Thursday 30 April 2015

B&W card


Hi, it's me, Maria Potapovich (mellpellmell) here for you today)))))

Do you like b&w art? I like it sooooooooo much!

And today you have to have a look at my b&w card.

It's about girls.

And about girlish hopes ;)

Every girl should have to hope for and what to believe!


Look at from a different angle:




Hope you like it ;)

Have a good day!

Monday 27 April 2015

Mail Art

Hello Everyone,
Shilpa here,

I've got these fabulous Postage stamps(No1) from Artistic Stamper and I kept them to use for some special project... today is the day... :)
I created Post Cards.


I created 4 1/4" * 6" Post card with white card stock. I started with spraying Dylusions Vibrant Turquoise on it. I spritzed water on it to dilute the color. Next I've done Dyan's famous ghost technique, got some lovely layers. I've used many stamp stamps at the top right corner. Calligraphy Mat12 for text. Leaves stamp is from Leaves A5 set.
I stamped dragonfly twice, once on this post card and second on another white paper. Fussy cut it and adhered it to create layered effect.

I got carried away and made two more Post cards,


here I've used Dylusion's Cheery Pie spray ink and Neil Walker bird Stamp.


And on this card, I spritzed Dylusion's Dirty Martini ink and have used bird from Birds of Feather stamp set.
Hope you liked my Mail art post!

Our monthly challenge is open till 30th April with theme - Flora and Fauna.
You still have time to join in.
Thanks so much for stopping by today.

 
Supplies Used:
Artistic Stamper Stamps - 


Friday 24 April 2015

Butterfly's Farewell

Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here, and I'm very sad to say it's my last official posting as part of the Artistic Stamper team.  As many of you will know, life's been getting busier, and "something's gotta give"!

I've had an amazing time creating with the Artistic Stamper stamps (and the stencils too) over the last two years, and I'm so grateful to Jennie for her generosity and good humoured leadership, and for the chance to work with her fantastic designs.  (My textured tags last time didn't use the words "With Thanks" by accident!)  It's been a real privilege and pleasure to play alongside such a wonderful team of creative designers too, both past and present.

So, this final post is a chance to revisit some favourite projects created over the last two years.  You'll notice some of my go-to stamps occurring more than once - the Katy Leitch flowers, the fabulous Journalling Words, the Gibson Girls, and of course my much-loved background staples - the Calligraphy Plates, the Mini Polka Dots - as well as many others.  I hope you'll enjoy the little trip down Memory Lane...  (You can of course click on the links if you need to see more!)

Some of the birds get to fly free, but will the woman ever break out of her cage? Pay a visit to see the tiny cracked hearts and the background layers.

One of my favourite layered backgrounds, stamping and embossing and paint and ink, behind the Encyclopedia Botanica flowers.

The new Flourish Background, a despondent Gibson Girl and an unusual colour palette for me - oh, and lots of crackle of course.

A simple tag with the recent Gardening stamps - but it made me happy to create and makes me happy to look at!

My first offering as a full-blown team member, and one of my earliest journalling efforts.  Those Gibson Girls always seem to turn up when I'm in a melancholy mood.

Autumnal fun with a little book of leaves and a book box to keep it in - and the Dates and Journalling Words also put in an appearance.

Journalling words at the heart of this textural page too... (Is there such a thing as "too much crackle"?  I'm going with "no"!)

... and they're the main feature on this gift wallet along with some lovely postal designs - pay a visit to see what happens when you flip over to the other side.

Another early creation - butterflies and Botanica, blue and brown - my obsessions were clear right from the start!

The piece that started it all off - my first creation as a Guest Designer, but it remains a favourite - worth a visit as it's not easy to capture in one photo!


The melancholy Gibson Girls start talking to you when you flip these tags over - and you should see the suitcase they travel in (well, tags are luggage labels, after all).

Another favourite background, and another play with Katy Leitch's fabulous flowers - and more shades of blue and brown.  A creature of habit... who, me?!

A round dozen for you there (plus a couple of cheaty extras over at Words and Pictures today, just to decorate the post!), and that's where I'll have to love you and leave you - with immense and grateful thanks for all your wonderful visits and comments here over the last couple of years.

I know you'll keep dropping by to enjoy the inspirational work of the rest of the team, and I'll see you out there in Craftyblogland I'm sure.  Happy Crafting all!

Wednesday 22 April 2015

Gothic Arch's By Dee

Hi everyone hope you are all well and having a crafty time. I have a plaque 
for you today using the new stencils from The artistic Stamper,
and some Artistic stamper stamps.


