Since its been a lot cooler this week there's a strong temptation to veg under a blanket on the sofa, so I've not done much crafting. I've been procrastinating starting on my printers tray - it needs a bit of a clean which would mean spending time in the kitchen where there's no radiator.
The good news is, if our house purchase goes through, we'll have a nice open plan kitchen diner and I won't have to put up with a cold dingy kitchen anymore. We're feeling a bit more hopeful about it working out although it's definitely not certain yet. Basically, the current owners took down the supporting wall between the kitchen and dining room and put in replacements supporting joists without getting building regulation approval. It's probably fine but, there's a risk that the beams aren't sufficient and the house could actually be structurally unsafe. Luckily they have agreed to get it checked and get the retrospective approval so we just have to keep our fingers tightly crossed that it turns out to be OK. 

So anyway, I just have a quick tag to show you today. I feel a bit like it needs something else, but I'm not sure what, so i'll leave it as it is for now. It might have worked better on smoother card too.
 Its been a while since I've done a tag or entered any challenges so I'm killing two birds with one stone here.

Challenges I'm entering this in are:
The Stampman - 'use red'
Simon Says Stamp and Show - 'anything but a card'

Right, next job - make an effort to start commenting again!

Sarah
xx

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

A very quick post today to share an equally quick tag for this weeks Tag It On challenge. I think I might just get in before the deadline with hours to spare. 

The theme was planes, trains and automobiles. Unfortunately I didn't have a stamp with any of those on but I did manage to find a little image of a car. The map image in the background and the postmark are PaperArtsy Stamps, and the stars and 'journey' are Tim Holtz stamps.

Hope you like it

Sarah xx

Anniversary card

Just a quick post to share an anniversary card I made for my in-laws, and some tags I made to go on the bottles of wine we got them as a present.

Firstly, the card...

It's mostly Tim Holtz products (no surprise there). The background was inspired by this tutorial on the Gingersnap creations blog showing how to make your own kraft resist style paper. I used the Papillon stamp set  - stamped the background in archival ink, then clear embossed the butterflies, then coloured over the top with distress stains and inks.

I cut the flowers from book pages using the tattered florals die and stained with distress ink and added the skeleton leaves (I've had these for soo long and not really found good ways to use them, but I really like this).

On to the tags:

These were again inspired by a tutorial on Gingersnap creations. The tutorial was on an alcohol resist technique on glass. I didn't have any glass so I did something similar on acetate.
For each tag I cut two pieces of acetate. I coloured one of them with alcohol inks, then stamped the Papillon background stamp onto the alcohol inked surface using archival ink. I dabbed the archival ink off and it takes away the alcohol inks below leaving the image as a resist.
On the second piece of acetate, I simply stamped my other images in Black Stazon.
Finally I layered the acetate pieces up with a piece of white paper to show the background clearer and fastened the layers together with some mini brads.

Anyway, hopefully my in-laws will like them - if not I'm sure they'll still enjoy the wine.
xx

Once upon a midnight dreary

The skeleton piece I did for Grungy Monday inspired me to do another tag using the same skeleton stamp.
.... and since Gingersnap Creations are currently running a horror themed challenge I thought a Edgar Allan Poe quote would be very fitting - in this case the opening lines from 'The Raven' which is one of my favourite spooky tales/poems.

The tag was coloured with crushed olive and forest moss distress inks and stamped in black archival ink. The skeleton stamp is from Kaycee Crafts, and I also used alphabet stamps from Studio G and a writing stamp from Paperartsy. The whole tag was covered with rock candy crackle paint, which I think makes the colour really zing. The little raven (well ok it's a bit too cute for a raven really, but its as close as I can get with my current stash) is a Tim Holtz die cut.

Now I really need to get on with all the christmas cards and handmade gifts I actually need to make, rather than playing :-(

Sarah
xx

Moonlight and sunset

It's been ages since I entered any challenges so today I've done two tags for two of my favourite ones. Firstly, the Dragons Dream Tag It On theme this week is the whole of the moon. This is what I came up with:

The background started off with baltic blue fresco finish paint, crackle glaze and a top coat of black with white for the moon. The tree (from a Kanban set) was stamped with embossing ink and heat embossed with Moon Glow midnight sapphire obsidian powder. This is such a gorgeous deep shimmery blue and very fitting for the moon theme. I used some blue patina perfect pearls to add shimmer and stamped the tim holtz birds in black archival ink.


Hels Sheridans Sunday Stampers theme is blue and orange so I decided to create a similar tag with more of a sunset theme. 

