March | 2012 | Craftytrog's Inky Adventures

Archive for March, 2012

Artful Times Challenge – A Tag

Posted in Artful Times Challenge, Tags on March 31, 2012 by craftytrog

There’s a new fortnightly challenge on the block, called Artful Times, & their very first challenge is to create a tag.

I thought I’d use Tim’s nostalgic batik technique another try. Unfortunately, I had a few stray speckles of clear EP, but that just adds to the distressed look, I think. I used broken china, wild honey & barn door inks, with a little walnut stain around the edges. I dug out some old Stamper’s Anon wooden stamps that haven’t seen the light of day for a while. I painted the figures, using re-inkers, & finished my tag by stamping circles with a lid. The ribbon was coloured with matching stains, scrunched & dried, before being threaded through the top of my tag.

Thanks for looking! xox

19 Comments »

The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Call-Out

Posted in Uncategorized on March 31, 2012 by craftytrog

Have you got the stamping bug? Have you got creative tendencies that are not being fulfilled? Have you got time? We are looking for you to join us on our travels around the wonderful world of The Artistic Stamper!

You will have the opportunity to create gorgeous artwork and showcase it amongst our talented Creative Design Team. If you are that person, then contact Jennie by email, and show her your ART!

The Creative Team call out ends on April 30th, and Jennie will contact you after that date. So what are you waiting for?! ;o)

4 Comments »

Creative Chemistry – Days 9 & 10

Posted in Simon Says Stamp & Show, Tags, Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry on March 30, 2012 by craftytrog

It’s the last day of Tim’s fabulous Creative Chemistry 101, & I have learnt so much! As well as teaching us about the properties of lots of our favourite Ranger products, & sharing some wonderful techniques, Tim has shown us some of his fabulous vintage collections that he uses for his inspiration! His home is like an amazing vintage museum!

So, here are my tags & the techniques from Day 9, using Perfect Pearls…

Perfect distress mist

Perfect distress

Perfect splatter distress

My tags without flash…

and with the flash…

Now, here’s my tag from Day 10, using rock candy distress stickles. We learnt all about dimensional mediums today.

Just look at that fabulous sparkle!!!

I’m sharing my tags with Simon Says Stamp Challenge, as they want us to show tags this week.

14 Comments »

Creative Chemistry – Day 8 – Paint

Posted in Tags, Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry on March 29, 2012 by craftytrog

Yesterday’s lesson was all about paint, my favourite so far! Here are the techniques & my tags…

Paint dabber resist

Crackle resist

Shattered stains

11 Comments »

Creative Chemistry – Day 7

Posted in Tags, Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry on March 28, 2012 by craftytrog

Before I show my Day 7 tags, here’s my tag showing ‘stamping with markers’, from Day 6. I just used smooth white card for my base as I don’t have Tim’s specialty stamping paper, but it seemed to work just fine. The whisper pen colours still look lovely after inking the tag with distress.

Now onto Day 7. This was all about embossing. Here’s my tags…

Nostalgic batik

Rusted enamel

Distress powder resist

15 Comments »

Creative Chemistry – Day 6

Posted in Tags, Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry on March 27, 2012 by craftytrog

Yesterday, Tim’s class was all about his new distress markers. Well, I don’t have any of these as I don’t tend to use pens for colouring very much. I like to watercolour using a water brush & distress ink pads. So, I tried out the techniques with some very old whisper markers & Adirondak multi-surface pens.

Here are the results…

11 Comments »

Quintessentially English

Posted in My Mojo Monthly, Tags, The Stampman Challenge on March 26, 2012 by craftytrog

I finally had a play with my new Indigo Blu stamps & mega flakes yesterday, & came up with this tag.

I was inspired by the lovely vintage artwork on Sarah’s Mojo Monthly. I love blue & brown together, here I used weathered wood & vintage photo distress inks. Also love the effect of the flakes on the little flourish, they look gorgeous in real life. I used winter dawn mega flakes. I stamped bits of the flourish around the edges of the tag too, love using bits of stamps for this.

I’m also sharing my tag for The Stampman ‘Bingo’ Challenge. I used the ingredients in the bottom horizontal line – swirls, metal/metallic, ribbon.

13 Comments »

Wishes

Posted in Artwork for The Artistic Stamper Creative Team on March 25, 2012 by craftytrog

Here’s a little snippet of my latest DT piece for The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog.

Thanks for looking! xox

9 Comments »

Tim’s Creative Chemistry – Day 5

Posted in Tags, Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas on March 24, 2012 by craftytrog

Today we have been learning about, & using Distress Stains.

Stained kraft resist

Stamping with stains

Marbled stains (need to practise this one!)

