Green tea?

Leo is setting the challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week and she'd like to see projects featuring a teacup with something in it - it could be just the drink or it could be something else, have a look at the blog to see what the design team put inside theirs!

I decided to go small for a change and make an ATC. I used the MISTI to let me do some slightly complicated masking so I could stamp my little green monster inside the cup, jumping out to say hello.

I hope Leo will forgive the use of an espresso cup rather than a teacup - it was the closest thing I had. Mind you, many years ago we visited Japan and in a lovely hotel in Hiroshima I ordered green tea and a traditional cake. Maybe it was the combination of the sugar in the cake and the "gun powder" style of the tea but it practically gave me hallucinations so green tea can definitely rival espresso for potency!

Stamps:
Monsters Ink by Technique Tuesday
Splat That by Waltzingmouse Stamps (no longer with us)
My own cup design

Ink:
Soft Granite Shadow Ink by Hero Arts
Graphite Black Brilliance ink by Tsukineko
Shabby Shutters Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger

Other:
ATC and Corners die by Tim Holtz Alterations/Sizzix
Copic markers
Hello die by Waltzingmouse stamps (no longer with us)
MISTI stamp positioner
Clear Wink of Stella pen

Thanks for stopping by, have a lovely weekend!

Wax fish?

The topic over at PaperArtsy for the next couple of weeks is "wax". I'm trying to join in with a few more challenges this year and thought this one might be fun to play with.

I don't have any wax art supplies and for a first experiment I decided to just go with stuff around the house so a plain old tealight came into play! It's translucent enough to work as long as the layers don't get too thick.

I used an ATC cut from mountboard - I like to go with something small when I'm just experimenting with materials and techniques, it feels more manageable than a full card or canvas. I stamped the fish skeleton on the ATC and coloured the edges with wax crayons (just cheap kids' ones from the £1 shop). Then I tipped some melted wax on there and used a heat tool to spread it out, let it set and repeated.

Once the wax layer was thick enough, I used a pokey tool to draw round the shapes in the stencil and get incised lines. I brushed the wax crumbs off, replaced the stencil and added a little colour with a couple of Copic markers (just dabbing so the nibs shouldn't have come to any harm!). That left the surface sticky enough to hold some Perfect Pearls. In real life it looks much more layered and inscribed but wax and mica combined to make a bit of a photography nightmare, I'm afraid!

Having made the ATC, I decided to mount it onto a card blank with just a little inky stenciling and a stamped sentiment. I think it will make a useful masculine card to have in my stash.

Stamps:
PaperArtsy Mini 100
Sentiment from Essential Messages by Hero Arts

Paper: 
mountboard
Bamboo mixed media paper by Hanemuhl
black cardstock

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Tumbled Glass) 

Other:
Cell Theory stencil by Crafters Workshop
Tea light
Wax crayons
Perfect Pearls (Turquoise and Blue Raspberry)
Copic markers 
ATC and Corners die by Tim Holtz/Sizzix

Thanks for stopping by!

Sun, sea and sand

The Design Team at Tando Creative is going seasonal this week and being inspired by "sun, sea and sand".

I've made a simple ATC using one of the white board shapes as a base. I love the fact they're really sturdy so they're easy to handle and you don't need to stick anything on the back of your work to make it feel stable.

Small stamps are perfect to create "holiday snapshots" in the film strip cells and I've added a paperclay starfish that has been in my stash for years - I made it in a polymer clay mould that was created from a real starfish that was in a bowl of decorative shells I picked up in a charity shop.

Supplies:
Chipboard ATC (Tando Creative)
Seaside stamp set (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets)
Black card
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Tumbled Glass)
Versafine ink by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Adirondack ink by Ranger (Espresso)
 Filmstrip die (Tim Holtz Alterations/Sizzix)
Copic markers
Paperclay starfish

Thanks for stopping by!

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!

