Claudine's Paints

Finally my consignment of Claudine Hellmuth paints from Ranger along with a few other gorgeous goodies have arrived! I spent some of the afternoon making a tag using the Sticky back canvas, Studio paints, and our lovely free stamp from the May issue of Craft Stamper.

I ran some of the canvas through the Big shot using an embossing plate, and then mixed yellow pastel and landscape green on a craft mat. The paints are the most smoothest paints I have ever used. You have to try a least one pot and you will be hooked, even if you don't paint, they will look so good on your walls! A patchwork painting comes to mind... not sure if the other half will approve though! lol.

After I had embossed the canvas, I dry brushed the paint , wiping most of it off on a cloth first, before painting over the embossed canvas. It dries almost instantly. Use the paintbrush very lightly. Then I mixed a little black and red to make brown and painted a branch from a Maya road chipboard set. I stuck the canvas to the tag, and stamped the Twirly bird onto the tag and then stuck the branch on so it just covered the feet of the bird. To make the leaves I cut out leaf shapes from the canvas, painted them green and added the veins with the finest of the Claudine Brushes. ( these are fab and can stay in water as long as you like!) Finally I stuck them randomly on the branch, stamped Nature is Art from the Nature is Art set at the top of the tag. (I just inked the part of the stamp I wanted). Finally a little scattered Straw distress stickles finished off the bird with peeled paint distress stickles for highlights.

A matching ribbon threaded trough the tag hole, means it can be attached to the blog candy!

The sun was streaming through the window as I took the photos so they are not as good as I would have liked.

Happy Painting

Ally Pally

Over the weekend, we had a booth at the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace. It was great fun, and I got to meet up and talk to friends and people who I have only ever emailed with, or talked to on the telephone! We were very busy too, and both Hels and Susan demonstrating all day. Mal did a sterling job on Arkwright's till too! I just hung about and did the occasional demo, and pointed people in the right direction! I did take a few photos , most of which are pretty awful, ( seems my hand was shaking , lack of chocolate , I think! Lol) but it give you an idea of how busy it was there. All the artwork was admired, and Calvin , if you read this, everyone wanted to take home your fairy door!!

Hi to all who stopped by to say hello, and spend their pennies, and a special hello to Lesley. It was good to meet you at last. It was good to see Susie, Alison Dan and Nicky and Linda too!

Recycling at its best!

A few days ago, I received an email from RubyMay, saying that her order had arrived safely ( I always love to hear from my customers *grin*), and that she had turned her "invoice" into an ATC!! My oh my, here is recycling at its best, and even better RubyMay is without doubt a true Artistic Stamper! I was so chuffed with what she had done, I had to pass it on to you to see.

Please pop by her blog, and see for yourselves. I am always happy to see artwork done with The Artistic Stamper stamps or even invoices, so if you have any please do email me with pleasure.

Hugs

Claudine's Project

Still taking in all the wonderful stuff we did at Ranger U, one of the things we made with Claudine Hellmuth at Ranger U was a lovely box to hold our tags made with her. We could use any technique we had learnt from her , and I chose to use the technique which involves spreading an good amount of Multi-medium resist on a craft sheet, and inking your stamp with it. I then stamped onto the box. You need to make sure your stamp is thoroughly cleaned after use as it will ruin your stamp if not. You can then allow this to air dry or heat with a heat tool. Taking a dab of Claudine's paints, spray once or twice with water from the mini misters , and using a paintbrush brush over the stamped area. Dab with a cloth or paper towel while still wet to create depth to the colour. This technique is better on non sealed or porous surfaces.


All of Claudine's paints will be on the website very very soon! Don't forget the chance to win one of her paints in the Easter blog Candy!

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Meltpot Art at Ranger U

I couldn't wait to do meltpot art with Suze, as I have been using a meltpot ever since I first saw Suze demonstrating with the first one many years ago.... When they first came out I acquired one from the States, and still use it to this day. I love the fact that you can mould stuff, pour stuff, and create stuff! Being a jeweller it appeals to my sense of 3D, and I often find things to mould using the moldnpour compound. Old jewellery bits are good, and charms are fab!

Suze taught us lots of techniques using the meltpot,with utee, and beeswax, something I shall do more of, and adding lots of glitz as well.

Ranger U had made frames for all of us to put all our finished techniques on, a very inspirational idea I think, and it meant we had them all in one piece and could of course hang them at home! I was a bit concerned mine might be damaged on the journey, but wrapped up well with bubble and lots of American newspaper it made it home in one piece!

Here is the finished piece, some of it I would love to redo, but for the moment it is as it is!

These are just a few of the techniques taught, and I promise I will teach you some of them.

