Stamptember Blog Hop!

Today over on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge blog it's time for the annual Stamptember Blog Hop!!  What is Stamptember I hear you ask?  Where have you been all month? :)  Here is the official info from Simon Says Stamp themselves:

"Simon Says Stamp was founded in 2002 with an interest in exclusively selling rubber stamps. It didn’t take long until we realized we couldn’t stop there. During the past 11 years we celebrate rubber stamping in its full glory by giving access to people around the world to a one stop shop. Rubber stamps still remain the heart of our business and we are celebrating by hosting a STAMPtember® event intended to inspire, educate, and celebrate the greatness of rubber stamping. Part of the enticement of rubber stamping is that stamps can be used in creating or complementing ANYTHING! From stamping dates on bank documents and postage parcels in the early 18th century, rubber stamping has dramatically expanded to include card making, scrapbooking, mixed media, life documenting, art journaling, and many forms of altering and expressing art."

All you have to do to enter this week's prize draw for a $50 voucher to spend in the SSS online store is  to make something that includes a Simon Says Stamp exclusive product.  If you're not sure about the amazing products that fall under the Simon Says Stamp brand, there is a full list here!  I'll say more about the blog hop part of this week's fun at the end of this post!

Aaaaanyway... here is what I've made this week for the blog hop challenge, with the fabulous Art Journal kit from Shari Carroll, who is also joining us for this week's blog hop.

The kit is focused around one of the 8x5 Dylusions Art Journals, but rather than me type for 5 minutes explaining how great the kit is, here's a video of Shari herself outlining all of the elements contained in the kit:



There was so much involved in decorating the cover of my journal that I'm going to skim through it in double quick speed, I hope you don't mind! :)

I started out by colouring the spine with black Promarker and then masking it off while I worked on the rest.  The main body of the cover was coloured with Fired Brick distress stain and the elastic was coloured with black Promarker.  I used Tim's layering stencils to apply some added interest with some of the Claudine Hellmuth paints from the kit, as well as distress ink applied with an ink blending tool.

The dictionary paper was torn, stencilled and distress inked and then stuck in place.  The flowers on the left were stamped, coloured with Promarker, cut out and fixed in place.  The flowers on the right were stamped with the painted mask technique, which, if you're patient,  I'll explain in a minute  :)

The pieces of ruler ribbon were glued in place, the label from the kit was stamped, shaded and stuck in place and then the letter stickers were coloured with promarker and stuck in place.  The man on the right was stamped with black archival ink, the middle man was stamped on a piece of Destinations card stock, cut out and fixed in place.  The man on the left was stamped on white card, coloured with promarkers and fixed in place (after replacing his head with the skeleton from a Tim Holtz stamp set).

The A R T letters were embossing using the Subway embossing folder and coloured by dragging a black inkpad over the raise areas, cut out and fixed in place.  Finally, I part-stamped some bits of text in various places to add extra interest to some blank areas.

Next week I'll show you the first page I've made in my journal but for now, back to that explanation I promised you earlier...

The Painted Mask technique

Apply your base colour to your project, I've used Fired Brick distress paint here.  On my journal I used Fired Brick distress stain, which re-activates when wet, giving the pink tone to parts of my flowers.  You can decided which look you prefer and then choose accordingly!  Allow to dry or dry with a heat gun.

Stamp your image, I used black archival ink which won't run when it's painted over.

Paint over the top of your stamp image, putting colour blocks in the appropriate places and allow to dry.

Stamp your image again, directly over your painted areas.  It's up to you how accurate you want to be with this - if you want it perfectly in place, use a stamp positioner.  Personally I always do this by eye, I think if the stamp is mis-aligned it adds something to the final result.  On my journal cover I just wanted the final impression to be roughly in the right place, giving the flowers a ghostly, blurred appearance.  As a contrast, on my example here I've been as accurate as I could be, by eye, and you can see that it's not far off at all.  Oh, and don't you love this flower stamp from IndigoBlu?

This is one of my favourite techniques and I never see anyone using it, so please give it a try! :)

A hip, hop, a hippety-hop...

Oops, you caught me rapping just then, never a great idea, not in my case anyway! :)  Here's the lowdown on all the hoppy fun you can join in with this week!  If you've already started hopping, you will have arrived at my blog from Suzanne Czosek's amazing blog and your next stop is the wonderfully creative world of Tracy Evans!

Of course, if you HAVEN'T arrived here by that route, why not head over to the Simon Says Stamp Challenge Blog, where you can see the full list of blogs you need to hop to, and the order in which to hop :)


Apart from the Art Journaling Kit, supplies I used in my blog hop project included:

InLinkz.com

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!