Alphabet ATC Swap - F for Finish/Finale

For the very last ATC in the alphabet series I chose the word Finish or Finale. I used various random diecut letters for the background. Some alpha washi tape and diecut letters finished the ATC.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this swap and am grateful to all the participants who have contributed their art to my set of letters. I will blog details of the complete set later.

Alphabet ATC Swap - F for Feather

A quick ATC using diecuts.

Alphabet ATC Swap - F for Fish

After 2 years we have reached the end of our alphabet journey with the final letter F. The fish were cut with a Cuttlebug die and mounted on a chalked background. The seaweed is a stamp by Kodomo.

Postcard no 4

Last month I took part in a postcard swap but sadly one of the postcards did not reached its destination and so I decided to send another one. I had been playing around with a background using some TH stencils and picked raspberry, peacock feathers, hickory smoke and mustard seed DIs. The stamp is by Woodware called large fennel and the sentiment comes with it. The text at the bottom is another TH stencil. I added some white highlights and posted it off hoping that this one arrives.

The Joy of Stamp Positioners!

As regular readers of my blog will know I recently bought a hinged stamp positioner - the Stamping Buddy Pro by Nellie's Choice. I am really pleased with it, at £16 it was not as considered a purchase as some of the others on the market but it does everything I want it to do so I'm happy.

This card was so much easier to make with the positioner and I was able to accurately ink and stamp each word twice to get a deeper colour. The stamps are from Winnie & Walter's the big, the bold and the happy set. I used squeezed lemonade, spiced marmalade and ripe persimmon DIs.
I am entering this into this week's Less Is More challenge where the colour challenge is 'Hot & Spicy'. You can see all the entries here.
While I had the stamps out I decided to make another one in cooler colours - cracked pistachio, peacock feathers and blueprint sketch DIs. I love how this one has turned out especially as this card base has a hammered effect and it is hard to get a clean impression on it.

 

Rebel Stampers ATC Swap - Theme

       

 

The theme this month is foliage. I started by using crushed olive, peeled paint and shabby shutters over an ATC blank. I ran it through an embossing folder and then rubbed Nuvo embellishment mousse over the raised bits. I cut a circle aperture out of it and mounted it onto another ATC blank. I stamped the exotic palm into the aperture and coloured it with alcohol markers. I added a TH word die and some torn washi tape to finish the ATC.

 

 

My second ATC used a background of stamped leaves over which I added some text by Simple Expressions. I coloured some scrap kraft paper with autumnal colours of DI, scrunched it up, smoothed it out and punched some maple leaves from it. These were randomly rubbed with Nuvo embellishment mousse.

 

 

 

 

Rebel Stampers ATC Swap - Technique

This month's technique for the Rebel Stampers ATC swap is Colour Gradient or Ombré.

 

While trawling through Pinterest I have noticed some beautiful ink blends. There are several but the ones I was particularly drawn to were the DI ones by Tammy Tutterow. She calls them Beautiful Blends and has a whole series of them. This month's technique was the perfect excuse to have a go.
This combo is blueprint sketch, peacock feathers, tumbled glass and cracked pistachio. I used blending foam and an applicator and rubbed each colour along in a stripe from bottom to top. Then I went from top to bottom softening the lines where 2 colours met with the lower colour eg where blueprint sketch and peacock feathers met I used peacock feathers to soften the move to blueprint sketch. I loved the effect and instantly thought of sky and land. I spritzed some homemade gold shimmer spray for some texture and shine and randomly stamped some PA text in Brilliance platinum planet. The diecut is by Joy Crafts. I added some tiny silver punched butterflies and a Japanese calligraphy stamp.
As the above ATC used cool colours I decided to use hot colours for my next one.

I made this combo up - mustard seed, spiced marmalade, ripe persimmon and barn door. The stamp is an old Ink & Dog set from PA. I had originally stamped it with the colours the other way around (red at the top, yellow at the bottom) but decided it would look better with yellow at the top so I restamped it but cut the starfish from the first one. The script text - here, now is from a TH die set of travel words.
I love the ombré effect and am going to try out some different combinations soon.
 

UK Scrappers Mixed Media ATC Swap

After the success of the previous ATC swap on the UK Scrappers forum we are having another go. You can see my previous ATCs here.

I recently took delivery of my first 2 Distress Oxides (DO) thanks to a voucher from the Craft Barn for my entry in the monthly challenge. I chose wilted violet and broken china and they have been sitting on my desk waiting to be tried out. I started with a larger piece of card and added some blue and green paint with my fingers, then some stencilling with abandoned coral and peacock feathers DI. I rubbed some of both DO's randomly over the card with a foam pad and added parts of a crackle stamp with Versafine smokey grey. The whole card was covered with gesso and when dry I stamped the 'curiouser & curiouser' text from Indigo Blu's Alice 1 set with wild honey DI and a Paper Artsy number stamp with a Kaleidascope inkpad. A bit more stencilling with peacock feathers and some splatter stamping with wilted violet DO was added before I cut the card into ATC sized pieces. Then I used TH's clockwork stencil with broken china DO and spritzed it with water. 

The first ATC on the left has a sentiment from Indigo Blu's wild meadow set and dragonflies punched from card coloured with both DO's. I doodled a scribbly border and added some gems.

The centre ATC has a sentiment that I had made into a stamp a few years ago and a stamped butterfly from Indigo Blu's wild meadow set which I coloured with the DO's and added Wink of Stella to.

The ATC on the right has some flowers from the wild meadow set stamped and heat embossed in the background and some TH diecut wild flowers in the foreground (dandelions? agapanthus? it's hard to tell). The text is a Sizzix die.