All Heart.....

This week at the Sunday Stampers Challenge, the lovely Hels has challenged us to incorporate HEARTS into our art work.  This gave me the chance to test out a stamp I bought last year at the craft show in October.......sadly I never even took it out of the packet until today!!  Anyhoo a tag is my substrate & my faithful distress inks, some Tim Holtz tissue tape & chit chat stickers, a bit of doodling and there you have it!!  I hope you like it as I was really quite happy with it myself and thoroughly enjoyed playing.........so good to be crafting again.

Have a lovely weekend everyone, take care & as always....Happy Crafting!!!

Hugs
Ann xx

In the Pink

Oooh I have been a nawty blogger, haven't I? Appologies to all who dropped in looking for some new cards etc.  I have been busy crafting but 'real life' kinda took over & with lots going on I'm afraid my blog suffered. I'm back now and raring to go :)

My son was watching me whilst I was playing with my distress paints and inks, and commented that I always stick to blues & greens - they are my favourite colours!!!  So he challenged me to create a tag using Pink & Black, with a some amount of white..........

So this is what I came up with.  The stamp I've used is from Stampington Company, the background was created by swooshing pickled raspberry, black soot & picket fence distress paints onto my craft mat & spraying with water.

I also used masks from Prima & Dylusions ranges to break up the background of the tag, ribbon is from Creative Studios by Sam Poole. Hope you like my tag???  I've just discovered a lovely challenge blog called That Craft Place and their current theme for October is think PINK!!  So I thought I'd enter my tag, why not drop by their blog and see the gorgeous samples made by their design team.
I'm off to catch up with some more crafty goings on......Take care & Happy Crafting

Ann xx

Compendium of Curiosities # 2 - Challenge

I've decided to play along with the lovely Linda Ledbetters' challenge using Tim Holtz new book - A Compendium of Curiosities II , for details how to participate click on the link on my sidebar OR  Linda's name above.   This is week one & the challenge is to follow the technique described by Tim in his new book.......which you can find on page 66/ Making Custom Foam Stamps.  I created a tag following the instructions & added a few more bits too.  This weeks sponsor is Simon Says Stamp and if you enter you have a chance to win a shopping voucher from their online store, which of course stock humungous amounts of Ranger goodies!!
Hope you like my tag, unfortunately I cannot divulge how I made it as it would be unfair to Tim, so check out page 66 of a Compendium of Curiosities to make your own tag, card or whatever takes your fancy!
Thanks for looking & as always......
Happy Crafting!!!

Ann xx

CC101 Day Three - My Tags

Hello Everyone!

Today we had a fabulous lesson involving archival inks, alcohol inks & using embossing folders!  I really enjoyed the class, but as always it's over way too quick.  Once again I'll share my attempts at the techniques we were shown by Tim, I have to say I'm not entirely pleased with my attempts today but I made a promise to blog my 1st attempt at everything as I believe that's the only way I'll improve..........less babbling & here's today's tags.

Tag 1 - Using alcohol inks onto glossy card stock, colours as follows: wild plum, sailboat blue, red pepper, butterscotch & sunshine yellow. Gold mixative & blending solution.  Stamps used were from Paperartsy, Creative Expression & of course Tim Holtz with some ideology cogs & clock spinner.

Tag 2 - Once again' glossy card stock, and Archival Inks - colours, Aqua, Carnation & Tangerine.  Distress Inks - Brushed Corduroy.  Stamps used are from Artistic Stamper (Dots) & again Timmy stamps.

Tag 3 -  I used a size 8 manilla tag from Ranger, cuttlebug folder and the following colours of Distress Inks :-
Crushed olive, shabby shutters, tumbled glass, festive berrie.  The heart stamp was a freebie from Craft Stamper Magazine.

I'm not really very pleased with the red area of the tag as I didn't blend it properly.......but, we live & learn!!

Hope you enjoyed my tags & please feel free to leave a comment, as I love to know what you think, it's great to get constructive feedback from your peers.  Thanks for dropping in, Take care and as always.......
Happy Crafting!

Ann xx

Day 2 of CC101 - My Tags

Hello Bloggers/Friends,

This is only day two of Tim's online creative chemistry 101 and already I've learned tons about all the different inks, stamps, materials and how they react with each other!!! Anyhoo I thought I'd share my feeble attempts with you and maybe you'll leave me a wee comment to let me know how you think I'm doing? The tag above was made using a variety of Distress Inks - Tumbled glass, barn door, crushed olive, wild honey, mustard seed and edged with brushed corduroy.

My next tag was stamped onto water colour paper and mounted onto a tag I made from Kraft cardstock. The colours of Distress Inks I used were - Pine needles, crushed olive, spiced marmalade, barn door. To frame the stamped image I used Frayed burlap and pumice stone DI's.

My third tag was once again composed using Distress Inks in the following colours :- Rusty
hinge, spiced marmalade, crushed olive & mustard seed, using the wrinkle free technique.

So that's my efforts for today!!!  Many thanks for having a look, hopefully see you again for tomorrows efforts!

Take care & as always......Happy Crafting!

