Summer time !

Hello happy crafters !
Summer is on its way, and it feels good ! and it is the theme of this month challenge !
For those who are looking for inspiration to play with us, I have made this card

using the following Artistic Stamper's stuff :

First I have colored the background with acrylic paint and distress ink through
the Flowers & Leaves long mask
When I felt it was colored enough, I have stamped
Flutterby
flowers from Encyclopaedia Botanica and Botanical 2 
and then the sentiment from Journaling Words 3
And at the end I have bordered butterflies, words and some flowers with white gel pen.

Thanks so much for stopping by,

your comments are very much appreciated.

I hope you will participate in our June challenge

 to win some fabulous Artistic Stamper stamps.

Titbelsoeur

my blog

my Facebook page

Bloom. End of story.

Heh, hi, Stampers))))

It's Maria Potapovich here for you today)
Me and my new box.

Do you like Botanical Plates 1 and 2?
Here is the one of them:

And here is my box, made with these stamps:

Lots of flowers and greenery ...

Girls in the garden. Butterflies and birds are their neighbors.

Rhinestones and white paint add a little "dew" in the garden.

Of course, this garden will be stored under the transparent cover - so to speak "behind the fence".)))

Do you already want to make your garden in a box?

Or do you have some other idea?

I already want to see your results!

My fav from 2014 at Artistic Stamper ;)

Hi!
It's me, mellpellmell here for you today.

You know, there is a tradition - before the new year to remember what you have done over the past year...

I also want to remember and tell you about it...

So, let's see my favourite Artistic Stamper creations from this year.

The first is the ATC series of two cards. I like the messy view of this stamps - letters and numerals :)

The second is minimalistic card made with a single stamp "leaf". It is very sharp and very realistic looks after coloring.

And the last - LO with different botanical stamps - butterflies, beetles and text (the most excellent option for the background!)

I am grateful to all of you that you remembered it all with me.

And thanks to all of you - the design team, the readers and even bystanders at this blog, that you spent this year along with me!

And I wish you all Happy New Year!!!

A Journey is measured in Friends

Hello Everyone,Shilpa here,
Hope you loved the theme of our June challenge and linked up your beautiful projects here. If  you have not yet... I brought you bit of inspiration,

I started off with thick chipboard 8*10" which I gessoed first. To create the texture I stamped the Calligraphic Mat 4  and  Random dots on the tissue paper with  Black Archival Ink. And adhered it on the surface. And gessoed again to push it in background.

I blended Peacock feather, Tumbled glass, Stormy sky and Picket fence Distress paints and sprayed water to get the colour on, as I was trying to make it blue sky. Allowed it to dry thoroughly with my heat tool. For some more texture I used Crafters workshop spinning tops stencil and peacock feather distress ink. I stamped circles with white acrylic paint randomly on the background.

I stamped these small green branches at the edges with Katy Leitch's  Botanical plate2  stamp set and Fern Green Archival ink  Aren't they lovely?

 At the bottom corner, I stamped  with small flower from  Botanical plate1 and Staz on Blazing Red and coloured them more with PIIT pens

And these beautiful butterflies are from New Neil Walker stamp collection at Artistic stamper. I stamped them with same Blazing red Staz on ink. I also applied Mod Podge and sprinkled Clear Rock Candy distress glitter. I've taken this photo in sun, hope you can see the shimmer.

And finally added these words from Traveling stamps set.

We have theme 'Red' for June challenge, you still have 3 more days to create and participate in the challenge.  Hope I inspired you... Thank you so much for your visit today....see you next month!!

Supplies used :
Artistic Stamper Stamps:   Calligraphic Mat 4, Random Dots , Botanical Plate2, Botanical plate 1, Butterfly - Neil Walker stamps

Staz On Inks: Blazing Red
Ranger Jet Archival Ink, Fern Green Archival Ink
Crafters Workshop Stencil - Spinning tops
Distress Paints - Peacock feather, Tumbled glass, Stormy sky, Picket fence
Faber Castell - PIIT Pens
Clear Rock candy distress glitter
From my stash - Chipboard, Tissue paper

Les Fleurs

Hi all, Alison (butterfly) here, with a pair of tags for you today.  It will come as no surprise to regulars that they use Katy Fox's beautiful botanical stamps... I seem to be obsessed with them!  (Remember, you can click on the photos if you need a closer look.)

So I started with a couple of plain manila tags, and inked them up with Tim's wrinkle-free distress technique and some spritzing and flicking.  I layered in some stencilling, rays and letters with Broken China and Vintage Photo Distress Inks.

Then I added some background stamping with the Artistic Stamper Large Random Dots.  They're stamped in Picket Fence Distress Paint, and then I used a white pen to add a little dimensional shading.  I also stamped the Sequin Waste in Peacock Feathers - which you can see in a later photo.

The main stamp for the first tag is from Encyclopaedia Botanica, from Katy's first release.

And the second tag uses the large flower from Botanical 2.  On each of them, I've used a very light wash of Mermaid Fresco paint to just highlight the flower heads a little.

 

The adorable little Les Fleurs label is also from that second set.

It's simply stamped on card in Black Archival and then torn and inked, and positioned to complement the flower stamping.

Regulars at Words and Pictures will see that I've created some new glass pebbles for this project.  Rather than sticking my glass pebbles onto book pages, as I've done previously, this time I created some musical embellishments!

I spritzed some colour onto some card (Dylusions and Perfect Pearls Mists), and then stamped the Music Background over the top in Jet Black Archival.  

Then you just glue on the pebbles (the sort you use to fill vases and so on) using gel medium - I use gloss, but I think any would do - wait until dry and then cut around the pebbles.  I do love how they catch the light!

