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

New stencils

I have finally laid my hands on Tim Holtz Mixed Media Thinlits! When I saw them early this year I knew they would be popular. True enough, as soon as they were in stock they disappeared and I missed out several times!
First, I wanted to create some stencils with those dies and test them out. Just as well, since the Paper Artsy challenge this fortnight is about stencils... I also decided to use different mediums through my stencils to compare how they react with subsequent layers of paint.

Top left texture paste through the Distressed Harlequin stencil, topped with a bit of Blue Gelato. Next to that Gelatos through the same stencil.
Top right matt varnish through the Hexagon stencil.
Bottom transparent texture paste through the Pebble stencil.

The Allsorts challenge chose the colour for me and I used Paper Artsy Fresco paint in Pacific Ocean and a bit of red oxide paint to balance the blue (OK that's just an excuse... truth is I wanted to test my newly bought "rust" colour).

The stamp is from a Lynn Perella set (LPC012).

I had intended to add sprays using the last stencil in the Mixed Media die set but I liked the image so far and I was too scared to mess it up!

Keep cool and carry on crafting,

Also entering the That's Crafty challenge.

Bow bag

You know how messy Gelli printing can be... Best approached in sessions to be productive.
So I spent an enjoyable moment printing, layer after layer, with stencils and other implements. True some pieces are going in the bin but there are some interesting results too. Included in the fun was this white bag (25x21cm approximately).

Front and back have different colours, there is no special reason apart from the logistics of mono-printing! The green side has at least 4 layers, the other has had many more as the early results were quite awful and I obliterated some of my attempts.



Stencils used : Reims (Artist Cellar), Dragonflies (That Special touch) and an old bow stencil.
I also used the top of a detergent bottle to make marks (dotted circles) on the plate for the left side and I stamped repeatedly sections of a Dragonflies stamp (Crafty Individuals) for the right side.

The paints I used are all Paper Artsy Frescos in Limelight, Pacific, Claret, Blueberry, Vanilla, Lilac and Lavender.

Thanks for coming by,

I am entering the Craft Barn,  We Love 2 Create, All Sorts and That Craft Place and Paper Artsy challenges.

Butterflies

Memory Box is having a challenge on their blog for the first time and I wanted to be part of this moment.
Sadly, unlike Memory Box dies, their stamps are not so easy to find on this side of the Atlantic,  so I didn't have any to use on my make. I used some home-grown talent instead and chose the biggest butterfly from a Crafty Individuals set as well as a greeting by The Artistic Stamper to go along with my Madera Corner die.

The butterfly image is made up of 2 stamping, one in black and one where I inked the stamp with coloured pens.
The Madera corner has been coloured with the same blue pen to match the butterflies.

Thanks for coming by,

Also entering the Craft Barn, The Artistic Stamper, Stamping Sensations and  Inky Chicks challenges.

Beach layout

As our thoughts turn to the summer holidays, the Rubber Dance challenge us to use the colours of Sand and Sea.

I still have photos to scrapbook from previous holidays so it was time to tackle them. For my base I created a mono print using texturing tools and a Tim Holtz stencil.

I decided to add some texture paste, stamping into it a with a Netting stamp (Rubber Dance) and also using a stencil (bottom left, The Crafter's Workshop). The last area was going to be stamped with a fence stamp but the result was so awful I had to sand it down and stamped a seashell instead.

The photo is matted on a 6x6 paper (Crafty Individuals - The Seaside) and I added some stamping on the mat and around using images from Rubber Dance: Souvenir, a plant, Diamonds background and Netting.

I die-cut the letters for my title, arranging them Scrabble style.

I don't know about you but I can't wait to go to the beach!

Also entering the We Love 2 Create,  Tando Creative and Craft Stamper challenges.

Garden Shed

Today is another masculine card, Father's Day coming up soon...

It's been a while since I used papers rather than make my own background, so for a change, I pulled some HOTP freebies, cut a few pieces and distressed them with scissors before layering in a carefree fashion.

To give the card maximum texture, I started with a textured card base and to my papers I added some Kraft Core'dination cardstock embossed (Woodgrain) and sanded.
The freebie pack came with die-cuts sheet of flowers and labels so I used a flower on the front and a label for the inside, stamped with the sentiment.
The image is the Garden Shed by Impression Obsession and I coloured it with alcohol markers.

Less fun than messing with paints but packs of papers like these take all the guesswork out of picking the right colour scheme.

Thanks for coming by,

I am entering the Craft Stamper, Polka Doodles and the Live & Love Crafts challenges. 

Bokeh attempt

I finally tried this little scene stamping I had in mind. In truth I was aiming to use this in a layout, but the latest Katzelkraft challenge sounded a good time, especially as the Circle theme cried out to me Bokeh... a technique I hadn't tried yet and that would echo the circles of the cycle's wheels.

Cela faisait longtemps que je voulais créer cette scène avec des tampons, a priori pour un fond de page scrapbook, mais le dernier challenge Katzelkraft  me paraît une bonne occasion surtout que le thème Cercles me permet enfin d'essayer la technique du Bokeh.

I used the cyclist from the Katzelkraft Transport set as well as the wall texture stamp from the same set. Then I completed my wall design by adding the window from a Finnabair set and a Peeled Paint texture stamp (also Finnabair/Prima).
J'ai utilisé le tampon cycliste de la planche Transport de Katzelkraft ainsi que la texture "mur" de la même planche. J'ai ensuite fini mon impression murale en ajoutant la fenêtre d'un set Finnabair et un tampon texture "Peeled Paint" (également Finnabair/Prima).

One wall showing its age....
Un mur qui accuse son âge...

Now onto the Bokeh... After inking with Distress inks I used a stencil and water to create bleached out circles. That didn't work too well so I added white pigment ink through the stencil. Again the results were too subtle, so I added white pastel on top. Eventually I realised that the background was too subtle to start with to show up my white circles very much, whatever I used.

Since I wanted my wall to read as a credible wall I left it at that and, at a certain angle, you can catch sight at the Bokeh:

Passons à l'effet Bokeh... Après avoir appliqué de l'encre Distress j'ai décoloré avec de l'eau et un pochoir cercles. Comme le résultat était décevant j'ai ajouté de l'encre blanche toujours avec le pochoir. L'effet était encore trop discret alors j'ai rajouté du pastel sur mes cercles.

J'ai fini par comprendre que le problème venait des couleurs trop pâles du fond.

Sous un certain angle on peu voir l'effet Bokeh:

I haven't added anything to the scene and just mounted it on a card base, leaving the sentiment for the Inside.
Je n'ai rien ajouté à ma scène et le sentiment trouvera sa place à l'intérieur de la carte.

Don't hesitate to comment on my scene/ n'hésitez pas à commenter...

Also entering the Craft Barn and Sandy & Amelie Steampunk challenges.