Simon Says Add A Button

This weeks challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show is to use buttons in some way in our creation. That gave me the perfect excuse to try something that I’ve had on my crafty bucket list for a while – to make my own mini buttons with shrink plastic.

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Since I was using buttons I went with a dressmakers theme for my tag. I diecut a dressform from the Sewing Room Sizzix die and ‘dressed’ it with patterned paper. The skirt was cut freehand and scored to create pleats. The ‘lace’ trims where trimmed away from a diecut doiley by Cheery Lynn, and the left over pieces were used to decorate the tag. I added some stamped elements as embellishments and background collage stamping. Stamps are by Tim Holtz and Inspired By Stamping.

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But this post is all about the buttons, right? On the Sewing Room die with the dressform is also a button shape, which I cut out of my shrink plastic film. I used the heat gun to shrink it down and it was fun to see it shrivel and curl before it regained its flattened state. These were so easy to do! I coloured them with a quick dab of alcohol ink before gluing them onto my paper dress. As an afterthought I smeared on some Distress Stickles in Rock Candy, and then liberally sprinkled some more clear glitter over the top.

Haven’t we all wished for a pretty sparkly dress!

Have fun.

12 Tags of 2013 – June

Hello friends and welcome to my new subscribers.

It was a pleasant change of pace to have some extra time during the week for some creative pursuits, so I got stuck into doing my June tag inspired by Tim Holtz. Interestingly enough he chose to work with a couple of mediums that I have no great affinity with - markers and paint. Ha! And there is a reason why most of  my stamp collection is devoid of line art images. Hmmm! I did however, despite my apparent aversions, have a go at colouring several images with my Stampin’Up! markers. I’ve done it before and got good results…..but meh….. I just wasn’t loving it. And if it’s going to go on my wall I’ve got to love it, right. So I went back to Tims Tag to find my inspiration.

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And this is the end result. Definitely worthy of a place on my wall.

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The base tag was coloured very much as Tim demonstrated with paints and stains. As usual most of it gets covered up with stamping and other stuff, but before that occured I had a very pleasing background to work with. The backgound was then over stamped with several images to match my theme. This time I used a Cobalt Archival ink. You know how I don’t like to use black, and I thought the Cobalt was a good match for the blueprint theme I had going on. I embellished this theme with a collection of ‘ephemera’, some of which are Kaiswercraft diecuts and the other a stamped piece of vellum.

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I bought this little stamp in a sale bin a long time ago, never used it, and in spite of several interim purges I always kept it. Just love the look of it I guess. So I stamped it off with the Colbalt ink onto watercolour paper and coloured it with my waterbrush and Distress Inks. I liked the splatter that Tim used on his tag and I had a practice at doing it on some scraps first. I like the results I got from pooling some Distress Stains onto the end of a pallet knike and then flicking, and when I went to commit some splatter to my image I had a little spill and got big splotches, lol. I quickly mopped up what I could, and loved it it even better than my original intention. So this week I’m going to enter into Simon Says Stamp and Show with at Splatter and a Splotch, which both begin with the letter S. Got to love those little mishaps!

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Ah… another one of those stamps from long ago, never used and always kept. The border detail stamp is an Anna Griffin treasure. A piece of decorative stonework for a building maybe? And I had to find a way to use my new stamp set, Going Somewhere, from my winnings from Tim, and this little phase was perfect in sentiment and size for this little scrap.

Last month when I went to the city, I took a guided tour around Brisbane. I worked right in the heart Brisbane many years ago, and you think you know your city pretty well, but doing a tour reveals all those treasures I had brushed passed everyday without ever ‘seeing’. I loved hearing the stories about the old buildings and what was left behind for future generations. Do you know about the treasures in your city or town?

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And I leave you with a pic of the ‘Wall’. See you back here again for the next round. Get creative!

12 Tags of 2013 – May

Oh happy day, dear readers.

After much perserverance, trial and error, I have finally produced a tag for the May edition of Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2013. This month Tim demoed a rub-on resist technique which I had a fair go at recreating. But for one reason or another none of the tags really gelled with me by the time I had something resembling a finished item. The backgrounds usually looked good, great even, but  I couldn’t get a cohesive look by the time I added some stamping and embellishments. But art time is never wasted even if nothing immediately tangible comes from it, because with patience, out of the choas comes something that I eventually find pleasing.