A Happy Easter to all who celebrate. Now, don't go eating all those chocolate eggs at once !

Tagged at Ranger U!

We did 70 techniques at Ranger last weekend and most of them were on tags which makes it perfect to reference the ideas and techniques. , and here is a pic or two I took of the tags we made . These were made with Tim techniques, over a period of 3 days! The top one is using distress stickles, and distress inks and a lovely piece of grungeboard.

Did you know you could spread them with your finger and then heat dry them?

These were the tags we made with Claudine..

The top one was made with gesso thickly spread on, then drawn in and when dry, painted with a watery mixture of her gorgeous paints, and dabbed over with a cloth or kitchen paper to get variation. This one was the first we did with her, and I don't think I made the impression deep enough to read it.
I shall pick some of the techniques to show you later, but for now it suddenly seems that jet lag has kicked in, and a little nap seems in order! I should be so lucky! Still it is Easter weekend, so I do hope you are having a relaxing time this weekend. More tomorrow....

Back from Ranger U!

What fun I had last weekend. I was accepted to do Ranger U in the USA, and I flew over there last Thursday, and spent 3 fabulous days playing with inks and paints and utee. The weekend started gloriously as I was upgraded on the flight to first class! I was so amazed when the girl at the gate told me, she looked at me , and said would you like it? Of course! I was sitting, or should that be lying down opposite Jeff Beck and Harvey Goldsmith! ( for those of you who don't know they are a guitarist and a music promoter).
I met so many lovely people,(the class photo is above, and I am the one hiding 2nd row up! ) and we worked incredibly hard for 3 days, learning new techniques and getting to play with almost all of Ranger's products. Tim Holtz, Suze Weinberg and Claudine Hellmuth showed and taught us how to use their products. I already have a good number of Ranger products in the store, but will be getting Claudine paints and canvas too. They are winging their way to me as I type! Yah!

I learnt so many new techniques, and I will be working my round to showing you them on the blog, and on the website.

I have to say that by the end of the 2nd day my brain wouldn't compute with my mouth, and I was completely gaga! But it was fun and so informative, and an experience that I would not have missed for the world!

Finally on Monday Suze so kindly took me shopping! I love shopping and had a small list from the guys back home, Levis (not to be found *sad*) , Jolly Ranchers, a corn scoop, ( don't ask!) and Lucky Charms ( an American cereal) . I did however get to Michaels, and bought rather too much stuff! Then Suze took me to her house, and showed me her studio. I love you Suze, you are such a generous person to give up your time. Thank you , it was such fun. The corn dogs were good too!

We are at Ally Pally next weekend, so I am busy getting ready for that, and if you are coming please pop by the stand ( no 49) and say hello. More on Ranger U tomorrow.

Hugs

Belated Birthday Card

Last week was the birthdays of 2 of my Creative Team, and with all due intention, I wanted to send them a little gift and card. As per usual, I was late with their cards! I do know they have received them , so I can show you what I made! I used some Tim Holtz stamps from my personal stash, and used one of them on shrink plastic to make a little brooch, and then attached it to the card. Here I used the swirls, which I covered in Glossy Accents, and the Harlequin background is one of the texture mats. I attached the brooch to a piece of chipboard, and distressed inked all the elements. If you are reading this I will be in the USA at Ranger learning new techniques and how to use some of their products! Will tell all on my return early next week, with added pics too, if the camera behaves!!

Mirror, mirror....

This week's Objet D'art Challenge is to alter a mirror.
I found this mirror in one of my local "stash" shops, and it has taken me a little while to alter it due to the fact that I crackle painted the whole mirror in Bronze crackle paint by Ranger, and then added faces to the actual mirror with Stazon balck ink. I then added pearls around the outside with Glossy Accents. These kept slipping off, so it took me a little while longer than I anticipated! All the elements are available in the shop.

Have a go at the challenge, and please post when you have done it.

This Friday the May issue of Craft Stamper features a free stamp from us designed by Hels for The Artistic Stamper. I shall be making a couple of projects with the bird later next week. We havre a special offer in the shop too for co-ordinatring stamps, so have a gander and check out the new birds too!

Happy Stamping

Hanging Art with Mr Holtz!

About a month ago, I attended a workshop with Tim Holtz. We all got to play with the new alcohol ink colours! Yah! and are they just the best colours. We also got to play with the refillable pen, and a bit of sticky backed metal. Here is what we made.

This is the top piece, using Tim's new stamps, and the alcohol ink pens, which were used to highlight the stamp.

