Mail Art Monday with a grungy twist

Hello Again Everyone! 

It's me Tera here again with another fun
 Mail Art Monday tutorial

For this piece I was inspired by this months inspiration board.  I just love the vintage, grungy feel of everything.  I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I do!

(and be shocked I actually remembered to take a picture at each step!!)

Stamps Used: 
Nature Collage by Cat Kerr 2 3/4 x 3 3/4
Wire Rings by Cat Kerr 2 3/4 x 2 1/4
Typewriter Keys by Cat Kerr 2 1/2 x 4
Mesh Texture 2 3/4 x 3
Writing Circles Background 1 3/4 x 4 1/2

Other Supplies: 

Black ink (Versafine Onyx Black)

Distress inks- Ground espresso, weathered wood, Iced Spruce, hickory smoke, pumice stone

distress ink blending tools

water (for droplet effect)

Distress Spray stain -Black Soot , white (picket fence)

Microns 

Begin by masking off where you want your address to be (I traced around this with my black micron).  Next I stamped my focal image to build around in black ink.



 To start my layers for the background, and give this piece depth, I stamped the next two images in "Hickory Smoke" distress ink.  

Next, I wanted to add some more foreground/mid-ground layers so I went back to black and used some of my smaller stamps to partial stamp some of the spaces.

I liked how this step looked so I used distress inks to ink the background with my ink blending tools.  This pulls the piece together, but I wanted a little more grungy feel, so I added some water droplets, as well as drops and splatters from the 2 distress stains. 

(this is the 1st layer of ink)

I let everything dry then removed my mask to reveal the final piece.

(Now to find the perfect postage stamp to go with it!) 

April Challenge - COFFEE FIENDS

Welcome to our April Challenge! 

As the country is working its way through the last bit of blustery weather I thought we could be inspired by our favorite drink... COFFEE!

We'd like to inspire you with words like caffeine, coffee, tea, tea time, warm drinks, hyper, hype, cups, recycle, fancy, stain, spill, coffee rings, drips, drops, splatters, vintage, cardboard, corrugated, tan, brown, black, dark, roasted, light, vapor, and last of all.. date time with friends.

Don't forget the rules:

-Create a new project based on our inspiration board (it has to be posted this month, but you can certainly link up to other challenges as well!)

-Use at least one (but certainly more if you want) Viva Las VegaStamps! rubber stamps

(We are now allowing competitors stamps to be on your work, but please make VLVS! the focus of the project, thank you.)

-Post it to your blog with a link back to us

-Upload to our linky using your direct blog post link (You may also upload via facebook, flickr or other gallery)

You could win a Project Spotlight post on our blog + some new rubber of course.

And visit us back here for inspiration! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Challenge Inspiration - Her Wings by DeeDee Catron

Hi folks! :) DeeDee (Marketing and Artistic Director for VLVS!) here today to inspire you for our brand new challenge! 

The challenge mood board is :

I loved the color scheme, the boldness and the patterns. I also adore butterflies but moved away from the actual image and more towards a sentiment that was imagery heavy. 

I was having a hard time in the beginning trying to use so much red, BUT, it only gave me the opportunity to show you just how "loose" your inspiration can be. So without many more words, here is the piece I worked up: 

The base is an old piece of music note ephemera. I prepped it with two coats of clear gesso. This not only sealed the paper, but also made a sturdier primed base for me to work on top of.

Then I dove right in with some mark making using found objects (in this case, a recycled bangle) and some Golden fluid acrylic. A bit of water and working around in the background gave me this washed look.

Then there's a bit of dripping and dropping and some journaling with a fine liner.

After I had the background complete I got to work on the middle of the circle with some beautiful Golden Fluid Acrylics in Magenta and Orange. Using my fingers, the two colors and a tiny bit of water I worked up the bright bold red I was looking for. I finished everything off with the most important piece... the winged sentiment. I stamped Her Wings Were Made Of in archival ink by Ranger on watercolor paper. I trimmed it apart and glued it down with Matte Medium. Then I was done! :) 

Now stop on over to the Mood Board post and link up to win!

May Challenge

Hello Stampers!! Time to get started on entries for our MAY CHALLENGE.

We had some LOVELY entries for last month, if you get a chance hop back over and see what everyone did.

Please feel free to enter cards, tags, layouts, altered bits, art journal pages and more! You may draw inspiration from ANY part of our mood board; elephants, Mary Vogel Lozinak style stamps, Zentangle style, flowers, bold patterns, script, circles, butterflies, stitching, white, teal, inchworm green, coral pink, black and white with a splash, winged things, checkers... you name it!

Don't forget the rules:

-Create a new project based on our inspiration board

-Use at least one (but certainly more if you want) Viva Las VegaStamps! rubber stamps
(We are now allowing competitors stamps to be on your work, but please make VLVS! the focus of the project, thank you.)

-Post it to your blog with a link back to us

-Upload to our linky using your direct blog post link (You may also upload via facebook, flickr or other gallery)

You could win a Project Spotlight post on our blog + some new rubber of course!

And visit us back here tomorrow for some inspiration from Hermine Koster!

An InLinkz Link-up

April Challenge

Bring on SUMMER!!!

Meet us back here next week this time to see the winner from our March Challenge. A LOT of goodness was entered!

April's Mood Board:

Draw inspiration from anything on our board, windmills and like architecture, April showers, flowers, umbrellas, polka dots, yellow, scene stamping and more!

Don't forget the rules:

-Create a new project based on our inspiration board

-Use at least one (but certainly more if you want) Viva Las VegaStamps! rubber stamps (please no competitor stamps on your entries)

-Post it to your blog with a link back to us

-Upload to our linky using your direct blog post link (You may also upload via facebook, flickr or other gallery)

You could win a Project Spotlight post on our blog + some new rubber of course!

And visit us back here tomorrow for some inspiration from Tera Callihan!

An InLinkz Link-up