Craft Stamper Best of 2012

Hello and welcome if you're hopping along with Craft Stamper magazine today! If you didn't know about the hop, you might want to go to the Craft Stamper blog and start there as there are prizes to be won!

I'm Joanne and I've been with the Craft Stamper design team since summer 2011. I love to use my stamps in all kinds of ways, not just for cards so you're quite likely to find me playing with UTEE or polymer clay as well as colouring with Copics or pencils and finding interesting embellishments in unlikely places!

My "best of" for 2012 is a simple combination of chipboard, UTEE and Perfect Pearls. I made several pieces of jewellery this way during the year and enjoyed it every time. You may have seen my Iridescent Enamels pendant and earrings in the December issue of Craft Stamper using chipboard domino and inchie shapes and colours reminiscent of peacock feathers.

This project uses the same technique - add three layers of UTEE to a chipboard circle, brush with Perfect Pearls and then remelt the UTEE so it takes a textured impression when you press a stamp into it.

If you want to concentrate colour in particular areas of the design once it's embossed, you can use a Versamark pen and brush on a little extra Perfect Pearls. A finishing coat of gloss really brings out the colours and provides a professional enamelled finish. I like Decoart Triple Thick for this as I've found it more successful than Glossy Accents over the UTEE base (my attempts with Glossy Accents have ended with it splitting and leaving cloudy spots).

Spot Prize! 
Heavy weight chipboard is a great base for projects like this as it's inexpensive and offers a whole range of options in terms of shape. Tando Creative is offering a "spot prize" for today's hop with the winner choosing £20 worth of Tando Creative goodies! There's a fabulous range to choose from: shapes to do this sort of project, shapes to stamp on or to embellish with, masks or stencils - entirely up to you! To be in with a chance of winning simply leave a comment on this blog post by midnight on Friday 8th February 2013. The winner will be drawn at random week commencing Mon 11th February.

The letter you are collecting from me to help you spell the phrase for the main prize draw is: R 

Next stop along the way is one of my favourite stampers, Paula Whittaker at her blog Just For One Day. Don't forget to leave a comment here if you'd like to be in with a chance of the Tando prize!

If you get lost on the hop at any time, pop back to the Craft Stamper blog and follow the links from there.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Tando Creative Circles grab bag
Black UTEE by Ranger
Grape Fizz and Blue Raspberry Perfect Pearls by Ranger
Bubbles Border stamp by Lost Coast Designs
Triple Thick Gloss Glaze by Decoart

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!

Steampunk circles

We're going round and round at Tando Creative this week,  taking our design inspiration from"circles". Lots of possibilities with this one! I've used one of the jewellery shapes that's based around fused circles and gone a bit steampunk with it, adding cogs that are circular too!


I started by colouring the frame (including the edges) black with a Copic marker and then gave it a couple of coats of silver UTEE, leaving that "orange peel" effect you get when you don't aim for full coverage. I used a bit of black acrylic paint to further highlight that texture.

I added text papers from an old book to the base piece and knocked them back a bit with a smudge of gesso. A stamped clockface stuck to a glass pebble fills the largest circle and I added a stamped swirl plus some holeless beads with some silver paint (to mimic ball bearings) to the one above. I punched a hole through the top circle for a pendant cord and added a few more fake bearings.

The teardrop shape is fill with Glossy Accents and has some tiny cogs embedded in there. They were mostly black plastic so they've been treated with silver acrylic paint. The one that hangs over the edge of the frame has a watch winder with a tiny blue gemstone stuck in the centre.

Supplies:
Jewellery Circle Pendant Straight (Tando Creative)
Silver UTEE
Black and silver acrylic paints
Old book
Gesso
Stamps from Inchie Style (CHF, retired)
Tiny cogs
2mm holeless beads
Glossy Accents
Glass pebble

If you're looking for Tando stockists you can find a list here.

Thanks for stopping by today!

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!