WOYWW Decorative Tag

I've had a very minor tidy of one side of my cupboard desk! If you want to see lots more desks tidy or otherwise they are all at WOYWW over at Julia....why not pay a visit after you take a little look at my how to on the tag shape I used for my Pass it Forward gift.

I've got stuff out 'cos I need to decide what I need to take with me on a crafting weekend to Wiltshire. Laura, Sue and I had such a good time at Artsycrafts that we decided to get together for our own little workshop weekend. :)
Three girls having fun again with T!m...well not quite with T!m...but at least with T!m's stuff LOL ;)

I really like making those little hanging pieces like my PiF piece and it all started by buying a garden implement from QVC that had a lovely shaped tag on it......I just reproduced it quite easily...

Want to know the details?

that's the tag and not the garden implement you understand! LOL

Measure a piece of mount board (it is nice and sturdy and won't warp with inks and glue etc) 10cm by 16cm.

Next make marks at the middle point at the top of the tag then draw a line 1.8cm down from the top and 1.8cm in from each edge.

Next you need to find a cup or mug to draw round...lining up the top and where the intersection of the the two 1.8cm lines are.

Next it is cutting it out! There is only one way to do this neatly in my opinion and that is using a scalpel knife. Please be careful if it is not your first cutting tool of choice! Use a steel edged ruler to cut the straight lines and free hand for the semi-circle bit.

....the trick is not to force your way through the mount board in one go....that way leads to disaster and very probably a sliced finger!!!

Ouch not so LOL!

Instead lightly trace your (sharp) scalpel over the pencil line for the first pass and on the next pass your scalpel will follow the slight cut you have just created....I find that you can cut through the mount board in 3 or 4 passes. If your scalpel skills are new and you have a slight wobble....don't panic you can always sand the edges later!

Now I have one of those excellent corner rounders from We Are Memory Keepers that can cut through all sorts.....but it only does on outie corner and I needed an innie corner!
Is there such a tool? If not come on WAMK and make one PDQ!

Anyway I got round it by using a pair of decorative scissors by Fiskars "Cloud" to cut the innie corners instead!

Although I don't think they will stand up to lots of cutting through mount board!

And that's your finished tag just rub away your pencil marks.

Now....whilst it is pretty simple to reproduce I see that T!m has a movers and shapers die out called Vintage Cabinet Card.

(I don't know how big this is though).

It is a very similar shape....only the corner innies are 90 degree straight corners.
...it would certainly speed up the making of the base tag quite a bit :)
Thanks for looking.
Don't forget to pop over and visit Julia and the rest of the work desks. ;)
xoxo Sioux

Monochrome Plus One Challenge for The Artistic Stamper

It was nice to see all the "Lovely Ladies and Gorgeous Girls" created for last months challenge, some were vintage, some cute, some arty :)
So..... how do you feel about this one then?

"Monochrome plus one other colour"

Yes it's a colour combo challenge for June over at The Artistic Stamper Creative Team ;)
As soon as I see that particular combo prompt I have to force myself not to add red every time!!
Hey! I could not help myself! LOL

I started by stamping a variety of backgrounds in different colours of Archival.
....I used black, crimson and coffee.....at this point I did not know what direction my piece was going to take!

Anyway........after I decided on the red option ;)
I used the houndstooth background stamped in Archival crimson as the first layer
(I used second stamping 'cos I did not want it too in your face!)
The next layer uses two different papers the dots background simply stamped in black and the baroque background stamped in crimson and then coloured over with Distress Ink aged mahogany.
...so elegant don't you think?
The dancer was stamped in black and I then cut just a portion of the image out using a scalpel knife.
...it works best for this...I find I end up creasing the card as I cut if I use scissors!
All of these layers were matted onto white card that had been coloured with Distress Ink black soot and attached with double sided tape....adding a bit of red ribbon to disguise the join where the two papers meet and a decorative brad.
The rosette....
.....ah! Yes...I have succumbed and bought both the original large rosette and the new die that cuts two smaller ones!...
....is using the smallest rosette from the mini rosette die with the large rosette middle on top stamped in Distress Ink aged mahogany and coloured with the same.

I had a happy accident with the rosette as I had cut it out of some decorative paper but when I put it against the layers it was glaringly miss matched.....I was so miffed I sort of threw the rosette back on the desk and it landed upside down.......wow! I really liked the way the score marks show up on the white and to help it blend in a bit more I added a bit of aged mahogany to the edges :)) It's a small thing but it made me happy!

Oh! By the way I am soooo looking forward to adding some of the new colours of Archival to my stash 'cos I like the effect of stamping in Archival and then colouring over with Distress or Adirondack dye inks ;)
Here are a few combo's I played with...

...Adirondacks pool and sunset orange...Distress walnut stain, faded jeans, wild honey, shabby shutters and brushed corduroy.
I like subtle tone on tone ones the best and I've taken a picture to compare the difference between stamping with Archival and then colouring over and colouring then stamping with Archival.....I hope you can clearly see that the Archival first gives a more blended look and the Archival on top (the larger sample) a more defined look to the pattern.
......which ever way you want it I think it looks fabby :)

...................

 

Make sure to take a look at the "Monochrome plus one other colour" creations the rest of the team have made and here are the DT member links for you.

Alison, Hels, Jennie, Minxy and Tina

So don't forget.............the monthly challenge is "Monochrome plus one other colour"

The rules are simple... all you need to do is make a piece of art, be it a card, ATC, wall art, altered art, scrapling ;)... just remember that it must include some rubber stamping and the theme... and... if you use Artistic Stamper stamps on your entry you will be entered into the draw twice! The prize is £15 worth of stamps from the Artistic Stamper shop... along with the KlingOn to mount them onto.

