Rainbow Serenity

Hello all!  I'm so happy that you are as excited as I am by my new word stamps.  (Check out the full launch post at PaperArtsy if you missed it.)  As promised, I'm here to share some more details of the pieces I made for the launch, and I thought I might as well go sample by sample, alternating stamp sets... otherwise we'll end up with even longer posts than usual!

So here's the first of the sample makes for EAB03 Music and Silence, a pair of rainbow tags with full on colour behind the gentle images and words.

These were created with some backgrounds which had been sitting around on the craft table for some time, awaiting their moment in the sun.  They are both Distress Ink/Oxide combinations.







For the bird tag I started with a side by side of the same colours in Distress Ink and in Distress Oxide - DOx on the left, DI on the right - and then created two tags simultaneously.

(I've shared some of this months ago in an Oxide post so, no, you're not suffering from déjà vu - you have actually seen this photo before!)












Of these two, one tag was dipped first in DOx, and the other first in DI.  After that first layer I dipped and dabbed my layers from both kinds of ink to build up different effects.












The tag used in this post is the one which started as DI, so it has a stronger colour intensity, less chalky DOx, more translucent DI.
















I don't seem to have a "before" of the tree tag, but it was also from some Oxide playtime, experimenting with colours.














The main images on both tags are stamped in Archival (doesn't matter what colour) and embossed with Wow Bark powder.












I love the definition you get with the dark Bark.  You need something strong when you have backgrounds this busy.

The tree needed some ground to stand on, so I added just a little extra extension and some grasses with a pen.












Stamping the main sentiments caused slightly heart-in-mouth moments, since these powders are really in-your-face and in strong contrast to the background colours.

They're from a Stampendous set of five powders of various colours, entitled "Coastal Express".










Again, I stamped in Archival underneath.  I experimented with Versamark, but found the softer ink pad created a slightly less sharp impression - and the letters got a bit bulbous.

I'm so happy that even the tiny author's names come up so clearly - you can trust a PaperArtsy stamp to give you great stamping!









With those bold statements in place in the centre of the tags, I felt I needed a bit of an echo to frame them.

So this time I did use Versamark, swiping embossing ink onto the edges of the tags and then adding the relevant powder and heating it.











I also stamped partials of the quotes in Potting Soil or Coffee Archival in the backgrounds.

I think it adds a lovely extra touch of detail and I really like how you get what I call the hovering echoes of the main thought.

Simple twine finishes off the tags, and that's us done with the first of the EAB03 Music and Silence sample posts.

I'll be back very soon with the first EAB04 The Autumn Edition post, so I hope you have a lovely weekend and happy crafting all!

Our mind stops racing when we take a nature walk or just look at the clouds that disintegrate at the horizon.
Balroop Singh

EAB03 Music and Silence available at Country View Crafts, That's Crafty, The Artistic Stamper and many more...

New PaperArtsy Word Stamps

Hello all!  I'm thrilled to announce three new sets of my word stamps, available now as part of the PaperArtsy Eclectica³ line.  I'm so excited to be able to share with you some more of the quotes and phrases which inspire and delight me, and I hope they'll also inspire you in your creativity.

You can see the new sets - EAB03 Music and Silence, EAB04 The Autumn Edition and EAB05 The Winter Edition - over at the PaperArtsy blog this evening, and hear about some of the thinking behind these new collections, as well as seeing some samples I've made, of course.















I'm only sharing highlights there for now, but over the coming days I'll share some more details and how-to information of these sample pieces here at Words and Pictures.

And there are some more stunning word samples on the way tomorrow night at PaperArtsy, courtesy of my brilliant wingman, Nikki Acton, so be sure to check back in for those too.

For now, I'll let you hop over to PaperArtsy to find out more about what's in store with these new sets of words.  Enjoy the ride!

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognised wiser than oneself.
Marlene Dietrich

UPDATE:  You can now catch Nikki's fabulous samples over at the PaperArtsy blog too.

