Wow, time flies.......... another Stamp Man ATC swap month already!!!

I can't believe it's a month since we started The Stamp Man's ATC swaps!! Where had the time gone? Well whilst we're all waiting for our Wings swaps to arrive (I can't wait, there were some STUNNING entries), it's time to get working on this month's theme, which is.............Time!

My first swap is made with The Stamp Man's Aspects of Design Butterfly Beauties stamp plate.

The background is made using my beloved smacking acetate technique, with lots of different colours of Distress Inks. I'm a big believer in waste not, want not, so if I have some smudges of ink left on my craft mat after ink blending I spritz it with water and dip some ATC backgrounds in. This one was probably dipped in 3 or 4 times over a few weeks.

The butterfly is stamped with Versafine Onyx Black and the words are computer generated. I doodled lines around the words and the edges of the ATC then matted onto black card. It needed a lift, so out came the Stickles!

Hope you all feel like joining in, for all the details, take a look here or click on the blinkie in my sidebar.

It has been a bit of a manic week and weekend for me, so hopefully I'll be back into the creating and blogging routine. I need to make lots of swaps for the Docrafts meet next weekend at Luffy (woohoo, looking forward to it!!!!), so must get on.

Bookmark obsession......

Did I tell you that I'm a librarian? No? Well guess, what, I'm a librarian, I love books, read loads and yet this is the first bookmark I've ever made. Plus, there's even more of an admission on it's way - I've got a bit of a bookmark collection- I know, what a geek!!!! Most of the books I own have their own bookmark. I've got them from all over the place, pretty much everywhere I've visited, and yet I've never felt the urge to make one before......how odd. Oh wow, that makes me sound soooooo weird- my friends at work already think I'm odd because I can't walk on the white lines of the pedestrian crossing on the carpark, and I have to count things in 2s........right I think I'll stop with the confessions now and show you my creation.....yes, good idea.

The background is my beloved smacking acetate technique with some swirls stamped over in pink. The image is Promarkered as usual, and it's a lovely Lili of the Valley stamp that reminded me of my Little Legs and her best friend. Hold on for the close up.....

Woo, extreme close up. Can't recommend a touch of white gel pen enough to make it pop and to cover up any mistakes (ahem, not that I ever make any....cough, cough). I stamped the quotation onto tissue paper first to get the layout right, as I was a bit tight on space, but it all fit in eventually!

Ingredients

Stamps- Lili of the Valley's Little Girls Story Time
Studio G alphabet
Basic Grey swirls

Promarkers- Apple, Meadow Green, Marsh Green, Amethyst, Pastel Pink, Vintage Pink, Vanilla, Blossom, Cool Grey 1, Cocoa, Canary, Tulip Yellow, Saffron, Orchid, Cinnamon, Spice, Terracotta

Distress Inkpads (background)- Bundled Sage, Lipstick Pink, Dusty Concord, Victorian Velvet

Inkpads- Brilliance Pearlescent Ivy, Versafine Vintage Sepia

Other- Sheer pink ribbon, eyelet

I'm entering this into

the One Stitch at a Time challenge where the challenge is to use something new (stamp)
Passion for Promarkers where the challenge is to include a book

Smacking acetate tutorial

Several people have asked about the smacking acetate technique for creating backgrounds and papers. It's the simplest of techniques and anyone with some Distress Ink and a piece of acetate can have a go. I've put together a quick tutorial to show you how.

1. Equipment

• A largish piece of acetate (A4 or so)- it is there in the picture, honestly!!
• Distress Inks or other waterbased ink pads- Distress Inks are idea though, as their colour doesn't fade or split.
• Card/ ATC blanks/ whatever you want to colour
• Water spritzer- mine's an old hair product bottle!
• Rock or sea salt (optional)

I usually work on a waterproof craft mat, but I've worked on white card here so that you can see the colours.

2. Apply colour to the acetate

Put the ink direct from the ink pad onto the acetate. Work from your lightest to darkest colour to prevent contaminating your ink pads. Randomly swoosh your ink onto the acetate, but try not to overlay the colours. There's no right or wrong way to do this, so try whatever takes your fancy. I've used Bundled Sage, Worn Lipstick, Dusty Concord and Victorian Velvet here. Often the more unusual colour combination work better.

3. Spritz with water

Spritz the acetate and inks with water. Again, there's not right or wrong way to do this, you'll just get a different effect with more or less water- a bit of experimentation is in order!! To start with try to get some beads of water and ink like in the picture above.

4. Get smacking!!

Now the fun begins! Start with something small and smack the acetate- actually it's more like you dip your card into the ink and water on the acetate. Just lay the card onto the acetate, press down slightly and lift off. Don't move it around too much on the acetate or the colours will muddy quickly (they'll muddy slightly anyway, but no sense in making it worse!!).

5. First result!

You can keep on dipping as long as there's ink on the acetate. As it dries up, you'll get smaller, more pronounced drops of ink on the card. You can also come back to your first dipped pieces of card later on when the ink is making different effects and redip them. Don't be afraid to have some white bits, often that's what makes the background more interesting.

Other possibilities are spritzing the acetate again to get a more diluted ink mixture and lighter colours, or putting a whole A4 sheet of card over the acetate to get a whole sheet covered at once. It's easier to redip smaller pieces, but you get different effects with a larger sheet.

6. Salt optional!

If you have a particularly wet sheet of card, a nice idea is to sprinkle it with rock or sea salt and leave to dry. It's worth doing this inside a box or something with a lip as the salt goes everywhere!!! The result is an unusual pattern where the salt sucks the moisture in.

8. Final results!

Here's my final set of ATC backs from this smacking acetate session. Fab aren't they? I like to make a wodge of backgrounds at one time, so I've got some ready made when I need them. If you wipe off the acetate you can use it time and again.

And...... here's a few examples- some ATCs made with smacking acetate backgrounds.

Mini sunflower canvas- Crafts and Me challenge

I've finally had the energy to make something! It's a little canvas I bought from Dunelm a while ago, about 3 inches square. The challenge over at Crafts and Me is ANYTHING BUT A CARD, so I thought I'd try using a Sweet Pea stamp on it.

I painted the canvas with Claudine Hellmuth Ranger Studio semi-gloss paints in Dab of Yellow and Altered Orange. Once it was dry I used the lid from a  pritt stick to make some rings in Pastel Yellow and some gold acrylic paint. I quite like the current trend for splodgy paint circles!

 I stamped the Sweet Pea stamp Sunflower Angel onto card already coloured using the smacking acetate technique and Distress Inks. A bit of a cut out and some gold gel pen highlights and she was ready to be stuck on to the canvas.

I think that the mottled effect works well. I added some ribbon as her puppet strings, clear stickles to enhance the wings, and some flowers and buttons to finish it off. The words are stamped onto tissue paper.

Loving these Sweet Pea stamps!