The tree is the same dark blue embossing powder as the moon tag, and the background detail is done with the same blue perfect pearls as before, brushed over the pattern stamped in clear embossing ink. The background is wild honey and fired brick distress stains and ink. I know the blue doesn't show up too well in the photo so this one shows it a wee bit better.

I really enjoyed doing these and I'm starting to remember why I like challenges - they're fantastic for giving a bit of focus to my work. And I love seeing everyone else's fab work :0)


While writing this post I came across a great quote from Allen Ginsberg which I will leave you with.


"Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness"


I like that sentiment


Sarah
xx

Wish upon a star!

It seems to have been ages since I entered any challenges and I know I won't have time for anything next week, so I made this tag to go in three challenges at once!

Firstly, it's for Grungy Monday where we have to use the Tim Holtz technique from 12 tags of Christmas 2010 day 10 (see linky here). This also means I can also enter Simon Says Stamp and Show, where the theme is show a Tim technique.

So I started off playing around with a couple of backgrounds and some embossed acetate/plastic packinging . Then I started thinking what I could do with it (working backwards as usual!). I added a few embellishments and realised that the whole thing reminded me a little of celestial charts - probably more to do with the colour than anything else - and so 'wish upon a star' seemed fitting... perfect for Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers wish theme this week.

The tag base was roughly painted with baltic blue fresco finish paint and I tried to rub some off before it dried to give it a more grungy texture. I then sprayed it with some blue/turquoise perfect pearls mist which has given it a wonderful petrol sheen (unfortunately it can't really be seen under the acetate, but I'll definitely be using this paint/pearl combination again). The tag and acetate were cut with Tim's large tag die and the acetate was embossed with a the retro circles embossing folder. The clock faces are cut from some Tim paper stash - I really loved how these looked with the circles on the acetate!

I stamped 'wish' and 'a' onto paper and used with bits from a 'make your own brad' set, and although you can't see it too well in the picture, 'upon' and 'star' are stamped around the edge of two of the clock faces.

So my wish for this week is that all the senseless violence spreading around this country ends soon. They were interviewing two teenage girls on the radio last night who hoped the riots would carry on because it was 'good fun'!!! It really makes me angry how mindless it all is, but I'll stop there before I really start ranting.

That's all for now. Stay safe and stay inky :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

I can see clearly now...

Hope everyone's having a good weekend. Thanks for the nice comments on my chilvalry tag - sounds like a Monty Python themed project would go down well - will definitely have to think about that one.
....But, just a short post today to share a quick tag.

I don't end up using patterned papers that much, but there are some absolutely stunning papers out there. I recently came across the Lost and Found papers from My Minds Eye and couldn't resist couple of sheets.
This one in particular is really gorgeous:

I used this to make a simple but pretty tag:

I cut the decorative frame section out and mounted it on acetate stamped with a Tim Holtz sentiment, the simply added a strip of music print paper and some ribbon - very quick and simple!

I'm entering this into the Just For Fun challenge  - acrylic/plastic.

Sarah
xx

The Age of Chivalry

I nearly titled this post '...and now for something completely different' as this weeks theme at the Dragons Dream Tag It on Challenge has got me thinking about Monty Python. The theme is 'the age of chivalry' which immediately brought to mind Monty Python and the Holy Grail - one of my husbands favourite films ever (he can quote huge sections of it practically word for word!).

However, after all that I haven't actually done a Monty Python themed tag (although I do have some ideas bubbling away for a future project...watch this space).

Here is my actual offering:

The background paper I think is from a range by Rusty Pickle called Guinevere - so quite fitting for the theme. The stamp used for the shield is from Paperartsy,  the crown and flourishes are from a Tim Holtz set, and the bird is from Graphic 45. There's also a little Making Memories fleur de lys stamp in each diamond in the background.

I used black soot and dusty concord distress inks on the shield. I swiped round the edges of the tag in clear embossing ink and heat embossed in gold. I also heat embossed the corner flourishes and the crowns on the shield in gold and the bird in black. The lettering was die cut from a Tim Holtz alterations die.

Annoyingly,  I've now got the knights of the round table song stuck in my head! Comic genius :0)

Sarah
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

Steampunk Flower Tag

This week the Sunday Stampers theme from Hels Sheridan is 'steampunk' and, if you've read many of my posts, you'll know I love steampunk stuff :0)

I also love the Tim Holtz tattered florals die which I got recently, so when I saw this challenge, the first idea to pop into my head was a steampunk flower and I think it's worked out really well:

Using the tattered florals die the flower layers were all cut from this fab sheet from Graphic 45's Steampunk debutante range which has a wonderful dark cog background on the back. I glued the flowers to some grungepaper cut with the same die to give the petals a bit more ooomf (if you get what I mean). The edges were inked with vintage photo distress ink for definition.

