Molly on a Tag

Posts today are a bit like buses- none for ages then two show up at once!
 I decided that I would enter the Visible Image Blog April Challenge, which is Create A Tag, using at least one of their stamps. As you can tell from the title, I used another of my coloured Molly images. Apologies right now for shortage of pictures- I completely forgot whilst I was stamping.













This was the image I used, and I cut her out from the background with a scalpel. After that, I went around the edge of the image with a Black Promarker, to cover the white edges.

The tag itself was cut from a sheet of card I did some Distress Ink techniques with a few weeks ago- the DI re-inker was put onto a craft sheet, misted with water, then the card dipped into it. After that, I flicked some water over it, let it sit for a minute or two, then blotted it off with kitchen towel.

Festive Berries was the re-inker used, all the colour variation comes from the misting and water flicking. I stamped over all the tag with Ripped Fishnet, in Black Versafine, then heat embossed it using Crystal Sparkle embossing powder, for a bit of bling. Next I wrapped some black lace around the tag, securing it on the back with double sided tape. Over this I tied a narrow red ribbon into a bow.
The top of the tag had a hole punched, and a red eyelet put in. A skull embellishment was threaded onto some red eyelash wool, and tied through. Molly was mounted on the tag using silicone glue, for dimension.
Here is the tag enlarged, so you can see the Ripped Fishnet detail.

Supplies:
 Visible Image stamps, Molly Rules and Ripped Fishnet
 Distress Re-inker, Festive Berries
Onyx Black Versafine inkpad
 Crystal Sparkle embossing powder, Stampendous Stamp'n'Stuff
Black Lace
 Red Ribbon
 Red Fibres
Charm- mine came from Riverside Beads, in the Steampunk section.

Fly, Blackbird Fly

Had this stamp for ages, loved the image, not got around to using it before. I'm very big on crows, ravens & so on.




I stamped the image in Versafine Onyx Black, then started sponging on Red inks- I used a mix of DI & Adirondacks.  I started with Festive Berries, working in from the edges, letting it fade out towards the centre.

At this point, I punched a circle out of a Post-it note, and placed it in the central pale area. I didn't want a completely white moon behind the tree. I followed on with Barn Door, then Red Pepper.

After these inks, I trimmed my image down to size, so I wouldn't lose the darker edges later.Then I carried on, adding darker reds- Cranberry, Raisin and finally Aged Mahogany. The two types of ink blend together without any problems, which greatly increases possibilities.

The finished image, with the mask removed, to give me a pale red moon, and some area of lighter colour behind the main bird.
 Matted this onto black card, then I wanted a red matt for that. The only red to hand was far too bright, so I cut my mat to size, and sponged the outside with Red Pepper & Aged Mahogany to bring it closer to what I wanted.

I thought that it needed a background, so I took a sheet of black pearl paper & stamped the image again, randomly around the outside in Versamark. I heat embossed this with Black detail powder.





I stuck this to the card front with DST, and mounted the image onto it.

I took a phrase that fits the image from another stamp set, Dark Boundaries, stamped it in Black Versafine onto paper & inked it with reds again.









Final addition was a Bird embellishment,  from Riverside Beads,which I coated in Versamark & Black glitter embossing powder, and stuck down with a little Pinflair Glue gel.







Supplies:
Stampendous Cling Stamp Crowscape
Cherry Pie Artstamps,  Dark Boundaries, De Stempelwinkel.
Adirondack inkpads, reds
Distress Inkpads, reds
Versafine Onyx Black
Versamark Pad
Black detail embossing powder

Moon Collage cards

Two versions of a card using the same stamp here.
 For the first one, Distress Inkpads were dragged over a craft sheet, misted lightly with water, then white glossy card lay onto it.
 You can even use photo paper for this- in my Poundland, you can buy packs of 60 sheets of 4"x 6" for a quid- giving you loads to experiment with cheaply.




You can use it for a lot of inking techniques, but two things to remember:
 Don't try to heat emboss on it, or heat it to dry it out! The surface treatment starts to melt & burn.
 Also, it doesn't work very well for brayering blended colours. The ink sits wet on the surface for too long, and just tends to merge together into one colour.
Once the sheet had dried, I picked my stamp, and I love these sort of sheets for using with collage style images. I use my Stamp positioner to pick out the best placing for my image. You can also do this with a transparency sheet.
The image was stamped in Black Versafine and again left to dry. You could use Staz-on, which will dry instantly on this sort of surface.
I sprayed the base card with black webbing- that stuff is so messy, and goes everywhere!
 After all these bits were dry,I picked a blue and a pink pearl paper to matt the image onto, matting onto blue first, then cutting a slightly larger piece of pink paper. This one I cut diagonally from corner to corner then used these to frame the matted image, on opposite corners. Then I matted the whole thing again onto dull gold card.
 Once placed on the card front, I added a pocket watch embellishment in one corner, and some watch part cogs in the other. Also a blob of Glossy Accents to highlight one of the moon faces. The sentiment was stamped onto a scrap of inked card.

