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

Baubles and Bling at PaperArtsy

Hello all.  It's been a while, but I'm delighted to be sharing a project over at the PaperArtsy blog today.  You wouldn't have expected to see me playing along during the Baubles and Bling theme, would you?  Well, neither would I... it was all a bit of an accident!

Just a sneak peek here, so I hope you'll have time to hop over to PaperArtsy to see what I managed to cook up outside my comfort zone.  As often happens when faced with that kind of challenge, I ended up somewhere that made me really happy.

I hope you're all doing well and I'll see you soon.

I think art is not an ornament or refinement at the fringes of human intelligence, I think it's at the centre. It's at the core.
Robert Pinsky

If you don't mind hopping to see the whole project, I'd like to share this at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where they are going Wild With Washi - it's washi looping around the baubles to hold them together as well as provide a frame for the words, so it's pretty important!

Again, if you don't mind hopping to see the whole project, I'd also like to join in with the Feathered Friends at Try It On Tuesday - not only is there a bird taking centre stage in one of the baubles, but the woman in the second bauble is also a "feathered friend"!

Sparkling Snow

Hello all!  I hope all your festive preparations well on the way to completion.  We'll be heading out to find a tree in the next couple of days (if it stops raining) ready for decorating probably this time next week, and then sitting back to dream of a white Christmas.  The theme at PaperArtsy this fortnight is Sparkle, and for me there was only one choice at this time of year... snow!

My project over at the PaperArtsy blog this evening is full of sparkling snow, so rather than the real thing (which I know can be a nuisance in real life), why not hop over there to enjoy the faux version?  If you want to see the candle lit, you'll simply have to hop!

Oh, and if you're a miniatures fan and you'd like a bit more entertainment, there's a new, highly theatrical post to enjoy over at Cestina's Dollshouses too.

Thank you so much for stopping by today and for hopping.  I'll be back with another seasonal offering in a few days, so I shall hope to see you again then.

The snow is sparkling like a million little suns.
Lama Willa Miller

Blushing Coral Butterflies

Hello all!  Just a quick sneak peek here to tempt you over to PaperArtsy tonight, where I've been playing outside my colour comfort zone to join in with this fortnight's Coral theme.

There are plenty of my favourite colours involved too, but I surprised myself by really enjoying this excursion into the coral zone (especially since it's not only pink, it's also an orangey-pink - another colour which doesn't exactly feature much around here... except in autumn, of course).

I hope you'll be able to hop over to PaperArtsy and see what I got up to with some of Lynne Perrella's most recent designs as well as some of my own brand new Happiness Edition words.  (Check out the launch post for my latest Eclectica³ Alison Bomber quote stamps if you missed it.)

Thanks so much for stopping and hopping... I'll be interested to see what you think of the coral!

Coral, coral, coral - it's as flattering as candlelight.
Gordon Espinet (make-up artist)

If you don't mind hopping to PaperArtsy to see the full thing, I'd love to play along with these challenges:

At MOO Mania & More they are asking us to Count Your Blessings... you can't see it here, but that's exactly what the sentiment on this large tag talks about - the joys of pictures, music and everything beautiful, definite blessings to be counted
At the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge they are celebrating Breast Cancer Awareness Month by asking us to Think Pink... well, this is pretty pink for me!
And I'm not really sure whether butterflies count as animals, but just in case they do I'd like to play along with the Animal Magic theme over at Try It On Tuesday

Encore - What the eye doesn't see...

Hello all!  I'm safely home, catching up on sleep and mostly unpacked, and busy creating so as to be ready for the new Vintage Journey challenge theme this Friday.  In the meantime, I thought I'd squeeze in another quick little Encore post (see the foot of the post if you don't know what I mean by that).

This was made back in June 2015 for a Hidden Objects theme over on the PaperArtsy blog.  This may look pretty wintry on the outside, but there's a surprise reveal of springtime colours if you open it up, so this seemed like a good time of year to offer it up here at Words and Pictures in full for the first time.  There wasn't much sign of spring in New York when I left, but here in the UK Winter is definitely peeling back its layers and reveal the springtime growth ready to spring forth.  So here's what I wrote back in 2015...

______________________________

Hello all, it's Alison here from Words and Pictures ready to reveal some Hidden Objects!  As soon as Leandra mentioned envelopes in her original outline of the theme, my brain hopped into action.  So today I've got a little wallet to share with you - one that likes to keep its secrets close to its chest.  It seems very simple and rustic on the outside...

But it's definitely worth digging a little deeper with this one to find the hidden depths...

I started by gluing two ATC-sized envelopes together so that the flaps created a double triangle fold.

I wanted to keep the outside as innocuous and simple as possible, so I blended Brown Shed and French Roast Fresco paints on the reverse before adding a layer of Crackle Glaze with a palette knife.

