Dreaming is free

All right, I admit it - I haven't contributed a link to Hels Sheridan's blog for a while.  I've visited every week; Sunday Stampers was one of the first blogs that got me joining in with challenges, and there was a time when I rarely missed a week.  However - as I joined in more and more challenges, and then began contributing to a DT or two,  it got harder and harder to keep up with everything, and what had to give was the weekly challenges.  (It takes me a week to think of an idea!)  Nevertheless,  I still follow Hels's blog and was lucky enough to get to one of her workshops recently.  So - as it's the 300th edition of Sunday Stampers,  I've made a special effort and put into practice what I learned from Hels -

The stamps are from a number of sources - Indigoblu and the Artistic Stamper among others - I just went digging through my collection until I found some I liked.  I used Timber Brown Staz-On ink onto tissue (this time it was the Kleeex kind, not the the crunchy kind I normally use) and beeswaxed it onto the painted canvas.  Apart from at the workshop, this is the first time I've used beeswax in my Melt Pot.

  I added a screw eye to the bottom of the smaller canvas and hung my little pendant from it (it's one I made using Pebeo Fantasy paints - I have a box full of them and hardly ever wear jewellery!) 

 I stuck the key (and the jewel) and the little dragonfly charm in place with Cosmic Shimmer glue.  What else is there?  Oh, yes, the roses are made from cold porcelain ( I'm still in love with it!) 

So there we are.  I hope you like it - and if you get a chance to attend a workshop run by Hels, just jump at it.  You won't regret it.

Crafty hugs,

Keren

Papillon

Hello everyone and welcome to my little bit of the Blogiverse.  I'm really happy that you've chosen to visit me.  Without further ado, here's today's offering-

I bought some Kroma Crackle medium a while ago and have been trying to get around to using it for some time...and finally did.  I painted this MDF heart (which came in the kit - from Create and Craft - with the Kroma) in pale green, added a splash of pink paint to the Kroma, and dolloped (technical term) the stuff all over the heart, and waited for it to crackle...and waited...and got fed up and took the heat tool to it.

I found out (later) that the Kroma can take up to three days to crackle if left to itself.  If you accelerate the process you get some mighty big cracks (ravines is probably a better word).  And it continues to crackle, so that by the time it was finished, you could hardly see any pink bits at all.  In fact, you'll probably need to click on the picture to get a larger view of it before you can spot it.  Trust me, it is there!

Well, now I have a large sullen lump of mainly green and slightly pink-ish MDF and I'm asking myself what came over me as I don't much like green or pink, so what am I going to do with it?  When in doubt, add Distress!  I blended Peeled Paint DI over the edges and Worn Lipstick and Picked Raspberry over the surface to try and pink up the Kroma a bit, then I sealed it all and thought about what I was going to do next. 

In search of inspiration, I went rummaging through my leftover bits box (all right, it's not just one box.  I'm not saying how many there are.) and found a piece of Tim Holtz Tissue wrap, some paper I'd coloured with mica sprays in shades of blue and lilac, and an Eiffel Tower that I'd cut out with my Cameo for another project and never used.  I don't know why, but the ol' Tour d'Eiffel seemed to work well on the project.  The blue paper reminded me of butterfly wings.

The tissue wrap and the Eiffel Tower went onto the heart with the aid of some Bindex medium (from Pebeo).  I die-cut the lower part of the butterfly (it's an old Quick-Kutz double-cut die and is one of my all-time favourites)  from the paper and the upper part from black card.  I stamped the "Bright Elusive Butterfly" stamp (my own design, made with my Imagepac) onto ordinary tissue paper, tore it out, and stuck it onto the background with the Bindex.  Fast forward through the drying time (actually not too long), during which I layered up some Prima flowers which have been in my stash for a LONG time and stuck the two layers of the butterfly together.

Finally, it was time to stick the flowers and the butterfly onto the base and pretend that it was All Planned From the Beginning. 

I'm entering it into the following challenges -

Country View Crafts - Butterflies
Sunday Stampers - Paint

Thank you for visiting;  I hope you enjoyed!

Crafty Hugs,

Keren

Singin' the Blues

I've always crafted - needlecraft mainly.    Like so many crafters, I came to papercrafting through cardmaking.  (It started when I went to buy a greetings card, saw a "hand-made" card I liked - then saw the price - and said "I can do that!" and a habit was formed). It suddenly occurred to me that I haven't made a card for - well, months.  Not that I'm likely to run out of greetings cards any time soon - I have a large box full of cards I've made - but I thought it was about time I got back to my roots for Sunday Stampers this week.
Hels has chosen "blue" for the theme this week, and here's my blue card.

