Tag 7 1/2 by Jennie

The phenomenon that sweeps the stamping world early this month has grabbed hold of some of us again, and certainly has done me....lol what am I talking about? If you haven't been there, then you must visit Mr Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas! Now some of his tags are mind blowing exercises in lots of techniques, and complicated things to make!
So, I took some of the elements and techniques that has used so far to make a simple ten minute tag ( hence the title , as today is Tag 8!) for you to copy if you wish. I love simple, the simpler the better! So with this in mind, I use the Merry Christmas Artistic Stamper stamp, and inked it up using cut n dry felt. Stamp your stamp using black archival ink onto the material part of the felt pad, and using distress ink re-inkers colour up the inked stamp. Then place your stamp back onto the pad ink, and stamp in colour!  Keep the felt in a plastic bag, and it should last for ages. If you haven't felt then just ink your stamp using distress inks. I clear embossed the words.
I have to say I cheated here and used the same felt that I used when making his tag no 2!! and it had kept its colour perfectly!
I then inked the tag using Forest Moss , Crushed Olive ( love that name!) and edged it in Barn Red ( my favourite of all the colours!)
You can ink up over the clear embossing with no fear of the embossed image being discoloured.
I stamped the cones from Tim's Winter Sketchbook using the same method.
Add lots of Idea-ology baubles, and a facet. I glued a tiny picture from the Seasonal pad to the back of it with Glossy Accents. I added a few pearls on the bottom too.
There you go a ten minute tag perfect for your presents!



Happy Tagging
Jennie

Bobby The Snowman By Hels Sheridan

Morning! Blimey, Winter came early last week didn't it??? I didn't get that much snow here but I know a lot of peeps were affected by it. One thing I always love to do is make a snowman... and seeing as I didn't have enough of the real white stuff to play, I improvised and used my Bobby Snow Stitchels design instead and made an Easel card.




Bobby was stamped in Black StaZon and then coloured with: Tumbled Glass, Vintage Photo, Fired Brick, Aged Mahogany, Crushed Olive and Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks - using a waterbrush to apply the colours to him.




I stamped some Stichels Holly Garland, coloured with Forest Moss Distress Ink and added some Fired Brick Distress Stickles to the berries and to Bobby's buttons and flower. The sentiment is a new one for 2010 - I am just loving that font! Thanks for looking... hope you have a good week!

Hels x

Journey by Sioux Jenneys

Hello everyone! It's my (Sioux) turn again and I'm here to share a card :)

This time round it's one for the men!

Although I would love it if someone sent this to me! :)

You'll be pleased to know there is no masking involved in this, just use different coloured inks and over stamp where necessary ;).....using images from the Open Road 1 Plate #47 and Ephemera 1 # 48

1. Stamp the cycling image onto kraft coloured card using Versafine onyx black
....tattered the edges and blended Distress Ink Vintage Photo to grunge it up a bit. LOL

2. Place the stamped focal image on the card front and lightly mark in pencil where the top and bottom corners are on the base card.

...I used a mottled card although it is not showing up very well in the photo.

3. Using Distress Ink Old Paper stamp the ruler top and bottom

4. Using Distress Ink Aged Mahogany (second stamping) stamp the franked postage

5. Using Distress Ink Brushed Corduroy stamp the ticket

6. Using  Distress Ink Vintage Photo stamp the words "original" and "All of life is a journey"...although of course you can change these sentiments to anything you desire :)

7. Using Archival Crimson as a second stamping (I just liked the slightly different tone of colour) stamp the 1/6

....those were the days!!!!!! LOL

8. Fix the focal image using double sided tape.

Happy stamping :) See you again soon!

xoxo Artyjen

Winner of the November Challenge

Two posts in one day! and both winners! I have to admit in my excitement at giving away such wonderful stuff over on the website, I completely forgot to mention the winner of our November Challenge which was "Something hidden". So please step up to the podium

VEE

with this gorgeous piece:)

Congratulations! Please email me , so we can arrange for your prize to be sent to you:)

Thank you to everyone who joined in last month's challenge and this month's is CHRISTMAS! well what else did you expect? lol

You can join in using your Tim Tags, or Christmas cards or decorations, and in fact the more we get the more prizes I will give away!! It is Christmas time , after all.. so get adding to our froggy link:)

Hugs

Jennie

Winner of the 3 Birds blog candy, and an offer!

