Dyan Reaveley is coming to teach!

I have been bursting at the seams to keep this under my hat until today!! Mal and I are absolutely delighted and honoured to have Dyan Reaveley, one of Ranger's Signature Designers, and creator of Dylusions range of products, coming to teach at The Artistic Stamper Craft Store & Art Bar!!

Dyan will be here on June 8th and 9th teaching 4 new classes for 2013. Each one is unique and you can book any one of them, or all four of them. Never journaled before? Dyan's unique talent will have you creating beautiful and fabulous pages that will set you off on that journaling road!

All of details on the classes and booking are now online, and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me.
Am I excited?  you bet!! Cannot wait! Hope to see you in June or before....
Have a very Happy Easter, and eat lots of chocolate and be creative!
Hugs
Jennie

Passport to Inspiration by Buttons

Hi everyone, and thank you for joining my for my last post as Guest Designer here at The Artistic Stamper Creative Team blog. I want to start by thanking the team for inviting me to contribute this month. A huge thank you as well to Emma who has been so supportive and encouraging throughout this time.

So I wanted to do something a bit different for my final piece and I suspect this may be a first here at The Artistic Stamper. Why? Well how many things are posted unfinished? Shock, horror!! What's the matter with you woman?! Actually it is designed to be a permanent 'work in progress'. Let me explain as I show you the completed pages.

Recently a few people have posted things they've created to get their mojo working when it takes an untimely break. Lots of these use words or products, but I'm the type who easily forgets 'recipes' for backgrounds and tends to respond to visual stimuli. So I decided to make a Passport to Inspiration to help me when the fog descends.


















I used several stamp sets from The Artistic Stamper range, going for a 'personal travel through time' theme throughout the book. These are listed at the bottom of this post, but I would like to make special mention of one - Journalling Mini Words. That's the one I've used on the first and fourth journal pages. I'm not sure if it is supposed to be used as individual words, but I was inspired by some of the altered dictionary/book pages I've seen recently which have highlighted one/several significant words from a page. So I kept it as a complete background stamp and used different portions of it depending on the words required.

The pages are actually they are wage packets which have been strung together at the unopened end and have inbuilt pockets to hold tags with recipes on them. Obviously each page is completely different but I try to ensure those which are paired are 'complimentary' so as not to spoil the look/feel.

Some of the pages (which measure 4" by 3.5") are more sparsely embellished than others. That may well change as time goes on but I wanted to make sure the background was the most visible thing. The one clear exception to this is the page above with the viewfinder die cut - I wanted to test my suspicion that the little stamp/postmark stamps were the perfect size to show through the windows - and they were!

As the pages are simply tied together there is plenty of room for expansion, and the plan is that if a background works I'll make an extra portion to put in the book. Then if I have an image/theme/embellishment without a background there will be somewhere to start in future.

I could have listed the 'ingredients' for each of these initial pages but to be honest thought that could be boring, so if you interested to find out more about any of them just leave me a comment or contact me on FB and I'll be glad to help out. Suffice to say I used a combination of Distress Paints, Distress Inks, Alcohol Inks, Archival Inks, my favourite Glue n Seal, WOW embossing powders (they are so good at picking up detail) Sizzix embossing folders, and Vintaj Patinas. The kitchen sink was also on standby to clean up regularly!!!

So there you have it. I would highly recommend taking a good look through the stamps which are unique to The Artistic Stamper (amongst the other things of course!) I have and will continue to find them extremely useful not just as focal elements but just as importantly for creating backgrounds. Once again many thanks to the team for inviting me to join them this month and thank you for your wonderful feedback.

