Making a mess

I have to admit that I have a slight obsession with aged mahogany distress ink - I love this colour!!
Playing around with some messy techniques yesterday, I came up with three ATCs that use this colour in different ways.

The background of the first two is a combination of wild honey distress stain and aged mahogany and dusty concord distress inks. Butterflies and birds were stamped in black archival. Flourishes were stamped using white paint and I also smeared some more white paint on with an old credit card.

I love the way the aged mahogany blends with the dusty concord and zings against the wild honey colours in these ATCs.

The final one was simply aged mahogany and white paint. I smeared paint roughly over the ATC using a credit card and added the ink over the top, blending with a wet paintbrush. It shows up as more intense colour where there is no paint, and turns a lovely pink shade over the paint. I then stamped some Hero Arts heart stamps in the paint and ink.

I think these techniques are great for making backgrounds, but I find it so hard to cover them up with anything - I just end up loving them just as they are. Is it just me that has a love affair with backgrounds?

Sarah
xx

Endings or beginnings?

I've been badly neglecting my blog for a while. It's been a busy time with conferences, holidays and bathroom decorating. Also was coming up to the end of my contract at work. Sadly, it ended last friday, so after 5 years in the same place I have to move on... to what I don't yet know.

I've applied for lots of jobs and haven't even had an interview - I work in psychological research and I guess the university research funding cuts have made things a lot more competitive. It's especially difficult because my husbands job means I want to stay in the same part of the country. The academic career path seems to expect people to move around the country (or world!) for years before they can get a permanent job and settle somewhere. I'm not willing to do this and it frustrates me that I end up feeling like I have to apologise for putting my family and personal life before my career.
So I think it's time for plan B... however, having a PhD apparently qualifies me for absolutely nothing in the real world so it might prove a little tricky!

At least having no job means I can make the most of having some inky crafty time. I have endless projects I want to do and xmas cards to make, so I'll definitely be keeping myself busy.

For starters...

This photo frame was lurking in my husbands study. The frame was a faded green and the photo in it was an old and unflattering picture of the two of us from around 10 years ago. It was just crying out to be updated. I used one of my favourite photos from our wedding and the text is the poem (by e. e. cummings) that hubby and I read to each other in the ceremony.

i carry your heart with me 

i carry it in my heart 

i am never without it 

anywhere i go you go,my dear; 

and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling 

i fear no fate for you are my fate,my sweet 

i want no world  for beautiful you are my world, my true 

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant 

and whatever a sun will always sing is you 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows 

here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud 

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; 

 which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide 

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart 

I carry your heart 

i carry it in my heart

Will be back with some more crafty stuff soon

Sarah
xx

An experiment in vintage colours

I recently came across the work of Polish scrapbooker/artist Anna Dabrowska from the Prima design team (see her work here). I absolutely love the sense of colour and texture in her work - it's seriously gorgeous stuff!

Her work inspired me to try making a card using muted vintagey colours and layers of different textures.

The background was coloured with distress stains / inks (antique linen, vintage photo and victorian velvet) and then I built up a few layers of:

• vellum - coloured with antique linen, stamped with the Tim Holtz Papillon background in a brown archival ink, torn into strips and edged with victorian velvet
• Lace - stained with antique linen and swiped through a bit of victorian velvet on the craft sheet
• Lace effect cream paper ribbon edged with victorian velvet

I swiped a few brush fulls of rock candy crackle paint over parts of the whole thing for extra texture.

The butterflies were cut out of fabric using a Tim Holtz movers and shapers die. The fabric I used was some little squares (perfect size for the dies) that were actually samples of suede sofa fabric I kept from ages ago when we were choosing a new sofa (I new they'd come in handy eventually) - I love the feel of them :0)

I mounted the panel onto a book page distressed with vintage photo distress ink, and then onto a card blank. Finally, I stamped Happy Birthday onto some left over scraps of the book page, painted with a little cream acrylic paint first to lighten the text in the background.

