Stencil It for Countryview challenges.

Hello everyone and thanks so much for dropping in!!
This month the theme over at the Countryview Crafts Chalenge Blog is Stencil It and today it is my turn to share my second project for the challenge .

I made a large tag card and this is how I went about it:
I started with a large Prima tag from my stash and covered it with a mix of Tumbled Glass, Antique Linen and Pumice Stone Distress paints using a very old and crusty brayer.

Because the brayer had crusted paint on it (I know, I know I should have washed it before the paint dried...) it gave me some cool textures already. I also added some strips of old book paper.

I added some more paint, Walnut Stain Distress and this time added it with a smooth brayer, I also spritzed it with water a little.

Next I put some Grunge Paste on my craft mat and with a small palette knife mixed Black Soot and Walnut Stain Distress paints though it, until I had a nice dark coffee coloured paste. I scraped that through a couple of stencils, The Tim Holtz Cargo Layering stencil and a damask stencil from my stash. I let it dry for a bit by itself and then dried it further with my heat gun, this made the grunge paste bubble up a bit.

I also spritzed over it with a home made spray (Vintage Photo re-inker and water).

For the following step I glued an old book page to a piece of Kraftcard and ran that through my Big Shot using the Tim Holtz Tattered Doily die.. I inked the edges with Vintage Photo DI and adhered it to my tag:

(Don't look too closely or you will see that the book paper is upside down) ah well...

Now for the final bits:
I coloured some smooth stamping card with Tumbled Glass DI and spritzt it a few times with a home made gold mica spray. I then stamped the large Dragon Fly from the Tim Holtz Classics 1 set in Jet Black archival, cut it out and adhered it to my tag.

I then made a little book using the Spellbinders Labels 7 die, some old book pages and a piece of Kraft card. I inked the book pages with Vintage photo and adhered a bit of ribbon and an Ideaology Pen Nib and glued it all to my tag.

The final touches were the words that came from the Classic 17 set and a type charm and ribbon at the top and then I mounted it first on white and then a Kraft card card base that I had stenciled around the edges with the Tim Holtz Trellis Layering Stencil.

Hope you like my vintage book card and that it has inspired you to take out some stencils and play along with our challenge!!

Vintage Photo Distress Ink	Tumbled Glass	Distress Paint	Distress Paint
Texture Paste	Tattered Doily	Labels 7	Classic 17
Layering Stencil Cargo	Classics 1	Ideaology pen nibs	Archival Ink

InLinkz.com

Dies and Distress for a Vintage Journey

Hello everyone lovely to see you and sorry it has been pretty quiet around here, but as it so happens, this is a scheduled post as I am currently in Australia, visiting my lovely grandchildren. Even though it is winter here I am having a wonderful time. But, onto my project:

It's time for a new challenge at A Vintage Journey where the lovely Annie chose the current theme Dies and Distress.  You can read all about it HERE

I decided to alter an Ideaology Assemblage Clock, using lots of Distress and Dies to do so.

I started by taking the glass out of the clock and covering the whole outside with Gesso. I then added some texture past in various places, applying it with my fingers, just to grunge it up a bit.Then I  painted the outside with a mix of various brown and Black Soot Distress paints.

Of course I got so caught up in the process that I completely forgot to take pictures, but above and below you get perhaps a bit of an idea of what it looked like...

Next I worked on the inside of the clock

I took the back off the clock and used it as a template for a piece of card that I had run through a clock and gears embossing folder. I carefully cut out the circle and then inked all over it with a mix of Antique Linen, Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Inks. Then I took a piece of ordinary computer paper, stamped a sentiment from the Way with Words set in Jet Black Archival and when dry crumpled it up, flattened it out again and then distressed it with the help of Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

I took a little metal wing from my stash, covered it with Versa Mark and then used Walnut Stain and Tumbled Glass Distress Embossing Powders to create a kind of patina effect. I also used some Verdigris Antiquities powder by Ranger and a bit of Wow Copper EP. I then embellished it further with a flower created with Tattered Florals and a Spellbinders die and some little flowers from my stash.

Now to the outside: On the right I used the mini inkwell and feather die, coloured with Distress Markers and inks. I draped some swirl leafy diecuts around it.

On the left I added some die cut leaves and a little stamped butterfly, fussy-cut by hand as so far I don't own any butterfly dies small enough for this, but the Butterfly Frenzy Decorative Strip die would of course be perfect for this...

The leaves were inked with Peeled Paint Distress Paint and then I went around the edges with Vintage Photo DI.

The top of the clock was further decorated with another die cut as well as a few smaller flowers and further leafy swirls.

Well, hope you like my altered clock and that I have given you a bit of inspiration to play with some of your own dies and Distress products. Make sure you go over to the A Vintage Journey blog, to see all the amazing projects my team mates have created. And of course we all hope that you will play along with our challenge. You could win a £10 voucher from Countryview Crafts and be in with a chance to be chosen as one of our 3 "Pin Worthies". Thanks for visiting today and see you next time!