Jenny Marples

Pushing The Right Buttons

Stamps used - Europe Map Background, Smudge Background, Postage No. 1, Small but Beautiful Gibson Girls, Round the World, Labels, Journalling Mini Words 

Token of Love by Astrid

Hello everyone and welcome! Do you have that wonderful Springtime feeling yet? Today I want to share some collage stamping with you, so I created this vintage (of course this is me after all) postcard.
Now as you may or may not know, the Artistic Stamper sells loads of wonderful Collage stamps. But today I wanted to do something slightly different, and so I created my own collage using different stamp sets to create said postcard.
These are the stamps I used:
Botanical 3
Swirls Splats and Dots
Calligraphic Mat 12
Postage 1
Ephemera
I cut a piece of 4 x 6 smooth stamping card and stamped the rose from the Botanical 3 set in Archival Jet Black, coloured it with Distress Markers in Peeled Paint, Victorian Velvet, Pine Needles and Aged Mahogany. Then I masked it and stamped the writing from the Calligraphic Mat 12 over it in Archival Coffee.

Next I created the lines by stamping the rubber frame that comes around many of the stamp sets. I had kept some bits of that after mounting my sets on Kling On and trimming them. As you can see I did not manage to do it perfectly but decided to "embrace my imperfection" to use the phrase of a certain famous person in the crafting world.... I also stamped the word Postcard and the stamp from the Postage 1 and Ephemera sets in the Coffee Archival.

To give the whole thing a bit more of an aged feel still I inked it with Distress Inks in Antique Linen and Vintage Photo, Distressed the edges with the Tim Holtz  Paper Distresser and stamped some "ink blots" from the swirls, Splats and Dots plate in Vintage Photo.

Finally I mounted my postcard on a piece of paper from the Crowded Attic paper collection by Tim Holtz and embellished with some lace, string and an Ideaology word band

I then mounted it on some Kraft Card and voila, my token of love was done and ready to post out to its recipient.....

Hope you liked my project and see you next time! I'll post thumbnails of the stamps I used below.

Carte Postale by Emma

Hi everyone!

Today, I'm sharing a card with you all, using the gorgeous new Carte Postale stamp set from Katy Fox. As always, I've taken lots of pictures for you to see all the detail and I hope you like what I've made!

To begin with I created the background to my piece by using the fabulous new On The Edge Torn Notebook die from Tim Holtz and Sizzix. I can see I'm going to get plenty of use out of this one... I used a piece of cream card, which I die cut with the die, then blended the die cut paper with Old Paper DI over the surface and Frayed Burlap around the edges. I then stamped the paper using the Calligraphic Mat #11. Once that was done, using a Tim Holtz stamp from my stash, I stamped the corners of the card with a Versamark ink pad and then brushed over the top with Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls. I matted the completed background onto some black card, followed by a piece of kraft card.

I then took a further piece of cream card, blended it with DI's and using various stamps from the Carte Postale set,  I created a postcard. I then aged the edges of the postcard by ripping and curling them for a vintage look and mounted it onto my background.

To create the roses, I used Tim's Tattered Florals die and die cut enough card to make three dimensional roses in two sizes. I blended the card with Victorian Velvet DI and then spritzed them with the Gumball Perfect Pearls mist. After drying off all my die cut cardstock, I then created the 3D blooms and added these onto my card, together with a leaf, die cut using the Tattered Leaves die.

Next, I used one of the butterflies from the Insects and Butterflies #1 plate, stamped it onto white card and coloured it with Distress Markers, before adding a spritz of the Perfect Pearls mist to give it a shimmer. I then added it to my cluster of roses.

I inked up the postage stamp stamp from the Carte Postale stamp set with Vermillion Archival Ink and stamped five of these onto white card, cut each of them out and then arranged them onto my card, together with a Idea-ology Gem Clip.

Finally, I added one of Tim's Idea-ology Pen Nibs and attached a decorative pin as the finishing touch.

So, that's it from me for today and I really hope that I've inspired you with my card...

See you all again very soon...Emma x

New stamps by Titbelsoeur

Hi there, this is Titbelsoeur !
What a pleasure it was to use the very new stamps from Katy Fox ! 
I made a page, don't know yet what I will do with it, either an art journal pae, or a big card... wait and see !

I used the  Encyclopaedia Botanica plate.