Feel the heat

We've had some lovely hot weather over the last week or so and Carol and I decided to take the lead from that and apply some heat to our Tando technique pieces this week with some heat embossing. Do pop over to the Tando blog to see what Carol's been up to, too!

I chose an ATC to work with and used the emboss resist technique.

The sentiment and flowers were embossed with white powder and then I flooded each petal area with watercolour and used a drop of reinker to colour the background before sponging over some sequin waste with a second shade of green. I also "stamped" a couple of leaves by pressing an inked-up skeleton leaf on there.

Stamps:
Petite Posies (Technique Tuesday)
Sentiment from CHF (retired)

Paper:
Chipboard ATC from Tando Creative

Ink:
Versamark by Tsukineko
Adirondack by Ranger (Lettuce and Pesto)

Other:
Detail white embossing powder by Stampendous
Pink watercolour pencil
Sequin waste
Skeleton leaf

The beauty of the white lined board for projects like these is that you get a really solid base that doesn't warp at all when you apply heat for the embossing and your colours go on true without any priming - gotta love something that lets you stamp and go!

Thanks for stopping by!

PS - have you seen the new Andy Skinner stamp line? Andy's new to the world of stamp designs and has just had his first sets released by Personal Impressions. There's a competition running on his blog with a fab prize, why not check it out?

A promising tutorial...

My turn to post a tutorial over on the CHF Be Creative blog this week. I've used the Haute Couture stamp set to create a little booklet full of "coupons" that the recipient can trade in for treats (a dozen freshly baked muffins, a night of babysitting etc).

Hop on over if you'd like the full step-by-step on how I put it together - {here}.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms)
Haute Couture (All Things Considered line - if you are shopping in the UK, Bubbly Funk has this set in stock {here})

Paper:
Simply Smooth white
Simply Linen Black
Copy paper

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Tim Holtz Distress by Ranger (Weathered Wood)

Other:
Silver mini brads by Making Memories
Scor It
Crop-a-Dile

Thanks for stopping by!

RSS is all the fashion

I've been away on my holidays so I'm only just managing to sneak in on the very last day of the current Ready Steady Stamp challenge. Nefertiti has set the ingredients and they're quite tricky!

If I'm honest, I probably made it even trickier by deciding that I would like to make an ATC!

The embellie made out of punched shapes was my biggest challenge as I don't own very many punches so my options were limited.

The instruction was that the embellie had to be made by using the punch a different way (so not a flower from a flower punch, a butterfly from a butterfly punch etc). My little flower is made with hearts punched out of tissue paper and stuck to a circle in a couple of overlapping layers to make fluffy petals. I pushed a velvet brad through the middle to finish it off. I found that punching through six layers of tissue paper at once was the way to get a clean shape (and it saved time, too!).



For the fabric, I stamped the ladies on a piece of silk, coloured the dresses and then stuck the piece to some double sided tape sheet before cutting out just the dresses. I stuck that piece over the same image stamped on plain card and coloured with Copics. I hope you can see the texture and sheen of the silk on this detail shot.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Haute Couture set (All Things Considered line - if you're in the UK, Bubbly Funk is now stocking this and other CHF sets {here})

Paper:
Simply Smooth White
Simply Linen Black
White tissue paper

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukinkeo (Graphite B lack)

Other:
Silk fabric
Copic markers
Sequins
Seed beads
Heart punch
Velvet brad
Double sided tape sheet (look out for 151 brand in your local £1 shop if you're in the UK!)

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget there's a new RSS challenge tomorrow!

Can you hear the wheels turning?

I've been playing with some new chippie shapes from Tando Creative - cogs in two different styles and sizes.

