Shimmer by Emma

Hello everyone!!

It's already time for my second post of the month and I think it's definitely time to get inky!!

For this project, I decided to create a gift box and I've used lots of those stunning Perfect Pearls Mists that are currently on offer over at The Artistic Stamper with a huge 15% discount, right up until the end of January...

I've taken a few photos of my finished box, to try and show you all the detail and the gorgeous shimmer that you get from the Perfect Pearls Mists. I hope you can see just some of the glisten and I hope you like what I've made...

To begin with, I created an oblong box from white card and then blended Antique Linen, Vintage Photo and Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink all over the white pieces of card. I then used Picket Fence Distress Stain over the top of the inks, to blend the colours together. Next, using Viridian Archival Ink, I inked up the Calligraphic Mat 13 Background stamp and stamped over a corner section of the box, which you can just about see in the photos. I then spritzed the entire box with Biscotti Perfect Pearls Mists to give a beautiful shimmer. Once the mists have dried, I attached some Tissue Tape from the Symphony set, around the four edges of the lid and coloured with Antique Linen DI.

Next, I stamped the outline of  the largest flower from the Flower Power A6 stamp plate, onto Grungepaper, using the black Archival Ink, cut each of the outlines out and then blended Tumbled Glass DI over the blooms, and then sprayed each of them with Turquoise Perfect Pearls Mists. I repeated this to give me enough blooms to make two complete, dimensional Grungepaper flowers. Next, I stamped the image of the leaf from the Flower Power A6 stamp plate, onto some more Grungepaper and blended Peeled Paint DI over these, before spraying them with Kiwi Perfect Pearls Mists. I also added a bow, tied from twine.

Next, I stamped the "Keep Calm and Carry On Stamping" stamp onto cream card using Fired Brick Distress Ink, trimmed the edges and mounted it onto black card. I then added this to the top of my box, together with my grungepaper roses and leaves.

Finally, a tied a piece of twine around the box.

Thank you so much for taking the time to come and have a look at what I made and for all your lovely comments.

See you soon and hope you have a lovely inky day!

Emma x

Seeing Spots by Alison

Hello Stampers! It's time for my second post of the month, & I have a tag to share with you. I've used plenty of those yummy Perfect Pearl Mists that The Artistic Stamper has on offer right now.

To start I attached some Claudine Hellmuth sticky back canvas to a piece of card, then I die cut the dress form from the Sizzix Alterations Sewing Room die. I laid the dress form on my craft sheet, in a pizza box, then spritzed it with red pepper colour wash & forever red perfect pearl mist. I mopped up the leftover ink on my craft sheet with a tag. I don't like to waste good ink!

I used jet black archival ink to stamp the dress form with the mini polka dot background. I then stamped the tag with calligraphic mat 15. I applied a thin coat of Studio gesso to the tag, then spritzed it with heirloom gold perfect pearl mist. I distressed the edges of the tag with my paper distresser & inked it with walnut stain distress ink. I also sanded the edges of the dress form & inked them with walnut stain DI.

I stamped the phrase from Tim Holtz's Going Somewhere plate on the top right of the tag, & the sewing woman from the Dressmaking plate slightly off the tag on the bottom right. I stamped the woman again on white card, cut her out, & inked her with vintage photo distress ink, before gluing her to the tag.

I used the Sizzix decorative strip vintage lace die to cut a lace border from card, then painted it with pearl paint dabber, & attached a piece to the hem of the dress form, & a piece to the bottom of the tag. I tied a strip of tulle around the waist of the dress form, added a safety pin, & glued it to the tag.

Finally, I stamped the thimble from the dressmaking plate on some sticky back aluminium, cut it out, and attached it to the tag, together with a couple of buttons & metal poppers.

I hope you like my tag, thanks for looking,
Alison xox

Feeling Blue...?

Good Morning to both you and the weekend...
and hopefully a little off-duty time for some and oodles of crafty dabblings too! Sarah here with my second make of the month. Today I'm feeling rather blue and girly but all in a good painty, inky way. I make no secret of being an ATC fan, especially when they're funky and chunky!

