Words and Numbers

Hello all!  Yes, that's right, it's Words and Numbers today at Words and Pictures!  

That's the theme for this month's Artistic Stamper challenge.  We'd love you to come and play along... you could win a voucher to buy £15 of Artistic Stamper stamps.  You don't have to use AS stamps on your project, but if you do you get two entries to the draw.  

You can find all the challenge details - plus lovely inspiration from some of my team-mates - right here, but first let me show you what I came up with.  (Oh, and thank you for all the feedback on the exciting Vintage Journey news - hope to see all of you there playing along, come the 7th March!)

My project is a jumbo tag using the brilliant Artistic Stamper collage set Family Values.  I've used all three stamps in the set, all of them with Words and Numbers involved.




I started with a tag and a couple of ATC dividers (picked up in some sale somewhere at some point!) and some Distress Stains to create a base for my stamping.

As you can see, I started in a bluesy mood...

I stamped all the stamps over the blues in Potting Soil Archival ink.  

There are the two ATC-sized stamps - one letters, and one numbers.













And then the large stamp, which is very substantial - 5.5 by almost 4 inches in size, and full of delicious detail.












I cut the ATCs with the Movers and Shapers hearts die to create embellishments reflecting perhaps the most important of the Family Values mentioned: love.












By this stage, the inky colours had warmed up a bit to include Peacock Feathers, Rusty Hinge and Vintage Photo, blended on with a blending tool.

I printed the quote from the computer - another Albert Einstein favourite... he does crop up pretty often in my quotations collection - and then inked up the slightly textured paper to match the rest of what was going on.














I went rummaging for Idea-ology bits and bobs which would reflect other important values...













... knowledge, security, time together...
















And I had fun altering a couple of the metallic numbers with Distress Paints...













I used Vintage Photo and Broken China, if I remember rightly.















The topping is some seam-binding dyed with Distress Stains, and then tied with Idea-ology Paper String in my usual manner.











So there you go... 

What are the things you count on?  

What words hold your family together (or apart)?  

That's how I found my way into the theme this month at The Artistic Stamper... I can't wait to see how you interpret Words and Numbers for us.  Hope to see you there.



Words and numbers are of equal value, for, in the cloak of knowledge, one is warp and the other woof.  It is no more important to count the sands than it is to name the stars.  Therefore, let both kingdoms live in peace.
From The Phantom Tollbooth (a work of genius!) by Norton Juster