Mad March Hares and Rabbits!

Tag Tuesday this week is mad march hares or rabbits. 

I thought I would use my favourite rabbit stamp for this weeks challenge, but to avoid it being too Alice in Wonderlandy I have delved into my memory bank. Is there anyone out there old enough to remember TISWAS? It was a cult childrens show in the seventies and eighties. My girls loved it and so did I! Full of madness and mayhem. The catch phrase was 'Today is Saturday watch and Smile' so I have played on the 'watch' word and made it Tuesday in honour of the challenge! The deliberate mistake is I couldn't photograph it yesterday and had to wait until today and the daylight!
I stamped a watch background stamp in resist, swished distress ink over, cut and coloured the stamp, overlaid it with a weathered clock die, cut out rabbit again and applied foam backing and a cotton tail, added the words and made a fob watch from a plastic circle fragment. I hope it can be considered mad enough!
Have a wonderful  week dear blog friends. xx

Sunday Stamper: Play Misty for me.

I can't tell you all how honoured I am to be asked to be a guest setter on Sunday Stamper! I just don't think I have been doing this well or long enough but Hels has been so supportive. There was I getting glorioulsy inky at her workshop last week at the Stamp Attic when I said 'There's an idea for the Sunday Stamper Hels', as I misted colorwash over everything in sight - and the next thing I know there is a pile of tries in the bin, the craft room is awash with mists and somehow I managed this!

I have been making a lot of tags lately, so I thought I would turn the Sunday Stamper challenge into bunting to spell my blog name using a different technique every Sunday. So here is the first one (hence the B, incase you were wondering if I had gone Barmy or Batty or Berserk! I used some scalloped bunting shapes and backed one with a triangle of paper from the daisy’s morroccan floral range. The challenge is to use something you MIST or spray, be it ink or paint or cosmic shimmer or anything else you can think of as long as it comes out in a mist, plus a piece of stamping. The misting part of my piece is the background . I used mustard seed, wild honey and spiced marmalade distress inks on my craft mat, misted over the bunting with water and then swiped it through the inks until I had the depth of colour I desired. I dried it off and then very very gently misted some Butterscotch colorwash onto some areas. I dried it again and then stamped the Tim Holtz Papillon stamp In brushed corduroy and Lyn Perellas festton stamp at the top. The doll parts were stamped over in an assortment of stamps from Tim’s Bitty grunge collection and some Paperartsy stamps and the head was cut from their Lynne Perella range, and her top hat was covered in glossy accents. The paper porcelain rose with tattered die cut leaf was applied in honour of Hels who is amazing at these and taught me how to do it! I coloured the rose parts by spraying expresso colorwash over Kraft paper and accented over the rose with viva gold when it was dry and attached with a glue gun. Milady’s butterfly umbrella was cut from an ARTchix paper doll sheet and the paper ruffle round her neck was tissue tape stained with aged mahogany DI set off with a brad. The stars are grungeboard shapes dabbed with gold acrylic and then I banged pink eyelets at the top to thread the pink paper ribbon through.

I hope you all have fun misting and spraying, here’s a tip, cover EVERYTHING in paper towels if you use colourwash. I forgot and my craft room has some interesting new décor now! xx

Tag Tuesday: Birds.

I thought I would try putting on my tags for tuesday weekly this month. The title for this week is 'Birds' and so I made this one:

I have included a close up of the nest so that you can see the little intruder! I backed the tag with nature paper toned down with picket fence dabber. Then I die cut two branches and coloured them with walnut stain distress. The nest is made from textured yarns and brown raffia and the eggs are laying on a soft bed of feather ends. The bird is a die cut covered with music score with real feather wings and supported onto the tag with pads so that she stands out. I stamped the saying with a little box of alphabet stamps onto frayed hessian layered on some thick torn bannana paper.

If you have not visited the wonderfulness that is tag tuesday please pop along and look at all the different birds this week! Bye peeps, enjoy the sun xx

Tim's tag 2012: March

Here is Tim's next tag, done nice and early. I did not have a wood stamp so I embossed the tag instead. No butterfly die either so I used tattered leaves. No metal foliage so I punched a Martha Stewart bird out of sticky backed metal, alcohol inked it and garnished with embellies from stack. Quite an effective technique, but I went a mid crazy with the little bits of paper, so I need his thingymajig to put them on. Also I didn't have the grout so I experimented first with his green embossing distress powder and then some I found in my stash. Not so effective as his putty coloured, must look out for some!

Have a lovely day xx

Sunday Stamper 195: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Oh have I ever had a lovely weekend! Yesterday I spent the day with Hels and seven other lovely girls at the Stamp Attic doing a fantabolosy workshop given by Hels on 'Ranger Techniques' and did we ever have a good time! Not only did I learn some new ideas but got lovely and inky and got to spend my pocket money in Wendy's wonderful shop! Hels put such a lot into the day and must have worked til the wee small hours doing all the prep! We ended up with a tag book of 15 different ways to use Ranger inks and pads - thankyou Hels!

It seemed only right to use one of the said techniques on todays challenge.

I used a black tag left over from yesterday and stamped paperbag studios diamonds in versamark resist and then dabbed pewter cosmic shimmer powder over, then sprayed with water to set. Do you remember going to the circus? It was usually at night when we got taken, and the flags would flutter and through the marquee you would just see lights dazzling through the dark, so I let the flash on my camera take up the silver of the background. Definately 'dazzling and delighting'! The ringmaster stamp is by Grahic 45 which I coloured with promarkers and mounted on pads to help him stand out.Then I cut a diamond out of honeycomb paper which seemed to me to represent the billowing tents. The flags I free cut from matching Graphich 45 paper and the sentiment was mounted on a coloured corrugated diamond.

So I have had another lovely day crafting, finished my tag Tuesday tag as well, which I shall post, well, on Tuesday! As for the H word, alak, another day has gone and I haven't fitted it in! I shall find a small space for it tomorrow, unless of course the craft room beckons!

Happy crafting peeps, hugs xx

Sunday stamper: 194. Life.

My goodness is this getting to be a habit? ANOTHER second post of the day! However I had some time between work and didn't want to waste it! This tag is a bit different from what I usually do as it is only in black and white.

 I tore black card and stuck it to a white tag. Then I stamped Dina Wakley's silhouette in white embossing powder and then cut it out. The next one was black ink on white card. I then adhered (such a lovely word) them to the tag. The negative border was die cut from black card and a bar removed so that the sentiment fitted.  A black photo corner, a black and white brad and gingham ribbon was added to the top. Simples - but any more would have been too much. Ah well, work calls again. Bye peeps x

Tim's tags of 2012

Managed it, by the skin of my teeth! Here is Tim's first tag of  2012.

Didn't have all the right stuff. No embossing folder with matching stamp so I embossed hearts in the background and coloured with the distress ink. the cherub is of the larger variety and so is the honeycomb paper, but such fun to do! I loved doing the tags of Christmas but I think this was so right of Tim to change his format. Looking forward to the next one now! x