I cut a chunk of wood from an old beam that was lurking in the shed. It's the three dimensional model of your standard ATC (2½ x 3½ inches, but 1½ inches deep). I started with a couple of coats of paint with my Cloudy Blue Dabber and then cut a cardboard frame for the front which I swiped with Snow Cap before stamping some yummy Polka Dots.

I lined the frame with Mr.Tim Ball Chain and inked up some Grungeboard Letters with pigment ink. I chose the word 'Fleur', because somehow French sounds so much nicer!

I painted some Grungepaper in Snowcap and then stamped the really great flowers and leaves from Flower Power and Flower Blooms.

I love cutting weeny things out so I had a ball with those leaves! Plus it means you can create more movement and shape with them.

I layered up the flowers, added a brass stud and made a triple one for the top finishing off with an old ceramic drawer knob!

On the back, more yummy dots, leaves and three pretty mini flowers. Just too cute! I don't often say cute, but these just are! I played around with the words from Flower Blooms by stamping them onto painted card and splitting them up. Oooh, so many places to play with...

I think chunky ATCs make great gifts because you can put so much in to them but they're just the right size too... They'll happily perch on a shelf or in a cabinet.  

Are you stamper or cardmaker wanting to venture into mixed media but feeling a bit daunted by the thought? Well, this could be the perfect project to help you make that step, whilst still taking all your other skills along.

On the sides, I kept things fairly simple but still wanted to add a little extra detail with some seam binding, vintage buttons and another flower. I don't mind seeing the lumps, bumps and cracks in the wood - all part of the natural look!  On this side some more wordplay and chain. Finally, (fanfare) the whole ATC is mounted on four metal corner thingies also painted blue!
So, that's all folks, as they say. Hope you like it and will maybe give it a go yourself. Thanks for looking and Happy Weekending! Sarah.

CAN CARS FLY?.....

THEY CAN IN MY WORLD (lol)
Hi all, Kat here,
I'm here with project no 2,
it's another page in my little board book,

The focus is still on Perfect pearls this month,
you can grab yours HERE at a discount price.

My page is missing a smart of funny saying or quote,
can anyone help me out on this one,
please leave me a comment with any suggestions
as I am stumped, but I do feel the page needs one.

this is such a shiny page but I can't seem to get it on the camera.

 (sorry about that)

OK I started by painting my page with blue acrylic paint,

then sprayed green patina perfect pearls all over it

then took a flat paint brush & brushed all over the page

to get the sheen all over, I unscrewed the bottle &

splatted the plastic pipe over the page to get the splats. 

next I stamped the (be confident find your wings & fly)

sentiment, one of Wendy Vecchi's in Library green archival ink

all over the page,

along with parts of the Harlequin background stamp

& the Stipple background stamp

both stamped in Coffee archival ink

I then doodled around the page with a black uni-ball pen

& a white gel pen.

I cut the car images from a collage sheet,

and stamped & added the wings from the

 Crowning glory stamp plate

then glued them in place,

lastly I added a sky line cut from a magazine

to try to give a bit of perspective.

hope you like it!

I'll be back on the 25th with a more in depth project

until then have a crafty time,

Kat x.

Dreams by Sioux Jenneys

Hello everyone! It's my turn again and I'm here to share a card :)

1. I started off by making the flowers and stamped a piece of pale yellow copy quality paper (80gsm) with the Mini Calligraphic mat 20 in Archival chrome yellow then overstamped this with two of the flowers from Flower Power in Archival black and cut them all out ;)

2. Next I layered the large flowers with some small ones and one flower using just small flowers then pushed a brad through all the layers to hold them together.

Now the fun part for the scruchie look.....just spritz the layers with plain water and scrunch each layer into the centre. When all the layers are scrunched well, gently unfurl the layers to get the effect you want. Heat dry a little or just leave to dry naturally.

3. The background is a piece of paper from the Crowded Attic pad that I stamped with the Dance Dictionary background in Archival black and then spritzed with Perfect Pearl Mist in heirloom gold.

