Glorious gardens

I've just managed to sneak in under the wire for this month's postcard swap on UKStampers where Jilly set the theme flowers/gardens.

We have a couple of patches of glorious poppies in our front garden which inspired my choice of stamp. They're just past their best now but we've had a couple of days where the sun has shone through the petals and really set them ablaze.

Things got a bit out of hand with my first attempt but I'd spent time colouring the poppy and liked the way it came out so I cut it out and used it, even though my original intention was to do my usual one layer job.

I found a masterboard sheet of A4 (using resist techniques) while looking for something else so I decided to use that as a base and go mixed media style. I added the stamped poppy, some rub ons, a bit of stencilling and some charcoal pencil.

I made the masterboard long enough ago that my list of supplies might involve a bit of guesswork this time but here it is in case anyone's interested in any of the elements.

Stamps:
Poppycock by Indigo Blu
Numbers border by Kaisercraft

Paper: Smooth white 

Ink:
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Barn Door, Mowed Lawn)
Versamark
Brilliance By Tsukineko (Graphite Black)

Other:
Copic markers
White Posca pen 
Fineline marker
Charcoal pencil
Sequin Waste stencil by Tando Creative
White embossing powder
Gesso
Microglaze by Judikins
Dylusions (Fresh Lime, Vibrant Turquoise)
Rubons by Tim Holtz (Apothecary and Words) 
Brick stencil by Dutch Doobadoo


Thanks for stopping by - if you're in the UK, please remember to be especially kind to each other (actually, that applies wherever you are - kindness costs nothing - but it seems particularly important that the UK should remember it at the moment).

Resolutions!

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but I do often take part in the postcard swap at UK Stampers and that’s what Jill has chosen for January's theme. I decided to use what is apparently the most popular resolution (lose some weight) as inspiration and added the sentiment as I think it's something that might well be appropriate as a resolution for many of us!

I put a piece of low-tack tape across the top of the upright on the stencil before inking the mannequin body in raspberry ink and adding shading with currant, then swapped the position of the tape to ink the stand in brown. I’ve stamped through the stencil after inking the focal point mannequin, using the same flourish as I used to “frame” the card.

I drew round the inside of the body shape on the stencil and cut a mask so that I could put the grey, shadowy mannequin “behind” the main one. As the postcards go to their recipients as traditional postcards (no envelope to protect them) this kind of layering with inks, stencils and stamps is perfect to create interest without adding layers and embellishments that will be exposed to the rigours of the postal service!

Stamps:
Vintage Flourish Dinkie by Indigo Blu
Journaling Words 3 by The Artistic Stamper

Ink:
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Raspberry and Currant)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Shadow ink by Hero Arts (Soft Granite)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)

Other:
Modern Dressmaker stencil by Memory Box
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have 2016 off to a great start!

20/20 vision

This is my card for the June postcard swap on UK Stampers. We have a new host this month and for her debut theme, Jill chose "numbers".

It's absolutely not what I was planning but it evolved from stuff on the desk when the original plan scored a bit fat fail. The idea of 20/20 vision survived from the original thought and I tried to bring out her eyes to tie in with that. Her face has pale Copic colouring with just a little bit of blush on her cheeks and lips.

I used Memento Luxe to stamp the face and I'm happy to report it performed beautifully on the large solid area (the hair) as well as with the Copics. The oddity is that the wet ink on the stamp looks completely different to what you expect -this is Espresso Truffle and it was a sort of greyish, murky, mid-brown rather than the deep, rich black coffee colour you'd expect from the name and way the pad looks. So, if you're using Luxe inks: don't panic when you ink up, it will be fine once it's on the page!

Stamps:
Jane by Indigo Blu
A&P Numbers by Ma Vinci's Reliquary (retired)
Alphanumber backgrounder by CHF (retired)

Ink:
Memento Luxe by Tsukineko - Espresso Truffle
Brilliance by Tsukineko - Graphite Black
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger - Tumbled Glass

Other:
Copic markers

The swap's just finished but if you fancy joining in for July, the details will be up at the start of the month - just make a card that can be sent "naked" through the post and you'll get one in return. It's a fun size to work with and it's nice to rise to the challenge of making something that can be posted with no protective envelope.

Thanks for stopping by!

All the eggs in one postcard

OK, maybe that's not quite the saying but Sam asked us to go with the theme of "eggs" for the postcard swap on UKStampers this month.

