Stampotique Christmas houses

I bought these little Tando houses on a whim. So glad I did!

Christmas houses with my beloved Stampotique boys!

The houses are covered with paper, lot of stickles bling on the snowy eaves. The boys are watercoloured, with extra corpse green around the eyes......

The edge of each roof is stamped and embossed with another Stampotique image- white embossing powder and then a few snowy pearls for added texture. 

And of course they all needed a few words to finish them off!

The Stampotique designer challenge this month is anything goes, so I'm off to enter :)

Trolley Dolly

This Tim Holtz stamp reminds me of a 60s trolley dolly. Love the style of it.

It fits perfectly with this sticky backed fabric- this is a little altered notebook.

Then I used the scraps and off stamps to make a couple of ATCs. Going to craft with some buddies next week, so I need a couple of swaps to take with me.......

Heart of slate

More hearts.....

Made these for a PIF on Facebook. They're slate and come ready to hang.

I've heat embossed them with a silver pearl powder, they get reeeeeally hot and take a long time to emboss, but once dry they had this shadow round the stamping. I kinda like it.

Feeling kinda over the whole heart thing now.....I much prefer pancake day :)

A little bit over-excited. Such fantastic Stampotique news to tell you all!!!!

I've been bursting with my exciting news! I've been asked to be August's guest designer on the Stampotique Designers Challenge Blog and Stampotique Designers Blog. Yippee!!!! Only my favourite challenge blog and my favourite stamp range in the whole wide world, ever!

Sooooo, that means this month I'm going to have some smashing Stampotique projects to show you.....starting with my favourite creation this year so far- maybe even ever! I wanted to start the month off with a splash, but I couldn't decide which stamp to use...... so I used them (nearly) all.......

This started off life as a thimble display cabinet, so it's not very big, but it was crying out to be the new home of lots of Stampotique critters. All made mini with shrink plastic.

This is what it looked like when I was halfway through the painting.

Lots of Crackle stuff on the sides....

All of the Stampotique images are on shrink plastic, coloured with normal coloured pencils.

I went through my salvaged bits box and added lots of chess pieces, and little charms.....

....a couple of Letter Ls, my lucky number 7, and some bling from some old costume jewellery.....

....an old earring, the pull from a zip, and a couple of old springs.

Hunk got added wings.

The Stampotique characters are hot glued on.

My little monster :) 

The top skeleton fish charm was from a steampunk set.

What do you think? I love it, and for once, I don't think I'm going to give it away.... it's a keeper.

I'm entering it into the HDH Macabre Monday challenge- Freaker's Free for all

The Stamp Man challenge- collage backgrounds

Ooh, the new Stamp Man challenge is right up my street. Collage backgrounds, lots of getting inky sticky and messy :)

I altered a journal with my background. It may eventually be personalised, but I haven't done it yet, in case the recipient spots it on here......

I used Starburst stain daubers on the background, with lots of sponging through sequin waste and embossing with moonglow 2 tone embossing powder. I stuck on scraps of book pages and red tissue paper.

Over the top I stamped a gorgeous Stamp Man swirl in Aged Mahogany and then used the Tim Holtz haberdashery stamps over the top in black. The journal letters are stamped onto black card with Brilliance Moonlight White ink. I've only got a little ink pad in Brilliance White, but I must invest in a full sized one, it's such a good white ink pad.

Lots of white gel pen and some ribbons on the wires and a Christmas present is born! 

If you fancy a go, head on over to The Stamp Man challenge blog, there's a Stamp Man voucher up for grabs !

Starburst Stain daubers - Canna lily burnt orange, Sweet violet purple teal, Marigold yellow orange and Ramblin rose pink

Moonglow 2 tone embossing powder - golden pumpkin blush

Tim Holtz stamp set- Haberdashery

Aspects of Design stamps - 40 Dragonfly dreams

Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad  - Aged mahogany

Brilliance ink pad- Moonlight white

It's Halloween......Pickled Souls anyone? It's a fine vintage.

Hurray for Halloween, the one day of the year when I'm not the weirdest person in blogland! Anyone for a fine vintage of poison?

Lost souls.Stamps by Stampotique. Bottle dripped with alcohol inks, image inserted then inside filled with unheated angelica fibres.

 

Web doodle with Posca pens.

Bat wings on clear shrink plastic. Heart filled with stamped face image and glossy accents.

I'm entering this into the Stampotique designers challenge- altered poison bottle, and the Happy Daze- something for Christmas or Halloween challenge.

Altered book- Alice in Octopode

Darn it. Missed it again. I keep missing the Octopode Factory challenge. Time keeps escaping me....... I made this for last week's challenge of Time. Bother.

It started off life as a boring blue book about indexing.....

.......Now it's been inked and sprayed and stamped and collaged to within an inch of it's former life.

 I used nearly a whole pack of dewdrop gems on this one. Totally worth it though.

The images are all Octopode Factory- with a bit of glaze gel pen highlighting.

