Anything Goes @ Artist Trading Post Exchange Challenge

Welcome to the brand new "Mixed Media" challenge being launched today by the Artist Trading Post.

Sue Carrington, our Design Team Leader, is leading the way with the first challenge theme, which is "Anything Goes"  You can read more about the challenge theme and rules by clicking HERE

We are all so excited to be part of this new challenge blog  and hope you will join in with our excitement too.

Here is my first DT project, which uses a mix of Decoart Paints and Crackle as well as Dark Room Door Stamps, Prima Papers, Idea-ology,  Tim Holtz Stencils, Distress Inks and Paints, Ranger Archival Ink, Cosmic Glue and Decorative Metal Corners, most of which you can purchase at the Artist Trading Post Shop or Online Store by clicking HERE

 The Recipe:

First of all I painted the canvas with Decoart Paint in Rustico, leaving it to air dry.

 I then applied the Decoart Crackle Medium, again leaving it to air dry.

 Finally a coat of Decoart Paint in Whisper. The cracks start to appear immediately.

 Dried Canvas/Paint below ..............fabulous :-)

 I wanted to make a collage of  vintage stamps and decided to use the Correspondence Set from Dark Room Door. I used Ranger Archival Inks, stamping on some of Finnabair's papers, which were then distressed around the edges using my Tim Holtz scissors, before blending with Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Inks.

 Distress Inks were blended through two Tim Holtz Stencils, building up layers of interest around the outside edges. ( Stencils used were Measured and Dot fade, which you will see in a close up of the canvas further down the page.) I then sprayed with a Matte Varnish from Windsor and Newton to seal.

 To alter the decorative metal corners I used Salty Ocean Distress Paint, which I  dried with my heat tool, then sanded to give an aged appearance. Some  More Distress paint in Antique Linen was applied and again sanded off using Tim Holtz sanding tool. Finally a touch of Treasure Gold  Renaissance was applied.

 After playing around with the layout this is what I ended up with, some splatters of watered down paint give a further aged appearance.

 You can see the Dot Fade stencil much clearer in the photograph below. I also matted the main image to some black card for definition.

 Some twine and a piece of newsprint to make this look like a bundle of letters.

Thank You so much for visiting and for taking the time to leave a comment. 

I do hope you can join in with us and we look forward to viewing your "Mixed Media" makes. 

For further inspiration and to view the projects of my very talented DT Roomies please click HERE

I shall catch up with you all over the weekend x

Crafty Hugs as always

Roses and Romance at Craft Room Challenge

Hi everyone...hope you are having the best week  x  Debi is the host of the new challenge over at Craft Room Challenge this fortnight and she has chosen Roses and Romance. It's such a fun theme and I hope you get the chance to play along. 

Our sponsor for this fortnight is the wonderful Crafty Individuals. Their prizes are amazing so get those entries in!!

 Below is my DT submission, which is a canvas ( 7 by 5 )

As the canvas had been treated with Gesso I gave it a wash of Vintage photo Distress Paint and added some vintage papers, which were torn around the edge and aged with Vintage Photo Distress Inks.

The roses were handmade using Tim Holtz  Mini Tattered Florals Movers and Shapers Sizzix die as I wanted a slightly smaller Rose. You can also use the  Tattered Florals Bigz die.

The florals were die cut using Tim Holtz Co'Ordinations paper and you can see the various textures below. I chose to distress the textured side :-)

Here they are all sanded down.............isn't this an amazing effect !!

Then I took my Vintage Photo Distress Inks and aged them

You can see a close up of the finished roses below. :-)

Texture paste was then applied over Tim Holtz stencils...dot fade and harlequin..once dry I applied Treasure Gold wax in Blue Sapphire and Florentine.
I love Tim's Found Relatives and decided to use this beautiful photograph of the young girl, patiently waiting on the return of her fiance. The frame was die cut using SB die, painted with Salty Ocean Distress Paint and then sanded down. I wanted a gilt framed look so ran the frame through my Big Shot using an embossing folder.  The sanded areas were distressed in ......yes you guessed........Vintage Photo Distress Ink and yet more gilding wax.. The edges of the canvas were aged using Walnut Stain Distress Ink and some gilding wax was applied to the roses.
For added romance I took some American Seam Binding, smooshed through Victorian Velvet Distress Ink, which was applied to my heat mat and then spritzed with water and heat dried. The hat pins and cameo finished off the look I so wanted to achieve. :-)
Oops...almost forgot that I had added some vintage lace, which was stained with tea.

