Bright Butterfly



Hi folks!  Welcome to my blog, and thank you for visiting.  I'm not usually organised enough to be able to enter one project into more than one challenge, but it just so happens that this time one of my projects meets criteria for two blogs.  The recipe for the Dragon's Dream Tag-It-On challenge this time is- Orange, Purple and Butterflies, and The Artful Times challenge is Colour Technique - in this case, Faux Batik.

Sometimes - not often, I'll admit, but sometimes- I set out with an idea in mind and it all turns out more or less as I hoped.  Sometimes - usually when I've got a pile of bits left over from other projects and I'm playing with them - I have no clear idea in mind and I just go with the flow.  And sometimes, I set out with a clear idea of what I want to create and wind up with something completely different.  And that's what happened here.  My first thoughts were 60's psychedia - and this is what I finished up with...

I stamped the background panel (which is an old Graphicus stamp) in the Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink and heat-embossed with clear detail powder. (I did a panel rather than stamping direct onto the tag, because, after numerous attempts, I came to the conclusion that I cannot stamp straight.  I blame my astigmatism.)  That done, I went over the background of the panel and the edges of the tag with the Eggplant Adirondack ink and a few blobs of Radiant Rain to give a bit of bling. 

Then, with my iron set to "HOT", I covered the panel with a layer of paper towel and ironed it so that the embossing powder melted and was absorbed by paper.  I kept replacing the paper towels until no more of the embossing was left.  I touched the edges with some Burnished Bronze Distress Stain - just a very light touch - and attached the panel to the tag.  

The butterfly stamp was a free cover-mount from Craft Stamper magazine.  Because it's a clear stamp, I could stamp onto the butterfly die-cut ( a Spellbinders die) using the Eggplant pad, lining it all up, emboss, and go over it all with the Spiced Marmalade. While I was at it, I coloured another scrap of card, stamped the "Elusive Butterfly" sentiment (another home-made one) and die cut the label shape.  I edged the butterfly and the label with a touch of Eggplant and the label also got a tiny bit of Burnished Bronze.

Nearly done now!  The fancy "frame" I die- cut from a bit of bronze mirror card - it was too shiny (yes, it is possible) so I dabbed some bronze Distress Stain over it; coloured a scrap of card in Eggplant, dripped a couple of drops of water onto it and dabbed them off,  attached the sentiment with a couple of brads I'd coloured with alcohol inks and once the ribbons were tied on, the job was done.  Hope you like it! 

Happy New Year!

Happy (Chinese) New Year, or should I say -

You pronounce it (I am told) in Cantonese as Kung Hey Fat Choy, and in Mandarin as Gong xi fa cai. Both sayings mean “Congratulations and Prosperity!” The year of the snake begins with the new moon on February 10 (if you would like to know more about the Chinese zodiac, there's some information here) so today I have decorated a little papier-mache box in oriental style.

I covered the lid with black Gilder's Paste (I could have painted it, but the Gilder's Paste was right there on my workdesk) and then gave it a couple of coats of gloss varnish/sealer (Spray & Shine, in this case, as it was what I had around.)   I masked off the bit of the base that was going to show and gave the bit that will be under the lid some Gilder's Paste as well - I wanted to cover up the brown papier-mache but I didn't want to make the lid too snug. 

I went digging in my stash of oriental papers and found a piece with Chinese calligraphy (from Crafhouse Press) that I liked.  I measured the depth of the base and cut some strips of the width I needed, making sure I got the red characters in the right place, and stuck them on. 

I remembered I had a stamp of a Chinese coin somewhere (of course it was in the very last tray at the bottom of the very last pile of trays, which I went hunting in after I'd gone through all of the storage drawers.  I was beginning to think I'd dreamed it!) I inked it up with some black Memento, then covered a scrap of black card with embossing ink, threw on the gold Debbi Moore Metal Magic embossing powder, heated, repeated, and then pressed the stamp into the still-hot Metal Magic.  Once the embossing was set, I removed the stamp and carefully cut the coin out (being very careful around the square hole in the centre).  Metal Magic stays flexible enough to allow you to cut or punch for about 20 minutes. And it does a very good job of faking a metal embellishment, don't you think?

Nearly done now - I stuck the Chinese knot (I wish I could say that I'd done the intricate knotting myself but that would be a lie!) at the top of the heart, folding the ends of the cord around to the inside and gluing very firmly.  The last job was to attach the "coin" by threading the loop of the knot in and out of the hole in the coin and securing with a bit of skewer coloured black . 

Hope you like it!  Thanks for stopping by - come back any time, you're very welcome!

(PS - I'm entering this in the Artful Times  blog challenge)

The Mists of Time

Hello, gentle visitor, and welcome to my little corner of the Blogiverse - I hope you'll enjoy your visit.  I don't know about you, but I've heard rumours of an Artists' Trading Card revival;  I do hope it's true!  Just in case you didn't know, ATC's are small pieces of artwork and there are only two rules when creating them - they must be 2.5 inches by 3.5 in size, and they must only be swapped or given away, never sold.  They are great fun and usually easy to do, and a good way of making use of all the little scraps of card and material we all accumulate.

