Inspiration...... by Debs

Hi Everyone

Here is my latest project using the theme of this months challenge - Patterns.  Sorry its a bit dark,  these dark evenings are not good for photographing projects!!

This was journal page which started life as one of those pages that you use up paint and paste on.

This page had some texture and some colour and i just thought the texture would make a good start for a new page

 I added some Dylusions squeezed orange paint

 Followed by some Bubblegum Pink and London Blue

 i then added some stencilling using assorted mini stencils from The Artistic Stamper

 Using the same colours again over the top or the original

 Gradually building up the background

 Using the Lesley Matthewson pattern 2 mask i added some White Linen Dylusions paint 

 

I added some stamping into the background with Calligraphy Mat 11 and Mini Polka Dot using Archival black ink

Loving your entries so far this month.  Still a week to go so lets see what else you can all come up with.

Debs

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!

The Brighter Side of Journalling

Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here with you again... and with some more art journalling.  But rather than the wintry pages over at Words and Pictures, this is an altogether lighter and brighter bit of journalling!

It does make me smile though to see how similar elements seem to have bobbed up on this very different page.

I'm definitely having a thing with circles at the moment - and here there are two layers of them.  First, some Distress Spray spritzed large circles using the Large Sequin Waste mask, and over that I spread a very thin layer of the Viva Decor Croco Crackling Colour through the Large Dot mask and left it to get on with cracking while I went off to do something else.

When the large dots were dry, I did some stamping with Distress Inks in my Jan/Feb colours of vivid blues and greens.  There's the Sequin Waste background stamp in Mowed Lawn and the Mini Polka Dots in Broken China and Peacock Feathers.

Once stamped, I gave them a spritz of water to let the Distress Ink do its magic wicking thing, softening the look.

And I used Distress Stains to add some colour to the large dots, wiping away the excess so that the crackle is highlighted.

So, like the winter pages, there's lots of crackle too.

For my focal point, I chose the word from Journaling Words #5 (oh, for the missing L!  Ah well, the Americans will like it).  I stamped it in the matching Distress Ink colours and clear embossed it on a whitewashed book page.

It's layered up over some wire mesh, tea-dyed tissue paper (transparent - so you can see the stamping and the text through it - love it!) and another book page.

I had great fun with my metal pieces.  The Idea-ology flower is altered with Distress Paint, while the skeleton leaves have had a dose of my Ten Seconds Verday Paint (weathered patinas, until now only really used on dollshouse work).

I used a combination of the Verday Copper finish as well as some Distress Paint in Mowed Lawn and Salty Ocean to get the finished effect, and I love it.

And I edged the page with Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain to pick up the rusty colours of the central layers, so we also have - at heart - the blues and browns of my winter pages, but transformed to a brighter version.

So having set out to do something completely different from the recent art journalling shared over at Words and Pictures, I have got something different, but somehow very closely related!

Thanks so much for stopping by today - it's always lovely to hear what you think.  And do come and play along in our New Beginnings challenge for a chance to win a gift voucher here at The Artistic Stamper - hope to see you there!

Ingredients used:
Artistic Stamper stamps: Journaling Words #5, Mini Polka Dots, Sequin Waste Open
Artistic Stamper masks: Large Sequin Waste, Large Dot
Distress Spray Stains: Broken China, Peacock Feathers
Distress Inks: Mowed Lawn, Broken China, Peacock Feathers, Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain
Distress Paints: Salty Ocean, Mowed Lawn
Distress Stains: Mowed Lawn, Broken China, Peacock Feathers
Clear Embossing Powder
Viva Croco Crackling Colour - White
From my stash - gesso, wire mesh, tissue paper, book pages, metal flower and skeleton leaves, tea(!)

Gentle Journalling

Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here.  I've been trying to be gentle with myself in the run-up to my big journey.  It's been so busy round here that I needed the little play time I've had lately to double as mind-calming relaxation, so I just did some gentle journalling in the pages of a book.  It's only looking at it now that I realise how much of a story it's telling about my imminent adventure!

All being well, I should be en route to the States later today - yes, the passport arrived with the visa inside just in time!  I'll be in New York working on a production of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine.  So while these pages provided a little respite in a crazy August of work and admin and preparation and packing, they also clearly have that sense of taking flight into new adventures built right into them, along with some ancient text.  (Okay, it's not ancient text I'll be working on, but it is more than four centuries old!)

