Butcher Boys Out on the Town

Another chance today to play around with the circles stencils I cut yesterday.  Whereas I used distress stains with them, today I used Claudine Hellmuth Studio paints, dabbed on the stencil with an ink blending tool.  I love Claudine's paints, they're so richly pigmented that you can use the tiniest amount and still get a good strong colour from it.  When I got them, my first impression was that the bottles were small and they wouldn't last long, but I couldn't have been further from the truth!  At the rate I'm using them, they're going to last me ages.

I stencilled the large circles in yellow and the small ones in red.  The nice thing about using the ink blending tool is that you can fade out the paint at the edges to give a graduated result.  The green and blue paint were applied with a craft scraper (kind of like using a palette knife I guess).  At the end of the day, I had fun making this card, and that's the main thing, right? :)

Gingersnap Creations Challenge: Pencils

A new challenge has started on the Gingersnap Creations Blog today and the theme is Pencils.

Immediately I thought of that expression "I've seen more fat on a butcher's pencil" (I know, I know! Let's not get started on how my mind works!). Lost Coast Designs came up trumps for this piece, as both the pencils and the 3 waiters (who I turned into butchers) came from their collection. The text was computer printed, the brad was not :)

The pencils were stamped first, then masked off while I stamped the 3 butchers. The aprons were cut from white card, coloured and glued onto the tag. The pencils and background were coloured with promarkers and the tag was lightly edged with Fired Brick distress ink.

Check out the Gingersnap Creations blog to see the fun ways in which the other Design Team members have interpreted the theme! :)

Autumn Toned Thank You Cards

Usually when I take photos of a project for my blog, they're either taken with my phone or scanned on my scanner. This is the first time I think I've mixed a photo from each, and what a difference! The 4 cards were scanned and the white cardstock is gleaming. Compare the stack of cards which I photographed with my phone, the cardstock is almost orange! LOL I know now not to do that again!

The panels were cut on the cricut and then stamped/masked/stamped again/coloured. Thanks for taking a look! :)

All's Well That Ends Well!

Ok, so I think these are the last of the halloween cards!  The raven border is a Lost Coast Designs stamp that I got recently, and love how it's possible to bend it into curves on the acrylic block before stamping!  I'm also loving the huge gingham backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms!

On a separate note, this is my first post using the new blogger post editor - I'm not impressed! Next time I might give Windows Live Editor a try :)

Live Life!!

2 more pages for my little book today - these aren't actually going to be sequential in the book, but I've put them together here as they use the same colour pallete, so I thought they'd look good on the page.

On a separate note, yesterday was apparently "Evaluate Your Life" day (thanks for the info Hels!), so it's also timely that these appear today (even if it's a day late!).

Inks are all Ranger Distress pads, stamps on first one are PaperArtsy, Stampers Anonymous and the "Live Life" is from a clear set I have but I forget who they're by. Stamps on the 2nd page are S.A. for the cityscape and Lost Coast Designs for the pencils.

Less is More Tag

Another day, another tag!! (Hopefully any german readers will enjoy that pun! lol)

Once again, more new stamps that I'm trying out for the first time (I'll try to remember where they're all from, but I always forget!)

I started out by colouring the tag with Dusty Concord and Dried Marigold distress ink, applied from the ink pads with an ink blending tool. I then spritzed the large dots background stamp from Cornish Heritage Farms with water and stamped it on the tag and left it to dry.

I used a wet baby wipe to remove a lot of the colour from the bottom section of the tag, then applied Mustard Seed distress ink to that section with my ink blending tool. I then stamped the rulers background from Lost Coast Designs, with black ink.

The bubble wrap stamp is from a Paperbag Studios plate, and I stamped with with Dusty Concord ink (see how much darker it stamps compared to the areas where I applied it with the blending tool?)

The Less is More stamp is from a PaperArtsy sheet, and I stamped it in black and highlighted areas with a white pen. The shoes stamp was a gift from a friend, so I've no idea where it comes from! I stamped it separately, then used a water brush and Spiced Marmalade distress pad to paint the orange colour into the white area. I used a grey promarker around the toe of the shoes to make them pop a little more. I then cut out the image and stamped the Less is More stamp across it's bottom left corner, then lined it up with the phrase already on the tag and stuck it in place.

The arrow is from the same Paperbag Studios sheet as the bubble wrap (I think!) and it was stamped in black and highlighted with white pen. Finally I used a scratches stamp from Tim Holtz's Slight Alterations set and stamped it with Milled Lavender distress ink around the edges of the tag to finish it off.

I hope you like it, I had a lot of fun making it! :) Click on the image to see a larger view.

Tag Memories

I found this image on my phone today, taken at the end of a holiday last year. I'd taken basic craft supplies with me as I knew the friend I was staying with would be at work a lot of the time. These were all the 6"x3" tags I'd made for a tag book during the trip. They've been seen on my blog individually before, but never all together like this. I thought it was a fun pic, with a different feel to it when they're all seen as a big group, so I thought I'd share it with you! :)

"Round" ATC

This is for the Think Monday, Think ATC challenge, where the theme was "round".

The face and buttons were stamped and masked, then the tag was coloured with blended broken china and faded jeans distress ink pads. The script was stamped in faded jeans, along with the spiral binding in black. I coloured one of the flowers I cut out on my cricut with the broken china pad and fixed it in place. Lastly the edges were distressed a little with walnut stain ink, and sanded.

I hope you like it, click on the image to enlarge it. :o)

Sunday Stampers - Sisters

Sunday means Sunday Stampers, my friend Hels' weekly challenge. The theme this week is "Sisters are doin' it for themselves", so the Paper Bag Studio stamp I used on this tag was just crying out to be used!

