Blooms And Butterflies by Alison

Hi there Stampers! I fallen in love with a Tim Holtz technique called brushless watercolour, so I decided to use it on my Summery hanging piece I have for you today.

I tore a page out of a book of watercolour card, & left the ripped edge on as I like this look.

I stamped the daisies from Botanical plate 1, using distress stains, allowed the ink to sink into the card, then spritzed lightly with water, before drying with a heat gun. I used the same technique to stamp the butterflies from the Insects & Butterflies Plate. This Brushless Watercolour technique is one of the many to be found in Tim holtz's fabulous Compendium of Curiosities Volume Two.

I stamped the word Bloom, using dusty concord distress ink, then inked the edges of the card with broken china & dusty concord ink.

I attached my artwork to a piece of corrugated packaging, using a tiny attacher. I wrapped some jute twine around, & tied a bow, then threaded some twine through some Ideaology silver link chain, & attached it to the top with brads.

I hope you like my Summery hanging, enjoy the sunshine!

Alison xox

File Folder by Titbelsoeur

Bonjour tout le monde !

First of all, please forgive my English, I will do my best to be at least understandable... maybe it will make you laugh... anyway !
You can't imagine how happy I am to share my first creation for The Artistic Stamper with you !
My first action since I was chosen was to store my stamps into a quaint  proper file folder. I first removed the plastic cover from an old file folder and then covered the whole cardboard structure with gesso :

Then I scrubbed 2 different Distress pads on the surface :

I sprayed some water to mix both colors, and when dried, I sprayed water inks through stencils, and then after all of that I stamped, and stamped, and stamped again and again !

To finish, I sticked masking tape on the edges and a larger one on the center.

Dusty Concord and Peeled Paint Distress inks
Dylusion stencils
Black Versafine
Stamps :
Architecture
Backgrounds
Men
Time
Gibson girls

I hope you like it,

thanks for looking, I am looking forward to reading your comments ! 

See you again soon...

Titbelsoeur

Phineas Pinchbeck's shop window.

Hi there. Zuzu here...
Well here I am with my very first full post as a member of the Artistic Stamper's Creative team... Cant tell you how pleased I am as it was on my mission statement a year ago. (A mission statement I announced only to a few close craft friends and it was more fairytale imagination that expectation.) So I MADE IT... lol

Today I have an altered shadow frame. Its made from one of the "papier mache 3D frames" (I used a deep one for this project).  I covered it on the inside with old book pages. I covered the frame part, with sheet music that I had rusted, in a rusty tray with vinegar, a few days beforehand. As its a Papier mache frame, I treated the papers I was covering it with in a similar way. I wasn't too precise and i put them on in bits, just forcing it to mould into shape by getting it wet with the glue.
when it was all dry, i stamped out the crow collage stamp on to another bit of text paper and collaged him on to the background.

The next step was preparing my jars. I used the chipboard shapes to go along with the stamps. I used some antique linen distress ink on them first, as they were too white for this project. I stamped the empty jar out on to the chipboard and then again on to paper to make a mask. I cut out the centre of the mask so that I could stamp the crow in to the jar. I then coated it heavily with Ultra thick embossing powder to give it a glass jar look, by coating it in Versamark ink first... now the crows head looks a bit like a specimen steeped in some chemical fluid inside an old jar. (well sort of lol)

I treated the second jar in much the same way but without the need to create a mask. I then stamped out Phineas Pinchbeck a few times and cut him out to mount him on my verdigris patina column. I used a second image of him to just cut out the clock part to mount it in front of the column to give a 3D look.. and a third image of him, was used to make the sign at the bottom (middle) of the frame.

Next i used some distress inks to colour a piece of plain cardstock (I used rusty hinge and scattered straw). when it was dry I stamped on some sheet music in brown (so that it carried on the theme from the music paper on the frame)  and then stamped on the bunting in black. I cut it out and glued it at an angle to the top of the frame. All that was left to do was fill the frame up with clock type items and rusty bits and bobs....

