Compendium of Curiosities - Challenge No. 7 - Tinted Vision Fragments

This week's challenge set by Linda on her blog Studio L3 was to use a product I unfortunately don't have (yet!) - Fragments.  The technique to be used was detailed on page 55 of Tim Holtz' book Compendium of Curiosities and also used alcohol inks (which I do have - yay!!)

As I didn't want to miss out on the challenge I used the technique on another Ranger product - Frosted Memory Glass (with a Memory Frame).

As the glass is frosted it has an even more vintage look about it.

I used three colours of alcohol inks - Caramel, Rust and Latte.

I attached the frame to an ATC with the same images and aged the background with some Distress Ink.

The rubber stamp text is from PaperArtsy (Clocks 3 - C3) and is stamped with Mahogany Distress Ink.

There are some fantastic prizes up for grabs every week and if you are a Tim fan, Linda has some fabulous news about even more prizes to share which you can read all about on her blog!

Thanks for looking!

Compendium of Curiosities - Challenge No. 6 - Multi-Medium Collage

This week's challenge set by Linda over on her blog Studio L3 is to make something using the technique 'multi-medium collage' as described on page 66 of Tim Holtz book 'Compendium of Curiosities'.

My collaged piece (I used vintage music sheet) has been mounted onto some card and I haven't decided yet what to do with it - another greeting card perhaps, or maybe a little hanger.

Here's what I used to make it -

The cage and bird were coloured with Brusho powder paints, I love the vibrancy of them.  I used the distress inks on the background.

Finally, here's a close up of the little birdie - it's a shame he's caged, but he does sing a lovely song - he is after all covered with music score!

I'm really enjoying these challenges and sure I wouldn't otherwise be trying out the various techniques in the book.

Dress Up - July

I thought I'd better get on and make my dress for July seeing as we're over half way through the month already!  A dress a month for the whole of this year is the challenge set by the very talented Margaret on her blog Alice and Camilla.

If you go and have a look at Margaret's blog you'll see I got the idea for my dress this month from hers (copy cat, copy cat - LOL).  You can also see links for all the other participants' dresses.

I started off by covering my card stock dress shape with a page from an old motorists atlas.  The page I chose covered the part of the Kent coast I spent many a happy holiday at when I was a child - Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey. 

To tone the colours down I painted over a white wash of acrylic and coloured with edges with some water soluble wax pastels.

I rubber stamped an image onto tissue paper with black ink and cut out the vintage lady sunbather.  As the image was very dark I turned it over and stuck it onto the dress with some matte medium.  You'll notice she caught the sun a bit! 

The dress seemed a little bare at the top, so I made a little shell necklace to finish it off! 

The rubber stamp I used is from Crafty Individuals (CI-119) and was one I was lucky enough to win in this year's One World One Heart event from Jan - you can read about it and see the entire stamp on her blog JaN's ArTy AtC JouRneY.  Thanks again Jan!

I'm off now to go and look at some of the other dresses so I can copy be inspired for next month!

Thanks for looking xx

Mixed Media Piece with a Vintage Theme

.... this is the current theme over on the Art 'n' Soul Flickr group set by the lovely Viv.  Our piece had to include at least two of the following items

"A vintage image (stamped or printed)

Paper collage

Some lace or ribbon or fabric

A button or other embellishment

Embossing or texture"

I managed to incorporate three of the items.

  The base is some thick cardboard packaging cut into a 4" square.  Here's what I did to it - covered it with gesso, acrylic paint, an old dressmaking pattern (adhered with matte medium) and more gesso.  I then coloured around the edges with some water soluble wax pastels.  This is what it looked like before I covered most of it up (as you do!!)

I rubber stamped the vintage image onto some white cotton and pinked around the edges (that doesn't sound right - but you know what I mean LOL - used pinking shears around the edges).  I attached the fabric to the background with a few staples and finished it off with some ribbon, ric-rac and a button.

Thanks for looking!

Compendium of Curiosities - Challenge No.5 - Distress Powder

This week's challenge set by Linda over on her blog Studio L3 is to create something using the 'Distress Powder' technique on page 43 of Tim Holtz' book Compendium of Curiosities.

I can't say I'm a big fan of distress embossing powder although I haven't actually used it more than a couple of times so this was a good excuse to have another go.  Am I am fan now?  Well, no, not really.  The problem may be that I used ordinary embossing ink instead of the distress ink so I will have to invest in some to see if it makes any difference.

I only have the one pot of distress embossing powder - tea dye - so that really determined the colour scheme.  I'm not sure that the background colours match the tag either.  Seems like I'm not having a good day here - LOL. 

The stamps I used were from Crafty Individuals (CI-099 for the lady tag).  The background tag is from Tim Holtz collections from Stampers Anonymous (Slight Alterations) although it doesn't show up in the photo - maybe I should have done a close up - sorry!

The large stamp and 'cherish' on the card are from a large set of romantic themed acrylic stamps which unfortunately I have removed from their packaging so cannot tell you what they are exactly.

I finished the card off with some sari ribbon and a matching button.  The tag is mounted onto 3D foam squares.  I am quite pleased with how it's turned out and it was good to blow away the dust from the bottle of distress embossing powder and put it to some use.

I'll take this opportunity to show you how I'm currently storing my Distress Ink Pads.  I bought this little wooden box in a charity shop for 50p and gave it a rough coat of white acrylic paint, then Peeled Paint distress ink, then some more watered down white paint.  It's cute isn't it!  The middle sections do hold one pad each, but they would need to be stored on their side and I didn't know if this was a good idea or not.  As the box is quite small I can move it around my craft desk, which is quite handy really seeing as there's no wall space available at the moment to mount it onto! 

Thanks for looking and don't forget, if you'd like to have a go at the challenge there are prizes too, all details are on Linda's blog. 

Compendium of Curiosities - Challenge No.4 - Shabby Chic

This week's challenge set by Linda on her blog Studio L3 is to use Tim Holtz' technique called 'Shabby Chic' as explained on page 49 of his book Compendium of Curiosities.

I didn't have any of Tim's Distress Embossing Ink so used Versamark Waterstamp instead, but the technique still worked quite well I think.

I used two colours of acrylic paint (Midnight Garden by Folk Art and a Terracotta Dabber by Adirondack). The rubber stamp is from Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous collection (Slight Alterations)

It looks more like shabby grunge to me rather than shabby chic, but it makes a nice background to the birthday card I've made for my nephew Aaron who will soon be seven.  He plays in goal for the local football team and we quite often sing this song to him - which could of course apply equally to the England's team performance in the World Cup recently!!  Luckily Aaron has a good sense of humour and doesn't mind us teasing him with the song - not that he lets that many goals in anyway.

I made another background using this technique too - much more like shabby chic this time and more feminine too.

I'll probably make this one into a card as well.  I don't usually enjoy making greeting cards, but it'd be a shame to let all these different backgrounds go to waste.

Have to wait until next Monday to see what challenge Linda will set next from the book.

In the meantime I'll try and get around to looking at all of the other entries for this challenge, but that could take some time as these challenges are proving to be very popular indeed.