I decided to have a little play with eggshell mosaic. I've tried bending it etc and it's quite stable so I'm quietly optimistic that it will survive the post. I used lots of ModPodge to stick the shells on and it's been coated over with both Mod Podge and then a satin varnish as well as I wanted a bit more egg-shellish sheen.

I also cut egg shapes from the mosaic piece but that may be harder to spot as I ended up chopping them to make "hills" instead.

Some sponging over torn paper for a background, stamped feathers and sentiment, black enamel accents and doodling with black and white pens finish it off.

Stamps:
Bird Notes by Craft Secrets (retired)
Big Inspiration by CHF (retired)

Ink:
Adirondack by Ranger - Pool and Stream
Archival by Ranger - Manganese Blue

Other:
Egg shells (cleaned and membrane pulled out)
Copic ink refills (any alcohol ink will do)
Copic multiliner
Posca paint pen
Enamel Accents by Ranger
Mod Podge Matt
Satin Varnish by PaperArtsy

Thanks for stopping by!

Postcard Time

It's been ages since I managed to play along in the regular postcard swap at UK Stampers but I've finally managed it this month.

Because the clocks go forward this month, Sam chose "time" as our theme.

Postcards go "naked" to their recipient so light and flat is good. I've gone totally single layer with this one - just stamps and ink using some basic masking and then a tiny bit of Copic coloring for her lips, eyes and some shadows to give things a bit of depth. I have ready-cut masks for everything I used here (I just keep them in the CD cases with the stamps any time I cut a mask and use it until it falls apart!) so it came together quickly.

Stamps:
Molly by Beeswax Stamps
Time to Stamp by CHF (and it's one of the sets that's available from the "new" CHF)

Ink:
Brilliance Graphite Black by Tsukineko
Soft Granite by Hero Arts

Other:
Copic markers
Corner Chomper

There are still a few days to play if you fancy getting a time-themed postcard on your doormat - just make a card and post a picture to the thread and come the 25th, Sam will tell you who to send it to and who will be sending you one in return.

Thanks for stopping by, hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Here comes summer!

For this month's postcard swap on UKStampers, Sam has asked us to include wheels. I thought of summer road trips and this surfer couple in their convertible seemed like the perfect set of summer wheels!

I had some fun with a shaving foam marbled background for a retro, tie-dye look and coloured the car and the stripe down the surfboard to match the vibrant shades. As usual, it has no embellishments so it can go through the post with no envelope when we swap.

If you've never tried it - shaving foam backgrounds are fun and each piece will be unique. Just squirt a layer of  foam onto your craft mat (or other surface that's easy to wipe down). It doesn't need to be a particularly thick layer - I tend to squirt some foam and then use an old credit card to spread it out a bit. Add drops of reinker to the surface of the foam and then swirl with something like a bamboo skewer or thin paintbrush handle. Press a piece of card onto top, making sure you get contact with the inky foam all over the piece and then lift - it will look a big gooey mess at this stage! Scrape the inky foam off (I use the credit card again) and you'll have a marbled background. Wipe with a tissue or kitchen roll to remove any last traces of foam and then just leave it to dry and you can stamp on it directly or use it as a background piece.

I used Distress ink here but any dye ink is fine and alcohol inks work too - I've never tried it with pigment inks but I don't see why not. Try to choose colours that won't get too "muddy" in any areas where they mix together as you swirl.

This is actually the second background from one lot of foam - I just smoothed over the surface with the credit card after lifting the first one and added a few more drops of the inks, swirled again and pressed a second piece of cardstock on there. The first one had a little bit of Perfect Pearls as well as the ink - I'll use it for something in the future, I just happend to prefer the swirl pattern on this one for the postcard.

Stamps:
The Beach (retired CHF)

Paper: Smooth white

Ink:
Distress reinkers in Spiced Marmalade and Picked Raspberry
Brilliance Graphite Black

Other:
Shaving foam
Copic markers
Tracing Wheel
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!

Circle of Life

I haven't managed to play along in the postcard swap at UK Stampers for ages. I had such fun finger painting circles and doodling for my last card that I thought I'd try a quick postcard with the same technique and sneak in under the wire for this month's swap.

Sam wanted to see circles and stars for this month's cards. I made painty circles (there's a tutorial here) on an old book page (I'm still working my way through the paper ephemera pack that a local business puts together from books that are not in a fit condition for resale - this one seems to be the tale of the magic ass from a children's book!). The sentiment is heat embossed to make sure it would be dense enough to stand out well on the busy background.

I used punched stars in a couple of sizes as templates to draw the stars and then filled in with doodling (so I'm linking up the Daring Cardmakers again). Then I brushed on some diluted Dylusions to colour the while thing, avoiding the stars and some of the small circles.

