' Any Old Iron' at ATP Exchange

Hi everyone, I'm delighted to say it's my turn to host the challenge over at ATP Exchange. As a reminder we are a fortnightly mixed media challenge (no digis and you must include stamping) and the winner chosen by the DT will receive a £10 voucher to spend online from our sponsor The Artist Trading Post. 

I've chosen a picture based inspiration theme using a photo I took of a beautiful rusty door...well I think it's beautiful! You can find all the details here.....and some wonderful inspiration from the uber talented DT.

So what did I create?......a rusty, textured, metallic wall hanging.

I've linked all the products I've used and can be found at The Artist Trading Post. I started off with a 10 x 20 hanging icon which I painted with a mix of blood orange and london bus fresco paints. As they are both translucent paints I gave it 2 coats. I then stamped the fine text from PaperArtsy Eclectica ESN11 over most of it with Stazon in Black Cherry. 

I chose Stazon because of the next step which is the eroded metallics technique from Tim Holtz Compendium of Curiosities 3 and I wasn't sure how archival would react. For the technique I used Distress Paint in tarnished brass. 

I then used some peacoat to create some dark edges and blistered the paint with my heat gun. I also added some Viva Ferra in graphite to the same area.

Next good old Crafty Notions puff paint in white. At first I used some stencils to create dots but when I came to put the next layer on I was able to splodge circles on using the tip of my palette knife. Then the heat gun puffed it and the Ferra up beautifully and no I didn't wait for it to dry first.

Next, lots of painting in yellow submarine, smoked paprika, london bus, blood orange and french roast. Drying the colours well in between to avoid creating mud.....can you guess I was impatient and that's exactly what I did first time around?

A little sprinkle of gold and copper embossing powder and some Stampendous shabby white embossing enamel. I then restamped the text in red as it wasn't showing through enough.

The same text in Stazon Teal Blue around the edge.

For the flower I wanted to use metal and a friend kindly gave me some blue metal but I couldn't find the right coppery tone to go with it until I remembered I had saved the inside of tomato puree tubes ages ago. You get a variety of shades and I think sometimes it depends on how long the tube has been in use as there is a more aged look to some of them, anyway..perfect! I used the tattered florals die and elements of the jumbo tattered florals die to create a medium sized flower. 

I embossed the blue with a TH bubbles embossing folder and the copper with a cuttlebug spots and dots one. Sanded both to distress and then assembled. A little spanish topaz treasure gold was added to the blue one. 

To add the little banner I used an adjustable stamp alphabet I had. I needed to choose something short....sorry but just couldn't resist this pun. Its stamped in black Stazon onto copper and I pressed hard to deboss it. I then heated it so the copper took on some lovely shading and attached to finish.

Hope you enjoyed the post and now for more inspiration please do hop over here and see what the rest of the fabulous DT have created. As always, thanks so much for stopping by.

Exchange Day at ATP

Hi everyone, it's my turn over at Artist Trading Post for today's Exchange Day. I've been exploring bead gel, (a product I love) and made a couple of journal pages in the process. To see all the details please hop over here.

Halloween votive

Well it's 'Halloween' time over at ATP Exchange for our second challenge which is being hosted by the very talented Annie. 

What does Halloween mean to me? Well it's certainly a 'celebration' that seems to have become more firmly established in recent times, but even when my children were growing up I did have to carve a pumpkin each year (of course, any excuse to craft!) So this is my scaled down offering. An altered votive in that wonderful pumpkin orange colour.

It started out as a plain glass votive and just to make it extra tricky, how to stamp on it's curved surface?

Difficult to see but I have applied a coat of matte medium first so the paint/ glaze would have something to stick to.

I then applied a layer of PaperArtsy crackle glaze before the next layer which was  Luminarte Silk Acrylic glaze in Persimmon . Don't you just love that shimmer? As you can see it gave a lovely crackle effect but I wanted a more dramatic effect. I used some of the new Finnabair clear crackle texture paste and thought it would just give a clear crackle on top, instead I got an even better effect, possibly because it was on top of an existing crackle and a glaze. Whatever the reason I got some fabulous crackles.

Once dry I stamped in black archival on to tissue paper using PaperArtsy HP Halloween 01. I then tore around the images and applied them using PaperArtsy satin glaze.

To finish, Artist Trading Post have these steampunk skull metal embellishments in their Route 52 range which fits in with the theme. I painted them with persimmon and cinnamon brown silk acrylic glaze and adhered with matte medium. 

Love the way the flame shows through the cracks......a bit spooky?

Please hop over to the ATP Exchange and see what the rest of the talented DT have created and hopefully will inspire you. Thanks as always for stopping by.

