My camera doesn't like black... UK Stampers CJ entry

This is Jean's journal, and I wasn't surprised when I saw the interesting page shape and the Zettiology stamp. I loved the stamp straight away, but did take my time deciding what to do with her. Early in the month I knew I wanted to use my Cherry Pie art doll, but it was so much bigger than the page. Then a song came on the radio and that was it... listen here:

Shame the camera doesn't pick up the details- I used a lot of interference mica powders in the background to create a sort-of psychedelic wallpaper effect. The lyrics to the opening verse are written around the door, and in the mini-envelope is the key to the door!

Colour: Versafine, Paint Dabbers, lots of black ep, Moonglow ep, Stickles, Stardust pen, gold paint, Stazon, Ranger white pen, Cosmic Shimmer/Perfect Pearls, Sharpie pen
Stamps: Zetti (head), Cherry Pie (art doll and flourish)
Other: Funky foam (to create the niche behind the door), Grungeboard door furniture, tiny key from my stash, corrugated card (for door, flattened using Cuttlebug)

Bottlecap swap- a few of my favourite things...

I really got carried away making this little piece for the February altered art swap on UK Stampers. Good job too; the standard was really high, as ever, so I would have been embarrassed if I hadn't gone that extra mile! I used all of my favourite techniques and products :)

Colour: Alcohol inks, Stickles, Distress Inks, Versafine, Sakura clear stardust pen, Opals UTEE in black and gold, Perfect Pearls
Stamps: Cherry Pie
Other: Two bottlecaps (flattened with a hammer and a block of wood), sheer ribbon, adhesive metal tape, Cuttlebug and embossing folder, buttons, Krafty Lady art mould, Melt Pot, Papermania adhesive gem

(If you can read the words, they are from Twelfth Night- another of my favourite things!)

February Inchies- Oriental

You may realise this week that I have downloaded the contents of my camera, and am now trying to blog it all! This is my inchie swap for this month, and Sid gave us the theme of Oriental. Recently, I have been rifling through my scraps drawers before I start any new project, and this time I found a scrap of background paper that I made for my first Bind-it-all project in July 2007. It's nice to recycle :)

Colour: Nick Bantock inks, Perfect Pearls, Versafine, Versamagic (stamped into clay)
Stamps: Paperartsy (Buddha), Non Sequitur (chop)
Other: Das air-dry clay, red embroidery thread, black card

Faux sea-glass no. 2

This is yet another present for a friend, and spookily, the day I handed it over, it co-ordinated with what she was wearing!

Colour: Dee Greunig blending blox, distress inks, versamark, Perfect Pearls, Paint Dabbers
Stamps: Elusive Images
Other: Stampbord, UTEE, Crop-a-dile.

Last of the Christmas Pressies- wax canvases

Well, this is it, the last of my Christmas present photos! (I still have some more photos, but they are not from my mammoth present-making session). This is a triptych of small canvases- 4" x 5" and 5" x 5"- and is my first go with beeswax. I coated the canvases with beeswax and then ironed the image on and added more beeswax to blend. Then I dusted the canvases with a mixture of Perfect Pearls and Cosmic Shimmer mica powders to tint them- the effect reminds me of a picture I had when I was young which seemed to be printed on mother-of-pearl. I am not entirely happy with them as I would probably have added more elements and stamping, but as a first attempt, they are OK!

PS The photo was originally taken a couple of years ago with a dodgy old 1.2mp compact camera, and is of my nearest beach at Hayling Island- here is the original:

I wish we had light like that every day!

Happy new year everyone :D

Stampbord necklace- two techniques!

After I got my lovely new Melt Pot, the first thing I did was go onto Youtube to look for tutorials. I was delighted to find loads from Suze Weinberg herself! This necklace was inspired by a tutorial of hers, showing paper beads dipped in UTEE (different from the Leandra bead which uses lots of layers of UTEE), and another tutorial by Suze Weinberg with Julia Andrus, author of 'Paper Transformed', which showed a way of making faux sea-glass. I used the sea-glass technique to make the pendant, but used Stampbord instead of glass as the base- it still looks good to me! The beads were made using the Melt Pot, but I have in the past used Glossy Accents instead of UTEE, which worked as well but was more time consuming. I love these two techniques, and you will be seeing them again!

Here's Faux Sea Glass:



And here's the UTEE bead:

All of my Christmas cards

This is all of the cards sent this year (minus a couple I forgot to photograph). The stamps are all Paperartsy and Cherry Pie, and I used all of my favourite products and techniques on them. Thanks for looking!

UK Stampers ATC's for October- Newest Stamps.

