A Stitch In Time by Emma

Hello everyone!! Emma here again with my latest creation to share with you all. As always, I've taken lots of pics to show you all the different features on this piece, so I hope you like what I've made and enjoy!

To begin with I cut a piece of Manila card to measure the same size as a Size 8 tag and I applied Seedless Preserves, Wild Honey and Fired Brick Distress Paints to the card, blending the colours together with water.

I then used one of my favourite and most loved and used stamp ~ the circles from the Swirls, Splats and Dots A5 stamp sheet and randomly stamped them onto the background using Seedless Preserves DI. I then stamped the tape measure from Katy Fox's "A Stitch In Time" stamp set along the bottom of my background. I matted my background onto a piece of black card, with the edges slightly distressed and edged with Brushed Pewter Metallic Distress Paint, then layered both onto a piece of kraft card.

Next, I covered some chipboard with sticky back aluminium and left some chipboard bare and die cut one mannequin and the cotton spool from the bare chipboard, using the Sizzix/Tim Holtz Sewing Room die and using the metal covered chipboard, I die cut the body of the mannequin and the wings from the Sizzix/ Tim Holtz Heart Wings Die, both dies I have in my stash. I also die cut two pediments using the Sizzix Bigz Pediments die. I used Tim's faux riveted metal technique on the body of the mannequin and then applied Black Soot Distress Paint and Tarnished Brass over the all the metal covered pieces of chipboard to give an aged effect and added them to the main body of the mannequin.

I applied Wild Honey Distress Stain to a strip of seam binding and Brushed Pewter Distress Stain to a second piece. I then used the tape measure stamp and stamped it directly onto the pewter coloured seam binding, using black Archival Ink. I tied the binding into a bow around the waist of the mannequin.

I then attached all my die cut pieces onto the main cardstock background.

Next, I took some cream card, covered some of the card with Brushed Pewter Distress Paint and some of the card with Old Paper DI. Using stamps from Katy Fox's ~ A Stitch In Time stamp plate, I stamped various bits and pieces onto the card, cut them all out and then piled them up onto my creation.

I painted the cotton spool black and then added some more of the Brushed Pewter Distress Paint over the top before winding some twine around it and then adding that to my piece, together with two decorative pins tucked into the twine.

Finally, as the finishing touch, I used an Idea-ology Light Bulb from my stash and attached it to the head of my mannequin.

So, that's it from me for today and I really hope this piece has inspired you and you love what I've made, just as much as I loved creating it!

See you all again very soon and don't forget you still have plenty of time to enter our Words challenge. Just click HERE to be whisked to the post with all the details of how to enter ~ we look forward and to seeing your creations!

Bye for now...Emma x

You've Got Mail! Mail Art

Hello everyone and welcome to our blog! It's Astrid here with my second project for January.

Today I am showing you a very different project from my usual style, but I was in a fun mood and wanted to create something bright and cheerful, so I decided to create an altered envelope. And, just for some fun, - see how the address label is empty? Well if you would like your name to appear on that and receive this envie in the post, leave a comment here before January 31 and I will get my hubby to pull a name out of the hat so to speak, and that person will receive it in the post. Oh and just for those of you who are not familiar with this type of mail art, the envie is glued shut but there is nothing inside, it's the envelope itself that is the "art" lol.
Right, now for the list of stamps and products I used:
Stamps:
Postage No 1
Calligraphic mat 12
Journaling Words 3
Swirls, Splats and Dots
Kat's Creations Bunting
Crowning Glory
Birds of a Feather
Other products:
Dylusions Sprays in Bubblegum Pink, Vibrant Turquoise and Lemon Zest
Archival Ink in Jet Black
Mini Mister
I also used a white and black journaling pen from my stash, some washi tape and an ordinary office size envelope.

