Stampotique Triptych Card challenge. Spanky does The Birth of Venus.

The Stampotique Challenge for the next fortnight is to make a Triptych card using Stampotique only stamps.
There is a random draw to win $30 to spend in the Stampotique store, which you need to win because have you seen the new stamps released this month? Jo Capper Sanderson has some new stamps including two wonderful owls and Daniel Torrente has done 3 mermaids and other fabulous animals. There goes my crafting budget for this month. Life is always sunny in the Land of Shiny.
But this is my last project for Stampotique as guest designer, aaaw.

So what did Spanky make huh?

She had a ball with this one and whizzed back in time to 1484 and is the Official Queen of Ginger this fine spring morning.

Click on any image to make it bigger.

Mirror, Mirror on the tree,
Who's as pretty as can be?

 

Kolossal 6070

Tree 6112

Puss Puss 6105

 

 

Stitch 6052

Large Lace Background 5177

Now just in case you don't immediately recognise (as if!) Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, here is the centre of the painting.

Now everything that could possibly go wrong whilst making this; did go wrong and a few more previously undiscovered errors to boot.

It's just as well that the "Spanky does.." are my favourite makes.

The triptych template I used is this free one from Mirkwood Designs.

 They also have a paypal button for donations to support their endeavours.

The background paper is by Basic Grey from the Urban Prairie range.

If I had to choose a Basic Grey range I had to marry it would be this one.

I used Versamark and Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder in Copper Bronze Lustre for the Large Lace background stamp.  Isn't it gorgeous like this?

The one and only Stitch has embroidery floss hair glued onto card using Golden Gel medium. Anything is possible using gel medium as a glue. 

If I had to choose a glue I had to marry it would be this one.

I had to go a bit lower with her hair than is esthetically pleasing but I needed to cover up her claws and then rearrange her arms.

The colouring is with Derwent coloursoft pencils. You really can't go wrong with any Derwent pencils.

If I had to choose a pencil I had to marry it would be a Derwent one.

Now the tiny gold stars are new (to me) and I didn't do a test glue with them, so I ran a line of Glossy accents around the edge and wow did a lot more of them stick than I had planned.

The beads at the bottom are Suze Weinberg's Beadazzles in Electric slide (also new to me) and oh my, don't they go everywhere, they just followed the little stars...absolutely everywhere.

The mirror is made out of mirror card with silver stickles around it.

Whichever Daniel Torrente lady character stamp I am working with becomes my favourite stamp.

If I had to choose a stamp company I had to marry it would be Stampotique :-)

Happy creating everyone!

Gini

xx

Stampotique Guest Designer March, The Chicks Round House Home

This is my second project as Guest Designer in March for Stampotique.
In The Land of Shiny live the circus performing Chicks, and they have built for themselves a cheerful, shiny Round House.
They roost by perching on a chair at night.
Triangular chick doesn't like to sleep on her own so she doubles up with either of the round chicks. Unfortunately square chick makes for an angular and therefore uncomfortable bedfellow.
This started out life as a Pringles tube container.
Click on any picture to make it bigger.

The chicks are  Chick shapes (4 sided cube) 9111 and I have paper pieced their bodies.

The bling on the roof is glued on with Golden Gel Medium in the Heavy gel (matte). 

The flowers are Heart Flowers 9107.
I used versafine black ink heat embossed with clear powder. Coloured the flowers with Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paint and used foam pads as the adhesive.
The stems are bugle beads glued onto the house with Anita's 3D clear gloss finish (substitute with Glossy Accents if you don't have this.) Anita's is thinner and therefore easier to use as this kind of glue. It also gives a stronger bond than Glossy Accents.

 

The chairs are 3 chairs 9179

The walls and roof of the house are watercolours on very thick finest quality white card. Whether you use card or thick watercolour paper it mustn't stretch and buckle (go wavy and unflat) because you can't wallpaper with buckled card as it looks dreadful.
Or you could stamp onto designer paper like Basic Grey plain coloured 12" card if you can't get an unbuckled finish. Alternatively you could try brayering using ink which isn't so wet.
All wallpaper glued on with extra strong doubled sided tape (red backed).
The background stamp is the brilliant Large Lace Background 5177 and I used worn lipstick distress ink. Loads of things you can do with this versatile stamp.

