Tinful of Tags

 Hi all and welcome to another week of the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge. This week the challenge is to stamp and punch!

I started with the Tim Holtz bird punch and everything worked out from there.  I create a tin to hold my tags:

And on the inside:

I used the Idea-Ology Pocket squares to cut and use on the outside and inside and edged with tissue tape. 

 And then created a series of tags to put in there:

 A close up of the different tags:

 I started with the pocket cards and cut them to size to fit the tin.  I then punched out the birds in the corner of the tags.

I pulled out a variety of stamps, rub-ons and paints to decorate the various tags.

I have to admit I have a few favorites of all the different tags I created although some I created at first grew on me over time.

The background on the coral one is actually a stamped floral background but it gave such a soft lovely effect I decided to add the Eiffel Tower.

The last one used a touch of watercolor pencils to color in the flowers and then a touch of sequins for a touch of texture.

Products:
TIm Holtz Punch - Bird, Ranger Archival Ink - Black, Ranger Distress Ink - Abandoned Coral, Watercolor Pencils, Idea-Ology - Pocket Cards, Remnant Rub-Ons, Big Chat Stickers, Quotes Remnant Rub-Ons, Darkroom Door - Tick Tock, Floral Garden Background, Trees, Stampers Anonymous - Compass, Paris Postmark, Attic Treasures, Tiny Things, Documented,   Postcards,
 

As always Simon Says Stamp will be giving away $50 voucher to shop at the fabulous Simon Says Stamp Store

So now it's YOUR turn, come play along and show us your stamp and punch combination. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in

Suzz

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If you use instagram add  #sssmchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there too!

Spooky Butterflies?

I have to admit I was going down a Halloween path with Tim's September 2015 tag. He made a beautiful butterfly tag. I thought wouldn't it be fun to create a Halloween inspired version of Tim's tag.

My thought process was use Halloween colors inspired by Tim's mixing of alcohol inks in the background.  I would then find three different sized spider stamps (Wrong assumption) and stamp them in acetate on the background instead of the butterflies used by Tim.

 What really happened is no spider stamps in the right size materialized... Hmm.. Pretty sure I have several but nothing in the right size to put on the tag.  So instead I went back to the butterflies and though they look the best on the tag so hence a Halloween tag with butterflies?


 I actually ended up with five different backgrounds and finished four tags of which I only will share three. :O 

 I love how the translucent paste on this was enhanced with bronze glitter.  I then used the bronze glitter around the edges on the background tag.  I also embossed the clock hands with a bronze/penny copper embossing powder.

My last tag I stamped the background with the same Halloween stamp.  After that I found my web stencil and used the translucent embossing paste with the web stencil. 

After the paste dried you couldn't see the web.  I used my fingers to add a touch of black stazon ink over the web to highlight the web on the background. It is difficult to photograph the effect but it was pretty cool although a bit dark overall. :)  I then had to add the cool idea-ology spiders on their own spider thread. 

The other two were a failed skeleton layering and a fun background with no images on it!  

Products: Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Spiderweb, Adventure, Idea-Ology - Halloween Charms, Ephemera, Stampers Anonymous - Halloween, Stampers Anonymous Butterflies, StazOn - Jet Black, Ranger Archival Ink - Black, Idea-Ology Halloween - Rub On, Memory Box - Stars Stencil, Wendy Vecchi - Black Embossing Paste, Dreamweaver Translucent Embossing Paste, Wendy Vecchi Clearly For Art - Acetate

Happy Sunday to you!

Suzz

A Golden Garden

Happy Wednesday to you!  Today I am sharing a piece of art really inspired by the magical effect of gold on a dark background.  There were several  challenges that got me thinking about the golden garden with flying creatures and that is the Frilly and Funkie - Touch of Gold ,  A Vintage Journey - Things with Wings and the Anything but Cute - Making Magic Challenge Inspiration Board.  

I started with trying to get a dark black background on one of Tim Holtz's inspired  Sizzix butterfly or dragonfly and then bringing in the metallic effect and then the gold.

 I layered this poor dragonfly with gold, black, gold, black and then a thin layer of a metallic purple paint.  I ended up edging him with some gold.   I used the same process on the houses in the background they started with black gesso, added stenciling with Prima gold texture crackle with a stencil.  After that dried I smeared on the layer of DecoArt American Paint - Metallic purple.

I then die cut the flowers from metallic foil and then painted them with black gesso. While it was wet I sprinkled with gold embossing powder. I heat embossed them which caused the paint underneath to give it a lovely bumpy texture. I then colored a series of pearls with the gold krylon pen and added them for texture in the background.