Well, the good news is that it still fits the Altered Alice brief for this month- to have a teacup or teapot on your project, with the optional extra of your focal image not being stamped. So, hurray, there's a bit of a silver lining. Now, to get on with the next Octopode challenge.....might have that done by September......;)

New Stamp Man Challenge- Anything T!m

It's Stamp Man challenge blog time, hurray!!! This fortnight is bound to be a popular one- it's anything Tim Holtz!!! Here's mine......can you tell what it was?

10 sparkle points if you said a moisturiser pot. It's made out of white, slightly translucent plastic, plus....it smells nice- bonus!

I swiped it all over with alcohol inks (meadow, terracotta and lettuce), then stamped the lid and sides with text and foliage stamps (Tim Holtz Shabby Chic).

OK, now I have an admission to make..... I know all of you Sir Tim aficionados out there are grunge paper/board fans but I've not tried it. I know, I know, stop tutting at me.... it just seemed expensive and I couldn't quite see the point. Although I had at some point acquired some, cut with the Tattered florals die. 

So, Distress Inks (Peeled paint, Mustard seed, Spiced marmalade) and more stamping (Russet archival ink) later and I'm sold. I get it. You can all stop looking smug now.....;)

Ooh, and my absolute favourite thing about this is the little screw in the middle of the flower. I think I have a thing for salvaged metal...... this little half sheared off screw was just sitting waiting to be picked up and glued in. 

Actually, it's recycled stuff all round- the string round the edge was originally round some packaging. So, an ethically sound project all round, yippee.

There's lots more gorgeous DT inspiration on the challenge blog, so hop over for a look, and show us your projects!

I'm entering this into the Stampotique Designers Challenge- to use flowers.

The Stamp Man challenge- Curls and Swirls

OK, so this fortnight's Stamp Man challenge is right up my street. We want you to use Curls and Swirls.

 Now, as my crafting buddies will tell you, I'm a swirl-a-holic. I can't resist buying swirly stamps and use them on far too many projects...... 

This time around I've made a little ATC box. Regular readers will know that I love making and swapping ATCs- can anyone guess what I made this little box out of? I've made it to take to a crafting meet I'm attending soon, where we always do lots of ATC swapping.

The background was made with lots of ink splodging and swooshing, sponging through flower and swirl stencils (actually left over negatives from punching out swirls and flowers), and through sequin waste. Then I stamped over in a lovely dark green in with the swirl from the Aspects of Design 40 Dragonfly Dreams stamp plate. I stamped and cut out the butterflies from the same set. They're really cute, especially as the outline is separate from the solid butterfly, a little bit of versatile 2 step stamping.

I added orange flowers; ribbons and brads to hold the lid together and lots of Stickles of course!!!

Now there's a fantabulous prize to be had from The Stamp Man- as ever- so why don't you get swirling and curling and have a go!

Ingredients
Stamps- Aspects of Design 40 Dragonfly Dreams
Inks- Distress ink in Spiced Marmalade and Peeled Paint, Impress ink Emerald green
Stash- Ribbon, Brads, Stickles in Orange Peel, Flowers, White card

The Stamp Man challenge- distress it!

This fortnight's challenge over at The Stamp Man is Distress. I had a little something different in mind, mainly because I'd been to the Hobbycraft sale and picked up some lovely bits in the wedding section! This little paperweight was just 29p!!!

It's very clever cos the top and bottom bits are held together by little magnets- can you see the two silver coloured circles? Then you just slot your card in between the two layers. Very swish.

I distressed it by calling it names and making it cry, lol. No, really I dotted alcohol inks on the underside of the glass top layer to give it a vintage feel. The butterfly was stamped onto card and surrounded by flowers and looks like this outside of the paperweight....

Lots of stickles as usual!

When I first sandwiched the two layers together I realised that you couldn't see the butterfly very well, so I swished some of the alcohol inks off with the blending solution to give a clear central section.

All in all I'm really, really pleased with it. Not bad for 29p anyway!

For more information on the challenge click here!

Pressies!

It's a beautiful day here, clear skies, fresh air and no snow, woohoo! I'm tidying up some files, and came across these presents I made for Christmas. Thought I'd share!

These mirrors were made for my friend's two boys.

Both are Ikea mirrors, sprayed with Cosmic Shimmers, then stencilled and embellished with lots of bits and pieces and stickles for extra glitter and shine.

This is a Tissue box cover I made for my sister in law.

 Again, sprayed with gorgeous green Cosmic Shimmers and then stamped with a green Stazon ink pad. I found that using unmounted stamps without an acrylic block enabled me to be a little bit more flexible where the box wasn't precisely flat. The more precise images I stamped onto tissue paper and then adhered to the box with a good coating of modge podge. The modge podge went all over the box to seal it and then dry I put some Stickles on to make it sparkle.

They all went down well! This year I'm starting my present making much earlier, so that it's not quite so rushed.