Stampotique Challenge - It's all Love and Hearts

It's Wednesday! You know what that means! It's time for another challenge over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge Blog and our hostess this week is Kristen and her challenge to us is:

"It's all Love and Hearts" 

and this is what Kirsten says about this challenge

"February 14th is Valentines day, so why not create someting that is surround with hearts and love..."

I decided to create a journal page for this challenge and I am working in my Dylusions journal today

Using my DecoArt media paint, I created this background, the hearts were done with a stencil and some embossing cream and I used another stencil for the circles

I used Stampotique Stamp Blocks by artist Maryse Carrier,

for my bottom border here and I painted every other block with the DecoArt paint

For the rest of my page I used Stampotique Stamps

Froggie - By Artist Daniel Torrente

Teddy - By Artist Daniel Torrente

and of course

Blocks by artist Maryse Carrier

Here is my finished page

I just printed out the quote on my printer and cut it out

Thanks for coming by the blog today and I hope you will join in with us in this fun challenge.

Altered Playing Card Challenge week 22

Welcome back to another week of The Altered Playing Card Challenge. We are on week 22!! Heading to the home stretch here. I see that lots of new people are having fun catching up and those that have been with me since the beginning, it's so fun to see their cards each week. I hope you will all press on through the next few weeks to finish up this deck of altered cards.

If you have missed any of the previous week's here are the links

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6 
Week 7
Week 8

Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Week 16
Week 17
Week 18
Week 19
Week 20
Week 21

and our Facebook page

Facebook Group

and the Pinterest Board link

Pinterest Board

This week I wanted to try something that I haven't done before, Using Elmer's Glue...it's going to be a glue week!
I guess I should have tried it out before I actually used it for the APC challenge, I ended up having a few hick-ups but we're all learning together, right? haha!

So for  starters I picked out some stencils and a bottle of good ol' fashioned Elmer's Glue

I taped my stencil over my card and used my finger to dab the glue onto the card through the stencil

I really tried to put on a thick layer of the glue without smudging the stencil pattern too much
I did the same thing with the second card

The circle stencil ended up smudging quite a bit but I figured it was ok
I set both cards aside to thoroughly dry
You can see here what the 2nd card looked like while it was still wet

I cleaned my stencils really well, this glue is super sticky so I had to actually use soap and water to clean them instead of just a baby wipe (please make sure to clean your stencil, the glue will ruin it)

Once my cards were dry, I took some paint and painted my backgrounds
I just used a paintbrush to brush the colors on
You can really see the pattern that the glue made on the left card verses the right
For the left card, I used brown DecoArt media paint and then dabbed on a little of the green over the top

I tried to peel off my glue on the green card because I didn't like how it turned out (you couldn't really see the pattern well) and I think it would have worked, except there wasn't a thick enough consistency of the glue so it wouldn't all peel off.... 
I decided to outline my pattern with my Faber Castell pen for now

I really struggled with this background because at this point I hated it. I didn't like it at all and felt like throwing it out and starting over
I decided to really work with it and keep going, I added another thick layer of the glue again.  This time I put the glue on the card right out of the bottle
I set that card aside to dry

Going back to the second card, this card I loved, I don't know why, but I just really like the way this one turned out. I began by adding a torn piece of paper 
The paper was edged with a dark brown ink prior to glueing it onto my card

I then added a piece of Tim's film strip to one side and used his tiny stapler to attach it to my card

I was going to keep this card vertical but decided on a stamp from Tim Holtz's  stamp set called  Warehouse District .. the mustache men, so I flipped my card onto it's side

I used Veramark embossing ink and black embossing powder for my guys but be warned, the glue and acrylic paint really wants to bubble with the heat. If you enlarge my photo above you can see right about my middle guy here, there is some bubbling

The "photograph" word comes from the same stamp set
For this I am using my Stampin Up "stamp-a-ma-jig" .. this simple tool allows me to stamp my word exactly where I want it on my card
First, line up your piece of plastic and your blue handle. Then take your stamp and ink it up and stamp it onto the plastic piece

