Sunday Stamper - Week 77 - Walking In The Air....PLUS Candy Giveaway

Morning Stampers!

Many thanks to you all for joining in with the challenge last week, I just loved seeing all your spooky art :O)) Another week has whizzed past and we are officially on the countdown to Christmas...there, I said it...the C word LOL I am terrible at leaving stuff to the last minute which is why I have chosen the theme this week to be.... Snowmen...any excuse to get cracking with the Christmas cards!




I have made a quick card using my fave Stitchels snowmen and snowlady, Bobby, Millie and Marty. I also used my favest Christmas papers ever...which I have the teensiest amount of scraps left...and it isn't made anymore :O( It is Be Good by Cosmo Cricket. I coloured the snowmen with ProMarkers and then added some flowers from my Hels Sheridan Designs Nature set along with some Stitchels holly leaves and jazzed them up with gold Stickles.




The Stitchels and the Nature set my designs and are available from The Artistic Stamper...and if you fancy grabbing a bargain too, Jennie has a special Hallowe'en weekend offer on and you will get an extra 10% off your order if you pop the code halloween in at checkout. I am also offering up a Bobby Snowman, KlingOn and some little snowflake charms as Blog Candy. To be in with a chance of winning, please leave me a comment or join in, or both :O)) And then pop a link onto your blog back to here.



To join in with the challenge, all you need to do is make some art, use snowmen and stamping and then leave a comment for me so I can come and visit you and see your work of art.

Thanks for looking...have a great week!

Hels x

A Little Birdy

Hey Peeps,

Another card today which I made for my stepson to give to his Nan for her birthday.

I used the new Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks....oh, those colours are divine!! I started by adding droplets of Purple Twilight, Juniper and Cool Peri to my craft sheet and then swooshed the glossy paper thru the ink.




Adding a little bit of surgical spirit to the inks left on the craft mat thinned them down so I could use another piece of glossy card and swoosh this too. I then used a fat paintbrush, dipping it into the surgical spirit and then flicking it onto the inky glossy card. This gives a lovely mottled effect, similar to the distressed look you get when you flick water at distress inky backgrounds.

I always use surgical spirit to do this technique as you do use rather a lot of it and it is cheap compared with blending solution!




I used my new stamp designs from the Nature Plate and one of my new Birdy's for the main images. I stamped the small flower from the plate twice and cut out both of them. With the second flower, I cut into the petal and used the wavy line as a guide, so the petals stand out more. Finishing the flower with a DewDropz, I stuck this to the card with silicone glue.

Using a Nestie, I made a little mat for the birdy to sit on and also for the sentiment, which is a Penny Black stamp. I added the word Nan - trying to copy the writing on the stamp but not quite getting it right...heyho, it is art afterall :O))

I dried off all the stamped images with the heatgun - I had used Ranger Archival ink for the stamping.

Thanks for looking and I hope you are having a good week.

Hels x

A Demonstration With Alcohol Inks

Morning Peeps,

Last weekend I did a couple of 20 mins Demo's at Alexandra Palace at the Big Stamping and Scrapbooking show. A couple of ladies who attended the Demo's asked me if I could possibly pop the details of the Demo onto my Blog so they could visit and have a look, referring back to what I had shown them.

So, without further ado, here are the cards I made for the Demo, the inky backgrounds I had made to pass thru the audience so peeps could see the technique close up and an inky piece that I did yesterday morning just to show how I used them from start to finish.

Card 1 - The Red Card




This card was made by creating a distressed looking background using Alcohol inks from the Ranger Earthtones set and the stamping is using the new Nature and Birdy stamps I have designed, all of which are available from The Artistic Stamper.





I also used Glossy Accents to emphasise the swirls, hat and wording on this card. The stamping was done using a Ranger Archival Inkpad in black.


Card 2 - The Blue Card





Again, this card is made using the same inky technique but this time the stamping is using a swirl element from the Nature set and some of my Dashy Dot Stitchels stamps, again available from The Artistic Stamper.





For this card, I embellished the designs with Broken China Distress Stickles. The stamping was done using a Ranger Archival Inkpad in black.


