"Believe in yourself" tag by Angie Coomber

Hi, Angie here with a tag for this month's Background Challenge.

First of all I coloured my tag with Distress Oxides (Cracked Pistachio, Twisted Citron, Seedless Preserves, Peacock Feathers). I swiped some ink on my craft mat, spritzed with water and then mopped up the ink with the tag. I did this a number of times until I had the colours I wanted, drying in between applications. I also added some additional colour with a blending tool at the end to intensify the colours. (Please excuse the bad photos - I was working in the garden and hadn't realised that they weren't great until it was too late to take more!)

Next I added some stencilling with The Artistic Stamper Stencils (using the same colours).

I also added some background stamping, again using the same colours, and a focal image (a Paperartsy Stamp by Tracy Scott) with black ink which I coloured  in with Neocolours II and a water brush.

Lastly, no project is complete for me without some white doodling and a quote, so I picked a fitting one from my quote collection.

I really hope you like it!

Owl Tag by Gemma

 I am in love again with all thing crafty and tag related, so I have one to share with you all today that fits in with our challenge theme of Birds and Bees. You can join in the challenge here on the blog or over on the facebook page. 

What I did 😀

I started by placing blobs of Slate, Caramel, and gesso onto my mat. I picked up the paint with a small card and scrapped it onto the tag. sometimes I only picked up one colour and other times all three. I kept layering until I was pleased with the result.

I then stamped over the top with one of my all-time favorite stamps Chicken Wire and Hazelnut coloured ink. When I stamped this I wanted it to be 'bitty' I like the areas of missing ink and different colour intensity. 

Then I spread a thin layer of Purple Rain over my mat and used that to stamp the smallest bee stamp from the set repeatedly over the tag. I stamped quite a lot of bees over the tag I wanted it to be busy but not uniform.

While that was drying I painted some chipboard from my stash scarlet and then stamped over the top with the Honeycomb background stamp and slate paint. I spread the slate onto my mat as I had done with the bees but this time after stamping in Slate I mixed the paint with small amounts of gesso and restamped, I did this a couple of times, before drying and gluing the chipboard to my tag.

To finish I just added some flowers, beads and the metal owl from my stash before gluing in place I stamped onto the flowers with the honeycomb stamp and more paint.

xx Gemma xx

Products from The Artistic Stamper

Chicken Wire Background Stamp

Honeycomb and Bee stamps

Creative Collection by Laura Bomber

Hello everyone!

        Welcome back to my third and final creation for The Artistic Stamper. I have really enjoyed my time here and I want to thank Jennie first of all for asking me to be here and also for her kindness and support.

I decided that for my final feature here at The Artistic Stamper I would do a step-by-step...I love seeing these as it really gives a great insight into how someone works (in my case amid lots of mess!) I don't do as many as I would like because I get so involved in the creative process that I forget to take pictures, but this time I tried to be very aware of the camera as well! This is a very picture heavy post I am afraid - so grab a cuppa!
       This started out as items destined for the bin (recycled!) but I decided to put them to far better use!

after decorating these 'rubbish' items with stamps, paints and inks....(and some other craft stash items)

       I turned it into this......

 And here is how it was done....

First I prepared the tins and toilet roll by painting them top and bottom and inside with Nougat Fresco paint.

 I then cut some card to fit around the items

 I began decorating the card by stenciling some Antique Linen Distress paint - For this one I used the Crafters Workshop 'Art is' stencil.

 I didn't cover the entire piece of card....you'll see here I dabbed randomly across the stencil

 I dried the paint and then began to apply some inks....I blended some Weathered Wood, Frayed Burlap and Vintage Photo.

 I then stamped some words - 'Create' and 'inspire' across the card using Weathered Wood DP and Frayed Burlap DP

 Then I stamped some images using the set and stamped them with Frayed Burlap, Vintage Photo and Weathered Wood DI

These contrast wonderfully with the vivid Potting Soil Archival ink, which is what I used to stamp next. As you can see these all build up wonderful layers with the paint acting as a resist but the archival ink covering the paint....I never tire of doing this!.....

.....and good job too - because I had two more to do! Sorry, no pictures of those because I thought that would be a bit repetitive - I used the same technique, same set of stamps and inks but used different stencils to add some variety - the harlequin and damask stencil was used for the largest tin and for the smaller one I selected Swirly Q's.

So now the pots were completed but I felt they needed something else...so I added some crochet ribbon in ivory and my favourite coffee coloured strand of crochet lace.

