Altered Grunge Paste!

The current theme at PaperArtsy is "altered Grunge Paste" - Leandra's hoping we'll try out something other than simply using paste through a stencil.

I was super-lucky and Random pulled my name out of the virtual hat on the last challenge so I had a lovely time wandering through PaperArtsy's online shop, choosing my prize goodies. A big thank you to Leandra and to Darcy for organising it.

Grunge Paste sounded intriguing - a bit different to most texture pastes - and so I popped a tub in my prize basket. Hearing Leandra describe it as "almost clay-like" had me wondering whether a DIY substitute for StampBord might be doable with Grunge Paste taking the role of that clay layer on the board.

I cut an inchie-plus (1.5" square) from scrap mountboard and "buttered" it with a layer of Grunge Paste. Once it was thoroughly dry, I used a sanding block to give me a silky-smooth surface. As you really want colour that doesn't soak in, I sponged Stazon over the top and then stamped the daisy heads (also part of my prize package so another thank you!) using Brilliance. Then the moment of truth - adding those scraped back white highlights with a pin.

I think it looks very much like Stampbord but, if you want to mail it, has the advantage of being lighter and thinner and of course you could do any shape you wanted as long as you could cut it from a substrate with enough rigidity to stand up to the Grunge Paste layer.

The finished square got a super-simple mounting on a scrapling with just a bit of doodling to frame it.

Stamps:
Hot Pick 1203 by PaperArtsy
Sentiment from an ancient HOTP set (one of my first ever stamping purchases!)

Paper:
Off-white laid texture cardstock
Scrap mountboard

Ink:
Teal Stazon
Graphite Black Brilliance

Other:
Grunge Paste by Paper Artsy
Cuttlebug square die
Corner Chomper
Copic 0.3 Multiliner

Thanks for stopping by!

Inchie birthday

Last Friday was Lydia's turn to set the Mixed Media challenge at Splitcoast Stampers and she asked us to use 1, 2, 3 or 4 inchies on a project. The wheels were obviously turning slowly as although I managed to join in with this one, I didn't manage it in the week of the challenge!

It was a bit of a nightmare to photograph - I'm not sure the texture shows well but it refused to get better than this - I hope you get the idea!

I stamped the wavy border and then cut out three inchies from sections that pleased me on the small scale. I used glue to trace over the lines of the stamped image and let it dry then painted each square with black acrylic paint.

Once the paint was dry I dry brushed with a pearlescent rich blue to catch the raised glue lines.  I used a Versamark pen to fill in some of the open circles, brushed on green Perfect Pearls and finished with Glossy Accents over the top. A tiny gem adds to the glitz on each square.

The card base has a really simple stamped "anchor" for the inchies and a birthday greeting.

Stamps:
Bubble Border by Lost Coast Designs
Brush Strokes by Hero Arts (paint streak)
Big Day Today by Waltzingmouse Stamps (sentiment)

Ink:
Brilliance Graphite Black by Tsukineko

Other:
Scotch Quick Dry adhesive
Lamp Black Americana acrylic paint by DecoArt
Pearlescent blue acrylic paint
Sour Apple Perfect Pearls
Glossy Accents
Nail art gems
Pinflair glue gel
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!

Inchies necklace

We're using metallics as our design inspiration at Tando Creative this week.

I seem to be on a bit of a jewellery kick at the moment! I've used three inchies and gently round the corners (I do love that tiny ⅛" on the newer Corner Chomper!) as well as punching holes with a Crop-o-Dile.

Each inchie is done with a different metallic finish. I used three coats of silver UTEE on each square and a layer of Perfect Pearls on two of them (both from the Metallics kit - one Gold, one Bronze). I pressed a stamp into the warm UTEE for texture. I've then glazed them with Decoart Triple Thick - the last time I tried this I used Glossy Accents and it really didn't work (it didn't dry evenly and it split apart in several places so the piece ended up in the bin). I was impressed with the Triple Thick in this regard, it dried evenly and with no problems.

I added jump rings to each piece, filled with more Triple Thick and then finished with a contrasting metallic colour once dry.

The inchies are joined together with jump rings and attached to a necklace chain through a little piece of aluminium tubing superglued to the top one.

The surfaces are shiny enough that it made photographing it a bit of a nightmare but I hope you get the idea!