My technique is very simple, but so efficient ! 
I applied various ink pads on my mat, then sprayed and put the page on it here and there. I let it dry, and did it once again.While the paper was still wet, I used an old toothbrush to spray blue drops of acrylic paint. When it was dry, I stamped the flower on the page, and on another page. 

I cropped the stamped flower and put it on the other one to protect it, and then stamped the dictionary page over it, not regularly :

I ended the page stamping butterflies here and there in the blanks, and here is my page :

I hope you like my page,

Thanks for stopping by, I am really looking forward to reading your comments !

A tout bientôt !

Titbelsoeur

My Journal by Craftytrog

Hello Stampers! We've had a few journal pages lately, so today I'm sharing how I decorated the cover of my very first journal, that I started at the beginning of the year. I was inspired by a gel medium resist technique that Dina Wakley shared in her book, Art Journal Freedom, which you can buy from The Artistic Stamper HERE.

To begin, I cut two pieces of Claudine Hellmuth sticky back canvas, to fit the front & back of my journal. I peeled off the backing paper, & stuck the canvas to a Craft Sheet, then used the gel medium resist technique from Dina's book, Art Journal Freedom, with one of  Andy Skinner's new stencils. When the Gel Medium was completely dry, I spritzed the canvas with water, before adding Dylusion Spray inks in London Blue, Calypso Teal & Squeezed Orange. Whilst the inks were still wet, I blotted them in my journal, to create a colourful background for a new page. I hate to waste good ink, & I love this background!

When the inks on the canvas were dry, I stamped the Ink Blot background, using Spiced Marmalade & Chipped Sapphire Distress Inks. I attached the canvas pieces to the front & back of my journal, then used my finger to smear black Studio Paint around the edges.

Next, I stamped Neil Walker's Kiki on some cream card, cut her out, & inked around the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I smooshed some Picked Raspberry Distress Ink on my Craft Sheet, & used a water brush to colour Kiki's lips & gloves.

Next, I stamped my book title on a small kraft luggage tag, using stamps from Scrabble & Tags, Journaling Words 4, & Katy Fox's Numerical Plate. I used the Picked Raspberry Distress Ink to add some colour, then inked the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I layered the tag over a torn piece of page from an old London A to Z, and attached both to the canvas background on the front of my journal. I then attached Kiki over-lapping the tag.

I randomly stamped the number column from Katy Fox's Numerical Plate with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, then I finished off my journal cover by adding some black & white Studio paint accents, using an old credit card & a couple of small lids.

Thanks for looking,

Alison xxx

Mars-Venus by Sioux Jenneys

Hello everyone! It's my turn again and I'm here to share a journal page today using some of Neil Walker's fan-dabi-dozy new stamps:)

1. I spritzed some Dylusions onto the page and used a mask to spritz a bit more then, as the colour was too intense where I wanted the images to be, I applied a bit of white paint. I finished off by stamping the fabulous hatched border by Neil around the edges in Archival sepia. Why spend hours cross hatching when Neil's stamp can do it for you?

I, for one, do not have enough hours in the day!! ROFL

2. Stamped Franswar and Kiki in Versafine and added a little extra colour with Distress Markers.

3. I used a Distress Marker in Chipped Sapphire to add a solid line to the border and then some dots.

 

4. I doodled the words using a black marker and added some white pen marks over the top.

5. The words Mars, and Venus were cut from cardboard using a Tim Holtz die and coloured with Adirondack dimensional pearls. They were then stuck down with Glossy Accents.

6. It's a fairly simple page really but there is still potential to develop it further should the need to expand on the Mars/Venus - Male/Female thing ever pop in my head! LOL

Thanks for looking today :) See you again soon!

Don't forget those tags for the monthly challenge....you could be the one who wins this month :)

xoxo Sioux

Boxing Clever by Buttons

Hi everyone, and welcome to my second GDT piece. My offering this time produced fingers which needed some serious scrubbing but the end results were definitely worth it.

The stamps I used for this one were the small but beautiful Gibson Girls set available from The Artistic Stamper. These elegant ladies were perfect for adding some well needed refinement to my texture-filled boxes as you will see from the following images.