Next, line up your plastic, stamped word where you want it to fall onto your card

and last, stamp your word stamp... note: see how the corner of my stamp block lines up with the corner of my blue handle, just like the plastic did in the above photo? That's how you get your word in the correct spot

I used Stazon black ink for my word, mainly because I wanted it to be permanent and I was stamping a little onto my plastic film strip piece as well
Lastly I edged my card with Archival black ink and a distress tool

Here is my finished card

Ok, back to the first card again.... Once that card was completely dry again, it looked like this...
You can still see the green paint through the glue AND you can see the zig zags much better I think

Although I have this bright white spot right at the top of my card, I figured I'd deal with it later.
I have this really cool sticky back fabric wash tape and decided I was going to do a little sewing this time, so I took a strip and adhered it to my card and trimmed

Next I put the card into my sewing machine and did some random sewing... if you don't want to sew you can always skip this step OR draw some stitching 

Next, I used this beautiful steampunk girl stamp and heat embossed her with copper embossing powder. I used white card stock for this, I also colored her face with Copic markers, I then glued her onto my card and trimmed

(notice how she covered up my white portion? Clever, right?)

I used a sticky note and tore it into the shape of my girl in order to mask  her off. I then used a stencil and green ink to create a pattern

By covering up the girl with the sticky note, I don't get any of my stenciled pattern onto her but you can see the pattern all around her

I then used this stamp for my word. I only inked up the word "Discover" with black archival ink and stamped it at the bottom of my card

I added a few random black circles here and there (again with lids to bottles, I've shown this in previous sessions) and also added some white lines with acrylic paints

Lastly, I used a copper marker to draw around my edges
Here is my second finished card

This card didn't start out how I expected but I do like the outcome

And here are my two cards together

This week was a challenge for me, I really struggled with that green card but ultimately it turned out fine. I encourage you to make something great out of something you were going to throw out.
Take care and please share with me what you create!!
See ya next week.

Roc Nicholas Design Team Post

Thanks so much for coming by the blog today. Today is my daughter's 23rd Birthday, Happy Birthday Brittney!!

This will be my second post for Roc Nicholas' design team. I can't say how thrilled I am to be on this wonderful team. Roc's stamps are sold at Stampotique.com 

For this month's post I wanted to create something different. I am making a set of coasters to display around the house and wanted to use one for this post.

The first thing I did was prep my background with gesso, these coasters are cardboard and they really soak up the gesso

I then used some of the DecoArt media paint to brush over the gesso. I didn't completely cover the background here

I stamped all my images onto white card stock and colored them with copic markers

I used a diamond stencil and some green paint to create the diamonds in my background and then went over some with a white gel pen

Here is my finished coaster

I have used Roc's Stamps

Squiggle Arms and Blessed Skellie

for the flowers I simply stamped the flower from Blessed Skellie and cut them out. I drew the stems for them.

This is a fun and quirky coaster. I can't wait until the entire set is done, they will be fun to display. 

Thanks for stopping by once again and have a great day!

Stampotique Challenge - Oranges and Lemons

Welcome back to the blog, I'm so glad you have visited me today. Wednesday's always mark another challenge over at the Stampotique Challenge Blog

Our hostess today is Sue Davies and she has chosen the theme

"Oranges and Lemons" use citrus colors

This is what Sue says about this challenge....

"Ever since I was small I've loved the colour yellow and the rest of the citrus colors  They are just so fresh and always make me feel happy. So this week I want you to use citrus colours and spread the happiness!"

For this challenge today I did a bright and fun journal page

I used Stampotique stamps:

Carol's Flower Small - By artist Janet Klein

Give the Dog a Bone - By artist Maryse Carrier

Kitty Squad - By Artist Kira Nichols

Ignis Heart - By Artist Magda Polakow

Footprints - By Carol's Collection

I have to say, I agree with Sue, I really love the oranges and yellows together on this page. So beautiful! 

