as Guest Designer.
Earth Day doesn't seem as popular in the UK as other countries, but I had fun representing it with the images which were really, really lovely.

I used one of my stock backgrounds (that's card I have used to mop up inks from my craft sheet) and punched the corner with a Martha Stewart punch that has a little bird on it. the border at the bottom is the corresponding border punch. I printed the image onto card, coloured it with distress markers before cutting it out. I simply used 3D foam to stick it to the card. Love this one.

I didn't quite make out this image when  I received it, but once I started to colour it - again with distress markers - I realised it's whole meaning and fell completely in love with it. I used several shades of distress scribbled onto my craft sheet and spritzed with mint perfect pearls to shade the background. A couple of leaf brads, some twisted wire and tiny sticky gems finished it off.

SUNDAY STAMPER #188 - GOLD

Crumbs! I've just checked my challenge note book and I last had a go at Sunday Stampers on 10 March last year. That's not good. I know last year was a write off for me and crafting but I didn't realise so much time had gone by. 2012 is going to be full of craft for me so I made a card today following the wonderful tutorial from Hels yesterday. I tried to remember what she did without putting the tele on to watch the recording and came up with this:

The gold bit is the heirloom gold perfect pearls which I sprayed the flowers and words with.
Turned out quite nice and that's the quickest I've ever managed to make 3 flowers.

SDC #43 - NON TRADITIONAL XMAS CARD

And that means, no reds or greens either. Wow, Stampotique came up with a corker of a challenge this fortnight. As it's the 4th Wednesday challenge in the month, it also meant you could only use their stamps too.
I gave it a go.

Here is 'the crafter', scissors in hand, totally fed up of wrapping Xmas presents. Just like I get actually. don't mind buying them but hate wrapping them.
I used Adirondak spray paints and biscotti perfect pearls spray for the background, distress inks to colour the image, peel-off stickers for the parcels and a black Copic pen and white inkssentials pen.
The best bit was, I only got ink on my middle finger and thumb!!!!!

GRUNGY MONDAY 24 - PERFECT DISTRESS

Another Monday already, but it means another Tim challenge over at Grungy Monday.
This week it's PERFECT DISTRESS. Have a look at Tim's video - here - to see what this is all about and have a go with those perfect pearls.
I made a tag in autumnal colours so that I could let Hels see it for her Sunday challenge too. I now she usually joins in with grungy Monday, being a Tim fan (and Ranger educated to boot).
Here is my piece then:

Not sure whether the perfect pearls are shining on the photo, but they are on the twigs and the bird's wing. I used a lot of products on this so please bear with me:
DIs
dried marigold, spiced marmalade, ripe persimmons, seedless preserves, gathered twigs, pumice stone, vintage photo, brushed corduroy.
PERFECT PEARLS
forever violet, heirloom gold,
STAMPS
flights of fancy, lost & found, dots, twigs.
Another crafting bit of fun.

JOURNAL JOURNEYS OCTOBER CHALLENGE

This month's challenge over at Journal Journeys is autumn/nature plus the use of stencils.
Although, unlike many, I actually don't like Autumn. I hate the thought of everything dying plus the cold, wet and wind. The dark doesn't help either. I much prefer spring when everything is happy. Having said that, I do adore the autumn colours which are some of my most favourite ever especially the deep reds.
Still not really into this journaling lark but I keep having a go, so here are my pages for the challenge this month.

I used a mixture of distress inks, colour wash and Terra to create the background and I used a flower stencil plus the remains of grungepaper once I had die cut leaves and a swirl as another set of stencils. The dots are the remnants of red rubber once I had mounted the alpha stamps it contained and I also used a plastic letter stencil to spray some perfect pearls through - which hasn't shown too well on the photo. The 'rutting' deer are from Tim Holtz reindeer flight die and their antlers are from his branch tree die. The words are one of Andy Skinner's stamps.
Although I said autumn means everything is closing down ready for the winter and dying, I think the amazing colours have brought this little scene to life.

