Spring Greens

As a Top 3 pick for Indigoblu's A Touch of Red challenge, they asked me to design an inspiration piece for their challenge blog this month, with the theme Spring Greens.

The tulip on the 'Nottingham Lace' set of stamps was perfect for the spring theme.

I used some heavy gauge corrugated card and cut an over sized tag.  After distressing the edges by peeling away some of the brown paper, I painted the tag with green and white acrylic paint.

A strip of white velum was stamped repeatedly with the lace image from 'Nottingham Lace' plate, in Brilliance Moonlight White and heat set.

On the reverse, diluted alcohol ink in Meadow was swiped over the vellum to lightly colour it green. The stamped and coloured vellum was glued to the tag off-centre using Invisidots.

The tulip image was stamped on white stamping card in Cottage Ivy Memento ink a number of times along with the word 'spring' from the alphabet.  These were all cut out ready for mounting on the tag.

The tulip base layer was glued to the tag with PVA and the decoupaged elements were layered with Pinflair glue.

Some crochet lace and torn white and kraft brown card were layered up and the letters spelling out 'spring' were glued on top.

The tag was finished off with some cream lace.

Indigoblu Challenge: A Touch of Red

For this Indigoblu Challenge #24 A Touch of Red I made one of my favourite things to make; a giant tag.

 

 

I thought Indigoblu Elizabeth Bennet stamp might work well for this challenge.

 

The tag was prepared by pasting strips of book pages to it, followed by two thin coats of white gesso and some stone coloured acrylic paint, applied sparingly.  Once dry, a flourish stamp was randomly stamped around the tag in Walnut Stain Distress Ink. 

 

 

 

The same ink was brushed around the edges of the tag with foam.

 

Elizabeth Bennet was stamped in a sepia colour on white card and again on red card, some of the flowers were cut from the red card.  The image stamped on white card was trimmed and roughly cut around the detail.  Walnut Stain ink was brushed around the edges.

 

 

The stamp of Vintage definition was stamped in the same Versafine Vintage Sepia colour on white card, trimmed and coloured with brown ink around the edge.

 

 

 

The images were glued onto the tag with dimensional glue.

 

 

 

 

The tag was finished off with cream ribbon coloured with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

 

 

Indigoblu Stamps used;

Flourish from 'Music Hall' set
Vintage Definition from 'Sarah's Choice' set
Elizabeth Bennet

Craft Stamper Challenge: Science Concertina Tag Book

My latest challenge is from Craft Stamper magazine.  The Take It, Make It Challenge.  This challenge was to make something inspired by one of the techniques from Craft Stamper during 2014.

Since reading one of the issues from this year, I had been meaning to try and make some backgrounds with scraps of cardboard and acrylic paint.  So, my inspiration is from; Masterclass: Stamping with Corrugated Card by Claudia Neubacher, September 2014 issue.

I started by making the corrugated card printing blocks and sealed them with three coats of matt varnish.

Using a brayer, acrylic paint (PaperArtsy Fresco Finish) was applied to the card and printed on my favourite sized giant tags made from the super versatile white card from papermilldirect.co.uk.

Different colours were applied using the corrugated card to five tags.  The teal coloured paint was also applied to the edges of the tags with a dry brush.

Using a mixture of stamps with a scientific theme, some stamped directly onto the tag and some onto white card then cut out, each tag was decorated before the tag book was put together.

Red 'splats' and black 'scratchy edges' were stamped on each tag (Versafine, Crimson Red and StazOn, Black).

A single colour was added to some of the decoupaged stamped images using stormy sky Distress Ink pen and a watercolour brush.  Some of these elements were mounted flat to the tag with PVA, others were added with dimensional gel glue.

Once all the glue was dry, the tags were joined together with tabs and co-ordinating ribbon added.

I will definitely be using this technique again, I love the final result.

Here's all the stamps used for the project;
Stampers Anonymous - Bitty Grunge CMS089
Stampers Anonymous - Laboratoire CMS173
Stampers Anonymous - Poisonous CMS171
Stampers Anonymous - The Chemist CMS172
IndigoBlu - Sarah's Choice
Stamping All Day - Top Secret
Crafty Individuals - CI-360 Poison and Danger
Hero Arts - AC026 Brush Strokes
Trodat Printy 4846

IndigoBlu Challenge: Tag.......You're It

For this challenge I used a nummber of rubberstamps from two stamp sets by IndigoBlu.

All the colours are from the Distress Inks palette and any black stamping was with Versafine archival ink.

I used an oversize tag for the base, stamped with music score and fluorishes in black and brown.  The stamped and water-coloured images were collaged, mounting some of them flat and some with dimensional glue and foam pads.  Walnut Stain Distress Ink was applied around the edges of the tag and the rest of the stamped elements with a foam applicator.  The words were cut into singles and a red brush marker was run around the edges.

The embellishment is Ultra Thick Embossing Powder melted in a Melt Pot, poured onto a craft mat and stamped into while hot.  Once cool, this was trimmed then mounted onto the tag.

The lace was dyed with Distress Ink in Walnut Stain.

See the other entries and the design team tags at indigoblublogchallenge.blogspot.co.uk