Journal Page for the Craft Stamper March Blog Challenge

Hi all

Todays project for the CS blog Challenge is an A4 journal page.

There are 4 pots of Tim Holtz gorgeous Embossing Glaze to be won this month, so why not pop over to the Craft Stamper blog and take a look HERE. 

Here are a few pics of the process..... 

 To begin, I painted an area with a skintone, then stamped over it. 

I stamped again onto white paper, cut out the eyes and stuck them on top.

 After placing a mask on top of the eye stamp, I repeatedly brayered several fluid acrylics until I had the blend of colours I liked. Then I stamped the smashed glass with Versamark ink and embossed.

 A bit of stencilling.....

Some mark making (paint and the side of a piece of card) 

Doodling with white paint pen, and a black outline smoshed around the eyes. 

I held the page upside down, placed crayons against the page and heated them 

until they melted and ran down the page. 

 Stamped out a sentiment a couple of times (which was the inspiration for the melted crayons), chopped it up and used the pink and green crayons to colour the edges.

 Stuck down the words and used a black Posca Paint Pen to edges them, then with a watery

 brush I softened the black paint. Drew around the stencilled patters with the white pen.

Some stick on ribbon down the sides (bought this from Poundland months ago) and used a 

Stabilo All pencil along both the sides of the crayon section.

 A bit more fiddling with doodles, a couple of butterflies to the sides of the eyes

 (to soften them) and that was that!

Thanks for looking. Not sure how much I like this - but I loved the process. 

Lots of stamping and melting crayons was fun!

Suz

xxx

Stamp and Stitch! Jam Jar Canvas for the Craft Stamper DT Feb Challange Blog

Hi all
Todays project for the Craft Stamper February Blog Challenge is a 'stamp and stitch' piece

using a stamp and die set by Aladine. 

The prizes for the challenge winner this month are a fab 6x6 stencil and stamp by Carabelle Studio! For details on how to enter the challenge click HERE.

I was given this gorgeous set of stamps and dies and some fab Izink ink pads and sprays by Aladine which I've used in this project.

I'm loving textiles at the mo, so I grabbed a piece of calico, and using my stamp platform, 

stamped the jar until I had a crisp image for stitching over.

I used Izink Textile ink diluted with water to colour the jar and gold pigment ink to colour the metal ring around the top of the jar. I made the cloth a bit wet so there was a little seepage over the lines, which I rescued with the Izink white ink.

 Stamped out the first foliage stamp, theses are so cute!

Then stamped out the second using the same colour, but overstamped each for a more intense colour. Using white 300gsm smooth card, I stamped and die cut several of the daisy type flowers, I coloured the flowers with the Izink dye sprays in Cerise and Pearl to give a little shimmer. Then pierced holes in the flowers and stitched on small buttons.

I hand embroidered over the leaves in green and yellow and stitched around the outline of the jar.

Then taking an 8x8 canvas, I glued on lace, flowers and vintage book pages using DecoArt Matte Medium. Then a coat of white gesso once it was nice and dry.

 A few spritzes of Aladine Izink Dye Spray in Cerise that I'd used for the flowers- such a strong colour it took a while to knock it back again with gesso.

 More heavy dry brushing with gesso helps the lace really show up.

 Crackle paint for even more texture. It also toned down the pink a little more.

 I added the stitched project, but with a layer of old curtain material, an organza type material, underneath, this adds a softness to the piece, with folds of fabric over the flowers, framing the stitched work.

 Some buttons on the organza to tie it in with the stitched piece.

 Had to weight the buttons down to make sure they really gripped onto the fabric and canvas beneath!

 And here is the finished piece. I may add words at some stage too.

Thanks so much for looking. Any questions just drop me a comment.

Suz

xxx

Life Without Art Passport Book for the September Craft Stamper Blog Challenge

Hi all
This month sees another fab couple of prizes to be won in the Craft Stamper Monthly Blog Challenge. A gorgeous set of Posca Pens along with a handy case to store them in. Have a look here!
Here's my DT project for the challenge.

