Home Is Where The Heart Is...

I was recently lucky enough to do a Guest Designer spot for Stampotique. I love their cute and quirky stamps and as they are now having a DT Call for folks to join their Design Team for 2104, I just had to jump at the chance to work with them again. :)

 

So here's a fun little creation I made as a DT Call entry.... *

I decided to make a little wall-hanging. :)

 

I used one of my favourite Stampotique stamps - Smile - and his cute little heart made me think of the saying, "Home is where the heart is" so I made a little house from thick board.

 

I covered the roof section with a piece of gelli plate print that had a nice texture and "roof-ish" red colour....

 

 

...and I covered the main part of the house with cardstock which I'd coloured using Dylusions sprays and a stencil. I inked all the edges of both parts of the house with black ink before attaching the roof section. I sprayed more card with Dylusions inks in shades of red and doodled a door and doodled windows onto old book pages that I spritzed with more Dylusions in blue shades. I cut these out and attached them to my house and added the sentiment which I hand-wrote onto old book paper and cut out. I cut the top of a gold brad and glued it in place as a doorknob.

 

 

To finish I stamped my image onto the house (to capture the external detail of the image) and stamped him again onto white card, colouring him with my Promarkers before cutting him out and attaching him over the image on the base, using clear sticky pads to give him a bit of dimension. I also gave him a little bit of grass under his feet (doodled and cut from old book pages spritzed with green Dylusions ink) to ground him.*

Finally I attaced a rusted-effect wire hanging to the back of my piece to allow it to be hung up. :)

 

I'm rather pleased with this cheerful, brightly-coloured piece and I hope the good folks at Stampotique like it as much as I do. I love the quirkiness and unusualness of Stampotique stamps. I think my own crafting style is quite changable, depending on the products/medium I am working with, but I do find that working with Stampotique stamps pushes me to be more creative, to play with lots of inking and stamping techniques and making my own backgrounds etc, and to really go to town with colour. :) I really enjoyed doing my GD spot for Stampotique and would love to join the team for a longer period and get the chance to work again with such a lovely, talented bunch of people.

Now I just have to decide where to hang my little work of art.... :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*I must apologise both for the lesser than usual quality of my photos (my crappy slow netbook has now died meaning that I can't download photos from the data card from my camera so I have had to resort to using my phone to take these photos - thankfully my beloved laptop is being delivered tomorrow after having been repaired so once DH reinstalls the operating system, I'll be back in business!) and for the fact that Photobucket appears to be once again playing silly buggers and randomly rotating or squidging my photos for no reason!! :/ I'll replace these with some better (hopefully, right way up!) photos over the next day or so. :/

Serendipity

My third project as Guest Designer for Stampotique is up at the Stampotique Designer's Blog today and the theme couldn't have been more appropriate. It's "Wedding" and it just so happens to be my wedding anniversary at the end of this month. :)

 

So my lovely hubby will be getting this card:

 

 

I used this great vintage image stamp called Hochzeit (German for wedding, dontcha know?) for my card:

 

 

I made a square card blank from grey cardstock and cut a smaller panel from white cardstock. I stamped the Hochzeit stamp in black Archival ink over one edge of the panel and stamped it again onto a post-it note and cut it out to mask off the image. I then spritzed the card with Dylusions spray inks and splattered watered-down black paint across it.

 

 

I doodled a border with a black fineliner pen and attached the panel to my card blank. I then stamped Hochzeit again onto white cardstock and cut it out, attaching it to the card with foam pads, off-setting it slightly from the image on the panel.

 

 

I finished things off with a layered die-cut sentiment cut from grey and white cardstock and some black gemstones.

 

More ATCs

I have soooo many ideas for ATCs and projects running through my head atm... I've gone crazy for original art/mixed media stuff lately... to the extent that before going to sleep last night I had to turn the light back on, grab my phone and type in a quick memo of the idea for these ATCs: :D

 

 

 

 

My idea was a line drawing of a face - in close-up - with random, splodged brightly coloured inks as "eye shadow". My idea was for the colour not to be contained within the lines of the drawing so I used watercolour paper and sprayed it with water before splodging on Dylusions spray inks (I sprayed the inks onto my non-stick craft mat and then dipped a paintbrush into them). I also tilted the cards and let the watery ink run a bit before drying them and dabbed some spots of Stickles onto the ends of the eyelashes.

 

After I made this set of cards, I had the idea to do a similar set, this time with the eyes open and using the splodged, watercolour-effect colours for the irises.:

 

 

 

I filled up the white space at the top and bottom of these cards with some Distress Ink sponged lightly through stencils (this doesn't show up all that well on these scans).