Stamp: Journaling Words by the Artistic Stamper
Paper: old book page (on white card for stability)
Ink: Versamark
Other:
NeoColour II water soluble crayon
Acrylic paints
Fiskars star punchies (used to doodle round)
Black detail embossing powder
Dylusions spray - Funky Fuchsia
Fineline marker

Thanks for stopping by!

Lost for words

Time for another postcard swap on UK Stampers. Our only constraint this month is "no words".

I had a bit of a Darkroom Door fest on this one and it just sort of grew without any real plan, hence the fact you can see the background through the butterfy wings as there's no masking going on or anything - I decided to just go with it! I think it's probably OK for a late summer vibe!

Stamps (all Darkroom Door)
Woodgrain background 
Carved Flowers
Wings
Foliage

Paper: Smooth white

Ink:
Pumice Stone Distress ink by Ranger
Onyx Black Versafine by Tsukineko

Other:
Diarylide Yellow and Orange Pan Pastels
Blue, Intense Blue and Olive Green pencils
Uni Posca white pen
Krylon Matt sealer

Deadline for swap entries is the 25th of the month so if you fancy a low commitment swap that gets you some handmade happy mail (just make one card to get one card in return) why not come and join us?

Thanks for stopping by!

Floral inspiration

Inspiration is everywhere but not always when you want it!

We have free rein for the postcard swap on UKStampers this month and I always find that the hardest challenge of all as I don't have a starting point! So I chose a challenge to give me a kick start - Indigo Blu are on their third monthly challenge and the theme is Flowers (details here).

This lovely Anemone Corner stamp has rarely seen ink so I thought I'd give it an outing. The word Inspire and the script I used to give the background a bit of interest are both from the Sarah's Choice set. Colouring with waxy pencils means there's a resist effect when you stamp with dye ink (as I did with the script stamp) which saves a masking job!

I finished with a tracing wheel and faux stitching on the white layer. As ever, the cards go through the post as genuine postcards with no envelope for protection so steering clear of embellies is a good idea!

Stamps:
Anemone Corner (Indigo Blu)
Sarah's Choice (Indigo Blu)

Paper: smooth white and black

Ink: 
Onyx Black (Versafine by Tsukineko)
Antique Linen (Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger)

Other:
Prismacolor pencils, Sansodor and blending stump
Tracing wheel
Fineliner

Thanks for stopping by! Why not come and join us in the postcard swap if you fancy some handcrafted happy mail?

Yellow circles

Our theme for this month's postcard swap on UK stampers is "mostly yellow with circles on it somewhere". Bicycle wheels are circular so this is where my brain went...

I may have gone a bit overboard with the yellow (my fingers look like I have a heavy nicotine habit!) but nobody can say it's not bright! I did a light-handed job with the Copics since I didn't plan ahead and I'd stamped with Versafine before deciding on my colouring medium but I just about got away with it!

Stamps:
Bike and Basket (Hero Arts cling stamp)
Many Dots (Hero Arts clear stamp set)
Sentiment from Journaling Words 3 (Artistic Stamper)

Ink:
Lemon Drop (Jenni Bowlin ink by Ranger)
Mustard Seed (Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger)
Onyx Black (Versafine by Tsukineko)

Other:
Sequin Waste mask (Tando Creative)
Gesso
Copic markers
Silver gel pen

It's a low-commitment swap (make one card, get one card in return and they're posted "naked" so it's a single ordinary stamp) so why not join us if you fancy some happy mail? All the details are here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Getting emotional

Sam chose "getting emotional" as the theme for this month's postcard swap on UKStampers rather than going for the ubiquitous Valentine theme. As ever, cards are to be posted without an envlope so flat is good!

I started thinking about the heart as the seat of emotion and the heart vs the head. I Googled to find an appropriate quote and used that as my starting point; it's just printed from the computer on the paper I used for the card.

I thought this vintage young lady fit the bill quite nicely - she might be learning something from that book but she's dreaming about something else as well, I reckon! Or perhaps it's a novel and she's feeling somebody else's emotion vicariously - Kathy's passion for Heathcliff or Anna Karenina's despair, maybe?

Stamps
Relish Reading (Rogue Redhead Designs)
Vintage Flourish (Indigo Blu)

Paper: ivory and dark chocolate

Ink: 
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink (Antique Linen)

Other:
Copic markers
 Tracing wheel

Tonmorrow's the last day for this month's postcards but the new theme will be up soon after that if you fancy joining us and getting some happy mail!

