It's a Jungle out there!

Morning all,

Not sure if I was thinking of my allotment when I made this page...  seems like the first time this year I've managed to get over there, and it's daunting how quickly weeds grow!  And I feel just like 'Percy', with his arms crossed in a huff!

My page started with some Decoart Media fluid Acrylics, I dabbled and mixed some colours on a palette, so there is orange, white, teal, titan buff, more white.. and a bit of red..
I then stamped some background stamps from Indigoblu, tasty textures set, with different colour stazon in first and second gen stamping.  Next was the Laurel Leaves stencil with a faber castell pitt pen to do the leaves all the way round the page.  It took a while but I love the effect.

Extra stamping in white paint was done with Kate Crane's lovely spiral stamp a friend bought me at Kate's class a couple of weeks back, and some old lids to make rings.  I then doodled in places on the page around white bits.

'Percy' is by the lovely Lindsay Mason, he's a digi stamp available in Lindsay's Etsy Store, and I absolutely love him.  He is coloured with Prismacolour pencils and cut out, then glued to my page and lightly pencilled round to ground him.

This is my first piece for Lindsay on her fab Design Team, I hope you like it. Here are a couple of closer pics.  The moth was one Kate printed for us in her class, I had a few so cut him out and added him here.  Although all I had today at the allotment was cabbage white butterflies...!

You can see more of Lindsay's design's in her store, and on her blog.

Have a good day all,

Best Wishes,

Nikki. xx

Craft Stamper TIMI Challenge April 2016 - Spring Flowers

Good morning everyone,

Today is the start of the new challenge over at Craft Stamper Magazine.

Our sponsor this month is Traplet themselves, where you can get your very own copies of Craft Stamper Magazine.

We have a HUGE prize for you this month, this is truly awesome and well worth entering for!  The winner will receive ALL SIX Kate Crane Art Journalling DVD's!!

I so wish I could enter!!

I do have some inspiration for you though, as do my teamie's over at the Challenge, so come and join in the fun.

Our brief this month was 'Spring Flowers', and I love the yellow and green of this time of year, so decided to make a tag using these colours.

My background was created on a lovely Tando tag, with Decoart Media fluid acrylics, in hansa yellow light, primary yellow and blue green light.  I added some texture paste through Indigoblu's Laurel Leave's stencil, and coated with hansa yellow light, which gave them the yellow tone but they still blended in to the background.

I then stamped in primary yellow with Andy Skinner's Toxic stamp set, using the peeled paint/crackle stamp.  On top of that I stamped in blue green light with Paper Artsy's Eclectica 18 by Emma Godfrey stamp, using the small circles.  I then used Indigoblu's script stamp from Tasty Textures, and first and second gen stamped all over in Stazon Cactus Green.  To finish I used Andy's other stamp from the toxic set, scratches, and stamped in Stazon Emerald City all around the edges and a few across the tag.

The flower's from Paper Artsy were stamped several times in different sizes onto a masterboard which was sprayed with Decoart primary yellow decoart mister, turquoise shimmer mister, yellow shimmer mister, and ...... Over the top I stamped with the tasty textures script in Emerald City stazon.  I cut the flowers out and layered them up.

I painted the stems in black, and doodled round them in white acrylic Sharpie.  I added some white dots to the flower centres, and doodled round the sentiment (also Paper Artsy).

Here is the tag all finished.

Hope you like it, we'd love it if you joined us over on the Craft Stamper challenge to see the DT's amazing work, and join in of course!

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xx

'Colour'

Today I wanted to share something I made for myself, and it's a work in progress.  My first little Art Journal.

I painted the chipboard pages in white gesso, and on some of them, swirled the end of a paintbrush in the texture to make some patterns that show when they are covered in paint.

I mixed some acrylic paints, to make a bright orange, pink, and yellow, and painted the pages with my fingers.  (Yes - finger painting!)

The cover has the lovely lady from the 'Mr Darcy' Stamp set from Indigoblu, coloured with distress inks and pan pastels.  It is then stamped with bubble wrap, lids from bottles or sprays, and something like credit card edges to ground the image and add interest to the page.

The 'Art' wording is also from Indigoblu, and I then added some chipboard flowers, cut out text, and stick on pearls.

The techniques used are from watching the wonderful Kate Crane's dvd's,  I was inspired to have a go myself, I love the bright colours and way everything pop's off the page.

The little castle is a charm I took the ring off, it just added a little something to the page.  Some of stamped rings on the page are highlighted in gold paint,  and the little dots in white are from a uniqlo pen. 

The word ART, is stamped with flitterglu, and foiled with 'peacock feathers' from Indigoblu.

Here are two of the internal pages.

 

 These pages are similar to the cover, with bubble wrap stamping, backgrounds, doodling, stamping with household objects, and finger painting.  They are blank and ready for me to add journalling when I am ready to.

If you haven't tried it since you were a child, finger painting is one of the most relaxing ways to get lost in your craft (and the cheapest!)

I thought I would enter this for the 'Colour' challenge over at 'Simon Says Stamp & Show'

If you fancy having a go, you can get Kate's dvd's here:

I know I had fun!

Best Wishes,

Nikki