Butterfly's Farewell

Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here, and I'm very sad to say it's my last official posting as part of the Artistic Stamper team.  As many of you will know, life's been getting busier, and "something's gotta give"!

I've had an amazing time creating with the Artistic Stamper stamps (and the stencils too) over the last two years, and I'm so grateful to Jennie for her generosity and good humoured leadership, and for the chance to work with her fantastic designs.  (My textured tags last time didn't use the words "With Thanks" by accident!)  It's been a real privilege and pleasure to play alongside such a wonderful team of creative designers too, both past and present.

So, this final post is a chance to revisit some favourite projects created over the last two years.  You'll notice some of my go-to stamps occurring more than once - the Katy Leitch flowers, the fabulous Journalling Words, the Gibson Girls, and of course my much-loved background staples - the Calligraphy Plates, the Mini Polka Dots - as well as many others.  I hope you'll enjoy the little trip down Memory Lane...  (You can of course click on the links if you need to see more!)

One day I'll fly away

Some of the birds get to fly free, but will the woman ever break out of her cage? Pay a visit to see the tiny cracked hearts and the background layers.

In the Undergrowth

One of my favourite layered backgrounds, stamping and embossing and paint and ink, behind the Encyclopedia Botanica flowers.

Golden Gibson Girl

The new Flourish Background, a despondent Gibson Girl and an unusual colour palette for me - oh, and lots of crackle of course.

How does your garden grow?

A simple tag with the recent Gardening stamps - but it made me happy to create and makes me happy to look at!

Be Yourself

My first offering as a full-blown team member, and one of my earliest journalling efforts.  Those Gibson Girls always seem to turn up when I'm in a melancholy mood.

Take a leaf out of my book

Autumnal fun with a little book of leaves and a book box to keep it in - and the Dates and Journalling Words also put in an appearance.

I am journalling again

Journalling words at the heart of this textural page too... (Is there such a thing as "too much crackle"?  I'm going with "no"!)

A Token Gesture

... and they're the main feature on this gift wallet along with some lovely postal designs - pay a visit to see what happens when you flip over to the other side.

A Place for Keepsakes

Another early creation - butterflies and Botanica, blue and brown - my obsessions were clear right from the start!

Butterfly's Butterflies

The piece that started it all off - my first creation as a Guest Designer, but it remains a favourite - worth a visit as it's not easy to capture in one photo!

Journey to Yourself

The melancholy Gibson Girls start talking to you when you flip these tags over - and you should see the suitcase they travel in (well, tags are luggage labels, after all).

Always and Forever Changing

Another favourite background, and another play with Katy Leitch's fabulous flowers - and more shades of blue and brown.  A creature of habit... who, me?!

A round dozen for you there (plus a couple of cheaty extras over at Words and Pictures today, just to decorate the post!), and that's where I'll have to love you and leave you - with immense and grateful thanks for all your wonderful visits and comments here over the last couple of years.

I know you'll keep dropping by to enjoy the inspirational work of the rest of the team, and I'll see you out there in Craftyblogland I'm sure.  Happy Crafting all!

Stamping for Texture

Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here with some textured tags for you today.

It won't have escaped your notice that I'm pretty obsessed with the new Flourish Background stamp.  I've used it on journalling pages and jars already, and now I've been experimenting with using it to create texture in different ways, and here are two of the tags which arrived as a result.

There's so much gilding and shimmer going on that it was hard to get a photo of them together that does them both justice at the same time - either one was in shadow, or the other was catching too much light - hopefully you'll get the idea from the close-ups as we go!

The texture on the blue/gold tag was created with gesso.  I applied a generous coating of heavy gesso to the stamp using Cut'n'Dry foam and pressed it down firmly onto the tag.  As well as the relief stamping of the flourish itself, you get lots of additional textural interest as you peel the rubber away (like when you press two gesso'd or painted tags together and peel them apart) - lots of lovely organic ripple patterns.

Then I spritzed away with a combination of Distress Sprays and Perfect Pearl Mists and a few other sparkly sprays.

The colours settled nicely around the flourish textures, but I wanted to highlight them further so I used gilding waxes to zhuzh them up a little.

I love the golden gleam in the sunlight.

The texture on the coppery green tag has a slightly chunkier look.  I put a layer of texture paste onto the tag and pressed the Flourish Background onto it, just as I did with the gesso - though I don't seem to have a picture of this one "naked".  The texture paste obviously gets you a lot more dimensional bang for your buck!

I started with Dabbers and Distress Paints, including metallics, to get a good covering over the paste, and then added some spritzes of shimmer sprays.

Since I was leaning more to the greens than the blues on this tag, I then found myself reaching for coppery gilding waxes to highlight the textures.

Having created these two backgrounds, I really didn't want to cover them up very much!  I don't often reach for flowers - though for some reason I do have a whole box of paper flowers in my stash! - but that seemed to be the way to go with these tags.

They started out fairly innocuously in various colours... so I got busy with the Distress Sprays again.  I wanted them to look as if they were emerging out of the tags, so I spritzed them to co-ordinate with the respective colour palettes.

The blue-green ones got a spritz of Tarnished Brass to give a hint of a metallic look to fit with the gilded texture.

The flowers for the coppery green tag went through the same process with slightly different colours, and their metallic spray was the Antique Bronze - a warmer shade.