Firstly I brayered on the fresco paint till it resembled old stone.


I then used a pallet knife to apply the grunge paste to the top left
I applied this quite thickly so it would resembled old stone 
once I had stamped into it using the circular column toppers
of the architecture plate.


I inked up the stained glass window off the architecture plate
stamped it twice with black stazon once onto the background
and once onto spare card. This was then cut out and
 stuck into the frame of the main image of the arch.


I used the Artistic Stamper lace background stamp & inked it up with stazon black ink 
This resembles peeled paint if you used the right area's. Stamp around the 
Arch window.


I put texture paste through the Artistic Stamper flourish stencil, I then
sprinkled a mix of pale blue and gold embossing powder and dried 
with a heat gun.


I used the Framelits die and glued this up the side after I had sprayed it with spiced
 marmalade and rusty hinge distress spray stains.


I wasn't keen on the colour although it did look like an old Gothic 
building I wanted it to look vibrant and highlight the swirl
texture.


I stamped the calligraphy mat 4 on distress treated paper which had
been swiped with old page and stained walnut.


I used the distress stain sprays to spray the entire piece to make it more vibrant.


I highlighted in area's with gilding wax. I applied a three
embellishments to look like old rusty bolts.


I must admit looking at it it reminds me of Rapunzel maybe the swirl is her hair
That's it for today as always let me know what you think remember look
at your stamps and see what other patterns they can create.
Cheers Dee x

Products used

  1. The following Artistic Stamper Stamps Architecture Plate, Caligraphy Mat 4 & Lace background stamp.
  2. Fresco finish paint  Chalk, Slate and Blue Oyster.
  3. Distress Stain Spray's in the following colours Rusty Hinge, spiced Marmalade & Salty Ocean.
  4. Grunge paste
  5. Texture paste
  6. Sizzix Thinlets mixed media die
  7. Embossing powders.



Sunday 19 April 2015

Use and re-use as much as you like....

... these awesome Artistic Stamper's gardening stamps !
Hello, this is Titbelsoeur with you today, organizing her backyard... upcycling, as usual... otherwise it is not me !
I have collected can caps and stamped flowers, salads and insects with Archival black ink, then dried the ink and written the names of herbs and vegetables with a permanent pen.

And tadammm, here they are, in context :






I have used :
gardening stamps
butterflies stamps
black Archival ink

Thanks so much for stopping by,
your comments are very much appreciated.
Don't forget to participate in our monthly challenge to win some fabulous Artistic Stamper stamps.

Titbelsoeur

Thursday 16 April 2015

Notebook for serious young man

Hi there) It/s Maria Potapovich (mellpellmell) here for you today.

If you do not mind, I'll show you a notebook, which I did for a serious young man.

Do you know that the quantity is not always equivalent to quality? Sometimes "less" may be the best choice!
I'm sure that the next photo will be able to demonstrate this assertion.


Yes, you saw it right - I used just a single stamp to decorate this notebook.

As you can see, that was quite enough!

I would like to draw the attention of all those who (as I do) loves shtamping in any place and on any material - stamps of this brand give excellent and precise imprints even at such a "rough" fabrics like this - look at the photo a little closer:


 I hope you are also love sometimes do such little things for serious people who alien to the "flowers and bows"!

Have a nice day, and serious people close to all of you! :)))))



Monday 13 April 2015

Altered Matchbox with Gibson Girl

Hello Everyone,
Shilpa here,

Instead of my regular mixed media canvas, I decided to make 3D project with fabulous Artistic stamper stamps....and came up with this cute little Matchbox. 


I've decorated it with Gibson girl stamp image and other Artistic stamper stamps.

Here is step by step...


I created matchbox with Graphic 45 Typography/ Bohemian Bazar papers. Applied Vintage photo distress inks at the edges.
 


For top layer, I applied rusty hinge, walnut stain, peeled paint  distress stains on craft mat and  smooshed manila ATC paper into that. Dried it completely with Ranger heat tool.


I stamped flowers, text and envelope image with Artistic stamper stamps and Coffee Archival ink. And further started decorating it.

 

I stamped Gibson girl image on Ranger specialty stamping paper with Jet black Ranger archival ink and colored it with distress inks. I fussy cut the image. The Art tag behind her is from Graphic 45 Typography collection.
I added handmade flowers and mica flakes. And attached the whole panel onto the match box.