I managed a bonus project from these! I'm loving all the embossed metal that's around at the moment but I've been trying not to add another dimension to my papercrafting addiction by buying the moulds etc! I did have some sheet aluminium in my stash though and I own paper stumps for colouring so with the application of a little imagination, my chipboard cogs enabled me to make this ATC! I just laid my metal over the shapes (I did one at a time), rubbed over with the paper stump to get the basic shape to show through and then embossed fully with the tip of the stump. Easy peasy and you get to use the shape itself for something else :o)

Supplies:
Chipboard Cogs by Tando Creative
Aluminium sheet by AMACO
Train timetable stamp set (Cornish Heritage Farms)Ferro paint by Viva Decor (Graphite)
Chipboard ATC
Silver embossing powder
Black acrylic paint
Spring from inside a video cassette
And the something else I made in this case was this wall clock...

I bought a cheapo clock (£3.99 in Poundstretcher) a while ago with the idea of tarting it up for my craft room. The cogs seemed perfect for the project! This is a 30cm clock so you can see that the cogs are a decent size.

I dismantled the clock and pulled off the bright white plastic face. I used that as a template to cut a circle of watercolour paper which has a nice texture to it. I stamped some sheet music and some crackle and then used a Tim Holtz mask to sponge over for the clock face on the right.

The clock surround was really a bit on the nasty side - bright chromed plastic. I gave both it and the cogs the same kind of treatment to give them a pitted and corroded look. I gave them a coat of embossing powder (actually UTEE in the case of the surround) and then slathered black acrylic paint on there, let it dry and then rubbed it off the high spots. If you use a single coat of embossing powder or UTEE over a reasonably large area it tends to give an "orange peel" sort of texture which is perfect for ageing with acrylic paint like this.

Here's a little detail shot for you so you can see more of how that texture works out. I love how the teeth of the smaller cogs fit perfectly together. If you were very clever, I reckon you could use them to make an actual turning mechanism on a card or maybe a page in a mini album.

Supplies:
Chipboard cogs by Tando Creative
Aged Sheet music Scrapblock by Cornish Heritage Farms
Cracked Montana Earth Backgrounder by Cornish Heritage Farms
Watercolour paper
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Black Soot and Weathered Wood)Silver embossing powder and UTEE
Black acrylic paint
Timeworks masks by Tim Holtz/Ideaology
Silver brads
Washers

Thanks for stopping by, happy crafting!

Dance to the music of time

I haven't played along at Tuesday Taggers before but I saw through Gez's blog that this week's challenge was to get messy - too hard to resist!

As the challenge is being sponsored by the Craft Barn, I thought I'd take the opportunity to play with some Viva Decor products as they stock a fab range of them and they're perfect for messy projects! This week's SCD challenge gave me the theme of time for my ATC.

I decided to add to the obvious watch/clock theme with some sheet music indicating something about the timing or speed of the music, too. My clock face is done on shrink plastic and the little cog and wheel are old clock parts. I thought the circuit board could be part of a timing device, as well!

The texture at the bottom (which I've mostly covered up!) was done by stamping the harlequin backgrounder onto chipboard and heat embossing with UTEE - I gave it three coats. Then I laid aluminium tape over it, sprayed with Glimmer Mist and once it was dry I rubbed over with a buffing block to expose the silver tape. The top bit that has the more organic texture is Tera with a heat gun applied to make it bubble - fun stuff!

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Textured Harlequin backgrounder
Circuit Board backgrounder
Time to Stamp (Rummage Bin line)

Paper:
Chipboard
Vintage sheet music

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)

Other:
Tera paint by Viva Deco (Kenya)
Precious Metal paint by viva Decor (Copper)
Black acrylic paint
Aluminium tape
UTEE by Ranger
Shrink plastic
Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels (Red Maple and Vintage Brass)

Tuesday Taggers invited us to show our messy hands or workspaces too - I only managed a picture of one hand since I couldn't get them far enough away from the camera to use the timer and have the picture in focus! Note the tasteful crusting of Tera right down on the heel of my hand - no idea how that got there!

Thanks for stopping by, hope your weekend is going well!

The key to an ATC

I'm squeaking in for this week's challenge on Something Completely Different. The object of the month is ATCs and this week's theme is keys.

