It's all about the sound bite

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "quotable".  I've never been much of a one for using stamps of well known quotes, I mostly prefer to use alphabet stamps or other methods for assembling my own text on a project.  Usually this is because there isn't a stamp that says what I want or need to say on a piece!

Today I had two quotes about the nature of art kicking around in my head, and it took me a while to decide which one I was going to use.  "Art doesn't have to be pretty" is an old favourite of mine, and I actually DO have a stamp of it, but when the time came to complete this mirror I couldn't find it!  It wasn't a problem though, I used the subway sign stamp from Tim Holtz's Remnants set and cut out the letters to make up the phrase.

The mirror is from a certain Swedish furniture store and it was white when I started out (though they also sell them in black, that would have been a lot less work!).  I covered the frame in black cardstock, leaving a quarter inch or so in the original white around the edge and the edges of the central mirror tile.  I used a black promarker to colour the squares around the edge to make the checkerboard border.

After that I made the 12 small pieces of art to go around the edge and mounted them onto a polaroid style photo stamp.  I know that I'm cutting a long story very short in saying that, but it would take waaaaay too long to go through how I made each of those 12!  I hope you'll forgive 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!

A tale of two hearts

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "water".  I wanted to make a couple of tags that contrasted warm-heartedness and cold-heartedness and took advantage of this week's theme to weave a few watery techniques into the piece as I progressed through it.

I started by cutting a rectangle of white cardstock for the centre of each manilla tag.  I spritzed them with water and then applied distress stains in a range of warm and cold colours to give the blurred, colourful backgrounds.

Next I stamped the heart and hand on each panel.  I used neat distress stain and a water brush to paint the hearts.  I thinned some white gesso with a little water and painted over each hand stamp.  After drying the paint I stamped the hand again in the same position, to give the final effect.  I could have used a stamp positioner to try to get the hand in exactly the same place but I didn't, as I find the fact that it can be a little out of position merely adds to the interest of this technique.

The sentiment was stamped on white card and selected words cut out and fixed in place, including adding "IM" to one of the "possible"s.  The panels were fixed in place on the tags and then I used a black promarker and a white pen to decorate the edges.  I had a lot of fun with this one, I hope you like it! :)

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!