The Good Ole U. S. of A.

Hello and welcome everyone, with an especially big welcome to the new followers - it's great to have you on board.

It's bloghop time at Artistic Outpost again.  The whole team have been creating projects with an Americana theme, so do have a hop around and have a look at the inspiring work of my amazing teammates.  Here's the full line-up:

Gerrie Johnnic, Lisa Somerville, Suzanne Czosek, 

Tracy Evans, Linda Coughlin, Alison Bomber, 

Terry Horrall, Kate Yetter

Initially, I was a bit wary of the Americana theme - what do I know?  And did I really have the stash for it?

But then I delved into my childhood: I was brought up on The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie (amongst other things, obviously) so I guess it's predictable that my make has a nostalgic feel! 

I've mostly used images from the wonderful Kudzu Kafe and Home plates - new to me and already in love with them - with a few other old favourites mixed in.  I'll point them out as we go...

I used an MDF ticket to create my hanging.  It's about half a centimetre thick, so it's good and solid; sturdy enough to hold all the doodads (new favourite word!) collected up from around the hoarded stash supplies.

And I'd also like to say, I absolutely didn't plan for a red, white and blue colour scheme.  It was going to be all subtle vintage sepias and buttermilk - but once I started gathering the doodads... it was a done deal!








I started by creating a weathered look for the background using PaperArtsy crackle glaze and acrylic paints.  As well as Fresco Cheesecake, there was some DecoArt Buttermilk involved.

Then the first stamp into action was the fabulous ticking pattern from the Kudzu Kafe set, stamped in Faded Jeans.  

Can you see where I'm going with the names of the colours so far?!

The fabulous pick-up truck from the Home plate was stamped in Sienna Archival ink (okay - Italy snuck in... should've used Barn Door I suppose) and given a coat of clear embossing powder for glossy dimensionality.  

I used Distress Markers to blacken the tyres (tires in US-speak) and add the steely blue highlights.

The "Kafe" is one of my favourite bits of stamping ever, though it was also one of the scariest.  

I inked up the stamp with Coffee Archival, and then - quite roughly - added some other colours onto the stamp as best I could with the edges of the ink pads: Library Green for the tree, Sienna again for the awning, and some Stormy Sky Distress ink for a touch of glassiness in the windows and tiles on the roof.

I then had to stamp direct to my beautiful background... if it all went wrong, I'd have to paint over, or start again on the other side.

As it is, I'm delighted with the result.  And I love the look of the house with the truck "parked" on some padded tape out front.  (I suppose next time I could do a trial stamping on some scrap paper first - why do I never think of that until afterwards?)

My vintage ephemera comes from a variety of sources. 

The sepia advertisements are all Artistic Outpost - the Kudzu boy is, pretty obviously from the Kudzu Kafe set; the Old Grist Mill - again obviously - from the Old Grist Mill set.  I've clipped them on with some jewellery findings.

There are some number plates from one of the Tim Holtz stickers sets (Destinations, maybe - sorry not at home, so can't double check which).  

There's an Idea-ology Cash Key - so cute, and the red stickers were just the right colour red.

And I added a couple of game pieces which came in a job lot of stuff from Ebay, and which I wasn't sure I would ever use.




The White Mountain Freezer advert is again from the Kudzu Kafe set - are you starting to see why I love it?! - and the train one is from the SteamPunk plate.  

The tiny wooden stars came from the fabulous Trace at inkypinkycraft as part of a swap we did before Christmas.  

You will have spotted the whole "wooden stars and ticking stripes" look, I'm sure... 

I added a couple of 3D postmarks by Wendy Vecchi.  

The Detroit one was a pale toothpasty green, so had to be doctored with Salty Ocean Distress Paint to tone in with the rest of the make.

And the drive-in theatre ticket is another Tim Holtz sticker (Salvage? - sorry, not sure again).

Gingham ribbon and some raffia at the top to hang it up by, and we're pretty much there... 

I hope you've enjoyed this little tour round my Americana hanging.  I certainly ended up loving making it far more than I'd expected to. I had a ball!

Do hop round and have a look what the rest of the team have been up to... If you get lost along the way, you'll find all the details here.

For now, thank you so much for stopping by, and I'll be round to see what you've been up to very soon.