Not too much to say here, lots of stamping and masking and blending of inks. A quick word about the main image though... It was first stamped in Fired Brick distress ink, then the stamp was cleaned and inked with black versafine. I used a wet baby wipe to remove all the ink from the background parts of the stamp, then used a stamp positioner to restamp over the red original, highlighting the sisters in black.

I hope you like it! Click on the image to enlarge it.

Wednesday Stamper Squares Challenge

This weeks challenge on the Wednesday Stamper blog was "squares". I took a sheet of printer paper and cut a 1in square out of it, to act as a window. I then used this window to stamp onto a 6in x 3in tag.

Each image was stamped using black versafine ink, and then hand painted.

I ended up making two windows, as the ink started to soak through the paper on the first sheet. I think they look quite interesting in their own right, so I have included an image of them here.

I hope you like it! :o) Click on any image to enlarge it.

The long arm of the flourish

This is my attempt at this weeks Gothic Arch Challenge. The theme is "flourishes", and I think there are enough of those on here to qualify! :o)

I started out by using cut'n'dry foam to ink the white arch with spiced marmalade and fired brick distress ink pads. I then spritzed with a little water to make drop marks on it. Using black Versafine I did all the stamping, and then went mad with my white pen! :o) Finally a little walnut stain distress pad around the edges to age it a little.

This piece is roughly A6 size, using a template from the challenge site. I really enjoyed this, I hope to try more of the gothic arch challenges in future. Click on the image to see it larger. I hope you like it! :o)

Heartfelt Tag

Another day, another challenge to be faced! :o) Or, in this case, a pair of challenges - The Wednesday Stamper (theme - include the word "art" - it's there if you look hard enough!) and Theme Thursday (theme - "girls").

I've been wanting to use these song words on something for a while, they're taken from "Strange and Beautiful" by Aqualung. My initial plan was to make the tag sleeve from vellum, and that's what I did. It looked fine in real life, but when photographed, it was somewhat difficult to read what the words said, so I remade it in paper.

The tag itself features stamps from Lost Coast Designs, The Queens Dresser Drawers and Just for Fun stamps. The pencils were stamped first in black Versafine, then the detail painted in with a water brush and distress ink pads. They were then masked, and the two girls faces were stamped and painted. The faces were then masked and the background was coloured and spritzed with water. The splatters, stitches and Identification Check stamp were then applied with black Versafine. Finally, the edges were slightly aged with walnut stain distress ink pad applied with cut'n'dry foam.

I hope you like it! Click on any image to enlarge it :o)

Um.... 5 More Triangular ATCs

Well, I enjoyed making the last 5 so much, I thought I'd make 5 more! This time, I didn't have the sense to make two of them point-side down, so they'd be easier to photograph, so they're split into 2 images here. Click on either to enlarge them.

Nothing groundbreaking to say about these really! In the second, the word "bored" is deliberately spelled that way! Honestly!! :oD The 2 stamps used in the 4th are some that I had made for me as a one-off.

I hope you like em! Ta for taking a look! :o)

5 Triangular Stamped ATCs

I have just completed these ATCs for an interesting-sounding swap. Each person taking part must make 5 triangular ATCs, 2.5in wide x 3.5in tall. The only other criterion was that they should be stamped. As I have been known to a bit of stamping from time to time, and also have a ruler that can measure in inches, I thought "why the heck not?" :o)

All images were stamped with either versafine or ancient page (my new favourite) ink pads. Cards were coloured with blended distress ink pads, applied with cut'n'dry foam. Other techniques used included masking and painting with a waterbrush.

As ever with ATCs, less time and trouble is spent on decorating the rear side. In this case, I simply stamped my "handmade by dan99" stamp, masked it, then overstamped and painted one part of the image.
I hope you like 'em! Even more importantly, I hope that the recipients like them too! All I have to do now is make sure I get them in the post on time, LOL. Click on either pic to see it larger. :o)

Maya Road boxed ATC cards and new look for my blog!

I picked up a couple of these chipboard boxes from Maya Road a little while back. Each one contains 8 chipboard ATCs joined by a chain, and are all ready to be attacked with inks/stamps/paints, you name it!

I thought I might have to cover them in white paper first, but they take ink really well, and the colours don't suffer too much from the grey/brown background. Hopefully will pick up a couple more in the next few days, as I think they make great gifts once they're decorated! Oh, and this is called April in Canada cos I made it in Canada, in April. But you knew that all the time, didn't ya? :)

I hope you like, click on any image to enlarge it :o)

Regular readers will notice that I decided it was time for a face-lift of my blog. Let me know what you think, after all, it's YOU that reads it! :o)

Waiting for Mr Right, among other things

A couple more tags that I've made today. Just two, as I went out for Sunday brunch!

The first is for the Sunday Stamper's weekly challenge, this weeks theme being "words". Ok, I'll admit it's not the wordiest tag you've ever seen, but there are words on it, and so it counts as far as I'm concerned! :o) Actually, there's a funny story surrounding the main stamped image on this tag. I was at a friends house, and she was showing me some new stamps she'd bought from Lost Coast Designs. Upon looking more closely at this one, I'm convinced that these are not women, they are actually men in drag, which I thought was hilarious, so, of course, I had to have the stamp myself! Click on the tag to enlarge it and see if you agree!

Both tags use stitches stamps from Autumn Leaves. I've actually pricked the tag at each "thread hole" to make it feel more realistically stitched. You probably can't see it on here, but I can see it in real life, and that's all that matters :o)\

I hope you like em, click on either tag to enlarge it :o)