Here are my tags…

17 Comments »

Tim’s Creative Chemistry – Day 4

Posted in Tags, Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry on March 23, 2012 by craftytrog

I’m running a day behind, but here are my tags from Day 4 of Tim’s Creative Chemistry. We were using re-inkers today, for various techniques…

Watercolouring with re-inkers

Layered misting

Custom stamp pads

12 Comments »

Creative Chemistry – Day 3

Posted in Tags, Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry on March 22, 2012 by craftytrog

Here are my tags for Tim’s Day 3 class…

Alcohol ink agate

Archival resist

Reflections stamping

11 Comments »

Creative Chemistry – Day Two

Posted in Cards, Simon Says Stamp & Show, Sunday Stampers, Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry on March 20, 2012 by craftytrog

It’s Day 2 of Tim’s Creative Chemistry on-line workshop, & today we tackled 3 fabulous techniques involving Distress Inks. I can’t give you the details as it wouldn’t be fair to Tim, but here are my 3 tags for today.

I also used the wrinkle free distress technique to make a background for a card, which I’m entering for a couple of challenges…

Simon Says Stamp & Show – your handmade backgrounds

Sunday Stamper – Paper Roses/add a paper flower

20 Comments »

Learn To Pause…

Posted in Artwork for The Artistic Stamper Creative Team, Cards on March 18, 2012 by craftytrog

Here’s a liitle snippet of my latest DT artwork for The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog, to tempt you to go and see the whole piece!

Thanks for looking! xox

6 Comments »

Bee Pendant

Posted in Jewellery, Stampotique Designers Challenge on March 16, 2012 by craftytrog

I was determined not to miss Stampotique’s current challenge of Wearable Art, so I used Jo’s lovely bee to make this pendant for my MIL for Mother’s Day. I used Stazon inks & cut’n’dry nibs to colour the bee.

I’m quite tempted to keep it for myself! Lol!

Thanks for looking xox

21 Comments »

You’re The One…

Posted in Cards, Grungy Monday on March 14, 2012 by craftytrog

It’s all about plaid over at Grungy Monday this week, as Linda has asked us to use Tim’s technique from his 12 Tags of Christmas 2009, Day 3.

This was also going to be for the Stampotique Challenge, but I missed the boat on that one! Lol!

11 Comments »

ATCs

Posted in ATCs, Simon Says Stamp & Show on March 13, 2012 by craftytrog

I opened up my rather neglected box of PaperArtsy stamps today, & had fun making 3 inky ATCs for a swap. Inks used were wild honey & barn door distress inks.

I’m entering my ATCs for the Simon Says challenge, as the theme this week is ‘Anything Goes’.

14 Comments »

Playing With Portfolios

Posted in Tags on March 10, 2012 by craftytrog

I finally opened up my pack of Portfolio Oil Pastels that I bought a few weeks ago! Leandra has kindly blogged a tutorial HERE, so I gathered my supplies & hunted for some of her Hotpick stamps to use. And here is the result. They blend beautifully, & I think I’ll be using them on lots of future projects!

17 Comments »

Art Journey Challenge – Turquoise

Posted in Art Journey Challenge, Cards on March 9, 2012 by craftytrog

I was going to get paints out today, but, after much procrastinating, I eventually got out masks & sprays, & made a card for the Art Journey Challenge.

I used a Crafter’s Workshop Balzer designs mask, turquoise glimmer mist & tangilicious Crafty Notions colour spray, as well as Art Journey Grunge Plate of stamps. Hopefully, it’s ok that I didn’t just use turquoise for the challenge!

I stamped the background images using the orange spray that I spritzed onto my craft sheet.

Here’s a close up of the shimmery sprays

And, I love the effect you get when you reverse the inky mask onto another sheet of paper! I nearly used this background, & spritzed some orange accents through another mask.

20 Comments »

Rustic Bloom

Posted in Artwork for The Artistic Stamper Creative Team, Cards on March 8, 2012 by craftytrog

Here’s a little peek at my latest offering on The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog. You can see the full piece HERE

Thanks for looking,

Alison xox

7 Comments »

Domino Book Swap

Posted in Altered Art, ATCs, Dominoes, UK Stampers on March 7, 2012 by craftytrog

I recently took part in a domino book swap over on the UK Stampers’ Forum. Here is my book, and a matching ATC that I made.

On the dominoes, I used Julie’s (It’s a Scrappy Life) faux dichroic glass technique. HERE’s Julie’s tutorial. The base for the technique is Viva Croco, & I added some of the gold Croco to the edges of my ATC. I used stamps by Invoke Arts.