As you read my stories of long ago I hope you will remember that the things that are truly worthwhile and that will give you happiness are the same now as they were then. Courage and kindness, loyalty, truth, and helpfulness are always the same and always needed.
Laura Ingalls Wilder

Although the years of my boyhood and youth on Waltons Mountain were a time of uncertainty and desperation for millions, somehow, in our home, we were sustained by a sense of being safe and secure.
Narration by John Boy Walton from the TV series

Home is the nicest word there is.
Laura Ingalls Wilder

And I couldn't possibly leave you without this, from the Waltons... Goodnight everybody!

Since I ended up unexpectedly with the red, white and blues, I'd like to enter this in the Independence Day challenge at That Craft Place Challenge Blog.

And at Fashionable Stamping Challenges, they'd like to see Something New/A New Style - well the stamp sets were new, as was the Sienna Archival ink, and so's the red, white and blue colour scheme - out of my comfort zone, but very happy with the results.
And I'm linking up with Anything But A Card at the Stampotique Designers Challenge.

Just hanging at the beach...

Did you see what I did there?!  Welcome everyone, to my final piece (for now) using the amazing new Boardwalk release from Artistic Outpost.  And yes, it's a hanging, and we're at the beach so...

I used one of the delicious papier-mâché hanging boards (PaperArtsy and The Artistic Stamper both have them) as my base and set to work.

The colours just seemed to take me over when I started working with these stamps, so I make no apologies for the fact that we're back with the same palette!

I started with some Fresco Paints and Crackle Glaze to create my weathered background.

The first layer is Beach Hut (but of course!), and then I applied the fabulous Crackle Glaze and let it dry.

For the top coat I had both Mermaid and Snowflake on the craft mat, and applied both with the same sponge, mixing and blending as I went for the variegated look.









The fabulous bathing beauties are stamped in Jet Black Archival, and then I used some more Fresco paints to tint them, always making sure I used the opaque paints with a touch of water so as not to obliterate the stamped image underneath.

It's Beach Hut for the bathing caps, I think... and the skin was done with Nougat and Vintage Lace mostly, as far as I can remember (sorry, it's a while since I made this now!).










I cut a mask, and stamped the beach hut "behind" the women, using Coffee and Sepia Archival inks blended onto the stamp for a warm brown.

I'm very pleased with the effect... only don't look in the crook of the middle one's elbow.  I forgot to cut it out!  Ah well, what does Tim say?  Embrace Imperfection!








I'm also pretty happy with the sentiment - borrowed from the Typography set of sentiments - and
stamped in Black Archival and clear embossed for a glossy look.


I love that the embossing gets you a "two-fer", both the glossy finish and some dimension to the lettering...





This project was actually made before the Boardwalk Bathing Beauty tag, so this was the first place I used the Antique Linen Distress embossing powder as sand.  

Oh, no, it wasn't - I tell a lie.  It was actually on the Underwater ATC, Starfish for Eyes, made even longer ago while I was still in the Czech Republic... Apologies for repeating the same trick so often but what can I say?  When it works, it works!

I've used some more of Cat Kerr's lovely fishing net - such a well-timed and fortunate bit of candy, I'm so grateful for my luck there - to add extra texture.












And there's some more Imperfection to be Embraced, as I'm afraid some sand got onto the Beauties' legs - but that's what happens when you're on the beach, right?  The sand gets everywhere, and stays there...

The little peg got the same weathered painty treatment as the board itself, and is there for a bit of extra interest, and as an alternative hanging method.

And maybe my favourite thing about this hanging is that there's something going on from every angle.  


I did have fun getting the odd slant on the photos!




“When I walk down the beach and smell the salt water, hear the waves crashing against the shoreline, and feel the granular sand under my feet, I can't help but realize why I'm here on this green earth.”
from Sea Witch, by Wendy Joubert,

“...vicinity to the sea is desirable, because it is easier to do nothing by the sea than anywhere else... ”
from Expiation, by E.F. Benson

Update on all the Following stuff... It seems that Blogger Dashboard may still function fine for Blogger blogs - it's others, like WordPress which may disappear from the lists of posts there...  The lovely Chris Warner is offering up some Techy Tips from her expert IT knowledge if you want some more details.  So, for now, it does at least look as though the Followers widget is still favourite - do hope I haven't confused the issue for everyone!

I'd like to enter this at the Craft-Room Challenge, where they are playing Here Comes The Summer - yeah, we wish...