It's great to have you drop by and I do hope that you manage to join in with us at CRC. For further inspiration you can check out the wonderful makes by my DT sisters by clicking HERE

Have fun and I will catch up with you all soon xx

Tim Holtz Tags of 2014 - February

Hi Everyone.........hope you have had a lovely week and enjoyed the weekend. Today I am sharing my take on Tim Holz February Tag, which you can find HERE

Tim inspires us every month and it sure is fun to play along. Learning new techniques and generally just having fun !!

 I did not have Tim's Heart Stencil so used the Stripes one to create a plaid or tartan effect. 

The green background was created using Distress Paint in Mowed Lawn, spritzed with lots of water. 

Once dried I used the Distress Inks  you can see in the photograph below. 

I also improvised using some item's from Tim's New  idea-ology Ephemera Pack

The heart was a die cut using Tim's  Movers and Shapers Sizzix Die and as I did not have red glitter I added some Watermelon Alcohol Ink to colour some glitter from my stash. 

The lace at the bottom was cut using  the TH  Vintage Lace Sizzix die. 

The tartan ribbon is also from my stash. 

 

Crafty Hugs xx

Colour Inspiration at Craft Room Challenge this fortnight

Hi Everyone..........Thanks for dropping in to my crafty corner in blogland. I truly appreciate your visits and I know I haven't been visiting as often as I should lately, but as I work full time that is not always easy. Please excuse me for that and I will drop in as soon as I can x

This fortnight at Craft Room Challenge my DT Roomie, Amber, is hosting the challenge theme, which is Colour Inspiration, using Spring Colours. PLease click HERE to view Amber's Colour Inspiration Challenge. 

Our sponsor this month is Stamp Addicts and as always we have a random winner and Top 3.  

Here is my DT project

 It's not quite as Pink as seen here under artificial light. I painted the canvas with Pickled Raspberry Distress Paint, toned down with Walnut Stain DI. Mowed Lawn was used through some Tim Holtz Stancils, Dot Fade and School House.  The torn napkin has many of the Spring Colours shown by Amber and was adhered with Ranger Glue 'n' Seal. 

ART was cut from some TH lost and found papers, then adhered to some cardboard and distressed around the edges with Walnut Stain.

Some fabric from Prima, obtained at a Finnabair Workshop, was torn and coloured with Mowed Lawn DI and attached with small screws. (the chain and key were in my stash) 

The Idea-ology plate, dragonfly and key were painted with Wild Honey Distress paint, then I took some Treasure Gold wax to highlight a few areas.

THank You once again for dropping in and I do hope you can join us over at Craft Room Challenge. 

It would be great to see you there plus you can also view some more fabulous inspiration from the very talented DT members

Crafty Hugs xxx

Time.......to Build It Up at FSC

Happy Sunday friends and I am so excited to let you know that this fortnight I am the Guest Designer over at Fashionable Stamping Challenge............!!!

This fortnight the challenge is "Build it Up" and boy did I go for it!!!.............I love it when I have time to play :-) Its's also important that you only use 3 stamps on your project and you can see that I used 2 of Tim Holtz SA Time Traveller stamps and a sentiments stamp from another SA set. 

There are numerous layers that I have built up.......i.e layered dies, cogs and the time traveller himself. 

As I am in London, returning home today,  I  have scheduled this post and will add on the 'How To' details tomorrow for those of you who like to read them. Be warned there are lots and lots of Photographs...so grab a chair and a coffeee/tea

Take Care and Catch up soon xx

Ribbons and Lace at Craft Room Challenge

Phew....my first challenge theme at Craft Room Challenge is Ribbons AND Lace and I do hope you can play along with us this fortnight. Just remember to check out the rules and then have lots of  inky fun x

Crafty Individuals is our sponsor this month and  the winner of our challenge has the chance to win a prize.

