Clean & Simple

The latest Craft Barn challenge is Clean & Simple... Well, it's actually quite difficult to do CAS, as if it is too simple, the result is usually underwhelming.

Hope you will like this one, it is simply stamped but I tried to make it more interesting by applying several colours of inks to the image (Crafty Individuals- 429). The sentiment is from another Tree set (CI-209).

I suppose I should warn you that I have a bit of an obsession with Tree stamps. I have many, from several of my favourite brands, and more than any other theme including flowers and butterflies!

Thanks for coming by,

Also entering  the We Love to Create challenge.

Circle and Flowers

The Craft Barn had a Wreath theme last week so our challenge is to come up with a circle where flowers are involved.

Being quite literal, due to a chronic lack of imagination, I decided to make a circle frame with flowers stamps. For this technique clear polymer stamps are ideal because they can be shaped and also allow for repeated stamping without the need for a stamp positioner.
I used the middle size Dandelions from the Lavinia set, selected for its size after testing which ones would give me the circle size I wanted.

For my background I used a stencil (Crafter's workshop Garden Gate) and used Brushos in Moss green and Dark brown. With hindsight the choice of colours/stencil could have been better but I didn't have time to start again.

Inside the circle I stamped the Large Path (Lavinia stamps) inked with water based markers. I added a light wash of green for grass.

 Thanks for coming by,

Also entering the Lavinia, That's Crafty and We Love to Create  challenges.

Lady who latte

Time for the Crafty Individuals challenge and this month we need to show some face... I have taken the theme literally and chosen a stamp with a human face, settling on a lady from the CI-285 stamp which I have associated with the "Ladies who latte" sentiment from the set CI-401.

I don't know what happened but, once I had stamped my lady, I moved on to the background and forgot to colour her. And once I had everything in place, I decided to leave the image uncoloured. Hey my lady is allowed to wear white isn't she?

I used a paper from the latest Crafty Individuals pad, Weekend in Seville, adding colour with Gelatos in Lavender and Violet around the outside.

The doily is from Dovecraft but I had to change the colour by adding some blue Gelato.

I die-cut a frame from White Wash Core'dination and a piece of "lace" from material both with dies from the X-cut set Trim Borders.
I shaped some punched/die-cut flowers layers together and added a die-cut butterfly as finishing touches.

The card layout is courtesy of the Vintageutfordringen challenge who had this sketch:

Thanks for coming by,

 Also entering the Tando Creative and Craft Stamper challenges.

Time

The new theme for the Paper Artsy challenge is Time and I toyed with several versions until this one :

The background has been sprayed over a Cogs and gears stencil (TCW) in blues and brown.
I used the Wordle.net again (see my previous post) to generate my time words panel and printed it on top of a Brusho'ed and Micro glazed stamped panel.

My feature stamp is from the Hot Pick 1206 and I made a watch face embellishment with a bottle cap.

Also making an appearance is the Mixed Media thinlit by Tim Holtz (recent purchase) which I used on a piece of copper coloured metal.

Thanks for coming by,

Also entering  the Craft Barn, Craft Stamper, That Craft Place, and  That's Crafty challenges.

Tic Tag Toe

Sandy & Amelie Steampunk Challenges are playing Tic Tac Toe this month and I selected the top line.

For my crackle I used Imagination craft crackle medium on top of red and black acrylic paint. My top layer was originally pale lavender but looked awful and I applied Transparent oxide to change the colour.



For my words, I created this panel with selected Steampunk words - who knew there are dedicated sites to Steampunk words? - using Wordle.net and printed it on cardstock that I had already stamped with a Harlequin motif (The Artistic Stamper) in ombre fashion.


The top Hat is a stamp by Flonzcraft (True Gentleman set), die cut with a Nellie Snellen die and complete my Tic Tac Toe line!


To that I added bits from my odds and ends jar, previously cut, stamped etc..:

• The Eiffel Tower: Tim Holtz Alteration Paris embossing folder
• British flag:  The Artistic Stamper London set

If pressed to justify how these all fit together, I can come up with a reasonable explanation... coz I had to do precisely that when my OH challenged me.
In short it's a representation of the "Entente cordiale" between the France and Great Britain.
The English lord is tipping his hat to the Old Lady (that's the Eiffel tower, BTW). And since the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 it's the correct period for Steampunk. Phew!! I should get points for that...