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Something bold and colourful!

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This is how the background looked after the first steps of adding rub-ons, stains and watermarks. I just love the effect of stamping with water onto an inked surface

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Next comes the stamping with Archival ink. I love stamping in colour, and used Deep Purple here to stamp the ‘weeds’ from the Urban Tapestry set. Simon Says Stamp and Show set a challenge this week to go Into The Woods, and I liked this image to create a tangled undergrowth.

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As I was looking through my stash for something appropiately woody I found instead something completely non-woody! A long forgotten peice of printed acetate, which I now deemed as perfect for background for my embellishment. I cut out a section that had the number 5 on it……….

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……………. and layered my number 5 embellishment on top. I covered a chipboard piece with a piece of adhesive foil sheet, ran it thru an embossing folder, applied alcohol inks and lastly added some rub-ons.

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Now back to my undergrowth In The Woods. You know how I make multiple Stamp2Cut images in one session so I have something ready made to add to my projects? Well this is another one of those. Who would have thought that an orange bird on an orange branch would be just what I need to finsh off this tag? Okay, so it might not rock everyones boat, but it sure floats mine!!

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Oops, terrible photo, but the  weather has turned foul and I’m on a mission to get this posted. Can’t leave without a shot of the line up so far for the year.

May is always a great month for me. I have my birthday early in the month, Mother’s Day and this year a special treat from Tim when my name was randomly selected from participants of last months tag to win a gift voucher. I was able to pool some of my good fortune together and purchase a couple of crafty items. Thank you Tim, family and friends for being a part of making this month special for me. Love you all!

12 Tags of 2013 – April

Hello readers and a big welcome to all my new followers who have joined me here. Whoa, it has been weeks since I last posted and I know some of you have noticed the gap. My work load looks set to stay in overdrive for months to come as some major flood reconstruction projects have only just begun. This week I managed to ‘book’ myself a few indulgent hours in my craftroom on one of my days off, so I was able to get a tag done for my tag wall. Yay! But before I get onto that I must give a shout out to Simon Says Stamp for the $50 gift voucher I won for linking my last post up to one of their recent challenges. Woo hoo!

So here I am at last with something made for this months 12 Tags of 2013 inspired by Tim Holtz. This month Tim focused a lot on using his new paint collection, of which I have none. And I still only own two colours of acrylic paint, white and turquoise, so my alternatives where pretty slim when it came to making a tag with similar techniques that Tim used for his tag. But it was doable!

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Following Tims process as described for his tag I made a background with a base of acrylic paints, layered dye ink over the top and lastly randomly flicked on water spots to react with the ink. This technique gives a whole different way of layering and removing colour which I’d love to experiment more on.

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I lacked ideas for alternatives for many of the techniques and embellishments Tim used this time around, so it was paper and stamping all the way for me. The winged insects was a theme I could work with and my trio of butterflies were a combo of stamping and tissue paper prints.

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I treated the twigs in much the same way Tim did with his dragonfly by stamping the image in the background and layering a cut out of the same over the top. I used Stamp2Cut to get the intricate cutting details with the twig. When I cut these twigs I do a whole bunch at one time and this particular one was deemed by me to be dud since the stamping didn’t seem to be quite right, but I like the faded washed out look as it adds a a great contrast against the background. Love it when a fail turns into a save!

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Since I only had paper and stamps to work with I decided to create ephemera-like embellishments in the form of tickets, journal notes and text. I die cut my tickets from a previously made background tag. It was originally made for a Christmas theme but I figured if I flipped the ticket upside down the original ‘Christmas’ stamping would become less apparent. I never discount anything in my stash for use on a project.

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First row of the Tag Wall 2013 is now complete.

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Looking very colourful indeed. I love to create through applying colour. Much more vibrant than my real life, lol. This week Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge asks us to focus on colour, so I’ll be linking in with them this week.

Not sure when I’ll be back with another post. I’ve got some choises to make with some upcoming work that could see me living away from home for up to two weeks at a time or working 12 hour shifts six days a week. I can see that I’ll have to book another appointment with myself in the craftroom if I want to get anything done, lol. And all this work is cutting deep into my social interaction thru blogging and forums so I’m feeling like I’m having a one sided relationship and some wonderful connections are getting short changed from my side. Thank you for all your support during this time. And in the meantime happy crafting to all you lucky people who are still carrying on. I miss you!

