Something beginning with S

Hello all, and welcome to the start of a new week and another new theme over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.  This week they are looking for "Something beginning with S", so I have a journal page Spread for you.

I'm thrilled to be guest-designing alongside the amazing Simon Says team for the month of June.

They always offer up such incredible inspiration, with such a variety of styles, techniques and ideas.  Once you're done here, do hop over and see what the others have been creating beginning with the letter S.

When my Idea-ology Portraits arrived - that's the large scale head-and-shoulders chap in the centre - I started by putting a few of them with some Pocket Cards as a first step in gathering ideas.  

This is the third of the portraits to get its expanded version.  So far they've all made their way onto journal spreads - one in this same altered book...

... and one in a square format journal.  But this is the first of the men to see any action.

The large scale of these Portraits busts makes them a really great focal point for a spread or a large tag, and then it's just a question of building the collage around them and, in my case, the story that tells itself as I'm making.

The Pocket Cards come in several different sizes and shapes, with the designs recurring in different scales, so they are great for coordinated collaging.

The ephemera here also includes elements from the new Memoir Ephemera pack (the Antiquités label for one), and the photographers advertisement panel behind his head is cut from some older 12x12 TH paper. 

There are Number Strips Snippets, and lots of my much-loved tiny Halloween Snippets labels.  Clearly, as a respected antiques dealer, he is meticulous in recording the provenance of every piece he buys, as well as keeping details of the journeys he personally makes to follow up each lead.

There's also one of the new Transparent Things butterflies, which I cruelly cut in half so that I could have half a wing on each side of the spread.  (It's always seemed to me one of the cruellest forms of collecting - those trays and trays of beautiful butterflies impaled on pins for the collector's pleasure.)

I didn't really mean the hinge clips to look like replacement bionic wings, but when I was taking the photos, I realised that that's what had happened.

These cheap clips were a dirty gold colour which really wasn't very appealing, so I used some Mushroom Alcohol Ink and Jet Black Archival Reinker to give them a more industrial look.

The Small Talk stickers add some words - you know I always like to have some words somewhere.  As always, the right phrases just seemed to appear... 

I don't remember noticing either of these before, but suddenly there they were.  And for a buyer and seller of antiques, the words could hardly be more appropriate.... don't you agree?

You can also see the crackle paste I applied fairly randomly over my gesso'd book pages.  I used various inks and paints to give the whole thing a grungier, vintaged look, as well as the Design Tape Trim which just adds another delicious layer of tiny detail to the spread.

A Muse Token and a Number Token give another little metallic lift to the whole thing.  I certainly think he has the knowledge necessary for the career he's chosen, and he looks a trustworthy chap to me.  

If you're looking to invest in some antiques, you could definitely do worse than to avail yourself of his services!

So I hope you like this journal SPREAD, and I hope your brains are now teeming with things beginning with S!  But if they're not, you can always hop over to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the team will give you another nudge.  (Or check out the quote at the end of this post!!!)

As always the challenge is generously sponsored by the Simon Says Stamp store...

... and there's a $25 gift voucher available for one lucky, randomly-picked winner, as well as spotlight mentions if your project is chosen by the Design Team members.

I hope you have fun with your Ss, and I'll see you again soon.  Happy crafting, all!

The shelves of this store are stacked with stock. You will find a steamship, a sailing ship, and even a spaceship. There are several sorts of shoe and scores of signs and symbols. There is a sketch of a squinch, a selection of shells (not all from the sea), a siamang settled on a seat, a sponge to be studied, and sundry stuff suspended from strings. In all I included 1,234 Ss for you to see.

From The Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks

Monarchs of the Ice

Hello all!  I'd like to invite you to go hopping over to the PaperArtsy blog where I've been busy playing with the current Stamp Mash Up theme.  This fortnight we've all been combining stamps by Lynne Perrella, Ellen Vargo, Gwen Lafleur and me, Alison Bomber!  Here's a sneak peek of what I came up with... may I introduce you to the Monarchs of the Ice?