The Technique - Distressed Alchol Ink Backgrounds




For this technique you will need a couple of co-ordinating colours of Alcohol Ink. I have used Ranger Brights and Lights for this particular project - Purple Twilight, Cool Peri and Juniper. These happen to be my fave colour combo's in the Dabbers so I figured they would be for the Alcohol inks too, and yep, they are!! You will also need some Blending Solution, I tend to use Surgical Spirit if I have no proper Blender as I have found it works just as well and is a fraction of the cost! Just treat it the same as Blender, no naked flames etc as it is extremely flammable. Along with the above, you will also need a paintbrush, a non-stick craft sheet, glossy cardstock, a heatgun, an Archival Ink Pad and some stamps.




Start by swirling random lines of alcohol ink directly onto the craft sheet. Repeat this until you have used all the colours you want. Take a piece of glossy cardstock and with the glossy side down, swoosh the card thru the inks - twisting and lifting the card to make an unusual background. **Photopaper doesn't work as well as Glossy Card because it is more porous. Glossy Card has a clay coating and the alcohol inks sit on the surface of the card and therefore you get the proper depth of colour and shineyness too**






Set this aside to dry and using your Blending solution, add a few droplets to the ink left on your craft sheet and repeat the glossy card process - you will have cleaned up most of the inks and also have another inky background but this time it will be paler as you have used Blender.





Next, using a paintbrush soaked with Blender, hold it in one hand and tap this over the edge of your index finger on the other hand, to make little dots of blender land on the glossy card. When you have finished dropping blender onto your card, use a heatgun and see the paler patches appearing - very similar to the Distress Inks when water is dropped onto them.




Next, using the Archival Ink Pad, stamp the designs you like onto the surface of the glossy card. Remember to take extra care when stamping as this is slippy and sometimes your stamp can move slightly meaning your image won't be crisp.




It is important that you use an Archival inkpad/oil based inkpad because this ink will not affect the background you have made. If you used a StaZon pad, as this is solvent based, it would remove the alcohol ink background from under the stamped image and you won;t have a very good impression.




Once you have done your stamping, use a heat gun to set the ink. As glossy card is not as porous as other card, the Archival ink will sit on the card surface and take yonks to dry...so heat setting it is one way around this problem.




Add Glossy Accents to emphasize and embellish your design and voila! Your project is completed. You can now add the inky project to a card, use it for scrapbooking or any other project you want to. The stamps I used are from the Fairytale Frenzy sheet of unmounted from the new Tim Holtz collection. I adore that butterfly - it makes me think that he has been playing in ink and is flicking it off his wings :O))




I hope this helps and you will find this "demo" useful. I would love some feedback so any comments are gratefully received....if they are nice ones obviously LOL

Thanks for looking!

Hels x

The Swirly Bird Meets Nature

Hi Peeps :O))

Ohhh, I have a very exciting weekend planned!!! It is the Big Stamping and Scrapbooking show at Alexandra Palace this weekend and I will be Demo-ing for The Artistic Stamper on Saturday, including a 20 minute special Demo which will be held downstairs in the area behind the cafe....and I can't wait!! I will also be doing another 20 min Demo on Sunday too, but the rest of the day will be taken up with meeting friends and perhaps partaking in a little retail therapy too :O))

Oh, before I forget, the special Demo's are at 11am on both days :O)) If you are going to be at Ally Pally it would be lovely to meet you so please pop by to The Artistic Stamper/Stamp Connection stand where you will also be able to meet Jennie too :O))

Anyway, as I will be demo-ing the new stamps I have designed, as well as the original Stitchels stamps, I thought I would make a couple of cards using the new birdy and nature stamps to Blog while I am away. The Demo's will be also using.....actually, I will keep that to myself as I don't want to spoil things (plus Jennie will play pop if I let the cat out of the bag too early LOL) ... anyway, as I said, pop by and say hi and you will be able to have a really good nosey at all the heavenly goodies that Jennie has for sale!

Right, the cards that I made are those HUGE cards from QVC - blimey they are massive, almost A4 in size...but this is a grand thing as the new nature flowers are really blousey and it is great to be able to use a lot of them on the cards.


Card 1




Made using Daisy D's papers, which are so yummy, and the nature flower stamps. I inked and stamped onto the patterned papers with tinted embossing ink and then used gold embossing powder to heat emboss the flowers and leaves. I cut them all out and used my fingertips to curl the petals and leaves and then assembled them, sticking them to the card using silicone glue.




The little sentiment is from Penny Black and I used my new Nestabilities to make a couple of mats which I popped behind the sentiment, placing one at an angle to add a little definition.




The ink used for the wordy stamping and also for edging all the papers and flowers was a Maroon Chalk Ink by ColorBox.