Products:  Sizzix Bigz Layered Dragonfly, Tim Holtz Layering Stencil, Prima Marketing Finnabair - Gold Texture Paste, Idea-Ology - Stickers, Sizzix Embossing Folder - Typewriter, Gold Krylon Pen, Memory Box - Die Cut (flower), Ranger Queen Gold Embossing Powder, Black Gesso, DecoArt -Purple Metallic Sheen Paint

Suzz

Color Blocking

I love color combinations and how some colors you think won't work together perfectly complement each other. (Kind of like some marriages!)  Our challenge this week the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is to use a trio of colors.  You pick the medium and the colors you want to choose!

I am a huge fan of Project Runway and so happy it is on again and I get to watch every week.  One of the techniques they always talk about is color blocking and I decided to use that idea with my trio of colors.  I am going to walk you through my design process a little because it always goes sideways when I get going.

Here is my inspiration picture from pinterest with the color trio I started with:

You can even see my notes and what ideas I had. Sometimes I do this type of brainstorming watching t.v. and looking through magazines. (Gasp) I do love my magazines and flipping through old issues is one of my favorite things to do.

I liked the idea of the colors and the blocking so off to try it out... 

First I cut masks in the sizes I wanted my colors to be and used those to mask off sections along with other bigger scraps of paper.

Then I placed them over the areas to be protected and sprayed the sections the colors I wanted.

Here are all the different masks and papers I used in trying this out. You have to have dry pieces so they lay flat and cover and keep the edges sharp. The first sample you can see I had some bleeding of mist.  I must have done about 10 different versions of these with a variety of colors as I didn't like the colors I started with.

I even ended up with this version with a mix of mists using a stencil overlay.

After misting the sections I then came back in with the white gel pen to clean up the edges.  Then I played around with stencils. This was a failed attempt with a chevron using a pearls paint in the stencil and I didn't like how soft the effect was so I scrapped it. As well as the misting that bled into my coral area. :)

This was the original colors I tried and ended up messy so I tried stenciling over the top. I wasn't too happy with this either so back to the drawing board.

Finally I got several patterns with different stencils on the blocked areas that I liked.  I used embossing paste over the teal areas with a beautiful stencil.  I used the coral dye ink over the yellow areas with a stencil.  I used a coral dye ink over the lighter salmon color background and a stencil.  I finished the edges with white gel pen.

To accessorize I spritzed some paper and cut out some banners and butterflies.

For the pieces I didn't use they get kept and cut up for other projects if I decide in the future. I hope you enjoyed the wandering I did on my cards.

Products:   Heidi Swapp Color Shine -  Salmon, Patina, Mustard,      Wendy Vecchi - White Embossing Paste, Heidi Swapp Butterfly Stencil,     The Crafters Workshop Stencil - Mini Art,  Ranger Distress Ink - Abandoned Coral, Buttons, Simon Says Assorted Sequins,   Memory Box Butterfly Vine Stencil, Pearl,  Memory Box - Heartwood Stencil, Vellum, Stampendous Happy Birthday, Copic Marker - Yellow,  Memory Box - Vivienne (I see this is out of stock but there are so many gorgeous butterflies look at the Memory Box Die Butterflies and you will find another you fall in love with!)  I was lucky enough to be part of Dave's MB design team and all of his dies cut beautifully!

Come join in the fun and splash in some colors for a chance to win a Simon Says Stamp  $50 gift voucher!

Have a wonderful week!
Suzz

Sneak Peek!

Good Morning!  I don't have a new project to share yet... I have a few sneak peeks for Simon Says Stamp Stamptember that starts on Monday!

 As you can see there is a variety of goodies coming your way!  We will be sharing all the details on our projects in future posts.

Let's get this party started!

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Adventure is a State of Mind

Yeah it is Wednesday!  Half way through the week!  I created a journal page for the Mixed Media Place Creative Exercise #11 the challenge is to use one of the Art Recipes from Finnabair's blog.  I followed the Under Pressure Art Recipe.   I cased the design from Finnabair.

 The challenge was to keep it simple use things on hand and keep the design cleaner.

 

I started with a touch of the color bursts/brusho in the background with a few strips of tissue tape.  I added some black embossing paste stenciled over the background.  I added a touch of the new ground espresso distress stain spray. 

I layered a tag, burlap, wood veneer and the photobooth image.  I added a few remnant rub-ons onto the layers. 

Have a wonderful middle of the week! 

Suzz

Golden Summer

My second project today inspired by the Words & Paintery August Color Challenge.  I am entering it into the Mixed Media Card Challenge - Butterflies. 

I started with a kraft envelop which I streaked with a mix of paints in the green, gold and browns. I then wiped away most of the paint to leave a soft palette.

Then I stamped the flowers using the brown ranger archival ink. I colored with watercolor pencils and added highlights with the gel pen. I added a touch of glitter on the flowers which I tried to capture in my first photo and mica flakes along the bottom. They photographed very dark but actually are a lovely bronze color to go with the browns in the images.

The stamps are Paper Artsy.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz