Winter's butterflies

It's challenge time at Tando Creative - our theme this month is "Ice White" and there's a photo for inspiration. You can check it out here if you'd like to play along and be in with a chance of a lovely prize in a random draw of all players.

I used an ATC base - the chipboard is perfect for this as you need a thick layer of gesso and a lighter weight base tends to buckle with the moisture and weight of it. Once I had a thick layer of gesso, I spritzed my stamps with water to help them release and stamped to leave textured impressions. I left if overnight to dry and then added a couple of extra snowflakes heat embossed with white powder so that there are both debossed and raised snowflake impressions.

I took inspiration from the silver pot in the picture and used silver for the sentiment. I didn't have an appropriate stamp so to get the words I wanted, I printed on an inkjet printer and quickly covered with detail embossing powder.

Glass glitter around the edges and a white rose finish it off.

Stamps:
Grunge Flakes (Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous)

Paper:
Chipboard ATC (Tando Creative)
Cryogen White (for sentiment strip)

Other:
Gesso
Versamark ink
Detail white embossing powder
Detail silver embossing powder
Inkjet printer
Deko Ice Glitter by Efco (Crystal)
Rose (Wild Orchid Crafts)

Thanks for stopping by!

In the abstract...

I tend to be a fairly neat and tidy crafter (finished product-wise, not process-wise!) with a leaning towards the figurative when I choose stamps for a project. Throughout 2012, we're having a monthly challenge on UK Stampers and for the first one, I decided to go a bit more abstract!

Salamanda is hosting and for January she has asked us to create a wall hanging using material from old clothes, metal, tissue paper and stamps. No new purchases allowed, only stash you already own.

I used a piece from an old pair of jeans for my base (about 20cm x 16cm) and stamped randomly with some numbers and circles. I glued scrunched up tissue paper down one side and when dry I painted with acrylic paint and then rubbed a tiny bit of Rub n Buff over to highlight the texture.

The bubble border was stamped and then coloured with acrylic paints (all of which have been in my stash for at least a decade!).

I embossed metal from a drinks can and stuck it to mountboard scraps for stability and weight. I used gesso and acrylics to colour it and then rubbed most of the colour off for a shabby look. I cut up the piece and then stitched the three separate chunks to the base with florist's wire. The metal washer and stud were ones prised off something in the past - so long ago I forget what! - and stored in my "useful bits" box.

I stuck a strip of mountboard across the top at the back for stability and then added a coiled wire hanger to finish.

Stamps:
A&P Numbers (Ma Vinci's Reliquary)
Bubble Border (Lost Coast Designs)

Ink:
Versacraft by Tsukineo (Midnight)

Paper:
Mountboard
White tissue

Other:
Denim from old jeans
Metallic turquoise, metallic blue and silver acrylic paints
Rub n Buff by amaco (Silver Leaf)
Drinks can metal
Metal washer and stud
Drink Me embossing folder (Couture Creations)
Florist's wire
Crop a Dile
Rubber washers (used as circle stamps)

Thanks for stopping by!

New Year Numbers

Happy New Year everyone!

A new year means a new monthly theme for the postcard swap on UK Stampers. I missed the last couple of 2011 so I was pleased to get time to make something for the first swap of this year where our theme is numbers.

I chose to make the numbers a focal point and focus on the year since it's just starting. I'm a bit of a font geek and I absolutely adore the style of these - the maker actually found a box of old stamps at a flea market labelled "Grocery Sign Marking Kit" and used the impressions, including imperfections, to make new stamps.

Extra numbers feature on the tape measure and Roman numerals of the clock face.

I heat emboss the numbers and then coloured the card with Distress Stain and overstamped the tape measure with dye ink so the embossing resisted it. I sponged over the clock mask and then added the lady using Versafine so that I could bleach the face area. Happy accident was that the bleached stain took on a pinkish tone. A slightly less hapy accident was a streak of stray bleach. Keeping the "embellishment opportunity" philosophy in mind, I stamped some crackle texture to camouflage it! Finally, I used metallic pencils to add a bit of silver and purple to the image.

Stamps:
A&P Numbers (Ma Vinci's Reliquary)
Tape measure from Hardware set (Crafty Secrets)
Retro Women Set 2 (Tanda Stamps)
Crackleglaze background (Indigo Blu)

Paper:
Ivory mountboard

Ink:
Versamark by Tsukineko
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Weathered Wood, Black Soot)
Tim Holtz Distress Stain by Ranger (Weathered Wood)
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Detail white embossing powder
Timeworks mask (Tim Holtz Alterations)
Bleach
Ferby Metallic pencils by Lyra

Thanks for stopping by - hope your numbers are all lucky this year!

Christmas Joy

The December challenge over at Tando Creative is "Winter Festivals" - whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Yule etc or just the beauty of your surroundings at this time of year.

I combined a wavy twinchie and a medium sized wonky tree to make a little festive brooch. The twinchie has been painted black, beaten up with an embossing stylus and coated with Rub n Buff. I painted the tree with pearlescent acrylic paint and then added a garland of hot pink microbeads with Glossy Accents. Silver microbeads add more texture at the base.

I made the sentiment piece by melting a little UTEE on a non-stick sheet and pressing a stamp into it and "antiquing" with some black paint. I glued it in place to finish the piece off.

Supplies:
Wavy Twinchie and Wonky Trees grab bag (Tando Creative)
Black acrylic paint
Rub n Buff by Amaco (Silver Leaf)
Siver UTEE
Sentiment from Season's Greetings stamp set (Technique Tuesday)
Microbeads (hot pink and silver - acrylic nail art supplies)

If you're doing last minute crafting, why not enter the December challenge and be in with a chance of winning a prize?

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

Hippo Birthday

I needed a birthday card for a wee boy so I took Kathy's December sketch from the Sketch File as my starting point. It's a fairly loose interpretation - I treated the embossed word blocks as four of the five strips in the sketch and added the recipient's name as the fifth.

I did try putting a circle behind the hippo but it looked better without.

Stamps: Heloise Hippo (High Hopes)

Paper: Red, white, navy

Ink: Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)

Other:
Typeset decorative strip die (Tim Holtz Alterations/Sizzix)
Copic markers
Tracing Wheel
Corner Chomper (We R emory Keepers)
Birthday embossing folder (Cuttlebug)

Thanks for stopping by - hope your Christmas preprations are all under control!

Tim Tag 9

Part of the festive season run up for many papercrafters these days includes Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas. I haven't been playing every day but I've had a go at the odd one or two. Here's my take on Day 9's tag.

I used Tim's double embossed technique for the background and the idea of a festive light source for the focal point and changed just about everything else! As my colours were darker, the whole thing was in danger of looking a bit dour so I added some torn cardstock snow layers to the base and kept my wording white rather than black.

I hand cut some holly leaves and spiky fronds to make a festive foliage arrangement for the top of the lantern and added a silk ribbon bow and some gems for a pop of red.

The lantern itself was coloured black with a marker and then had the tiniest scraping of Rub n Buff added to give it an antiqued metal finish. A tiny bit of gesso snow finishes the top.

Supplies:
Chipboard lantern from Lantern Set (Tando Creative)
Perfect Paisley Scrapblock stamp (retired CHF)
Typeset alpha die (Alterations/Sizzix)
Tim Holtz Distress ink (Peeled Paint, Fired Brick, Vintage Photo)
Cuttlebug die cut ornate corner
Rub n Buff (Gold Leaf)
DCWV cardstock
Copic markers
Gesso
White cardstock
Glamour Dust glitter
Glossy Accents

Thanks for stopping by!

White Christmas

Glenda Waterworth is hosting a "white Christmas" challenge on her blog with a great prize up for grabs. For each entry to the challenge, she's adding £1 value to a gift voucher to spend on Chocolate Baroque stamps - check out the blog for full details here.

I was in the mood to play with some polymer clay so I've taken a completely left-field approach here and made something white to give as a Christmas gift - hope that's within the spirit of the challenge!

I had some fun trying out something new with this - making a mould from a stamp to get an "outy" rather than an "inny" on my finished piece. When you press a stamp into polymer clay you get depressions where you would have ink if you stamped on paper. With this technique, you press the stamp into some scrap clay and bake it and then use that to make the textured impression on your finished piece. I pressed mine into white clay, cut it out with a cookie cutter and then baked it over a dud lightbulb to get a dished shape on the finished piece. You need to add a little "platform" of clay inside so that there's a flat surface if you want to add a brooch back when you do this but you could also make a hole and use it as a pendant piece if you wanted.

I spritzed some Glimmer Mist on and let it pool in the crevices. I think the finished piece has a bit the look of something you'd see on ornate plasterwork ceilings!

Materials:
Nature's Paisley stamp set (Chocolate Baroque)
Sculpey Premo polymer clay
Glimmer mist (Antique Brass)
Clay tools (acrylic roller, cookie cutter)
Brooch back

There's nearly a week left to have a play if you fancy joining in with the White Christmas challenge - remember the more players there are, the bigger the prize pot for the random draw! Details here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Let it snow!

It's challenge time again at Tando Creative. There's an inspiration board to work from this month with blues and browns.

By this time last year I think we were already thoroughly sick of snow but as it's unseasonably mild at the moment, I thought I could risk a snow-themed project without causing the horrors!

I've inked the white board of the frame with Brilliance and stamped the snowflakes on the chocolate brown backing with the same ink. A stamped and inked wavy domino is attached with jump rings for the sentiment and a cheery snowman finishes it off.

Connecting smaller shapes together is a fun way to use chipboard and lots of the pieces in the Tando range share measurements in one direction or the other so it's easy to coordinate.

Supplies:
Karen's Frames - Gothic Arch and Wavy Domino (Tando Creative)
Compliments of the Season stamp set (Waltzingmouse Stamps)
Dancing Snowman stamp (CHF, retired)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Sky Blue)
Versafine by Tsukineko (Vintage Sepia)
Coloured pencils
Jump rings
Crop a Dile

If blue and brown tickles your fancy, there's still a week left to enter the challenge and be in with a chance of winning a lovely Tando prize (you get to pick the goodies!) - details of the challenge are here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dragonfly dreams

Carol's been doing a class on the Tando Creative Online Classes blog over the last four weeks. I've played along but, of course, I've done it my own way! Carol used the six inch square frame, mine is the one that's about 88mm square.

As I started out with a smaller frame, I've simplified quite a lot to avoid a very "busy" finished product. I used a lot of Carol's class techniques for the various elements, though (and added a bit of "me" as I went along!).

The basic frame preparation is just as outlined in Carol's first session - I chose not to heat the paste to make it bubble though.

Week 2 and I started to go off piste a bit! I did the basic technique with the stand (although I used a large background stamp rather than a swirl) and sort of followed the background insructions. My main difference was that I sponged gesso through my mask and chose a much smaller scale pattern (the sequin waste mask) to go with my smaller project. I only partially outlined some of my sponged dots.

Week 3 was easy for me - Carol made lots of fab embellishments but I decided the smaller frame couldn't handle very much so I just made the dragonfly! As I wasn't doing all the inchies and fragments etc (actually this frame is not wide enough to take them) I decided to add some extra textural interest by doing the beaten metal effect around the top right. To achieve this look, just bash the heck out of the chippie with an embossing stylus and then very lightly apply Rub n Buff.

The final week brought all the elements together. Again, I simplified and just stamped onto my prepared background, added a little bit of white gel pen to the plant's flower heads and attached the dragonfly with some florist's wire so that it floats free of the frame.

Supplies:
Square frame with stand and Bug Set 1 Sml (Tando Creative)
Sequin Waste mask (Tando Creative)
Plant from Nature Plate 1 (Indigo Blu)
Sentiment from retired CHF set
Crackle stamp
Black and green acrylic paints
Rub n Buff by Amaco (Silver Leaf)
Pearls (coloured with a Copic marker)
Perfect Pearls (Forver Green, Forever Blue, Patina Green)
Opalite inks (Orchid Ice and Cypress Frost)
Versafine ink (Onyx Black)
Distress inks (Tumbled Glass, Brocken China, Bundled Sage)
Inkssentials white pen by RangerClear embossing powder
Gesso
Florist's wire

If you fancy having a go at you own version, all of Carol's instructions will stay up on the blog so we'd love to see you any time! Thanks for stopping by!

Silver snowflakes

Once again I'm hosting the challenge in the Crafty Secrets member forum over at Splitcoast and this week we're using pins in our projects.

I've gone for a dramatic look by heat embossing silver snowflakes on black and adding a framed sentiment. The felt die cut poinsettia came from a garland that was remaindered in a local supermarket a couple of years back - I'm still snipping the odd one off and using them!

Stamps:
Christmas Joy (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets)

Paper:
Black
Cryogen white
Silver

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Crimson Red)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Antique Linen)

Other:
Detail silver embossing powder
Felt die cut poinsettia
Spelldinder dies (snowflake and Labels Nine)
Pins
Rub n Buff by Amaco (Silver Leaf)
Pearl
Tracing wheel

Thanks for stopping by!