 

I'm really rather pleased with all of these. They are quite simple and yet quite striking, I think. :)

 

Dreaming of Aquamarine Tides

It's Variations Week at Sweet Pea Stamps, where each of the Design Team posst a creation using the same stamp. I love seeing how everyone creates such different projects from the same starting point. :)

 

This month the stamp we've all used is Dreaming of Aquamarine Tides by Katerina Koukiotis. I've had this rubber stamp in my stash for a while and it was a nice change for me to play with rubber stamping instead of digi stamping and so I decided to do something a bit different and use a technique that's not really suited to digi stamps - painting with bleach:

 

 

I first of all used Dylusions spray inks to colour a piece of white card and then stamped the image onto it using Versafine ink and heat embossed it using a fine black embossing powder. I then used plain old household bleach and painted over the areas where I wanted to remove the colour - I bleached out her face, neck and hands, leaving colour on her lips, fingernails and around her eyes and also on the seashell.

 

 

I love this technique because the results are always different - different inks react differently to the bleach so the colour you get on the bleached areas is always random.

 

I liked the contrast of the black outline against the vibrant colours on this card so I decided to carry that through on the card itself. I swiped the edges of the image with more black ink and heat embossed it and chose a paper that seemed to fit well with both the colours and the theme of the image.

 

I inked the edges of the paper and cut decorative corners and layered flowers with my Cameo, inked them and heat embossed with black powder for a glossy finish.

 

 

You can buy this stamp from the Sweet Pea Stamps store either as a single stamp or as part of a sheet of 4 gorgeous stamps by Katerina Koukiotis. And don't forget that until Friday there is 15% off all rubber stamps (including overstock/sale items) at Sweet Pea Stamps. :)

 

I'm entering this card into a couple of challenges:

Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - Go Green

Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

Tuesday Alchemy - Anything Goes

Make My Monday - Heat Embossing

Paper Playtime - Anything Goes

 

 

 

 

 

ATC Fun

I haven't made ATCs for a while. I do love them - making miniature works of art is great fun and a great way to try out new ideas and techniques.

 

I've been inspired to get back to ATCing by the discovery of the Fun With ATCs blog. They're having a celebration blog hop and inviting people to make ATCs with the theme "celebration".

 

So here's my contribution:

 

 

 

I think this is a sweet quote and my ATC is kind of celebrating love/friendship. :)

 

I used Dylusions ink sprays and water spritzed through a stencil for the background and stamped a text stamp through a stencil using pink ink. I then stamped the solid blossom stamp twice in orange ink and once in pink ink and then stamped the outline blossom stamp over the pink image using sepia ink. To finish I stamped the sentiment in black ink and inked the edges with black ink. The script stamp was a Kaisercraft one and all the other stamps were Stampin' Up!

 

Crafting with Friends

I love having company when I craft. There's something so fab about being able to chat to like-minded folks and to create together and share ideas and inspiration. It's something I rarely get to do, mainly due to having no childcare! I've been on one scrapbooking retreat (the UKS Green Buttons retreat) and am looking forward to going again this year but it's also nice occasionally to just have a friend over for a few hours.

And that's what I did last Wednesday evening... my friend Laura came over and we spent the evening in my craft room having a play with Dylusions ink sprays and stencils and stamping. I dug out a couple of canvas boards and we had a lovely time decorating them.

This was what I made:

As well as the Dylusions sprays and various stencils, I used some Tim Holtz, Stampotique and Stampin' Up! stamps on the background and used Dylusions and Wendy Vecchi stamps (coloured with my summer colours Promarkers) for the images and a Stampotique stamp for the sentiment.

I had such a nice evening and really hope to do it again some time soon! :)

I'm going to enter this into the "What Do You Say?" challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show too.

WOYWW 161

Yargh. What you see on my desk this morning is an exercise in frustration.

You see, I recently bought a rather funky looking doily die. "How fabulous!" thought I. "I can make doiles to match my projects, as many of  them as I like! Yippee!"

Or... not. Now, it's an intricate die and I'm not daft... I realised there would be some work involved in popping out all the teeny tiny little pieces. However, as it turns out, there's a lot more to it than "popping out"... mainly because even after being run through the BigShot twice (turning 90 degrees between runs through), the darn thing *still* didn't cut completely through in places. So I've ended up having to push and pull with a pokey tool, and occasionally try and re-cut lines with a craft knife, and generally it's taken me faaaaaar longer than I even care to think about to produce just one usable doily (and I wouldn't look too closely at it as there's a fair few ragged edges here and there).

So that's what I've been doing at my craft desk - that and a lot of swearing! :lol

So, to end on a more cheerful note, I shall also share with you the finished CJ page that I made using the background that was sitting on my desk in last week's WOYWW post:

I used a Dylusions stencil and a Stempelgelde stamp and handwrote the journalling. The CJ is now winging its way to the next recipient.