Z x


Supplies Used from The Artistic Stamper:

3D frame HERE
Phineas Pinchbeck stamp and Jar stamps HERE
crow stamp HERE  (scroll down )
Bunting stamp HERE
Music stamp HERE
Jar chipboard HERE
Distress inks HERE

House Tag by Sioux Jenneys

Hello everyone! It's my turn again and I'm here to share a tag using the fab new house stamps designed by Kat :)

1. I coloured the base tag with Distress Inks in rusty hinge, weathered wood and scattered straw onto watercolour paper using the wrinkle free technique.....trying to keep the bottom corner where I intended to stamp the houses without much colour ;)

2. I then stamped the houses from the Our House A6 plate in Archival black and coloured them with a combination of Distress Markers and Copics as I don't have very many distress markers at the moment but I do intend to add to my collection real soon ;)

3. I stamped the grass from the Bunting A6 plate with Distress Ink peeled paint and coloured it in with the matching distress marker.

4. The butterflies from the same plate were stamped with Archival aquamarine and coloured with spiced marmalade and fired brick markers.

5. Finally the sentiment from the A House is just a House plate was stamped in Adirondack wild plum 'cos I lurve the colour ;)

Talking of adding to my stash....don't forget there is still time to order this weekend and take advantage of the special Jubilee discount and perhaps win one of the 60% off prizes
How cool :) I think I ought to order some of those markers right now, don't you?

Thanks for looking. See you again soon!

xoxo Sioux

Winner of the May Challenge

Hi, it's the Boss here again,  with the winner of last month's Creative Team challenge!
I loved all the entries for last month's challenge Spots and Stripes, they were all such great interpretations. Thank you to everyone who joined in.
Now onto the best part... choosing a winner! Mr Random.org did his bit, and picked

Liz !

with this gorgeous entry!

Please email me , so we can arrange your prize :))
Don't forget our new challenge is Red, White and Blue.  In honour of the Diamond Jubilee, we have 25% off all orders until Tuesday evening on the website, with an added chance of winning 60% off your order too!
Have a very creative and inky week
Hugs
Jennie

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

June Challenge ~ Red, White and Blue

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

First of all, we would like to thank everyone, for all your fabulous entries that you submitted to last month's Spots and Stripes challenge. We will be announcing the lucky winner in the next few days, so make sure you check back to see if it's you. 

The month of June, also sees the first creations from our new Creative Team members and I'm sure you'll all give a really warm welcome to Zuzu, Tit and Astrid and we're all looking forward to seeing what they create.

Last month we had the pleasure of having the very talented Jennie Atkinson join us as our Guest Designer and we would like to say a big thank you to Jennie, for all her hard work and the stunning creations that she shared with us.

This month, we are welcoming the lovely Trish Latimer as our Guest Designer and I'm sure you've seen Trish's work in many magazines, so...we're really looking forward to seeing all of her wonderful artwork and the creativity that she will be bring to the team.

I'm sure no-one can miss the Jubilee celebrations that are in full swing at the moment and in honour of this special occasion, our new challenge for this month is RED, WHITE and BLUE. 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.

ZUZU

Zuzu used a stamp from the Mabel Lucie Attwell "alice" set and  calligraphy mat 15. Next, she used distress inks (faded jeans, broken china, fired brick) and distress markers to draw the hearts (fired brick, black soot). To add the white touches, she used some white paint from a ranger paint dauber (snow cap),  applied with a small brush and a finger. She finished it off by putting glossy accents on the hearts and the teapot. Finally, Zuzu then layered the tag on to a second tag coloured red and pulled back some of the edges of the top tag to show the red underneath.

KAT

Kat has made a rather masquline looking card for the challenge, using the keep calm & carry on stamp & the flags from the London set of stamps. She stamped the images in Jet Black archival ink onto white card, then matt & layered onto red & blue card. She then die cut a pair of wings from Tim Holtz Heart Wings Die using textured card, then assembled the whole thing using foam pads to give some dimention, finishig off with a red ribbon & bow.

SIOUX

Sioux veered away from the traditional (and topical) patriotic "Red, White and Blue" and opted to create this tag using the Nudes plate, Borders A6#2 plate, Journaling words #1 and the Dance plate.

JENNIE

Jennie has made a card using the London plate and the new Distress Spring inkpads. A mini set of patriotic banners stamped with Distress Markers onto Sticky back canvas added a 3D element. A tiny charm , found in a junk shop, made this a Diamond Jubilee celebration!

We're hope you will join in with this month's challenge and we're really looking forward to seeing your interpretation of our theme and all your amazing creations and artwork. Please, don't forget to add a comment when you post your entry.

I hope you all have a happy and very creative month!

Emma x