Sunday Stamper - Week 38 - Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue....& Candy Giveaway

Good morning Stampers!

Oh, what a beautiful morning.....it is just my kind of morning....Jack Frost has been busy with his paint brush! We have a beautiful blue sky with sunshine and the thickest frost. I was out in the garden at 7.30am taking photo's....brrrrrr....it was freeeeezing but worth getting cold toes just to see the delights of Winter. Here are a couple of the photo's I took:


Anyway....enough of my waffling about the weather!

First of all, thank you to all of you who joined in with the challenge last week. I saw some fantastic works of art on my hops through all your Blogs :O))

This week I am still using the "colour" theme for the challenge, however, to make things a little bit special there are two colours to use in your artwork. The challenge theme is Brown and Blue.

As an added bonus I have made up a little package of Blog Candy for one lucky entrant to win....but more of that later :O))

For my entry, I made a canvas. I used Colorbox Chalk Inks - Sky Blue, Prussian Blue, Creamy Brown & Chestnut Brown - to colour the canvas and the Stampbord tiles and for the actual stamping I used Timber Brown StaZon.




I started by colouring the whole canvas with Sky Blue ink and then blended the Prussian Blue around this, leaving a large patch of paler blue in the middle. I used my heatgun to dry off the ink otherwise I would have still been waiting now!! Next, I took the Creamy Brown ink and blended this all around the edges, overlapping with the Prussian Blue. Finally, I used the Chestnust Brown to emphasize the edges of the canvas. I again used my heatgun to dry the inks. I have found in the past that if I don't heat dry the Chalk Inks, they have a tendancy to stray onto fingers, clothing and furniture LOL




I took nine 2" square Stampbord tiles and repeated the colouring process on them. The bonus of using Stampbord with the Chalk Inks is that they dry pretty much straight away. I then got to the best bit...the stamping!




Recently, I have built up my collection of PaperBag Studios stamps. I adore these stamps...and have been gradually adding to my collection until I had enough to use just these designs on one piece of artwork....in other words, I have stashed them away until I could do a canvas!! :O)) If you click here, you will be transported to Scrapz, where they have a great selection of these stamps at a great price too! I chose a Journey theme for the canvas, starting by stamping the little fella with the phrase "Every Life Has A Story". Using Timber Brown StaZon I continued to pick relevant images, stamping them onto each Stampbord piece until I had all nine ready. (If you look at the canvas from left to right, top to bottom, I have tried to tell a story throughout and end up with the lovely phrase "The Journey is the Destination". I hope you can also interpret what I am on about!!)




I next used some sentiments to pop around the edges of the canvas which all relate to my Journey theme and using the Timber Brown, I ran the inkpad around the ends and edges of the canvas to "close" it.

Now, you may have noticed that there are little dots all over the canvas...these are made using one of the fantastic new backround stamps from The Artistic Stamper. I decided that if I left the canvas blank and just stuck the Stampbord tiles on, it would look a bit bland, and I think that this dotty background really adds depth to the whole piece.




Finally, I went back to the Stampbord pieces and using a metal file, I scruffed up the edges so that the white base shows through. I used a Scratching tool and highlighted parts of the stamped images too...I find that Stampbord is a wonderful product to use, it is so versatile and smooth and lovely!! To finish the Stampbord pieces, I used a clear embossing ink pad and The Artistic Stamper Clear Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel. I did two coats of this on each piece so the end product looks like a little ceramic tile.



I stuck the tiles to the canvas using Glossy Accents as I find this is the best adhesive for this kind of project.....and there you are....finished!




Now, onto the important bit!!! The Candy :O))

I have collected together some bits and bobs to giveaway as Candy to one lucky winner who will be chosen at random. The winner will be announced next Sunday on the Sunday Stamper post. So, how do you go about winning it then? Well, all you need to do is leave me a comment with a link to your Blog, linking back to mine. I would love it if you did actually manage to join in with the challenge this week too...which is really easy...simply make a piece of artwork, use the colours specified in the theme and also you must use stamping somewhere on your piece :O))

The contents of the Candy total about £40 in value too....and here is a list of what you will win:



Unmounted Mini Mini Dotty Dot Stichels
Unmounted Stitchels Large Dragonfly
A 6x6" Crafty Individuals Christmas Paper pack (24 sheets)
A 5x7" Fredrix Canvas Board Panel
2 A6 pieces of Kling-On Repositionable Cushioning
A Pack of Basic Grey "Euphoria" Buttons
A Versafine Ink Pad - Black
A mini tin of metallic eyelets
A mini tin of assorted brads
A mini tin of assorted coloured gemstones
A House Mouse Christmas Stamp (he has been used a couple of times but is well loved)
A packet of Musical Notes Twill
A packet of Tape Measure Twill
2 Mini Square Canvases - two different sizes
A 10" x 4 1/2" Peel Off Sticker Size Storage Box

Here are a couple of photo's of the stash!!




Phew! That took me aaaages to type in....anyway, I hope you all are still awake and have a really good day....we had some great news here last night - Grim has his best friend Paul staying this weekend. They went to football yesterday and bought a couple of Lucky Dips for the Lotto last night...and... Paul got £10 on the first Lucky Dip....and then...checked the second one and guess what? He got FIVE numbers!!!!!! How exciting!!! Needless to say, Grim didn't win on his tickets but we are really chuffed for Paul....it is not often that we hear of people we know having a nice little win like that!

Right, I am off to get some breakfast now....happy stamping peeps and don't forget to link a post from your Blog to here to be in with a chance of winning the Candy.

Hugs Hels xx