USING MY PAPER ROSES

I've gradually been using the paper roses I made over the past few weeks, mainly on ATCs.
Some of the backgrounds were in my stash box just waiting to be used too. I generally mop up spare ink from my craft sheet on ATC-sized card or mount board, ready for such an occasion.
Here is the first one I made yesterday.

I love all the browns on this one. The image is cut from a Crafty Individuals sheet - Love Letters 1. She is lovely. I used K & Co paper to make this flower, spritzed with heirloom gold perfect pearl. I like this one.
The flowers on this 2nd card are made from Tim's lost and found stash.

The feather and little charm finish it off.
All a bit of fun and a boost to my ATC swaps.

2.75" x 2.75"

That's how big this canvas is:

It isn't going on the tag, that is there to show you how it turned out after mopping up the spare ink from the other day. The canvas is the first one I've used which is so small - and I've got a couple even smaller!


I painted it all over with trad. tan Studio paint then used dusty concord distress stain all over including the edges. How quick a job these stains make, just brilliant.

I then used a lolly stick to 'splodge' some Indian coloured Terra over parts to give some depth and interest. I dried it sparingly with a heat gun before rubbing purple and gold metallic rubbing wax over it. I then gave it all a good spray with heirloom gold perfect pearls. Had to let that dry in the sun as I wanted to keep the droplets.

The flower is one of the ones I made when we went away the other week. Matches perfectly. I mounted it onto the small cog which I cut from grungepaper and coloured with the dusty concord again. The leaves are cut from paper using an MS punch.

Just look at the lovely sparkle from the perfect pearls spray.


To finish off, I added some seed beads and a bit of purple stickles.

What a fun little project. I've decided to use it as a centre piece for a large card. I placed it onto a fancy piece of paper I had previously punched using an MS round the edge punch, and placed the whole thing into the middle of an 8"x8" card. It looked super. Having said that, the card was white and it needs a cream one. So that's what I shall do.
Thanks for looking.

HANGING SIGN WISHES

After having spent yesterday doing that cl****ng thing - still can't say that word! I thought a bit of crafting would not go amiss today. Also, it's Monday which means a little help from your crafting buddies is called for. However, my helper today was not much use and simply left paw prints all over my card and paper.
So, I decided to make a card for some friend's wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks.

Made from some lovely shiny card stock rather than grunge, I simply cut the sign from that and the bracket from black card which I rubbed over with metallic wax. The sign is distressed with victorian velvet, worn lipstick, tumbled glass, chipped sapphire and wild honey DIs edged lightly with walnut stain. I then swiped both the red pads onto my craft sheet, spritzed them with heirloom gold perfect pearls spray and 'dunked' my swirl stamp into the ink before stamping onto the card. I dried it all with a heat gun and then stamped the word using victorian velvet.
The eyelets are WRMK. The sign is held in place simply with the wire which forms the stems to the paper flowers. I spritzed water on to the left over ink and again dunked my stamp into it to stamp the background on the card - there was also enough left to colour 2 little nestability tags. I used black 3D foam to attach the bracket but left the sign hanging.
Turned out ok me thinks.

PERFECT BEE

Oh dear, I think my ideas for headings are getting out of control. Anyway, today I decided to have a go at a couple of challenges.
The first is the Stampotique Designers Challenge - Animals, insects or birds.
The second is the Sunday Stampers - Nature.
This is my little ATC, made for both.

The background is created with perfect pearls, 2 layers of UTEE and stamped with the Stampotique Bee which I have highlighted with perfect pearls and stickles.
I enjoyed making this and it was so quick and easy.