The wings were cut using the Tim Holtz fanciful flight die and inked with vintage photo and black soot distress inks. I then spritzed the wings and the flowers with some heirloom gold perfect pearls which unfortunately hasn't shown up well in the photo, but looks fab and shimmery in real life.

The tag was just a plain brown luggage tag (from WH Smiths!). I left it it's natural colour and stamped a script stamp and a couple of Tim Holtz clocks, before distressing the edges slightly - all in vintage photo again.

Finally, I used the Tim Holtz hardware findings die to cut a keyhole shape (can you tell I'm slightly addicted to my Big Shot!) which I gold embossed and distressed a little to make it look a bit like metal  and fixed over the hole in the tag. I then attached the key charm to the flower on a chain from an old broken necklace.

I'm  really pleased with this - I think it's one of my favourite things I've done so far. Hope you all like it too :0)

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

Time piece

The Dragons Dream Tag It On challenge theme this week is 'Time Piece' and, having plenty of clock related bits and bobs at the moment I jumped at the opportunity.

Umm, not entirely sure it went very well....

I started off with a tag cut from some lovely diamond patterned paper which I embossed with the Tim Holtz pocket watches embossing folder.  I lightly inked the raised areas with brushed corduroy and black soot distress inks. At this point I really liked the look of the tag but wasn't really sure where to go with it.

After I while I thought along the 'time flies' route and stamped some Tim Holtz birds onto acetate with black stazon.  This really started to give me a feel for the way I wanted the tag to go - a dark 'gotham cityesque' feel (the tags are darker than they look in the photos)- but it needed a focus point... Umbrella man seemed perfect and the phrase 'no time to stand and stare' came to mind.

So... finished tag no.1:

But I didn't like it - the phrase was too messy and took up too much space, it just looked too busy. So I tried again - this time doing all the stamping onto acetate which was overlaid onto the clock pattern tag. Unfortunately, I couldn't get as clear and crisp an image onto the acetate as I had before (any tips will be gratefully received), so as a quick fix I coloured the faint images with permanent marker (??). I wrote the phrase freehand onto the acetate.

Finished tag no 2:

I do sort of like this one better, but it's still not right (and I'm sure permanent marker was not the best tool for the job!).  Think I'm going to give up on this one - nice idea, poor execution!

Hopefully, today will go better :0)

Smile!

After being away since last wednesday I got home yesterday and it didn't take me long to get back to some crafty time.

I was having a play with a new Tim Holtz embossing folder and this card was the result. The tag was coloured with broken china and stormy sky distress inks before embossing, then I inked the raised areas of the embossed design with brushed corduroy ink and heat embossed with clear powder. I then got a bit stuck... until I found a bit of card that I'd used to test the on the edge steampunk die, which seemed to work quite well layered onto the tag. I finished off the card with the smile stamp panel coloured and heat embossed in the same colours as the tag - sort of inspired by Tim Holtz's rusted enamel technique from his compendium of curiosities book.

I'm not sure about the overall card but I love the texture and colour combination on the tag. Like quite a few things recently I did the background then found it really hard to bring myself to do anything with it because I found it so appealing on its own. I just love the effects I can get with combinations of embossing in the Big Shot, inking and heat embossing. It's so much fun just playing with different colours and textures - it really makes me smile :0)

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

Gothic birdies!

Yet another gorgeous sunny day (you'd never believe it was a bank holiday weekend!), so, just for a bit of contrast, I decided to make a dark, moody, gothic tag.

I'd like to enter it into the Dragons Dream Tag It On challenge this week. The theme is birds (love this theme!) and it just so happened that I rediscovered some lovely bird rub-ons in my craft drawers yesterday. I hope this is within the rules as the bird itself isn't a stamped image, just the background details!

I created the background with stormy sky and dusty concord distress inks, stamped the frame and script stamps (from Tim Holtz) in embossing ink and heat embossed with clear powder, then wiped over with black soot distress ink. I'm really pleased with how this worked out. I then added the bird rub-on (which I think was from the periphery range by Basic Grey), a bit of lace and some dangly beads.

On another bird related note, I just have to post this gorgeous picture my husband created this morning! He started off with a simple photo of a crow in a tree and added colour and texture layers. I think it's fantastic and he likes it so much he's ordered a print of it to hang on our wall. It's not his usual style, but it's exactly the sort of picture I love.

Hope everyone's having a lovely easter!

xx