Courtesy of Morticia's Wardrobe? (posted by Jo)

This project was a long time coming for a number of reasons. I haven't been around much over the summer to do any crafting and when I have, it seemed I didn't have all the materials I wanted for my canvas. My plan changed several times and I only knew what colours I was going to use when I finally had a brush in my hand.

The canvas itself was coloured with Aqua and Cool Peri Adirondack Dabbers. I applied the first layer with a baby wipe and then added extra texture and depth of colour with a natural sponge. Over the top I used a Tim Holtz Cobweb mask, sponged through with Dusty Concord Distress ink.

The Grungepaper squares gave me some problems. I was in two minds as to whether to go for a lighter or darker contrast with the canvas. But the first of my elements looked lost on the lighter colour background so I went with Dusty Concord. I was disappointed at first with the colour and considered using a white card with the ink or embossing a ready coloured card. But I did like the velvet texture of the Grungepaper and wanted to keep the textile feel to the squares. In the nick of time I remembered inking Grungepaper roses at Linda Elbourne's workshop at LB Crafts. She told us we needed to really work the ink into the surface and we certainly hammered the Cut n Dry foam getting our flowers coloured that day. So I tried again with the Dusty Concord on my squares and got a much more vivid colour. I embossed with a Jamara Cuttlebug folder but the embossing didn't show too well so I went back and picked out the raised surface with Black Soot and got an effect I was really pleased with. The word 'goth' wasn't in my head until I read the comments on my sneak peek but the black and purple velvet/flock effect is straight out of Morticia's wardrobe.

To colour the tag on which the images were stamped, I used Tumbled Glass, Dusty Concord and a little Faded Jeans. I dabbed these onto my craft mat, spritzed with water and dipped in the tag. Over this background I used a Tattered Angels Ironworks masks. It is a fantastic iron gate. I picked out the shape in more Dusty Concord then stamped over the top. The stamps I used are mostly Inkadinkado but the 'Trick or Treat' and 'Shadows' text is from a new Halloween plate by Elusive Images.  

I didn't have the Tim Holtz Fragments that Linda used on her tag in the original project but I got by using three Creative Acrylics pieces and a few round and square acrylic 'pebbles' which I've had for a while.

I added into the mix a variety of Grungeboard minis which were painted with a Silver Dabber and immediately embossed with silver embossing powder. This gave the paint a lovely bubbled effect and even the tiny pieces look quite gnarly. I also used a couple of pieces painted with Aqua Dabber. I tried quite hard to repeat motifs across the canvas to pull everything together. A chipboard arrow echoes the spikes on Crow Gate and a tiny star flourish in a square pebble (sorry, lost in the glare on the main photo below) echoes the silver chipboard stars. Can you spot the others?

Sadly, I wasn't able to make the word 'Boo' with the type charms because there is only one 'o' in a set. So I computer generated my own letters.

I really enjoyed this project once I finally got to grips with it. I love the way I was able to use so many different elements and techniques. I know it is very different from Linda's canvas in the magazine but I feel I have put my own twist on the piece and was glad I was able to use what I had learned from her to get Grungepaper squares I was happy with. Thanks, Linda, for continuing to inspire us!

PS Sorry for the picture quality. I waited for daylight but it has been murky again today so no chance to improve on the photos I took in artificial light last night.

Don't give up on me just yet! (posted by Jo)

You might be forgiven for thinking I was a figment of your imagination and that this was really Craft Stamping Trio! But I am still here. I've just spent a lot of time gadding about over the summer and consequently I have got behind with our projects here. But after seeing the girls produce such gorgeous tag canvases I thought it was time I started getting mine together. I've made some headway today and hope to have my piece finished in time for a dash to the deadline with Judith's choice of project from the next issue.

 Here is a little taster of things to come.

My red and turquoise canvas (posted by Elaine)

Well you may know from my sneeky peek that I chose a rather unusual colour palette for my canvas inspired by Linda Elbourne's project in Craft Stamper. I love turquioise, but wanted to add something with a bit of punch too, hence the red - I think it works although it is rather unorthodox!

Unlike my blogging companions here, I have not gone for the understated approach, rather the more is more technique, or what I often call my "everything but the kitchen sink look"!! I have also gone a bit glittery and blingy, which is another diversion from Linda's original, I hope I will be forgiven Linda!! I painted my canvas wirh a Pool dabber, then I wanted a really true turquoise colour, so I actually made my background squares from a pale chipboard that I ran through the cuttlebug and then painted with precious metal paint. I backed each square with a matted layer of glitter card and let just a tiny edge show for a little sparkle.

