The Earth Laughs in Flowers

Yesterday I received the February Darkroom Door swap returns so I thought I would share my ATC’s.  I don’t like to do that until I receive mine back in the post – I would hate to spoil the surprise for anyone!  Don’t look if you don’t have yours back yet.

The theme was FLOWERS and I chose to use this gorgeous Star Flowers collage stamp.  To make the ATC I stamped the image onto some white tissue paper, coloured with Twinkling H2O’s and adhered it to some cardstock (that is the blue you see coming through the image). Once it was layered up, I printed one of my favourite quotes and popped that over the bottom of the image.

It is really hard to see but the image really glimmers, courtesy of the Twinkling H2O’s.

The theme for March is turquoise/aqua – one of my favourite colours so keep a look out next month to see what I do.

Darkroom Door - Masked Stamping ATC Swap

The September theme for the Darkroom Door ATC swap was to use masked stamping as a technique. I thought this would be a perfect way to use my all time favourite butterfly stamp and a new favourite, the Journey wordblock. As this technique can be a bit tricky I thought I might do a step-by-step for the blog.

I prepared each ATC base using some Distress Stain and later when they were stamped I added a bit of sponging to fill in the gaps. I usually make my bases 3 1/4" x 2 1/4" so I can mat them with a contrasting colour & still end up with the required size of 3 1/2” x 2 1/2”.

I then stamped the butterfly image into the centre of each base.

For masked stamping you need to create a mask - a post-it is perfect for this job and they work really well. Stamp the image over the 'sticky' bit and cut it out really closely. Place over your image, making sure you line up the image as closely as possible to avoid ghosting. Remove the post-it after stamping and apply to the next image.

I then stamped over the masked butterfly with the Journey wordblock using Distress Chipped Sapphire ink.  Once I finish a batch of ATC's I usually dispose of the mask as it is very inky but if you are only stamping a couple of images - keep it with your stamps for next time.

To finish the image I coloured it with some Copics and sponged the edges a little more with Distressed Chipped Sapphire ink. I stamped the word 'Nature' using one of the images from the Garden Inchies set and applied it over the middle of the wings with some foam tape.

The final step was to mat the base with some cardstock sized 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" and they were done!

ATC Swaps Revisited

Recently I have been sorting through my digital images of past ATC swaps and thought it would be good to share some with you, along with the techniques used to create them.

For the first set, I have ATC’s created for the Darkroom Door ATC swap from April 2011.  The theme was to use background stamps.

This set used the French Script background stamp along with the Tour Eiffel stamps from the Paris Collection.

The background was made by sponging cardstock with Distress Inks,  I used Scattered Straw, Dried Marigold & Spiced Marmalade.  After sponging I flicked a bit of water over to create the droplet pattern.

Then it was a simple matter of stamping each of the backgrounds with the script stamp, stamping the wording and Eiffel tower and attaching to the background.

I love the colour this combination of inks produces – so luscious!

Here is a group photo – it shows the variations in the background.

Guest Designer for Tarisota

I am so excited to announce that I am a guest designer for the upcoming collections at Tarisota Collections!  I am so pleased to be in such wonderful talented company. I have been a customer of Tamar’s for years and love the kits she puts together and her blog is one I visit regularly. 

I was introduced in the post here.

I got to work on a brand new ATC kit called ‘Life is Beautiful’.  If you want to see a sneak, check it out at the Inkurable Stampers blog as Tamar has kindly donated a kit as a prize for the April challenge.  The sneak is here.  There was so much in this kit – I have heaps left to play with after creating eight ATC’s.

It's been a while....

It's been a while since I last posted - but I didn't realise it was 4 months!  Life seems passing so quickly lately but I have been busy so stay tuned for pics of my latest projects. 

Firstly to some swaps.  As usual I have been playing the in Darkroom Door ATC swaps and have marvelled at the returns.  You can see them all on Rachel's blog here.  Just click on 'swaps' in the categories and it will take you to them.

Last month we had a Red, Black & White swap.

January was the month featuring the Essentials 4 Collection.

We missed December but November featured the Yuletide sets of Christmas images.

All were fantastic swaps so make sure you check out the slide shows on Rachel's blog.

Bluebird

Sarah at Inkurable is also having a music themed challenge this month. I thought the song Bluebird by Kasey Chambers was a great inspiration.

The background was also created using Ranger Distress inks with a bit of water flicked over to give the splotchy look. I got to use my new Unity stamps as well - these are such fantastic stamps! Just perfect for this ATC. I painted a bit of twinkling H2O's onto the tree and the blue wing to give some sparkle.