I liked the gilded look, so I emphasised the metallic shimmer even more by adding some gold embossing powder to the edges of the rose flower petals, large and small.  And I used copper embossing powder to add the extra gilding to the tips of the green petals.

It may have been slightly crazy to reach for the kraft card to create my word panels... kraft with all that gilding?!  But I really like the contrast.

The "with thanks" wording comes from Katy Leitch's Leaves set, and it's embossed in gold for one tag and in copper for the other.

It needed a bit more of the rustic earthiness to balance the shimmer, so I mounted the tags onto kraft card with padded tape, edging everything with Archival ink to give little more definition.

And some simple twine at the top completes the look - continuing the contrast between baroque gilded texture and rustic earthiness.

So, I hope you like them - a more gilded look than normal for me.  I think I've been influenced by Dee's fabulous work here!  And with all those flowers these would fit right in to the Flora and Fauna challenge theme here this month.  I hope you'll come and join in.  Remember, we do have to see some stamping, but it doesn't have to be with Artistic Stamper stamps (though if you do use them you get a double entry into the prize draw!!).  Hope to see you there.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I'll see you soon.

Ingredients used:
Artistic Stamper stamps: Flourish Background, Leaves
Distress Spray Stains - Faded Jeans, Peeled Paint, Evergreen Bough, Peacock Feathers, Tarnished Brass, Antique Bronze
Distress Paints - Antique Bronze, Peeled Paint, Tarnished Brass, Evergreen Bough
Ranger Paint Dabbers - Copper, Bottle
Perfect Pearls Mists - Blue Smoke, Patina Green, Sour Apple, Heirloom Gold, Perfect Copper, Mint, Patina Blue
Gilding Wax - could use Crafty Notions Gleam or Cosmic Shimmer in various colours
Embossing Powders - Rich Gold, Copper
Texture Paste - PaperArtsy Grunge Paste or Cosmic Shimmer paste should both work
Manila Tags
Kraft Card
Inkssentials Cut'n'Dry Foam
From my stash - paper flowers, twine, gesso

Explore Art Journal page

Hello everyone and lovely to have you drop in, this is Astrid here with my latest project.

One of my New Year's resolutions was to do more journaling and so I thought I would share a journal page with you. But before I start by giving you a description, I want to say that this page was heavily influenced by some of the fabulous journal artists that can be found on the internet, particularly Roben Marie Smith, one of the artists behind the Documented Life Project that some of you may have heard about. Obviously I gave it my own twist...

These are the stamps and products I used:
Chickenwire Background
Calligraphic Mat 12
Leaves A5 by Katie Fox
Journaling words 3
Gesso
Distress Paints in Broken China,Salty Ocean, Peeled Paint, Ripe Persimmon, Aged Mahogany
Distress Inks in Peeled Paint and Walnut Stain, Mustard Seed
Archival Inks in Jet Black, Library Green and Cobalt, Potting Soil
Masks: Large Sequin Waste, Chevron
Dylusions: Dirty Martini
From My stash:
Faber Castell Gelato Brown
Faber Castell Big Brush Pen black and dark green
Sequin waste, old journal page, old book pages,scraps of card, gel medium matte, glue, pallet knife, make-up sponges, baby wipes

Alright, here is a quick step by step:
Cover your journal page with a coat of Gesso, using a pallet knife, when dry, colour with Distress Paints and spritz with water to let the colours run and marble, add a few spritzes of Dylusions to deepen the colour in places and blend with a baby wipe..

  Tear some strips of an old journal page and adhere to the sides to frame your page a bit. Then add further interest with the help of the large sequin waste stencil: Place the stencil on the page, dip your finger in gesso and dab through the stencil. Dry, then add colour with the help of some Archival Inks, sequin waste and make-up sponges.

Outline your circles with a big brush pen for more contrast.
Next add some torn strips of old book pages and blend them in with the help of some more paint.

Here is a close up:

Time for some background stamping, I used the chicken wire and a journaling stamp.

Right, now to get some focus to the page... I cut a heart shape out of an old scrap of card to create a home made stencil.

I held it down over my page and then added colour with Ripe Permisson and Aged Mahogany Distress Paints and then to tie it in with the circles on the other page, added some more sequin waste dots with  Archival ink. Some of the colour had leaked out from underneath the stencil, so I blended it into the background with a baby wipe and then outlined the heart shape with my Big Brush Pen.

This is what the whole double page now looked like:

Time for the final touches: I coloured some smooth white card with first green Distress Paint and then Peeled Paint and Mustard Seed Distress Inks. I then stamped one of the leaves of the Leaves set in Library Green Archival and cut them out.

I glued them onto the page  and then it was time to complete the page with some journaling and a sentiment stamp from the Journaling Words 3 set, which I had stamped on what was left of the torn up journal page I had used already for the edges of my page. I also cut some strips of that same page and added additional journaling as you can see from the pictures below. Finally I added a few more sequin waste dots in some of the spaces that appeared a bit empty still and some further stencilling along the bottom edges with the Chevron stencil and finished it all by going around the edges with my brown Gelato.

Well, there you have it, page complete.

Hope you like it and that perhaps I have inspired you to do your own journal pages. The Artistic Stamper has a large selection of journalin supplies!

Thank you so much for visiting today and see you next month!