A catch up...

Morning everyone,

I haven't shared some pieces I've made lately, it's been mad busy and I've not had much time to do my 'own thing', but I made a couple of samples for the recent Dare to Create weekend organised by Sue at Art Workshops, and Andy Skinner & Tracy Weinzapfel Stratton.

I was booked on to the retreat as an attendee, and it was a fantastic weekend all round. A huge thankyou goes out to all involved in the organisation for a lovely weekend.  I'll share my makes at some stage from there too, but these are the pieces I made myself for Sue for her shop for the weekend.

My brief was to make something that incorporated Andy and Tracy's style, so 'Skinzapfel' was the order of the day.  The first piece I made was a canvas,

I painted the base coat in DecoArt Media pyrrole red and cadmium orange hue, and then went over with crackle paint, leaving the heart shape and flowers empty in the middle.  Once the crackle paint was dry, I used a cogs stencil inside the heart with DecoArt texture paste through.  I then added sand texture paste randomly around the edges and over the cogs to distress them further.  This centre panel was then painted in Andy's Rust technique.  The outer colours were prussian blue hue and cobalt teal hue, and a little turquoise hue.  I stamped randomly with carbon black and Tracy's stamps on the blue background.

The hand drawn flowers were painted in pyrrole red and hansa yellow medium.  I went round all the edges with a Faber Castell pitt pen and smudged the black lines, and also some more prussian blue around the heart to give shadow.  A computer sentiment was printed and coloured to match, scribbled round and adhered to the canvas.

Finally I edged the canvas in a little prussian blue hue to darken it and bring the focus in to the centre of the canvas.

My second make I wanted to keep, it's very simple but I kinda liked it :)

I took a second hand mirror from a car boot, and painted in black DecoArt Gesso.  I then added plumber's aluminium tape to pieces of black card, and used a spellbinders Mbossabilities folder called Industrial, to run the card with tape on through the Big shot.  I cut the pieces of card into different rectangles, and adhered to the mirror with matte medium. Carbon black was then dry brushed into all the crevices and across the mirror, and wiped back with a slightly dry baby wipe, repeated a few times.

 I then stamped Tracy's stamp Vines of Love onto normal 3 ply tissue, cut out and separated the ply.  I adhered this to the mirror with matte medium also, going over the top of the tissue very carefully to seal to the mirror.  I added a stalk to the flower in blue green light and green gold, and painted the flower in quinacridone magenta and hansa yellow medium.  I made sure you could still see the edges of the flower by running round with a micron pen.

The only other thing was to dry brush the edges of the black gesso'd mirror with some metallic silver paint to tie it in, and it was finished.

I love the simplicity of this, and Tracy's style with the industrial look.

Hope you've enjoyed the steps through these, I certainly enjoyed making them.

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xxx

Mega excited and proud! - PaperArtsy 3UP..

Hi everyone, 

A couple of months ago I was picked to join in with a secret blog.  Today it's here, and  I am super proud to be a part of the PaperArtsy 3UP blog!

Once we accepted the mission, we joined a secret facebook group, and met our fellow posters for the same evening, and had chance to chat about our makes and colours, and get to know each other.  Then we just had to keep it a secret until this week :)

If you head to the main page, you will see all that's been going on over the past week or so, and my team mates posts for today as well, you can also see their pieces over on their own blogs too.

My inspiration piece was using the PaperArtsy HotPicks stamps, and 'crayons'.  I used Portfolio's, they are lovely and rich and creamy and blend beautifully.  And the colours were right up my street!

I first gesso'd the background in white, and added some texture through a circels stencil, so the colours of the crayons popped on top.  I randomly added the crayon in different colour patches, and just blended them gently with my fingers, it didn't take much, they work really well.  On top of this the background was stamped in toning inks, stazon pumpkin and cherry blossom pink, and then I stamped in gesso to bring in the white elements and versafine black ink for the rest.

The tag was made in exactly the same way, crayon then stamping, and I absolutely loved the butterflies and steampunk moth's on the Hot Picks stamp sets I was given to work with, and the sentiment too.  These have now already become a firm favourite stamp set for me, and are turning into a bit of a 'go to' set.  I do have a good few of PaperArtsy's stamp sets, but luckily didn't have any of these and I'm over the moon with them.

I stamped the steampunk moth onto separate card, and fussy cut out, to anchor the tag at the bottom and lead up at the top.  I stamped him on the page first so he still had his antennae, as I'm a bit rubbish at cutting things that fine!  

I layered the tag up, and added a dark shadow around the edge to make it stand out a little from the background, you can remove the tag still as I used pads, I thought if I liked it separately I could do something different or change it up, or use the tag on a card at a later date.  The sentiment was edged with versafine, and cut out and layered on pads also.  The butterflies were curled and added with pinflair glue, and they are coloured in the portfolio crayons, but I embossed them with versafine and clear embossing powder to make them stand out.