Oh, nearly forgot, the pearls in the centre of the flowers are fun aren't they? They were from an ancient old necklace that was in a bric-a-brac bag from Haselden Hats in Faversham....I love using old jewellry to jazz up my cards :O))



Card 2





I used those deliciously gorgeous Love Notes papers from Cosmo Cricket - I looooove these papers and I am getting a little low on them, so I will be on the look out for them on Sunday!

I made a couple of little backgrounds using the papers and popped DCWV cardstock behind them. Once they were on the card, I used some more of the papers as a main element to stamp the birdy onto. I used black StaZon to stamp the bird directly to the paper, then stamped another two birdies, cutting one out completely and using 3D foam to place over the original image, and the second birdy just had her wing cut out and 3D'd over the top to make the image really pop.




Using a Violet Pigment Ink pad from ColorBox, I stamped the mini fancy swirl around the birdy design and then matted two more pieces of paper behind, placing one at an angle for definition. I used another piece of paper to stamp the Vine flourish onto and then cut this out and used 3D foam to place this under the bird, so it looks like she is standing on it.




The sentiment is another lovely stamp from Penny Black, which I stamped using black StaZon. Again, this was matted onto the same DCWV cardstock and placed on the card.

Finally, I stamped a load of the large and small flowers and leaves and once I had cut them all out, I fixed them together and used "card candy" from Craftwork Cards for the centres. I used Glossy Accents to jazz up the centres of the flowers and highlight the vine and popped the flowers onto the card using more 3D foam.

Well, that's it from me for the time being. I will be back to post the Sunday Stamper and winner of the Blog Candy on Sunday morning, so please remember to call in and see if you have won!

Thanks for looking and have a fabulous weekend!

Hels x

Sunday Stampers - Week 55 - Silver Lady

Morning Stampers!

First of all, thank you for joining in last week, it was lovely to see a few new faces too whom I hope will return for future challenges...it is great to see lots of different takes on the one theme.

This week the theme is a very simple one - the original theme has had to go by the wayside for another week 'cos I couldn't get my piece finished in time....but I have managed to get this canvas finished, finally, it has taken me all week!

Ah, the theme, yes, all you need to do is include something SILVER in your artwork, use stamping and then leave a comment with a link on this post and I can come and visit you :O)) *BTW, does anyone remember this lovely song by David Soul? Oh, he was my first crush when I was 6 years old!*





For my canvas, I started by prepping a deep edged 8" x 6" by painting it with a couple of coats of Gesso. The canvas was pre-primed but I like to have that extra depth on the surface. I then took some Violet acrylic paint and mixed in some white paint. I made an Indigo colour and then painted this all over the surface of the canvas.





Once this was dried, I painted a coat of PVA glue all over the surface and then immediately painted a coat of paint that I had pre-mixed using the Violet and the white but this time leaving the colour darker. It is important to put the paint straight onto the wet PVA, try not to overbrush the PVA and paint together and you will get a lovely scratchy crackle effect as the PVA dries, it separates and takes the top coat of paint with it, leaving the lower layer showing thru.





Next, I painted some Claudine Helmuth sticky canvas - this is one of my "must have" crafty supplies as it is so versatile. I used the original Indigo colour I had mixed to paint an A4 size piece of canvas - then cut it in half when dried and using a stipple brush, picked up the darker colour and streaked this over one half - this meant that I had two different colours for my flowers.




The flowers are from my new range of unmounted stamps which are available from The Artistic Stamper. If you click here you can go straight to the page where they are. I stamped several of the large and smaller flowers using a clear embossing ink and then heat embossed with silver powder. I next painted a smaller piece of sticky canvas with Silver Adirondack Acrylic paint and once this had dried, I stamped the leaves, large and small, using black StaZon. While I had the silver paint out, I covered all four sides of the deep edged canvas to give a little bit of definition to the whole project.




Next, I peeled the backing off the Sticky Canvas and stuck this to some metal foil sheets. This meant that once I had cut out all of the images, I could curl them and make them stay in shape as the metal gives the canvas a bit more stability.

Now for the fiddly bit - I faffed about with wire and beads and pearls to make some centres for the flowers and some extra accents to add under the flowers - I used thick wire for the centres, curling it and then sticky a pearl to the end. The pearls came from an old necklace I got from a junk shop.