I realise these photos all seem to be taken at a really odd angle, but since these ATCs were all painted with a mixture of Perfect Pearls, Cosmic Shimmer and Stickles, I wanted to show the effect. My newest stamps at the time the theme was set were a set by ISC, which you may have seen on many other blogs- that face stamp is so beautiful that lots of stampers have it and use it well! It was nice to play around with effects, and I deliberately kept these simple, using straightforward stamping for a change! Don't worry, though, I have signed up for another CJ at UK Stampers, so expect to see me get carried away at least once a month!

Colour: Versamagic, Versafine, Cosmic Shimmer powders, Perfect Pearls (both used as paint), Stickles, Aurora ep, Stazon
Stamps: ISC
Other: Vellum printed with script (used for butterflies)

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.

4" x 4" page and charm

Someone I know from UK Stampers has been very sick, in hospital, for some months. She became ill with a very rare disease (not cancer) a few months into our CJ, and has only just reached the point of having one short day out of hospital. She has a very good friend, Sarah, who has organised a way of us stampers saying 'we miss you- get well soon', which is a charm bracelet with each of us making a charm, plus a 4" x 4" page which will show her who made which charm. I am not a jewelry maker, although I love playing with shrink plastic, and I definitely love working on 4" x 4" pages!

Colour: Glimmer Mists, Distress Inks, Perfect Pearls, Brilliance Inks, copper embossing powder, Stickles, Moonshadow Mist, Paint Dabbers
Stamps: Elusive Images
Other: Caught in crystal background (click on the word in my label cloud for more on this), acetate, old book page, florist's wire, Papermania jewelled brad, Sizzix tag die, Crackle Accents, Cuttlebug embossing folder, semi-precious gemstone beads (sorry, I have forgotten what they are!), jewelry findings, shrink plastic.

The panel on the top of the page is inspired by Arts and Crafts ceramics, and the Cuttlebug panel is my version of faux aged copper. It looks even better in real life!

The original inspiration for this charm project is here. Scroll down the page and you will find it near the end. What a great idea; Thank you.

ATCs- Children

This month's 3 for 3 swap on UK Stampers had a theme which most people jumped at, but I found quite hard: children. I am not a brilliant collage artist, and don't have a lot of children-y stamps, so I ended up buying a new stamp. I love these two little cowboys, and I can see this image being handy at birthday and party invite time; it's nice to find something arty and yet also suitable for children!

Colour: Distress Inks, Perfect Pearls (sprayed)
Stamps: Crafty Individuals, Studio G and PSX (alphabets)

My trick-of-the-day for these ATCs was to tap the edge of a rough old plastic ruler into my ink pads and then use it to add the 'scratches' to grunge up the work. I'm sure it's not a new idea, but it impressed my husband!

Cherry Pie Altered Noticeboard

I have had yet another move around in my craft area, this time adding a desk with a hutch arrangement on top- the kind most people use for their computers. There is a lot more storage, and I finally had a little bit of space to display my favourite ATCs and other items received from other stampers. This was a really simple project to do, and the last photograph shows all of my current inspiration! Click on the photo for a close-up.

Colour: Versafine, Distress Crackle paint, Perfect Pearls, silver embossing powder, Distress Ink
Stamps: Cherry Pie
Other: Calico fabric, satin ribbon, Papermania jewel brads.

I drew the diamonds onto the calico before stamping, and used post-it notes to mask off where I was stamping. The frame was painted with crackle paint, wiped over with Distress Ink, then dusted with Perfect Pearls whilst the ink was still wet. The stars were heat embossed on the calico, but the effect was a bit disappointing. It works best on the silk!

PS The card in the top right hand corner is from my best friend and scrapping buddy, Vicky. I love it!

UK Stampers are doing Sunday challenges!

I know there are a lot of challenges out there, but it never hurts to have another choice! UK Stampers is now doing a challenge each Sunday, and the challenge is being set by Efemera, otherwise known as Gail, whose work you will have seen in last month's Craft Stamper. We have done two challenges so far. The first was to make something with your oldest and newest stamps. I used the bright card I made for my friend Vicky as the example of my newest stamps (those Inkadinkado flowers), and the top photo here is what I made with my oldest stamp, the Personal Impressions snowflake. I bought it in 1998, and used it originally to make that year's Christmas cards, before putting it away and forgetting about it. Using it again, on the triptych ATC, made me realise how pretty it is, and I may even use it this year for my cards!
The second challenge was to make two Oriental-themed tags, one in colour and one black and white. I found this really challenging, as I don't really 'do' oriental, even though I have a gorgeous set from Non Sequitur. I started by making some stamped paper, then I got so inspired by it that I made a little origami box! (The design for this is from CraftTV Weekly, although I made it smaller this time. Here is the last one I made) I then remembered to make the tags, and I quite like them. I think the black and white one is better, and my Husband likes the red. You decide!