It's a different style than other things I've done and about half way through I thought it was a disaster, but I persevered and now I hope you'll agree it's not actually turned out half bad  :0)

Thanks for stopping by.
xx

Shabby chic butterfly box

Just a quick post to show you the box I've decorated for the Slaley Show (see earlier post).

It started off as a wooden box that had chocolate coated gingers in. I painted it with Fresco Finish paints in baltic blue outside and in, then used a layer of crackle glaze on the outside and painted over with snowflake.

The butterfly stamp was one of the Craft Stamper magazine freebies and the other stamped elements are from a magnetic set from Making Memories. All stamped in black archival ink. 

The bookplate is a Tim Holtz ideology one smudged with some more baltic blue paint. The butterfly image in the centre is from the Tim Holtz Papillon stamp set -  I happened to have it stamped on acetate left over from a previous piece. I covered it with diamond glaze for a glassy effect.

I quite like the finished box, although there are definitely things I would change if I was doing it over, including stamping the butterflies inside the box in white, and generally making a neater job of the painting.  Also I think I would have tried to use the papillon stamps for all the butterflies - it's just a bit fiddly to ink up a single butterfly from that set.

That all for now. Thanks for reading  :0)

Sarah
xx

Tim, Tags and Flying Time!

This week has gone past in a flash, so time flies seems a fitting theme for the first tag I want to share.

This was my first attempt at this weeks chosen technique for the Grungy Monday challenge  - Tim Holtz's rusty /faux enamel effect - see the details on his website here.

I used walnut stain distress stain over the tag and stamped a PaperArtsy image in vintage photo distress ink. I then covered the tag with clear embossing ink to do a slight variation on the rusty enamel technique. I used vintage photo over the top of the embossing. The butterflies were stamped from the TH Papillon set in stormy sky distress ink and clear embossed again with vintage photo over the top (same colours were used for the little Time Flies tag and the scrollwork at the bottom).  The butterflies and the sentiment were stitched onto the tag. I love the little metal leaf which actually came from a pair of earrings from Tesco.

I like the finished result, but I didn't think it really came out as a rusty enamel look... So now for number 2, again using a feast of Tim Holtz distress inks, alteration dies, texture fade embossing folder,  stamps and the rusty enamel technique.

This time I used crushed olive and forest moss distress inks to colour the tag, then clear embossed and went over the top with vintage photo. Then I stamped the birds in black archival. I stamped the Tim Holtz sentiment on white card, edged with crushed olive ink and matted onto black card. The little flourishy bits were cut from the on the edge scrollwork die I also used for the first tag. The flowers were cut with the tattered florals die, embossed with a flourish texture fade folder and coloured with the same distress inks as the tag, with a little additional black soot around the edges. I then attached the whole thing to a piece of white card, also edged with crushed olive, and finally onto black card. I love the colour combination of the crushed olive and black - it really zings in real life (is that even a word?)

I decided to enter the first tag into the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge ('show some stitching') and Sundays Stampers ('flying').

The second tag will be entered into Dragons Dream Tag It On ('Project Tim Holtz') and Grungy monday ' Tims faux rusty enamel technique')

Going out for dinner tonight so I better go and scrub the ink off my fingers.

Hope you're all having a good weekend :0)

Sarah 

xx

Dreaming of butterflies

I fancied trying out a technique from this months Craft Stamper magazine using tissue to build up layers of images and texture, and I just got some Tim Holtz distress stains so I wanted to try them out too.

I started off with a canvas board and swiped it over with the distress stains in wild honey, fired brick and walnut stain. I cut some pieces of heavy TH music print paper using the TH scrollwork on the edge die and coloured these with the wild honey stain before glueing onto the canvas.

Next I added a single layer of tissue over the whole canvas, soaking it on with diluted PVA glue. It wrinkles in places to add texture, and I worked it in around the scrollwork pieces so that they still appear slightly raised. The pattern on the paper is also still visible through the tissue.

Then I stamped my various images (stamps from Paperartsy, Tim Holtz, Debbi Moore) onto more pieces of tissue in black stazon  and glued them onto the canvas in the same way. Thanks to Florence at florenceandfreddie.wordpress.com for the tip of stamping with a layer of foam underneath the tissue for a better print - hop over to her blog to see some gorgeous bottles decorated using a stamped tissue technique.

