Dictionary Letter G

Having chosen a Giraffe to illustrate my R word last time, "Ruminant" for those who missed it, I now find myself devoid of imagination for the latest Craft Barn Dictionary challenge, the letter G.

Back to a predictable word then, I give you... Garden!

The focal image is a stamp by Crafty Individuals (CI-415 ) and the sentiment is from Paper Artsy (ELB02 set).
I have coloured the garden with watercolour pencils and I have used water to soften the colours mainly on the bigger pink blooms.

The G is a rub on, chosen for its size as I was running out of space on this page!

Thanks for coming by,
 

All packed

I saw the Vintage Journey latest challenge and had to try their Destination Inspiration Travel Bag made up of cardboard, Lilac colour, rust and metal on a hanging panel:

My substrate is cardboard, from the recycling bin.

The background is a masterboard painted with several layers and colours of Fresco paints (Paper Artsy).
Designs were added with stamping using Snowflake and Blueberry Frescos as well as some stencilling through die-cuts (hexagons and circles, both Papertreyink cover plates).

My focal sentiment is a Paper Artsy stamp from the Hot Pick 1203 set and I used a Martha Stewart corner punch top and bottom.

In the bottom right corner, I used Grunge paste with a brick wall stamp (Katzelkraft Transportation stamp set). When dry I spritzed mica sprays and finished with Treasure Gold.

On to the rust... by far the lengthiest aspect. The key and keyhole are die cuts (Sizzix Hardware findings by Tim Holtz ) from gold coloured metal and painted with acrylic in yellow, red oxide and blue.

A layer of crackle and some more acrylic paint. Blah...

Some alcohol ink in a dark grey, better.

A dash of Treasure gold in Onyxite... not perfect as an imitation rust but I liked the look so I stopped tinkering!

A closer look, in the sun :


Thanks for coming by,

Also entering the We Love To Create, Stamplorations, Tando Creative (W2) and the Craft Barn challenges.

Box

First let me thank all the lovely people who took the time to leave very flattering comments on my last post. My Dictionary challenge page seemed to have had great appeal, helped in large part by the giraffe's fluttering her eyelashes. She even managed to seduce a visitor into subscribing, Suchi, who receives my warmest welcome.

 

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I am having a hard time finding appropriate themes that say "Spring" without doing flowers or rabbits (there is a good chance you will see both of these in a future post!), so I am choosing what I think of spring colours for the Live & Love Crafts March challenge.

Crafty Individuals wanted to see Boxes of some kind (any kind) and I took up the challenge inspired by Nefertiti's upcycling of a cat's food container. I even pushed myself and fussy cut the little darlings (CI-449) just to show some willing in the face of her extensive scissor work!

The box comes from the recycling bin, and I used a sheet of paper from the Crafty Individuals Weekend in Seville pad (Background Paper Book 8)  and a piece of hand made paper (not by me!) on the lid. For the sides I used Tim Holtz Tissue tape and Trimcraft tape (Curiosity Corner collection), coloured with an alcohol marker in lavender.

A bit of Gelato smudged around the box creates a frame for my "picture".

For embellishments, I used very old purply blossoms from my stash and after a bit of shaping, glued several layers together to form the flowers you see here. I finished them with an adhesive dot.
A few die-cuts (coloured with the same Gelato), a piece of muslin and voilà... "c'est dans la boîte!"

Forgot to say, I gave dimension to my fussy cut pair with an embossing tool and a cardboard backing. It creates shadows around their bodies, really bringing them to life.

Now I need to decide if and who I give this to...

Also entering the Allsorts challenge.

Not a cow

For my entry in the Craft Barn Dictionary challenge I have selected the word Ruminant, and introduce a creature, namely a Giraffe from Rubber Dance, who are having a colour challenge in march.

I stamped the giraffe first, in a mix of colours using water based pens, and masked the image with masking fluid (liquid frisket).

I stamped and embossed in white a texture stamp (the grid stamp is also from Rubber Dance) and then set about colourising with Brushos in Moss green, Leaf Green, Lemon and Orange.

I underlined "white" embossing powder because, having done a test piece, I was reminded how, on some cardstock, the dye from the Brushos sinks deep into the card both vertically (i.e to the back) and horizontally and therefore shows through your nicely clear embossed areas that you thought were protected!

Final touch, as usual, the dictionary definition and the letter, this time die cut (My Favourite Thing).

The fog has disappeared so it's time to enjoy a taste of spring,

Also entering the SSS Wednesday, Stamplorations and Penny Black and more challenges.
 

TH March tag

Before showing you today's project I need to tell you that I have changed my blog title. When I chose it all those years ago I didn't really know what the title would be used for and now I think it is way too long and better as a description than a title.
Crafty Endeavours is what I have settled on, at least for now...

I'm not sure it will make a difference to you dear readers, although RSS subscribers might want to rename their links.
Do let me know if this is causing problems.

    On to the crafty stuff...

In March Tim Holtz is revisiting a Textured surfaces technique and mixing it with the Dimensional dies technique, taking the opportunity to try his Distressed Crayons.