Multicoloured stamping for Craft Stamper

Hi everyone, so pleased to be sharing my GDT project for this months Take It Make It Challenge over at Craft Stamper. This was part of my prize for winning the August challenge ....with 'Mr Rusty' as he is now known. This months technique is muticoloured stamping, which could be inks, pens or in this case....paints!

A floral heart, inspired by those glorious showy blooms that you get right at the end of summer going into Autumn.....and it's definitely Autumn now! A few weeks ago I saw some beautiful dahlias which were such a bright red with a lovely yellow centre and decided I'd use the Lin Brown eclectica ELB01 set ( a favourite) to create this piece.

The text is stamped onto tissue paper and comes from another Lin Brown set - ELB05. I started off with the middle sized heart from a set of 3 Indigoblu MDF hearts.

I used fresco finish paints throughout with a coat of Nougat to start. I was at the HSNW show at Port Sunlight this weekend and 'stalked' Leandra from PaperArtsy demoing a brayering with paint technique....I was just fascinated that's all. I used a mini brayer and just kept building up layers of colour, then added in the leaf stamp in 2 colours (guacamole and hey pesto) some more brayering and then white stamping (snowflake) using Sara Naumanns eclectica ESN10 text stamp.

The flowers were stamped onto off white card and I used a piece of cut and dry foam to apply the paint. Working from the inside to the outside I used yellow submarine, london bus and a touch of french roast. I tried a few other combinations but this was the most dramatic. 'Fussy' cut out and then layered onto the heart with one layered up in the middle. The thong was stained with potting soil archival, which I also used on the side....and of course a little spanish topaz treasure gold on the edge.

To see some more fabulous inspiration hop over to the Craft Stamper blog now. As always thanks for stopping by and huge thanks for all the lovely comments you leave....they make my day!

' A Vintage Wedding'

One of my nieces got married recently and I thought I'd share the card I made for the happy couple with you. I had intended to CASE Pamellia's fabulous card here but I ended up making it whilst I was away and just used what I had.....couldn't sneak the cuttlebug in the packing!

Very shabby chic and not pristine white I know....but inspired by Finnabair's work and it's a favourite style of mine, I made a similar one for my daughters 21st.

I started with a background piece of white canvas paper used for acrylic paints and stamped some fine text ( TH mercantile) in tea dye....the only distress inkpad I had. The other supplies I managed to pick up were a piece of graphic 45 paper, which I've laid a piece of on top. I also picked up some buttons, paper roses, sequins and beads (all in the sale) and 2 pieces of ribbon/ lace. I've used masking tape, the reverse side of the paper and some homemade texture paste through a stencil. All glued down and distressed edges.

  A wash of paint. 

Then building up the layers, the hearts were cut out of card, lots of 'bits' added. I forgot I also picked up 2 small mdf letters.

The blend of colours were a bit of a challenge with grey, cream, white, brown and yellow all competing, some more painting was needed.

It was just waiting for some treasure gold when I returned home and the addition of the date printed out. Definitely looking shabby vintage now. A few close ups.

The happy couple went straight on honeymoon and I don't think have seen the card yet, but hopefully they will like it.

As always thanks for stopping by.

'Seeds and Beads'

Morning everyone, I'm delighted to be sharing my first post as a DT member for the ATP Exchange. Our first challenge is hosted by Sue and is an 'Anything Goes' theme. So what did I decide to make.

I took a piece of mount board about 8x8 and covered it with a piece of cotton. I then used the Clarity Seed Head stencil with Prima Bloom sprays in the following colours, iris, lime wedge, glistening waves and tea stain. I sprayed waves across to create layers of colour. They have a lovely shimmery effect. I also took some prints off the stencil that I will use for other projects.

I replaced the stencil after cleaning it and then used the lovely fine text stamp from the new Sara Naumann eclectica 11 set and archival inks in aquamarine, potting soil, blue violet and magenta hue.
I've used Golden glass bead gel before in areas on canvas but wanted to see what the effect would be on a larger area. If spread in thin layer you can still see all the colours and text through it.

I had also tried the technique on some Claudine Hellmuth canvas when experimenting and so I cut off a piece that I frayed to match a section on the bottom left. I stamped the text from Stuff to Say with potting soil and repeat stamped onto acetate and clear embossed it.

I used a little renaissance treasure gold just on the seed heads to add some definition and a gilding pen around the edge. Not the easiest to photo with glass beads and acetate but hopefully you can see the effect.
Please pop across here and see what fabulous makes my talented team mates have created and hopefully will inspire you.  As always thanks so much for stopping by.