Material Girl

At Try it on Tuesday we have a new challenge theme every two weeks and we would love for you to join us. Today we are launching our Material Girl challenge where you are asked to create all things feminine, maybe using fabrics, lace or like me faux stitching and dressmaking images.

There are some beautiful inspirational creations from my Design Teamies over at Try it on Tuesday so please pop over and take a look, and you’ll also find a full set of guidelines on how to join in the fun too (grin!).

I started by painting the background with watered down Scattered Straw Distress Ink and once dry stamping it with a set of Urban Arts stamps using black Archival Ink, the stamps included: lace stitched flowers; a dressmaking heart pin; a safety pin; a tape measure; and a tiny flower motif. Next I cut strips of a pretty floral design paper and some button embossed card. I arranged them on the left-hand side of the page using a glue stick and then I edged them with some zig-zag stitched stickers. I used the same floral paper to stamp the tape measures and fussy cut them out. They are stuck over the tape measure images that I stamped on the background. I then added an oval image of a mannequin which was a topper from the same set as the floral paper; the outside oval is stuck down using a glue stick and the central piece using double-sided foam tape. I attached a piece of satin ribbon to the tag which is a sticker and reads “Happy girls are the prettiest”. To finish, I added some yellow pearl gemstones to the flower motifs on the background and to the bow on the mannequin.

We have been having some hot sunny days of late so as T Stands for Tuesday I thought we could cool down by drinking a pineapple frappe or a chocolate milkshake – Happy T Day everyone!

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Challenges

I’m pleased to join the lovely Halle of Halle’s Hobbies and her Words to live by challenge over at Art Journal Journey as being happy is a wonderful way to live although I’m not sure you’ll be the prettiest as a result (grin!).

I’m happy to join the Spots and/or Stripes challenge over at Paperbabe Stamps with the spots from the embossed buttons and gems and the stripes of design paper and measuring tapes.

Here is a list of all the materials used to create this art journal page:

• Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Scattered Straw)
• Docrafts Papermania Urban Stamps (Craft Coollection – Pastels PMA907223)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Create & Craft Paper Craft Topper & Background Paper (Birthday Celebrations)
• Button Embossed Cardstock (Lavender, Yellow)
• Sandylion Sticker Designs Kelly Panacci Scrapbook Collection (Stitches & Borders KSCB102)
• Little Yellow Bicycle Cardstock Stickers (Fresh Verse PD-140)
• Satin Ribbon
• Trimcraft (Adhesive Pearls SCDOT056)
• Pritt Stick
• The Range double-sided foam tape

Happy Easter

As it is Easter this weekend I was inspired to create an art journal page to wish all of you who celebrate – a very Happy Easter!

I started by applying diluted Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink to the page by stamping the pad onto an acrylic block and picking the ink up with a wet paintbrush. Then I sprinkled on some Leaf Green Colourfast Brusho powder and spritzed it with water to watch the colours burst onto the page. I used a stencil by Dutch Doobadoo Masks to add a dot design using Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and a circle design using Mustard Seed Distress Ink. I also added Picked Raspberry Distress Ink using a star stencil from Creative Stencils and then stamped a Script stamp by Kaisercraft using black Archival Ink. Next I edged the page with the Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink and a blending tool and splattered the whole page with white and black DecoArt acrylic paint. The eggs and flowers are made from felt and are stuck to the page using a UHU glue pen and glue dots. I drew lines on the page for the stems and then covered them with either strips of black gems or black border Glitterations stickers. I also added some little black flower stickers and the words “smile” and “fun” which are stickers from Sandylion Sticker Designs and stamped some leaves from Hampton Art using black Archival Ink. To finish, I fussy cut a “Happy Easter” banner which I recycled from an advertising leaflet, backed it with white card, edged it with a black Faber-Castell Big Brush marker and stuck it to the page using double-sided tape.

Continuing the Easter theme, here are some of the little chicks and eggs that are adorning my seasonal window (grin!)

There are about 24 chicks adorning the branches – aren’t they cute!

Challenges

I’m glad I found out about Challenge Blogs as I enjoy taking part, they provide me with inspiration for my pages and are a wonderful way to meet like-minded arty people. So here are the challenges I’m joining today:

Over at Moo Mania and More the theme is Happy Easter so I’m pleased to join in the fun and wish you all a Happy Easter!

