Love is in the Air!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge blog this week is "Love". I made a playlist of love songs and listened to them for inspiration while I worked on this piece. I even incorporated some of the words from a couple of the songs into it. (This Year's Love by David Gray and Rolling in the Deep by Adele (not really a love song, but a current favourite!))

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

A Stamper's Sampler

No, not the magazine! Not THAT Stamper's Sampler! I mean this bit of nonsense, me having a bit of a play about, mainly with my new Sharpie Poster Paint pen, Extra fine tip, white, which I absolutely LOVE!! It's the white pen I've been waiting all my life for, and I'm grateful to Dina Wakely for recommending it to me! :)

Not much else to say about it really, apart from the fact that I had a lot of fun doing it! I hope you like it too :)

A Childhood Memory

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge blog this week is "A Childhood Memory". One of my earliest memories is attending the New York World's Fair in 1965, not long after my family had emigrated to the USA. I'm not sure now how my memories may have been coloured by movies I've seen since then that were made during that time. Looking back it seemed like all the people in the city were dressed like Cary Grant or Tippi Hedren (though I wouldn't have known that back then, lol) Anyway, that's the feel I was going for in this piece!

Keep your eyes peeled for my animated alter-ego on the right edge of the screen - there's an embarrassing (but cute, lol) pic of me taken with my big brother on the day we went to the fair. Sharp duds, huh? LOL

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

An Apple a Day...

... just gets in the way!!

Just a quick bit of fun here. The painting "The Son of Man" by Belgian artist Magritte has always been one of my favorites, so I thought I'd rework Michelangelo's David to make it Magritte's David :)

Naturally, my alter-ego over on the right edge of the screen got a little makeover too :)

A bit dotty!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamps and Show Challenge blog this week is "Polka Dots". Armed to the hilt with a new Hero Arts dots stamp and a Wendy Vecchi dots stamp, I sallied forth into battle! :)

When I finished this, it seemed to me like I must be subconsciously yearning for spring, but I wasn't thinking that while I made it!

All the pieces were cut on the Cricut and then inked and stamped with Distress inks (walnut stain, shabby shutters, wild honey and weathered wood). Actually that's not quite true! I meant to cut the clouds on the Cricut, but I forgot about that, so when I sat down to start the piece, I realised they were missing! Necessity is the mother of invention, so I just drew them freehand on some card and cut them out with scissors. :)

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $25 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

A Kinda-sorta Self-portrait (ish)

I had so much fun making the tag for yesterdays Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, that I decided to revisit and rework it as a sort of self portrait.

I started out my taking a photo of my hand holding an ink blending tool, and converting it to a black and white pencil sketch in my graphics software. I then printed it out on white card, which I cut down to make a white tag with my hand in one corner. I printed again onto thin paper, and cut the hand out to use as a mask.

I masked off the hand and stamped "Head" by Stampotique (their name for this boy stamp). I also stamped the filmstrip down the side in two sections, first masking off the area where the trail from the ink blending tool was to go.

Next, I masked off the hand, boy and filmstrip and stamped the backgrounds. A bit of Promarkery magic, and bob's yer uncle :) Finally I applied some walnut stain around the edges and put some acetate filmstrip ribbon over the stamped filmstrip sections.

I had a lot of fun doing this :) If you're wondering which is the self-portrait part, the hand or the chubby boy with the enormous head, keep your wonderings to yourself! LOL As ever, click on the image to see a larger view :)

Who? - Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge (Masking)

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamps and Show Challenge blog this week is "Something Masked". I use masking techniques in most of my projects, so I was always looking forward to this topic coming up! :)

I stamped the central figure, then stamped him again on a post-it-note and cut him out. I placed the post-it copy over the figure stamped on the tag to protect or "mask" it while I stamped the backgrounds.

The letters of the word "WHO?" were printed on the computer and then placed behind memo pins which were then filled with glossy accents and left overnight to dry.

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $25 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try?

Another Day, Another Play!

Day 2 of my ongoing play with the new set of Dylusions stamps by Dyan Reavely that I got just before Christmas. No aim, no rhyme, no reason, just messing about with the same set of stamps again - I love 'em! They stamp so crisply and the designs leave so many possibilities open for testing the creative juices with a bit of fun play :)

Today though, my knee isn't hurting (hurrah! and thanks for the kind wishes yesterday!), so I can take the time to let you know exactly what I did.

I began this tag yesterday, but set it aside immediately to get on with the tag I showed here yesterday. I started out with the Lettuce Color Wash spray by Ranger. I placed my tag on my craft sheet and spritzed a line on my mat, aiming an inch or two to the left of my tag, so I got a graduated fade where the edges of the spray jet hit the tag. (I then left this tag to dry, resuming work on it today. I spritzed water on the green I'd sprayed on my mat and dabbed yesterday's tag on it, to give the jumping off point for yesterdays design).

Returning to the dried tag today, I inked the rest of the tag with Barn Door distress ink, applied with a Ranger ink blending tool. This gave me a red tag with a smudge of green down the left side.

The first thing I stamped was the row of 4 large leaves (all stamping on this tag uses a Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad, as I was going on to use Promarkers for spot colouring). I coloured them with shades of green promarker, as well as the area to the right of the leaves (giving lovely sludgey brown shades where the translucent green shows the red Distress ink below!) . I stamped them again on scrap paper and cut away the area to the left of the leaves, thereby making a mask that would cover the leaves and the area on the right edge of the tag. I placed this over the leaves and then stamped the vine of small leaves slight to the left, making it look as if they were behind the larger leaves. These small leaves were coloured with very light watery shades of green and aqua, so faint that they only altered the background red a small amount. (By the way, you CAN Promarker directly on top of dried Distress ink, it works a treat!).

The scalloped edge was then stamped on the left side of the tag and coloured with a red Promarker. Finally I stamped the column of circles and coloured them with Promarkers, directly on top of the red distress ink finishing the whole piece off with a Ranger white pen. I applied highlights with the pen and then smudged them with my fingertip before they had a chance to dry so that the highlights weren't so glaring and white.

That's about it! Funny how it takes almost as long to type the description as it did to do it! LOL I had a lot of fun anyway, and that's what it's all about, right? :) As ever, click on it if you want to see a larger view! :)

I'm under no Dylusions!

I've got a bit of a dodgy knee today, so although I had the creative urge, I couldn't work for long as my knee started to hurt after a while. Consequently I decided to have a quick play with the new set of Dylusions stamps by Dyan Reavely that I got just before Christmas. I can report that they stamp wonderfully well! This tag was the result of my short playtime, click on it if you want to see a larger view! :)

Bartlett Pears

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamps and Show Challenge blog this week is "my newest stamp". My newest stamp is the polka dot cling stamp by Hero Arts that I've used to add textural interest to the edge of each pear.

I started out by cutting 2 inch wide strips of corrugated card and using them to edge a 12x12 piece of chipboard. I painted them white, and while the paint was still wet I used a moist wipe to remove paint from the corrugations to make them stand out more. I dried the paint with a heat gun and then applied some Walnut stain distress ink to the edges. Inside the frame is an 8x8 piece of Tim Holtz card stock from his "Lost and Found" pad, with a 4x8 piece of white cardstock on top.

The letters and pears were cut on the Cricut from white cardstock using SCAL, and then inked and coloured with distress ink pads. That's about it :) This is going on the wall above my dining table, still lots of empty walls to fill though, so I'll be making home decor items for some time to come! lol

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $25 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try?