I hope you will join us for this challenge  you could have a chance to win a 30.00 gift certificate from the online store.

CHEERS!

Altered Playing Card Challenge Week 21

Can you believe this crazy weather? I wish all those people on the east coast well, I hope you all are warm and safe.

This is week 21 for our Altered Playing Card Challenge!!

If you have missed any of the previous week's here are the links

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6 
Week 7
Week 8

Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Week 16
Week 17
Week 18
Week 19
Week 20

and our Facebook page

Facebook Group

and the Pinterest Board link

Pinterest Board

I told you last week that we were going to use clear embossing paste this week and so we are.

I really like clear embossing paste and I don't use it enough

For starters I used stencils along with the paste to create some texture in my background, you just smooth it on like embossing paste

You have to set them aside to dry, I let mine dry about 2 hours. I think you can heat set the paste, just be careful 

Once the paste was dry I took my first card and used Dina Wakley paint for my background. I used a sponge and just dabbed it on (note: if your not into bright colors please feel free to use more muted or neutral colors, your cards are yours so please make them the way you like them)

before the paint dried I took a baby wipe and went over the raised areas and wiped the paint off

Again with another color

Paint and then wipe, this is how my card ended up

for my second card I used the DecoArt media paints.. Same technique, dab on and then wipe off

 The DecoArt paint didn't wipe off as well as the Dina paint but I really love how the gesso texture came through as well as some of the stenciled embossing paste

I like the clear embossing paste because it almost looks translucent and when you wipe off the paint it leaves the stenciled pattern.. 

For both of my cards today I am using images from Vera Lane Studios, these ladies are called "Housewives"

After making them the sizes I wanted, I printed them out and then colored them with Copic Markers. I then cut them out

Back to my first card:

Using the DecoArt paints again I dabbed a bit onto my craft sheet and used my pinky finger to make some dots

I then used some torn book pages and added that here and there, I just used glue stick to adhere the pages, I then trimmed the edges

Using my Scarlet Lime journal pen I drew around the edges of my torn pages (I cannot find a link to this pen, I hope it's not discontinued!)

I have all these mini alphabet sets from the Michael's dollar bin, gotta love that dollar bin...

 I decided to go ahead and use one here, I used black ink and stamped the word "BE" onto my circles... I also used my black pen to draw lines around my circle

I then wrote "fruitful" on a piece of the book pages and adhered that to the side

I then adhered my girl, I decided to add another set of circles in the lower lefthand corner and did a little doodle with the black pen LOL... 

Here is my first finished Altered Playing Card

Getting started with card number 2 - I first added a few dots here and there with paint and my finger

I have this zip lock baggie full of used stamps from the US and several different countries and I dug through and found three that I really like, I then used my glue stick to adhere them to my background (I always cut my stamps off the letters I receive for use on other things)

Again, I used my Scarlet Lime black pen to doodle and also drew around my stamps

I also added a tiny bit of yellow paint to my dots at the bottom of my card and tiny bits of orange dots to my upper circles

I added some black tissue tape to a piece of white scratch paper

This is going to be my background for my girl

I adhered my girl to the tape and then cut around her leaving a small portion of the black as an edge

 I then glued my girl onto my background, love the way that black tissue tape makes her stand out

Using some punchinella and a black ink pad, I created some circles here and there

lastly, I added my sentiment (Love Robin Roberts!)

Here is my finished 2nd card

and here are both playing cards side by side

and last but not least the winner of last week's give-a-way is:

Paula CollinsJanuary 26, 2015 at 6:12 AM

I have base coated 37 cards to play along. I ran out of paint. 14 more to go. I'm going to try a valentine theme. I love this idea! I am going to hang them all up as a banner when I finished.

Congrats Paula, please email me at: 

jasminngirl411 at yahoo.com 

with your mailing address for your prize

Thanks all for stopping by, make sure to share your creations with me if your making your own set of cards. I always love seeing what you all have created.