Ann x

Object D'Art Challenge/Lots to Do Challenge

It seems like a lifetime since I took part in any challenges, so what better way to start the year by combining two challenges in one?? Jennie has set a Tag challenge on the Object D'Art Challenge Site (click on sidebar) and Hilda on Lots To Do has set the theme of Time............so there we have it, a tag with Time as the theme!! The stamp used & highlighted with glossy accents is available from Jennie at The Artistic Stamper. I'd love your comments & please click on the image for a closer view. Thanks for looking!!

Tag Swap

This months swap is Quotes, Sayings & Phrases. This is one tag - both sides
I did make another tag but for some reason I can't find the photo's!!! Even though I know I did take photo's...........it must be an age thing!!!
Lol!! Would love your comments & thanks for visiting & having a peek.

Birthday Pocket Book

This is a little pocket book & tags for a friends Birthday, it's made following the instructions in Tim Holtz Distressables book (pages 42 & 43). I hope she likes it!! I added blooms & brads to embellish & finish it off.

Lots To Do Challenge Wk21 - Oriental

Alison over at the Lots To Do Forum has set this weeks challenge as Oriental, so I decided to make a tag, I used one of the white chipboard tags - available from The Artistic Stamper website, and applied spiced marmalade distress ink, then blended in some broken china & cranberry inks & then sprayed with glimmer mists. On another piece of card I stamped an Oriental Kimono & coloured it with my watercolour pencils & galaxy markers, I put the kimono onto the tag with 3d foam, then added a ribbon & some gems to finish off the tag. Hope you like it & thanks for looking!!

Oriental Tags

Theses are tags I made for a monthly swap I'm involved in. I used the new white chipboard tags from The Artistic Stamper site & stamped the main image using black stazon ink, then I made a 'mask' for it and stamped a cherry blossom stamp & some characters to create a background image. Next I blended some colours using a variety of Tim Holtz distress ink pads & Adirondack pads - I used cut n dry foam - which I'm not very good with, but trying anyway!!! Left to dry & continued the same process with the 'fans' tag. I covered the reverse side of both tags with some red oriental style papers I've had for ages - unused, of course!!! Then added ribbon to complete the tags. I hope you like them, thanks for looking & all comments appreciated!

Vintage Tags

These are my 2nd attempt at vintage style tags, as the 1st set I made went missing in the post!!
Basic luggage tags, spritzed with water & distress inks, edged with gold krylon pen, fibres attached & small charm attached to each tag too. Have to say they were rushed & not as good as my 1st attempts!!

Lots To Do First Challenge

As this is a new challenge blog, the ladies there decided on the theme 'From little acorns.....'
So this is my 'take' on that. I used a stamp by Anna Griffin of an Oak tree, which I coloured using colorbox petal point inks onto a white atc size of card, I edged the sides with dark green ink. Then matted this onto a green tag, attached a skeleton leaf with a leaf shape brad & added some acorns!!
First challenge complete!!!

Tag Swap - Flowers

These are my tags for Hels monthly tag swap, the theme for March is Flowers and I have quite a lot of flower stamps so it took forever just to pick out the stamps to use!!! Then when I did get around to making the tags..........I lost my mojo!!!! I did a couple & have still to add some fibres to finish them off.....and have to make some more to replace the ones I binned ^_^ .

My first attempt at masking technique

This is a technique I've been meaning to try for ages, so I did!!! And I was quite pleased with efforts - I think we'll be seeing a whole lot more of this in the future!!!! What do you think???

Funky Fairy Challenge 9

This week's challenge is to make a tag (s) or add a tag to a card.............well as I've been busy making tags, I decided to make a card with a pocket this time to enclose the tag!!! I chose a lovely blue paper from the Dovecraft designer pack of papers, covered my card with it, then made a small pocket in which I put a cream scalloped tag, coloured with Adirondack Stream coloured inks, blended in some butterscotch, heat dried it then stamped a butterfly & the saying "Always In My Thoughts". Finally I added some gorgeous fibres in coordinating colours to the tag. Please feel free to leave a comment & thanks for reading ^_^ !!!

The Sunday Stampers - Week 5 - Time

This week's theme for The Sunday Stampers is Time, once again I decided to make a tag as I really do enjoy messing about with my inks & getting messy!! I used a fob watch stamp from The Artistic Stamper, and also a stamp from a qvc kit, the inks I used were my favourites at the moment, Adirondack Butterscotch & Cabin Fever. I finished the tag with fibres & sanded down the sides.

Love & Romance Tag Swap

Yet another Tag swap!!! Theme as the title says as is hosted by Claire, I made 3 tags using medium size luggage labels which I covered fully on one side & only partially on the other with Brena Pinnock papers, I then added an image from Joanna Sheen cd. & on the reverse side wording from a Sharon Duncan cd. I finished the tag off by edging with peel-off, some epoxy love heart stickers & lovely fibres. (Please click on photo for clearer view)

Paper Artsy Tag Swap

The February Tim Holtz Style tag swap hosted by Hels has the theme of using Paper Artsy stamps, well as I only have one plate & one small stamp I was a bit limited in what I could do, but I think I managed quite well - what do you think???
(Click on photo's for better view)