Tera firma

Carol and I decided to subject Di's chippie to some more gunkiness today - Tera paint by Viva Decor. This is a super-thick paint, more like a paste really and it takes a texture stamp nicely.

I coated my piece in Tera and stamped it then left it to dry overnight. I did find that with a piece this big, the board had warped very slightly when I came back to it (it's approximately 100mm tall by 70mm wide). I heated it gently from the back and found it flattened out again, no problem. There's a lot of moisture in the Tera and I guess the board absorbed it slightly unevenly and wasn't thoroughly dry even after that length of time.

A coat of black acrylic and some sponged Precious Metal paint finished off the base piece and then I added a butterfly stamped on metal, painted with more Precious Metal paint and shaped from the back with a paper stump. She has beads for her body and is free to wobble on her copper wire! The Flights of fancy is on a separate piece of chipboard painted black and roughly coated with the copper paint then stamped and attached with a couple of brads.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Cracked Montana Earth backgrounder
Vintage Butterflies (Saturday Evening Post line)

Paper:
Jigsaw tag (Tando Creative)
Scrap of chipboard

Ink:
Stazon by Tsukineko (Jet Black)

Other:
Tera Paint by Viva Decor
Precious Metal Paint by Viva Decor (Copper and Blue Azure)
Copper wire
Antique copper brads (Making Memories)
Aluminium sheet (Amaco)
Black acrylic paint
Beads

Pop over to Tando Creative to see what Carol's been up to as well! Thanks for stopping by!

Feel the heat

Carol and I are still playing with Di's new chippie shapes and today's technique was chosen to see how the board stands up to some heat - triple embossing. Even fairly substantial chipboard can warp with this technique and UTEE is unforgiving stuff if you try to flex a piece to flatten it out. You might not have been aiming for the cracked glass look but it's what you'll end up wit if you're not careful!

Here's a little "arty" peep at my project - full picture on the Tando blog.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Time to Stamp (Rummage Bin line)

Paper:
Wavy Twinchies (Tando Creative)
Smooth white
Black

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Versamark by Tsukinkeo
Adirondack by Ranger (Pitch Black)

Other:
Tim Holtz Masks by Ranger (Time Works)
UTEE by Ranger
Distress Crackle Paint by Ranger (Rock Candy)
Jump rings
Dewdrops by Robin's Egg

Thanks for stopping by - I know time is tight for most of us!

Dream a little dream

I read Sharilyn Miller's book Rubber stamped jewelry a few months back but got distracted by other things before trying anything out. A couple of days ago I found big bags of clear glass "pebbles" in a local £1 shop and remembered one of the projects in that book used one as an accent. Here's the result - it uses the same base materials as the one in the book but is different in just about every other way!

I made a batch of "sea washed" glass a while ago by breaking a square section bottle and tumbling in a rock tumbler. Some craft shops carry sea washed glass or the Ranger Memory glass range works well if you want a regular shaped jewellery piece. I painted the edges with Precious Metal paint and in doing so hit on the idea of wiping a thin coat of it across the back of the piece as well. I love the effect! The mica in the paint makes the glass just slightly more opaque but it still has a translucence.

The pebble was stuck onto a stamped piece of paper with Glossy Accents, trimmed and edged with copper tape then glued onto the base piece which had been stamped and embossed with detail gold powder. I added Glossy Accents to hold a little drift of seed beads. When dry, I dotted a few beads with the Precious Metal paint to deepen the colour. Stick a pin on the back (hidden by the pebble and beads on the front) and you're done. The cost of this is literally pennies - gotta love that!

I used a backgrounder in this design - one of the reasons I love them is that they're so versatile, useful for everything from a full card front to a small project like this (it's about 6cm/2.5" tall). Backgrounders and their bigger cousins the Scrapblocks are on sale this Friday/Saturday at CHF - buy one and get a second of the same value at half price. You can see the details on the store's home page {here} if you fancy stocking up.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Inchie Style (Rummage Bin line)
Spanish Script backgrounder

Ink:
Versmark by Tsukineko
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Espresso)

Paper:
Simply Smooth

Other:
"Sea washed" glass
Glass pebble (the sort used to put in vases)
Detail gold embossing powder
Seed baeds
Precious Metal pint by Viva Decor (Blue Azure)
Glossy Accents
Copper Tape

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

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!