I've been getting out my Eileen Hull dies in the last few months, trying to tackle how to use them and different ways to add the paper signatures. I'm also madly into textiles and embroidery too at the minute. No embroidery in this one, but some fun stamping and painting onto calico.

 I used a scrap of thick card from the back of a paper pack for the journal covers and spine.

Vintage book pages from a fab book called "Enquire Within Upon Everything" dated 1861 which belonged to Betty! I started to read some pages while I was working and it's amazing. Don't think I can use any more! According to Wikipedia: Tim Berners-Lee named his precursor of the World Wide Web, ENQUIRE, after this work in 1980.^[7][8] A Forbes article quoted Berners-Lee as saying:^[9]

Back to the project....I stamped one of Andy's new stamps onto a piece of calico.

Stamped it out again to make a mask, which I used to cover up the quote. 

Took another of Andy's stamps and masked off the text inside 

the circles as I just wanted the rings...  

 Stamped it a couple of times over the words.....

 Then started to paint the fabric with DecoArt Fluid Acrylics in Phthalo Turqoise and Quin Gold.

 Then added some Quin Violet around the outside.

 Here's where the book pages come in; I used the leftover paint to 

colour them and glued them to the inside of the journal covers.

 Then I used the diluted quin gold on the spine. I love how it looked, I think I must have had matte medium on my hands from gluing the book pages when I was handling the spine and it acted like a resist, giving a great grungy look!

 More quin gold on the outside of the book cover, that I 

was going to glue the fabric onto, just to base coat it.

 Matte medium to both the cover and the back of the fabric.

 I felt the focal stamp image was getting a little lost so I re-stamped it onto 

tissue paper.....but it wasn't popping enough - so I stamped it again onto painted book 

page that I'd painted white and that worked just right.

 I edged the torn book page with quin gold paint then glued it down with matte medium. The brush I used still had a little blue paint in it, so there are some lovely hints of the colour on the paper.

 I stamped another of Andy's stamps using Titanium White paint around the edges-

paint needs to be washed off straight after to keep the stamps in good condition.

 Then stencilled flowers using crackle paint....

 Once the crackle paint was dry, I added a wash of Cobalt Teal, and a little more quin gold around the tissue paper. A few gems to lift the flowers and the cover was finished. I die cut some recycled pages to create two signatures and now it's ready to use.

Thanks for looking, and if you have any questions just leave me a comment. 

Suz

xxx

HIDDEN - my DT project for Andy Skinner

Hi all

I was feeling pretty reflective when I made this just over a week ago after hearing some bad news....and the weekend that followed made this keep resonating in my head....we are all dealing with so many things that we keep hidden. I hope you have the strength to cope with yours, or even get help to do so.

I've also included a bit of upcycling and altering which always makes me happy - not throwing something away to add to landfill!

Here's the project and how I made it.....

I gathered loads of bits together from various Andy Skinner kits....

Used modelling paste through Andy's Sunburst stencil... 

 Chucked on a bit of Crackle paint.....

 Used Heavy Gel Medium to stick on the tape runner and elements.....

 Added the sequins and lace.....

 Painted with DecoArt Gesso and then Titan Buff......

 Next came the grungy colours...…

Metallic gold on the roller bit from inside the tape runner, which had 

melted beautifully into this flower like shape when I put the heat gun to it!

 More layers of the grungy colours (pic below of colours used) and then all edged with some of my fav Prussian Blue Hue...and of course a bit of Metallic Lustre!

Stamped out words from Andy's Word Up stamp set...

Added some rusty wire in the shape of a flower, the blown light bulb and a large paper clip I had rusted at home (there re loads of tutorials on how to do this on youtube).

Here's a close up of how I stuck the wire flower into part of the tape runner.....

A few more close ups.....

 Here you can see the heart, gem (coated underneath with glitter!) grunged words and the paperclips I put the words in and attached to more rusty wire....

 Thanks for looking.
Suz