Once it was all dry, I added some extra colour with the stains and a few more butterflies in black archival ink. Finally I rubbed some gold rub-on colour around the edges and lightly over the rougher bits to emphasize the texture. Oh and at some point I sprayed some heirloom gold perfect pearls over it.

Not too bad for a first attempt I think - the colours look better in real life too.

This last photo is just an ATC I was using to test out some of the techniques before using them on the main canvas, but I quite liked the way it turned out (even if the butterflies have smudges because I used distress ink then went over the top with more glue).

Sarah
xx

Blooming gorgeous!

I'd put aside sunday afternoon for crafting time, but my mojo appeared to have slunk off into a corner, so I ended up watching most of the Grand Prix with my husband instead. What a cataloge of pit stop errors it was - I feel really sorry for Jenson Button and Paul Di Resta.

Anyway, eventually I put my mind to making a flower card for the Try it on Tuesday challenge and this is what I came up with:

Lots of wild honey, fired brick and vintage photo distress ink, Tim Holtz Papillon background stamp (and butterflies on acetate) and a big grungepaper flower. I like the contrast of the orange shades and the black background. Having nicely red and orange stained finger-tips for the rest of the day was quite cheering too.

I do like the finished card, but it's less original than I'd like. It's definitely been strongly inspired by all the gorgeous things I've seen other people doing - guess that can't be a bad thing really.

xx

Where flowers bloom

When we got back from holiday last weekend our front lawn was a sea of beautiful flowers - white clover, daisies, and what my Dad tells me is birdsfoot trefoil. Unfortunately our neighbours are very keen gardeners whose lawns are always perfect - literally they go round the edges with scissors! - and have been known to moan to our landlord when we don't keep the garden as neat as they'd like. So the pretty flowers had to be mown :-( It was almost heartbreaking, but I'm sure they'll grow back pretty quickly.

I took this photo before we got the lawnmower out (sorry for the quality - I don't think photography is really my strong point):

Anyway, this inspired me to make a flowery tag. I coloured an ATC sized piece of white card with butterscotch and stream alcohol inks, edged it in vintage photo distress ink and stamped 'Where flowers bloom...' a few times also in vintage photo. The stamp was from the flower fairies lavender set by Crafters Companion, which I got as part of some blog candy from Craft Stamping Magazine. When I first saw it I didn't think I'd use it as cutesy isn't really my style, but I've ended using it a few times now.

The flowers were cut from grungepaper using the Tim Holtz tattered florals die and coloured using alcohol inks (butterscotch, and wild plum) and distress inks (wild honey and vintage photo). I also stamped a Hero Arts script stamp over them using various different inks. The letters spelling flower were stamped in black in the center of each one.

I curled the petals a little and mounted them to the background card using foam pads. The whole thing was added to a plain kraft tag and to finish it off I added some ribbon and an acetate butterfly (stamped from the Tim Holtz Papillon set in black stazon and coloured with wild plum alcohol ink).

I think this tag fits the new Sunday Stampers challenge over at Hels Sheridans blog. The theme is writing and this tag has both the script stamp on the flowers and the phrase stamped on the background.
And the current challenge at the Stamp Man is alcohol inks so I'm going to enter it in that too.
Oooh and not to forget the Grungy Monday Challenge at Studio L3 where the theme is also Alcohol Inks - check out Tim Holtz's demo here!
...And finally Simon Says Stamp and Show - A word!

Thanks for reading and I hope you're having a good Sunday

Sarah
xx

A tale of two tags

Ooops, realised yesterday that I could have entered my winged things tag into the Simon Says Stamp and Show ('a tag') and Sunday Stampers challenges! The Sunday Stampers theme is 'stash that makes you happy' - steampunk and the Tim Holtz papillon stamps definitely do that (what more could I want!)