Beautiful bleach!

Di is introducing some new shapes and a new sort of board as part of the Tando Creative range. Carol and I have been putting things through their paces and you can see the results of the first experiments -Distress Ink backgrounds- over on Tando. Yes, I really did use bleach here (and yes, I really did have to go buy bleach just for stamping!) - check out the full details and some pieces from Carol too on the Tando Creative blog.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Ornamental Beauty (Rummage Bin line)
Tree Swallow Silhouette

Paper:
White coated chipboard arch (Tando Creative)

Ink:
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint)
Stazon by Tsukineko (Timber Brown)

Other:
Bleach
Seed beads
Wire
Dangle from old earring
Copic markers (to tint white beads as I didn't have anything the right kind of colours).

Thanks for stopping by today!

Send in the clowns

I haven't played at Sunday Stamper for ages and I'm not quite sure why I felt determined to play this week since the subject is clowns and I don't own any clown stamps! I decided to go with a vintage download image and use the stamping in a supporting role.

I've gone back to those forerunners of the modern clown, Pierrot and Harlequin (represented in the background pattern). Pierrot is probably where the idea of "the tears of a clown" comes from. I printed the image on premium copy paper and then just accentuated his face and hat a little with a tiny tint of Copic colouring.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Textured Harlequin backgrounder
Live Laugh Love (Rummage Bin line)

Paper:
Black
White
Premium weight copy paper

Ink:
Versamark by Tsukineko
Memento markers by Tsukineko (Rhubarb Stalk and Tuxedo Black)

Other:
Image from Vintage White Faced Pierrots by Everything Vintage
Copic markers
Perfect Pearls by Ranger (Red)
Acrylic nail art gems

Thanks for stopping by!

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!

Never a cross word

A pun, just for Kathy! I love all kinds of word games and can remember spending hours playing Scrabble as a child.

When I shared a house with other students while at University, we often had a newspaper crossword on the go, leaving the paper on the kitchen table for everyone to have a go at when they felt like it. Some of those crosswords were on the go for months simply because while we could all do straightforward ones, the cryptic clues were a killer! I've heard that you can train yourself to "think cryptic" and solve even the most fiendish ones though so when I got my hands on the Crossword Scrapblock I thought I'd team it up with this great Edison quote about how hard work rather than inspiration gets you there in the end!

The lovely printed tag came in my Bubbly Funk Forum Secret Santa parcel so thank you to my Santa - Caroline! I trimmed it down a bit to fit my card size (5" x 5") better and to make the butterfly hang over the edge.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Crossword Scrapblock
Motivational Centers (Mona Lisa Moments line)

Paper:
Simply Smooth Vanilla (CHF)
Tag (unknown - may be K&Co?)

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

Other:
Border punch by Fiskars (Threading Water)
Sewing machine and thread
Sprial clip (Creative Impressions)

Thanks for stopping by, hope your day has only crosswords and no cross words!

Watercolour Distress

My turn to post the tutorial over on the CHF Be Creative blog - we're focusing on watercolouring with Distress inks this week with this lovely grape image. Hop on over for the step by step and a chance to win the Fruit Basket stamp set {here}!

Stamps: Fruit Basket (Shady Tree Studio line at Cornish Heritage Farms)

Paper:
140lb hot press watercolor paper
Simply Heavy Chocolate

Ink:
Stazon by Tsukineko (Timber Brown)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Milled Lavender, Dusty Concord, Shabby Shutters, Peeled Paint, Walnut Stain, Weathered Wood)

Other:
Sewing machine and thread
Dew drops by Robin’s Egg
Paintbrush and water or waterbrush

Thanks for stopping by!