So, this is how I went about creating my envelope:
First I glued the envelope shut and then I sprayed the Dylusions inks in my chosen colours randomly all over the back and front and then added some water from a mini mister to blend the colours more. I added two further layers of ink and dabbed off the excess with a roll of paper towel. When I was happy with the result I left it to dry.
While it was drying I stamped the bunting, envelopes and sentiments onto white card. I cut them out and then glued them onto the front as shown.

To finish this side off I added some doodling with a black and a white pen. I also stamped the crown straight onto the envelope.

The back was created in a similar way:

I stamped the script stamp on some white card and then cut out a heart free hand. I then stamped the wings from the Crowning Glory set, cut them out and glued them on either side of the heart.

The other stamps were stamped straight onto the envelope and the whole thing was finished with a little more doodling and some washi tape.

Well, that's it, hope you enjoyed this little project, it was fun to create and don't forget, if you want to be in with a chance to receive this envie in the mail, all you need to do is leave a comment here.
Until next time and happy stamping!!

Steampunk in October... by Joanna King

Hello! My name is Joanna (aka Asia King) from Under a Creative Spell and I am super excited to play this month with the Artistic Stamper Creative Team!

My first guest design project was inspired by Kate Crane’s monthly calendar challenge. I must admit, I haven’t been very disciplined to keep up with all the months but after seeing this amazing range of stamps, my hands were immediately itching to start crafting!

For my calendar pages I used water colour paper, which I first painted with gesso. Then all the fun began! Using purple, orange and white acrylic paints I painted the pages, smearing and overlapping the colours as I went.

Then to start building layers I randomly sponged the paints through a mask with a collage of numbers. When the paint was dry, I stamped layers of images from Large Dotty Closed Background and Punk Plaid Background and added some paint accents through sequin waste.

Using an embossing ink I stamped the 'bubbles' from the Borders A5 #2 plate and heat embossed them with Stampendous Aged Wine embossing enamel. Then, with white, black and gold paints I stamped a number of circles with plastic bottle tops and I added a few black lines with Ranger's craft scraper.

To 'frame' my page I used the tiny dots and gears from the Borders A5 #2 plate which were stamped with Pumpkin and Jet Black StazOn inks.

My calendar days were punched from scraps of patterned paper and the edges were distressed with  Spiced Marmalade and Dusty Concord distress inks. The Steampunk butterflies and the snail are from the Tick Tock Butterflies set, which I stamped onto patterned paper and coloured in with the distress inks.

To finish the page I added some black rub ons. I hope you've enjoyed reading about this project and I look really look forward to sharing my next project with you!

TTFN!

Fly Away by Emma

Hello everyone...Emma here and I'm back with my first piece of July. For this piece I decided to make a mini canvas and I hope you like it!!!

Here's a list of products I used:

Letter Jumble Stencil

Adirondack Paint Dabbers

Swirls, Splats and Dots A5 Stamp Plate

Borders #2 A5 Stamp Plate

Tick Tock Butterflies

Curio Knobs and Game Spinners ~ Idea-ology Findings

Chit Chat Stickers

Archival Ink

And this is what I did:

First of all I covered a mini canvas with Adirondack Paint Dabbers. I then applied Snow Cap paint to the dots stamp and randomly stamped onto the canvas. Next, I overstamped the dots with black Archival Ink and the circle stamp. I then added more Snow Cap paint through the Letter Jumble Stencil over areas of the canvas. I also stamped the edges of the canvas using one of the stamps from the Borders #2 stamp plate.

I used the Raspberry Paint dabber to cover some Grungepaper before stamping the outline of the butterfly onto it. I then carefully cut round the outline and added them to my canvas with a Game Spinner in the centre of their bodies.

I finally added the Chit Chat Stickers and a Curio Knob to my canvas!

So, that's it from me for this time and I'm really looking forward to reading all your comments!! Thank you so much for taking the time to have a look at my little creative piece and don't forget that we still have our Circles challenge running until the end of the month and we'd love you to join us...

See you all again soon and bye for now!

Emma x