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12 Tags of 2013 March

So here we are, racing towards the end of another month and that means I need to get cracking with my tag wall post. Mr Tim Holtz has once again inspired us to get creative with this months tag installment. I must admit that the soft colour palette and the abscence of inking manilla for this months tag had me stumbling at the starting block and I think I just kept coming back to look at it for the first two weeks trying to figure out what to do. In the end, with time running out I eventually resorted to making most of this tag much like the last, in my work breaks with a small stash of supplies.

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Considering I had to make do with whatever I took with me for the two days it took to make this I’m well pleased with the end result. There were several moments of frustration for lack of supplies that I was ready to scrap it, but knowing I’d probably not get time to start again challenged me to salvage what I could from my meager stash and just keep at it. My tag was already prepared with stencilled moulding paste and I added Twinkling H2O watercolour paints to the background for colour. Lucky I had a mostly sunny day that day and I was able to get it dry, eventually, since I couldn’t use a heat gun, lol.

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Tim used a banner on his tag and I decided I wanted that feature on my tag so a couple of banner die cuts made it into my box of tricks. I end up tossing the first since I messed it up and crossed my fingers the next, and last, banner would be more pleasing. It was a close call. After I committed to attaching it firmly with glue I just wasn’t that thrilled about it. My tag by this time was all but complete but I was out of ideas in my craft box. I eventually figured out what needed to be done though and once I was back in my craft room I was able to add the finishing touches with the mini floral arrangment.

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There were some elements from Tim tag I wanted to adapt to my tag including the rabbit, the die cut aperture, some sparkle and the ribbon. I own a grand total of one rabbity thing, so that stamp made it into my box. I was going to forego the die cut aperture but as I was searching through  my tag stash I found one solitary tag with a ticket window cut out of it. Seriously! WOW, so glad I saved that reject and put it back into my tag basket. I cut it down to make a frame out of it, made a mess out of the front side, flipped it over to the back side and stamped right over the top of the stains to be found there. And call me crazy, but I did take a couple of pots of glitter with me to work that day and miraculaously I didn’t make a awful mess with it. Then there was the ribbon. The seam binding was smooshed with ink, wetted down and left to dry in the open air while I did other things. I was just going to use it for the tag hole but it occured to me I could use it for the rabbits cravat too, so I did.

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The other inspired element I want to add was the paper grass. Once again I go to my stash of inked up tags and find what I need and  cut a tapered fringe. And for good measure I add some extra embellishments with flowers and fronds left over from the banner.

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And the tag wall for March 2013 is finally updated, with a lot of determination and perserverance.

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Thought some of you might be interested in my seeing my ‘make do’ crafting station for the week. Lucky for me I had a quiet job that week and the weather was fine most of the time. I left the cropping tote at home and used a plastic storage unit instead since it would be more dust proof and I could use the lid for wetter crafting. With a vague idea about what I wanted to do I could keep my supply selection down to  what I thought would be most useful. On the ute tray you can see my art journal, ink pads, pre-inked tags, adhesives and spray bottle and inside the box are my stamps. paints and other tools. I wouldn’t want to craft like this too often but in a pinch it worked out. Having a selection of pre-inked background tags really extended my options with adding colour and layers to my finished tag.

This weekend will be Easter and we will be heading off to see family in other parts. All previous planned trips over the last few months have had to be aborted due to inclement weather so we are crossing our fingers we get lucky this time. See you all in the new month and until then, happy crafting.

Tattered Spring Blossoms

Hello my dear reader friends. And a big welcome to all my new followers over the past few months. It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been here, but more about that later. A couple of weeks ago Tim Holtz posted a fun challenge to use one of his most favoutrite sizzix dies, Tattered Florals. It was the first ever Sizzix die I had in my collection and one of my most used. The fact that it can cut so many layers of paper in one pass is a definite bonus when making flowers with multiple petals. So would you like to see what I’ve made for his challenge?