Once that was dry, I added Chalk Fresco, allowing it to crackle over the top, as well as some gentle inking to burnish the edges, and some simple rustic twine as a fastening.  The metal pick is both decorative and practical - you can use it to whittle the knot open!

Heart-in-the-mouth stamping time on the inner flaps... I used the wonderful patchwork of images from LPC030.  They have some postal motifs involved, so they seemed all the more appropriate for my envelope wallet.  They're stamped in a combination of Vintage Photo and Rusty Hinge Distress Inks, which I then clear-embossed to preserve the image.  (Okay, one of them's not quite straight, but what's a few degrees between friends?!)

Next, I set to with my favourite translucent Frescos.  I love using these with lots of water to create a watercolour look to the painting.  In action here we've got Blue Glass, Southern Skies, Hey Pesto, Limelight, Zesty Zing and, I think, a touch of Beach Hut.

I make no apologies for working with my favourite colour palette... I wanted a surprise blast of fresh zingy colour on the inside, and I knew these colours would deliver.  It also has the light-reflecting gloss of the clear-embossing of course, for added zhuzh!

I hope you like my simple wallet with its unexpected internal complexity... an oasis of colour inside a neutral exterior.  I rather like that you can see straight away from the flaps that there's something else in store.  It's not a completely hidden secret - though you don't know what might be lurking, you know there's something to find.  I think it adds a pleasurable sense of anticipation, and I hope you're enjoying hiding lots of things this fortnight.

______________________________

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I'll be back on Friday with something new to share, and I'm also aiming to do some catching up around Craftyblogland now that the jetlag is on the way out.  I'm looking forward to seeing what you've all been up to.  Happy Crafting all!

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.

Roald Dahl

Shock, horror - I realised I left the quote off the bottom of the last Encore post, so there's one there now!

Encore Posts

Projects which made their first appearances elsewhere for Design Team duties or Guest Designer opportunities, but which only had a sneak peek here, are being gathered together in the pages of my virtual scrapbook while I'm away.

As always, the Encore Posts are formatted differently from the regular ones, so that you can easily spot them.  Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

Encore - Nature Assemblage

Encore Posts

Projects which made their first appearances elsewhere for Design Team duties or Guest Designer opportunities, but which only had a sneak peek here, are being gathered together in the pages of my virtual scrapbook while I'm away.

As always, the Encore Posts are formatted differently from the regular ones, so that you can easily spot them.  Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

Hello all!  Thank you so much for your lovely comments on my jumbo Autumn Splendour tag.  It seems I'm not the only one for whom it's a favourite!  I've another creation with autumn leaves for you today, but this time they're real leaves.  This assemblage canvas was created back in May 2017 for the PaperArtsy "Assemblage" theme.  Those leaves, and the fact that it uses Lynne Perrella stamps - she's on my mind because of the recent release of her Egyptian stamps, which I was lucky enough to make some samples for - as well as the subject matter of a woman connecting with the landscape around her, all made it seem like good timing for this Encore.  Here's what I wrote back then...

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Hello all, Alison from Words and Pictures here to share an Assemblage piece with you this evening.

The definitions I read spoke about Assemblage as essentially being three-dimensional collage - 3D objects projecting out from the substrate - and from the first moment of reading that, these Lynne Perrella houses popped into my head.

My imagination took flight from there - the woman from LP036 (probably my top favourite image from Lynne's latest exquisite releases) trapped inside the buildings, her domestic life, her position in society.

Her joy lies in escaping into the grounds of the large manor house she lives in and gathering botanical specimens, or natural keepsakes to remind her that there is life outside the walls of narrow society expectations.

And though her life is regimented, and she tries to follow the conventions in displaying her collections by lining them up and labelling them, nature always breaks out of the mould.

The twigs and branches refuse to be confined in straight lines...

... and so do the dried flowers, so carefully preserved.

The Frozen Charlottes are part of her own broken self - expected to behave in certain ways and follow certain codes...

... but feeling fractured and constricted by those expectations.

You can see how her obsession with the natural world has infected even her appearance!

And she feels ever more constricted by her world...

I'm indebted to Amanda at Treasured Moments of Inspiration for the background here.  I had my layout all in place, but I was struggling with what should go on the canvas itself - design paper?  Brayering?  Stencilled texture?  My usual crackle?  But thanks to a moment of inspiration from the blog visiting, I have these layered tags.

Over my tags, I applied a glazing technique picked up from one of Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday videos.  I used the PaperArtsy Matte Glaze mixed with successive layers of paint - applying and then wiping back with cloths both wet and dry, until I was happy with the look.  The paint layers were Nougat, Taupe and French Roast, knocked back at the end with Snowflake both as a glaze and, eventually, plenty of spattering.