PERFECT MIST

Well actually, I don't mean the freezing fog we have today which is showing no sign of clearing at all. No, I mean this:

Perfect Pearls Mists.
This one is heirloom gold and one of the 2 new colours I have my eye on. The 2nd is the pearl. I was so surprised to find this yesterday in Inspirations because I didn't know the mists had shipped out yet. Obviously they have.
Also, have you been watching Tim's blog this week and seen all the goodies he will be releasing at CHA. How about the Distress Coredinations card then? How fab will that be.
I have a couple of ideas going on in my head just now - it's a good job they are there 'cos there's not much else in there!!!! - so I'm off to have a think about them and if everything works out, I'll be back in the week to let you know, one way or the other.

TIM'S 12 TAGS OF CHRISTMAS 2010 -#12

The final day. How quickly that came around.
I watched the videos on Tim's post today and realised the potential for the movers and shakers. How cool was the envelope trick then? Unfortunately, I don't possess any of the cut outs so today was another improvisation.

I used some of the Christmas stickers from the seasonal salvage sticker pad to cover a tag. No bauble die so I used the largest one from my grungeboard ready cut ones. I found the letters for the word Joy and arranged them on the bauble so I could draw around them in order to cut out a circle.
I then got messy with the fired brick DI before painting all the bits with rock candy distress crackle paint. Mine wouldn't crackle though, so out came the heat gun. However, instead of ending up with a vintage-like crackle, I ended up with red sticky toffee!!!! It finally dried enough to be able to do the ribbon, wire and letters thingy. Looks ok for a bodge up.
My trusty corners came into use again, though I think I've used them all now, and I cut the calendar from the lost and found stack. The cones were in my stash but the fir tree bits just happened to drop off my Xmas tree.....just at the right moment too!!!

I have loved every bit of these past 12 days, despite the bloomin' baubles and perfect pearls!! and am now eagerly looking forward to February and the chance of a life time workshop with the master himself.

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU TO TIM FOR HIS INSPIRATION, SELF-LESS TIME and FOR SHARING HIS KNOWLEDGE.

Pop over to Artyjen's blog and also the Artistic Stamper, where you can see the most marvelous tags that Tim's followers this year have created. I'm off for a peep now.

TIM'S 12 TAGS OF CHRISTMAS 2010 - #9

Didn't he excel himself today! I absolutely adore today's tag. The colours are beautiful and the whole design is so special, even though it meant making baubles again and getting out the perfect pearls.
It proved a bit fiddly but I got there in the end.

Not sure which photo looked the best, so I've included both. I didn't have the letter die that Tim used, but this one worked ok. Whilst I was cutting the letters, the 'w' partly cut. I thought it looked like a crown so I painted it with a silver dabber and used it above the heart. I used dotty white ribbon which I coloured as stated and then crinkled it with a heat gun. The fibres behind the rosette were a freebie from craft obsessions. Also mopped all my spare ink up with card cut to ATC size, so have loads of backgrounds now. Waste not, want not eh?

Popping over to Artyjen and the Artistic stamper to link my tag.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

There are some truly fabulous Halloween pieces out there in craft land this year. One in particular has been made by Hels Sheridan. Pop over and have a peek if you get the chance. I haven't really had a play this year apart from a couple of ATCs and an altered frame, but I have received Tim's new stamps, a die and embossing folder which will come in very handy next time around.

I seem to be on a roll with Xmas just now and have completed 2 cards! Wow! That's good for me. Actually it's not 'cos I am so behind with other cards, like birthday, which really isn't good. Here's a quick look at what I've done so far.

Both designs are from the new Magnolia magazine, but as you can see, I've adapted them 'cos I don't have the Magnolia stamps. I'm particularly pleased with the second card. It's really quite lovely ....ooh! self praise.
I'm packing my best stash today as we are going down the road to Southport for a few days in the motorhome. My friend, Sonia, is coming on Tuesday for a day of crafting and I hope to be able to show her some Ranger techniques as taught to me by Lindsay when I've watched her demos and attended her workshops. Sonia is fast becoming a DI addict and wants to move on a bit, so she will be able to play with all the stamps and alcohol inks plus lots of other goodies such as dabbers, perfect pearls, stickles, fragments and dies. Her attention to detail is excellent so I reckon she will end up showing me.
I will take photos, or better still, I'll get 'peg leg' to take a few, and blog them as we go along.

