Craft Stamper TIMI challenge Reminder - June - Take a Technique - Get Inky!

Hi everyone,

It's Craft Stamper challenge reminder time, and I love this month's technique - Get Inky!  Use more than one TYPE of ink on your creation, ink pads, spray inks, alcohol inks, reinkers, drawing inks, ink crystal powders, or acrylic inks etc, OR, use more than one COLOUR of ink.  Then join in and enter over on the Challenge blog.

The prizes up for grabs this month are:

Firstly 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. These can be found HERE.

We are proud to announce our sponsor this month is....

PaperArtsy 

PaperArtsy are a UK based brand, selling a HUGE range of stamps by some wonderful designers, as well as their own signature line of chalk finish paints! The online store is just full of amazing product, well worth a visit! The latest (and very very popular) range to be launched is the Infusions range....
Infusions are water soluble particles with 2 components: dye colour pigment suitable for paper/ fabric, mixed with Walnut Stain.
The colour powder particles dissolve faster than the walnut crystals, so you can control the colour-to-brown stain ratio!
These amazing little bottles of fabulousness have been flying off the shelves, but we have a selection as the prize this month! This is the whole colour range:

The prize is a set of FIVE Infusions as seen here:

Lemoncello, Black Currant, A Bit Jaded, Are You Cerice and Emerald Isle.

And second, 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! 

Here is my inspiration piece for the Challenge:

I used both colours of inks, and types of inks on this tag.  The background was created with Dylusions spray inks in Fresh Lime, Squeezed Orange, and Lemon Zest.  I sprayed a piece of A4 card and made a masterboard, so I can use other pieces where I want too.

I then stamped the text from Indigoblu's Tasty Texture's background stamp, in Stazon Pumpkin Orange and Cactus Green.  The Honeycomb background is IB too and stamped in the same colours.

The dots stamp is PaperArtsy HotPics, stamped in Versafine Onyx black,  as are the white Stazon Opaque Cotton white circles.

I used Distress inks in Spiced Marmalade and Shabby shutters on the wording, flowers and edges, and added a little washi tape to the background for interest.  

I did use embossing ink, and embossed the flowers, but didn't like the gloss look so went back over with DecoArt's Ultra Matte Varnish, which took the finish right back again.  The flowers still look raised but aren't so shiny against the matt tag. 

I think this is the most stamps and inks I've ever got on one small tag :) 

I hope you can join us at Craft Stamper Magazine this month! 

Best Wishes,

Nikki

xxx

Craft Stamper - Take it Make it October Challenge Reminder.

Hi all,

Halfway through the month again, and time for a little reminder of the Craft Stamper Challenge this month.  The theme is multicolour stamping, so get those ink pads or paints out, or anything you like to stamp with, mix up the colours on your stamp, and away you go!

We'd love to see your entries, and there is ton's of inspiration for you on the Craft Stamper blog, and now on the DT's reminder post here.

This is my take, and of course, as it's October, a little pumpkin wouldn't go amiss now would it?

I used watercolour paper to stamp my stamp addicts Tim Holtz pumpkin on, I love these stamps.  I used Stayzon ink in pumpkin (yes really), zesty orange, and olive green, to multicolour stamp the image.  I then used distress markers and a waterbrush to colour the image.  I flicked some distress markers across the page in different colours too, and added shading under the pumpkin.

Next I got my sewing machine out, I'll rephrase that... Next, I unpacked my sewing machine that I've had since April and never used...

And look!  I worked it out!  I stitched the pumpkin to some music paper that I had gesso'ed to fade it a bit.  I trapped some twine between the two layers.  This was then layered onto black corrugated card, and the resin embellishment added.  It's using pebeo Fantasy moon and fantasy prism paints, and some watch pieces, covered in resin.

The little sentiment was added, it's a wooden stamp I have, not sure who by, and the piece of wire that wrapped up my sewing machine lead was twisted, and added in the corner!  It's all layered onto a distressed piece of kraft cardstock, and then a dark brown card blank.

Hop across to the Craft Stamper Challenge to see lot's more inspiration from the DT, and don't forget to join us, we really do love to see your work, and the prizes are brill too!

Have a great weekend,

Best Wishes,

Nikki K.
xx

Craft Stamper Take It, Make It Challenge - May - Stamping with Potatoes!

