Christmas Surprise by Emma

Hi everyone...

Hope you've all had a great week and looking forward to the weekend. Well, if you're looking for inspiration for your Christmas cards or gifts, then I hope that I can inspire you with the piece I'm sharing today ~ my little altered matchbox, with a big surprise when you open it up! As always, I hope you love it...

To begin with I made my own matchbox from kraft card, measuring approx 7 x 11.5cm in size. I then cut pieces of cream card to fit the outside of the box, inked them with Old Paper DI and stamped each piece with the Music Background stamp. I distressed the edges of the paper with Walnut Stain DI before attaching them to the outside of my box. I then added a Idea-Ology Hitch Fastener on the front of the drawer, to enable you to pull the box out of the cover easily.

I then cut more cream card to fit the base and the sides of the box and again inked them with Old Paper DI before stamping the Santa image from the Mini Christmas 1 stamp set onto the base card. 

I coloured the image with Distress Marker Pens and then inked up the Snowflake stamp with Tumbled Glass DI and stamped the flakes onto all my pieces of card before attaching them to the inside.

I then raided my own stash of dies and used the Festive Greenery and the Tattered Pine Cone die from Tim Holtz for Sizzix to die cut card and coloured each individual die cut with Distress Inks, adding highlights of Rock Candy Distress Dry Glitter to each piece. I then added these to decorate the inside of my box, together with a small Bottle Brush tree and some fake snow before finishing the inside with a couple of Tim Holtz Chit Chat stickers.

To decorate the outside of my matchbox, I used the Tattered Poinsettia die from Tim Holtz, again from my stash and made a large bloom from cream card, inked around the edges with Distress Ink and spritzed with Biscotti Perfect Pearls Mists. 

I attached the flower to my box and added die cut holly leaves, inked with Iced Spruce Distress Ink and rusty wire coils, smeared some Rock Candy Distress Stickles over the top of the leaves and then die cut the number 25, painted it with PaperArtsy Snowflake Fresco Finish paint and covered the numerals with Rock Candy Distress Glitter.  

So, that's it from me for today...thank you so much for stopping by and I'll look forward to reading your comments! Don't forget we still have our Christmas challenge running until the end of the month, so if you would like to enter, with a chance to be the lucky winner, then just click HERE for all the details.

See you again soon...Emma x

SPRINKLE LOVE by MEL HOOKHAM

...hello everyone, it's Mel here with my final piece as Guest Designer for the Artistic Stamper, it has been wonderful to be part of such an amazing team of super creative people, thank you so much Jennie and Emma for inviting to play along with you guys for the month of December...

...well I don't know about you but time has flown so fast this month and with the New Year fast approaching, it's time to reflect on what is important in life...

...this canvas was coated in PaperArtsy honeydew chalk paint, with snow cap paint dabber washed over the top...

...I used the A5 Border stamps around the edge in timber brown stazon,  I love the random circles on this versatile stamp...

...some crackle paint in broken china & frayed burlap hi-light the chit chat stickers...

...these gorgeous swirly bird nature stamps have been embossed in opaque white on top of calligraphic mat 12 stamped paper ...

...we can all do our bit to live in peace, with faith and good will, a sprinkle of love and of course art!...

...thank you for dropping by today...

...may love health & happiness be with you throughout 2013...

xxx

In A World Of Her Own by Emma

Hello, it's Emma here. Hope you've all had a good weekend and ready for another week full of creativity!! For my first piece of this month, I've chosen to create an inky scrapbook layout ~ I hope you like it!

To create this piece, I cut a piece of kraft card to measure 8" x 8" in size and randomly applied the Snow White Adirondack Paint Dabber to cover the central area of my card with paint. I applied black acrylic paint through a Crafter's Workshop stencil, then flicked various colours of ink over the entire piece of card and added splatters of Picket Fence Distress Stain. Next, I cut sections of white card, (this is a really good technique for all those offcuts of card that you keep and then wonder what to do with them) and added Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick Distress Stain to two of the pieces and sprayed the third piece with Bubblegum Pink Dylusions Ink Spray.

I stamped the inked pieces of card, with three different background stamps ~ Random Dot Background,  Mini Calligraphic Mat 20 and Mini Lattice Wire. I then adhered my pieces of card to form a background to my photograph, together with some Tim Holtz Tissue Tape.

I added some Idea-ology Sprocket Gears and some Chit Chat stickers before finally completing the layout with some doodles using a white pen.

So, I hope this inspires you to create inky backgrounds for your layouts and I would love to see what you make!! This background technique is also perfect for our challenge this month ~ Splatters and Speckles, we'd love to see your work so please, come and join in!!

See you all again very soon and have a great week.

Emma x

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