You can see stamps from all the designers in the mash-up except me in this sneak peek... To find the words, you'll just have to hop over to PaperArtsy.

Of course, there are also lots more photos and plenty of information about the making-of process - it wasn't all smooth skating! - as well as some more close-up angles.  And it's really worth having a scroll around while you're there to see the different projects this combination of designers' stamps has inspired.  There are even a couple more to come after this one.  

In any case, I hope you enjoy your visit to the sparkling kingdom of ice shards and snowflakes, and that it inspires you to combine your stamps in new ways too.

Thanks so much for stopping (and for hopping), and I'll see you again soon... or not, given that my laptop may be about to die on me as I write this - which is a week before you're reading it.  Please keep your fingers crossed for me!!  Either way, happy crafting all!

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.
John Burroughs

Dreams, Thoughts, Moments

Hello all, and thank you so much for stopping by.  I'm in denial about the date (moving is imminent), but I can't deny that it's Friday and time for a new challenge at A Vintage Journey.  The wonderful Toni is our host, and she's looking for Pairs, Trios and Sets.  This is definitely a challenge after my own heart - I create in pairs, trios and sets more often than not, so here's what I came up with...

There's obviously a wealth of inspiration from my fellow Creative Guides over at A Vintage Journey, but before you go, let me share a few close-ups and details of this leafy tag trio.  I'll try to keep it short, as I don't have many spare moments as I try to bring my dreams and thoughts to fruition by moving to a new country in the middle of a global pandemic!!

I'm mostly crafting in quick sessions and then throwing things together from those sessions.  So the backgrounds were from some quick inky playtime to start the day before packing.

There are both Distress Inks and Oxides here - a range of colours, not sure I can be comprehensive with a list of colours...

... but somewhere in there are definitely Vintage Photo, Crackling Campfire, Faded Jeans, Broken China, Walnut Stain, Rusty Hinge, Stormy Sky.

And then just lots of dipping and smooshing and water-spritzing, always drying between layers to get the inky splotches I love.

The other crafting session was one inspired by Tim Holtz's Saturday demo on leaf-making... not that I need any encouragement to make autumn leaves, as anyone who's been paying attention around here lately could tell you.

But I did have a lovely time playing with inks, dies, embossing folders, stamps, mica sprays, and gilding wax to create this pile of leaves ready for shushling through.

Many are cut using the Fall Foliage Thinlits dies, some of which have stamping to give the impression of vein texture while some have the wonderful 3D Leaf Veins embossing folder adding glorious actual impressions.

Some come with their own embossing built in - the dark Impresslit leaves, for instance...

And some come with their own embossing folder included with the die - these large Layered Leaf ones, which have been longtime favourites.

The shimmers of Treasure Gold White Fire gilding wax add to the burnishing of the Distress Mica Spray which you can see gleaming in places.

So, with the backgrounds and the leaves all ready to go, it was just a question of grabbing a couple of other bits and bobs to create my little collages for each tag.  I try to position things so that it creates a nice journey for the eyes travelling from tag to tag as well as looking at the whole set.

Photobooth photos often seem to do the trick.  They're really useful when you're creating a set or group because you have an element which is the same, but always different because each face, each personality is different.

Though I will confess I deliberately sought out some nice cheerful expressions for this particular trio... trying to keep my own chin up as moving day draws closer and there still seems to be a LOT to do.

The cheesecloth scraps serve a double function - creating a pale layer between the leaves and the background, so that they show up better...

... and creating lots of movement and delicious organic randomness with the frayed threads escaping all over the shop.

The film strip offers great vertical architecture to give the otherwise organic and scruffy collaging a sense of structure.

It also catches the light beautifully - which, as regulars will know, is an ongoing obsession in my creative journey.

There have to be words - this is Words and Pictures after all...

... so I did a bit of snipping of some Quote Chips to get individual words to suit my mood and the look of the tags.