I used a lovely Darkroom Door set of stamps as my words and some images. I really struggled to find some words that fitted the memory frame, so this was a bit of one of the main stamps in the set. I needed a bit more space than a tag allowed so I used a semi gloss postcard to work on. I can't remember for sure which inks I used now, I know one was Tumbled Glass DI. I used a nice swirly mask as my background. Although I did use Fragments for the first time, I also used some of the Tim Holtz film strip ribbon too for some of my images. Linda very kindly demoed how to stamp tiny images for using the ribbon when we were at Ally Pally a while back. Linda also got me over my fear of making Grungepaper roses when I did a brilliant class with her when me and my CSQ pals went in holiday together in June, so I wanted to add some of them onto my canvas. I made these out of red velvet paper and thought black leaves would set them off nicely.

I used the lovely Jo Capper Sandon small bee stamp and a key hole that I think was a lovely freebie from Crafty Individuals. I added some lovely metal keys from K & Co, some red buttons and some jewelled flourishes. I just inked my chipboard frame and shape as I had already used metallic finishes, after all you can see I didn't want it to be OTT!

So this is the full canvas and like Judith and Lesley I really loved doing this project, so thank you Linda for the inspiration in your article, on your blog and in your classes and demos. You make us laugh and we learn a lot too - what better combination could we ask for?

Thanks for popping by and sharing our fun!

Elaine x

Birds of a Feather (written by Judith)

Here I am, slightly later than intended, posting my offering based on Linda Elbourne's 'Playing Tag' in the July Craft Stamper magazine.

I decided to go with a green theme this time, as I was feeling very summery, and wanted to reflect the foliage and freshness of the garden. I wanted to incorporate lots of birds into my project, and use my favourite Paper Artsy and Elusive Images bird stamps.

I started by choosing a colour palette of Willow and Juniper Adirondack Inks, and Bundled Sage Distress Ink. I applied Willow and Juniper paint dabbers to my canvas, and Juniper to my Grungepaper. As I mentioned in my sneaky peek, I used the Tim Holtz Cracked effect folder to emboss my Grungepaper.
I used a lovely Tattered Angels mask from the Blossom set on my tag, keeping to the natural theme. I had some chipboard leaves which I coloured with Bundled Sage, and a lovely Scrap FX Bird which was coloured with Vintage Photo DI, bringing in an element of brown for contrast. I used a little bit of Gold paste on the tail of the bird to age it slightly. I added a couple of Wendy Vecchi butterflies, and some handmade flowers, all with a brown tinge.

I had never worked with the Ideology fragments before, but enjoyed finding images small enough to fit the pieces. I love the effect that embossing over gold Paint Dabber gives, so thank you Linda for this technique, I will be using it again! I added a dot of black Pearl Pen to the birds for their eyes, which seemed to work well.Inside the memory capsule, I placed a couple of little humming bird charms, some Paper Artsy clock fragments, and some green seed beads. I stamped one of my favourite phrases from the Live out Loud themeplate from Elusive Images, I love the font on this one.

I had fun making the small flowers, as I had never made these before. They are really easy, and take no time at all. So I will be making lots more of these too! They will be handy for using up scraps of pretty papers I think.

As you will see, I went for a rectangular canvas; it was what I had to hand. Therefore, my grungepaper pieces are a mix of square and rectangles. I played around with the combinations before sticking them down, and decided on this conventional pattern in the end. I have really enjoyed this project, although my time was tight, and would certainly like to make more of them, so thank you Jo for choosing the project, and thank you Linda for the fabulous idea in the first place.

Thank you for taking the time to visit, and any comments that you care to make will be really appreciated, Judith xx

Colours of Autumn? (posted by Lesley)

Hi Everyone,

Well, to say I got such an early start on this project and had it 95% finished before we even announced Jo's choice, it's taken me an age to put the finishing touches to it because other things got in the way.  I have to say though that for me personally this has been a most enjoyable project to do.  I thoroughly enjoyed every minute I put into it so thankyou Jo for choosing it and Linda Elbourne for giving us the inspiration in the July issue of Craft Stamper Magazine.  I love Linda's style both in her artwork and also her 'turn of phrase' on her wonderful blog.  She always makes me chuckle!

