Sunday Stamper and Simon Says

This week Simon Says Stamp and Show a Flourish, and the Hels' Sunday Stamper theme is Writing, so I decided to use these themes in a birthday card that I have just been out to post. The Tim background stamp is one of my favourites, and is appropriate here as my friend is French. So it's a clear EP resist against Dusty Concord, Weathered Wood, Broken China and Spun Sugar Distress Stains, spritzed with Pearl Glimmer Mist. The flourish is cut with a Sizzix die from Coredinations card and painted with silver dabber so that the texture of the card still shows through. The metal flower is from one of those useful pieces of Primark bling that you can take to pieces and have lots of bits to use as embellishments. The glass was a die-cut from silver holographic card, and has been in my bits and pieces box for years. It looks much better coloured with silver dabber, and has a textured finish.

Grungy Monday 14

Well, one way or another it has been quite a Grungy Monday. The day started with a large flock of sheep taking a wrong turning. I guess the adventure began with just one or two of the little woolly creatures taking a diversion, and the rest followed like a load of ........ well, sheep. Anyway, they left the road, came all the way down our little lane and took a left into my garden trampling my seedlings in the process. The farmer and his dozy collie took some time to catch up with them, during which time my old cat was looking very grumpy and irritable having had his snooze in the sun interrupted, and having to put up with a huge chorus of loud baa-ing and bleating. Looking on the bright side, they did leave quite a number of little gifts which I shall collect tomorrow and put in a pail of water to use as liquid fertiliser at a later date. It's good stuff. My old neighbour used to swear by it when replanting her cyclamen corms, and each year would send her hubby down the fields with a large bucket.

The rest of the grunginess was indoors and involved me following Tim Holtz' directions to create a resist for a Distress Ink and Perfect Pearls cocktail in order to join in with Linda's Studio L3 challenge. My first attempt was using Black Soot/Pewter, Pumice Stone/Pearl and Fired Brick/Gold. I had a feeling that things weren't going to work out. These colours did make a gorgeous background, but as they were so dark, I had to do my stamping in White Adirondack, and I just didn't like it on the tag which is now consigned to my scraps box. However, I will use the rest of these mixes on a book cover.

My next attempt involved Victorian Velvet/Blush, Faded Jeans/Gold and Worn Lipstick/Pearl. There were also a few squirts of Dusty Concord added to the mix. The background text stamping doesn't show up very well in the photo. The rest of the stamping is in Faded Jeans, Stormy Sky and black Archival, and stamps used are Tim, Paperbag Studios and Wendy Vecchi. The flower is a Tattered Floral stamped with a WV checked design stamp and spritzed with the Victorian Velvet mix, and the ribbon is coloured with V Velvet too.

WOYWW 108

"What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday?" asks Julia at Stamping Ground for the 108th time. Well, see what's on mine.

The alcohol inks are left over from my work on Tuesday on the Grungy Monday challenge. The assorted die-cuts I have fished out a of bits-and-pieces box in the hope that some might be part of a journal page collage. The glue gun I had plugged in yesterday morning to use to attach some flowers to a tag. Only I got distracted (not unusual) and some minutes later ended up with a large blob of molten glue on the craft sheet. Speaking of craft sheets, have you noticed how clean mine is? That's because this is a new one, and a jumbo one at that. Covers the whole table. The old one was horribly stained, or should I say beautifully stained, and had bits snipped out of its edges where I'd got a bit reckless with the scissors. I've kept it for use when crafting on the move. In the middle in front of the wire basket is a tag which is a new attempt at last week's GM challenge, the one using clear EP as a resist to acrylic paint on Tim papers. Still to be finished. Oh, and the two white porcelain containers sitting one inside the other are always to hand. Originally I thought I would use them as water pots when painting, but they now have a different and important purpose. I keep a baby wipe in the bottom one. I often find that when I've used a wipe, it's not messy enough to throw away, so I pop it into one little bowl and put the other bowl on top. The wipe stays moist ready for use another day. Waste not, want not !

