Stretch your Stamps

I just started a new online card class called stretch your stamps.  My first day I made a felt ink pad and inked it with summer distress colours.  The theme was using background stamps and here is one attempt at making a card with it.  The radiating colours of the ink are a bit pale on the picture as this was a second generation image after spritzing the stamp with water.

Summer

We have had the most amazing 16 nights in Norway, taken gazillions of photos and have so many memories to record.  I brought home some cross stitch kits which I look forward to completing later in the year. 

When we arrived home my new embellishing machine had arrived so I really wanted to get stuck in to making some felted pieces.  As my summer distress inks had been waiting for me to play too I wondered about combining the two so here is my first attempt at felting.

I made a bracelet using black felt as the base and embellished it with white felt pieces cut using spellbinders which I then dyed with the summer distress reinkers.  Fastened with a Tim Holtz hitch fastener.

Compendium of Curiosities 2 Challenge 6

This week's Compendium of Curiosities 2 challenge is Tissue Wrap Collage found on page 38 of Tim's book. Generously sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

Making this tag was a good excuse to try out some of my new toys, especially the spring colours distress inks and some stamps and ribbon won in a recent challenge.  As my tissue wrap isn't here yet I improvised by printing my own although I really need that musical tissue!

Faded Layers

My Compendium of curiosities vol 2 arrived today so I had to play!  I made this faded layers tag to enter into the Studio Compendium of Curiosities challenge 4 L3 Challenge 4 but unfortunately different time zones beat me.

Not having masses of time I decided to stick with the theme of a previous tag as I need to make a few of these to take on holiday soon to use as 'calling cards'.  The crown mask is a special touch mask from Creative Expressions and the stamps in the foreground are from Kanban, the script in the background is from stampendous.  I used just two colours of distress ink, Faded Jeans and Festive Berries with black archival for the stamping.

Dabber resist

Dabber resist is the theme for a group challenge this month.  I used the technique on the flower on my tag journal and initially tried it using quite a solid stamp.  The dabber image doesn't really show much beneath all of the acetate flowers but it is there.  The lacy border stamp was made using spellbinders edgeabilities and was the first time I had tried them for stamping.

As today was the state opening of parliament, which I thought was always in November - gunpowder plot and all that - I am now pretty confused, I was reminded that I have a set of Kanban 2012 stamps that I'd never used.

The resist on the clockface came out really well despite it having quite fine lines but my background images done in walnut stain look almost as strong as the clock tower which was stamped in black archival.

My last attempt of the day was deliberately in patriotic hues and I'm happy enough with it that I may make a few cards with this as a focal point.

Something different

I moved out of my recent comfort zone today to create a clean and modern card after being challenged by some friends.

The stamp is one I think I got in a goody bag, inked with perfect medium then WOW ebony powder.  The black pieces were embossed with a sizzix board and the sentiment printed out.  I just added a few black gems and when my black cosmic shimmer dots have dried on my craft mat I will add them to the perimeter of the black scalloped circle. 

I was very concerned about keeping the card clean and cutting out the white scalloped circle without it coming out with black edges so I washed all of my spellbinders boards and mat first and dusted it all with talc but I still forgot to dust the circle before embossing and made the mistake of heating from above so sadly a few flecks of black strayed but I'm taking Lord Tim's advice and embracing my imperfections.

Wings of Time

Wings of Time

I'd like to enter this card into the Artful Times Time theme, Wow Embossing Powder Manly cards and the Craft Room Emboss it challenges.

I began with the winged clock stamp inked onto cream cardstock with Perfect Medium and then sprinkled with embossing enamel in aged gold. 

I used a script stamp and vintage walnut distress inked onto the smooth side of the  embossing folder and embossed a piece of cream cardstock. 

I used the script stamp and vintage walnut again on a smaller piece of cardstock. 

Using four colours of distress ink I inked the embossed and the stamped pieces.  I scrunched up the stamped piece mid inking.  I splattered both pieces with fine droplets of water. 

The text is a free old typewriter script from the internet and I distressed that piece in the same way.  To get the rough clear embossed finish on it I inked it well with Perfect Medium and then sprinkled on a few grains of salt before adding clear embossing powder and heating.  after heating I brushed off the salt grains. 

For the background I used a mix of 3 parts glycerine to 1 part water in a mini mister and lightly sprayed black cardstock, I find this mix helps the thicker 'frantage' embossing enamel to stick in a random finish and I was also able to heat it from above without it blowing about.  Warning, do not get the paper wet with the glycerine mix or it goes too oily and the enamel will not stick.

I finished off with a chain, spinner and fastener.

Ingredients
Cream or manila cardstock
Stampendous Winged Clock stamp
Stampendous Script stamp
Stampendous new 'frantage' embossing enamel - aged gold
Creative expressions 'time' embossing folder
Ranger distress ink - walnut stain, aged mahogany, mustard seed and brushed courdroy, vintage walnut
Ranger perfect medium
Wow embossing powder clear
salt (cooking)
glycerine
water
mini mister
Tim Holtz Ideaology spinner and hitch fastener.
Jump rings to make chain