So you can see I created a VERY bright and busy journal cover, but I like it, I think it's happy.  I hope you can join us on the PaperArtsy blog, and check out Chris and Donna's pieces tonight also.  

Look forward to hearing from you,

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xx

Craft Stamper July TIMI Challenge Reminder - Take a Stamp

Hi everyone,

It's Take It, Make It, challenge reminder time over at Craft Stamper, and the theme this month is 'Take a Stamp'.

We have two prizes on offer, as always. The first is the Sponsor Prize, and the winner of this will be randomly chosen from all the eligible entries of the challenge. To make sure your project is eligible to win, make sure you have followed our challenge guidelines.

PLEASE REMEMBER: We only want to see ONE project in each individual blog post entry (a set counts as more than one), and you MUST link back to Craft Stamper Magazine in your post. 

This month's sponsor prize to our random winner is: Calico Craft Parts, and the fab prize is 3 aperture ATB kits, 4 beach/nautical mini shape sheets, seashell frame ATC blank, nautical shrine kit. They arrive flat packed, you have to assemble them yourself, it's very easy.

As always, we will also have a Design Winner this month.

This winner is chosen by our DT, who all vote for their favourite design from all of the entries. This winner will have their winning project published in Craft Stamper Magazine, (with a 2 page spread of their very own!), they will have a GDT slot for an upcoming challenge, and will also feature in their very own Winners Profile blog post!

My inspiration for you is a little bracelet I made from the lovely new Indigoblu stamp, Dinkie Rose, bought out for their 5th birthday.  I simply stamped onto shrink plastic, cut each rose out, and coloured with Marshmallow and Lemon Meringue paints, watered down. 

I punched holes in each with a cropodile before shrinking the plastic one at a time with my heat gun, and used an acrylic block to make sure they were flat on my heat mat.

A jump ring was attached to each, then attached to a bracelet chain.  Some freshwater pearls were added on headpins.

I made a simple pair of earrings to match, think this is a really summery set!  

So don't forget to join in over on the Craft Stamper blog, we'd love to see your entries!  It can be any kind of artwork/make, as long as you have used rubber stamping on it. 

Have fun!

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xxx

Craft Stamper July TIMI Challenge - Take a Stamp

Hi everyone,

So it's Craft Stamper 'Take it, Make it' Challenge time again, and this month it's 'Take A Stamp'.  Our motto is 'TAKE A Stamp, and MAKE it your own.

We have two prizes on offer, as always. The first is the Sponsor Prize, and the winner of this will be randomly chosen from all the eligible entries of the challenge. To make sure your project is eligible to win, make sure you have followed our challenge guidelines.

PLEASE REMEMBER: We only want to see ONE project in each individual blog post entry (a set counts as more than one), and you MUST link back to Craft Stamper Magazine in your post. 

This month's sponsor prize to our random winner is: Calico Craft Parts, and the fab prize is 3 aperture ATB kits, 4 beach/nautical mini shape sheets, seashell frame ATC blank, nautical shrine kit. They arrive flat packed, you have to assemble them yourself, it's very easy.

A fab prize!

As always, we will also have a Design Winner this month.
This winner is chosen by our DT, who all vote for their favourite design from all of the entries. This winner will have their winning project published in Craft Stamper Magazine, (with a 2 page spread of their very own!), they will have a GDT slot for an upcoming challenge, and will also feature in their very own Winners Profile blog post!

So my inspiration piece for you is a small canvas, using Indigoblu's new paints, I love these colours!  

I put some texture paste through the Chemistry and starburst stencils, and added some texture paste by hand to give lots of interest.  I painted it over in white gee so good to give a clean white background to the bright colours.

I added paint with a brush, credit card, splatters, fingers, until I had a look I liked in Lime Marmalade, Marshmallow & Lemon Meringue.  These are fab zingy colours and stay true even when watered right down, as you can see in the splatters.

I washed over some of Indigoblu's Floral Fantasy cardstock, with marshmallow, and put drips of lime and lemon meringue across the tops.  I created a masterboard of paint colours on a piece of card, to stamp and cut out the images behind from the chemistry set.  I used stazon inks in co-ordinating colours.

Some lace, ribbon and cotton were added to the background.  I stamped the little images, and embossed the Rose Dinkie stamp onto the masterboard card and cut out. 

Finally the little rose in the corner is shrink plastic, stamped with stazon and coloured with watered down paints, and shrunk down to fit.  All the elements were layered up. I went round the edges of the canvas with my fingers and a couple of the paints.

Hope you like it and it inspires you to create and enter the Craft Stamper Challenge this month!

Love and hugs,

Nikki
xx