If you would like to have a go at a round house I give more instructions here.
Be warned though, in case you don't like fiddly things, as they are fiddly to do especially if you wallpaper them.
It is easier to do if you cover the round container with lots of tissue paper (glue with gel medium or mod podge or my least favourite for this job - white PVA) and then paint it.

Happy creating!
Gini
xx

Stampotique Challenge, Animals, Birds and Insects

The Stampotique Challenge for the next two weeks can be found here.
A fabulous challenge with oodles and oodles of possibilities and you can use any stamps in your project.

Last week we saw the chick shapes in their paying job as circus performers. They are energetic joyful characters and this week we get to see them playing musical chairs.
I have tried to show just how good these chicks look no matter what style of creating you like; whether grungy and shiny (gotta have a bit of Shiny) or paper piecing with pretty designer papers.
Click on any image to make it bigger.

The  4 chick shapes (4 sided cube) 9111 and 3 chairs 9179 in this one are stamped with Versafine black and heat embossed with fine detail clear powder.
If you heat emboss your stamped image it makes it really easy to colour in with Cosmic Shimmer Watercolours or Twinkling H2O's because the embossing resists the watercolour paint so it easily stays inside the image. 

In this one I've used pretty summer garden designer papers and paper pieced the stamped images. As you know if you're a regular here, I'm a bit of a duffer with flat card layouts (I need a lot more practice, about 2256 more cards worth I think) but you get the general idea and I'm sure you'll be able to put them in a much better layout yourself if you fancy having a go at musical chairs.

I did wonder what these two completely different styles would like if they were combined together; probably quite horrid, but I thought I'd try it out in an ATC and surprisingly this style turned out to be my favourite of the lot.

So my advice would be:
No matter how mad an idea seems to be; give it a try as an ATC.

Next week I'll show you where the chicks live.

Happy creating!
Gini
xx

Stampotique Mayan Circus

I'm so pleased to be given the opportunity to design some projects for Stampotique Stamps this month as their guest designer for March - woohoo!

If you've yet to visit their challenge blog Stampotique Designers Challenge, you're missing a treat as their quality wooden stamp range is very diverse and I love all the marvelous inspiration and ideas that come from their very talented design team.

For my first project I've created a Mayan Circus.
Now who knows whether or not the ancient Mayan's ever had circus events and truly, we in the land of Shiny don't actually care because you're very unlikely to find any historical accuracy here.

But this was great fun to dream up.
It's 12 inches square and you can click on any picture to make it bigger.

  It's all made of cardboard and white card.

One of Stampotique's stamp designers is Amy Wilson Wellenstein and she has drawn some Mayan Images and the one that caught my eye was the
7124 Mayan Background #2 
that has so much versatility not only as a background stamp but for each element of the design on it's own. It even has 4 crown's of 3 different sizes, Uri Gellar's bent forks (all the better for scooping out your heart my dear) and all sorts of fashion design accessories that Spanky coveted immediately and some interesting potential building blocks that I had my beady eye on.

 Now Spanky went to town on dressing all the Torrente characters up in their finest Mayan fancy dress gear.
If you are lucky enough to get to attend a Mayan Circus you really must dress up to the nine's Mayan Style.
In the following close up's of the audience, anything yellow/gold is part of the Mayan background stamp. I stamped the background stamp multiple times onto white card and cut out all the individual elements of the design and Spanky stuck them onto the people artistically - ahem.
I used Versafine black ink for all the stamping.
White PVA craft glue for all the glueing and Derwent pencils from their Inktense range, watercolour range and Coloursoft range.

Working from Left to Right. First we have my favourite Torrente character

6057 Heart Throb Bless him - he thought he would manage just fine on his own without Spanky's help styling his costume... although there is something to be said for the appeal of a man with a tattoo on his forehead and forks through his ears. Quite what that appeal might be, I'm not sure but for every old sock there is an old shoe.