Now the original plan was to decorate a small round paper substrate box to house my bracelet collection. I had an idea in my head about the sort of look I wanted to achieve but it took a fair bit of experimenting to get there.

It all started with embossing metal foil sheets applied to the box. This was then covered roughly in a mix of blue and green alcohol inks to give it a slight verdigris feel.

Next came a layer of Distress Paints - red, yellow and orange all mixed together over the top of the inks (with fingers!!) with particular attention paid to the embossed areas. By then attacking it all with wire wool I finally had a real rusted/verdigris look.

After some extra dabs of alcohol inks I stamped out the Gibson Girls images with Coffee Archival Ink onto tissue paper. They were torn apart carefully and applied to the box with Glue n Seal. It was important to ensure that the more delicate features (in particular the eyes) were placed in areas where the embossing would not distort them. Using these smaller images meant this was far easier to achieve.

To finish a little extra ink and paint were applied over the top to help blend the tissue in further. Next, attention turned to the box rim. I used a mask and white texture paste (with a heat gun - what can I say? I'm impatient!) Finally for the little box I added a small ribbon pull.

As this process worked so well on my bracelet box, attention turned to a larger suitcase housing my (rather large) nail polish collection - well, although it did the job well the purple/black/white/green pattern wasn't the most fetching!

Obviously this involved covering a far larger area, so planning where to place the faces was important. The handle and other metalwork also needed attention. I turned again to the same alcohol ink mix and twisted ribbon around the handle to make it far nicer to use and look at.

And so both boxes were completed, coordinated and could now be proudly displayed here (and in my bedroom!) I hope you like them as much as I now do. I've got one final GDT post for you later this month so I hope you'll join me for that. For now, keep crafting!
Jenny Marples
Pushing The Right Buttons
Stamps used - Small But Beautiful Gibson Girls

Spring Garden Journal Page by Astrid

Hello everyone and welcome, it's great to see you here. Have you noticed the days are turning a little longer? Yep, here in the Northern Hemisphere, Spring will soon be here, - I for one can't wait.

Today I am sharing a journal page, created with thoughts of Spring in my mind.....

Have you seen the cool New Stamps that are now available? I used one of the new sets created by the well know Katie Fox from the Craft Stamper Magazine. She has created 5 new stamp sets, and for this project I used the Encyclopedia Botanica. I also used one of the cool Blue Print Stamps by Tim Holtz, the Classics No 1 In addition I used the following sets and other products for my page:
Journaling Words 2 & 3
Chicken Wire Background
Dylusions Ink Sprays in Lemon Zest, Squeezed Orange, Vibrant Turquoise and Melted Chocolate
Distress Inks in Peacock Feathers and Wild Honey, Pumic Stone, Aged Mahogany, Dusty Concord
Dylusions Stencils Dotted Flower and Diamond of a Border
Archival Ink Jet Black.
Mini Mister filled with water
Kitchen roll, Embossing Ink and white embossing powder from my stash
The page itself was  water colour paper

First I created the background with my choice of colours of Dylusion Sprays, Distress Inks and my two stencils. I played around with it until I was happy with the results

I used one of the stencils for the so called "ghosting technique": You spray water through your stencils, leave it in place for a few moments, then lift it and use kitchen roll the lift of excess moisture. As if by magic the base colour of ink appears through darker colours on the top.
When I was happy with my background I stamped the Chicken Wire background and Blue Print stamps in various places as shown.

The dragon fly from the blueprints was stamped again on smooth stamping paper as were  the butterflies from the Encyclopedia Botanica. They were then cut out, coloured with Distress Inks and adhered to the page. I filled some of the gaps with words from the Journaling Words 2 & 3 sets and the beetle from the Encyclopedia Botanica set. Finally I stamped the word Art Journal and the Garden sentiment on scraps of scrapbook paper, and glued them to the page. The last step was the white stamping (with white embossing powder) with one of the stamps from the Encyclopedia set again.
Here are a few more close ups:

Well, I hope you like my journal page. Thank you for visiting and I will see you again towards the end of the month.