I added harlequin stencilling with the Snowflake and text stamping using script stamps from Hot Picks 1006 and 1217...

... so that the background would echo the Tim Holtz paper used to make the houses.

I used a variety of mediums to add extra depth and shading - a Pumice Stone Distress Crayon, a Ground Espresso Distress Marker, and a Sepia Archival ink pad, and the final touch was some French Roast spatter to add extra depth.

The Matte Glaze mixed with French Roast was also perfect for distressing the Frozen Charlottes.

It's really easy to get the look you want, as the Glaze gives you so much extended time to play.

I almost forgot the roofs - another stamp from the LP036, featuring the little cottage where she dreams of living out a simple life...

... instead of in her father's great mansion with all the attendant privileges and duties.

So that was the journey my imagination took into the mind of this woman and her collection of natural found objects, as I was assembling this creation.

Thanks for coming along with me to share her story, and I hope you'll be inspired to gather some three-dimensional stories of your own.

______________________________________

So there's another Encore post safely gathered in to my online virtual scrapbook of my creative journey.  One day maybe I'll have them all safely here in one place, but I warn you there are more than 100 of them still to go!  And of course every time I create something for another blog and only have a sneak peek here at Words and Pictures, that number goes up rather than down... ah, well.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I hope the autumn weather is being as kind to you as it is to me here in the Czech Republic.  There's something new up next (which this canvas also gives the tiniest little hint towards - you'll see what I mean on Saturday!) and after that I hope to find time to share some of my autumn photos of the beautiful Czech countryside with you, as well as a couple of the watercolours inspired by that landscape.  I've definitely been connecting with the nature around me, just like this woman, though feeling considerably more free!  In the meantime, happy crafting all!

There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives.
Josephine Hart

I would like to share this as part of Simply Neutrals Tuesday over at Apple Apricot

Visiting Egypt with Lynne Perrella

Hello all!  I'm absolutely thrilled to be inviting you to hop over to PaperArtsy where I am sharing some samples made with the brand new stamps designed by Lynne Perrella, just launched by PaperArtsy yesterday.

I've been fascinated by Ancient Egypt since I was a child, so these three new sets of stamps, inspired by that extraordinary civilisation, were a joy for me to play with.












My favourite book to get out of the library when I was little was a picture book of tales about some of the Egyptian gods - I think specifically about a trip to the realm of the dead.  











In the book, the illustrations were all in the style of those ancient tomb paintings.  Oh, how clearly I remember Horus with his falcon's head, and Anubis, with his intimidating canine jackal head.  I wish I could track down the book now, but I don't remember the title or the author.  If anybody out there has any ideas...











But back to the point of this post... These little sneak peeks give you an idea of just some of the treasures you will find if you are tempted over to the PaperArtsy blog to see the golden wonders of this magical release in full.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll see you again soon.




...as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment - an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by - I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, "Can you see anything?", it was all I could do to get out the words, "Yes, wonderful things".
Howard Carter, on his discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922

Courageous Women

Hello all - it's quiet around here again at the moment... lots going on behind the scenes, but very little spare time for pleasures like non-deadline-crafting and blogging.  I realise I haven't even fully caught up with the samples from the release of my three stamp sets from the beginning of this year... and PaperArtsy have done a whole new round of releases since then!  So here's a quick how-to of my pair of courageous Lynne Perrella women, coupled with quotes from PaperArtsy EAB08 Strength & Courage.

It also gives us a shot at a little touch of colour after all the neutrals I've been dallying with lately.  The palette was chosen by Leandra for the release, and it includes pink - most unusual for me.





These couldn't have been done nearly as easily if it hadn't been for the Tim Holtz stamping platform.  The backgrounds were done very simply with some PaperArtsy Crackle Glaze and soft sponging of the paler paint colours (two coats of sponging for a really soft subtle crackle).

I then used the magnetic buttons to hold the postcard in place while I stamped the first of the women.  (You can see one in the corner here.)  Crucially, I then left both the postcard and the stamp in place while I did some delightfully carefree painting to colour in the image.  No need to stay completely within the lines of this intricately detailed image...










... because once the paint was dry, I inked up the stamp again and re-stamped over the top.  The stamping platform means the stamp goes down in the exact same position and, voilà, beautifully detailed image lines all coloured in.











Here's the magic trick again with the second woman (maybe my all-time favourite Lynne Perrella stamp) - all blurry with paint - straight over the top of some of her features and all that detailed landscaping on her decolletage...















... and re-stamped to perfection.  I always enjoy painting these images, and find it very soothing when I have lots of time.  But if you're in more of a hurry this is a perfect solution to getting a lovely finish without being quite so painstaking about your colouring.














All the stamping is done in Watering Can Archival, and when I got to the quotes I also clear-embossed them - a favourite way to make them pop just a little more.