And that's it from me this week. I've stayed up faaaaar too late (or early, really) fighting with that doiley so I am taking myself off to bed! :)

Scrapbooking round-up

I have a confession to make - I haven't crafted in nearly a week! And I've missed it SO much! I've had a lovely week enjoying the sunshine with DH and the girls (and boy, did DH pick the right week to have off work, eh?!) but oh my craft room has been calling to me! :lol:

Don't get me wrong... I *love* having DH home (and so do the kids!) but I rarely get much - or even any - crafting done while he is home. In my usual week, while he's working away Monday-Friday, I put the kids to bed and the evening is my own, to spend as I see fit. But when DH is home I obviously want to spend time with him... and it seems kind of churlish to go and hide myself away in the craft room in the evenings.

So last night I was very glad to get back into my room and have a play. And this was the result:

This is an idea I've had floating around in my head for days, just waiting to be put into practice (so much so that I scribbled it down as a sketch so I wouldn't forget it!). I spritzed Sky Blue and Jade mica Dylusions spray inks onto my non-stick craft mat and then smooshed plain white card around on it before adding a few splats and flicks of the inks. I scribbled rough circles with a fineliner pen and then cut out the centres of the circles and attached the photos behind the holes. I finished up with a bit of handwritten journalling and a Thickers title. :)

I've made a few other scrapbook pages over the past few weeks that I've not shared on here so I thought I'd take this opportunity to have a catch-up. :)

First of all, there's the LO I did as a make and take at the SU regional training day the other weekend:

I loved playing with the new Twitterpated papers and also, I'm a genius! :lol: I took four photos with me to the training day as I had no idea what colours etc we'd be working with for the make and take... and blow me if DD2's cardigan in this photo wasn't just the perfect match for the Pear Pizazz cardstock for this LO! :D

I also made two LOs as part of the Green Button fun evening over on UKS (and there's a third still in progress!)...

The first was done for the speed scrap challenge:

Speed scrap's are a lot of fun - it's always interesting to see how everyone's LOs come out as they've put together the stash "blind", as it were, and interpreted the instructions their own way. :)

I also did a digi-LO for a challenge that required "dark, grungy colours and/or steampunk":

I think I fulfilled both those criteria using these elements from the Combobulated kit from Creative Victorian.

I've got another LO sitting on the desk, in progress, and ideas for several more floating around in my brain, jostling for pole position! :lol: I'm itching to craft after my days of enforced abstinence. Does it make me a bad mother that I kind of wish it was bedtime already so I could get in my craft room? ;) :lol:

Octopode Alice

Remember the scrummy Octopode Factory Alice in Wonderland screen that I made for a screen swap and could barely bring myself to part with? ;)

Well, I've been at it again. :D Not a screen this time but a CJ entry. The journal I had to work on for the art journal CJ I'm taking part in had the theme of "Steampunk Alice". I immediately thought of the fab Octopode Factory images and lo and behold the CJ owner even put in her instructions that she liked the Octopode Factory Alice in Wonderland images. :) Perfect.

So I used similar techniques to the screen, using Dylusions sprays to make the background and to paint in the images (love the versatility of the digi images, that I can resize them to suit the project I am working on). This is the CJ page - and matching tag - that I made:

As it happens, this week's theme at the Octopode Factory Friday Challenge is "anything goes" so I am entering my CJ page and tag.

The CJ is going in the post today - it's got several more people to get around before returning to the owner but I hope, when she does get it back, she likes this page as much as I do! :)

P.S. Really must make *myself* one of these Octopode Alice projects... I always seem to have to keep giving them away! :lol:

Watery Wearable Art

The current challenge at the Stampotique Designers Challenge blog is to create some wearable art. As soon as I saw the theme, I had an idea. I had an image in my head of the effect I wanted to create with this project and I'm pleased to say that it came out pretty much exactly as I imagined:

I've had this rectangular pendant (from Crafty Individuals) sitting around for ages and it was perfect for what I wanted to do with this project. It comes with a bevelled glass insert but I decided to use UTEE instead to fill the frame. My idea was to use my Smushallaum mermaid stamp and create a sort of underwater scene - so I cut a piece of card to fit in the frame and made a shimmery, watery background using Dylusions spray inks. I stamped the Smushallaum image onto card and painted her with more Dylusions spray inks before cutting her out and attaching to the background. This was glued into the tray, and then came the really fun part! I started adding layers of UTEE, sprinkling in some fine peacock-coloured glitter as it melted, for that added underwater shimmer. I also added a couple of green gem "bubbles" into the UTEE here and there. I kept going until the tray was filled and then left it to cool.