                        

I adore Ribbons and Lace and had just purchased some amazing pieces from Live and Love Crafts that I was desperate to play with. As its February and Love is in the Air I decided to go with a Romantic/Vintage project. 

I started out with  a couple of canvases ( 5" by 7") that I painted with Distress Paint in Antique Linen. I felt the colour required to be a bit stronger and applied some Frayed Burlap DP to the Antique Linen along with some water,  creating a wash of paint. 

 Texture paste was applied through Tim Holtz bubble stencil. Should have applied this before I painted but to be honest I was not sure where I was going with this project. I started off with one idea in my head then went in a different direction !! ( sounds familiar right !) Once the paste was dry I painted over it a couple of times using the same colour as applied to the canvas.

 I began stamping and gathering items to place on the canvas. The stamps used are from Dark Room Door........... Love Letters and Correspondence. You can also see some  TH die cuts that I had originally planned on using. The papers are  by Brenda Walton for K& CO and I have had them in my stash for years...!!  The stamps were treated to some Distress Ink in Vintage Photo/Walnut Stain as well as Bundled Sage. Some edges of various pieces were distressed around the edges, creating an aged effect.

The filigree corners , butterfly, cameo and rusty heart  below were all purchased from Linda at the Funkie Junkie Boutique and lastly I added the  number plate14 from Tim Holtz Idea-Ology. ( love the distressed look of this piece and just could not bring myself to alter it in any way)

White Fire Treasure Gold was applied to the textures area using my fingers, creating even more opulance once buffed with a soft cloth.

 When we attended a Burns Night last week I was very moved by the voice of a female artist called Rachel Sermanni. She sang My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose and it was so beautiful. You may be able to view on Google/You Tube. The words are so meaningful and my favourite two lines were generated on my pc and a pllied to the back of this project.

As part of my birthday last year my mum gave me  a beautiful box filled with various flowers that she had made. Although not exactly a rose ( more of a wild rose....which I prefer) I painted  one of her flowers red and then applied some spray matte varnish. 

 More stencilling on the back  using Crafters Workshop ART IS and Tim Holtz  Dot fade

Below is a close up of the stamped  DD images :

 

 More lace and filigree as well as the DD stamps and a time piece/key/heart

 Below is a close up of the other panel, which was embellished with some  trinkets provided in a kit by Finnabair.

 Almost there !!!

Thank You for dropping in and for staying to the very end. Any questions just send an email, details in my sidebar. 

Hope you can join in this fortnights challenge and also drop in to view the fabulous inspirational makes by my DT roomies HERE

Take Care and Catch up soon xxxxxxx

The Dawning of Aquarius

Hi Everyone and a huge hug to followers old and new. Below is my make for this fortnights challenge over at Craft Room Challenge blog. Esther has chosen the theme, which is The Age of Aquarius. You can find all of the details by clicking HERE

I do hope you can join in the fun with us and you can also view the fabulous and  inspiring makes of my

 DT roomies :-)

The sponsor this fortnight is Tando Creative..................so get creating !!!!

I decided to make a Tag Book, using wrinkle free distress, spritz 'n' flick and marbled stains technique. I have also used the distressing tool, greenery stamp from  TH SA Spring Sprung and a Zodiac stamp by Judikins. The digital Image of Aquarius is  from the Vintage Zodiac Signs by Nicecrane. 

 The colour appears to be much greener than in real life. I used Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn Distress ink on the back and front of the  Ranger Inkssentials size 10 tag, spritzing and flicking with water once dry. 

 The digital image was torn around the edges using the TH  paper distressing tool and once matted the edges of the pale blue card were also distressed.

The zodiac stamp was placed on tissue and adhered to the back of the book using Inkssentials Glue n Seal

 I then trimmed a size 5 tag and a manila envelope and used Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn Distress Paints, spritzing with lots of water. The word Aquarius was generated from my pc, torn and distressed with Vintage Photo DI :-) ( I just had to use it guys!!)

I used Black Soot DI on the TH Dot Fade stencil, which has became a huge favourite.  To finish I edged the whole book with Black Soot DI, giving even more definition.

Looking forward to seeing what you create for this wonderful challenge theme. Thank You so much for dropping in and taking the time to comment. I love to read your comments and will return the compliment. 

Crafty Hugs xx