 

Delicate and pretty isn't my usual style, so I don't know what came over me here!

I began with a shaped card which I turned into an easel card with the help of a Go Kreate fancy label die.  ( In case you haven't seen how to cut part of an aperture into a card, here's my way of doing it)

For the embossing on  the dark blue panel, I inked up a rubber stamp with silver Brilliance ink (Platinum Planet, do be precise) and put it face-up on the craft table, then put the velvet paper face down on top of the stamp and pressed it with a hot iron. If you've never done this, it can be a bit scary, but I am assured that rubber stamps can take very high temperatures.  Don't try it with clear "jelly  acrylic stamps though, as you will wreck the stamp. (Fortunately, the stamp I killed that way wasn't one I particularly liked!)

This little ballet dancer die from Marianne is one of my favourites.  I've cut her out of silver foil card and the three roses are cut from copy paper that I've coloured with Starburst Stains - you can see them a bit better in the close-up.  

 The sentiment is a digital stamp from Pink Petticoat and the label die is from Spellbinders;  the pearl pin is by Creative Expressions and the polka-dotted card is from Hunkydory. 

Hope you like it, and thanks for stopping by!

(Don't worry, the grunge will be back soon!)

Compendium Of Curiosites II - Challenge 26

Two-for-one again.  The challenge set by Linda Ledbetter this week (sponsored by the Funkie Junkie) was to create something using the Crumpled Kraft Suede technique in Tim Holtz's Compendium of Curiosities Volume II, and Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers challenge was to make something Autumn related, so that worked out well!


The leaves (cut with Sizzix mini Tattered Leaves dies) and the tag were both treated to the Kraft Suede technique;  the leaves also got a bit of bling by way of some Perfect  brushed on.  The words were stamped with some of the 99p-a-set alphabet stamps I picked up - all so simple, but I hope you like it!

Don't worry...

Bee Happy!

Inspired by Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers challenge to create something honey-coloured or with honeycomb as a theme,  and running in just as they shut the doors, here's my tag -

The message is very apt at the moment because we are having one of those times where things have to be replaced. Latest casualty is the washing machine - the door latch is broken (luckily, it's insured but I'll have to take a day off for the repair man!).  Husband has also broken his Kindle and misplaced his set of car keys somewhere in the house.  I'm afraid to touch anything now.

Nothing very challenging as to technique - Wild Honey distress ink sponged onto a background of Scattered Straw DI through a That Special Touch mask, bees die with a Spellbinders die, once in acetate and wings glittered, and the sentiment iin sepia archival with 99p a set alphabet stamps.  And it made me smile, so I like it.

Heavy Metal

I've been away from Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers challenges for a few weeks , busy with other projects.  This week Hels has asked us to make something with metal, and here's my interpretation!

I'm not usually this quick off the mark, but it just happened that I'd done the background for this tag - using the method that Tim Holtz demonstrated for his tag for September-intending to enter it in another challenge, and then didn't get the time to finish.   I will admit that the surface wasn't the easiest to stamp on - so I cheated and stamped the IndigoBlu stamp onto Safmat.  The roses were made using Donna Salazar Create-a-Rose Spellbinders dies made to look metallic with silver Gilder's Paste (I still love Gilder's Paste!), made some time ago, so all I had to do was stick them on.

There we are, job done!  Thansk for your visit - hope you enjoyed!

True Colours

I missed Sunday Stampers last week, and I almost didn't make it this week either.  It's been a wee bit hectic round here, and between stuff happening and wanting to try out the techniques I've been learning in the Timeworn Techniques course,  the week has just flown by. The theme this week is Colour, and so I inked up a tag with nice, bright Distress inks, using the Spritz & Flick technique. 

 

I had my background, but what to do with it?  Don't ask me why, but the colours made me think "Retro".  Now, I usually buy stamps because I like them, but I had a set of motor car stamps that I'd got because my husband liked them.  When we met, he had a 22-year old VW Beetle (the original version) in turquoise, called Ringo.  So that's what I put on the tag. 

 

 



 

I coloured the car with Perfect Pearls - turquoise, of course. Hope you like it.  Thanks for visiting!

The Green Man

Hels Sheridan, queen of the Sunday Stampers Challenge, has ordained that, for this week's challenge, we must create something green - so here we go!