In the cold light of day, well light full stop, the colours of my background do not quite gel with my top layer. Never mind this isn't going to anyone, let's call it a practice piece!

If you want to know about the techniques on this tag I'll refer you to the master here but here are some of the supplies I used:

- corrugated cardboard (from my recycling bin)
- Sizzix/Tim Holtz Mixed media Thinlits (last year's collection)
- Spellbinders labels dies 7
- Gelatos (no Distressed Crayons in my stash yet but it's under consideration)

As a finishing embellishment I used some twine with a key cut from black shrink plastic (Sizzix Hardware findings) and embossed with Vert-de-gris powder.

Thanks for coming by,

Also entering the SSS Monday Challenge challenge.

Lots of layers

Update as of 13/03

Apologies to all fans of our Vintage Stamping Challenges, we seem to have technical difficulties in bringing you the latest challenge. Be sure we are working to resolve the issue and hope to resume normal service ASAP. Please bear with us!

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When  my teammate at Vintage Stamping Challenges chose Lots of Layers as the March theme I thought yeah... stash busting ! Of course I could have layered stencils and stamps but using up some of my excess paper make me feel virtuous. I chose a freebie pack that came with a magazine. The colours were a bit too pastel for my liking but associated with the kraft cardstock they immediately looked more "adult".

My focal image is the Dancing Girl by Flonzcraft, fun and chic at the same time. (You can also get her as part of this full sheet). She is simply stamped with black dye ink on one of the paper from the pack.
Once stamped, I die-cut the notebook edge (MFT) for optimum placement.

If you look closely at the photos you'll see the papers are only stuck by the middle and that leaves me free to distress or curl the edges, which I decided not to do in the end but if I change my mind...
The technique is very simple and the card is quick to assemble, all the papers are cut as rectangles of decreasing sizes and stuck together. But I did spend an awful long time pushing paper to decide in which order they should be layered!

A few die-cuts for embellishments from Core'dination White wash (I'm using off cuts only, stash busting...)
There you have it LOL!
I hope you are inspired by what the Design Team made and join us over at Vintage Stamping Challenge, you could win a $20 voucher to spend at Flonzcraft, our lovely sponsor. Your make doesn't need to be Vintage but will need to showcase some stamping (rubber, clear, foam etc...) but NO digis.
Thanks for coming by,

CAS Hibiscus

Craft Barn want to see CAS with a flower and a sentiment. I don't want to bore you with the same image but I couldn't help exploring the possibilities of my Hibiscus stamp (Rubber Dance) further...
Last time I had wanted to show how crisp I could get the flower whilst keeping it in colour.
This time I wanted to try what I thought would be the technique most suited to this design, namely a watercolour effect.

For my base I used some new "glossy" cardstock as I wanted to test it with more watery medium.
I inked the stamp with dye ink pads in violet, yellow and blue and spritzed lightly before stamping.

The paper looks glossy but not as glossy as the Ranger stuff, but it took the spritzed ink no problem so I was relieved. Still a more absorbent paper with more water would give a more realistic watercolour effect.

I mounted the image on a violet card blank, perfect for a CAS look, plus it allowed me to use up some of these shapes which I don't use much anymore (6x6 seems to be my go to card shape nowadays).


Thanks for coming by,






Also entering the Stamploration CAS card challenges.

Dictionary #4 Landscape

For the Craft Barn Dictionary Challenge our new letter is L and this time I contrived my choice of word so that I could use my Stampscapes stamps and build a scene, which led me to the word Landscape.

The clouds are stamped with a Katzelkraft stamp from the Fruitful plate and all others are by Stampscapes.
I added some colour with a Cut & dry piece  and Distress Inks.

I stamped my letter top left and added my dictionary definition bottom right and stopped before I messed it up!
Hope you like my scene!

 

Venice Transfer

The latest theme at Paper Artsy blog is Transfer, by any means, and there are MANY! I used the Gel Medium method with a magazine image. I used as a base some gessoed cotton, which I had glued to a piece of cardboard to keep it taut and flat. This is what it looked like after rubbing off the first layer:

This was way too white so I had to rub some more... and then some! Unfortunately if there are any patches not stuck 100% to your base this is when it will lift off/tear mess up. I had such a large piece (the entire photo is A4, 29.7x21cms) it was inevitable, so when I got near enough I stopped to prevent any more mishaps. However I tried to eliminate the white "fuzz" by applying a layer of Fresco paint, in Yellow submarine, Blueberry and matt glaze.

Now for the stamping... This is where I was jumping into the unknown and it really didn't come easy to me, which  is evident by how much of the image I left untouched! But Simon Says Stamp challenged us so I had to attempt it at least.

I used stamps from the Paper Artsy sets: ESN07, ESN10 and HP1008 all stamped with black dye ink.

And finally the finished product

I added a piece of a Sizzix/Tim Holtz Mixed Media die-cut, stained with alcohol ink, thinking I could be seeing the scene form a window with wrought iron guard. I don't think this is entirely successful as is, would have loved to make it longer but I couldn't work out how to cut an extended piece with this die.

Thanks for coming by,

Also entering the We Love To Create challenge.