                                      

Anyway, onto the details of my offering.  I only had an A4 sized canvas board so decided to make my own square one by using a sheet of double sided adhesive applied to canvas cut from a roll and then mounted onto greyboard.  I was really pleased at how neat I managed to get this.  I then used acrylic paints to mix my own shade of green and covered the whole canvas with it.  When it was dry I used Walnut Stain DI to darken round the edges of the canvas.  I coloured my Grungepaper squares with Peeled Paint DI and then embossed them with a script Cuttlebug folder before darkening the edges with Walnut Stain again.
 

I didn't have a tag big enough so I had to use two which I inked with a mixture of Distress Inks but as it's over a month since I did them I can't remember what colours I used now (and, of course, I didn't write them down, Doh!).  I did use a Tim Holtz mask though and one of his quote stamps.  I also used Clarity stamps for the birds, a couple of Elusive Images stamps for the extra words and a pretty little butterfly stamp that my lovely and very talented blogging buddy Suzz sent to me a while ago.  I also used two very pretty butterflies that I showed on my sneak peek that Suzz sent me so thankyou Suzz, they were perfect for this project.  I won't list everything I used on here except to say there are Wendy Vecchi stamps, Tim Holtz.Sizzix dies and quite a lot of TH Ideology bits and pieces.  A few bits I found in my 'junk' box were the little leather flowers which I recued from a favourite pair of sandals after my dog decided to chew them to bits and the UTEE oval  (with the eye) which I made in a workshop ages ago.

I didn't have any of the Memory Capsules so to get a little 'movement' into my project I used a teeny bottle and put some of the beads I've used on other areas plus some bits of watch works.  I then inked up a piece of Grungepaper and rolled it into a stopper for the bottle.

As I have the same initial as Linda, I didn't want to use the letter L in the typewriter key thing so I decided to use three with the initials of our blog in them.

There is one bit I did wrong because I was so eager to get on with it I missed reading the part about stippling the Gold dabber onto the chipboard pieces and then sprinkling with gold EP.  I am annoyed with myself about that because I think it's a lovely textured effect on Linda's project but to give mine a little more interest than the plain flat gold, I added some beads and sticky backed gems.

I hope you like my attempt at this lovely project as it was a real pleasure to create.  Unfortunately, you may have to wait a little while for the others to post their projects as many things are conspiring to delay 'production', Lol.  I know Judith just managed to finish hers but didn't have time to take the pics and post before other things have taken precedence again for a week or so.  Elaine has been really busy with extra household jobs and Jo has been gadding about Europe twice (jammy girl) so far this month and she's away again next week.

As always we look forward to and really appreciate any comments you have time to leave and if there's anything on my project that you would like to have more details on please ask.  Have a lovely week all!

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

Another Bit of Green ....... with a Bit of Orange Thrown in (posted by Lesley)

Hi Everyone,  It's my turn for a sneak peek today, two in fact.  Unlike Judith, it's not unusual for me to choose green as it is my favourite colour but I have thrown in a contrast for my take on Linda Elbourne's lovely Craft Stamper project Playing Tag (July issue page 16).  I've been a fan of Linda's for quite a while now so I was really pleased when Jo chose this project for us.  Anyway, here are a couple of photos.

                                                


                                      
My project is almost finished and I think Judith and Elaine are in a similar position so it won't be long before we start posting the finished pieces.  We have got rather behind due to other commitments recently and Jo has been away twice gadding round Europe (lucky thing) so thank you for bearing with us.  We hope the finished pieces live up to expectations, Lol!

As always, we really appreciate any comments you have time to leave.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

A bit of a green sneaky peek from me (written by Judith)

Now you could be forgiven for thinking that someone else had written this post, because it's not often that I work with green. However, here I am, showing you my progress on my project based on Linda Elbourne's 'Playing Tag' chosen by Jo. We are seriously on the drag this time, due to our other commitments, but I am really enjoying this project. Iam actually nearly finished, but thought that  would show you a few snippets of what I have made.

Hmmm, what could the 'B' stand for? Well, it won't take a rocket scientist to work that one out! The eagle eyed among you will see that I have used Tim Holtz's cracked embossing folder on my grungepaper, this is a really great look. The greens that I have picked are so fabulous, I don't work with greens normally, but I love these! You wait until you see the finished result...

Okay, that's enough revealed for now, I will hopefully be able to show you the whole thing in a few days, but for now, thanks for looking, Judith xx