Simply alter the original.... by zuzu.

Hi again.
So here i am back with more messed up, scruffy, distressed, aged, vintage looking stuff. I dont manage clean, colourful or stylish very well lol.
Its a little canvas... I think it measures abut 4 inches across and six inches high... roughly.

I have been obsessed with tearing bits of paper out and revealing text or something underneath for about 6 years.. i really must move on LOL. but i do like it. it reminds me of peeling old wallpaper that shows the last tenants wallpaper underneath.

i have used the man from the collage stamp set as the centre piece.

I covered the canvas in book pages first, then layered some scrapbook paper over the top (tearing some peeled wallpaper type tears as i went). the next step is sort of inspired by two folks; one is Trish Latimer who made a gorgeous layout a few weeks back and the other is Ali Ferguson, a textile artist who i did a class with in the summer. inspired by, but looking nothing like .. lol... i didnt have soft enough colours in my box of sprays or my scrapbook papers, so mine is yet again dark and dingy.
I glued on lace and fabric and embellishments and once they were dry a slapped a load of gesso over everything. when the gesso was dry i sprayed some spray mists over the whole thing (before adding my stamped image).
my finishing touches were added by using brown ink and gold gilt paste around the edges to add that vintage look.

AS Supplies Used:

collage stamp HERE

embellishments HERE
multi medium and gesso HERE
Chit chat stickers HERE

Beside The Seaside by Alison

Hello Stampers! I've just returned from a wonderful week's holiday on the Greek island of Corfu, & while I was lying on the beach, watching the sun sparkling on the sea, I was inspired to make this canvas.

On a 5 x 5 inch canvas, I used Claudine Hellmuth Studio paints to create my background. I painted in a few waves & birds, then dotted some Glossy Accents on the sea & sprinkled on some glass glitter.

I recently spotted a recipe for fake sand in a magazine, using a couple of teaspoons of clear ultra thick embossing enamel, a little bit of heirloom gold Perfect Pearls, & some Glossy Accents to bind it together. 

I spread the 'sand' onto the bottom of the canvas, then whilst it was still wet, I added some beads & shrink plastic shells. The shell images are from the Beside The Seaside plate, & I stamped them onto cream shrink plastic, before cutting them out & shrinking them with a heat gun.

I also made some shrink plastic beach umbrellas using the image from the Seaside No. 1 plate, then glued them to the 'beach' with Glossy Accents.

I stamped the phrase from the Beside The seaside plate onto cream paper, cut out the words, inked them with vintage photo Distress Ink, then glued them onto the 'sky'.

To finish, I added some blue glass glitter & beads to the top edge of the canvas, & a wooden fish to the 'sea'. 

Thanks for looking,

Alison xox

Emily is Bored by Trish Latimer

Hi everyone! Trish Latimer here with my first of three projects this month. I am so excited to be part of the team as guest designer, and can't wait to show you some of my creations using Jennie's stamps and products! So, first up is this.......

A colourful, quirky frame! Lots of lovely messy paint, and plenty of stamps... Here is a quick step by step to give you an idea of how to create one of your own.
I like to work on a white base, so I've used gesso to cover a deep paper mache frame :

Of course you can leave the papier mache as it is, should you want the vintage, brown look in your piece!
Next, get the paints out! Smear the whole thing with Landscape Green and Sky Blue (by Claudine Hellmuth) and then print and stencil using bottle tops and sequin waste. I've also used a bit of Blank Canvas paint as white is a great highlight colour. Stamp using a Calligraphy Mat and elements from the Swirls Splats and Dots plate. Something like this.....

Once this base is totally dry, add in some detailed stamped images. As the frame isn't flat, and we want the stamping to go around the corners, the only way to do this is to use tissue paper. Stamp Open Sequin Waste, Random Dots and Grid Background onto white tissue using black ink, then heat to set. Tear the tissue and adhere to the base using Mod Podge wet glue. Like this...

