October's Inchie swap

These are my nine inchies for Sid's swap over on UK Stampers forum. I think I have gone all primitive and textural! The theme was Autumn, and I started by rooting around in my offcuts drawer, looking for inspiration. It came in the form of a piece of Caught in Crystal I made last year, for Isa's alpha challenge. Instead of using it as an element, I decided to use it as the base for the inchies- you can see from the top photo that they are transparent. What you can't really see from the photos is that I stamped a Paperartsy swirl, and used Perfect Pearls on it- it's clear enough in real life, but didn't photograph at all well. I may try and take a new photo in the morning, at a strange angle, but otherwise you will have to imagine how gorgeous it looks!

Colour: Glimmer Mist, Paint Dabber, Distress Inks, Alcohol Inks, Perfect Pearls
Stamp: Paperartsy
Other: Caught in Crystal background (click on the label in my sidebar for more info), Making Memories metal shim, old book page, mulberry paper, leaf punch, embossing tool.

Slide Mailer Swap

I have started to host an altered art swap each month on UKStampers forum, and this is my entry for the first one. I have found myself drawn much more to altered work recently, to the extent that I can barely convince myself to make a card! I love to get inky, and to stamp on unusual surfaces, and altering just seems so much more 'from the heart' for me. I am trying to find a way to incorporate this sort of work into cardmaking, but it will take some experimentation before I feel I have found my style for cards. So here is a lovely altered slide mailer as my first piece.

Colour: H2Os on body of mailer, Caught in crystal behind acetate tag and slide
Stamps: Tanda (Peacock), Rubadubadoo (Peacock feathers)
Other: Sizzix tag, Siver detail embossing powder, Cosmic Shimmer arctic pearl embossing powder, Silk dupion fabric, acetate, Papermania jewel brad, beads and ribbon from my stash.
Techniques: 'Peacock' word printed from computer onto acetate, then heat embossed, Peacock design heat embossed onto silk fabric, back of mailer embossed with arctic pearl powder.

This swap took place in May (slide show is here), and June's swap was an altered Pringles tube. July's swap is about to be posted, so if you are interested, head on over to UKStampers, and sign up!

Klimt inspired tags

Here is my entry for Isa's weekly challenge. I think you will recognise the background! I decided to kill 3 birds with one stone, so this also fulfills the 'Define your space' challenge on UK Stampers, and is the first step toward changing the artwork in my dining room (now also my crafting space) from an Italian Rennaissance theme to Gustav Klimt. It's really because of the baby, from an early age he has been obsessed with my prints of 'The Kiss' and 'Tree of Life', staring at them and smiling (I think it's because of the graphic swirls, not because he is cultured!). So we are now getting a huge copy of 'Tree of life' for the dining room, and I am going to make labels for all of my craft storage drawers.
First challenge. Isa set as this weeks challenge the letter 'C', with additional options of using only tags, and no brown ink. I was inspired by her example piece, of three tags, and wanted to make a piece where the layers are individually nice, but look best when hung together.
Second challenge. I think the title 'Define your space' says it all. It was the option of a label, a mini-book, or a name plate for our working space or equipment. I think this qualifies!
The bottom layer is gold card stamped with Stazon, with some areas emphasised with black pen. The next layer is the caught in crystal background, stamped with Brilliance ink in Mineral. The third layer has a piece of caught in crystal stamped with Stazon, and gold embossing, the fourth has some lettering printed from the computer, some stamped , and backed with gold Krylon pen, plus silver embossing and some gems. The last is as the 3rd, stamped around the top edge with Ranger perfect medium, and Perfect pearls from the Metalics set added. All except the bottom tag were made with transparency for the computer, and they were all edged with gold Krylon. Stamps are all Cherry Pie, apart from the PSX alphabet.
Sorry, long winded explanation, but there was a lot going on in this piece!

Caught in Crystal background.

This is what I was waiting for last night. I did do two pages in my mini-book (the name badge album) to fill in the time, but now I can get on with this.
I love the effects you can acheive with this technique. For those who have never heard of this, it involves acetate, 'Klear' floor wax (called 'Future' in the USA), alcohol inks, glitter or other sparkly things to sprinkle on (I love Ranger's Perfect Pearls), and crumpled tissue paper. I followed an excellent tutorial on Sid's blog , it is so well written, it's hard to go wrong. The most difficult part of this is being patient and waiting until it is properly dry before trying to look at the finished piece: alcohol ink stains are hard to get clean!
The two photos are of the same piece, as it is transparent, the backing paper affects the colour. The first photo uses a gold background, and the second a white background. I think I will use the gold in my finished work, as I like the rich effect. I used Airondack inks in Red Chilli, eggplant, and Terracotta, and Perfect pearls in Metallics.
Try this- it's great!