OK, so I set myself a little challenge...

I don't know how you store your stamps, but apart from my Tim Holtz stamps which come on their own storage sheet, all of mine go onto laminated storage sheets either that I have made or bought. I stamp the images onto card before laminating, or if I'm using a store bought storage sheet, I stamp the images onto it with Stazon. My sheets aren't grouped by theme or manufacturer - when I get new stamps they're separated to fill gaps on existing sheets or I start a new sheet if needed. Not very organised, but it works for me :)

I set myself the challenge of creating a tag using only stamps from 1 storage sheet, which I picked at random from my collection. The sheet I chose is shown here so that you can a) see that I didn't cheat and b) see what a bizarre mix they were! LOL Click on it for a larger view if you wish :)

Here is the tag I came up with. Note the crafty use of the column stamp to divide up the background (crafty - I made a pun! lol). The background was coloured with distress ink pads and the elements of the composition were either promarkered or distress inked. The end result doesn't particularly mean anything or say anything, but I like to think it's kinda pretty. By my criteria at least! :)

Appearances can be deceptive!

Just a throw-awayidea I've had floating around in my head for a few days, in keeping with the theme of some of the pieces I've been working on lately. Now that I've made this I've got it out of my system and can move on :) I guess there are two ways you can look at this - which is the role being played by these people, the clown or the profession? Only you can decide :)

As ever, click on the image for a larger view. All comments welcomed! :)

BTW, let me apologise for the quality of this photo - the passport photos I used in this piece (by Darkroom Door) are glossy, so every time I used the flash to take the photo I got glare all over the place. In the end I had to turn the flash off, so the image isn't as well lit as it might have been. Hopefully you get the general gist though!) :)

If it makes you happy...

(Of course now I have that darned Sheryl Crow song stuck in my head, lol)

Over on the Simon Says Stamp & Show Challenge blog today the new theme is "whatever makes you happy". I had to give this one a bit of thought - I guess I need to spend more time thinking about what makes me happy, I didn't have a clue at first! LOL I decided in the end that what makes me happy in a crafting way is have a good old messy play, and trying things for the first time.

There were a couple of things that I'd had at the back of my mind to try but hadn't gotten around to, and I decided to try them out with this piece. The first was using distress ink directly onto wood, which I did on the frame. I stamped on the frame and then applied distress inks with a foam applicator. It worked really well, but I felt it was a little too bold for the effect I wanted and distracted from the main piece, so I knocked it back by sponging some white paint on top of it.

The other thing I tried out was using dried-out, ink-stained baby wipes that I had used on earlier projects. I stamped onto it in a couple of places used it as a sheer layer to mask some stamping in another area. A word of warning - if you try this, be very careful if you dry it with your heat gun, the material shrivels up at the slightest overheating!

The background was inked, spritzed, dried, water-stamped, stamped and just generally beat up a bit :) As ever, click on the image to see a larger view. All comments appreciated! :)

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

3rd Time's The Charm!

This is the last Santa tag you'll see from me - when I close my eyes I can see them dancing in front of me! LOL I like the snow much better on this one, it was stamped with a paint splattery image and makes nicer snow I think. I'm going to do half of my tags like this and half like the Santa with holly one. (Like many of you, my family don't really appreciate or understand how much time and effort go into these things, so I've tried to make a trade off here between how good it looks and how quickly copies can be made!).

Taggin' Along Again!

OK, so let's make one thing clear right from the get-go. I liked yesterday's tag, in fact I really liked it a lot, and so did many of you, which is great, and I thank those of you who left kind comments :) I did kinda feel though, that it was kinda messy where the holly met the face, so here is version 2. I like that the right side of the tag is dark, it makes for a better contrast with Santa's face, but I think the snowflakes are maybe a little large. What do you think? I do have a smaller snowflake stamp, so perhaps version 3 will appear tomorrow, only time will tell! :) Once again, there's a lot of Rock Candy Stickles on here, but it's only really caught the light in the photo on a corner of one of the snowflakes.

As ever, click on the image for a larger view, and thanks again for the comments, I really appreciate them! :)

O Christmas Tag, O Christmas Tag...

I've decided this year that I'm going to wrap my Christmas gifts in brown (kraft) paper (which I may or may not decorate with stamping - the jury is still out on that one!). There are two main reasons for this: a) I'm cheap, and Ikea sell rolls of the paper for less than a pound :) and b) I really love that rustic, kraft kinda look.