Colour: ATC- alcohol inks, Stazon, silver embossing powder, Tags- Distress Inks, Vivid inks (to colour paper), Brilliance, Perfect Pearls (brushed on and made into a paint), watercolour pencils
Stamps: ATC- Personal Impressions, Non Sequitur, Tags- Non Sequitur, Judikins
Other: Japanese paper, free origami paper downloads from Canon, red card, gold card.

The kimonos were created by paper piecing, using the origami designs. The origami downloads were printed out at half size, so that the proportion was correct for the kimonos, and the Japanese paper was embossed with clear embossing powder to make it go transparent to give the look of a screen.

A Present For a Friend- Part 1 of 3

I have had a couple of weeks of making presents for friends, luckily the ones who appreciate hand-stamped. This is a little wallhanging for a friend, and I sent it late as I didn't want to send any old stamped thing! All three of these pressies use the same Elusive Images sayings stamps- I can't stop using them!

Colour: Distress Inks, Glimmer Mist, Perfect Pearls, Paint Dabbers, Versafine
Stamps: Tanda, Paperartsy, Elusive Images
Other: Mountboard, metal tape, acetate, piece from necklace, leather thong, silk dupion, Glossy Accents

The shimmer on the stamping was created by swirling Perfect Pearls onto an image stamped with Distress Ink- not when it's too wet, but before it dries. The beads were made using long thin triangles of the silk, wetting them with Glossy Accents, then winding them tightly around a cocktail stick- exactly like making paper beads.

I will try to blog all of the other projects I have been making soon- I have such a backlog of photos as I have been too busy creating!

Canvas Tag Swap

These three tags are for a swap I am in on UK Stampers. I haven't joined in with any swaps recently, due to other commitments. I signed up for this one with only a week and a bit before they were due back. Well, I was inspired by working on the canvas, and I did the tags the day I received them. I was supposed to do two, but got carried away and did three! As you can see from the photos I basically used the same design for each one, but I used different techniques on each. I have added the 'recipe' below each photograph.


Stamps: Crafty Individuals (Flower), Paperartsy (Swirls), Stampin' Up (Bird)
Colour: Distress Inks re-inkers sprayed on using mini-misters, Moonglow moonshadow mist, Versafine Sepia, Sakura Stardust pen used with waterbrush, Twinkling H20's, Distress Inks (for stamping swirls)
Embellishments: Meiflower butterfly, Embelliscrap swirl.

For this tag, I sprayed on the colour and dried with a heat gun, before spraying with the Moonshadow mist and drying again. I stamped the swirls for the background, then sprayed with a matte acrylic varnish. I stamped the flower onto tissue, then attached to the tag using the same spray varnish, smothing it down with my fingers. I coloured the flower with the Stardust pen and H20s, sprayed the embelliscrap with the Moonshadow mist, and added the bird and butterfly.


Stamps: Crafty Individuals and Paperartsy, as before
Colour: Ranger Alcohol Inks, Moonshadow mist, Perfect Pearls, Versafine Onyx black, Distress Ink (sprayed), Sakura Stardust pen
Embellishments: Lampshade trim from my stash (I've had it since the '70's!), Star jewels from Hobbycraft

This tag was coloured with alcohol inks before spraying with the moonshadow mist. The alcohol inks really make this bead up and form tiny droplets, which give a great sparkle when dry. I then stamped the swirls in Versamark and added Perfect Pearls in copper and gold. The flower image was stamped on a piece of white card which had been sprayed with Distress Inks and Moonshadow mist, and the flower head was coloured in with the Stardust pen.


Stamps: As above plus Inkadinkado butterfly stamp
Colour: Adirondack Paint Dabbers, Distress Inks, Moonshadow Mist, Brilliance, Sakura Stardust pen, H20s
Embellishments: Lace, coloured using H20s, button from my button box

This final tag (actually the first one I made!) was coloured using Paint Dabbers, before spraying with the Moonshadow mist. The swirls were stamped with Distress Inks, and the flower done as before, except the flower head was coloured with H20s. I stamped the butterfly using Brilliance, then went over it with Stardust pen.

The Moonshadow mist is a walnut Ink with Mica powder added, and the one I have is a turquoise colour. It is good to add an antique look, but really comes into its own when sprayed over a toning colour, as in the tags here. It probably doesn't show well on the photos, but I will try to take some better photos at the weekend, so you can get the full effect!

Petra's CJ.