ANOTHER DONE, 2 MORE TO GO

Another of the chunky book pages that is. I've taken ages on this one because it proved quite tricky. Heather said we could interpret the themes any way we wanted, following Tim's lead of course, so I used his gorgeous white rabbit stamp and turned him into the one from Alice in Wonderland. This theme is 'the timekeeper'.

I'm showing off one of my new edge dies from Tim's alteration range, it's fabulous but wait for the next one!

The base is mount board, which the die just laughed at because it cut through so easily, whereas the top layer is card. I used Tim's clock mask together with 2 peeloffs as masks and distressed both layers. I really wanted to do a pink and green page and this theme fitted those colours well. I then stamped the flourish before removing the masks. A quick squirt of ink and perfect pearls and the bases were done.

I stamped the rabbit 3 times and used silicone to 3D the bits together. I gave him a green stickles scarf, pink stickles inside his ear and rock candy distress stickles on his coat. I couldn't find my pompoms anywhere, so he has a cotton bud tail! A couple of black sticky gems for his eye and nose, and he was done. I stamped the watch onto shrink plastic and when 'shrunk' added glossy accents to give the appearance of a glass face.

I used my computer to print the 'I'm late, I'm late' saying onto printable acetate, which I edged with a glue pen and some ultra fine glitter. The chain was taken from a clothing label attached to some clothing my precious grandson got for his birthday. Thanks for that sweetheart.

I ran round all the edges with Victorian Velvet distress ink after having completed the back - no pic of that though!

Thoughts are in my mind for the next one which I will 'play' with over the next few days.

WITH A LITTLE FLOURISH

There are 2 challenges this week that I can enter one of my chunky book pages into.

1) Sunday Stampers - Lace (check out the link to Ink on my Fingers in the sidebar)

2) Allsorts - #46 No patterned paper (again, the link is in the sidebar)

I used distress inks over Tim's flourish mask then stamped a swirl stamp using another distress ink and then brushed over it with perfect pearls. I then spritzed with water and by doing this the ink 'bleeds'. As soon as the required effect is achieved, a quick blast with a heat gun sets it. I then made a chunky tag in the same way.

I die cut some flowers out of material and grungepaper, inking over the grunge one, gluing one of the material ones to a grunge flower and inking over that too. I again, inked a grungeboard swirl and then assembled the whole thing adding embellishments and some LACE.

I love the effect of distress inks, perfect pearls and spritzing. The lovely shine is amazing.

CLOWNS

Anyone who knows me, also knows that I cannot draw for toffee! I didn't own any stamps, up to today, that resemble anything like a clown or a circus come to that, so trying to achieve the Sunday Stampers challenge #93 - Clowns, was near impossible. (Check out the Ink on My Fingers link in the side bar).

However, Jennie at the Artistic Stampers shop came to my rescue by quickly dealing with my order for the Tim Holtz Random Gatherings stamp set. I finally completed the challenge using one of the 4 stamps.

I decided to make an ATC, mainly because my swap box is very bare, but I used mountboard instead of card. The new distress inks formed the base before I stamped the image. I then mixed some red Perfect Pearls with water and sprayed all over the card. I went over the word with a gold pen, re-stamped the image on scrap card so I could cut out the clown's faces and the strong man's leotard. The weights are coloured black with Copic and the stickles at the top is gunmetal, the beadazzles are jazz and the middle clown's hair is cut from some fancy fibres.

After problemating since Sunday (is that a proper word?) I've done it. Hooray!