Thanks for stopping by!

New beginnings

It's a new year as well as a new month so that means the theme for January's postcard swap over at UK Stampers is "new beginnings". It's been so long since I managed to blog anything that it feels like a new beginning here too!

In deciding what to do for this theme, I kept thinking about things that start small and become something fantastic. Having no caterpillar stamps to go with the obvious butterfly, I turned to seeds and plants and thence to trees. So although this is an autumn image, it does represent new beginnings with those little acorns!

My transfer of ink from transparency to postcard for the sentiment didn't work as well as I would have liked so I decided to give it a hand lettered feel by going over in fine line pen and a touch of brown pencil (apart from anything else, I'd already coloured the leaves and didn't want to waste them!).

As ever, our cards for this swap will be posted as genuine postcards (no envelope) so this is completely flat, not embellishments or bits to get stuck in sorting machines! If you fancy getting some happy mail why not come and join us - just make one card and get one in return.

Stamps:
Oak Branch by Beeswax stamps
Tiny "dream"sentiment from Mini Memories set by Crafty Secrets

Ink:
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Espresso)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Antique Linen)

Other:
Copic markers
Prismacolor pencil
Computer and inkjet printer
Copic Fineliner
Sequin waste mask by Tando Creative

Thanks for stopping by!

Ghostly and gothic

Time for a new monthly theme for the regular postcard swap at UKStampers. I didn't manage to play in September so I was determined to get to it this month even though the theme is a tough one for me! As ever, cards are to be posted "naked" and must include stamping.

The theme is "spooky" and for me it's a tough one because I don't have any Halloween stamps or anything vaguely scary! I managed last year with some digi elements combined with some "filler" stamps and this year decided to see if I could take it a step further and just use colour and composition to set a spooky mood with otherwise non-spooky stamps.

I got some new stamps at the weekend so I set about giving "Molly" a ghostly makeover.

She's stamped and masked so she kept a ghostly pallor while the rest of the card got sponged with purple and black inks. I concentrated black at bottom left so Molly's head is looming out of the dark. I added some scripty writing and bare branches (which actually made me think of capilliaries or nerves once I'd stamped them!) and then stamped selected bits of a drippy frame stamp along the top.

A tiny bit of Copic colouring finished it off (green for her eyes and some grey shadow down the side of her face).

Stamps:
Molly by Beeswax Stamps
Sarah's Choice and Nature by Indigo Blu

Paper: smooth white

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Tim Holtz Distress by Ranger (Dusty Concord, Black Soot)

Other:
Copic markers

Thanks for stopping by!

Tuneful postcard?

It's nearly the end of the month and that means we're approaching the deadline for the August postcard swap on UKStampers. Sam wanted us to take inspiration from a favourite song this time.

I struggled with this as I don't really have a favourite song. The thing that kept coming back to me while I tried to decide though was Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez.

I picked up on a few lyrics (brown leaves swirling all around, eyes bluer than robins' eggs and the opening line for the printed text) and the title. Full lyrics are here if anyone is intrigued enough to want them.

I embedded the gems in loads of Glossy Accents and spread some Stickles around as well so I'm hoping they'll make it through the post intact! I was tempted to cheat and just go with the diamond shape of the embossing folder but decided that bottom corner really did need something. I'm still  not really happy with the balance overall but I'm not going to have time for another attempt so decided to live with it - hope the recipient doesn't regret my decision!

Stamps:
Falling Leaves (Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous)
Nest (CHF, retired)

Paper: 
Cryogen white,
Tim Holtz kraft core

Ink:
Tim Holtz Distress ink by  Ranger (Wild Honey, Tea Dye, vintage Photo)
Adirondack by Ranger (Espresso)

Other:
Copic markers
Tim Holtz Texture Fade embossing folder
Gems
Glossy Accents
Frosted Lace Stickles

Tidbit of the day - the ex to whom she's singing the song is Bob Dylan (he also wrote a song about their relationship - Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands if I remember correctly)

Thanks for stopping by!

Childhood memories

The theme for this month's postcard swap on UK Stampers is "childhood".

If anybody picked a random day in my childhood and took a peek, they'd probably see a little girl with slightly red hair, pale skin and her nose in a book. I'd be surprised if there were many days that didn't involve reading somewhere along the line.

So I picked one of my favourite Crafty Secrets stamps and, inspired by a memory of a make-over by Sophie LaFontaine, I turned the little boy into a little girl!