Consequently, tonight I started to think about what I might use for tags. I had a single piece of 12x12 kraft cardstock in my drawer and using my Cricut and SCAL I managed to cut 12 2x4 tags from the sheet, along with 12 circles for the reinforced hole.

I wanted to create the feeling of the Christmases I remembered from childhood, so Tim Holtz's vintage-styled images were perfect. I stamped the Santa first, then masked him off and stamped the holly. I trimmed the edge of the tag to match with Santa's hat and then coloured with Promarkers and a touch of Fired Brick distress ink on his cheeks. I used a Ranger white pen for the snow and gave Santa a thin coating of Rock Candy Stickles (applied with my finger) for a bit of extra bling :)

Next, I used a glue pen to stick the circle reinforcement in place and used my Crop-o-dile to make a hole in it. Finally, I was about to thread some jute twine through the hole when I remembered that I bought this red and white butcher's twine waaaaaay back in the spring, intending it for just this purpose! Talk about forward planning, huh? :)

I hope you like, as ever, click to see a larger view :) Oh, and speaking of Tim Holtz stamps, there's still time to enter this weeks Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge, where the theme is "my favorite Tim Holtz stamp", and there's a $25 gift coupon up for grabs! :)

O the Tims, They Are A-Changin'!

Over on the Simon Says Stamp & Show Challenge blog today the new theme is "Your Favorite Tim Stamp". You'd think I might have found this a difficult choice, given that I own most of Tim Holtz's stamps, and love most of them too. In fact, the reverse is true, I have one clear favorite - his "David" stamp, which has been my favorite from the moment I saw it!

The bowler hat and moustache were cut on the Cricut using SCAL. Any other extra items were hand drawn, as needed. The backgrounds were cut from the Lost and Found paper stack and the frames were 97p each at Ikea :)

David was stamped with a Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad, then coloured with Promarkers and Distress Inks.

Why not pop over to the challenge blog and see the amazing entries by the rest of the design team? Even better, join in the fun! :)

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

Not too shabby (though a little bloody!)

Over on the Simon Says Stamp & Show Challenge blog today the new theme is "Shabby". I've been somewhat handicapped this week after a rather gruesome kitchen accident a few days ago. Without (hopefully) giving TMI, I sliced the end of my finger off in a cheese grating accident! Of course, as luck would have it, I injured the very hand that I use for crafting. This weeks project is therefore mostly made of papers, with a little stamping.

Shabby or Shabby Chic really isn't my style, and I struggled a little with this. As ever, click the pics to see a larger view!

Why not pop over to the challenge blog and see the amazing entries by the rest of the design team? Even better, join in the fun! I know there are lots of you out there who will take this theme and really run with it! :)

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering the awesome blog candy shown below! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try?

Eggplant, Pumpkin and Avocado

"Eggplant, Pumpkin and Avocado" is the theme over on the Gingersnap Creations blog this week. Right from the moment I read the theme for this challenge, I knew exactly what I was going to do - not the most complex of cards, certainly, but I knew that David would look striking in these 3 colours!

Colour was provided courtesy of Promarkers - I had ones called eggplant and pumpkin, but I couldn't for the life of me find an avocado one (which surprised me, as I have all of the colours so maybe I've misplaced one? I used moss instead, which, for all I know, might grow on avocado trees, so let's keep it as our secret!). The glow around the shadow of the head was achieved using the Promarker blender pen to lighten the eggplant background.

Pop over to the GC blog to see how the other DT members have interpreted the challenge - go on, you know you want to! :)

There's someone at the door!

Over on the Simon Says Stamp & Show Challenge blog today the new theme is "something spookay". I've been watching the dvd box set of "American Gothic" lately, so I was inspired by the phrase "there's something at the door" (those of you who are fans of the show will know what I'm talking about).

Using SCAL and my cricut I designed and cut a door panel with a keyhole in the centre of it and also cut out some of my bare tree design. Using a host of Tim Holtz products including stamps, distress ink pads and his sanding block, the spookiness was achieved. I finally finished it off with a blood drip cut on the cricut. I hope you like it :) As ever, click the pics to see a larger view!

Why not pop over to the challenge blog and see the amazing entries by the rest of the design team? Even better, join in the fun! :)

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