This tag is green in more ways than one.  For one thing, it's cut out of a piece of a cardboard box that some cans came in.  The backing material is a Colour Catcher cloth that came out of the washer a rather pretty shade of blue-green, before I got at it with inks and sprays.  The leaves in the four corners of the tag were cut from the same material.  The rest of the leaves were cut from paper that was coloured with Starburst Stains (LOVE that stuff!)  I cut into the stamped image to attach the leaves and fluffed the leaves up a bit. 

And there he is - The Green Man.  Hope you like it!

(If you want to know more about the Green Man, there's some information here.)

Steampunk Sprockets

If you've glanced at my blog before you've probably noticed that I really, really like Steampunk.  So this week's theme for the Sunday Stampers challenge is right up my street! 

My order from Crafty-Emblies (who are sponsoring this challenge) arrived earlier this week but is still at the stage of "Can't be used, has to be taken out and stroked instead" (My precious!) although I did experiment with a bit of gilder's paste on one of the sprockets (and I am pleased to say that the experiment was successful!) so I fell back on my faithful die cuts and my new favourite Gilder's Paste. 

For once I used the Spellbinders Sprightly Sprockets instead of the Alterations Gadget Gears as I wanted a lighter, less industrial effect.  The corners are from Marianne and the flower is made with the Donna Salazar build-a-rose set.  Everything was covered in Gilder's Paste.

For the background, I cut a stencil out of Doeflex with my Cameo and sprayed Sprinkies ink through it, then proceeded to cover it all up in different shades of Distress.  The words "Gears" and "Steampunk" are my own design (made with the Imagepac system) and the pointing hand is by Tim Holtz. 

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you enjoyed your visit!

A crown, golden in show



The quote is from John Milton, which makes me look a lot cleverer than I am (we did read some of his poems when I was in school - he wasn't my favourite.  I think my opinion was coloured by his attitude to the women in his life;  in fact he was a real MCP!)

This week Hels has set the theme of "Shiny" for the Sunday Stampers challenge.  I had lots of ideas for shiny things...but none of them included stamping so didn't meet the challenge criteria.  Then I remembered the Flitterglu and the Kanban Steampunk stamps and the Problem Was Solved!

The large crowns were cut with Spellbinders dies.  The tag is actually greener than it looks in the picture, being coloured with Peeled Paint, Pine Needles and Evergreen Bough DI's - the gilding flakes I used were from Crafy Notions (Variegated Green) and I wanted to pick up the green tints. 

Thanks for visiting - I hope you liked the tag.

. 

Patterns

Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers challenge this week is "Patterns", so here's my chance to play with some of the background stamps I've accumulated over the years!  At the moment the harlequin pattern (from the Artistic Stamper) is one of my favourite stamps so it had to be used!  The tapestry pattern is going to be used in another project so it was handy - and you HAVE to have polka dots, it's compulsory. 



It was all starting to look a bit heraldic, so I added some German scrap and some die-cuts.  And then the Love Of My Life said he thought it looked like something out of Hogwarts - I had Gryffindor red, Slytherin green, and Hufflepuff yellow, but I was missing the blue for Ravenclaw - so I coloured the label die-cut in blue.  Some peel-off letters - I know they aren't everyone's cup of tea, but they have their uses - and it was finished.  Hope you like it!

Golden Slumbers

"Golden Slumbers kiss your eyes, Smiles awake you when you rise;  Sleep, pretty baby, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby"

Hands up if you remember the BBC Schools Radio programme "Singing Together"?  As a schoolchild I learned lots of great songs that I've remembered the rest of my life, and when Hels Sheridan set "Gold" as the theme for Sunday Stampers I found my inspiration in one of those songs I learned all those years ago.

I intended to add all sorts of embellishments and sentiments to this but honestly, I like it as it is.  The mother and baby stamp is by Magenta;  because I wanted the faded, vintage look I inked up the stamp in VIntage Photo DI, took some of the ink off the edges with a paper towel,  and then put the tag on top of it and brayered the back.  The harlequin design is a texture mat and I just rolled in onto the tag.  The background is coloured with Butterscotch Adirondack  and you can just see where I rubbed a tiny bit of Rich Gold Gilder's paste around the edges.

While I'm talking about Gilder's Paste, I spent the best part of half an hour trying to open the tin before the Love Of My Life noticed the words"Press here" on the lid...D'Oh!

Backwards, in High Heels

Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers challenge this week is "More than Words" - in other words, the entry has to include a phrase or saying, and this one - which I first came across in Ginger Rogers's autobiography - is a favourite of mine. 

