Nautical

Yay nautical! I was super excited when I saw that the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge was to create something Nautical. I love anything to do with beaches, tropical and nautical so this one was fun.

I made a she-art tag using the Julie Nutting paper doll stamp from Prima, lots of washi tape and some inks and sprays.

You can check out this week's challenge here:
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/challenge-nautical/

Memory Box die cuts

Bo Bunny stamps from the Key Lime Collection

Bonus Card (just because)
stamp anchor on white paper with white pigment ink
add faded jeans distress ink over background and wipe off excess ink off of stamped images
spritz with water to give a "watery" effect
add embellishments (die cuts, ribbon, stamped image) after matting on yellow anchor paper

Rogue Traveller Canvas Passport to Fun challenge

Hi again,

I'm sure it wasn't just me, this winter was the longest, most drawn out test of seasonal affective disorder EVER! When we returned from Southeast Asia, I thought it would have been spring. No such luck.
To cope, I started making paper palm trees. I designed this 11x14 canvas to put on display in my living room, using the fabulous picture of a classic VW camper van as my jumping off point.

I found the picture on Pinterest. The photo credit linked back to desert-dreamer.tumbir.com  A thousand apologies if this is not correct. It's an awesome pic and it reminds me of the jungles in Indonesia that we visited in February.

to start, I made the trunk of the palm tree with some recycled paper bag, twisted it, and sprayed it with color shine.  The fronds were die cut from BoBunny paper, and more recycled packaging for the "looking glass" compass element. I fussy cut a bunch of leaves from the Graphic 45 Tropical Travelogue collection.

 I can't remember the company which the background paper is from. I found it in the sale bin at my local scrapbook  store.  I added some lightweight modelling paste around the edges and also created a stencil from the palm frond die to add more visual interest on the edges.

 here you can see the recycled plastic packaging I used to make a cool compass.  I added some remnant rubs to the canvas as well.  Those packs are awesome. You can put them on everything (like Franks Red Hot hahaha) I glued some jute twine around the plastic to give it a more finished look.

I knew I needed some more red on the canvas to visually balance it with the picture, so I stitched some great metallic thread through the one side.

I really love how it turned out. I am going to submit this piece to Simon Says Stamp and Show for their weekly challenge:  http://simonsaysstampandshow.blogspot.ca/2013/04/challenge-passport-to-fun.html

The Painter of light

I was excited when I bought this Thomas Kinkaid stamp from Cornish Heritage Farms. I must have stamped it 5 times and tried to color it, but it looked horrible. Finally I stamped it with charcoal fluid chalk ink and added just subtle hits of color using distress inks and markers.

I embossed cardstock with my new embossing folder and cut out and oval mat and some spruce trees from "cottage cuts", added lots of rock candy dry glitter and voila - a tonal card that is frosty and pretty.

The sticky embossing powder from Ranger is just awesome. I had used a different product years ago, so I was a bit sceptical as to whether it would work. Let me tell you, it works like a hot damn! I put it all over the picture, the sentiment and even the a few hits here and there on the trees.

The ribbon was taped with Sookwang tape and glittered. I hope the pictures do it justice. Glitter is so flippin hard to photograph.

Thanks for looking , now go get something done today.