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I’ve been challenged with finding time these past two weeks to do any recreational activity, so I’ve resorted to taking a small box of supplies with me to work and use my breaks to get something done. Where there is a will there is a way! I packed my box with some ready made inked tags from my sample stash, cut a stack of small flowers with the Tattered Florals die from some previously ink sprayed papers and threw in some extra die cuts that I thought would be handy.

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I made the blossom branch with the Branch Tree die and the leaves are a die cut of ‘daisy’ from Tattered Florals. I ripped the individual petals off the ‘daisy’ and glued them to the branch ends, the layered some pink petals up for the blossoms. To get the look of the branch almost growing right out of the tag I bent and twisted the branch. I was then able to carefully layer the flowers in between the leaves and at interesting angles. I had a couple of spare flat petals which I used in the far background for fill. Love the crinkle effect of the rumpled paper flowers. I glued the branch down onto the tag but I felt it needed something that I didn’t have with me so I had to wait til I got home.

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The next day I packed my crafty work box with some bird die cuts and the letters to spell out SPRING. My photo is being let down by the permanement blur which is getting progressively worse as the weeks wear on, but you can get the general idea of what he looks like with his colourful wings.

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And the word was cut from the bird scraps using the Typeset die.

This week I’m also entering this post into the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge which is all about using water. My Twinkling H2O’s are great in my travel box because a quick spritz of water gets them activated and I used them to add splatters to my background. My bird and word were cut from a sample tag using the water flick technique and the background was made using the wrinkle free distress technique. Lots of fun ways to use water when crafting. Hope you like!

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An update since the last post about the recent floods here. Our crossing to get out of the farm is nearly complete and we no longer have to wade or 4WD across the creek. (Gosh! We’re almost civilized! LOL) But what is keeping me away from hearth and home is all the extra work the floods has created for the likes of me who works with road construction. In the last three weeks I think I’ve only had one day off and I’m sure I slept most of it. The push is on to get the major roads open again for Easter break.

And if I’m lucky enough to get home while the sky is still light I then have another responsibility to a new fellow in my life. Stanley, a 14 week old puppy! He’s at the awkward stage now where a lot of disipline, training and attention is required, but he is such a delight and watching him play is a great way to unwind and be entertained.

So now you know why it’s been a while between posts. Thanks for bearing with me.

Love This Old Stamp

Hello readers. Flooding rains have kept us on our toes and away from work for most of this week. I was starting to feel overwhelmed and down about the worry of it all. Lydia, always upbeat, suggested I should stamp MORE! And so I did. And I used the current Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge to use a stamp that we love but don’t use, to kick start a journal page.

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This is the end result of my stamping session. I pulled out some old favourites from my stamp collection and set to work. But somewhere towards the end I was cleaning some excess ink off of what was meant to be an acrylic resist technique and ended up wiping away my design. What!?! This mixed media thing can be full of surprizes when you least expect it, but it’s great for learning more about my supplies and how they interact with each other. As I found out on this page. I think the ‘mistake’ occured because my first layer of colour onto the gessoed page was water colour crayon, or maybe it was the gesso. I dunno! More play time is needed to get to the bottom of this mystery.

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For the keen eyed I can show you a peek into what was left of some of my stamping before I wiped most of it away. I wanted to make a background with that circle medallion stamp stamped with acrylic paint. I’ve completely forgetten who made it, I’ve had it so long and I haven’t used it in years. I’ve gone back thru my archives and discovered it was May 2009 when I last used it to make THIS CARD. While I delving into my older stamps I also came across some texture/pattern stamps I had ordered of ebay many, many moons ago. They look to me like they are cut up pieces from a larger stamp design, so it is anyones guess as to who made them. I used a sunray pattern to fill in some spaces between the circles.

Do you have a stamp you love but whenever you use it it just doesn’t quite hit the mark? For me it has always been this Hero Arts stamp of the butterfly. Nothing wrong with the stamp mind you, just the person holding the stamp, lol. I think this is the the most pleasing thing I’ve made with it. I stamped the image with acrylic paints too. And I still only own two colours of paint so my butterflies had to be blue. All these stamps definitely need more lovin’.

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As mentioned earlier we’ve been having flooding rains here. This is what was left of  creek crossing after the first lot of rains a month ago.