You can clearly see all the wet glue on that pic...once the glue dries it will become clear, and the tissue transparent. The aim is for the stamping to look immaculate, even though it goes around corners! Add in some red paint (I've used Dash of Red ) , and some more details using Classic Teal . This will not only add a vibrant accent colour to your work, but will also help to 'blend in' your stamped tissue so it looks part of the piece.

Thats the background done! Using the same paint colours as before, colour some scrap card, then overstamp with Butterflies . Cut out, then adhere a coil of wire to the back using hot glue.

The hot glue gun now becomes your best friend! Attach all the coils to the base of the frame, and put a tiny piece of card (shaped like grass) at the front to hide the glue!

I've used a digital collage image as my fairy, adding in some wings from a painted butterfly as before...

Finally, I typed a quirky quote, then printed it off and stuck it on. This hopefully brings the whole thing together!

I've loved making this as my first piece for you all to share, I hope you like it too! I'll be back later in the month with more....so bye for now!
Love, Trish

'Sew' Far 'Sew' Good by Nicky Cresswell

Hello my stamping pals

Here I am for my last post in august and this time I want to share with you an 8" x 8" canvas.

 I was looking through my stamps and my dressmaking set just spoke to me, so out they came and the fun began.

The canvas already had some kind of primer on it so I got straight into the stamping, which I did directly onto the canvas using coffee coloured archival ink. I used one of my thin acrylic blocks behind where I was stamping to give me a more secure base to push onto.

I think I pretty much used every single stamp for the dressmakers plate, to collage the whole canvas and the sides too..

Then I coloured the canvas with a mix of antique linen and scattered straw distress stains {OMG talk about a quick and easy method to colour something in seconds}

The next thing I did was to cut a Timmy dressform in both mountboard and some wild honey core'dinations, layering it up to fashion an outfit with some added plain seam binding that I coloured with scattered straw distress stain.

 I made a focal backdrop for the dressform with a piece of the sewing paper from the crowded attic pad, I then coated the whole canvas with some studio matte medium and stuck a piece of real dress pattern over the entire surface. Once this was dry I used some more core'dinations that I had run through some of the texture fades pattern and stitch folders and finished with some vintage buttons.

I didn't have any great sewing words or sayings so I hopped online and found a quote I liked then punched it out using my dymo and cut strips of yet more of the core'dinations wild honey. This works great as you can sand the embossed letters to make them pop, and also it matches in with the project perfectly.

And there you have it.. I must admit I had an absolute blast making this {even though the day leading up to it was a mojoless nightmare!} Just goes to show even with no mojo the right stamps can truly inspire you to make something fabulous.

Thanks for stopping by.Until next time..

Stay Inky

Me and My Bear! by Nicky Cresswell

Hello Stampers

Happy weekend to you all

Continuing along with the Mabels this month I have used the large Ah! There you are! image

and made a mini canvas

I stamped my chosen mabel onto some pre-primed canvas using black archival ink, Then I coloured her with distress inks and a koi water brush.

To frame her I used an art part that I stamped with the Stipple background to give it a textured look.

After adding a little wooden tree I finished by stamping one of the phrases from the Travelling words plate onto a Tim Holtz tattered banners diecut.

And there you have it, A sweet little gift to give any Mabel Lucie Attwell fan.

I'll be back on the 17th with another Mabellishious project.

Flying the Flags! by Nicky Cresswell

Hay peeps, Minxy in da house. 

So I hope everyone had a nice long weekend and enjoyed the lovely weather we've been having, Don't worry, it will soon be friday and everyone will have an extra day off for the royal wedding!

People from far and wide will be lining the streets of london to wish the new couple well, and the trees and lamp posts will be lined with lots of flags & bunting! 

And speaking of bunting I made some of my own.

{did you see what I did there, I wasn't just randomly waffling} 

All the flags are made out of canvas and coloured with distress inks, The tops were diecut using Tims on the edge scallops die, I made a template for the scalloped circle and then hand cut them also from canvas.