Supplies:
Chipboard inchies (Tando Creative)
Silver UTEE 
Silver acrylic paint
Crackleglaze background stamp (Indigo Blu)
Perfect Pearls by Ranger (Gold and Bronze)
Jump rings
Aluminium tubing
Triple Thick glaze by Decoart

Thanks for stopping by!

Inchie Tiles

My hubby and his sons share an interest in wine so when we needed a birthday card for son #1 recently I thought some "trattoria tiles" might do the trick. The inchies are cut from scrap mountboard with a Cuttlebug die and stamped while pushed up close together and then inked around the edges and slightly separated when sticking them down. Inking the edges just gives them a bit more depth, I think.

Try asking at your local framing shop for offcuts of mountboard - they'll often give it to you free or very cheaply. Most mountboard is white on the back so it doesn't matter what colour the front is if you want a white surface to work with, just flip it over.

Two step stamping is fun and it makes for a very quick card - no colouring or shading to do! I stamp a positioning sheet on vellum and keep it in the case with the set so I don't even need to do that step each time I use the stamps.

Stamps:
Gorgeous Grapevine (Stampin Up!)

Paper:
Kraft
Smooth white
Dark red
Mountboard

Ink:
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Raisin, Currant, Lettuce and Pesto)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)

Other:
Cuttlebug die - square
Cuttlebug embossing folder (Victoria)
Scor It

Thanks for stopping by!

Just for You

I made a second card using the black, white and one other colour scheme set for the recent Inchie Inklings challenge.

This pretty aqua shade is one of my favourites from the original DCWV mat stack and I thought the Retro Circles embossing folder would go well to pick out the little background swirls on the inchie stamp. This is a really quick and simple project - took me longer to sort out the thread in my sewing machine than anything else!

Stamps:
Inkadinkado Inchie Stamps Flowers
Sentiment from a HOTP set

Paper:
smooth white
DCWV

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Tim Holtz Texture Fade folder (Retro Circles)
Sewing machine and thread

Thanks for stopping by - hope you have a lovely weekend!

Little wishes

There's a new challenge over at Inchie Inklings: black and white plus one colour. I like to play along with these when I can and I managed a card for this one today.

It's a very simple design but I liked the idea of using the texture to represent the seeds drifting out from the dandelion clock with the little gems for a touch of fairy dust to help those wishes along!

Stamps:
Inkadinkado Inchie Stamps Flowers

Paper:
Black
White

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Texture Fade Embossing folderCopic marker (to color the mat to match the gems)
Acrylic nail art gems

Thanks for stopping by!

Cherish the moments

I like to find different ways to use the stamps in my collection and I've been having some fun looking for images that will work on inchies, even though they're not designed with that format in mind.

Lots of the images in the Baby Dear set lend themselves to an inchie treatment and it changes the look of them significantly. This sweet image of a mother enjoying smiles with her little one is actually circular if you just stamp and go. To switch up the look by making it into an inchie try cutting or punching a one inch square in a piece of scrap paper and laying the square hole over your stamped image to select the portion you want.

Some DCWV cardstock in a pretty duck egg shade with a strong contrast (chocolate brown) makes for a quick and easy vintage look, especially if you sand lightly round the edges and finish off with some silk ribbon!

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Baby Dear (Rummage Bin line)

Paper:
Simply Heavy Chocolate
Simply Smooth White
DCWV white core

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite black)
Adirondack by Ranger (Espresso)

Other:
copic markers
Silk ribbon
Edge punch by Fiskars (Threading Water)

You may have heard already but Liz and Richard, owners of Cornish Heritage Farms, have decided to move on. The business is up for sale and while the hunt for a buyer is on, they'll be running down their levels of stock and offering some discounts as the weeks wear on. You can find full details of what's happening here if you'd like them. I hope you'll join me in wishing Liz and Richard every success in whatever adventure they embark on next and in hoping that there'll be a buyer for CHF who will carry the catalogue forward and bounce to even higher rubber heights!

Thanks for stopping by today!

All things considered ... it's Week Three of the Fling!