The stamp is one I made in the Imagepac marathon last weekend, stamped in Olive Green Archival ink and cut with a Nestabilities die. I built up the background colour in shades of green Adirondack and Distress inks then die cut the film strip and shoes with Sizzlets dies and the stars with X-cut wafer-thin dies.The dark brown oval is cut out of the brown card I brayered with PVA to make it look like leather.

Now I'm off to enjoy the fine weather! 

Tragedy has Struck!

This week's Sunday Stampers challenge theme (set by Hels Sheridan) is "Embellishments"  and oh boy, did I struggle with this one!

For one thing, inspiration deserted me.  I just couldn't get a handle on the theme.  I eventually came up with this card; it would have been my sister-in-law's birthday card but it wasn't finished in time (so we chose one from The Box for her - you know The Box? The one where all the finished projects go?)

Then my treasured Vagabond upped and died on me.  Yesterday it was working fine, happily cutting out the die cuts you see on the card.  Today I switched it on to cut the scalloped oval at the front and - nothing.  Nowt.  Not even a whirr, so I was forced to fall back upon my faithful Big Shot (thank heavens I hadn't put it on Ebay!)

The Love of My Life, bless him, was all for jumping in the car and rushing round to Hobbycraft to buy a replacement.  I want to think first about whether or not to replace the Vagabond with another one (it would be my third - the first was under guarantee when it popped its clogs) or go for a Grand Calibur. 

Decisions, decisions!

Starry Night

The theme for Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers challenge this week is "Dream", which works well for me as I'm still feeling the celestial vibe after last week's effort.  I'm also inspired a bit by Van Gogh's "Starry Night", a painting I admire very much.

Now who'd-a thought that my long-ago textile arts classes would have come in handy?  Back in the mists of time, when I was doing my teacher training,  we had to study additional subjects that were from different curriculum areas to our main course of study.  As I was studying English,  I had to take Science and Art.  In our final year, we had to choose a specialism for Art (stick with me, this is going somewhere, I promise!)  I enjoyed embroidery so I chose Textiles.  HOWEVER - there was one man in the group, and because this was the 70's and men could not possibly do embroidery, our tutor decided that we should do batik instead.  All year.  Now the thing about batik is, once you've drawn your design on the fabric in wax and then dyed it, you just have to wait for it to dry.  You can't hurry it.  And if you only have one piece to work on, it doesn't take three hours (which is how long the class was) to get the next layer of wax on, and into the dye and out again.  Our tutor obviously felt it was all a bit futile as she used to disappear a short way into the session...and shortly after she left, so did we...

Still, I did learn a bit, as demonstrated by this tag.  I began by stamping and embossing the stars, then colouring the tag in Cloudy Blue Adirondack with Colour Duster brushes.  Then the first lot of swirls (stamp from The Artistic Stamper, the freebie covermount on Craft Stamper magazine a couple of months ago).  This time I brushed on some DI Lilac, and Faded Jeans, and stamped and embossed the swirl again in a slightly different place.  Then the last colours brushed on were Seedless Preserves and Dusty Concord, and some Black Soot across the bottom (I masked off the top part of the tag with some torn paper) and around the edges.

Once it was all done, I covered the tag in kitchen towel and ironed it with a hot iron, changing the paper towel until all of the embossing powder was removed.  The I added the sentiment (one from Pink Petticoat) and the job was finished!  Not sure what Vincent would've thought of it, though....

SIlvery Moon

This week's theme for Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers Challenge is SILVER.  My first thought was to do something industrial and Steampunky (always my comfort zone!) but I was having trouble incorporating stamping into the mix (and the challenge is a stamping challenge, duh!).  SO...rethink...

The song that kept popping into my head was "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" so that was where I took my inspiration!  The background was built up in colurs of Adirondack and Distress inks, applied with Colour Duster brushes with a bit of masking to create an horizon. The tree stamps are from Clarity, the swirl from Hero Arts (a very old one).  I stamped the swirl (which shows up much better in real life than in the photo) in silver Opalite ink;  the moon and stars are paperclay,  painted with Pearl Perfect Pearl mica powder. 

I printed out the wording, traced over it in silver ink on shrink plastic and heated it to shrink, then attached it with Glossy Accents.  Finally,  I added some springy/shimmery wire that I'd pulled out and bundled.  I don't know what this is called.  I saw it once in a discount shop and bought a package.  It languished in my stash for ages until one day, it turned out to be JUST THE THING I needed.  However, once it's gone it's gone...

So, job done - hope you like it.  Thanks for visiting!