A quick burst of birdsong

Hello all!  Apologies that I've been MIA again - there's a lot going on behind the crafting scenes at the moment (not to mention preparing for some high-pressure day-job workshops coming up).  All will be revealed in just a few days.

But so as not to leave the blog in complete silence, I'm offering up a quick burst of birdsong today.

There's nothing complicated about these tags.  In fact, they were the result of some joint experimentation with a friend at the craft table, demonstrating some of the differences between Distress Inks and Distress Oxides.  We did some wrinkle-free distressing on some other tags, but these two were the results of our blending and stamping efforts, with some spritzing and flicking too of course...

The colours were her choice - hence the slight departure from the normal palette around here! - but I ended up really enjoying them.  There's a sort of burnished rust and verdigris look which pleases me a lot.  The tag on the left is all Distress Inks, the one on the right is all Distress Oxides (until the very final inking around the edge, that is, and then it was DI on both).






The words are taken from my EAB02 Darkness and Light set.

The phrases are all part of one longer quote (as you can see if you take a look at the whole collection - it's the quote at the bottom of the plate).










But I've used different parts of the quote on each tag to create slightly different thoughts.

They're embossed with Ranger Antiquities Rust powder - which is quite cool up close.











There are things I enjoy about both tags... 

You can't get away from the delight of that Oxide stamping - with such presence and clarity.

Those rapturous birds are an Impression Obsession stamp.














But although the birds are subtler, I do love the translucence of the layered DIs - they have a special depth about them which always makes me happy.

So I'm not going to keep you for long, as you see.  Short and hopefully sweet today.









If I get my workshop planning done in good time tomorrow, I hope to spend some of my Sunday catching up with what you've all been getting up to in Craftyblogland... and if I get bogged down, the visiting will just have to wait a bit longer!

I hope you all have a lovely Sunday, and do come and visit early next week for some big news.  Happy crafting all!

I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.
Pete Hamill

I'd like to enter this pair of tags at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where, in celebration of Stamptember, the challenge is simply to Stamp It!
Though there's only the tiniest bit of rust involved through that Rust embossing powder (well, and plenty of Rusty Hinge DI!), I'd like to share these in the Rustica theme at the That's Crafty Challenge Blog
And they're also feeling A Little Rusty over at Frilly and Funkie so I'm taking my tags to play along there too

Mini Album Makers Challenge Launch

Hello all!  I'm delighted to be here today with some exciting news.   (It's already the second time I've turned up - if you're looking for this month's A Vintage Journey challenge inspiration, check out my Haunted Jars!)

I'm thrilled to announce that I am part of the Design Team for the brand new Mini Album Makers Challenge.  And today is the start of the very first challenge.












The amazing Autumn of Sew, Paper, Paint has created this new challenge where the focus will be entirely on handmade books, journals, albums and so on.

The monthly theme will simply be "Any Handmade Book Goes".










There's a wonderful team in place to provide inspiration each month... 













... and we'll also be offering detailed tutorials and how-to tips and techniques on the Mini Album Makers Challenge blog.  You can hop over and meet them right now.
















There are some fantastic sponsors lined up too, with great prizes on offer.  Our very first sponsor is the brilliant and lovely Seth Apter who is offering a gorgeous prize package to our inaugural winner.  Just look at all those fabulous stamps and stencils!














I don't have a new book to reveal today.  For this inaugural challenge, the team members are sharing some of their past handmade books to help your inspiration start flowing for this first month.
















If you'd like to visit/revisit any of the books pictured here, you can scroll through all my handmade books here, or click the handmade book label at the end of the post.












We're kicking off as we mean to continue, with an Any Handmade Book Goes theme.  We'd love to see you there - so do come and play along and join up as a follower of the Mini Album Makers Challenge too.


