April Challenge ~ Ribbons And Lace

Hi everyone and welcome to our brand new challenge for April!

First of all we would like to thank you all, for the fabulous entries to last month's Travel challenge. We will be announcing the lucky winner in the next few days, so make sure you check back to see who it is.

Last month we had the pleasure of having the very talented Sue West join us as our Guest Designer and we would like to say a big thank you to Sue, for all the stunning creations that she shared with us. This month, we are welcoming the lovely Frankie Gaywood as our Guest Designer and we are so looking forward to seeing all of her wonderful artwork and creativity that she will be bring to the team.

The new challenge for this month is RIBBONS AND LACE. To join in with this challenge is simple; make a piece of artwork, include the theme and some rubberstamping, pop back here to link up using the Froggy at the bottom of this post, so that we can see what you've made and then, leave us a comment to let us know you have joined in. As ever there will be candy for one randomly picked entrant - £15 worth of The Artistic Stamper stamps of your choice plus the Kling On to mount them onto. And... if you use Artistic Stamper stamps on your entry, you will be entered twice into the draw! 

Before you start creating and if you need that little bit of inspiration ~  here are our Creative Team's stunning creations for this month's challenge.

SIOUX

Sue made an A4 size scrapbook page and used the lacy border, marbled background, mini polka dots background and houndstooth background then finished it off with the word Beauty from the nudes A4 plate.

ALISON

Alison made a card, using the little girl image from Childhood Dreams, & flowers & a saying from Botanical Plate 3.

EMMA

For my piece, I made a tag and used a Manila tag blended with Shabby Shutters and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks. I used the Lace Background stamp, inked with Olive Archival Ink to stamp directly onto the tag and then added various Tim Holtz stamped images from the Haberdashery set, and Alterations Sewing Room die cut elements to the tag. I then die cut a dress form, using the Sewing Room die and embossed it with a Texture Fade. I painted the die cut with Adirondack Gold Metallic Paint Dabber and then brushed the raised areas with a Versamark Ink pad and embossed with silver embossing powder. I finally added some ribbons to complete my piece and the computer generated text.

We're really looking forward to seeing your interpretation of our theme and all your amazing creations and artwork in the challenge this month and please, don't forget to add a comment when you post your entry.

That's about it from me for today...thank you for looking and I hope you all have a happy and very creative month.

Emma x

***CREATIVE TEAM CALLOUT***

We are looking for you!

 Have you got the stamping bug? Have you got creative tendencies that are not being fulfilled? Have you got time? We are looking for you to join us on our travels around the wonderful world of The Artistic Stamper!

You will have the opportunity to create gorgeous artwork and showcase it amongst our talented Creative Design Team.  If you are that person, then contact us by email, and show us your ART!

The Creative Team call out ends on April 30th, and we will contact you after that date.

So....

 We are looking forward to finding you!

Jennie, Emma, Alison, Sioux and Kat

xxx

Getting Messy by Sue West

I can't believe how quickly March has whizzed by, and that it's time for my third and final post as guest designer here at the Artistic Stamper Creative Team, and I am going to let you peek into some of my art journal pages.

For me one of the joys of keeping an art journal (actually I should own up to having four on the go) is that they allow me to play around with supplies that I am not always quite sure what to do with, or how they will work together.  At the moment I'm using a big sketch book, an old hardback book that I'm slowly altering and a couple of Moleskin journals for specific projects.

The first pages are from my big sketch book, and I've found that if the pages are a bit thin Mod Podge them together, and I nearly always gesso my pages, it makes the paper you are working on a lot more forgiving.

The background for this page is acrylic paint that is swiped on with a baby wipe (much easier than washing brushes). I have used the Swirls Splats and Dots stamp, and Journaling Words #1 to create my bubbly images, using Adirondack Inks in Pool and Lettuce. and the gold circles are a Gold Acrylic paint dabber, the words are stamped in black Archival Ink.  The Adirondack ink takes an age to dry on the acrylic, and takes on a slightly faded and textured quality, using a heat gun will help a bit in the drying process, but don't get the acrylic and gesso too hot or it will start to bubble up randomly.  The collage image is from my stash, and the wings are made from Tim Holtz tissue paper, that has been edged with some of that gold paint dabber.

For the second page I used Neocolour II water-soluble wax pastels (they look like wax crayons) which I scribbled over the page and then magically turned into a watercoloured background with a wet paintbrush. This time I've used acrylic paint to stamp the Splats and Swirls, and the words are from that same Journalling Words #1 set again stamped with Archival Ink.

Have some fun making paint splats using slightly watered down acrylic paint. The more random the better, though make sure you cover up the surrounding area, because if you're anything like me the splats won't just go on the page.

Finally here's a page from a travel themed journal that I'm making in a Moleskine notebook.  This picture reminded me of my Grandma when she used to go off on holiday with her pals in the 1960's. I'm not sure if she ever ate moules et frites or drank wine, but who knows? This page has been sprayed with Adirondack Colour Wash, which has run down the page ( and been mopped up at the bottom with kitchen towel) before using Archival Ink in Aquamarine and Black for all stamping. I've used the Travel Words and Labels  stamps on this page.

