Simplify, simplify

A tattered autumnal card today, again playing with my Artistic Outpost stamps (see more here):

I wanted to try out the gorgeous stamps from the AO Old Grist Mill stamp set.  I played around with them trying out some different ink colours, and on some different surfaces.

Both the covered bridge and the mill felt best to me at first stamped in black, brown or rusty ink colours.  


It's probably because they're the first 'photo-real' stamps I've used, so at the moment I'm inclined to stick with colours which could be found in a vintage photo.  Maybe I'll get brave and radical one day soon!
  



I did try one on the wax paper from PaperArtsy for fun.  You have to heat the image after you've stamped it to get it to 'sink into' the surface of the paper, otherwise it will continue to smudge if you touch it.  I love its haunting, ghostly quality.


Pretty soon I started to get itchy fingers, wanting to put something together.  

I went to have a flick through some papers to see what jumped to the eye, and came back with several papers from the BoBunny Timepiece 6x6 pad which seemed perfect.

It all felt as though it was quite homely and rustic, lovely earthy colours, and I started to assemble the layers.  


I've been enjoying bringing some dimensionality to the paper layers recently by rolling and tearing the edges, as well as using the Tim Holtz Paper Distresser (and some ink-blending too, sometimes, of course).

But when I got the stamped image onto the papers, I found I wanted to give it a closer colour relationship to the framing backgrounds.  I got out the Tim Holtz Distress Markers and a water brush, and painted the roof of the bridge using Aged Mahogany, Barn Door and a bit of Vintage Photo.  


The walls were done in Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo.  The trees on the right I did very loosely with some Walnut Stain and a blending tool.  I also flicked some water at it to get 'blotches from the developing process' onto the photo.

The additional elements on the card also come from the AO Old Grist Mill stamp set (hmm... just been away to look up the old phrase which leapt into my mind just then: it's all grist to the mill.  Quite interesting: the grist is the unground corn - or whatever grain - being brought to the mill; it's produce that will bring a profit eventually... and so the proverbial sense of everything adding to the profit of an enterprise arose.  Mills were quite often known as 'grist mills' - that's to say, they would receive any kind of grist, or grain, for grinding.  Well, I thought it was interesting!).  The sentiment is backed on to a piece cut out from some new seedling pots (a much darker, rougher grained set than my others, which I pounced on in the local DIY store) and covered with a coat of TH Crackle Paint in Rock Candy (clear, basically).  

Then there's the lovely old mill advertisement which is stamped in Sepia Archival Ink from Ranger, backed on to some thick cardstock, inked a touch for that antiquated look, and mounted on some padded tape to lift it away from the background.


I was playing with placing the poster it at a higgledy-piggledy angle, in my usual skewiff fashion, but with that sentiment glaring at me - simplify, simplify! - I found myself straightening it all up so that it was all at nice, clean right angles, and that seemed to suit the whole thing much better.  

I'm entering this in Artistic Outpost's July Challenge Anything Goes, as well as in the following:
Top Tip Tuesday who would like to see One for the Men
Simon Says Stamp and Show who are after Layered projects 
Ett Trykk, a lovely Norwegian site who would like to see some Noe for Gutta (Something for the Guys) for July
And Kreative Hender AS (Creative Hands), also in Norway, would like to see Cards for Men as well
There's also an Anything Goes challenge over at Chocolate, Coffee and Cards (a combination I think I like almost as much as blue+brown!)


Thanks so much for dropping by today.  If you like what you've seen, stay a while and look around... or even join up as a follower.  It's always great to hear from you if you'd like to leave a comment too.  For now, have a great day, whatever it brings you...

The hardest thing in life to learn
Is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
David Russell

The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.
Audre Lord

A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it.
Oscar Levant