I started with a page from a story book stuck to some card and lightly covered with gesso. There's a local business that sells packs of paper ephemera, mostly pages resuced from books that are not fit to be sold on in their entirety - this is a page from one of those packs.

The wording and swirls are stamped directly onto the page, the little reader was stamped, coloured, cut out and stuck on. I used watercolour crayons to add some background colour in the doodled circle - I thought the colour could represent the colourful world of the imagination bringing the words to life.

Stamps:
Story of Me (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets)
Big Inspiration and Storybook (both CHF, retired)
Paper: Book page and smooth white
Ink: Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Other:
Copic markers
Gesso
Neocolour II watersoluble pastels
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!

Round robin postcards

We've had a "round robin" swap on UKStampers over the last few months - we each chose a stamp and sent it to the next person in our group and then after two weeks we passed on the stamp we'd received and so on until our own stamps came home. We had no limitations on what we made and could do whatever we liked with our projects.

I decided to make postcards with the stamps I received and I'm sending the cards to the people who own the stamp used to make it. The cards are all ones that can be posted as genuine postcards (no envelope) and standard postcard size (6x4"). I'm blogging just a couple here.

Pat sent us this Roman statue stamp to play with. One of the beauties of this kind of swap is that you get to play with stamps you wouldn't normally choose and this fell into that category for me!

I started thinking about grafitti because of the lettering down the side of the image. I stamped the image, masked it and then added some random lettering masks and sponged with neutral inks. I added a crackle stamp over the top, using only part of the stamp and moving it around randomly to get patches of crackle effect. I used markers to add a drop shadow to the image to give an illusion of some depth.

Materials:
Pat's stamp (I think it might be a Crafty Individuals' one?)
Crackle glaze background stamp (Indigo Blu)
Versafine Onyx Black, Adirondack Pebble and Mushroom inks
Copic W1 and W3 markers
Tim Holtz Ransom Alphabet masks

Witchy chose this photo-realistic image of Elvis to send out (I recognise it as a Stampsmith stamp). I happened to have an Elvis set in my own collection so I used a couple of those faces as part of the background by stamping in the same colour as the sheet music stamp I used.

This is also a one layer card - I stamped Elivs in black and masked him then stamped a ticket and masked before stamping the final ticket, masking that and stamping the background. Again, drop shadows added with markers help to create "layers" from the elements,

I did the wording by printing out (mirror image) onto an acetate sheet and then rubbing over it with a lolly stick to transfer it to the postcard - I like the slightly grungy look it gives and you don't have to fret about lining up a postcard to go through your printer!

Materials:
Witchy's Elvis stamp (Stampsmith)
Elvis Faces stamp set and Aged Sheet Music Scrapblock (both CHF, retired)
Versafine Onyx Black and Adirondack Denim inks
Copic C1 and C3 markers
Inkjet printer and acetate

Thanks for stopping by!

Against the tide

I'm just sneaking under the wire with a postcard for this month's swap on UKStampers. Our theme this month is "windows".

I went for a specialist window - a porthole. It must be on a submarine since there's a fish just outside! The fish is stamped on acetate and painted with Precious Metal paint and then flipped so you can see the detail of the stamping. The base is metallic silver which made it hard to photograph since I either got glare off the acetate or the silver bleached out to white!

I've layered up the piece painted with silver acrylic with a die cut hole, the stamped acetate and a piece painted with various turquoise acrylic paints for the background. A ring cut with Nesties makes the porthole frame and I made dots with glue for rivets and let them dry hard before painting. I used some pewter Perfect Pearls to add streaks to age things a bit.

The wording is done by printing onto the shiny side of a transparency sheet with an inkjet printer, laying it onto the painted surface and then burnishing with a wooden stick. You need to remember to print wording in mirror image if you do this but it works well, particularly for a slightly grungy look where you don't need a super crisp result!

A quick spray with Krylon Matt sealant to give it a bit of protection and it's done.

Stamps:
Under the Sea (Darkroom Door)

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)

Paper:
Smooth white
Acetate sheet

Other:
Class ic Circle Nestabilities by Spellbinder
Acrylic paints (silver and various turquoise blues)
Precious Metal paint by Viva Decor (Pearl and Azure)Perfect Pearls by Ranger (Pewter)

Thanks for stopping by - hope your weekend is a good one!

In orbit

The theme for this month's postcard swap on UK Stampers is "circles". I started thinking about orbits and planets and came up with this. As ever, our swap postcards need to be posted without an envelope so ink and stamps with no stuck on embellishments is the way I chose to go...

