Steampunk card by Titbelsoeur

Hello happy crafters !
Are you ready to make steampunk cards with The Artistic Stamper stamps ? Here is how I did this one :
A few acrylic paint for the background, then I stamped some of the Mini Backgrounds # 2 size A6 , MIni Backgrounds # 3 size  A6  and Mini Backgrounds #1 size A6 , then I stamped one of the 2 Inspiration Jars  and  Imagine with Archival Black

I hope this card gives you inspiration to participate in our 

July's creative challenge - Female

for 3 chances to win some of these fabulous Artistic Samper stamps !

Thank you so much for stopping by.

Your comments are very much appreciated here, on my blog

or on  the Artistic Stamper's Facebook page

Bye for now and happy creating. 

Titbelsoeur

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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!

Take a leaf out of my book...

Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here with an autumn mini-journal for you.  There's time for a last breath of autumn before we kick into gear for Christmas, isn't there?!

I had great fun altering this little papier mâché book (8 x 11cm, and there's an even tinier one still to come), and creating a mini-album to go inside.

I started by covering it with some Tim Holtz tissue wrap, leaving the "edges of the pages" just with a coat of gesso (thick enough and on a hard bristled brush, so you get some "pages" showing - I'll see if I can find a picture showing that later).

Next step was to stamp the new Leaves Background onto the front and back covers.  I used lots of Archival inks on the stamp: Sepia, Sienna, Coffee and Plum, all blended on there.

Distress Inks next: Vintage Photo, Gathered Twigs, and probably some Rusty Hinge if I remember correctly.

I ended up giving it a coat of medium to seal it, which meant some of the Distress Inks faded a bit with the brush strokes, but I'm fine with that, as it brought the leaves to the fore again.

Time to create what's going inside.  I cut some pages to size (pretty much ATC-size) and did some wrinkle-free distress technique with lots of warm golden brown inks and stains.  I also added a couple of spritzes of Perfect Pearls Heirloom Gold to the craft mat before smooshing through with the pages, so you get a lovely golden shimmer in places.

I used the gorgeous new Journalling Words #5, one per page - it's the US version of "journaling" with one "l", but I guess I can work with that!  Just love all those fonts.

On the reverse sides I used some of the new Katy Fox stamps - the Leaves...

... and the Dates, again stamped in Archival inks, mainly Coffee and Sepia.  Apologies, this was all done after dark - how early is it getting dark already?! - so these are flash photos.

So, enough of the process, let's see some photos of the finished thing by daylight, shall we?

I love that the spine looks like a real old leather volume, burnished with age.

I added some Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs to the cover.

And look how the mini-album nestles just inside the book.

Here's a close-up of that cover, also using the leaves background and some Rock Candy crackle paint.

More crackle paint inside the cover of the box, with layers of autumnal paint shades.

And here are some of the internal pages.  I interleaved them with some hand-made paper pages, and added some stamping using my all-time favourite Calligraphy Mat, number 19!

Oh, almost forgot... here's the promised shot of the "pages" - click for a close-up if you need to!

So that's probably my farewell to autumnal crafting for this year - it's always a sheer pleasure to play with these colours and images, but with the temperature dropping rapidly and Advent Sunday almost upon us, it's probably time to let go soon!

Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed taking a leaf out of my book (sorry, appalling pun, but it tickled me!).  If you've already moved on to sparklier times, you could come and play along in our Christmas challenge this month at The Artistic Stamper - you've still got about a week to go.  Hope to see you there!

Ingredients used:

Artistic Stamper Stamps: Katy Fox - Leaves, Dates; Backgrounds - Leaves; Calligraphy Mat #19;

Papier Mâché Book

Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs

Distress Inks - Vintage Photo, Gathered Twigs, Rusty Hinge

Archival Inks - Sepia, Coffee, Sienna, Plum

Perfect Pearls Mist - Heirloom Gold

Tim Holtz Tissue Wrap

Claudine Hellmuth - Multi-Medium and Gesso

Be an Individual: By Zuzu

I am a bit unsure what to call this project. its just a thingy made of wood lol.
It is deeply inspired by Alison (Butterfly) Bomber and some tags she did in June and my friend Paula(who sent me some bits of wood to play with and makes lots of fabulous creations from blocks of wood).

I started by staining the bit of 'white-ish' pine coloured wood with some watered down brown paint to make it look like an old bit of teak or oak or something.
next I painted on some white studio gesso (the main bit of inspiration from Alison)...
when it had dried I stamped  one of Tim Holtz' "way with words" stamps on to the gesso using jet  black stazon.i then covered the front with a layer of clear rock candy crackle paint.

While it dried, I took a piece of white card and a "wet wipe" and used the wipe to dab on some distress ink. I used mostly 'Broken China'  and a touch of 'vintage photo'.  when it  had dried i stamped the little boy from the "childhood dreams" sheet on to it as well as the words IMAGINE (journalling words #1) and EXPLORE (journalling words 3) Journalling words can be found HERE.

Once the crackle paint had dried I painted some brown paint over it and then wiped it all off with a baby wipe. some of the paint stays behind in the crackle and highlights them.

The rest was all just cutting out and sticking on. I added the crackle glaze to my cut out card arrow and treated it the same as the main block, with paint and a baby wipe.
The cogs are from an old clock from an antique place in edinburgh. I have also used some ideaology findings... (the clock key on the left and one of the corners on the top). the little crown above the boys head is from HERE (scroll down a bit). and the "feet" are just two stained wooden spools from  some packs of assorted wooden spools from HERE.

Zuzu x