Blackbird Singing ...

The Ranger Yahoo group is running a music themed challenge for this month and this is the ATC I will submit. It is based on the Beatles song Blackbird.

The background is made with sponged Distress Inks, stamps are Inkadinkadoo. The blackbird is painted with a small amount of Crackle Distress Paint to bring out a bit of feather-like texture. The branch leaves have spots of Distress Stickles added for extra texture.

Here is a close up of the bird.

Background Swap Postal

 

I posted off my Stamphappy ATC background swap last week. I used a wax resist technique and I was really pleased with the final effect.

Here is a basic description of the technique:

Emboss wax paper with Cuttlebug folder. Sandwich wax paper between cardstock and iron with dry iron. Take care to protect iron & board from any wax from the wax paper. Embossed design will be transferred to both pieces of cardstock. Sponging with ink will make design appear. For these I used Ranger Distress ink.

You can achieve a similar effect if you scrunch the wax paper instead of embossing with the Cuttlebug.

Fabric Stamping

Today I have been playing with a bit of a different technique - fabric stamping. Instead of traditional stamping ink this time I used Riso Gocco Ink. I think it worked rather well.

Unbleached calico was firstly painted with black Neopaque paint and ripped into the right size for ATC's. I made a temporary stamping pad for the ink and stamped away. The effect turned out much better than I thought but the lines are still a bit thick & splodgy. I wanted a finer effect so will have to try a few other products. If anyone has any suggestions - please let me know!

 

I created this ATC for a fabric stamping swap so it will be interesting to see what the other girls create.

Stamps used are Inkadinkadoo & Just Johanna.

DD Filmstrip Swap Returns

Here are the returns I received in the Darkroom Door swap - all are fantastic! If you want a closer look at any of them, check out the gallery Rachel has created on her blog.

Nature's Beauty

 

The focus of Rachel's swap was to use the filmstrips to make ATC's. I chose the lovely floral ones as they match one of the stamp sets I already had.
The background was created by stamping matching images from the Full Bloom plate and colouring with watercolour crayons. A strip of Bazzill bling was embossed with the Cuttlebug writing plate and sponged with a bit of purple ink to bring out the embossing.
The natures beauty words were done on the computer - too easy! Selected images from the filmstrips were trimmed and distressed with one of Tim's tools and attached with foam tape.

Art Outgoing

I also swapped some inchies with Adrienne. It was only the first time I had made some and boy are they such a small canvas to work on! I was quite pleased with the end results though.

Adrienne sent me a lovely collection of ATC's and inchies for our swap. So much work goes into these tiny works of art.

Fly...

Here is another ATC I made for Adrienne. I recently got my hands on a Martha Stewart punch and had to try it out.

Hoot Hoot!

Recently I got my order of new My Favourite Things stamps and just had to make an ATC with these fun owls. The owls were coloured with Copics.

I made this ATC to share with Stamphappier Adrienne.

Christmas Reindeer ATC

Rachel is running a great competition on the Darkroom Door blog. You need to design something using the Christmas Reindeer stamps and you can win some great prizes. Check out the blog for details.

I made this ATC for it, and I am making a heap to take to club on Wednesday for Christmas ATC's.

Darkroom Door Photobooth

These are the ATC's I sent off to Rachel a while ago for the Darkroom Door Photobooth Swap. I have never really worked with this type of image before so it was a bit of a challenge. The use of the fabric was a bit new as well but in all I am very pleased with how it turned out!

08 Tim Holtz Inkurable Swap

While on the subject of swaps, I thought I would share these images from the ATC's I made last year for the Tim Holtz Inkurable Stampers swap. The background was made using melted crayon, overlaid with the image stamped onto tissue paper and embossed. The harlequin panel was coloured with some dabber paint to add some colour to the top layer and bring it all together. The image is taken from one of the Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous plates.

Darkroom Door Swap

Well Rachel is about to sort and send her swaps for the first Darkroom Door swap so I thought I would share my contributions. We needed to do an ATC or a card utilising the fabulous DD products (http://www.darkroomdoor.com/). The first is my ATC, using the Wildflower stamps.

And here is my card entry. It is my take on the Cuttlebug Collage technique described by Annette in her blog http://goannafive.blogspot.com/. The picture doesn't really do justice to the textures and the pearlescence of the copper sections. The card was made using the DD Venetian Vol 2 plate. The face image was stamped with Stazon on a transparency and overlaid over the map image. I was quite pleased with the effect.