Welcome to Week Three of CHF's summer fling! Full details of the fling are here if you're not sure what I'm talking about! We're focusing on the All Things Considered line of stamps this week. Now, as their name might suggest, they're perfect for ATC projects but they're versatile enough for all kinds of other stuff too! If you stopped by on the Be Creative blog earlier, you'll have seen one card I made with the Key Elements set already. I thought it would be fun to do a second card using the same set in a totally contrasting style! (Note for my regular visitors - you know how much I struggle with patterned paper: if you want proof that I'm tackling the phobia, the card on the Be Creative blog is probably as good as it's going to get!) This is a scrapling (a card made from the bit you trim off a standard size sheet when you make a square card) and I've kept it clean and simple. I think this would make a great new home card, perhaps for somebody getting his first bachelor pad! I stamped the key onto a 1" strip and then cut it up to make three inchies. I sponged around the edges and then stuck them to some black card stock to make a narrow border. I stamped the text stamp over the key and then stamped it again on the base card, using a stamp positioner so that everything would line up when I stuck the key panel in place. Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms): Key Elements (All Things Considered line) Paper: Smooth white Simply Linen black Ink: Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black) Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)

So, the low down on this week's Fling and its blog hop...

• all stamp sets in the All Things Considered line are 25% off this week (ends Thursday at midnight)
• make sure to leave comments for the blog hop girls by Thursday (24 June 2010) at midnight EST to have a chance at the CHF gift certificate prizes - the more blogs you comment on, the better your chances!
• create along with us if you have All Things Considered stamps and upload to this week's special gallery (by Thursday at midnight) to be in with a chance of winning the Design Team Favourite prize this week (a stamp or stamp set of your choice up to a value of $16.99)
• check the Be Creative Blog on Friday to see if you won
• if you get lost along the way, go back to the beginning (Be Creative Blog) for the full list of hoppers.

Leave a comment here and then Jennifer is your next stop along the hop - have fun!!

Chintz 'n crepe!

A few weeks ago, Effie posted a link to a tutorial for some lovely crepe paper flowers {here}. I finally got round to getting some crepe paper to give this a go. I got white so it would be as versatile as possible since I can ink it or spritz it. Mind you, watching it expand with the moisture of the water and acrylic paint mix I used here was a bit alarming! It did dry with plenty of "stretch" left in it though and that's what you need for these flowers.

I've used this week's Inchie Inklings sketch - I hope Mona will forgive me for covering up a whole inchie and most of a second one!

I had a bunch of inchies stamped from a project that didn't work out. I needed to cover up that original stamping so I painted over with pearlescent acrylic paint (the same one as I watered down to colour the crepe paper). Once they were dry, I used Stazon to stamp the chintz pattern on there. A white embossed sentiment and a bit of machine stitching finished it off. The pearlesence made it a bit of a nightmare to photograph, the colour is probably truer in the detail shot below and since it's the same paint the flower and the inchies obviously match in real life!

I didn't glitter the edges of the petals on this flower (I have one set aside for another project where I did, though) and having assembled it I decided they would benefit from a bit more definition so I dry brushed more of the acrylic paint along the edge and just onto the surface of the petals. The centre of the flower is one of those glass pebbles you put in vases - I painted the back with with Precious Metal paint. The leaves are just hand cut (as were the smaller circles as I didn't have an appropriate punch).

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Vintage Chintz backgrounder
Cursive Expressions (Mona Lisa Moments line)

Paper:
White
Simply Linen Black
Heavyweight crepe paper
Chipboard inchies

Ink:
Stazon by Tsukineko (Jet Black)
Versamark by Tsukineko

Other:
Pearlescent pink acrylic paint
Sewing machine and thread
Glass pebble
Precious Metal pint by Viva Decor (Mother of Pearl)
1" circle punch

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

A hopeful start!

Starting the week with a hopeful outlook is always a good thing, I reckon! There are a couple of new sets in the Sara England line of "emerging" images coming out tomorrow and I thought I'd share a card made with one of them.

I took a fairly clean and simple approach here. Many of these little sets have an image that's sized for an inchie - I've used that starfish image here and teamed it up with one of the sentiments from the set to make a card based on the first Inchie Inkling sketch from a couple of weeks back. A strong horizon line seemed appropriate for the wording so I've stitched on a chocolate brown strip and given it a sense of movement by slanting the end and letting it run off the side of the card.