I think this Anne Frank quote may be one of my favourites, so it gets to go with my favourite woman!  You also get that lovely touch of light from the gloss of the embossing.













There are little scraps of tissue tape for added interest.  Oh, and the postcard and postmark stamps are from a couple of older Sara Naumann sets (ESN05 and ESN17)...













... and I layered my postcards onto some white card so that they would pop a little more up on the PaperArtsy sample boards at shows.














Thanks so much for stopping by today for this little refresher, and I'll be back with a new creation pretty soon.  Happy Sunday all!







Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That's what little girls are made of.
Bethany Hamilton (who, aged 13, lost her arm to a shark attack while surfing, but returned to the sport, later competing as a professional surfer)

The Fire of the Frost

Hello all!  We've made it to the first of the EAB05 Winter Edition samples, and I thought I'd kick off with a double.  Both of these samples use the longer quotes from the set, but you could easily just use a line or two at a time if you didn't want all the words at once.  One of the two pieces was a CASEing of a card I made over a year ago... it's a rarity around here, as it's basically a Clean and Simple creation.

The other took the same basic idea and added a coat of frosted sparkle.  For the full launch post over at PaperArtsy (here if you missed it) I shared a 20-second snippet of video because it was really the only way to show the full effect of the frosted stamping.  You'll get a look at it later in this post too.

Lots of people have already been asking how the icy sparkle was done, so now's your chance to find out.






Both cards start with really the simplest of backgrounds... just some gesso or white acrylic dabbed onto the craft mat, then spritzed with water and smooshed around with a large brush... and then you simply press some kraft card down onto the mess and lift it away.  If you want you can go in for repeated pressings, or you may be perfectly happy with the first.

I love that it gives a wonderful look of whirling snowstorms, or of a snowy landscape glimpsed through a mist of snowflakes.












For the first card I paired Christina Rossetti's beautiful words with Sara Naumann's solitary bird from ESN18 - simply meant to be.











It's probably my favourite Christmas carol of all (though, as I've said before, for me it has to be the Harold Darke setting - no need to listen now if, like me, you can't handle Christmas this early... these are "winter cards" not Cxxxxxmas ones!).

The bare twigs from the same set add a little vertical dimension to the composition.











This is an absolutely straightforward stamping in Jet Black Archival (another rarity around here), no embossing, no nothing special.  About the quickest thing I've ever made I think!

Oh, some white splatter, of course.  Never forget the white splatter...












I created the same background ready for the glorious Lynne Perrella snowflake woman (that's just what she's called in my head, nowhere else) from LP016.

I think this quote by John Burroughs is extraordinary - so poetic in its multi-sensory sounds and colours and images and temperatures, and from the moment of finding it, the intricacies of the thinking felt as though they would work well with the intricacies of a Lynne Perrella stamp.










To echo the power of those images - the "fire of the frost", the "life of the crystal" (all phrases that you could use by themselves if you don't want to use the quote in its entirety) - I thought I'd push the boat out and go for some sparkle.











I tried a couple of methods on a piece of scrap card.  I had high hopes of the Frosted Crystal embossing powder by Ranger, but it didn't make quite the impact I wanted.  It does look like a sort of icy coating, but it's not really sparkling.  Maybe I overheated it?










So I tried something else.  I stamped her in Jet Black and then used Sticky Embossing Powder over the stamping.

You heat it to melting point (but don't go on too long), and then you can add particles, whether glitter or fluff or mica, depending on your look.  I used Tim's Distress Dry Glitter in Rock Candy (magical stuff which isn't really like real glitter at all), and that was much more like it.










Once I had that worked out, I stamped directly onto my snowy kraft (using the Stamping Platform - fantastic for a detailed image like these Lynne Perrella ones, especially a large stamp like this one - you can always go for another stamping if you don't quite get it all first time), and proceeded with my sparkle addition.













I love that you get a properly thick, crunchy coat of frost...














... but you can still see all the magical detail of the image beneath.














I did the same for the words themselves, which has quite a magical effect too, I think.









Of course none of these photos really shows you the full effect, so here's that snippet of video I promised you.

There's really no other way to catch that sparkle in the light as it moves!








I added a couple of Calico Craft Parts snowflakes, to which I'd given a coat of white gesso and one of matte medium to adhere some more of the Dry Glitter.

And again, once I knew how to get my sparkle, a really quick card to make, and easily repeatable if you're making many cards for sending.











Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I'll be back soon with some more samples - back to Music and Silence for some singing Zinskis I think - but before that there's something brand new to see, which you can catch on Sunday evening.  Until then, have a great weekend everybody.

They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?
Jeanette Winterson

EAB05 The Winter Edition available now from Country View Crafts, That's Crafty, The Artistic Stamper and many more...