6022 Sheer Gotta admire a gal who isn't afraid of her own cleavage. (Spanky has a ginger cleavage - nuff said.)

6047 Glimmering Hope When you dress with style who needs legs?

6048 Moth Fab The more I work with these characters the more I realise that clashing colours work really well in their outfits.

6104 Eric How about those Dennis Healy eyebrows and deeley boppers?


6011 Girl with Lunchbox The poor girl doesn't have a name! How did this happen??? She looks like a Davina to me...

6051 Prom Queen

6059 Bowtie Now I think the Mayan's missed out on a real fashion statement by not utilizing the accessory power of The Sporran. Perfect for your small change, lipstick or as the indomitable posing pouch.

6080 Topknot  Is this a dagger which I see before me?  Topknot is a Sporran wearing Mayan Norman Bates tonight. We all go a little mad sometimes.

6052 Stitch Now Stitch was the last character I coloured and I choose colours that I thought couldn't possibly look nice together but it turned out to be my favourite colour scheme by far. Edward scissor hands? Pah! He's been usurped by Stitch the Knife Slayer.

6102 Dweeze Looking mighty fine in his kipper tie.

6104 Eric again, you can't keep a good man down.

6045 Newt with lunchbox

6071 Perl This is the first time I've given Perl brown hair and it just doesn't look right, she's a blonde through and through, but I thought blonde hair would detract from the gold forks or even (heaven for fend) clash with them.

6059 Bowtie again. Oh my, oh my what a splendid costume. I just hope your not behind him because you'll never see a thing with that huge headdress in front of you.

6025 Gooseneck. Not quite playing spoons on a wash board but very close.

6115 Weasel Aha, Weasel looks like he has nefarious plans for poor old Two Barrettes.

6024 Two Barrettes Who proves that Yes, bobby pins work well with crowns but they provide absolutely no protection from knife wielding Weasels.


6021 Girl with heart purse Another girl with no name! Poor Tink.

So onto the floor acts.

First we have 6026 Heart Boy the lion tamer holding one of the  9179 three chairs (designed by Janet Klein) controlling a very fierce 6105 Puss Puss.
He's holding a whip made out of embroidery floss and I used a section of his arm for the handle.

Then we have the amazing Chick riding cat jumping fences. The chick is one of the 4 chicks on the cube 9111 Chick shapes riding  6096 Kitty and the fence is made up of the elements of the Mayan background stamp. More embroidery floss for the reins and another element from the Mayan background to form the chick's wing (so she can hold the reins).

Followed by the wondrous chick riding cat balancing act. We have another chick from the cube 9111 Chick shapes riding another 6096 Kitty balancing on further elements from the Mayan background stamp.

And finally we have the balancing quails from the 9211 Quails cube

with 6105 Puss Puss balanced precariously on the top.

A brief look at how I made it. 'Cos you're ready for a cup of tea now aren't you?

I cut a very strong box like this. Remember you can click on any photo to make it bigger.

You can cut your supports for your freestanding characters one of two ways.
The one on the left (Heartboy) is a single layer of card with the support cut and divided up the centre and the sides folded back opposite each other.
The one on the right is made of a double layer of cardboard, glue only the stamped section together and fold back the supports opposite each other.

To decorate the floor I stamped the Mayan Background stamp in it's entirety using Antique Linen Distress ink.

My Top Tip:- Now Distress Inks are great but if your paper or card is at all porous or loosely woven then the ink will bleed and fuzz when stamped. To avoid excess bleeding, ink your stamp using a brayer to apply the ink. (If you ink the stamp directly with the distress pad you will get unwanted bleeding.)


I cut incisions in the floor where I want the images to stand. Feed the image support through the incision to the back and open up the folds. See the chair and cat in the photo.

 



Happy creating!
Gini
xx

Spanky does Welcome and Float On Stampotique!

The Stampotique Designer Challenge is to make a welcome card for the new Stampotique Designers.

So we're wishing all the new Stampotique designers a warm welcome.
You can find them here.

