Don't leaf me this way!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Summer Distress".  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it's nothing without a nice frame around it.  When I started decorating this frame for my niece I decided that I wanted it to have a subtle element of childhood memory to it, which hopefully is there in the hint of Cavallini abc tape you can see through the gesso.  I used all 3 Summer Distress colours on the leaves, painting them with a water brush - I used to use that technique a lot with distress inks, it was nice to revisit it again!

I'm sorry for the short post this week, family events have overtaken me and that has taken up all of my time and attention.  Hopefully normal service will have resumed when you next see me.

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com
Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! 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! :)

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

Facing the Fire

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "No Rules".  I started out making a card for this challenge, but liked the finished result so much that I framed it and hung it on the wall instead!  That face is so striking, dontcha think?  The whole thing reminds me somehow of the poster for Les Miserables, but you are free to disagree! :)

For the background I misted a square of white card with a little water and then dabbed distress stains directly onto it, before overstamping with the Hero Arts chevrons in Archival Coffee.  I finished off with a little white paint in parts along the top edge and a little Festive Berries distress ink in places.

The face was coloured with Promarkers but to avoid making the stamped face look a little blurry, I coloured the card first and then stamped on top of it before finally adding the lip colour.  I used a white pen to highlight the eyes.  After cutting it out I fixed the left edge to the background but placed 3d foam under the right edge, so give more dimension to it and to provide a shadow.

As a final touch I mounted the whole piece onto some card that I had coloured dark grey and then mounted it onto my card blank.

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! 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! :)

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

I wait...

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Favourite Technique".  One of the things I've always loved doing is scraping paint onto card.  I've tried using an artist's palette knife in the past but I find that I keep coming back to the Ranger craft scraper for this technique - it just feels better and I think the results I get are more successful with it.  Add to that the fact that the Claudine Hellmuth Studio paints are so packed with pigment that you get great coverage with the smallest amount and it's a great combo!

I started out by using the Ranger scraper to apply layers of paint onto my manila tag - teal, red, tan and finally white.  I stencilled the circles with Fired Brick distress ink applied with an ink blending tool.  To get the patchy effect on the black stars I applied ink to the stamp in a haphazard way and repeatedly stamped them with my acrylic block at an angle so only part of the stamp made contact with the tag.

The pointy bit along the bottom is an old wood mounted stamp of Tim Holtz's, which he has now brought out in cling form in one of the Classics sets.  It was stamped separately and coloured with blended distress inks, cut out and fixed in place.  The circle stars were stamped seperately and coloured with distress stains then cut out and stuck to the tag on 3d foam for a little added dimension.

Finally I took my trusty white pen and drew on the lettering of "I wait".  Oh, and of course I blended a little Gathered Twigs ink around the edge for a slight aged feel.

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! 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! :)

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