I added interest to the lower part of the design both by sanding the Coredinations cardstock at the edges and stamping the Life Scrapblock text in an ink colour just a shade darker than the card.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Emerging Turtle set (Sara England line - releasing Tuesday 27 April)
Life Scrapblock

Paper:
Smooth white
Simply heavy chocolate (CHF)
Coredinations
White chipboard inchie

Ink:
Colorbox fluid chalk ink by Clearsnap (Bisque)
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Espresso)

Other:
Sewing machine and thread
Sandpaper

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have plenty of reasons to be hopeful this week!

Opulent inchies

It's my mum's birthday today - Happy Birthday Mum! I really struggled with a card for her this year for some reason, three attempts went into the circular file before I decided I'd use this week's sketch from Inchie INKlings and finally made something I felt I could put in an envelope and send!

I was trying for a rich and opulent look here - mums deserve a little luxury every now and again, don't you think? I used gold acrylic paint on the inchies and dry brushed a tiny bit of black on there to give a sort of aged, speckled appearance to the background. The poppies are coloured with Copics - it's a single stamp that was masked and repeated to give me two blooms on the design. I picked up a tiny bit of gold paint on my fingertip and rubbed over the Cuttlebug embossing as well. The base layer has a couple of the stamps from the set stamped in black on the chocolate brown for some subtle pattern.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Botanical Bliss (All Things Considered line)
Cursive Expressions (Mona Lisa Moments line)

Paper:
Simply Heavy Chocolate (CHF)
Simply Linen Natural (CHF)
White chipboard inchies

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)

Other:
Gold acrylic paint
Copic markers
Embossing folder by Cuttlebug (Textile Texture)
Sewing machine and thread

Thanks for stopping by!

Cracking up

Another in the series of projects with Di's new board over on Tando today - Carol and I have been playing with Croco paint.

The wavy edges make these new shapes just that bit different - I thought beads would look perfect nestled up into the arched areas and so this little pendant was born. Hey look, no stamping!

The beads are clear crackle glass - the light is flaring off the crackles and making them look opaque white - sorry about that!

I painted the inchie first with black acrylic paint so that the black showed through the cracks of the Croco.

I sponged Precious Metal paint over the dried Croco but didn't aim for full coverage which has given a pleasing, shell like quality to the colour, I think. I added a dab of glue on the ends of the pins for extra security before embedding them in the inchie but the beads are free to twizzle on there so they're "fidget beads"! The board is really thick so not only does it take texture paint like this without warping, you can embed pins and you get plenty of contact area to glue things together (I used a gel type superglue).

Check out the Tando Creative blog for more cracking projects on the new board!

Supplies:
Wavy inchie - Tando Creative (you can find Tando stockists by looking here - I know Bubbly Funk already has this shape in stock, not sure about other places)
Croco paint by Viva Decor - Turquoise
Precious Metal paint by Viva Decor - Blue Azure
Black acrylic paint
Aluminium tubing (from a model shop)
Czech glass beads
Pins (from shirt packaging!)
Gel superglue
Necklace findings
Rubber cord

Thanks for stopping by!

Inching along

I haven't really got into the whole inchie thing. They're cute and challenging at the same time but I haven't quite figured out what to do with them! I've made a few and used them as an embellishment or focal point on a card but this is a first for me - I joined a swap over on Bubbly Funk!

We had to make 12 inchies and Karen's coordinating so we each get a full set back. We had a colour theme so our sets should coordinate.

As the theme was BLUE, I couldn't resist using this stamp as I think he does look a bit dejected. The "feeling blue" wording seemed like a natural pairing and highlights the theme. The wording strips are computer generated as I needed something really tiny. I used the DYMO font and then just snipped out the little strips and glued them on to my stamped image.

I wouldn't normally use Versafine ink and Copic markers together but my forward planning failed on this occasion. I was careful with the Copics and got away with it!

I forgot I'd signed up for this so these were a bit last minute and hence all made production-line stylee to the same design. There are tiny blue gems at the top right corner, not sure the photo really picked those up!

Stamps:
Inchie Style (the Rummage Bin line at CHF)

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Majestic Blue)

Paper:
Simply Smooth (Prism)

Other:
Copic markers
Computer generated wording (font: Dymo)
Nail art gems
Krylon leafing pen (silver)
Fineline marker (to sign them)
Chipboard inchies

Looking forward to getting the swaps now and then I'll figure out what to do with them!

Thanks for stopping by!