I love books. Not just for what they contain. I love them as objects too, as ever-present reminders of what they contain, and because they are beautiful.
Laini Taylor













And just a quick reminder about those Haunted Jars you might have missed... that's right, I'm haunting you with them!  This is only half the set, so be sure to click the link to see the rest...

Haunted Jars

Hello all!  I'm very happy to be hosting this month's A Vintage Journey challenge.  We're looking for Altered Art, and I can't wait to see the journeys you go on with this one.  As always, the Creative Guides have been busy making inspiration projects to get your creative engines started, and I think they've outdone themselves yet again.  Do hop across to A Vintage Journey to see what everybody else has been up to... after you've taken a look at my offering, of course!

As you'll know if you saw my sombre ATCs I've been a little low on mojo lately.  I started on a couple of altering possibilities which didn't really go anywhere, before deciding to simplify things, and to borrow the ideas from my own Candlelit Foliage jars to create some Halloween lanterns.  There's nothing quite so eerie as the flicker of a candle flame as the night draws in...

They're really very similar to the Candlelit Foliage jars.  There's a detailed how-to for those over at last month's Destination Inspiration post, so I won't go through all the steps again.  I kept things even simpler this time.  Since these new Tim Holtz Thinlits are so fabulous in themselves, I didn't feel they needed much help from me!

I know we're a little early for Halloween but, as you'll see over at A Vintage Journey, I'm not the only one who got tempted in that direction.  It must be the distinctly autumnal weather that's fooled us into thinking All Hallow's Eve is around the corner.

I'm in love with the intricate detail on these dies.  Just look at the lacy cuffs on the glorious witch, for instance...
















... or the gnarled twigginess of her broom.  I'm not surprised the cat is alarmed!














The large cobweb is almost unbelievable in its delicate fragility.














Okay, you have to do quite a bit of poking to get all the pieces out, but it's completely worth it as far as I'm concerned.















The haunted house is one which I think might get some usage at other times of the year.

I love the candlelight shining through the windows.















And the shadowy crescent moon and the bat silhouettes are the perfect accompaniment.













You've already seen the crows in action on my Autumnal Oxide Journal.  There, they were just being nicely autumnal, but now they've got their Edgar Allan Poe spook on!













And it's the only one of the set that has a different silhouette to enjoy around the other side...















... as well as following the migrating birds in between.













(Mind you, the little scene with the witch and the cat does go much of the way round the tall slender olive jar, to be honest - stars and all.)
















Just as with the foliage lanterns, I created the background detail using the Harlequin stencil, this time with gel medium for the transparent texture.















I selected the spookier tissue tapes to add extra interest.  There are some cobwebby strips, like clouds drifting across the sky...
















... and some old-fashioned script, spelling out a spell or charm, perhaps.















As I said, it's only the crow-jar which has die-cuts all the way round.  With the others, you can turn them the other way and just enjoy the textured candlelight if you so desire.















I used a little more of my discoloured Pumice Stone Distress Spray than I did on the foliage lanterns (I think I've mentioned before that it has aged with a sort of greenish tinge).

I like how it gives the jars a slightly more mottled, murky look.












As you can see, I've given my black card a spritz or two of the same DecoArt Shimmer Mister as I used on the jars themselves.

It tickles me that you can't really tell whether it's a silvery moonlit gleam or a hint of mouldy decay!













Some simple twine finishes them off - nothing to distract the eye too much.







So those are my haunted jars.  I think they'll look great on the windowsill or on a festive Halloween table.  I prefer my Halloween eerie rather than full on gory, so these definitely fit the bill for me.

I do hope you'll hop over to A Vintage Journey to see the incredible altered artwork from my fellow Creative Guides, and I can't wait to see what you'll come up with for this month's Altered Art challenge.  See you there soon.

Oh, and I'll be back in just a few hours with a really exciting piece of news, so I hope I might see you again even sooner!

It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination.
From the introduction to The Twilight Zone by Rod Serling