The Artful Times Challenge Blog challenge for this period is to create an ATC about "Time", so here's my contribution -

 

 

I used Viva Ferro in shades of graphite, gold, green gold and golden orange for the background, applying it with a spatula and making sure I had a good generous layer on the card.  I then inked up my stamp  (a background of clock faces, from Hero Arts - you can just about see one of the clocks in the bottome left corner) using gold Brilliance ink and and stamped into the wet Ferro (and immediately dropping the stamp into a bowl of wated to prevent the paint drying on it).  I pressed the clock face charms into the paint and left it all to dry.

 

Once it was dry, I went over the places I wanted to highlight with rub-on wax in gold.  And that was pretty much it - as I said, ATC's are quick and easy.  Hope you enjoyed looking at this one!

 

 

'Tis the Season

Hi folks, welcome to my blog and thank you for visiting.  I really appreciate that you've chosen to take a look at what I've been doing.  Today it's my effort for The Artful Times blog challenge, which is to make a fabric tag. 

Up till now I've resisted doing anything with a Yuletide theme, for a couple of reasons, one being that I can't really to begin to think about it until after my son's birthday in the middle of November.  However, I think it's about time, so here it is!

The background is white cotton fabric, coloured with Adirondack inks in Red Pepper, Cranberry and Wild Plum and then sprayed with red Radiant Rain and gold Sprinkies.  While it was drying, I stuck green organza to actetate using double-sided adhesive sheet and cut the swirls from the adhesive sheet (the dies is a Sizzix Tm Holtz Alterations die - Elegant Swirls).  I stamped the organza using gold Brilliance ink (stamp from The Artisic Stamper), and cut the leaves with the Holly Branch Alterations die.

Once the background was dry, I stamped the harlequin pattern (another Artistic Stamper stamp) in  gold Brilliance and brushed gold Perfect Pearls where I wanted the pattern to stand out. I stuck the adhesive swirls down onto the background and glittered them with Old Gold Art Institute glitter.  Finally, I arranged the holly leaves on the tag ( I stuck them down with offcuts of the adhesive sheet left over from cutting the swirl - thrifty, eh?)

And there we have it.  In the flesh, the red and gold are very vibrant and I am thinking of developing the theme for one of the pages in the mini-album I began earlier this week.  Could be good!

Caught in Crystal

The recipe for the latest Artful Times blog challenge (sponsored by Oyster Stamps) is to make something using acetate.  I use acetate quite a bit, but usually to "float" things like butterflies over an image, so it took a fair bit of thinking before I remembered the "caught in crystal" technique.

 

I love the "caught in crystal" technique and have done ever since I saw it in Craft Stamper some years ago. (Sheena Douglass has a tutorial on YouTube here) If you haven't come across it before, a clear-drying medium is spread onto acetate and clear colour and inclusions (e.g. glitter) are added to the medium, then tissue paper is spread over the back of it and the whole shebang is left to dry.  I like to use clear floor polish (Pledge Multi-surface wax - used to be known as Klear) and I keep the pacakaging from the likes of Nestabilities as they have a nice rim which stops the fluid from going everywhere you don't want it to go.

For this piece, I used red and pink drawing inks (the gold backing card makes it look orange).  I also sprayed the acetate with some gold Spray and Sparkle. I attached the acetate to some gold card with the floor polish (it takes a while to dry, but works pretty well and is transparent once dry) and then decorated it with one of my favourite paper flowers and wings moulded from friendly plastic. 

I added the heart, cut out of velvet paper which I'd coloured with my Spectrum Noir pens, and some gold glitter peel-offs to just finish off the topper.  The card was originally white - some Tea Dye DI sorted that out as it was just too stark.

And there you have it.  Hope you enjoyed your visit- you'll be welcome back anytime!

Mona Lisa Tile

I'm having a really great time on my leave this year.  Not going anywhere much, just pottering about and having time to craft and enter blog challenges, which I don't normally have the time for.  This piece is for the Artful Times blog challenge, as sponored by Oyster Stamps, and the theme is Mona Lisa.

Now, a few years ago you couldn't move without seeing La Giaconda on a rubber stamp but she's gone out of fashion a bit.  So while I was at it, I thought I'd revisit something else I'd not used for a while - Stampbord.  And while rummaging through the haunted wing of my stash, I found some Joanna Sheen Leonardo Da Vinci paper and some very old Kanban alphabets.  A bit of UTEE, a background stamp and a few well-chosen words when I put my thumb in the molten UTEE (Oh bother!)  and here's the result.  UPDATE - I was runner-up in the challenge! Woo-hoo! 

I hope you like it, and thanks for visiting!