Wednesday Stamper- Blue

This week's Wednesday Stamper theme is blue, which is one of my favourite colours, and I immediately knew what I wanted to do. Well, this is almost what I had planned. This is a new stamp from Non Sequitur, and I was planning to get complicated and heat emboss, watercolour, and generally phaff about. I stamped the image first of all, to check how much pressure I needed etc (this is a huge stamp!) and... I love it plain! It almost feels like cheating, to just stamp an image in one colour, but how could I improve on the beautiful design. If you click on it you will see there are loads of tiny dots, it is very detailed.
I did mess around with the background, it is the usual craft mat/water technique, only this time I sprinkled on some Perfect Pearls before spritzing with water. It has created drifts of subtle shimmer, a bit like a clouded sky in the moonlight.
Sadly my camera is not too happy with blue tones, and every photo I took came out turquoise! The actual card is a much darker blue. I found that if I tilt my laptop screen away from me, the colour is perfect!
The swirl stamps are also Non Sequitur, the silvery ones are stamped with Versamark and brushed with Perfect Pearls. The main image is matted onto some pearlescent and plain cardstocks, and I added a navy blue ribbon. Oh, and the stamping and background were done with Nick Bantock Dye Ink in Prussian Blue, just like my hands last night!

Guess which challenge I've been doing!

Nick Bantock Dye Ink in Prussian Blue, plus Perfect Pearls. Yummy!

Think Monday, Think ATC- Metal

I have taken a couple of weeks off from doing challenges, as I felt like I was stretching myself a bit thin. I don't know why, but now the weather has turned more Autumnal, I feel like my energy has been renewed. So here is my entry to this week's TMTA, the theme for which is 'metal'.
The background of the ATC is the one I made before using the tape-lifted text technique, which was then coloured with alcohol inks. I stamped on it using a maple leaf stamp from Cherry Pie Art Stamps and black Stazon. When I made the background, I had also used the alcohol inks to colour some acetate. I stamped and embossed the acetate using the leaf stamp and gold embossing powder, and cut out the top half of the leaf. I layered this over the background to get a more intense colour, and added the leaf brads (Dovecraft, I think) and the corner embellishment.
It has turned out very textural again, but I like it! Autumn, I'm ready for you!

Scrapping some photos!

I have taken so many photos over the last year or so, and every time I download them onto my laptop I think "That will make a great layout!". Of course, I tend to spend my craft time stamping, as I just love playing with inks, but I have finally bitten the bullet and done a page. And there is stamping on here, honestly!
This page is in the 8 1/2 x 11" landscape format, to go in my new Papermania album. The cardstock is Bazzil, and the patterned papers are Junkitz and Basic Grey. The chipboard letters are Making Memories, painted with orange acrylic paint then stamped with my Judikins circles cube. I had to paint over the stamping with a couple of coats of acrylic, then I added Glossy Accents to make the balls effect. The metal letter brads were black inside the letters, I used a Sakura Stardust pen to go over the black, and used a punched heart over a 'v' (I figured it wouldn't be missed!). Anything else was from my stash, which I really have to use before I get anything new!
I enjoyed doing this layout. I have always struggled a bit with 12" x 12", as it is not an instinctive shape to design around. After all, most magazines, books, and paintings are rectangular! I can see myself doing some more pages soon, I have got a whole album to fill!

Better Late Than Never.

These are three ATCs I made for a swap at UK Stampers. The theme was 'image transfers', and I had originally started with an Autumnal theme in mind with this background here. For various reasons, this didn't happen (yet- I still plan to complete this!) and I found myself with limited time, having to do these ATCs with no clue as to what to do! I had a catalogue of beautiful rose images to play with, and no inspiration. But somehow, it all came together, and although I could do better, I think these are OK! They are quite textural, rather than detailed, but do fit with my idea of faded images.
I started with cream hammered card-stock, and stamped the flower (Inkadinkadoo) in Brilliance Inks in Pearlescent purple and crimson, plus a pink pigment ink. Then I coated the card with Windsor and Newton Matt Medium ( which is a gel medium) and added some torn pieces of cream mulberry paper for texture. Then I added my cut-out rose images (from David Austin's rose catalogue, the pictures are beautiful and I can recommend their roses!) to the coated card, face down, and burnished them hard on the back. I then left them overnight to dry, and in the morning rubbed the back with a wet finger until all of the paper came away and I was left with a transparent image of the roses. The transfers were better in some places than others, which fits my idea here, but I will practice for next time! I decided to coat the piece with a gloss medium as it gave the transfers a better finish, then I stamped my Hero Arts script stamp in Ancient Page Sandlewood and distressed the edges. I used Brilliance Crimson on the edges, and finally sprayed with a matt varnish to take the shine down a little.
I think I was surprised at how transparent the transfers actually are, with hindsight I would have been a bit more careful with where I used the Brilliance Crimson, as it overwhelms the images a bit. It was an interesting technique to play with, but I need to experiment more and plan better.
If you want to see some good examples of image transfers, try Carrie and Julie's blogs, they both really know how to work with this artform!

My crafting space.

I thought I ought to show part of what I was doing last week, so you can see I really was busy! This used to be my dining room, a small but pretty room with an Italian Rennaissance theme going on, and not too much furniture (and a beautiful rug!) No more! My craft stuff used to be in the living room, which is now the baby's play area. So now we have a craft room/dining room, and I love it! It's still quite cluttered, as I haven't really finished yet, but every drawer is sorted and categorised so that I can instantly find anything I need!
On the right is my collection of unmounted stamps in their CD cases (all of the CD cases on the left contain- Cd's! We have far too many!). They are organised into manufacturer, plate, and theme, but I still have to label the cases. The tall unit next to that holds all of my card and embellishments. One of those drawers is full of ribbon, sorted by colour. I love to just look through it sometimes! The plastic drawer unit holds my paints, inks, and glues. I can just about fit my ink collection in one drawer at the moment, but only because they are neatly stacked. My mounted stamps are in the top drawer, again, they only fit because they are tidy. The drawer is pretty full! My patterned paper is in the plastic case, and my drawing pads are above that. It doesn't look like too much paper when you see it like this, but it is five years worth of stash!
The second picture is my precious button tin. It was given to me when I was young when an elderly relative died, and the buttons in it are pretty old. Occasionally I will use one, but mostly I like to look at the colours and shapes for inspiration. I strung them by type and colour onto lengths of wool when I was in my teens, I have always been obsessed with categorising things!
The last picture is a portfolio which is full of items I have kept or bought to alter. I had better get busy, as there are about twenty things in there! There are a few metal tins, some mini-books, canvasses, a clip frame, some baskets, and a Camembert box! Enough to keep me going for quite a while!
Last night I was *still* sorting, but it is now finished enough that I can do a project. I just have to decide what! After a week off, I don't know where to begin...

Absent for a while- back now!

I don't know what happened to last week! It was a bit manic, starting with the idea of re-arranging our living room space, and ending up with a *lot* of DIY. Unfortunately, my craft space was the casualty in this instance, as firstly everything got piled on the table, then our old TV got stored in the room for a few days. For those with flatscreens, just remind yourself how *huge* an old CRT 32" TV really is! But it's all under control now, and tonight I should be able to craft, which is good as I have some ATCs due for a swap, not to mention half-finished dominoes and backgrounds lurking around.
The best thing is that the baby now has more space, we have a fab new TV, and I am all fired up and ready to stamp!