Hi everyone,

It was back to childhood for me this week, and a great, fun piece to make for the Craft Stamper Take It, Make It Challenge.

The theme is stamping with Potatoes!

You can see all the Design Team's inspiration here, and we really would love you to join us this month and just have fun with this challenge!

For my piece, I started with Distress inks in Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, and Picked Raspberry, and covered a piece of white card randomly.  Once done, I spritzed the card with a secret ingredient. . .Dettol!  It's just the clear kitchen spray dettol, but I stumbled upon the idea one day when I couldn't find my water spritzer, and just happened to grab the nearest spray. . .

Blot the card after a few seconds, and it leaves a lovely distressed effect.  I edged the panel in spiced marmalade distress ink.

After this, I carved my potato stamp, and chose Indigoblu's Goldfinger paint to stamp in.  I painted a thin layer onto my stamping mat,

Then stamped randomly over the background.

I had repeated the distress ink pattern onto another piece of card, but adding dusty concord for a bit of contrast.  The edge of the card is stamped with English Florish, and on top of that I stamped Indigoblu's Big Butterfly, and clear embossed it.  I used the sentiment from BFF, and also clear embossed it and edged it in spiced marmalade.

This is the final card, hope you like it!

You have a whole month to join in the challenge and play with potatoes, how much fun is that?

Best Wishes,

Nikki K.
xx

Rub-on Resist Technique

I've had great fun today, with my entry for Tim Holtz 12 tags of 2013 May challenge. So much so, I made two tags!  I ordered some of the rub on stickers, which landed on my doormat on Saturday, but I had to wait to try them as I was out demonstrating all day, and as Sunday was so sunny here (a huge surprise), we made the most of the day and went out.

The rub-on's are extremely easy to use, I hadn't tried them before, and the rub-on's I remember used to take half an hour to get off the backing, and then leave a dent in the page you were putting them on!  Not with these, they came off easily with the rubbing stick supplied, and a quick pull of the backing paper left them neatly on the page.  There was no problem avoiding the bits you didn't want, but if you were worried, you could cut round the images first, and use them individually.

 Just place the image where you want it on the page, and rub with the provided stick, and there you are!







When you have the images where you want them, you can then dab your distress stains on to your craft mat, and swipe the whole tag through the colours.  Don't worry if it doesn't completely cover the tag, you can fill in later.



Dry the tag slightly, then spritz with water to further react the distress inks and get a nice mottled effect on the tag.

 

Now you can stamp the tag with your main image, in archival ink.  And if you wish, stamp further around the tag with complimentary images.  You can stamp over the rub-ons, and either leave it there (dry with a heat gun to seal image), or rub it off to make the stamp look like it's behind.

  

 

 

I stamped my main image which is from the Tim Holtz Visual Artistry clear stamp range, called 'Lost and Found'.  I then added picket fence distress paint accents with a bottle lid, and cut out the 'Not all who wander are lost' sentiment and placed it up the side of my stamp, as I didn't have the tags used for the challenge.  As I didn't have the enamelled tags either, I used a bezel, which I put the rub-on clock in, and the poison skull sticker as a centre.  I covered these in glossy accents to give the enamelled look.  I did try to 'batter' a brad into submission, but it didn't want to seem to dent for me, perhaps I shoud of toddled down the shed for a better hammer.

 

 

For the film strip, I didn't have the tape, but I did have the acetate already printed from the top of the stamp set!  I cut that up as I store my stamps in cd cases anyway, and it was perfect.  I attached it with pinflair glue, as it's clear and doesn't show.  The butterfly in the centre is on top of the acetate, and the rest are underneath.  I put a little key brad through the film as an added touch.

 

The pen nib was added on top of the orange, it's another rub on, but there just seemed to be a little space needed filling. .

 

The ribbon is coloured with the same distress stains, spiced marmalade and squeezed lemonade, to finish the tag.

 

Here is this tag finished: 





 

And here is the second tag, same technique, just different colours, and I used Tim's metal flower embellishments with the alcohol ink technique on this one.  I used the film strip rub on, and cut out and layered the sentiment, and coloured the ribbon to finish the tag.

 

  

 I can't make up my mind which one I like best, now which one shall I enter?  I missed the tag challenge last month, can I have two this month? 

 

Pop across to Tim's challenge to see which one it is!

 

 Have fun creating!

xx