Now I could have finished here, but I was having so much fun. At one point I had intended to attach the tins to mount board and cut around the base and cover the bottom of the containers with lace to hide any rough edges. As usual with my projects they usually evolve at some point and when I was trying to de-clutter my art cupboard before Christmas I found a wooden tray - I have had it for years and I think it originally had wooden die cuts in and I had been using it as a save box for little scraps. I suddenly thought this could be a drawer! I could have the pots attached to a drawer...

So I got out the balsa wood and got to making a box. 

While the box was drying I decorated the tray - which for some strange reason I had stained bright orange many years ago. I painted it with a couple of coats of Nougat Fresco paint.

 I wanted it to be decorated in some way and so got an ornate metal corner and cut two pieces off

and stuck them on to the edge of the tray with Glossy accents glue.

 When dry I painted a couple of coats of the Nougat Fresco paint...

 then I sanded them lightly to reveal hints of the metal underneath.

 A metal drawer pull was attached to the front of the drawer.

Now to decorate the inside of the drawer. I did the same stamp and ink layering that the containers were decorated with.

Then I began to decorate the outside of the box...I wanted to get the kind of built up layers of cracked peeling paint that so many vintage items have...I wanted it to look like another layer just got painted over cracks. So I began to layer crackle glaze and paints, sanding down when slightly damp to reveal the paint underneath.

When it was dry and I had achieved the effect I wanted I sanded the whole box lightly and dry brushed Chocolate Pudding Fresco paint around the edges.

Then began the 'putting it together'!

A reel of crochet lace was added - the wooden reel was already a gorgeous grey wood stained effect, I dry brushed it with some Snowflake fresco paint and then stamped the words 'Create' and 'inspire' with Picket Fence Distress paint very lightly. I didn't want it to be bright white, I wanted a barely there image.

Some glass vials were used to hold gold micro beads and some gold Frantage. A few wooden cotton reels were wrapped with embroidery cotton and a couple of pearl pins tucked into the threads.

A rusty heart, glitter heart and crochet flower from my craft stash were used to decorate the containers.

My button collection was hunted through to find lovely beige, brown and blue toned buttons and were placed into the smallest container.

and here it is - complete with some items from my craft equipment. A place for everything, and everything in it's place

 Thank you so much for being here to see my final creation for The Artistic Stamper. I hope you like it! I have had a wonderful month and have really enjoyed making these creations for you to see.

Happy Crafting

Laura xxx

Artistic Stamper stamps:
Artist's no.1
Katy Fox - A stitch in time
Dressmaking no1 
Journaling words II

Other items used:

Distress Inks - Weathered Wood, Frayed Burlap,Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain
Distress Paints - Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap, Weathered Wood. Picket Fence and Vintage Photo
Archival Inks - Potting Soil
Paperartsy Fresco paints - Nougat, Chocolate Pudding, Snowflake and Crackle glaze
Crafters Workshop templates - Art is, Harlequin and Flourish
Embellishments - Metal Decorative corners, Glass vials

Seasons Greetings by Emma

Hello everyone!

Today, is my turn to share here at The Artistic Stamper and for my piece, I've created a hanging ornament. As an alternative to the traditional Christmas colours, I thought it would be nice to have something a little bit different and because I love the look of chalkboard, that's what came to mind and here it is, my hanging chalkboard ornament ~ hope you like it!

To create this, I gave an MDF bauble two coats of Black Soot Distress Paint, allowing it to dry between coats each time. Next, and using the Seasons Greetings and Holly bough stamp from the Mini Christmas 1 stamp plate, I stamped directly onto the painted bauble with Versamark ink and applied white embossing powder over the top, then heat embossed, until it was molten and shiny.

I used a piece of chalk to create the chalkboard effect onto the black paint and then added some Snowflake Fresco Finish paint around the edges before sealing the whole bauble with a coat of Mod Podge. 

 I created my poinsettia with Tim Holtz's Tattered Poinsettia die from Sizzix and added some glass glitter into the centre. I used some die cut foliage which I coloured with Iced Spruce Distress Ink and then sprinkled with Rock Candy Distress Glitter. To complete the bauble, I added some rusty wire and distressed some seam binding, which I added with some twine to create the hanger.

So, that's it from me for today and I'll see you again later in the month.

Thank you so much for stopping by and I'm looking forward to reading your comments.

Love Emma x