Under the boardwalk...

Hello all, and welcome to Words and Pictures on a busy and exciting day - there's so much going on over at Artistic Outpost!  Today sees the release of a brand new stamp set - and it's fabulous... like summer on a stamp plate!  

Here's a little taster of just some of what I've been up to with it... I've got several pieces to share with you and I'll spread them out over the next few days and weeks, but I thought I'd give you a quick glimpse of them all to whet your appetites.

So, without more ado, I give you: Boardwalk...

And if you hop round the rest of the team, you'll find so many amazingly inspirational makes.  Here's the list:

Gerrie Johnnic, Lisa Somerville, Suzanne Czosek, Tracy Evans,

Linda Coughlin, Alison Bomber, Terry Horrall, Kate Yetter

Here's what designer Robyn Phelan Sharp has to say about the new stamps:
For the love of the Jersey Shore and Atlantic City's historic boardwalk, this stamp collection features a lovely ATC sized collage featuring Steel Pier, bathing beauties, a handsome gentleman, and other summertime elements. 

Collection available in both unmounted sheets of red rubber or precut and mounted on EZMount clingfoam.



And to celebrate the (hoped-for) approach of summer, there's an amazing special offer on AO stamps at the moment: a Memorial Day sale with 15% off all Artistic Outpost stamp sets until June 8th - temptation, or what?!






So, I had to decide which project to share with you to start with, and I decided to go with one of my recent obsessions...



With the number of tiny floors I've been making recently, it was obvious to me from the get-go that I would have to make a "boardwalk"!



So I grabbed a fistful of coffee stirrers from the Costa Coffee on the boat on the way home, and here they are transformed into a weatherbeaten boardwalk in Atlantic City!











The Alterations cabinet card dies sliced through my cream mountboard with no problem at all, and I dabbed the resulting frame and background into some Salty Ocean, Tumbled Glass and Broken China inks daubed onto my craft mat.

There's Frayed Burlap around the edges to add a touch of vintage ageing to the overall look.

The gorgeous background image of the Steel Pier building has also had a little shading with Frayed Burlap Distress Stain, just to deepen the brickwork.  

And I surrounded it with random stampings of some of the seashells.

The coffee stirrers were painted with Broken China and Picket Fence Distress Paints mixed in varying proportions to get variegated "wear and tear" across my boards.

I didn't want too neat a finish along the edge, so I cut them to varying lengths, but always with the same angle to the cut, so that they would line up nicely against the back board.

I stamped the word Boardwalk beneath my boardwalk - just in case it wasn't obvious! 

And the line from the song got pride of place at the top of the frame.  

By the way, it's pretty inevitable that you will be singing the song the entire time you're working with these stamps... just as well it's brilliant!

I coloured the two New Jersey badges with Distress Markers before UTEEing them.  

While the UTEE was still slightly warm I brushed some Pewter Distress Stain over them to try to get a bit of a look of a vintage tintype button.

I stamped a couple of Pier tickets and attached them with one of the adorable Idea-ology paper clips.




The 3D seashell embellishments were a fantastically lucky addition to my stash recently... 












I won a giveaway of "doodads" from the amazing mixed-media artist Cat Kerr (she has another Giveaway right now, but only until 24th May, so hurry!), and these seashells were amongst the doodads that arrived - how fortuitous is that?!  

They couldn't have been more perfect for this new release - and they match the seashell stamps brilliantly!

I pressed the seashell stamps into service again to decorate my padded supports between the frames.  

As I've done before, I used the sponges which come in the packet when you buy Texture Fade embossing folders.

I sliced them to size and then stamped the shells in Cobalt Archival, so that even if you do catch sight of them within the three-dimensional frame, you've still got something nice to look at!

So that's my first encounter with the Boardwalk stamps.  You'll find lots of amazing work from my amazing team-mates on your way round.  

If you get lost, you can find all the details here at Artistic Outpost.  And don't forget that fantastic 15% off offer... until June 8th!  

For now, thank you so much for stopping by today... I hope the summer is finally starting for you (if you're in the correct hemisphere for that of course!), and happy crafting whether it has or hasn't turned up!



Oh, when the sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof
And your shoes get so hot, you wish your tired feet were fireproof
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea
On a blanket with my baby is where I'll be
Under the Boardwalk by Kenny Young and Arthur Resnick