The main element of the canvas is the stampbord ATC. This was painted and shaded and then stamped with one of the wordy stamps made in my handwriting (how cool!) that are also available from The Artistic Stamper. I embossed this with silver and then used the vine stamp to add detail on the edges of the stampbord and also I stamped around the silver edges of the canvas.




Finally.....hurrah! I had picked up a cheapy bracelet in Claires Accessories the other day, not to wear but because it had some fabby little metal tassles on it - it was on a £1 and I also got the metal flowers from it too. These were added to the canvas once the flowers were all placed with silicone glue.

Right, enough waffle from me, you are all champing at the bit to get off to those Easter Eggs I know.....and I wish you all a very Happy Easter too.

Thanks for looking and hope that you will be able to join in again this week!

Hels x

PS - I have just noticed that my Blog Counter is nearly at 40,000 so as a thank you for being such lovely visitors, if you join in with the challenge this week, please leave a comment as usual and then you will be entered into the draw, one person will be chosen at random to win some Blog Candy which will include some mini Stitchels stamps and some KlingOn to mount them on. Thanks!!!!

Sunday Stampers - Week 54 - Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep

Good Morning Stampers!

First of all, thank you to those of you who managed to join in last week, I saw some amazing artwork as usual.

It has been an eventful week for me :O)) The May issue of Craft Stamper magazine was on the stands this week and I am so chuffed because ... I designed the free cover stamp on the magazine for The Artistic Stamper!!! It is a little birdy with a swirl (called, amazingly enough, The Swirly Bird!!!! ) and I have used the stamp for one of my entries for this weeks challenge, which I bet you have guessed is....birds! There are a few pieces of artwork in the magazine using the Swirly Bird, some by Jennie, some from Katy the Editor and some from me too!!

As well as the cover stamp, I have also designed some more stamps that co-ordinate with the Swirly Bird and there is a special offer in the Craft Stamper for this set of stamps. If you click here, you will be taken to the page on The Artistic Stamper website where you can see the whole plate of stamps, which is A5 in size, and also make a purchase if you would like to take advantage of the offer :O))

For my main entry, I used the new stamps which include flowers, a vine and some little phrases that are actually made in my handwriting!! Eeee, I am soooo excited!! LOL I also used another set of stamps which are also brand new and available from The Artistic Stamper which are different types of Swirly Birds.





Card

I used Cosmo Cricket papers from the Love Notes range, stamping, paper piecing, decoupaging and adding shapes cut from my Nestabilities and then finishing off with a dash of Glossy Accents.




The flowers are two sizes, so I stamped and cut out three of each size and then made sure that I cut right to the middle circle in the design, so each petal was separate. I then used a bone folder and scored a line from the tip to the middle of each petal and then folded the petals up and inwards so they stand out more.





I layered the smaller flower inside the larger one, securing with Glossy Accents and then cut out the large leaf from the A5 plate and popped this behind the flower embellishment. For a finishing touch to the flowers, I used some pale pink pearls that I got in a bumper bag of old and broken jewellry, what a bargain that was and it is so worth keeping hold of stuff like that because it always comes in handy :O))




I used Dusty Concord Distress Ink and blended the cut edges of the papers and flowers to blend them in more and also swiped the Blending Tool around the edge of the card to make it co-ordinate.





ATC

For the ATC, I cut a piece of plain card and then used some fab glossy cardstock that I had faffed about with the other day when Linda came to play. She told me about this fab technique she had seen on Tim's Blog, using droplets of Alcohol Ink and a canister of air - well, I knew Grim had one of those cannister jobbies in his desk drawer so I "borrowed" it so Linda and I could play. If you pop over to Linda's Blog, she has showcased the gorgeous backgrounds she has made using this method, but she is even cleverer and has used a straw - which I think looks even better.




Anyway, enough waffle - the ATC was made using the free cover stamp. It is in two parts, the bird and then a separate swirl, so if you have the mag, please use some sharp scissors and snip the swirl away from the main image, then you have two stamps to play with.




I made a border using the background and popped this onto the ATC, stamped the bird onto the background and cut him out, fiddly but worth it, and then made a little word using a Dymo. Finally, I added a couple of Stitchels flowers, which I have also designed and are also available from The Artistic Stamper, and popped a little DewDrop in the middle.

I hope you like the theme this week - please remember to post a comment here when you have made your piece and leave a link to the place you are showing your stamped project, I can come and visit you then!

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Hels x