I seem to be slightly obsessed with the Adirondack colours Pool and Stream just at the moment. I had new toys to play with too - Viva Croco paint - which was turquoise so the inks came out again.

The butterfly body was made by wrapping thin wire around a fairly chunky needle to make a coil. I left one end free before starting the coil and then threaded the other end back up through the hollow so I could make antennae. I used a tiny blob of Glossy Accents to finish them with a slight bulb on the end.

The crackle paint is lovely stuff. Not for the crafter in a hurry though, you can expect to wait at least a couple of hours before you get those fabulous deep cracks all done and dusted.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Key Elements (All Things Considered line)
Key Expressions (Mona Lisa Moments line)

Paper:
Chipboard ATC
Scrap of Simply Smooth

Ink:
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger - Pool and Stream
Versafineby Tsukineko - Onyx Black

Other:
Croco paint by Viva Decor - Turquoise
Black acrylic paint
Jump rings
Beads
Key charm
Fishing swivel
Leafing pen by Krylon - silver
Thin wire (recycled from the "cage" on a bottle of Rioja!)
Glossy Accents by Ranger
Crop-a-Dile

Thanks for stopping by today!

Winged beauty

It's a while since I played along at either Something Completely Different or the Crafty Secrets challenge in the SCS member company forum so it was nice to have the chance to combine the two and play a little catch up.

The item at SCD this month is ATCs. The Crafty Secrets challenge this week is "anything but a card" so an ATC fits nicely! The SCD theme for the week is "wings" so I pulled out the Altered Art set and used the wings to make a vintage butterfly with assorted gems for the body. Accents from the French Mail stamp set and a little lace finished it off.

Penny saver: look out in charity shops (goodwill stores if you're in the US, op shops if you're joining me from down under!) for old sheet music. I got a book for 75p that will last about as long as me, I reckon! You even get to choose a section where the spacing and shape of the notes fits your project!

Stamps:
Altered Art and French Mail (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets)
Weathered Wood backgrounder (Cornish Heritage Farms - retired)

Paper:
Vintage sheet music
Simply smooth vanilla (CHF)

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)

Other:
Copic markers (Eggshell, Brick Beige, Chamois)
Gems
Krylon Leafing pen (Copper)
Corner Chomper
Vintage lace

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a great weekend!

Keep moving!

Remember learning to ride a bike? How many people had their dad running behind them with a broom handle lashed to the back? And who resisted the temptation to look behind and make sure he was still holding on?!

I wanted to capture that wobble with one of the vintage style bikes in the "Bicycle life" stamp set and pair it up with the great quote from Albert Einstein (also in the set) - Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. I stamped on a copper plant label for an authentic metal look. The wobble comes courtesy of a spring - this is the sort know as an "expansion spring" and it's quite stable until you give it a little push!

I thought it would be a shame not to demonstrate the full daft potential of this (I confess to being easily amused but I could play with this for hours!) so I challenged myself to learn how to use the video function on hubby's phone and here is my very first movie. OK, so I'm not about to win any Oscars for direction or cinematography but I hope it makes you smile!

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Bicycle Life (All Things Considered line - releasing Tuesday 15 Feb)
Textured Harlequin backgrounder

Paper:
Simply Kraft and Simply Heavy Black (CHF)

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)
Stazon by Tsukineko (Jet Black)

Other:
Fiskars circle cutter
Copper plant label
Heavy cardboard tube (mine was the inner from a ball of fancy yarn)
Spring



Thanks for stopping by - hope your day is not too wobbly!

Getting inky!

I've not had much chance to get inky for a while so I thought I'd make up for it and really slosh the stuff around when I did manage to grab a short crafty session a few days ago!

I smooshed three Distress inks onto a non-stick sheet, spritzed with water and dunked a chippie ATC directly on there to soak up the colour. Vintage ledger lines provided some interest and then the rest is just overstamped in black with various images from the same set.

