July Graphicus Challenge

Evening everyone, I was lucky enough to visit the Newbury Stamp Show yesterday and came across a lovely lady from Lex Craft Supplies who happened to have Glenda's latest stamps! It was very hard to choose between the three fantastic sets but in the end I chose the Seahorse and shells set. I am really pleased with them and think I will probably be entering more than once this month as I have so many ideas. I chose to work with reds and browns for this card and started by punching a large square from a post-it note to make a mask for the tiled background. I sponged Antique Linen distress ink in the squares, trying to line them up carefully as I went. I then stamped the starfish and shell in each square using sepia Versafine ink. The shell panel was stamped with the Versafine as before but before I started I made a mask of each of the designs (using post-it notes)so I could make the shells look as though they have been stamped behind each other. The shells have been painted with inktense water colour pencils. The panel has been edged with a brown marker pen and then worn lipstick distress ink sponged around the edge. The worn lipstick was also sponged around the tiled background. I found some string in my bits a pieces box so used it to decorate the sides of the panel which was stuck to the card with Glossy Accents.

Graphicus June Challenge

This is my entry into the Graphicus June Challenge. The theme is exotic and the colours hot pink and orange. All of the stamps used are from Elusive Images. I thought through a few ideas before coming up with this necklace and gift box. Even then the beads of the necklace were a bit of an experiment with different inks as I don't really use shrink plastic that the beads are made from. I started by colouring a sheet of clear shrink with an orange sunset alcohol ink. Then stamping onto the reverse side with the daisy stamp using fuchsia pink Staz-on. For the pink beads I covered the shrink in the pink staz-on watered down with alcohol blending solution before stamping on the reverse with the pink staz on. The centre bead that the paisly mandala stamp has been attached to was stamped in black staz on and the paisley medallion has been stamped onto orange alcohol inked shrink, using pink staz-on, on the reverse. Before shrinking I made holes in the plastic with a crop-o-dile so that jump rings could be attached. The necklace has been finished off with a bar and ring fastener.
The box was made from card measuring 21cm by 18cm and I used a box maker to get the dimensions right. The lid of the box has been sponged with Tim Holtz marmalade distress ink, then stamped with a smaller paisley design using the pink staz-on and then over the top of that I have dragged the edge of the marmalade distress ink pad to make the line effect. The centre of the box has been decorated with the Paisley mandala that was used as the focal point for the necklace. I have painted the layers of the mandala using inktense pencils and then sponged over worn lipstick distress ink to the pink areas and marmalade distress ink to the orange areas. Peeled paint distress ink was used on the leaves. I finished off the mandala with dots of diamond stickles and mounted the whole thing on the box lid with silicone glue.

The box in-lay was made from a piece of card measuring 21cm by 18cm and scored like the box base but I added an extra score line so that a shallower box could be made as I folded it around the back making a sort of lip so that it rested in the base easily. I made cut outs for the necklace to thread through. The in-lay was then sponged with marmalade distress ink and then dabbed with the worn lipstick. Both the box and in-lay were decorated before being glued.

First Attempt with Grunge Paper

Good evening folks, I have been experimenting with Grunge Paper and Grunge Board for the past few days and have found I really love it. For those that don't know it is like no other card or paper. It almost smells like leather and with some distress ink, glimmer mists and cuttlebug embossing boards applied to it, it looks quite like leather as well! This card started off as just 4 bits of grunge paper stitched together and sort of evolved. The flowers and fern leaf are from the Tim Holtz Nature Grunge Board range and have been coloured with brick red and marmalade distress ink then tied with a piece of rafia. The rafia has also been wrapped around the panel after it had been dabbed with aged mahoganey distress ink The larger flowers at the corners of the panel have been cut from the Grunge Paper on my Cricut using the George Cartridge and then coloured with distress inks as before. All of the flowers have been decorated with candy cane stickles. The grunge paper panel has then been placed onto card that has been sprayed with a light green glimmer mist (forgotten the name again) and a gold glimmer mist. It has then been overstamped with fern stamps from a set by Royal Langnickel using distress inks in aged mahoganey, mustard seed and gamma green brilliance ink. I am not overly pleased with the card as it is a bit busy but I am pleased with the grunge paper as you can stitch it and it doesnt tear at all.