Altered Backing Paper

This is one of nine 4 x 4 inch squares made from a single 12 x 12 sheet of backing paper which I have altered as part of a swap over on UK Stampers Forum.

The background print was a fairly small overall Victorian design in coffee on white. I have used a circle foam stamp and metallic paints in silver, old gold and copper which have been stamped randomly over the whole sheet and allowed to dry thoroughly. The paper has been cut to size and then each piece stamped with Versafine vintage sepia with a PaperArtsy weather stamp covered in chocolate embossing powder and heat embossed with the heat gun. The field of sky stamp (A Stamp In The Hand) was then used to add some texture to the top left of the square with dark brown chalk ink. The same ink was used to edge each piece to finish.

Hope you like it :-)

'U' for Unusual Tag

Here is my ' Very unusual for me tag!' Simply very unusual because I have used nothing but peel-offs for the background on this one. OK I have coloured, altered, cut and overlayed them but they are actually unrecognisable when used like this !

Detail of background

I took a piece of brown card, cut to shape, applied loads of gold peeloffs in a random fashion layering them over each other. Then I coloured with Alcohol Inks in butterscotch, ginger, terra cotta & cranberry. I inked up a dragonfly stamp with black Stazon and stamped this several times on top of the peel-offs (not easy to see in the pic). The U is a chipboard letter applied on foam pads over a mat made of gold card with a diamond heat embossed design in brown, a piece of torn print and a black material flower with button centre to embellish the mat.

The words are printed on the inkjet printer, matted on the brown card and applied with foam pads also. The hole and eyelet was cut and set with the crop-a-dile and some white fibres added through the hole.

Hope you like it !

'Stars & Stripes' ATC

It's July 4th, so to celebrate Independance Day in the USA I crafted a little ATC I entitled 'Stars & Stripes'.

Simple Adirondack dye ink in red pepper & stream applied in stripes with cut'n'dry foam to a marbled white base card cut to size. The stamp is one from Third Coast Stamps and the central image was stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with detail silver embossing powder using a heat gun. Parts of the stamp were then inked with the Adirondacks in the same colours and some of the stars in the images inked in using opaque white Sakura Gelly Roll pen. The ATC was edged with silver Krylon pen.

Here's wishing all my friends in the USA a great celebration on the day !

That is it.....hope you like it !

'Face' ATC

This ATC has been made as my entry into the TMTA 'Look into a face' theme for this week. The main stamp is from Cherry Pie and is stamped in black Stazon over a spray background and torn backing paper. A small dragonfly has been stamped in rocket red Brilliance ink and a script stamp was inked in sunflower yellow Brilliance and stamped at the top (not easily noticeable in this pic). The flowers were coloured using a waterbrush and red pepper /stream Adirondack dye inks. Finished with edging of iris chalk ink.

'Bling' ATC's

These ATC's have been done for a monthly swap over on UK Stampers Forum. This months is 'Bling' and I have decided to do a blend of blingy finishes instead of stamping.

I used Bedazzles, flatbacked gems and cabochons, Stewart Gill byzantia, Viva gold paint, Stickles, violet twinkle EP and Sakura white opaque pen to decorate with little swirls. The only stamp used was a swirl. The base was made from white card and coloured using a Tim Holtz stencil and homemade mica spray made with spiced marmalade distress reinker and cosmic shimmer iridescent pigment in cinquefoil red. This was mixed and applied with a mini-mister.

The ATC's were edged with dark brown chalk ink.

Hope you like them :-)

'Q' is for Queen Tag

Here is my design for the next tag in the UK Stampers Forum Sunday Challenge. This tag was made from a piece of orange cardstock which was stamped all over with latte Adirondack Ink and a Letters background stamp by Invoke Arts (funky ATC backgrounds plate).

The Queen photo-real stamp (Artchix Studio - Divas plate) was stamped onto a piece of the same card with onyx black Versafine ink. Whilst still tacky it was then heat embossed with clear embossing powder before trimming to leave a narrow border. This was set aside. Next a piece of old dictionary page with the queen definition was torn out and edged with a Ranger antique linen Distress inkpad direct to the edges. This was then adhered with gluestick. A border stamp from PaperArtsy was then inked with Veramark and this was stamped and heat embossed with pirate gold EP.

The edges of the queen image and the tag itself were then edged with Adirondack wild plum ink applied with cut'n'dry foam as shown. The letter 'Q' (Making Memories Foam Alpha) was stamped with wild plum as shown and this was also heat embossed with clear EP. The rest of the alphas were magnetic stamps again by MM and were stamped in Versafine onyx black.

The queen plate was then attached with a square brad and foam pads for depth. Gold Ranger stickles were used to decorate the 'Q' and parts of the embossed border stamp. An eyelet was applied with the crop-a-dile and a piece of magenta ribbon was added to finish.

Detail of 'Queen' plate

Hope you like it :-)

Altered Cutlery ?

Well this is it ! My weirdest creation yet. I have called it 'The Tree of Life'. It's made from a black plastic fork obtained with a salad from Subway last week. It is part of a swap run by Hazel on UK Stampers Forum in the altered art section.

I made the tree itself using a stamp from PaperArtsy which was heat embossed with violet pearl EP on a background made with Adirondack wild plum and red pepper inks applied with a piece of cut'n'dry foam. Once embossed the tree was cut out and left to one side. In the meantime I made three shrink plastic embellishements which were stamped in purple Stazon ink on white shrink plastic sheet. The bird stamp was also PaperArtsy. The bodies were coloured with pink chalk ink before cutting out and shrinking. A metal leaf was attached with a square silver brad and a hole punched with the cropodile on the bottom right of the tree. An eyelet was applied. The mini tag was coloured and written upon and threaded with a metal tree embellishment with the ball chain as shown. The three birds were applied with mini glue dots as shown

Detail of tree

Detail of Tag

Next was to cover the handle of the fork. I took a long strip of mediumweight black craftwire and threaded it with alternating gold and blue glass beades with silvered centres until I had a length of threaded wire long enough to spiral around the handle to hide it completely. One end of the wire was wrapped around the middle two prongs of the fork and the beads pushed down to the top of the handle. I then commenced wrapping the beaded wire round and round the handle to the base where the last coil was made to trap 3 pieces of coloured velvet ribbon before securing the wire into the last coil.

Handle base and ribbon detail

I used big sticky dots to attach the tree to the front of the fork prongs, hence the reason that the tree is curved slightly (following the contour of the prongs). The whole thing was wrapped in white tissue secured with three pieces of the same ribbon.

This was certainly a challenge for me ! Hope whoever gets it in the swap is happy with it :-)