The middle piece is die cut letters and flourish in card, covered in sticky back metal, rubber down with a paper stump, then alcohol inked, and sanded off to reveal the metal. The final piece used metallic alcohol inks,( you need the minutest drop) creating an agate style background. ( which doesn't show up on the photo) and some more of Mr Holtz Stampers Anonymous stamps. Finally we added prima clear paintables, and secured with glue dots. All of the squares were covered in the largest of the fragment tiles and held together with books rings. A fab workshop!I am waiting for delivery of all of the new inks from Ranger, and of course all the new Idea-ology range too! Meanwhile, if you want to stock upon your alcohol inks, because I know you will want all the colours, as they all go together you can find them here in the shop. Special offer for this week only is 15% OFF of orders over £25.00 with discount code spring. Just add it to the discount code box when you check out!

Happy Inking

Mother's Day

I have been very lax in blogging this week, and my blog is very neglected. I also noticed that my SBS sisters links have been stolen by blogger along with my blogs I visit! I will have to do a bit of detective and repair work!

Today here in the UK is Mother's Day. Lots of people dismiss this day, as a commercial institution, but I think it is right for us to celebrate our mothers, and grandmothers. For me, it is a day where I indulge myself, and hopefully get dinner cooked for me??? mmmm don't think either of my men will be cooking for me! So I am afraid I will starve or be forced to ask them to take me out or have a takeaway in!!! My indulgence will be sitting reading my book or newspaper or just crafting! Or an indulgence I love, doing absolutely nothing on the sofa!!!

This is a card I made my mother, who I saw yesterday . Love you Mum!

I made it very quickly , and used thickers for the letters, and added our very thin sticky backed metal to them. I then alcohol inked them and sanded. The paper is one of my favourites from K & Co. The flowers are Primas, with added beads glued down with glossy Accents.

Happy Mothers Day to all who are mothers, and to all who are not, take a day, indulge yourselves, put your feet up, and do absolutely nothing!

Ring a ding a ling!

Apologies about the title... just popped into my head when I thought about this gorgeous rings I made recently at a workshop at the Birmingham Trade show with Suze Weinberg. She is such fun, and her workshops are always a pleasure. We made them using the meltpot, (now available on the website) and utee, and some great little face moulds that Suze brought with her from the USA. Melt utee in the pot, pour into the moulds, then allow to cool. Pop out the face , and cut to the size of the ring. Superglue in (the last thing you need is it falling out while you are wearing it!) . Then we filled the outside with stickles and little beads. Allow to dry. Mine ended up in my handbag for a while, so I re stickled them when I got home, as the glue dries and shrinks.

A great little project , and an even better one for me, as jewellery is my first love. I will have the rings on the website later in the year. P.S. Hands not my own , much too dirty and inky! , but DD's who claims hers are horrid too, so I cut them off, the hands in the pics...silly! personally they are much better than mine and cleaner.

I will have the project I did with Tim Holtz on the blog later in the week, what fun that was too!

Blog Candy Winner!

Been a bad week this week for blogging! I haven't even had time to do a challenge or even get out a stamp or inks! I shouldn't complain, as DD is now home for a few days to work on her dissertation for the end of her degree, (love having her home, so I can feed here, talk complete nonsense to her, and have huge hugs!) Then I have been helping Mal put up a greenhouse in the garden ( hands now like ice blocks!) , and working hard all week doing orders. Everything else seems to have taken a back seat. But I have chosen the winner of the blog candy, and if

JENNIFER

would like to email me, I can post it off to you.
I have lots of ideas in my head for the challenge on Objet D'art, and would love to see your creations too. All you have to do is alter/decorate a box, and post a comment on the blog.
Off now to get warm by the fire, and contemplate my yet to be decorated box!

I like a Challenge...

when I find  I am in a rut creativity wise, that often a challenge sets the mind in a direction. I have been very busy this week, (seems I am not getting enough me time here!), and just getting to play hasn't been an option. Finally today I thought I would make something for the Arty Girlz challenge. The theme is Blue and yellow. A friend of mine made me some blank gekkos in white shrink plastic for me a while ago, and I already had in mind a project for 2 of them. The inspiration came from a project someone did on Crafts by Carolyn forum.

I punched some holes in them , and shrunk them down. Here the trouble started! Because they have curls and are thin in places, they curled right up, and I could not uncurl them. Serves me right for not doing them in the oven. I had used a heat gun! Finally they behaved, and I coloured them with alcohol inks after shrinking, and used blues and yellows, which mixed to be green! Then while adding the beads, one of the tails snapped. This is because I had punched holes in them, and the shrink doesn't take kindly to very thin pieces. So for purposes of the picture, I have very carefully pushed the tail together! Methinks, I will have to make another one!
I see quite a lot of possibilities in shrink plastic and alcohol inks. Thanks girlz for the challenge, my creative juices are flowing again!

P.S. Don't forget the blog candy on both this blog, and Objet D'art.