Those gear wheels are done using a technique I saw on Julia Andrus' web site - triple emboss a die cut shape and while the embossing is still warm (but not too hot - watch your fingers!) rub some Perfect Pearls on there. The Pearls will bond to the molten embossing powder and give you a great metallic sheen - I used Heirloom Gold powder over black embossing here.

Dots of Glossy Accents over the letters of TRAIN made them look a bit like buttons on a control panel, I thought.

So while I had the set out, I thought I might as well make full use of it! I made these fridge magnets by die cutting circles from stamped images, sponging with ink and covering with Glossy Accents. When dry, I flexed them a bit for a cracked glass effect and then stuck them to magnets.

Stamps for both projects (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Train Timetable set (Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line - releasing Tuesday 15th December)

ATC additional supplies:
Vintage Ledger Scrapblock
White chipboard ATC
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Fired Brick, Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Vintage Photo)
Versafine by Tsukinkeo (Onyx Black)
Glossy Accents
Perfect Pearls (Heirloom Gold)
Gears #1 die (Thincuts by Accucut)

Magnets additional supplies:
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)
Glossy Accents
Magnets
Classic Circle Nestabilites by Spellbinder

Thanks for stopping by, hope you are finding time to craft too!

ATC 2

Two ATCs with two ATC sets - I can't figure out if that's squared or quadrupled!

There are two new releases coming in the All Things Considered line that definitely have the smell of autumn about them! I have two ATC projects to share with you today, one from each set.
This is a fast and easy ATC made with the Fall Harvest set. The handwritten bill of sale is perfectly sized to matt onto an ATC-sized piece. All I did was overstamp the crow in the corn and add tiny touches of shading with a couple of Copics. I trimmed to leave the bird's tail "out of the box" for a bit of movement. Finally, I stamped the corn label on a separate piece, coloured it and stapled to the top. Super fast!

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Fall Harvest (All Things Considered line - releasing Tuesday Sept 1st)

Paper:
Simply Smooth Vanilla

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)

Other:
Copic Markers
Stapler

This second one is a little bit more involved but I had great fun making it! The tag is a "piece work" design with areas to record dates and quantities picked. I stamped two and then cut a slit in the gingham layer of the ATC so the second tag slips in there for safe keeping but is removable so you could write a secret message on the back for the recipient.

The apple advertisement is coloured with Prismacolor pencils on textured watercolour paper and lightly blended with OMS - it gives a lovely intense colour!

Stamps:
Can It (All Things Considered line - releasing Tuesday Sept 1st)
Fine Gingham backgrounder

Paper:
Kraft
Simply Smooth Vanilla
Watercolour
Dark brown from the covers of an old sketch pad

Ink:
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Espresso and Lettuce)

Other:
Prismacolor Pencils/OMS/stump
Sewing machine and thread
Linen thread

There are more fab designs in each of these sets - I'll share a couple more projects tomorrow! Thanks for stopping by.

Fleeting dragonflies

Aren't dragonflies spectacular? I love the rare occasions when you actually get to see one and watch it for a while with the light glimmering off its wings.

Cornish Heritage Farms recently introduced a new line of art called All Things Considered (ATC). They're perfectly sized for ATCs, as you might expect from the name, but you could use them for all sorts of other things too!

This is a set of ATCs I made with the Botanical Bliss stamps.

I used heat fusible film to make the dragonflies that tie the set together thematically so that the wings have the iridescent shimmer of the real thing. The clock face on the third card was done with the cracked glass technique on a separate circle that was then stuck to the base design. I thought blue poppies would be fun (they really do exist although they're rather rare, I believe).

I used the whole background stamp for the third ATC but for the first and second cards I inked up just the frame of it and used it to give the whole set matching borders.

Stamps:
Botanical Bliss (All Things Considered line at CHF)

Paper:
Smooth white

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress by Ranger (Vintage Photo)
Versamark by Tsukineko

Other:
Copic markers
Cosmic Shimmer heat fusible film (Blue Lake)
UTEE by Ranger

Thanks for stopping by, hope you liked the project!