And a bit of Rusty Hinge/Crackling Campfire/Vintage Photo blending around the edges makes them pop as well as tone in with the autumnal theme all around them.

Some simple fine twine to top things off, and we're pretty much there, I think.

I hope you'll be inspired to create some Pairs, Trios or Sets this month with us.

There are some wonderful projects over at A Vintage Journey to help kick you into action so do take a look.

As always, we'll be picking some of our favourites to feature on our Pinworthies Pinterest boards at the end of the month.  So I hope we'll see you somewhere down the road with your group projects!!

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  Stay safe, stay well out there - or even better, stay in and stay creative.  See you all again soon.

How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and colour are their last days.
John Burroughs

Country View Challenges are playing Anything But A Card this month so I'd like to play along

At Tag Tuesday the new theme for this fortnight is Texture - plenty of that going on here!

Almost all these leaves are dry Embossed so I'm sharing them at Try It On Tuesday

Gothic Text

Hello all, and a happy weekend to you, or as one would say in Czech, "Hezký víkend!"  I'm here with a quick post (I hope... #newbloggersucks) to share another pair of the tags I made while I was over in the Czech Republic trying to make sure all the building work would be done so that all the packing I'm now doing over here will have somewhere to go.  Confused?  Not as much as me, I guarantee!  Anyway, here are the tags...

I've called the post "Gothic Text" because not only is there gorgeous crackled Gothic text texture in the background, but there's also a Gothic font on the book page scraps which form part of the collaging.  That's what made me decide to share these now, so that I can play along with Sandie's Book Print theme at Tag Tuesday.

I had a lovely time wrinkle-free distressing, smooshing and dripping and splashing inks to create the backgrounds.

Again, Speckled Egg is the catalyst here, and it pairs so beautifully with some of my favourite rusty browns, Vintage Photo and Rusty Hinge.  

I think there might be some Broken China too, and it's all in a combination of Distress Inks and Oxides.

This isn't Tim's new stencil, but a recent one of Finnabair's in similar style, which I'd already snapped up a few months ago.  Irresistible when you love text as much as I do.

There's some collaging with Idea-ology film strip, ephemera and a Muse Token, rusted with paint (no alcohol inks in the travelling stash).

And a couple of brilliant Photobooth snapshots provide the real focal point that all the collaging is building up to.

I'm very happy with my crackled Gothic script on the one tag...

... and the printed stencil marks which you can find if you look closely on the other.

You also have to look quite closely to spot the book page fragments, but I promise they're there... in fact they were the first part of the collaging to take their place.

And I'm very taken with the clock sticker from the Tim Holtz Halloween Sticker Book (only I think it may be from last Halloween's edition, not the new one.

In any case, I like it so much I didn't want to waste any, so I cut it in half to use a bit on each tag!

I hope you like these.  I know it's pretty rare for me to use orange unless it's for autumn leaves, but if I think of it as rust, that helps me get over it!  Thanks so much for stopping by and I'll see you again on Monday with a very special post.  Hezký víkend and happy crafting all!

Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.

Robert Bringhurst

Every page should explode, either because of its staggering absurdity, the enthusiasm of its principles, or its typography.

Tristan Tzara

I'd like to share this pair of tags at Tag Tuesday for the Book Print theme there

#newbloggersucks  

Okay - does anybody else get the thing where you're adjusting the position of a photo and it randomly hops to the top of the post with a broken bit of text attached to it and now all messed up in alignment so that you have no choice but to remove the photo, delete and re-paste the text where it ought to be and start all over again uploading the photo?

Also, I apologise again for the appearance of my posts these days.  They're not as I would like them but #newbloggersucks.  And of course it takes nearly twice as long to get a result which I hate.  It's a bit soul-destroying when I used to enjoy this so much.

My thanks to all those trying to offer work-arounds and solutions.  I will try to explore everything in time, but I'm a little preoccupied with trying to move country at present, so #newbloggersucks hit at just the wrong time.