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The repair works get started and then the next flooding rains come down and cause more damage. On good days we can get our 4WD’s up to the house if we drive thru the creek. But we are in a habit of leaving our vehicles on the town side of the creek (you can see parked just beyond those fence posts) and walking the distance between the house , some 400m. We have more chances of walking across the damage than driving most days. We’re looking forward to sunnier days!

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Zinnia Masquerade

Oh happy day, dear readers! Today is my turn to host  for Splitcoast Stampers (SCS) new Mix Ability Challenge. I was absolutely delighted when I was appoached to be part of the design team. I like the all inclusive spirit at SCS which encourages all levels, styles and brands of stamping goodness, so this invite was a perfect fit for me. The start of these challenges saw me finally using my art journal. No more does it sit idle, mocking me with it’s blank pages. And judging from the comments and new subscribers to this blog my attempts at this style of creativity has made a connection with you too. Thank you to all who have hopped by and I’m greatly encouraged by you all.

So lets get on with the show, eh! My challenge is called Mask-erade, and I am asking participants to use a masking technique in their creation. If your not sure how to do this is you can find a tutorial HERE, or you can follow thru with me here as I have a step thru of what I did to make my page.

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The technique in itself is quite simple and is great for getting creative with layering of stamped images, as I have done here. My zinnias are stamped with Stampendous Jumbo Clings – Zinnia. Zinnias are so boldly colourful so I didn’t hesitate to capture some of that vibe with some bold colouring of my own. Follow along with me, if you will, and see how this spread came together.

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I open to a clean spread in my Moleskine Sketchbook. I’m working on unprimed pages today. I stamp a line of zinnias across the middle of the page, masking as I go. The images are stamped with Ranger Archival Ink – Magenta Hue, which is a permanent ink. At this stage there is a good likelihood that I’ll be adding a wet medium at some stage and I want the image to keep it’s clean lines.

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Bring on the colour! It’s been ages since I coloured an image with colouring pencils.  I used a combo of Polychromes and Prisma pencils. I’m just not into the detailed colouring and blending to achieve smooth transitions of shades. I like the texture and look of the pencil markings and these zinnia images lend themselves perfectly to my scratchy style. My scratchy style of colouring is also very quick so I was able to move on pretty quickly to the next step.

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Now it was time to work on the background and I’ve decided to go with ink sprays, which are very wet. My masks were made with ordinary printing paper and I knew they would not hold up to the saturation from a spray. I remedied this by givng them a quick spray seal on both sides to they would hold up to thr task. I also gave the backs a quick go over with some spray adhesive so I could get the egdes of the images tightly covered to minimise any leakage

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I try a shimmer spray. Oh dear! Thats awful. LOL. I’m always mindful that I’m never sure how anything is going to go when working with this new-to-me paper surface, so I’m prepared to get a negative reaction. I blot it off and try a different approach. This time I’ll go direct to the paper with some stains and since these will add more fluid to the paper than a spray I’m crossing my fingers the masks hold up to what I’m about to unleash on them.

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I dab Distress Stains directly to the paper, spray on some extra water to aid the blending. The end result was rather blotchy, but with luck and extra stamping I figure it’d be not so noticable when I finish. While I have the masks in place I stamp the lace edge with acrylic paint.

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I held my breathe as I removed the masks, which were by now ruined from getting wet and torn. Yes! It all worked out well. There was some seepage but nothing alarming. In fact I think it actually added some more interest to the zinnias. For the keen eyed, the tops of the two middle flowers had some odd colour reaction when the Archival Ink, colour pencil and stains met. I wonder if I could recreate that under a controlled situation?

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I find a quote to add to my page and stamp it with acrylic paint. It says – “the flower has opened, has been in the sun and is unfraid. I’m taking more chances.” I cut some fresh masks formy image so I can add some vines behind the flowers. You may notice that I didn’t get the whole image on one scrap, but I just move around what I have and work with what I’ve got and it seems to work well for me.

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Voila! Another page completed.

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My eyes are failing me, lol. I totally missed colouring some spaces. How about if I tell you they are now called highlights!

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Some scratchy colouring. In art classes, way back back in my school days, I was described as having an ‘Impressionist’ style. A fair statement given what this looks like up close.

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Masking is great for creating layers with your stamping without the bulk of layering with papers and embellishments.