I’m pleased to be able to join the lovely Rosie from Rosie’s Bastelwelt who is hosting the Spring challenge over at Art Journal Journey with my colourful springtime Easter page.

I enjoyed using stamping and stencilling to create this page so I’m also happy to join the Stencils & Masks challenge over at The Artistic Stamper.

I’m also joining the Use a stencil and Three Mediums challenge over at The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge as I used stencils and at least three mediums which included Distress Inks, Brushos and Acrylic paints to create my Happy Easter page.

I’m also joining the Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday challenge as I used a fun inking technique layering the different Distress Inks using stencils and a blending tool to create my colourful Easter art journal page.

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Here is a list of all the materials used to create this art journal page:

• Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Spiced Marmalade, Peacock Feathers, Mustard Seed, Picked Raspberry)
• Colourcraft Brusho Colours (Leaf Green)
• DecoArt Crafter’s Acrylic (White, Black)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Faber-Castell Big Brush Pitt artist pen (Black 199)
• Derwent Graphik Line Marker (Black 0.8mm)
• Dutch Doobadoo Dutch Mask Art A5 (Geometric Tiles)
• Creative Stencils Craft Essentials (MAOB0004 – Stars)
• Kaisercraft Clear Stamp (Script CS752)
• Hampton Art Bella Blvd cling mounted rubber stamps (Surf & Turf ICO226
• Advertising leaflet
• White card
• Poundland (Design Gems 175751)
• Docrafts Papermania Glitterations Stickers (Black Border ANT8181015)
• Sandylion Sticker Designs Kelly Panacci (Stitches & Borders KSCB102)
• Aldi (Easter Collection Bonnet Accessories 25099751)
• Home Bargains (Decorative Sticks 38352)
• Wilko (Sticky Dots)
• UHU Glue Pen
• The Range double-sided foam tape

Around The World In Eighteen Postage Stamps

I participated in the challenge-blog over at Art Journal Journey last month and had so much fun that I was trying to think of ideas to join in with this months theme of “Maps” which is being hosted by Mary. Don’t you find you get inspired in the most peculiar places? I recently saw a book title on a table while waiting for an appointment, and all of a sudden I knew the page I wanted to create – “Around The World In Eighteen Postage Stamps”. This title of course (as you have probably guessed) is a play on the famous book Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. However in my case, the world and the stamps represent some of the countries I have visited in my lifetime and I haven’t visited 80 countries so 18 it is!

The background is made of pages from a stamp album, I gave them a vintage feel by using Distress Inks and stamped some luggage tickets onto them using Archival Ink. The map image is one I had in my craft stash and I selected the countries that I wanted to display and then cut it into a globe shape to represent the world. Again I applied Distress Ink behind the world cutout and used a glue stick to stick it down. I didn’t want to use a line for each stamp as it would look too busy, so I clustered them into rough geographic groups and attached them with foam tape for a 3D look. The lines and pin heads are stickers and give a nice neat finish. Finally I stamped then coloured and attached the banner. This was a fun page to create as it brought back so many memories of my travels!

If you’re wondering where I got all these lovely stamps from, my hubby has kindly given me his old stamp collection from when he was a child. I am so honoured to have this as part of my craft stash and am so excited that I got to use them for such a memorable and enjoyable page. Thank you hubby!

In case you are interested, the stamps are from Great Britain, Jersey, Guernsey, France, Belgium, Austria, Czech Republic, Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Spain, USA and Canada. There is more than one stamp from the USA, because I have been there more often. Hope you like the page and I would love to know how many countries you have you visited?

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Here is a list of all the materials used to create this art journal page:

• Tim Holtz Distress Inks (Tea Dye, Brushed Corduroy)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Faber- Castell Big Brush Pitt artist pen (Black 199)
• Uni Pin Fine Line marker (Black 0.1mm)
• Script metallic pen (Silver)
• Papermania Urban stamps (All Aboard – Tags PMA907178)
• Dovecraft upper and lower case alphabet stamps (WDW Alpha Stamp DCVW0030)
• Sandylion Kelly Panacci Scrapbook Collection (Stitches & Borders KSCB102)
• Home Bargains Sticker Mania (Gel Stone Stickers 74749)
• Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
• The Range glue stick
• The Range double-sided foam tape
• WHSmith stamp album pages
• World map (unknown)
• Postage stamps