That's the Ticket!

Hi all, welcome to Words and Pictures, with an especially big welcome to the newest followers - I'm so happy to have you with me on the journey.


Those of you who've been around a while will probably have guessed that with a theme entitled Chic to be Shabby, I wouldn't be able to resist making another entry to this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.


And I also wanted to include some flourishes and swirls - seems like a very shabby chic ingredient - so that I could play along with the Fashionable Stamping Challenge's Swirls theme too, since I haven't managed to join in for a while.


So I got out another of my bargain MDF tickets (part of what's intended to be an album, but I've already used one as a hanging, and that's my plan for the rest too), and set to work.


Nothing went right with the first go, so I flipped over and started again - the bonus of working on a really sturdy, thick piece of MDF - and that's what you see here as the finished piece.

I started with a base coat of Fresco London Night, and then applied texture paste through the gorgeous Crafty Individuals stencil I got as part of my lucky candy win from the fabulous Lynne at Adorn (inspirational shabby chic work - do pay her a visit if you've never been).


Next step was to add some PaperArtsy crackle glaze, but I didn't want it all over the piece.  I think you can see the gloss of the areas I've applied it to in this picture.








Once all that was dry, it was time for the next coat of paint.  I used Fresco Snowflake and applied it with a brush in some areas (for good strong crackles) and sponged it on in others (for a finer porcelain crackle effect).

You have to work fast, as it will start cracking as soon as you apply it - lightning fast hands switching from brush to sponge and back again!

No need to be patient about drying times with this: you can blast it with the heat tool, but I've noticed you seem to get larger, more prominent cracks that way than if you just leave it to dry naturally.








Now time for some stamping - yay!  A bit of Papillon text rolled on in places, and the shabbiest chic sentiment, I think, of all the Tim Holtz ones.



And I did a bit of inky distressing with Vintage Photo and a touch of Gathered Twigs.  It highlights the texture paste flourish beautifully against the pale background.



Next step was to add some of my favourite sprigs and branches from the Autumn Leaves Silhouette Blossoms set - they never fail to make my heart sing.












I used some handmade paper to create the hearts, running them through the TH Damask embossing folder and then cutting them with the Mini-Hearts Movers and Shapers dies.


















They also got a bit of the Vintage Photo treatment, to highlight the swirls of the damask pattern.



The hearts are mounted on either single and double layers of padded tape to get them hovering at various heights over the shabby background.  



I hope that they, with the texture paste flourishes, will be enough P.O.P. to satisfy them over at Inspiration Journal this month.



They're looking for dimensionality, anything that stands out or "pops" (pops of colour also allowed, I believe).

The large flowers are, of course, my cheapo ones from The Range, clustered with the hearts and some of the tiny mulberry paper roses.















Both the large ones and the smaller white ones have had a go with the Distress Ink - mainly Vintage Photo, but a few strokes of Gathered Twigs for extra depth.

I decided I wanted to foreground the sentiment a little better, and at the same time add some more of the delicious handmade paper texture, so I stamped it again on the paper, tore it out, and inked the edges for definition.

The rough texture of the paper gives the stamping a fabulously shabby look!










The lovely delicate twine, fastened at the top with two of the smallest roses, came as part of another recent lucky win.  The extraordinary Polish artist Kasia of Papierowy Wymiar was giving away one of her amazing album creations, and I won the draw.  

Along with the album (a glorious combination of corrugated card and butterflies - clearly meant to be), she included lots of lovely bits and pieces wrapped in book pages and tied up with this delicious twine - as you can imagine, it went straight in my stash!

So that's my shabby chic giant ticket hanging... I hope you like it.  Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by, and (if I know you've been) I'll do my best to make a return visit as soon as I can.

I'd like to enter this in the following
Chic to be Shabby at Simon Says Stamp and Show
Swirls at the Fashionable Stamping Challenge
Pick and Mix, the inaugural challenge at Country View Challenges
Add a little P.O.P. at the Inspiration Journal

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
W.B.Yeats

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
Attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Friendship Tag

Hello all, a very warm welcome to you all, and an especially big welcome to the new followers - it's an absolute pleasure to have your company for the journey.

I've got a little something today using a Stampsmith stamp which delights me... she's called Serena, and the piece is inspired by this month's Stampsmith challenge Bags and Tags.  It's a tag in a bag!

I used a tissue bag which actually came as part of the packaging in a delivery from the Funkie Junkie Boutique - waste not, want not, you know!  It's quite shiny so I wasn't sure how well it would take the images, but I'm delighted to say it worked very nicely.

I think it's such a beautiful image that the only stamps I was prepared to use alongside it were from my favourite floral set, the Autumn Leaves silhouette branches.  I like that they're slightly thorny, not straightforwardly 'pretty'.

Serena is stamped in Color Box Archival in Khaki Green, and the stems are in Ranger Coffee Archival.

As well as being shiny, the bag is also translucent, so there's a lovely ghostliness to the image... according to the light she's either there or not quite there, a quality which I love!








On the tag inside, the Serena image is stamped in the same ink, but this time onto tissue paper.  I did some wrinkle-free distress on the tag surface using Bundled Sage and Frayed Burlap, so there's a textured inkiness already there... and then I glued the tissue-stamped image down, getting some actual wrinkles involved as I did so.






(I tried to keep Serena's face relatively wrinkle-free, however - a girl's got her pride after all.)  I love this technique which I discovered while playing recently.  It gives a great vintage look, almost like fabric.