So come and join me over at Splitcoast Stampers as I host my first Mix Ability Challenge.

12 Tags Of 2013 – February

It’s getting close to the end of the month and I still haven’t posted my version of this months tag for 12 Tags of 2013 by Tim Holtz. Eek! I kept a lot of things similar to Tim tag this time around, even to the point of using more black in my work. I think black is starting to grow on me since it’s the second time this month it has had a prominent presence in my work.

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I started the tag by colouring it very much the same way Tim did with Distress Stains (Barn Door and Fired Brick) and water spritzing. I used  images from Tim Hotlz’s Dance Card rubber stamp set as the man and woman as a couple would be the closest thing I could come up with for a valentine theme.

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Just as Tim had done, I stamped them out onto water colour paper and with rough brush stokes I coloured them with my Distress Inks. I liked the way the brushstrokes turned out on the man but the woman looked quite dull beside him. Not being too keen to redo her I brainstormed to come up with an idea to improve what I had. Would it surprise anyone that my remedy would involve more stamping? I stamped patterns into her clothes with Tim Holtz Bitty Grunge rubber stamp set, selectively masking off areas to achieve this. I also stamped the dance steps from Dance Card into the background.

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I had bought some Tim Holtz Kraft Core sheets several months ago and hadn’t used any of it yet, so I go to fish it out to see if I had a colour that would be suitable. I was quite surprised to see I had added a black sheet to my purchases that day. I must have had an idea that black could be a useful colour to have on hand someday, which turned out to be entirely correct. I ran a scrap of it through a Cuttlebug folder and  sanded the raised parts to reveal the Kraft Core. Simon Says Stamp and Show’s challenge this week is to add some metal element to our project, so I die cut some Ranger Foil Tape Sheets with a Cheery Lynn Anastasia border die to add some shine to the tag. As I looked at all the parts of the tag in front of me I was hard pressed to think what else I should add to finish it off. It looked complete as it was so I decided to leave it as it is. No further embellishment was neccessary.

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And this is what the tag looks like on the Tag Wall. I think we’re in for another colourful year!

I Read It In The Mix

My new job has kept me very busy and away from home a lot more than I’ve been use to, but I managed to put together a page in my art journal to share with you all today.  I started working on my page for this week with Splitcoast Stampers (SCS) Mix Ability in mind, which was to use text and add red. And I combined it with another SCS challenge to use inspiration from Angel At My Table  and I picked out the sign below.

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I find this sign particularly significant for me this week as I doing more work which definitely makes me happy, but much less in the craft room. I have certainly appreciated my shorter moments of creativity this week. I doubt I could go a week and not sit at my desk, even if it was just to cut something or ink something.

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This is what I eventually came up with.  I started this spread by covering the page with dictionary pages and adhereing them to the page with gesso. It was all going well and I had some loose edges that had not stuck down so I tore them off the page to create some interesting layers and texture, but one of the tears nearly undone everything. I patched the offending rip to repair it and hoped for a good result. I ended up with a patchwork of text that was at times in reverse since I had some sort of tranfer technique happening, words the right way around, some parts with gesso and some parts with out. A real hodge podge that needed some remedy to make it look more appealing. Time to bring in the reds!

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I sprayed on some shades of reds of Lindys Stamp Gang Starburst Sprays, some of which went milky pink or stayed more red depending on how it soaked into my papers. Now everything had a rosy hue so I pulled out white acrylic paint to stamp some text back on top. And while I was at it I snuck in some turquoise acrylic paint to stamp a different text image, variety being the spice of life. The photo above shows the (vertical) dictionary page text, the white and turquoise text stamping, and part of the quote I stamped. Words everywhere!

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The sign I used for inspiration had some grungy rusty parts so I added my interpretation of that feature with a splatter stamp.  I needed to add more white back into my page so flicked thick drops of paint onto the surface. Adding those spots was some nice messy fun. I even managed to wear a few! Since that made me happy I should do some more of that too I guess.

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I paper pieced a few butterflies with various pages of texts from books I use for crafting.

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I didn’t know I could get so many layers of text into one flat surface.

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I reiterate, do more of what makes you happy! And since I got deleriously messy making this page I’ll link it up to Simon Says Stamp and Show this week who are asking for Something Messy.