Random!

Last night while it was still light ( at six o'clock! !!) I grabbed a stamp and then another one, then another, then another... are you getting the picture? lol. I wanted to try out the new Glassine paper envelopes from Mr Holtz, and just grabbed a few stamps that were lying about on my desk. I used my trusty Black Archival inkpad and just randomly stamped them on the front of the envelope! Stamps are The Artistic Stamper ball bottle and Travel, Butterfliy and Head from Karantha, eye from Wendy Vecchi, Leaves from Claudine, and words and label from Tim Holtz. The pen nib is from the new Idea-ology..love these as they have flt backs, so you can glue them. The tag was cut from the new Idea-ology Crowded Attic paper stash, and the ribbon is from some gorgeous vintage French ribbon that will be at Ally Pally :)).
It is a very random set of stampings, and probably needs more added, but for now here it is!



Have a very creative day!
Hugs

Somewhere over the Rainbow...

This week, a gorgeous surprise came to me in the form of some wonderful coloured utee , namely from Crafty Notions. These gorgeous coloured utees are being released today at the Birmingham Trade show, Stitches, and I am the proud owner of a set of them! I did a little sampler of some of the colours , and am in love with the blue, oh and the pink, and the yellow....lol
I just triple embossed very thick card with the powders, and then just stamped directly into the melted utee, with no release agent with the new Karantha stamps.

I will definitely be having some of these in the shop as soon as they are ready to ship.
Have a great Sunday!

Timed Out-updated!

This is a rather appropriate title as The Artistic Stamper website has some server issues at the moment, and consequently may be rather slow to load, but never fear we have a back up site at http://www.theartisticstamper.co.uk/, but if you buy you need to use the back arrow rather than the continue shopping button! All the new distress inkpads are on their way to me and will be here next week, so you can pre-order those too! For Tim Holtz idea-ology I have put the link pages on the sidebar as the main page to these didn't load properly...grrr. Hopefully all will be fixed later today! It is now fixed! YAH! And as a special, Sarah Lawrence of Karantha fame has let me pre-release her new stamps a day early, and boy are they gorgeous! Check them out here.
I had hoped this week would be gentle with me , but it has gone by in a flash, but I did get some artwork done, and over on Gingersnaps, they let me do a post..( did they know what they were in for , I wonder! lol) . This is the piece I did for them, so go check out how I did it.

Have a great weekend and I will be back tomorrow with something new and stunning! hehe just to keep you guessing....lol

Creative Team call out!

Have you got a better way of saying I am looking for STAMPERS who like to make ART? If you think you have got what it makes to join us at THE ARTISTIC STAMPER and be on our CREATIVE TEAM, then email me a little bio, with a link to your ART.
In the meantime Lucy, one of our team, has started a blog here. Do go and say hello, she would love it!
I have just uploaded on the website some new stamps from Karantha these are fab , pods and flowers and seeds, very versatile, and a great price.

I have made a rainbow card from the seeds and flowers stamps. This is my entry for the Gingersnaps Rainbow Colour Challenge
I used inks that haven't seen the light of day for years and which worked perfectly- Colorbox. I brayered the background with Florist which is multicoloured, and then direct to the stampbord, I used Topaz, Sky Blue, and Old Rose. I had forgotten how wonderful these inks were, and I got an ENTIRE set years ago in 1992 when I co-wrote a book on rubber Stamping called Discover Rubber Stamping.
I put all the stampbord together and then stamped the flowers and Seeds with Archival black, dried off with a heat gun, and then spaced them out equally on the card. I did learn one thing while using these inks with Stampbord. Even though I heat dried them , and then stamped on top with Archival, I hadn't heat dried enough and I made a mistake, so I washed! the stampbord under water and the inks came off! Re-usable stampbord! I then more carefully heat dried them before stamping on top. I think if the piece was going to be handled, I would clear emboss or cover with Glossy Accents.

Hopefully it will fulfill the challenge :)
Happy Creating

Get me to the church on Time...

Saturday was Judith, my BFF's youngest daughter's wedding, and a wonderful day it was too! I took my camera, (even remembered to get new batteries), wore my party frock and little heels (almost unknown for me!) and in time honoured traditon also made a card for them!
I used The Kiss stamp, the Karanatha Swirl stamp as a background, and a card sketch that I love ! I used white ink for the Kiss stamp, and embossed in clear fine detail embossing powder. I distress inked in Tattered Rose and Worn Lipstick, and I have to admit more than one version of the card went in the bin!! I do hope they liked it. Alice and Ross looked radiant, and boy Alice,loved the Vivienne Westwood dress, and the shoes even more! I wasn't the first person in the queue to borrow them either! Both my children were there which was fab, and I even managed to capture a photo of them smiling! It was a wonderful day, the rain held off till late in the evening, and it was so good to catch up on people not seen for ages, and to have a little drink or two or three! hic!!
Today it is back to work with a vengeance, but looking forward to my week off at the end of the month, let's hope the weather stays fine.

The Next Level

This week, you can join in with The Next Level blog challenge, a fab blog full of tips and techniques, and great prizes*wink*!
I have made my attempt on this weeks Challenge sketch, and used distress inks, as that is what you can win from me on there. I am never very good at sketches (and have had disastrous results before, but having seen the ones on the blog, now have a better idea of what is needed. I used distress inks, yellow and purple, for the background,
and used the Karantha floral stamp, masking the Gibson Girl. I use printed twill on the bottom, along with some flowers and a Tim Holtz snap from my own stash. The tag was distressed with the same colours, and a Tim Holtz stamp , highlighted with Glossy Accents.
I was quite pleased with the end result, very different from anything I have done before.

The moral of the story is have a go... you never know !