On the reverse of the tag is another Stampsmith stamp, this time a quote very close to my heart.  I've always loved it and was so happy when I saw that it was available - it's pretty time-consuming to stamp such a long sentiment letter by letter!




Again, I've stamped it on tissue paper, and before sticking it I blended some Bundled Sage over the tag first.  I edged the tag with Frayed Burlap, and I also wiped it lightly over the creased surface of the tissue paper to highlight the wrinkles a little.


The tiny rusty heart here, and the one on the outside of the bag, are cut from some rusty experimenting I've been doing as part of the Andy Skinner Timeworn Techniques course online.  (You can see the results of another experiment here, and there'll be more to come I'm sure.)

In fact the tiny tags are also backed onto the rust, but I forgot to turn them over so that you could see.  And on the back of the large heart it says "LAUGH", since that's the most important thing for me within a friendship...  The words are stamped with another of my £1 alphabets - incredible bargain buys from The Range; I have three different fonts.





I attached them with very fine burlap twine, as the piece seemed too delicate for the bulkier regular one.


I loved making this, so I'm thinking it may not be my last entry in this month's Bags and Tags challenge!


I'm entering this in the following:
The Stampsmith's September challenge Bags and Tags with a Stampsmith stamp
The Fashionable Stamping Challenge at the moment is Anything Floral or Handmade Flowers
Simon Says Stamp would like us to Put a Stamp On It
Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stamper challenge is Stamped Flowers at Ink on my Fingers
It may not qualify, as I didn't actually buy the bag, but it did come from the Funkie Junkie Boutique, and so I would like just to share it at the Sunday Share at Frilly and Funkie
Another go in the Heck of a Challenge inaugural Anything Goes

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
Henry David Thoreau

Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer.
Anonymous

Friendship exists, clear and absolute from the beginning.  You don't make friends, you recognise them.
Isabel Paterson

La Sylphide

Hi all, thank you so much for stopping by... and a big welcome to the new followers - thank you for joining the gang!

I'm sharing a new stamp today - very in love with it - it's from The Stampsmith.  Their main focus  is on photo-real images, so it's pretty new for me, and I'm still experimenting with the best surfaces and inks to get the best possible stamped image.  But my experiments have been hanging around on my desk, so inevitably I started to slide papers and ink colours towards them, gathering ideas around them ready for the first card/project... and here it is:

Isn't she gorgeous?!  Ballet was my first love, so I'll understand if not everyone goes head over heels in the same way I do whenever I look at her!  I originally stamped her in Coffee Archival, but she's had some Victorian Velvet blended over too, to get that wine coloured depth.  The Paper Distresser came into its own giving some dimensionality to the edges of the thickish cardstock.

I wanted a really romantic background for her, but also one drawing on nature, given I feel she's a wood or water nymph of some kind.  From very early on, the ink pads which came out to sit round her were Vintage Photo, Weathered Wood, Stormy Sky and Victorian Velvet, and eventually I decided to just sling'em all in there!

I created the first layer of background using Tim Holtz's wrinkle-free distress technique: swiping the inks in patchwork direct onto my craft sheet, spritzing with water, and then laying and tapping the paper into the pools of colour until I had an effect I liked.  I cut it to frame my Sylphide, and then used the TH Paper Distresser to give some life to the edges.

I did mean to take a picture before I stuck the whole thing together, but I forgot - sorry! - so you'll have to make do with peering around the sides of the dancer.  






Next, I added possibly my most used stamp of all - one of the branches from the Autumn Leaves set, Silhouette Blossoms.  It's just the right amount of thorny, so not too florally sweet.  I put both some Coffee Archival and some Victorian Velvet onto the stamp, and used it to add a framing element in all four corners of the background.

The second background layer is the Tattered Angels texture stamp from the Architectural set applied in Coffee Archival to some Kraft paper, inked with Vintage Photo and Victorian Velvet, and subjected to the Paper Distresser too!

The leftover background trimmings got pressed into service too, as I so liked it.  First I stamped the tiny manuscript music from the Pink Paislee London Market set on the back of what was left.  Then one strip was left quite broad to create a 'ribbon' of music under her feet.

The rest I cut into very thin strips to create some fine paper ribbons for the embellishment in the top left of the card.

I do like doing this, as it means you can really co-ordinate your ribbon to the project.  You may remember other examples from previous projects.  


I curled some inwards and some outwards, so you get some with music showing and some with the ink colours.



I used two long attachers to loop some natural twine around and tied it in a simple bow, running along the line of the music.

The whole thing is mounted on white card, with a very fine, delicate edging of Stormy Sky.



I'm very happy with this card - I think there's quite a lot of me in it.  The colours really please me; I adore the random element in creating one of these inky backgrounds; and, as I said, I think this stamp is really beautiful - down to the sheen on her satin pointe shoes!  

I hope you've enjoyed sharing it even half as much as I enjoyed making it!!  Thank you so much for dropping in - I so appreciate your company and hearing your feedback.

I'm entering this for the following:
The Stampsmith Challenge - it's an Anything Goes, as long as you use at least one Stampsmith stamp
Make Your Own Background over at the Anything Goes Challenge Blog
And since we're on an Anything Goes hatrick... this goes in as another No Rules entry at Simon Says Stamp and Show
That Craft Place are having a Vintage fortnight

Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body.
Martha Graham

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.  And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
Friedrich Nietzsche