More tag book pages finished

The only thing to do when you feel low and full of a cold is to cheer yourself up with a bit of cutting and sticking right?  That was my Sunday afternoon in my craftroom playing with the little pages of my tag book and some more of Sarah's Steampunk digital cd.

As you can see the ink sprays were out along with sewing machine and some other bits and pieces to really make it look artsy fartsy.

I made good use of the transparency sheets, printing the stamps onto them to layer over the papers.

In the page below I inked over the whole page with Distress ink then sprayed with a little water to create the watermarks on the paper.  I love that effect for getting an aged look and it works especially well with Distress inks.

Lots of sewing and inky fun.

For the page below, I sprayed ink through a Crafters Workshop stencil and straight away turned it over to print the ink directly onto the next tag. I loved how that turned out so kept the design on the page pretty simple.

Guest designer at Infiniment Scrap

I was very honoured recently to be invited to become a guest designer on the Infiniment Scrap blog.  When I was sent the e-mail by Isabelle who owns Infiniment Scrap, I was blown away and very pleased with myself.  I've admired for a long time their stamps and the work which their DT do especially my good friend Laury, who was responsible for giving my name to Isabelle in the first place :)

I was given the chance to use some of their stamps on a project of my choosing and thought I'd create a canvas turning it into a mini tutorial at the same time.  The canvas was an absolute joy to put together and I'm very very happy with the result.

Here's a closer look:

For the full list of stamps used and to see the tutorial (in French) click here.  For any French speakers who may be visiting my blog I'll also provide a French translation below.

J'ai eu l'énorme honneur récemment d'être invitée à participer au blog "Infiniment Scrap" en tant que "Guest Designer". J'étais super contente et, je dois l'avouer, très fière de moi-même de recevoir l'email de la part d'Isabelle, propriétaire du blog. Depuis longtemps, j'ai admiré leurs tampons et les oeuvres de leur DT, particulièrement ceux de mon amie Laury qui a lancé cette collaboration en parlant de moi à Isabelle.

Ainsi, j'ai eu la possibilité de travailler avec leur tampons sur un des mes propres projets. J'ai opté de créer un canevas, dont la mise en forme pouvait servir en même temps comme tutoriel. J'ai ressenti un réel plaisir d'utiliser ces matériaux et j'ai été ravie du résultat.

Mini tag book

I've been playing with the new papers and stamps on the brand new Steampunk cd by Sarah Hurley.  It's packed with gorgeous papers and fabulous stamps. 

I've started this little tag book, putting it together by covering the chipboard cover with Sarah's backing paper and decorating with a fabulous digi stamp which I printed out onto acetate so I could layer it over the paper.  This is a good way to print digi stamps so you can use them as overlays, you get a much more interesting effect. The words and bunting are also from the cd as well as the clock and wings.  The page at the bottom was a rather interesting wood effect which I created by dragging my wood graining tool through paint then rubbing it over with distress ink.

Carnaval is here.

Carnaval, Mardi Gras call it what you like, it all adds up to a party in any language.  My Stamp Box today are celebrating with the Design Team and we've all taken the theme to our hearts. 

I used a plain papier maché mask and after putting gesso on it, I glued down lots of little squares of purple tissue paper.  I stamped and embossed in gold the circles from the Funky Circles stamp set by MSB, also onto some tissue squares and glued that down too, right on top.  I stamped and embossed a couple of butterflies by MSB and added liquid pearls, feathers and a gorgeous jewel on the top.  I love it.  You'll find lots of inspiration here to get you going this week what ever you're up to.

Here's a closer look at my mask:

What a load of junk!

A little while back I set the Yahoo group of mini book lovers off on a challenge to make and swap junk journals.  It was a project which I'd thought about for a long time and hadn't got around to doing so I opened it up as a swap on the group to give them something to think about.  At the time I didn't have time to take part personally but the idea still sat with me.  Then a few weeks ago my partner in crime Lena suggested we made a mixed media/recycled book project with the Mozaik group.  That set me off again on my junk journal dreams and I set to diving into my drawer .... ahem......drawers of hoarded stuff.  There was stuff in there I'd completely forgotton about and overlooked, so out it came.