Thanks for coming by,

Also entering the Craft Barn, The Artistic Stamper,  and Crafty Sentiments challenges.

Turquoise waters

The colour turquoise and the Beach hut theme for the Craft Barn July calendar challenge only means one thing... the BEACH!!!

As delighted as I was with the Beach concept, I didn't have a lot of choice of Beach huts! A few years back Docrafts came out with some Beach Huts stamps, designed by Michael Powell, and I resisted buying them thinking that I might be able to grab them later in the sale... Of course the best designs never do get on sale and the Beach huts never joined my stash.

I decided to use a Crafty Individual paper instead (Book 6 - The Seaside) for my huts and transfer them with gel medium on a piece of watercolour paper.
The sand and sea were painted in with watercolours.

If you think the calendar is strangely placed it's because I placed it where I could hide the worst mishaps! I'm guessing the gel medium wasn't completed dry when I started rubbing the paper layer and as a result I rubbed some of the image as well...

Thanks for coming by,

Also entering the We Love to Create and That Craft Place challenges.

Destination Italy

The Rubber Dance challenge this month has a theme of Travel & Vacation and Vintage Journey has a theme of Destination. This is the perfect excuse to use my Venice stamps (Katzelkraft) which don't get much use!


The colour scheme provided by Rubber Dance is:

I used lots of Tim Holtz products, though I'm not sure the way I put them together would be his style!
The Mixed Media Thinlits was used as a stencil and a die-cut piece is glued to the top right corner.
Some tissue tape plays a framing role and I also used a bit of card embossed with the Paris Alterations folder.

The stamps in the background are both Rubber Dance, the small Diamonds pattern stamped in blue (barely visible I know) and the map from the Travel plate stamped in black and embossed with clear EP.

And if you think there is a lot of Diamonds this is because the Harlequin motif and Venice go hand in hand (at least in my book) and the Craft Barn has a theme of (playing) cards this week!

Thanks for coming by,

Also entering  the Country View Crafts (On your travels) challenge.

Fireworks

You may get a sense of déjà vu with this page full of hot sunny colours but no,  it's not last Vintage Stamping Challenge piece but one I made for the July theme of Holidays and Travel.

There was no definite plan at the beginning and I let the page evolve as my focal image sparked my imagination when it made me think of summer nights fireworks.

 

My first layers on the page are from a Gelli print session, not particularly successful because of the texture of the paper so I added some more paint directly with a brayer.

 

I added some stencilling with Vanilla paint through stencils made with dies (Circles - Papertrey Ink, Twirly Circle - Memory Box) then, using the bump technique[1], overlaid orange Gelato. The twirly circle made me think of Catherine wheel, reinforcing the fireworks idea...

 

Finally I added some blue texture paste through a Crafters Workshop stencil and directly with a palette knife.

 

The focal image, available here and also as part of a full sheet of silhouettes,  has been stamped on glossy photo paper, a scrap for previous experiments, with dye ink. I tried Versafine but dye ink gives a better result.
I then sprayed water over the whole image and sprinkled some Brushos powders in orange at the top and black at the bottom to give a sunset feel.

What will YOU make for our Vintage Stamping challenge? Join us and you could win a lovely $20 to spend at the Flonzcraft shop. Remember your make doesn't need to be Vintage but it does need to have some stamping, NO DIGIS allowed!

Also entering the Tando Creative and the Craft Stamper challenge.

 

 

 

 

[1] The bump technique is applying a second stencil layer over the first one, in a different colour and slightly offset from the first.

Flutterby

It's the IndigoBlu challenge and the theme is Flutterby. Yep tis the season (for butterflies)... and I am obliging by creating another card with butterflies!

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the winged things! They go on both men and women's cards and I have plenty of them in stamps, stencils, rub-ons etc... but I am feeling butterfly fatigue...

I applied a stroke of texture paste on my kraft base and stamped "dots" with a piece of packaging (I keep a collection of these).
As you can see from the pic they are hexagons but they come out as circles. Never mind!

I added some washi tapes since I need to use them at some point!

The focal image is the Flutterby Dinkie stamp from IndigoBlu, stamped on a Brusho background and cut out.






To finish off the card I thought a bit of bling was in order and to go with the IndigoBlu stamp what could be better than Winter Dawn gilding flakes....

Quite a simple card, with a more masculine feel and subtler colours than my last few butterfly cards!


Hope you'll like it !







Also entering the We Love 2 Create challenge