Hope you liked my creation and inspired to make your own. When you add small jewelry in it, that will be a  perfect gift for a friend!

supplies used:
 

 



Friday 10 April 2015

Stamping for Texture

Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here with some textured tags for you today.

It won't have escaped your notice that I'm pretty obsessed with the new Flourish Background stamp.  I've used it on journalling pages and jars already, and now I've been experimenting with using it to create texture in different ways, and here are two of the tags which arrived as a result.


There's so much gilding and shimmer going on that it was hard to get a photo of them together that does them both justice at the same time - either one was in shadow, or the other was catching too much light - hopefully you'll get the idea from the close-ups as we go!


The texture on the blue/gold tag was created with gesso.  I applied a generous coating of heavy gesso to the stamp using Cut'n'Dry foam and pressed it down firmly onto the tag.  As well as the relief stamping of the flourish itself, you get lots of additional textural interest as you peel the rubber away (like when you press two gesso'd or painted tags together and peel them apart) - lots of lovely organic ripple patterns.


Then I spritzed away with a combination of Distress Sprays and Perfect Pearl Mists and a few other sparkly sprays.


The colours settled nicely around the flourish textures, but I wanted to highlight them further so I used gilding waxes to zhuzh them up a little.


I love the golden gleam in the sunlight.


The texture on the coppery green tag has a slightly chunkier look.  I put a layer of texture paste onto the tag and pressed the Flourish Background onto it, just as I did with the gesso - though I don't seem to have a picture of this one "naked".  The texture paste obviously gets you a lot more dimensional bang for your buck!


I started with Dabbers and Distress Paints, including metallics, to get a good covering over the paste, and then added some spritzes of shimmer sprays.


Since I was leaning more to the greens than the blues on this tag, I then found myself reaching for coppery gilding waxes to highlight the textures.


Having created these two backgrounds, I really didn't want to cover them up very much!  I don't often reach for flowers - though for some reason I do have a whole box of paper flowers in my stash! - but that seemed to be the way to go with these tags.


They started out fairly innocuously in various colours... so I got busy with the Distress Sprays again.  I wanted them to look as if they were emerging out of the tags, so I spritzed them to co-ordinate with the respective colour palettes.


The blue-green ones got a spritz of Tarnished Brass to give a hint of a metallic look to fit with the gilded texture.


The flowers for the coppery green tag went through the same process with slightly different colours, and their metallic spray was the Antique Bronze - a warmer shade.


I liked the gilded look, so I emphasised the metallic shimmer even more by adding some gold embossing powder to the edges of the rose flower petals, large and small.  And I used copper embossing powder to add the extra gilding to the tips of the green petals.


It may have been slightly crazy to reach for the kraft card to create my word panels... kraft with all that gilding?!  But I really like the contrast.


The "with thanks" wording comes from Katy Leitch's Leaves set, and it's embossed in gold for one tag and in copper for the other.


It needed a bit more of the rustic earthiness to balance the shimmer, so I mounted the tags onto kraft card with padded tape, edging everything with Archival ink to give little more definition.


And some simple twine at the top completes the look - continuing the contrast between baroque gilded texture and rustic earthiness.


So, I hope you like them - a more gilded look than normal for me.  I think I've been influenced by Dee's fabulous work here!  And with all those flowers these would fit right in to the Flora and Fauna challenge theme here this month.  I hope you'll come and join in.  Remember, we do have to see some stamping, but it doesn't have to be with Artistic Stamper stamps (though if you do use them you get a double entry into the prize draw!!).  Hope to see you there.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I'll see you soon.

Ingredients used:
Artistic Stamper stamps: Flourish Background, Leaves
Distress Spray Stains - Faded Jeans, Peeled Paint, Evergreen Bough, Peacock Feathers, Tarnished Brass, Antique Bronze
Distress Paints - Antique Bronze, Peeled Paint, Tarnished Brass, Evergreen Bough
Ranger Paint Dabbers - Copper, Bottle
Perfect Pearls Mists - Blue Smoke, Patina Green, Sour Apple, Heirloom Gold, Perfect Copper, Mint, Patina Blue
Gilding Wax - could use Crafty Notions Gleam or Cosmic Shimmer in various colours
Embossing Powders - Rich Gold, Copper
Texture Paste - PaperArtsy Grunge Paste or Cosmic Shimmer paste should both work
Manila Tags
Kraft Card
Inkssentials Cut'n'Dry Foam
From my stash - paper flowers, twine, gesso