Hi,
I hope that you are nice and warm, and not snowed in! Here in deepest Kent we have thick snow, and I have been warming myself up by making Tim's Tags everyday! Such fun, and such inspiration to work from :)
Here is my take on Tim's Tag from yesterday



Are you taking part? If so pop by my blog and say hi..love to see what you are making.
On the website , I am loading up his tags (with his permission) and listing all the ingredients , so you can find them easily. I have a brilliant offer on anything you buy until December 13th..just spend over £10 , put the code 12tags into the discount code box, and voila 12% off your order and a packet of 12 Tim Tags (manila size #8 tags) as an added bonus! If you would like more like this offer, then add yourself to our mailing list to get mailings throughout the year!
Now onto more wonderful things like the winner of the 3 birdies!
I put all the comments into the random generator, and number 18 came out! So can  Julia Dunnit!!! email me please with your snail mail so I can send you your tree hanging:)) Congratulations! and thank you to everyone who joined in.
Hugs and keep warm
Jennie

It's Advent Time!!

Thank you Jennie and Hels for inviting me to join the Creative Design Team, I have already had a ball on my project for this month. Christmas is always a very busy time for everybody and I am sure I am not the only one who, come Christmas Day, is frazzled and worn out! So I have devised an 'Advent Calendar' just for me. Not a Choccie everyday, but a few 'me time' treats. Each day on my own blog I will be picking a tag to show you and sharing a treat with you, along with showing you how I have used the gorgeous stamps Jennie sent me to use and some of the fabulous products she sells.

So here is my tree - I have got to admit that you can's see too much on the photo as its so large, but it looks great on my wall. 

traditionally you start your advent calendar on the 1st of December - well who wants to be traditional? Not us at the Artistic stamper! The blog was a bit busy yesterday announcing the new monthly challenge, so I opened my tag on my ownsome (all together now..... ahhhhh......) but I'll share it with you today. All the tags are made using mountboard, which is nice and stiff and will withstand alot of battering - which is just as well, I am not a delicate girl as you will find out! I love using UTEE and for this tag I covered the whole piece of MB (which was a dark cream colour ro start with,  with Versamark and covered with with a couple of layers of clear UTEE, heating it between layers to melt the powder. If you are quick you can get the second layer on whilst the first is still warm (but mind your fingers!!) but if it does cool down you can give it another coating of Versamark. I then sprinkled on various colours of coloured UTEE - you can use ordinary embossing powders at this stage if you wish. I had the AS Harlequin Background stamp ready inked with versamark, when the UTEE was still hot I pressed the stamp into it and allowed it to cool - you MUST wait for the UTEE to harden before you remove the stamp or else you will make a right mess of it! Then I inked the edges of the card and edged it with a gold UTEE, get you heatgun nice and hot and try to work quickly, just directing the nozzle at the edge, otherwise you are in danger of remelting the triple embossed area and losing your stamped image.

The main embellishment is a large A6 size stamp from the Victorian Christmas Plate that I stamped onto shrink plastic and shrunk! Even though it is a very detailed stamp the images still came out really well once reduced in size.

Now what was yesterdays treat?? Well I met a friend to swap the kids Christmas pressies and I had my favourite treat at my favourite teashop of a cheese scone and a long natter with my mate Sands.

Each day I will be 'opening' advent calendar on my personal blog - NicksArtyStuff  so please feel free to join in with our daily treat!

Here is today's tag....please pop over and see how I made it

Thanks for looking, I will see you later this month with another - but very different - project

Nicks xxx

It's Christmas Time! by Jennie-edited with more candy!

A pinch and punch for the first of the month, and welcome to another challenge at The Artistic Stamper Creative Team. Thank you for all the entries for last month's challenge, I will be picking a winner later in the week :))
Of course the 1st of December means only one thing ...Tim's Twelve Tags of Christmas! I have taken part in the last couple of years, and try my hardest to make them the same day he posts, and blog them! No mean feat I can assure you, so this year is no exception! As we are 8 hours in front , it means I can get up at my normal silly o'clock, have a look at his blog, and make them almost right away!
I will be posting them on my blog and on here ,, along with Hels. So what other challenge could we set for this month other than Christmas??!!
All you have to do is add your challenge entry, (as many as you like) and if you use The Artistic Stamper stamps you get an extra entry :) At the bottom of this post is the froggy link, so join in and we will come and visit! The prize as usual is £15.00 worth of The Artistic Stamper stamps. We have had a fantastic number of entries this month ( keep them coming...lol and so I am adding more candy..there will be three more winners of The Artistic Stamper stamps..yea! Please bear with us as we are trying to get round to everyone's blogs to see your entries...
My entry for this month's challenge will for obvious reasons be many and varied, so here is my first take on his first tag!



Don't forget to pop back tomorrow for our new monthly Creative Designer...
Happy Creating
Jennie