Assemblage Clock	Texture Paste	Distress Paint	Distress Paint
Distress Paint	Steampunk set texture fades	Way With Words	Distress Markers
Archival Ink	Distress Ink	Vintage Photo Distress Ink	Walnut Stain Distress Ink
Peeled Paint Distress Ink	Spellbinders Blossoms 5	Tattered Florals	Mini Feather and Inkwell
Spellbinders Foliage

InLinkz.com

Message in a Bottle

Hi everyone, thanks for dropping in here!

After grandly announcing two days ago that it was going to be very quiet here during July, I am actually back after all sooner than expected because I could not resist doing my Tim Holtz July tag.
This definitely was one of my favourites this year, even though mine has turned out completely differently....

Two reasons for that, first of all, I had none of the main supplies he used, so I had to think of different things. Second reason, - his is a very summery tag, but it's really only summer in half of the world. I am going off today to Australia and there as in the whole Southern Hemisphere it is winter, and as I was busy packing my winter things, I just could not get into a summery mood. Having said that, I still managed to use all of the techniques he used, be it in somewhat different colours.
So here goes, following Tim's brilliant tutorial:
I took some grunge paper (don't have any grunge board) die cut my shapes and coloured them with various Distress Paints, added the Rockcandy Crackle when dry and rubbed and heat set the stain to show up the cracks.:

Here's a close up of the bottle:

Next the embossing powder onto the wet paint, I did it on a large leaf rather than the sand dollar and used several colours of powder, for a more wintry effect.

Next came the background to the tag using Distress Paints, Stains, Ink, water splats and the Spritzer tool:

Again, sticking to more wintry colours.
Next came the cool technique with the plastic through an embossing folder. Well, that one had me stumped for quite a while. Then it hit me, why not create a second bottle and put the sand inside the bottle.

So this is what I did: I cut the bottle out of grunge paper first and coloured and crackled it like the first bottle.
Next I cut the bottle again, but this time out of plastic packaging. I ran it through the Harvest Words embossing folder, just picking out the word Love. It embossed it beautifully. I coloured the word with a Faber Castell Big Brush pen and let it dry while making my "sand mixture with more or less the same supplies Tim used. Glued it onto the base bottle and then glued the plastic one on top with the sand inside. I just could not manage to photograph it properly, below, you can maybe see it a bit better:

Ok, so time to put the tag together.....
Now I decided at the beginning of the year that I would make layered tags, a size 8 on top of a size 10, so I made another background, using the same technique but adding some tissue tape here and there for a bit of variation.

Next I picked a word band, using Tim's technique of bringing out the word with paint and then put it all together.

Well, there you have it, an wintry version of Tim's July tag. I have the sea horse etc on order, so I may do a summery version still when I come back.

Thank you for all your kind visits like always and hopefully you get to do something creative most days! I'd also like to thank Tim for showing us all these fab techniques, month after month!!!

Look after yourselves

My little gift to you

Hello everyone,
I know I said it was going to be quiet round here, and now it is actually quite busy...
Well, my suitcase is packed and I still had some time left to play, so decided to create a freebie for those of you that like them, so here you are, hope you like it, you can use it in whatever way you like, as long as you don't sell the sheet as such.
I have made single files and a collage sheet. Enjoy and happy crafting!

Home made flowers and hand dyed ribbon third installment

Hello everyone and thanks for dropping in. Today I want to share a third and last little project I made for the challenge I am hosting over at Our Creative Corner. You can see my main project HERE.
 I thought I would show a different way of making flowers, just by using stamps, you can use pretty much any kind of flower stamp you may have in your collection.

I cut a tag from Watercolour paper using one of my Sizzix dies, just to have a bit of texture for my background. I coloured it with Old Paper, Pumice Stone, Faded Jeans and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks and did a bit of stamping around the edges. Then for some contrast I added the fancy frame from Spellbinders.
Now to the actual flower, - I used a Stamping Up stamp, but a very similar effect can be achieved with other flower stamps of course.

I stamped it first in Jet Black Archival ink on smooth stamping card. Next I stamped it twice more in Plum Archival. I fussy cut the flower stamped in black and coloured the leaves with Distress Markers, Crushed Olive and Peeled Paint. Next I cut out just the flower part of the two images stamped in Plum and shaped them with a ball tool on a flower shaping mat. If you don't have one of those the back of a paintbrush and mouse mat will do just as well. I did the same with the rose buds and then layered it all up and glued it carefully on to the frame. I just put a little dollop of Diamond Stickles in the centre.

I stamped the sentiment, that comes with the same Stamping Up set on a label and finished it all of with some ribbon dyed in matching colours and a little stamped butterfly (Artemio).

That's it, thank you for visiting and I thought I would just let you know that it is going to be very quiet here during the month of July as I am off to Australia to visit my grand children. There are a couple of scheduled design team posts but that is it. I hope to be able to come and visit all of your beautiful blogs though and meanwhile thank you so much for all your support and I will be back in August.