MY MELT POT SAMPLES

I've just been on Facebook to see what Suze Weinberg has been up to at the other workshops she was doing before the NEC show, and found out that she was only in Burnley. I wish I had looked earlier because she was working with beeswax, which is what I wanted to learn how to use in the melt pot. She did tell us however, that really you should use a removable project pan for this technique. Anyone know where I can buy one??

I hope the photo I've taken comes out clearly, - not uploaded it yet - 'cos all my piccies have been rubbish lately. Anyway, here goes:

The first thing we tackled was the small frame. We cut a picture to fit and simply poured clear UTEE into the inside of the frame. Once dry, this can be removed to use again and the embellishment can be used on any project, including a jewellery piece.

The large oval face was fun to make. For this you need a greased cookie cutter which you simply place over an image and again pour clear UTEE into the cutter. Once dry, remove the cutter and trim around the picture. I love this sample.

The shiny mis-shaped piece on the right is actually made from a CD! Heat a CD with a heat gun, stamp an image onto part of it using Archival ink or similar, then cut out a shape. Add a few drop of To Dye For to melted clear UTEE and using metal tweezers, carefully submerge the piece in the liquid. Lift horizontally and allow the excess to drip off before placing on a craft sheet to cool and set. This is gorgeous.

We then added some black UTEE to our pot. The picture of the men is trapped between 2 pieces of memory glass. We then put each side into the front edge of the liquid, dragged it forward, lifted it for a second or 2 before continuing all round. This made a fake frame. It actually looks really good too.

The larger of the frames was fun but had I taken more notice before I began (sometimes hard to watch everything at once in a workshop) I would have known to use a rubber stamp with a lot of deep detail to it. Choose one with detail, place a frame over the part you wish to capture and pour the UTEE into the frame. Allow to cool and set for few seconds before removing from the stamp. You could ink the stamp first to give a different look. We then brushed Perfect Pearls over the image and added stickles and beadazzles.

The fun bit came when we each chose from Suze's bag of trinkets, an image with which to make a mould. I first picked out a cat's head - wonder why I was drawn to that? - but then I saw a white face and immediately thought of masks with feathers and semi-precious stones etc, so I picked that. We then blended together the 2 parts of the mould and pour substances and once ready squeezed it round our trinket. This substance is similar to the stuff dentists use to make impressions. It's ready to remove if a nail print does not make an indent. Then we simply poured UTEE into the mould and waited for it to set before removing the mould which can be used over and over again. I absolutely love the face that came out and will be chuffed to use this mould again.

We then added some colours to our pot and once melted simply poured the lot onto our craft sheet and quickly placed cookie cutters into it. It dried really fast and some lovely pieces appeared. Suze gave us all a brooch fastening so that we could super glue it to the back of our favourite piece and hence we made jewellery too.

All in all a really good time was had by all, plus we got an extra hour's class. Can't wait for QVC craft day next Tuesday, when Suze, along with many others, will be demonstrating her techniques again.

THE 12TH TAG

Well, Tim saved the best 'til last.

I have wanted to make grunge flowers since I saw them at CHA earlier in the year. Today was the day.

I didn't have the Sizzix die that Tim used, but I do have a 6 petal daisy die and as he said that almost any 6 petal flower would normally do, I proceeded. I did find however, that the petals were a bit long which made the cuts off line. After much fiddling, I finally made 2 roses.

The red rose is coloured with fired brick ink and red perfect pearls but the blue/green one is coloured with craftynotions spray inks. I used Hero Arts gems to make my own sparkly swirls. The photo is bad due to light, or lack of light but if I can, I intend to photo all 12 tomorrow in order to email Tim and hopefully, win the grand prize!

I have sooo enjoyed these past 12 days, so I send a great big THANK YOU to Tim Holtz for giving his time to create the 12 Tags of Christmas for the 3rd year running - roll on 2010!

PS Looking at the state of my hands, I bet Tim went to bed last night, laughing his head off knowing how many crafters throughout the world would have coloured fingers today. I've used everything, including blending solution, but nothing is working!!!! It's such fun.