The Return of the Calendar Challenge

The Craft Barn Calendar Challenge 2013 has started. This is the challenge that prompted me to start my blog last year and the calendar has been very useful hanging as it does on the wall by my desk. This week's prompt was vellum. I was very taken with the vellum snowflakes by one of the DT on the Craft Barn blog a few weeks ago. I bought a new set of Marianne snowflake dies in Holland over the summer and have been wanting to use them so this was the perfect opportunity.
I made a BG with stormy sky, broken china, faded jeans and tumbled glass DI on a craft sheet, spritzed with water and some gold spray and smooshed the card through it. I randomly stamped some small snowflakes with broken china DI. I die cut the vellum snowflakes with Marianne and Cuttlebug dies. I liked the negatives left by the dies so decided to use one as a mask and sponged stormy sky DI through it. I cut the numbers from Sizzix mango tango and then decided to colour them in gold Krylon to pick up on the gold shimmer in the BG (it's good to start the year with a little gold!). I added broken china DI to the calendar (downloaded from the net) and added a few gems.
Edited to add: I've just been back to the original DT vellum blog post to add a link and I've discovered that Jane has also used a mask and DIs on her calendar tag. All I remembered about the post were the vellum snowflakes but obviously I subconsciously took in more from her post than just the snowflakes. I'm sorry if it looks like I've copied Jane's tag but that was not my intention.

Tim Holtz Tag - September

This month's tag on Tim Holtz's blog features an interesting technique using bits of sticky foil and embossing with various items such as a biro. I reproduced as much as I could but I do not have many Ideology embellishments so I improvised with what I had. The current trend for steampunk leaves me cold - I do admire the art that others create but it doesn't really inspire me to create anything similar. I have no cog embellishments so improvised with a Cuttlebug asterisk which I cut from grunge paper,  painted with silver acrylic paint and stippled some black ink over.  The metal embellishment is an earring (I lost the other one). I used a 'v' for vintage and added the number 42 in the lightbulb because as everyone knows 42 is the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

Katzelkraft revisited

I have been busy on other aspects of life and have not had any time to blog recently. The new school year has started but I have no child at school any longer so it has somewhat passed me by. The Katzelkraft forum is another thing I have neglected but they have got a wonderfully smart new-look forum and are gearing up for their 10 weeks before Christmas which I hope to participate in again. It also gives me a chance to brush up on my rusty French. This week's card of the week challenge is an autumn card but with the added extra of no brown or yellow. Yikes it was hard as I tend to use my autumn leaves Kaleidacolour ink pad for these projects. Anyway I decided on a CAS card with peeled paint and bundled sage DI as a BG which I spritzed with a homemade gold spray to give a shimmer. The main image is a Hero Arts stamp, the text is by Simple Expressions and the flourish is by Katzelkraft all in Versafine habanero ink.
However having got the Kaleidacolour pad in my mind I had to make this as well:

I love the effect of this ink pad and leaf stamps (by Simple Expressions). Hopefully I'll be able to participate more frequently now.

London Card

I've wanted this Artemio London stamp set ever since I saw it used on the Craft Barn blog a few weeks ago. I liked the fact that the Union Flag was a 2 part stamp so that the red & blue parts could be stamped separately. On reflection I should have stamped the bus directly onto the card and then masked it so that the flag showed through the windows but hey you live & learn. This is for a 4 year old who lives across the Channel. The numeral & greeting are by Paula Pascual for Personal Impressions. It was all stamped with Adirondack dye ink in red pepper and Versafine ink in majestic blue.

Craft Barn Art Journal Challenge

Isabelle who looks after the Craft Barn blog has challenged us to make an art journal page using Paper Artsy stamps if possible. I've been wanting to do a page on this quote for a few weeks and the challenge helped to kick start me into doing it. The quote is from one of the Olympic Torch Relay runners who lost both his legs in a bomb blast. He explained how some days were good and some bad and on the bad days when all he wanted to do was stay in bed and feel sorry for himself this is what he said. Now I am blessed with a full complement of limbs but there are days when I want to stay in bed and feel sorry for myself. This is to remind me of how fortunate I am. So now you have the back story here's how I made the page:
The BG is stormy sky DI sponged through a swirl mask followed by starfish Glimmer Mist through a shattered mask. I used the numbers from Paper Artsy Gentlemen plate 4 with Kaleidacolour spectrum ink and the word 'transform' from One Penny plate 2 in Memento London fog. I then spritzed a homemade gold pearlex spray to give a little sheen. The working text is from the same Gentlemen plate and is stamped in Versafine crimson red. The legs are from Ding & Dong plate 4 coloured in with felt pens. I edged the page with a stamp from Swirls and Curls plate 4. I was hoping to use the alphabet from Words plate 2 but it wasn't quite the right size so I used my TH vintage market die and card coloured with Adirondack in stream. Once the letters were stuck on I doodled some dots on alternate letters.
It's a long post but I wanted to put the quote in context. It's been such an inspiring summer but I wanted to put my own personal slant on it.The facing page is still a work in progress but will be more directly Olympic/Paralympic themed.

LIM 83

Brown & pink is the colour scheme for this week's challenge on the Less Is More Blog. I cut a Tim Holtz ornamental die from pink card and stamped Hero Arts flower pattern in Adirondack ginger on it. The text label is a scrap of card that I rounded the corners of and punched a couple of holes to thread the organza ribbon through.

UKS Twinchie Swap - Sept 2012

This month's twinchie swap on UK Stampers set by Stitcharama is birds. I've been reading about a technique called distressed glue and I wanted to try it out so I made a larger background to cut my twinchies out from. The technique involves DI and a clear drying glue. I used crushed olive, bundled sage, spiced marmalade & tumbled glass over a piece of cream cardstock. I placed small dots of tacky glue over and smeared them with my finger. You have to leave the glue to dry completely and then cover the cardstock with another colour of DI (I used stormy sky). The glue acts as a resist and you are left with glossy marks on the cardstock. I liked the effect so much I did it all over again but smeared the glue vertically instead of horizontally this time and covered with brushed corduroy. It's quite hard to see the result in the pic but it picks up the light as you move it around and gives a sort of two-tone effect. I stamped some PA text with Stazon stone grey. After cutting the twinchies I edged them with walnut stain DI. The bird and branch is a Marianne die and I added an eyelet to finish.

UKS ATC Swap Sept

This month on UK Stampers we have to use a new stamp on our ATCs. I'm the sort of person that tries to use new stamps straight away so I don't have a lot of uninked rubber. I looked through some of my newer stamp sheets to see if there were any unused images but there wasn't anything that really caught my eye. I don't know who this UM stamp is made by because I got it in a grab bag, & it isn't virgin rubber as it's secondhand but it's new to me so I guess it qualifies. I was reading about the Stazon BG technique and as I have collected a few different Stazon colours I thought I'd give it a go. I stamped the image first in Stazon black and then used cactus green, pumpkin, blazing red (which looks more pink to me), vibrant violet, mustard, rusty brown and azure. I dotted some accents with a white Uni Posca pen and applied glossy accents to the moon.