I love how this looks! I think it has the shimmery, slightly distorted underwater feel that I was going for and I love how the gems encased in the UTEE catch the light in different ways as you turn the piece. Photos really don't do justice to how it shimmers and catches the light as it moves. I am so pleased with this that I'm wearing it as I type! :) I think I may make some more pendants using UTEE in this way, it's a really effective technique.

The Stampotique Designers Challenge is also holding a Guest Designer call - I luuuurve Stampotique stamps so am entering this piece for the GD call as well.. I hope they like it as much as I do! :)

Awww, do I have to?!!

So you may have seen Linda's gorgeous decorated screen on the cover of the March issue of Craft Stamper... it's an awesome project and inspired a few select nutcases *ahem* crafters over on UKS to organise a screen swap, whereby we would each make a decorated screen (we would be allocated a partner to swap with and what theme they wanted for their screen) to swap.

I got allocated Karen who wanted "Stampotique/Octopode Factory-style" for her screen. And so, after one false start (I didn't like the background I made so I cut new panels and started over), this is what I made:

The only problem is... I like it so much I don't wanna give it away! :lol:

But I will. *sob* I will send it on its merry way.

I'll just have to make another one for myself! :lol:

I think what I like most about this screen is how the background turned out (ironic, given that I'd abandoned my first attempt cos I wasn't happy with the background). I used Dylusions spray inks, stencils and spritzed water to make a vibrant, subtly patterned background - I think what I like most about this is how I managed to work the four separate panels as one unit, with the colours flowing and mixing across from one panel to the next. :)

I added some Alice in Wonderland quotes (from an Indigo Blu stamp set) in toning colours and in black and then drew a wavy striped line (to echo the wavy curve of the top of the panels) across the lower part of the panels and coloured it with black and white pens. I printed Alice in Wonderland Octopode Factory digi stamps onto white paper and painted them in using the Dylusions ink sprays and then cut them out and attached them to the panels so they were "standing" on the striped line (a fab Kat Crane tip to "ground" your figures, rather than leave them floating on the page).

I covered the backs of the panels in a vibrant, sparkly K&Co paper that seemed to fit with with the intense Dylusions colours and, to finish, bound the panels together using medium-thickness black waxed cord (it seemed to "fit" better than using ribbon).

Et voila. I really do love this and I've really enjoyed making it. I shall *definitely* be making more of these screens. But for now, this one must needs tomorrow be trusted to the tender mercies of Royal Mail. Adieu. Adieu. :)

Spring is in the air...

Yeah. I wish. It's still cold and grey and miserable here.

But... to counteract the gloom, here's a pretty, shimmery card in bright, spring colours. :)

I spritzed and splattered a background with Dylusions spray inks in bright, cheerful shades of yellow, pink and green and stamped over it with a Crafty Individuals stamp. I then stamped the flower parts of the stamp again onto off-cuts of the spritzed background card, cut them out and painted some extra detail (and added a bit more glitz and shimmer) with Dylusions mica sprays.

I matted Basic Grey Stella Ruby paper onto vibrant green Basic Grey cardstock and attached to a white card blank. I cut a strip of the Basic Grey cardstock and punched along one edge with a Martha Stewart edge punch and layered this across the card and added a piece of Making Memories crocheted flower ribbon on top. The stamped image was matted onto more Basic Grey cardstock and attached to the card with foam pads and the flower sections were laid over the main image again with foam pads. To finish I stamped a couple of cute little bees (from an Artemio stamp set) onto more spritzed card off-cuts, cut them out and attached.

And there you have it, a pretty floral card in fresh, spring colours. I'm entering this card into blog challenges at the Crafty Individuals blog (theme: Spring) and the Stampalot Challenge blog (theme: In The Garden.

ATCs-a-go-go

I've been playing with ATCs again. I do love 'em! They are such a fab and fun way to try out new ideas and techniques.

For example, (as seen briefly in my WOYWW post yesterday) I have *finally* gotten around to trying out the Dreamweaver embossing paste and gilding foils that I bought at Ally Pally in erm... summer of 2010! :lol:

This was the result:

I made the background with Dylusions spray ink and Cosmic Shimmer Mists, the koi was done with a Dreamweaver stencil, embossing paste and gilding foil and I drew bubbles with gold pen and filled in with Stickles.

I also had a play with my Dylusions inks and paints and also with the Dylusions stamps that I bought erm... last November! :lol: (Seriously, I think it's very very likely that I actually own more stamps that I haven't used yet than stamps that I have!! ;D)

Here was my Dylusional ATC:

I sprayed the background with the Dylusions spray inks and then sponged Dylusions paint through a stencil and stamped some circles with a bottle top. The figure was stamped onto card and then painted with the Dylusions sprays and cut out (and boy, was the hair fiddly to cut! :lol:). Isn't she cute? :)