Grab those mists whilst they are on special offer here ;)

4. "Follow your Dreams" from journaling words 1 was stamped onto white card and cut out before attaching with dimensional pads on top of some die cut Elegant Flourishes that had been coloured with Distress Ink shabby shutters.

5. The background was first attached to some of the yellow copy paper and then to a piece of black card. A little bit of rustic twine was wrapped around and the flowers glued on top with silicone glue.

Hope your dreams come true this year :) See you soon!

xoxo Sioux

Darling Child by Alison

Hello Stampers! I have a little 5x5 canvas to share with you for my first post of the month.

To colour the canvas, I schmooshed peeled paint & broken china distress inks onto my craft sheet, spritzed with blue raspberry perfect pearl mist, then dipped the canvas in the ink. I dried it with my heat gun, then carried on dipping in the ink, until I had a pleasing background. Then I edged the canvas with vintage photo distress ink, & stamped the music background in the 4 corners with coffee archival ink.

I stamped the girl image from The Artistic Stamper Childhood Dreams plate, using coffee archival ink, then inked with vintage photo & broken china distress inks.

I stamped the Calligraphic Mat 15 onto a small tag, using peeled paint distress ink, then the words from the Childhood Dreams plate in coffee ink. I added the flower fairy image from Botanical Plate 3, in the top right corner, & the edge of the rose in the bottom left corner, then edged the tag with broken china distress ink.

I embossed a couple of Ideaology Foliage flowers with broken china distress embossing powder, then a couple of long fasteners with shabby shutters distress EP. I added the larger one to the tag, & the smaller one to a prima flower, layered with a circle of vintage music sheet.

I layered my stamped images with an inked doily, a scrap of inked music sheet, & the flower. To finish, I added a scrap of cream lace & blue ribbon.

The Perfect Pearl Mists are on special offer HERE on The Artistic Stamper website.

Thanks for looking,

Alison xxx

So Red The Rose by Emma

Hi everyone! It's Emma here and I hope you're all having a lovely, inky weekend.

It's already that time of the month for me to share my latest little creation with you and I chose to use a gorgeous Mabel Lucie Attwell image as the main feature of my project, together with lots more goodies from The Artistic Stamper. Also, if you head on over to The Artistic Stamper, this month you can 15% off Perfect Pearls Mists right up until the end of January...

So, here's what I made, all the details of how I did it and lots of close up photos...

To begin with, I made my own shadow box, using two pieces of white cardstock, cut to 15cm x 21cm. I then cut a circle aperture into one of the pieces of cardstock, which will become the front section of the box. Next, I blended Tumbled Glass and Vintage Photo Distress Ink over the front section and then inked up the Dots Background stamp with more Tumbled Glass DI and stamped over the entire front of the box.

I then stamped the Mabel Lucie Attwell "Cut Off Her Head" image from Alice In Wonderland and coloured it in with alcohol pens and Distress Inks. I mounted the finished image, centrally onto the back section of my box and then attached the front section, lining up the two pieces of cardstock and the cut out aperture, to complete my freestanding shadow box.

Next, I die cut some flowers from ivory card using the Tim Holtz's Tattered Florals Die. You will need enough petals to make three complete dimensional roses. I blended Fired Brick Distress Ink over some of the petals and left the petals that I will use for the third flower, ivory. I then used Forever Red Perfect Pearls Mists and sprayed all the petals with the mist, just like the Queen did in the story of Alice In Wonderland. I dried them all with a heat tool, before assembling each of the petal sections to give two completed red roses and one rose, that is half sprayed.

Next, I die cut the Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers, Mini Leaf and Branch and blended Gathered Twigs and Iced Spruce Distress Ink over them. I then arranged the dimensional roses, together with the leaves and twigs onto the front section of my box. Finally, you probably all had a small pack of playing cards in one of your crackers at Christmas...so, I used three cards from one of those packs and attached them to my shadow box.

So, I hope you like my creation and thank you so much for taking the time to come and have a look at what I made.

See you soon and hope you have a lovely creative week!

Emma x