Question is, is it ok to edit posts to add in challenges I'd forgotten about and will Blogger mess up my links if I do? Not knowing the answers, I just had to make something new (as if I need an excuse ;-))

I started off making one background by adding stormy sky and dusty concord distress inks to my craft sheet and smooching a cream coloured tag through them. It gave it a wonderful grungy distressed look that I really liked. I then stamped the papillon background stamp in stormy sky. Looked okay but I wanted a crisper look for the butterflies so I used a Whispers dye ink pad in fresh eggplant. That didn't show up very well so I stamped the butterflies again in Whispers azure seas ink, which made it look like it should be viewed through 3d glasses :-( ...  gave up and started again!

the original background

Did pretty much the same thing again, but only stamping the butterflies once. I wrapped some multi-coloured thread around the tag and added a flower made from die cutting Tim Holtz tattered florals from metal and colouring with alcohol inks (my first attempt with alcohol inks!). Then I stamped and cut out the butterflies, distressed with a bit more dusty concord and stormy sky, and attached them with sticky pads.

I tried and failed miserably to take a decent photo as it was getting dark so I decided to leave it til the morning. Glad I did... when I looked at it this afternoon I didn't really like it. So I moved the metal flower onto the original tag (having decided I actually like the slight offset of the two lots of butterflies) and added a sentiment. On the other tag I replaced the flower with another cut-out butterfly and added a few crystals for interest.

So, I've ended up with two simple tags, both of which I like better than the original one :0)

I'd like to enter these in the following challenges:
Grungy monday - 'distress-o-rama' (a homage to the king of distress, Tim Holtz - check out his website here!)
Simon Says Stamp and Show - 'a tag'
Sunday stampers - 'stash that makes you happy'

Hope everyone's having an enjoyable and inky weekend!

Sarah
xx

Winged things

Having a busy week, but managed to find the time for a little bit of crafting.

There's a fab theme of 'winged things' at Dragons Dream Tag it On challenge this week - I was going to go down the butterflies route  (just got the Tim Holtz Papillon stamp set and I love it - taking so much effort to resist using it on everything!), then I remembered some cool images from the Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante papers and decided to do something a little different.

I stamped a variety of Tim Holtz stamps (clock, papillon words) in broken china and vintage photo distress inks onto a tag cut from a sheet from the steampunk papers. The main winged figure and the stamp images along the bottom were cut from another sheet from this paper set. The definitions were from a paper from the Tim Holtz Lost and Found stash.
Finally, I felt it needed just a little something more so in the end I couldn't resist stamping papillon butterflies over the top!

It also fits the theme at the Just For Fun challenge this week - 'anything Tim' - First time entering this challenge but since everything I do involves something from Tim Holtz It just had to be done :0)  

Sarah
xx

Dragons Dream - Perfect Purples

Purple is my most favourite colour and has been since I was very little. Occasionally I get tempted away by teal, but I always end up back at purple (almost all my clothing is purple, turquoise or black!). So, when I saw that Dragons Dream Tag It On  challenge theme this week was purple of course I couldn't resist!

I thought I'd have a go at the perfect distress technique from the Tim Holtz Compendium of Curiosities. The idea is to stamp an image in distress ink, cover it with perfect pearls, then mist with water to set the perfect pearls and wick the distress ink out a bit from underneath. This is what I came up with:

I don't think I made a very good job of it - the ink colour under the gold perfect pearls blended too much into the background. I still like the overall effect though, even if, like most things I do, its not quite how it was intended.

Sarah
xx

Eastern dreams

Hope everyone is enjoying the extra long weekend - I certainly am as its given me lots of time to play with some new crafty bits. I seem to have spent a fortune on craft stash this last couple of weeks including being seduced by a Tim Holtz lost and found paper stack and spinners in Hobbycraft this morning - I shouldn't be allowed near the place. Unfortunately hubby is encouraging me a bit too much... because he wants to scan my stamped images, papers etc to make textures for his digital photo art! I think he may have caught the distressing bug - he's just taking a digital approach rather than an inky one :0)

Anyway, despite the amount of time I've spent, I don't really have that much to show for all the playing. One thing I did manage to finish is this oriental theme tag which I'm going to enter into the Gingersnap creations red and gold theme challenge:

I started by covering a white chipboard tag with fired brick distress ink and covered most of the front with a chinese dragon image. I then painted the whole lot with crackle paint just to see what it would look like - I think its worked out ok. The butterflies are made of vellum and were edged with red and black ink. The fringing and a couple of cute buttons seemed to finish it off quite well.