It's something that actaully needs some movement to show it off to best advantage - I used an interference ink to stamp a map of the stars as a background and of course that's nigh on impossible to capture with a photo - it's a green ink so it looks a bit like the image on an old computer screen. If you tilt the card so that you can see the star map, the sentiment pretty much disappears!

The planets were inked with both positive and negative masks in place to give them the appearance of overlapping. I used a tiny bit of watered down gesso to give a "glow" underneath.

The Waltzingmouse stamp set was great for this as there are three different sizes of flower so I could add a bit of patterning to each planet using a stamp that was the right scale.

Stamps:
Reach for the Stars and Astrology Scrapblock (both CHF, retired)
Big Blooms Chrysanthemums (Waltzingmouse Stamps)

Paper:
Smooth white

Ink:
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Black Soot, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick)
Opalite by Tsukineko (Cypress Frost)
Colorbox pigment ink by Clearsnap (Frost White)

Other:
Punches and Nesties to make circle masks
Corner Chomper
Gesso

Thanks for stopping by!

In the abstract...

I tend to be a fairly neat and tidy crafter (finished product-wise, not process-wise!) with a leaning towards the figurative when I choose stamps for a project. Throughout 2012, we're having a monthly challenge on UK Stampers and for the first one, I decided to go a bit more abstract!

Salamanda is hosting and for January she has asked us to create a wall hanging using material from old clothes, metal, tissue paper and stamps. No new purchases allowed, only stash you already own.

I used a piece from an old pair of jeans for my base (about 20cm x 16cm) and stamped randomly with some numbers and circles. I glued scrunched up tissue paper down one side and when dry I painted with acrylic paint and then rubbed a tiny bit of Rub n Buff over to highlight the texture.

The bubble border was stamped and then coloured with acrylic paints (all of which have been in my stash for at least a decade!).

I embossed metal from a drinks can and stuck it to mountboard scraps for stability and weight. I used gesso and acrylics to colour it and then rubbed most of the colour off for a shabby look. I cut up the piece and then stitched the three separate chunks to the base with florist's wire. The metal washer and stud were ones prised off something in the past - so long ago I forget what! - and stored in my "useful bits" box.

I stuck a strip of mountboard across the top at the back for stability and then added a coiled wire hanger to finish.

Stamps:
A&P Numbers (Ma Vinci's Reliquary)
Bubble Border (Lost Coast Designs)

Ink:
Versacraft by Tsukineo (Midnight)

Paper:
Mountboard
White tissue

Other:
Denim from old jeans
Metallic turquoise, metallic blue and silver acrylic paints
Rub n Buff by amaco (Silver Leaf)
Drinks can metal
Metal washer and stud
Drink Me embossing folder (Couture Creations)
Florist's wire
Crop a Dile
Rubber washers (used as circle stamps)

Thanks for stopping by!

New Year Numbers

Happy New Year everyone!

A new year means a new monthly theme for the postcard swap on UK Stampers. I missed the last couple of 2011 so I was pleased to get time to make something for the first swap of this year where our theme is numbers.

I chose to make the numbers a focal point and focus on the year since it's just starting. I'm a bit of a font geek and I absolutely adore the style of these - the maker actually found a box of old stamps at a flea market labelled "Grocery Sign Marking Kit" and used the impressions, including imperfections, to make new stamps.

Extra numbers feature on the tape measure and Roman numerals of the clock face.

I heat emboss the numbers and then coloured the card with Distress Stain and overstamped the tape measure with dye ink so the embossing resisted it. I sponged over the clock mask and then added the lady using Versafine so that I could bleach the face area. Happy accident was that the bleached stain took on a pinkish tone. A slightly less hapy accident was a streak of stray bleach. Keeping the "embellishment opportunity" philosophy in mind, I stamped some crackle texture to camouflage it! Finally, I used metallic pencils to add a bit of silver and purple to the image.

Stamps:
A&P Numbers (Ma Vinci's Reliquary)
Tape measure from Hardware set (Crafty Secrets)
Retro Women Set 2 (Tanda Stamps)
Crackleglaze background (Indigo Blu)

Paper:
Ivory mountboard

Ink:
Versamark by Tsukineko
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Weathered Wood, Black Soot)
Tim Holtz Distress Stain by Ranger (Weathered Wood)
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Detail white embossing powder
Timeworks mask (Tim Holtz Alterations)
Bleach
Ferby Metallic pencils by Lyra

Thanks for stopping by - hope your numbers are all lucky this year!