I've also been having another little play with the beeswax (loved my first go on some journalling pages also using Artistic Stamper stamps and stencils).  I painted melted beeswax onto some book pages, and tore and inked them.  

You get a lovely translucence from the beeswax, and I really like the look of ancient parchment that it gives the paper.

As you can see, I also added some Idea-ology cogs and gears - somehow the composition just needed them - and then I simply couldn't resist the urge to mount the tags onto corrugated cardboard (another obsession).

This time it's had a rough coat of a couple of paint colours that complemented the tags, and then a good bit of inking with Gathered Twigs around the roughened edges.  (And here's that Sequin Waste stamping - such a cool background texture stamp!)

A little bit of crinkle ribbon, dyed with Distress Stains and Paints - the paints give it that lovely opaque look - and tied with paper string to top the whole thing off.

You can probably tell from these tags that I'm longing for Spring.  

Again, I caught one of those odd pockets of sunshine to take some of these photos, but I hope you are all keeping safe and dry in these storms in the UK, and not too cold in the US, and generally happy, safe and sound wherever you are in the world.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and if you've been using Distress products then come and play along in this month's challenge here at The Artistic Stamper where that's all you need to do: Use Distress.  Hope to see you there!

Ingredients used:
Artistic Stamper stamps: Katy Fox - Encyclopaedia Botanica and Botanical #2; Backgrounds - Music Background, Large Random Dots, Sequin Waste
Tim Holtz Layering Stencils
Melt Art Natural Beeswax
Distress Inks - Broken China, Vintage Photo, Peacock Feathers
Distress Paints - Picket Fence
Distress Stains - Peeled Paint, Broken China
Archival Inks - Jet Black, Sepia
Fresco Paints - Mermaid
Dylusions - Dirty Martini, Cut Grass
Perfect Pearls Mists - Turquoise
Inkssentials White Pen
Idea-ology Findings - Sprocket Gears
From my stash: book pages, corrugated cardboard, Idea-ology paper string

Always and Forever Changing!

Hello all!  Alison (butterfly) here with my first Artistic Stamper post of the New Year.  I should probably have made a resolution about trying to write shorter posts, but I didn't, sorry!  I've another photo-heavy marathon for you (and remember you can click on the photos for a closer view).

I started with one idea in my head with this one, went via a completely different possibility and ended up in an utterly unexpected destination - but one that I'm very happy with.  In fact, it may be one of my favourite makes.

I'm afraid I don't have many photos en route since most of the way along I was pretty sure I was going to bin it.  Very glad I didn't now!

I started with one of the papier mâché icons and some PaperArtsy crackle glaze, but that's long lost under some heavy gesso and loads of ColorWash sprays.  What I can tell you is a little bit of how the background shaped up once I'd gesso'd over my first idea.

I started with some text, stamping the botanical definitions from Katy Fox's Encyclopaedia Botanica plate in Potting Soil Archival (just as well I picked Archival with everything that then happened).

I stencilled Walnut Stain Distress Ink through the Harlequin stencil - it's really pale because of being over the gesso - and then clear embossed it, using only a light covering of powder.  (Again, just as well I kept it in place with the embossing - it wouldn't have lasted through the spritzing.)

At this point I had a gentle neutral affair on the way - white background, dark brown stamping, and I was still planning to stamp one of Katy's flowers directly onto the icon.  But, in my usual fashion, I had more than one thing on the go, and chance intervened at this point.

I happened to use a kraft tag to mop up some white paint from the mat, and suddenly wondered how the flower would look stamped onto that instead... the answer was "lovely"!  This particular flower is from Katy Fox's latest Botanical 2 release, and it's stamped in Potting Soil.

But then it started looking a bit bland to me.  I thought I'd like just a little hit of colour in the background... hmm!  I got out the ColorWash sprays, with their yummy earthy, natural tones, and tried them out on a nearby tag which gave me lovely spray patterns and some gentle blending and dripping.  But when I sprayed them onto the gesso, they behaved very differently and I ended up with really full on colour going on - not what I'd intended!

However, thanks to the embossed Harlequins, there was a lovely resist effect in places that toned in with the whitewashed kraft tag, so I decided to persevere.

I stamped the Artistic Stamper Messy Art blots and splashes (Katy Fox again!) in Fresco Snowflake...  I hadn't used these before and, oh, how I love them now!

I added a couple of spritzes of Dylusions White Linen too...

... and dry brushed some Snowflake around the edges of the icon too.  Obviously, all this is being carried over the edges as usual.

I stamped one of Tim Holtz's Simple Sayings in Potting Soil onto another whitewashed kraft tag and cut it out and distressed it.

And I added some Idea-ology Linen Ribbon to the top of the tag.

My final brainwave was to add some "Diamond Confetti" chipboard from the UmWow Studio, and highlight it with a dusting of Snowflake Fresco brushed up from the bottom corner.

I'm really pleased with how these drift across the piece, echoing my embossed Harlequins, and adding a touch of dimension to the composition.

So that's me for today.  Thank you so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come along and play in The Artistic Stamper challenge this month - Love is in the Air - we'd love to see you there.

Ingredients used:
Artistic Stamper stamps: Katy Fox stamps - Encylopedia Botanica, Botanical 2, Messy Art
Tim Holtz Simple Sayings
Papier Mâché Icon - large
Adirondack ColorWash sprays - Meadow, Stream, Denim
Distress Inks - Walnut Stain
Archival Ink - Potting Soil
Gesso
Fresco Finish Paints - Snowflake
Clear Embossing Powder
From my stash: Diamond Confetti by UmWow, Idea-ology Linen Ribbon (find similar here), small kraft tags