Twelve Tags of 2015 ~ April

Ha ha ! It's only April 19th and I'm posting my Tim Tag for his Twelve Tags of 2015 Challenge. This is positively early for me! This was yet another fun tag to make, I'm really not sure how Tim keeps coming up with these unique ideas every month. Although I've stuck closely to Tim's original tag, which you can see here, I had to do a fair bit of improvising and that was great because I was able to use my stuff ! Firstly I cut the tag using Kraft card and my Tag and Book Plate die. I haven't got the lovely Adventures Word Blocks dies, but I have got the Holiday Words block dies from last Christmas. There were actually several words I could have used from this set but I decided on using the word 'Earth'. Luckily for me I have got Tim's beautiful Flower Garden stamps. I went for a vintage look by stamping on some rust spots using a stamp from my 'most inked set' of Bitty Grunge stamps. I used my Pazzles machine to die cut the word 'beautiful' and just as I was threading the dyed seam binding through the tag, I glanced down on my rather messy craft table and in a little container of bits and bobs, I noticed a Dymo label with the word 'Mother' on it. The perfect finishing touch, 'Beautiful Mother Earth' Too right ! Thanks Tim, with this tag I feel that I've made the 'most out of my products' x

Just a Peek !

Hi everybody I have a new post over on the Stamps and Stencils blog today. As part of what we want to do on the new challenge blog, the design team will be taking it in turns to share what we are calling an 'Inspirational Post'. These posts may be about a specific technique, a product or maybe just a project one of us would like to share with you all. We are absolutely thrilled by the response we have had to the Stamps and Stencils first challenge, there are so many fabulous entries and we are not even half way through the month! Thank you all so very much .
Now,  here's a sneaky peek from the first of our Inspirational Posts, which I am honoured to present to you today. I hope you'll find some time to hop over to the blog and take a look. I should grab a cuppa and a comfy seat first though ! x

Stamps and Stencils ~ Launch day ~ Anything Goes!

Greetings everybody ! The day has finally arrived for the Launch of our new Stamps and Stencils challenge blog.We have the very lovely and talented Sue Carrington to thank for for taking the initiative in coming up with the idea and  putting the blog together. I certainly hope you'll hop over and take a look. We are a monthly, mixed media challenge blog and as the name suggests, we are all about Stamps and Stencils. I think you'll agree these are staples in any crafter's toolkit.  Our first challenge is an 'Anything Goes' and we would love to see what you come up with using stamps, stencils or both ! There's some fabulous inspiration over on the new blog, which you can easily find with this link.
For my contribution, I've made a mixed media canvas with lots of yummy Distress Paint and stencilled embossing paste. I was very fortunate to visit Marrakesh last year and brought back some lovely vintage style postcards which I've been saving to use in a project. As I was going through my stencils, I found one that was perfect for a Moroccan styled piece. I used the fabulous embossing paste technique used by Tim Holtz on his March tag to create the background for this beautiful group of musicians.

As with most of the canvasses I make, I covered the background with various book pages, I think it's psychological, getting rid of the blank space! I then painted on some vibrant Distress Paint colours and allowed the colours to marble together, with a little help from a water spray. The new colours that Tim has introduced are exactly the colours you see everywhere in Marrakesh. Many of the buildings are the colour of Abandoned Coral, with paint work in Mermaid Lagoon and Cracked Psitachio, Quite uncanny, I wonder if Tim's been over there, Ha ha !

I used one of Tim's Damask stamps, with Archival ink and stamped onto a tissue.

I applied this to the canvas using lots of Matte Glue and Seal. I also applied embossing paste through the stencil and while the paste was still wet, heat embossed with gold and blue embossing powder. and heated to activate. I just love the effect this gives!

To make the damask patterns stand out a little more, I doodled around them with a gold pen. I also added some stamping with a French script stamp. Instead of using the original postcard, I scanned it to my computer and printed it to a size which just fitted inside the oval shape I'd already die cut in an embossed Cameo Frame, which had been in my 'unfinished stash'. I find that it's always worth looking through my unfinished  stash  when I'm  piecing something together, I often find something that's just right. After mounting the framed picture on dimensional pads, I used a Stabilo black pencil and water brush to add a little shadow underneath the frame. It just adds a little bit of depth. The flower are Ideaology metal ones which, i painted with Distress Paints, I love that faux enamel look.

So there you have it! my first post for the new Stamps and Stencils blog, I hope you've enjoyed it. I look forward to seeing you over there. Come on! dust off those Stamps and Stencils and let us see your fabulous creations ! Full details of how to join in are over on the Stamps and Stencils blog. x