Happy Wednesday, folks.

Grungy Monday 13

This week's challenge at Linda's Studio L3 is to use alcohol inks as demoed by Tim in this five minute video on the Ranger website. And how about this, it's only Tuesday and I've completed this Grungy Monday piece. Am off to polish my halo.

I've long been a fan of AIs, and I use them quite a lot. For this challenge I decided to have a rummage through all my inks, and play around with the ones I had perhaps used less. As it turned out, I realised that I don't use the range of lights as much as I could. So today I chose Cool Peri, Willow and Pink Sherbet to colour the background, the roses and the ribbon. The edges are coloured with Black Soot DI and the stamps are Stampfrancisco and Tanda in Black Archival. I don't know where the quote came from: it's just one of those stamps in my Words & Phrases box without a label !

I was quite pleased with how this had turned out as I was planning for it to be a friend's birthday gift tag. The colours look good on the glossy card background. Just a shame my photography doesn't capture the effect. However, I'm not alone in this. Recently I saw a display of artwork which also appears on a blog, and was so glad to have been able to see it in real life to appreciate the textures and colours and dimensional effects that the camera had not captured.

Grungy Monday 12

A bit behind again with my Grungy Monday challenge over at Linda's Studio L3, but better late, as they say....

This week we're visiting Tim's Technique Challenge dating back to April 2008. For this I chose some of the blue paper from Tim's Vintage Shabby pad, raw umber acrylic paint and a Lost Coast stamp. Couldn't get card to go through my Dymo, so ended up using the black tape that was already in there, covering it with acrylic paint and then sanding the paint off. Wish I could have got a better picture of it.

I know I'm going to be trying this technique again. I want to try with paper that has several colours on it as Tim did, and I want to experiment with getting some kind of card to go through my Dymo. Thanks, Linda, for another fun challenge.

WOYWW 107

Another Wednesday and time to slip over to Stamping Ground, the HQ of Julia, Inspector-in-Chief of Desks.

I have a mini-mess this week. Mostly stamps I've been playing with and haven't put away, because I'm going to play some more. Or at least, that's my excuse. There's also a couple of die-cut butterflies that I've embossed with UTEE and plan to stamp and embellish. There's also a die-cut jalopy that I'm painting, and a background I've embossed and coloured with AIs. The plan is that the jalopy and background should be part of a birthday card.

As I've inflicted a mess on you, I'll make amends by showing you some pics from my visit to the gardens at Sissinghurst yesterday. The White Garden was looking beautiful as usual. Didn't take any views of it this time - only snaps of individual plants.

Delphinium.

Eryngium, a favourite with the bees.

Foxgloves.

And in another part of the garden a plant that I'd never seen before. A cardiocrinum giganteum or Giant Himalayan Lily. Apparently they've waited years for it to flower, and there was great excitement among the gardeners as they saw it was about to bloom. I understand that they die after flowering leaving behind some offsets which then take three to five years to flower. Patience definitely required with this lady.

Happy Wednesday all.

Grungy Monday 11

All the details of the batik technique in this week's challenge from Linda at Studio L3 can be found here at Tim Holtz' blog. Many thanks, Linda, for another fun challenge.

For my piece I've used Scattered Straw, Wild Honey, Rusty Hinge, Brushed Corduroy and Walnut Stain DIs, and Lost Coast and Crafty Individuals stamps.

In my vase this week are Aloha, Shropshire Lad, Albertine and Madame Isaac Pereire, and the winner in the perfume stakes is the lovely Bourbon rose Mme Pereire, the vivid pink Rosa on the right. However, I do love Albertine too. Her blooms are loose and blowsy, very characteristic in shape, but she is a vicious minx ! The fallen petals from last week's vase of roses are now in a basket in the living room still giving off their rich scent.