The second version was in my WOYWW post this week. This background was created slightly differently. It uses plain white card, nothing fancy, and Adirondack Inks on a craft sheet. The inks were misted with water like before, but because this is just plain white card, you get a matte finish, as the card soaks up the ink.It was stamped in Versafine again and just matted onto a black background.
 A sheet of purple card was embossed using a Tim Holtz embossing folder and used to cover the card blank.
The printed paper is from a Prima 6 x6 pad called Craftsman.

I tore a piece off and sponged Faded Jeans Distress Ink around the edges. The Tim Holtz message was stamped with the Faded Jeans ink onto a scrap of the paper and also edged with it. A few cogs added with Glossy Accents again, and a blob on a different moon face to finish.



Supplies:
Stampers Anonymous stamp,U5-708 Moon Collage
Prima  6x6  Paper Pad , Craftsman
Distress inkpads
Adirondack inkpads
Glossy Accents
watch parts(e-bay)
Embossing Folder, Tim Holtz Retro Circles  ( comes as a 2pack with Sunrays)
28x37mm Watch, Riverside Beads
Krylon Spray Webbing, Black

Birthday Steampunk

Another card from one of my stamped up pieces. The main panel was an inked piece of glossy card- just Distress  Inks swiped onto a craft or Splodge Away mat, then the white card dragged through, or dipped onto it. Its overstamped in Black Versafine when dry, with an assortment of paper Artsy stamps.
 Then I decided to cut it into squares and matt it as a mosaic, onto black card.
 The base card was covered in a sheet of black paper that had been sprayed with a Purple mica mist spray.
I added a torn strip of paper from the Chronology paper pack, which is a sort of dirty purple colour.

I sponged on some more colour to it with DI in Dusty Concord & Chipped Sapphire.

Then ran it through the Cuttlebug in the Clockworks Cuttlebug folder.




I brought out the embossing detail by swiping the Chipped Sapphire pad over the raised areas.

This was added to the card front with DST, then the mosaic panel added on top.
An assortment of metal embellishments were added with Glossy Accents along with a triple embossed heart.
 The Birthday word, from Chocolate Baroque, was stamped & heat embossed onto a scrap of the inked card.




Supplies:
Clocks Plate 1
Winter Wonderland Plate 1
Gentlemen Plate 4 all Paper Artsy
Clockworks embossing folder
Metal Embellishments, Riverside Beads and Artist Trading Post
Chronology Paper Pack, Papermania
How-to for the Triple Embossed Heart

Odds & Ends

A few more boxes to help satisfy my storage fetish!












Some more bits & pieces from Riverside beads- they have so much must-have stuff for embellishments, and yes I know it's supposed to be for jewellery making!.

 I also got a pack of Lavinia Stamps ready made backgrounds to try out.

Some really cool mulberry type paper, which I thought would make some great rosette snowflakes with the Tim Holtz die.

And I forgot these stamps in the other post, all by Paper Artsy.

Hobbycrafts NEC,November 2012- a few bits & pieces.

First addition to this years stash, was another visit to the Riverside Beads stand- for a selection of their Steampunk style charms. Skulls, cogs, watches etc etc, they make great embellishments for tags & cards.Available in a few finishes too- brass, antiqued silver and bronze for instance.

Next stop was the Sweet Poppy Stencils stand. You may know that a lot of their stencils are  designed by Tracey Dutton of Lavinia Stamps- and many are larger versions of her rubber stamps.

I bought these three- I love the Butterfly Tree. Actually, I just thought I should have included a ruler in the picture so you know how big they are! Right, been and measured them, the cat stencil is 3 1/2" x 4 1/2", the two tree ones are just under 4 1/2", x 5 3/4".


The smashing people at the Sweet Poppy stencils stand kindly allowed me to take some photos of their samples- these are the images which sold me on the stencils I bought! The cat stencil is completed using Black glitter over the stencil paste, and the trees stencil has had Abalone leaf added.

This last picture shows just how different the same image can look, depending on how you choose to complete it:

                                                  One stencil, three different looks.

 Everyone on the stands that I asked if I could take pictures for later inspiration very kindly said yes, and I would like to say thanks to all of them, I really appreciated it. I will post some more pics of what I bought later in the week, and if I have any pics of the inspiration for my purchases, those as well.