I started from the idea of wanting to "preserve" some of the original book text, and I used Katy Leitch's butterfly silhouettes to do it.  They're stamped in Versamark and then clear-embossed.

Next came a wash of Chalk Fresco paint, and while that was still wet, I swept some Turquoise on too.  (Both colours are from the new Limited Edition JOFY set.)

Through all the later stages I did my best to keep them clean and clear so that the text would stay fully present.  I do like how they'll still catch the light and gleam at certain angles.

I used one of the Artistic Stamper masks to create my largest bubbles of positivity sweeping across and up the page spread.  (That seems to be the direction my art journal pages move in - look!) I sponged through the mask with Faded Jeans and Broken China Distress Inks and then did some shading and highlighting with pastel pencils.

Over that I stamped the Artistic Stamper Large Random Dots in both the Chalk and the Turquoise.  And finally I did some spattering with the inner stick of the Dylusions White Linen spray.

I seem to be a little bit obsessed with the meadow grasses from Tim's Spring Sprung stamp set at the moment, so they put in an appearance along the foot of the page.  And I used the Mini Polka Dot Background to add extra texture around the sky.

The tags had been soaked in tea and coffee, and then I stamped the beautiful Calligraphy Mat 4 in Sepia Archival Ink.

The large words from Journalling Words 2 are stamped in Sepia, as are the blots and splotches from the Katy Leitch Messy Art plate.  The big words got a bit of clear embossing for that magical extra shimmer. 

Once they were glued down, I used a couple of Inktense pencils to shade and outline them.  I really love how that makes them pop against the turquoise sky behind. And I tied some rustic twine through the tops of course.

There's a little bit of Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs inking all the way around the edge, but that's about it.  This was just a little oasis of calm in my crazy August, and I had a lovely gentle time playing with it!

Thanks so much for stopping by.  There's still a week to enter our Anything Goes challenge this month - no need to use Artistic Stamper stamps, but if you do you get two entries to the prize draw.  Hope to see you there.

Ingredients used:

Artistic Stamper stamps: Journalling Words 2, Calligraphic Mat 4, Large Random Dots, Mini Polka Dots, Messy Art

Artistic Stamper masks: Large Dot Mask

Dylusions - White Linen

Fresco Finish Paints - Chalk and Turquoise from the new JOFY Limited Edition

Archival Inks - Olive and Sepia

Versamark embossing ink

Distress Inks - Faded Jeans, Broken China

Clear Embossing Powder

Manila Tags

From my stash: twine, book, Spring Sprung stamps, tea and coffee!

Dappled Dragonflies

Hello everyone.  Alison (butterfly) here with a lighter than air hanging board to share...

I wanted to play with my new Crafter's Workshop Specimen stencil - and it wasn't until I was editing the photos that I realised the shapes from it echo the concentric ripples on water as the dragonflies dip and skim over the surface.

This is one of the smaller papier mâché icons, which had a good coat of DecoArt Titanium White paint to start with.

Then I blended Distress Inks through the Specimen stencil, merging Peacock Feathers and Peeled Paint.

I also layered in some stamping using Distress Inks with the Mini Polka Dots and Sequin Waste Open background stamps.

The dragonflies, from the Insects and Butterflies stamp plate, are stamped in a blend of Archival Inks - Aquamarine, Blue Violet and Olive applied randomly to the stamp.

And where the wings went over the edge, I stamped the rest round the corner!!

The sentiment, Dragonfly Words, was stamped in Olive Archival on a mop-up tag which was lying around, so I'm not sure exactly what's on that, but I added some Peeled Paint and Peacock Feathers to it too.

I used clear embossing powder over the stamping and stencilling to give it all a watery shimmer in the light.

I spent some time turning it this way and that to try to capture the darting light reflecting off the images.

That's your lot for today - I'm trying to keep it short, but you'll know I'm not very good at that!

Do come and play in our Letters, Words and Numbers challenge this month but, for now, thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll see you again soon.

Ingredients used:
Artistic Stamper stamps: Insects and Butterflies, Dragonfly Words, Sequin Waste Open, Mini Polka Dots
Crafter's Workshop Stencils - Specimen
Distress Inks - Broken China, Peacock Feathers, Peeled Paint
Archival Inks - Aquamarine, Blue Violet, Olive
Papier Mâché Icon - small
DecoArt Titanium White
Wow Clear Gloss SuperFine Embossing Powder