I started off with a long black cardboard presentation envelope, it says Valentino on the back so I was sure not to cover that up!!  (hope you're reading this Camille),  then layering book pages, calendar pages, tags tickets and packaging together, I just ran the whole thing through the sewing machine.

When it came to embellishing it I turned to my stamps from My Stamp Box and yet more tickets, labels and ribbon.  The only things to have been bought were some journaling spots by Tattered Angels and a black chalk tag by Canvas Corp.

So here it is but be warned, there's alot of it:

The closure is a piece of ribbing taken from a wool (felted) jumper.

The two playing cards conveniently had my initials on so in they went too.

The tea page was the acetate used in the stamps from My Stamp Box which I painted with gesso and sprayed with ink before stamping the tea cup.



So there we are.  The project is featured today on the My Stamp Box blog as a show and tell. 

I had a great deal of pleasure putting this together and have so much more stuff to make loads more journals too.

Also, My Stamp Box is having a DT call so if you fancy your chances why not apply.  You can find all the details here.

Tag for challenge 60

It's challenge day on the Sarah Hurley challenge blog and we're being sponsored by Happy Hippo who are actually giving away a die by Sizzix.  I've used a tattered banner Alterations die and one of the Alterations movers and shapers hearts. I also used some of the papers from the Valentine digi kit by Sarah Hurley and a beautiful background stamp by Infiniment Scrap.  (You'll be hearing more about them later in the month).

An introduction to alcohol inks.

Lesson 6 is up on the Craft Academy web site and it's an introduction to using alcohol inks.  I had so much fun making the tutorial for this lesson and the ATC's above are what I ended up with.  I love using Alcohol inks as the effects are striking.  Not too friendly on your fingers though - note to self, wear gloves if you're going out otherwise you'll look like you've had some nasty accident! 

Anyway, thanks to Kuretake for providing the inks for the tutorial and My Stamp Box for the flower stamps.  I also used some Ranger inks.



Yet more lovin'

While I was on the lurve theme I thought I'd put together another card using the Valentine digi kit by Sarah Hurley.  I absolutely adore these papers and just could not decide which ones to use, so I just used as many as I could before it was in danger of being over crowded!!  The only additions by me are the mini doily and the prima flowers. 

The 5th Craft Academy lesson is up today and Clare has put together an extreemly useful tuto on using Promarkers.  Also there's still another few days to enter the challenge on the challenge blog.

Gettin' all loved up.

As Valentines Day is only 5 sleeps away, I've been getting in the mood with some projects and getting all loved up. These two projects are featuring my Alcohol inks from Kuretake. Both the backgrounds in the ATC's were created using alcohol ink on white glossy cardstock. The heart was die cut from book page and gesso added to it to dull the print down. I used an Art and Graphic twin pen in pink to colour it in and a gold painty pen to highlight the embossing on the front. The butterfly was stamped by colouring directly onto the stamp with a blue Art and Graphic twin pen which gives great results.


The heart on the tag is a piece of acetate which has also been coloured with alcohol ink.

On the Kuretake blog they're hosting their very first challenge with some wonderful prizes up for grabs. So if you're up for the challenge go and take a look.

Blue and Purple

The blog for My Stamp Box is having an all play along the theme of Blue and Purple.  I made this little card using the Garden Sketches stamps and coloured it using my Art and Graphic Twin pens from Kuretake using the water colour technique I used in my tutorial on the Craft Academy web site a while back.

Get set for Valentines Day.

Oooo a little bit later than I intended but here's my card made for the latest challenge with Sarah Hurley.

Sarah has created a brand new download kit especially for Valentines Day and I have to say I just love the colours and patterns on the papers.  Gorgeous.  They go so well with Craft cardstock. The kit is called Love Letters and contains backing papers, toppers, digi stamps and everything else in between.   It's available from Sarah's Etsy shop here.

Anyway you can always join the challenge too if you click here.

Last day of the new stamps from CHA

Today is the last day of the CHA new stamps reveal from My Stamp Box.  My card was made using the "Striped Stems" flowers.  They have a really pretty sketchy, whimsical feel and would look great in my journal which I'll have to try.

As with the other days if you leave a comment on the MSB blog you can win yourself a set of stamps.