...and I'll have to leave this post there as there is a delicious scent of roast beef coming from the kitchen and it's just too tantalising to stay sat in front of the computer.

xx

Sunday stampers - Love theme

Last sunday, the Sunday Stampers theme on Hels Sherdians blog was 'Love' - using the techniques and products that we love (can't believe how gorgeous her printer tray is!). I thought I'd have a go at something a bit different so I made this LOVE hanging using some of my current favourite bits and bobs.

I started off with chipboard letters and covered them in some wonderful papers from the Moulin Rouge range by Prima. This is one of my favourite ranges at the moment as I love the decadent style and the beautiful shades of blue and deep pink in this range. I inked the edges with stormy sky distress ink and used a Tim Holtz grungy text stamp to add some more detail to the L and O. I used glossy accents to add texture to the spotty paper on the V.

I'm currently a little obsessed with birds and butterflies, especially the butterflies and moths on the Tim Holtz crowded attic papers. I cut out a few butterflies and a bird stamped from the Tim Holtz urban grunge set and added these to the letters. Finally, I inked up a butterfly in stormy sky and stamped a swirl over it in gold (you can't really see the design but it gives a nice gold shimmer at certain angles).

Finding a way of fixing the letters together with what I had in was a bit of challenge, but I quite like the way its turned out with the pink wire that matched the pink in the Moulin Rouge papers.

Whats cool about the chipboard letters I used is they came in square pieces so they leave square frames to do something with as well. I'm thinking I might but some little photos in the letter spaces. Hopefully I'll have the time next week and will be able to show you the finished piece.

Finally, this weeks tip of the week is don't craft on the sofa - or at least don't use squeezy glue bottles! I squeezed the glossy accents bottle a little too hard and it went all over my hands then dripped onto my jeans and the sofa, Oops!

xx

Beautiful butterflies: part 2

I was determined that this week I was going to enter my first crafting challenge, so, after staring in awe at my Tim Holtz crowded attic papers for a few days, I got started.

So... here is my entry for the Anything Tim challenge at the Stamp Man Challenge Blog. There's already lots of stunning entries up there so I just hope my simple piece doesn't look too shabby next to them.
I'm also entering it into the Once in a Blue Moon - Gingersnapper's Choice challenge on Gingersnap Creations - inspired by the previous chestnut theme of wings.

I mostly used the crowded attic papers with brushed corduroy distress ink. I love the little 2x2 snippets in the paperstash - so useful when I just wanted a little bit of something to make the text without cutting up the big sheets. Even the letters from 'the' are cut from one of these snippets.
The darker background paper is from the Prime Moulin Rouge range and the 'journey' and 'remember' stamps were from a Making Memories Set.

Hope you like it.
xx

Beautiful butterflies

I've set myself the challenge of entering some challenges, so on Sunday afternoon I sat down with the aim of making something to enter into the Tim Holtz challenge on the Stamp Man challenge blog, and also the copper, ginger or rust challenge on the Gingersnap creations blog. I was planning to use the gorgeous new Crowded Attic papers from Tim Holtz which the postie delivered on Friday from Oyster Stamps - the butterfly and moth page is stunning.

But... I couldn't decide what to do with them and without a clear idea I just couldn't bring myself to start cutting.
Instead I found a little set of vintage images I'd forgotten I had and started playing around.

So, a few distress inks and Tim Holtz stamps later I came up with this tag. To be honest it's a bit more pretty and girly than I usually like, but I actually like it more than I expected to. It  might make a nice mothers day card for my mum.

I don't think I'll enter it in a challenge, but it has given me an idea of what to do with the Crowded Attic papers :0)