I really like having little bits sticking out of my journal and tags that I can write things under. Actually I just love journaling, and if things don't work out I can just cover them up with something else.  Have fun!

And thank you to Jennie and team for having me...
Sue x

Wishes by Alison

Hello Stampers! Today I have a grungy hanging piece to share with you.

I took a piece of corrugated card, tore most of the top layer off, then painted it with gesso. When this had dried, I sprayed it with stream Adirondak color wash. I dried this with my heat gun, then spritzed with heirloom gold perfect pearls mist.

Next I cut a rectangle of burlap, frayed the edges, then sprayed with expresso color wash & gold perfect pearls. I dried this with my heat gun, then glued it to the corrugated card.

For the main image & butterflies, I coloured a piece of glossy card with alcohol inks. I used aqua, cloudy blue, willow, citrus, pool, sailboat blue, & a dot of silver mixative.

I used the Sizzix ornamental die to cut my centre piece, stamped the Tim Holtz phrase using jet black Archival ink, then edged it with a gold krylon pen. I used long fasteners to attach it to the burlap.

I stamped & gold embossed the butterflies from the Insects & Butterflies plate, then cut them out. I added Ideaology game spinners as their bodies with long fasteners.

Finally, I attached a length of link chain to the top, with brads.

Thanks for looking,

Alison xox

Blog Candy & a little competition!

Hi,
This is just a very random, spur of the moment blogpost from the Boss! Over on my blog I have a giveaway of one of our new sets of stamps, and one of my tags!

Borders A6 #2

To win these, post a comment here and on my blog for double bubble, and if you fancy being a detective too for the day, join in our mini competition to find the mistake on one of our new sets of stamps! All the details and a clue are on my blog....
And a  little heads up to watch this space for exciting new coming your way next weekend... :))))
Have a very creative and sunny weekend
Hugs
Jennie

Love Life by Sioux Jenneys

I'm here to share a card with you today :)

1. Cut some plain white card into a 4 inch square, another 4 and two eighth inch square and lastly another 4 and five eighth inch square......ink the edges of the largest one with Distress Ink faded jeans 

2. Place your selected word stamps together on an acrylic block....I chose a mixture from Journaling Words and Creative Art Thoughts....and randomly tap different colours of Distress Ink over them all...

(I used Distress Ink faded jeans, worn lipstick and aged mahogany on mine)

....then liberally spritz with water and stamp onto the card.
It never fails to impress me how cool this effect is ;) 

3. Colourise the edges with Distress Ink vintage photo and gradually work it into the centre.

4. Stamp one of the swirls from Swirls, Splats and Dots A4 size in Distress Ink vintage photo all around the edges using first and second impressions.

5. Layer the stamped focal square onto the larger white square and then onto the last blue mat and attach to the card front.

See you again soon!

xoxo Sioux

Nature's Little Helper by Emma

Hello everyone!

It's already time for me to share my second post of the month and I decided to make a little hanging plaque to celebrate Spring arriving, using one of the gorgeous Mabel Lucie Attwell stamps as my focus point.

Here's how I made it ~

To begin with I stamped the Mabel Lucie Attwell image, Nature's Little Helper onto watercolour paper and coloured it using Distress Marker Pens (which incidentally are just the best pens I have ever owned ~ I love them!!). I scribbled some colour from the pens onto my craft mat and then hand painted the image using a waterbrush. Next, using Tim Holtz's Cabinet Die from Sizzix, I die cut a piece of chipboard and adhered my finished artwork onto this.

I then took a piece of corrugated cardboard from an old box and once again, used the Cabinet Die, together with the Movers and Shapers Mini Cabinet Die inside, I die cut the cardboard to make a frame. I used the Gold Metallic Paint Dabber over the frame, brushed some Vintage Photo DI over the edges for an aged look and then covered it with Rock Candy Crackle Paint. Once it was dry, I added the frame to my artwork. 

Next, I stamped six of the smallest of the flower shapes from the Flower Power Stamp Plate onto Grungepaper, blended Seedless Preserves DI over them and then shaped the petals into two 3D flower blooms. 

I used the Mini Tattered Leaves die to die cut leaves from a sheet of clear Clearly For Art and blended lettuce Alcohol Ink over the top, before moulding them into shape. I then added the finished elements to my frame, together with a decorative pin.

With the Movers and Shapers, Mini Butterflies die, I cut two butterflies from some more of the Grungepaper, blended Ripe Persimmon and Seedless Preserves DI over the shapes and adhered them to my frame. I inked up the "Creative" stamp with black Archival ink, stamped it onto a piece of card, blended Antique Linen DI over the top and cut it into a banner shape before adding this to the finished artwork.

Finally, I punched a hole in the top of the frame and added some twine, tied into a loop so it will hang.

So, that's about it from me for today...I hope you feel inspired to get inky and start creating. Don't forget that we would love to see your creations in our TRAVEL challenge ~ you have until the end of March to submit your entries.

See you again very soon!

Bye for now.

Emma x