I coated the chipboard letters with mica paints

***

Flag no.1

 I used punk plaid background, calligraphic text and the lady from the seaside no.1 plate.

***

Flag No.2 

 I used calligraphic mat 1, baroque background and the little boy from the childhood dreams plate. 

***

Flag No.3

 I used sequin waste open, calligraphic mat 12 and the lady from the dressmaking no.1 plate.

***

Flag No.4

 I used calligraphic mat 15, harlequin and the singing guys from the mens plate.

***

Flag No.5

 I used cogs background, calligraphic mat 4 and the little girl with bike from the our little ones elements plate.

***

And here they are all together!

Stay Inky

Changing Seasons Canvas By Sid Haselden

I was honoured to be asked to be Guest Contributing Artist for the month of August in the new Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog. This is the first of my pieces inspired by two of my favourite colours plum and lime. This canvas is mounted on a board back but you could use any canvas or the Claudine Helmuth sticky backed canvas and make your own. I will always provide an ingredient list with links to the Artistic Stamper online store where you can get the goodies needed to make the canvas or one of your own.

Ingredients:

1. Canvas (7 x 9.5 ins)

2. Adirondack Dye inks (Wild Plum and Lettuce)

4. Adirondack Dimensional Pearls Paint (Wild Plum and Lettuce)

5. Martha Stuart punch

6. Glossy Accents

7. Metal plate embellishment

8. White Card

9. Clear UTEE

10. Versamark inkpad

Stamps:

1. Florals plate

2. Dots Background

I started by preparing the canvas which had already had a coat of white gesso. Don't know whether you know that the Adirondack Dimensional Pearls can be thinned with water and used as a pearlescent paint. I squirted an almond sized blob of wild plum into a saucer and added a little water so the paint was quite thin and applied a liberal coat with a 1.5 ins wide brush, allowing to puddle in places. Whilst still wet I did the same with the lettuce and then dried with the heat gun. The finish is subtle and also has retained a super pearlescent sheen.

I then took the dots background stamp and again applied neat dimensional pearls to the stamp with the brush and stamped randomly in both the wild plum and lettuce, drying once again with the heat gun. Remember to wash the brush and the stamp thoroughly between colours and after use as the dried paint can be a devil to remove from the stamp ! That was the background completed.

Next I took the florals stamps and stamped two of the large plain edged flower, four of the medium line- edged flower & four of the small line-edged flower with Adirondack wild plum ink onto white card. I then used a waterbrush and drew in the wild plum dye ink from the outside of the flowers into the petals and once dry cut them out. I then used the Adirondack lettuce ink as paint and applied some to the inside of the lid of the inkpad and used the waterbrush to complete the insides of each flower.

Next five of the closed leaf and five of the open leaf were stamped onto white card with lettuce Adirondack dye ink, the large leaves being further stamped with a hessian texture stamp. These were then trimmed out.

All the finished flower elements and leaves were then coated with Versamark and heat embossed with one coat of clear UTEE to add a nice shine to them. The flower layers were then assembled with Glossy Accents.

The top and bottom borders were cut with a Martha Stewart punch from card that I had painted unevenly with a narrow brush with a wash made from the wild plum and lettuce inkpads by rubbing them onto a craft sheet and spritzing with water. The background was built up until it looked good before drying and punching.

The borders were trimmed to size and applied top and bottom with Glossy Accents. The flowers and leaves were arranged on the canvas and finally stuck in place with more Glossy Accents. The centres of the flowers were finished with some blobs of the undiluted Dimensional Pearls and the changing seasons metal plate was applied as shown.

I only literally used 2 colours on the whole canvas but in a number of different types of media. Hope this has inspired you to make one in your own style, the stamps are really good to build up flowers and on this one I particularly liked the watercoloured effect on the petals.

Sid xx