This is my first ever entry in someone else's journal! If you recall, I am in a circle journal with 9 other people from UK Stampers, and the idea is that we send a journal around with an unmounted stamp, and everyone does an entry with that stamp. Well, this is Petra's journal, and she has chosen a journal made of envelopes and tags. Each player decorates an envelope, then uses Petra's stamp on the tag. Petra's stamp is a sort of hippy-chick from Time to Stamp, quite a challenging one really! First of all, it made me think of 'Hair', then I started to think about 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' by the Beatles. Hence the colours etc! (Check out the 3rd photo for the lyrics if you need an explanation).
The envelope is covered in paper made using the usual water/craft mat/Distress Ink technique. The diamond stamps are by Limited Edition, and the swirl stamp is from Paperartsy. The 'tangerine tree' is done using stamps from Aud Design, and the 'cellophane flowers' are also Aud Design. They are yellow and green, coloured with alcohol inks, but didn't photograph well.
The tag inside was inspired by those star charts, which show the night sky as a join-the-dots picture to explain the constellations. After sponging on some distress inks, I used Field of Sky to stamp on my stars in silver, then used Petra's stamp with Versamark and clear holographic embossing powder. As you can see from the photo, when you tilt the tag the image of the woman becomes clear, tilt it back and she's invisible!
I'm up to my eyeballs in birthday cards again, I have three to do this week. Then I have a flurry in January, and that's it for a while! I think that in February I need to sit down and make a few, so I'm not always playing catch-up. But I did take the time to make some arty ATCs for UK Stampers. I got really inky and pricked my fingertips (I used hand-sewing on them!), but afterwards I felt really good. Sometimes you just need to go where your muse takes you, it's really therapeutic. I forgot to take photos, though, sorry!

Perfect Pearls class for 2 peas Stamptoberfest.

I don't know if you remember, but 2Peas' stamping board staged a very successful weekend event called World Stamping Weekend. Well, this time you have a week to get involved and have some fun! There are loads of challenges and classes, and this is one of them.

In this class, I am going to demonstrate my three favourite techniques using Perfect Pearls. The challenge part for you is to use all of those techniques on one piece! The RAK for the best piece is a bag of ribbons and embellishments which I promise to photograph tomorrow! Judging will take place next Saturday, and all entries must be in the 2Peas gallery and have SOF Pearls in the title. Here is the thread to link to. Click on any of the photos for a closer look!

Note: I have used Perfect Pearls here. From what I have read, the difference between PP and other powders is that PP contains a gum that acts as a fixative. So if you are using other brands, just remember to use a spray fixative or varnish.

Stage one- Creating a background.

This is the Craft mat/ Distress Ink technique with a little added Perfect Pearls. You could also use Nick Bantock Dye Ink in the same way. Or feel free to play with whatever you have! Be warned, this technique is messy and you will get inky fingers. It’s all in a days stamping!

You will need:

Distress Ink or other dye ink (not water resistant!)

Perfect Pearls

Craft mat, cutting mat or other plastic surface

Water in a spray mister

Small paintbrush

Smooth watercolour paper or card

1. On your craft mat (or other plastic surface) dab your ink pad(s) randomly, leaving some gaps. Make sure the area you cover is a little bigger than your chosen paper.
2. Use a dry paintbrush to get a little powder and flick it over the inked craft mat. I like to have a few little ‘drifts’, to give a more obvious effect.
3. Spritz your craft mat with water until there are tiny even beads of water/ink visible.
4. Place your paper on the wet, inky mat, and move it around a little. Lift the edge and check the coverage. If there are any gaps, then put it down again and move it around some more.
5. Put the paper to one side to dry. You can use a heat gun if you are impatient!

Now for the next part…

Stage two- adding pattern

This is a really simple stage (isn’t it all?!) to add some pattern to your background paper. You will need to make sure your paper is really dry, as the powder will cling to any moisture.

You will need:

Versamark

Perfect Pearls

A small paintbrush

A soft brush ie. a blusher brush, or a dry tissue/cotton wool.

A stamp with a swirl-type pattern

1. Ink up your chosen stamp with Versamark
2. Stamp it onto your background paper to create a pattern.
3. Using the small paintbrush, generously dust on some Perfect Pearls. You can use more than one colour and blend if you like. If you swirl the brush around as you go, you can move the powder along the design so as not to waste it.
4. Blow off the excess powder.
5. Using either the soft brush or a piece of tissue, gently rub all over the design to take off any unwanted powder. This also sets and polishes the powder.

And now for the last part…

Stage three- Adding your design

This last stage utilises something I found out by accident, and creates a two-tone effect.

You will need:

Distress Ink or similar in a darker colour

Perfect Pearls

A small paintbrush

A soft brush or tissue/cotton wool

A stamp!

1. Stamp your design in Distress Ink or other.
2. When it is nearly dry, add some powder. Swirl it around with your brush, it doesn’t have to be really even.
3. Brush off as in stage two.

And this is the finished piece... All stamps by Cherry Pie.