I hope you get chance to play at the challenge... it is open until June 30th and the winner will be chosen by Random.org shortly after :)

Thanks for looking and happy stamping

xoxo Sioux

Paris for SCD - GD? That is me!

Well what can I say.........I joined in the very first Something Completely Different Challenge with this twinchie here and now guess what? I'm the Guest Designer this week for the month of twinchies to celebrate the challenges birthday.....could not be more thrilled to be asked :)

Thanks everyone for a year of fabulous inspiration!

The twinchie theme this week is PARIS........aah Paris sigh.....never been but dream about it often! This twinchie tries to embody the dreams I have...wanted to fit so much on...do you think it's too much? LOL...I couldn't believe I managed to fit so much on myself (although I suppose it does depend on the size of the stamps you use). I have a hankering to re-create this in a larger format to hang on my wall......watch this space!

As an added bonus for one week and one week only.....I'm including a little step by step photo tutorial on how I managed it....hope you don't get too fed up!

Started by stamping the circular frame stamp twice on scrap paper to use as masks cutting one to leave the inner circle and the outer frame and the other around the outline only.

Then masked off the circle bit where the face was to go.

Stippled the background with DI wild honey.

Over stamped with frayed burlap using some foam packaging as my stamp! A crackle type stamp would be equaly as good.

Remove the mask.

Stamped the round mirror frame where the mask had been in versamark.

Applied the cut out mask and stamped the phrenology head (again in versamark) within the cut out circle.

Removed the mask.

Applied the solid mask.

Stamped the Eiffel tower in Cats Eye celedon to give a subtle image.

Then added the word Paris in rusty hinge.

Remove the mask.

Applied rock candy crackle to the face and when dry rubbed on some frayed burlap to accent the cracks and give a bit of shadow to the frame.

You will have to dream the last little step for the heart as I forgot completely to take pictures!!!

Cut a heart shape to fit and stamped and embossed with gold the fancy scroll design.....rubbed fired brick over to colour which dulled the gold a bit but I gave it a quick shot of heat again and it brought it back to life! I should have rubbed the ink on first then embossed but I didn't think LOL.

Some words computer generated (My and is) Love hand stamped and the little tag used rub on letraset 'cos my rubber letters were all too big! The phrase is taken from an all time favourite song of mine as sung by Frank Sinatra "I love Paris"......sooooooooo romantic sigh!

Thanks for looking and hope you have fun and join in with the Paris theme..........happy stamping!

xoxo Sioux

Stamps : Mirror frame/phrenology head my own made from a computer font

Eiffel tower/Paris word Royal & Langnickel

Fancy scroll Anna Griffin (won in JoZart blog candy...fab....thanks again)

WOYWW Q&A

It seems the eagle eyed amongst us spotted the shaving brush on the table last week for WOYWW and a couple of questions arose which I'd like to answer...

Angie asked: What do you use the shaving brush for ???

Answer: I use it to stipple Distress Ink colours onto my card.

I find it gives a more subtle and textured all over colour coverage than using the T!m tool with foam or felt....useful if you don't necessarily want the darker edge of colour to the card you usually get with T!m's method.

Gez asked: I'd love to know would you recommend the shaving brush thingy. I keep looking at them & wondering whether to give one a go?

Answer: I'm not one to encourage spending for no good reason ;) but yes....I would recommend having a shaving brush in your tool box! Please note that it's not advisable to go and nick your other half's best sable variety! LOL...nor is it necessary....mine was a cheapo cheapo one for 99p I think I bought it in Superdrug but it's quite a while ago and I can't be sure!....I've also found that it's not desperately necessary to have more than one....as long as you tap off the excess ink before using another there really isn't an issue with colour transfer.....I also try to think ahead and start with the lightest colour first before moving onto a darker shade!

Spyder asked: I was wondering, last week too I think, when are you going to give Mr Artyjen's his shaving brush back??

Answer: It was never his......it's mine all mine! LOL

Hope this answers your questions and thanks for popping by :)

xoxo Sioux

Dotty Nellie with a Masking Technique

Yesterday I had a play with masking those flower pots I used the other week with Fitz........but it was just not working out as I wanted it to........so I had to draw a flower pot outline myself and then add the flower spray........here is how I managed it........ran out of time to post this yesterday on my Dotty Nellie for the challenge.....................learn from my mistakes LOL...........feel free to laugh when you get to the end of it!!!!!!!!!

I stamped the main image of
Nellie with Flower then stamped the sunflower with pot on scrap card and cut out the stamped flower pot only.........as you can see in the top corner...... BTW the pen is a "Pilot" drawing pen....they come in different nib widths, this one is 01.

I placed the cut out of the pot where I wanted it just a little higher on the page than the main stamp and drew a line around it but left the top of the pot open as you can see on the left hand side.

Now.....please make sure you now mask your main Nellie image........I forgot to the first time round arrrrrrrrg!!! LOL...........I couldn't just use the flower pot mask to stamp the bunch of flowers as the stems were too big and would have shown.....also the rim of the pot had to be cut away or I would have masked out more of the flowers............so I had to first cut a smaller pot mask then cut a larger piece of card and attach underneath the pot mask and then stamp the flowers!!!................This still meant that part of the flower image was lost because of the mask as you can see on the other side.
So I had to draw in the missing bits with the pen!.....added a bit of shading with the pen to edges of pot and at last a finished stamped piece ready to colour in and here is a reminder of the card I made with it.

If anyone has a tip for me on how I could have achieved this in an easier way I'd really like to know!!! LOL .............I suppose I should have just used the original stamp but I wanted a change.......I hope you find this useful.

Thanks for looking...........Happy Stamping.

xoxo