If you are unfamiliar with Spanky, she is a time traveling stylist, she is bold, daring, windswept and dangerous and she knows everything about Romance, she lives here in The Land of Shiny with me, I'm her sidekick and gofer.
Well, I'm just her pale shadow really.

Firstly I must apologise to Alberto who is the only male stampotique designer, unfortunately we are catering for the majority in this post and that is the Wimen.
Fortunately for you, this is The Land of Shiny and regardless of what job title you may hold now or in the future, we shall never expect you to pour the coffee or distribute the biscuits...unless it is actually your turn :-)

Now then.
Come in and welcome.
Come in and share a little LOVE with the Torrente Boys.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes they like to pretend they are The Floaters.
Oh yes they do.

Aquarius and my name is Heart Throb,
I love a woman who can hold her own,
a woman who can grab hold of my ears and hold on tight.
Take my hand, come with me baby, to Love Land.

Libra and my name is Hunk,
Now I like a woman who carries herself like Miss Universe,
a woman who can balance a crown on her enormous head,
a woman who will take me to Love Land.

Leo and my name is Weasel,
I love all the women of the world,
I paint a new name on my sign every night,
because I love everybody and everything,
and you know what, ladies, if you feel this is you,
Then this is what you do -
Take my hand,
come with me baby, to Love Land.
Float, float on.

Spanky says welcome and float on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvAmTkJmT5c

Come on you know you want to watch the video, I still can't believe that song was taken seriously or that it was even written and performed, I can imagine it was written whilst they were very very drunk but it didn't get laughed at and thrown in the bin the next day did it, we are soooo doomed.
Private Frazer was right.

I am practicing that shaking finger step in the mirror.
I think Himself might like it.

Happy creating!
Gini
xx

Challenges for Stampotique, Masks, Scenes and Mona Lisa

I hope you'll forgive me for combining my 4 pieces together in one post, as they are interlinked and were created together with all three challenges in mind.

Stampotique Challenge - Use the stamping technique masks.

Order of the Opus Gluei - Make a scene.

Sunday Postcard Art - Alter the Mona Lisa.

Firstly the Stampotique Challenge.
You know how sometimes you mishear something and go off at a tangent and then somebody corrects your misunderstanding and you go off again and still get it wrapped around your ears wrong???

Well this happens to me ... a lot, so I thought I'd make some joke art out of it, because really when you get it so wrong over and over the only way to deal with it is to make a joke out of it.
Where would be without humour?
While I was ruminating on this idea, Kolossal was bouncing up and down in my stamp draw, shouting "Pick me, oh PICK ME!"
So how could I refuse...

Click on any picture to make it bigger.

So Kolossal rushed back to the drawing board and tried again...

Now then,  the first picture was my first try at masking a scene and I made a right hash of it by getting in a muddle order wise and picking some see through stamps, which um, don't benefit from being masked.  In fact masking them makes them look wrong. Hey ho.
So I tried again and got it right with the second picture.
I turned hanging hearts upside down and I think they make a nice lumpy, humpy,  bumpy meadow with little mushrooms and toadstools growing in it or maybe quirky flowers.
The lovely lady is made up of Prom Queen's body with Clover's head.
Clover is a head only stamp.
I made her by masking out Prom Queen's head with a post it note stuck on the stamp itself.
Inked up the stamp.
Peeled away the post it note and stamped just the body.
Now all Stampotique stamps stamp beautifully but they are on wood blocks which makes positioning them awkward.
I expect if I spent about 100 years puzzling, I could have worked out how to plan Clover's head placement using a stamp positioner, and incidentally I do have one.
But I am an old bird and don't have 100 years left, and also I like to try and live as dangerously and windsweptedly as I can without the cover of Spanky.
So I positioned my nose on my work table so I could look underneath my stamp and at the paper all at the same time (as it were) as I stamped Clover.
It worked!
I then felt I had had quite enough excitement for one day.
Phew.
These scenes are also for the Opus Gluei Challenge
If you have never visited this challenge site, please do so, you'll love them, they are funny, lovely ladies and they set really good challenges.
(Is the cheque in the post yet Rosemary?)

Onto the Sunday Postcard Art challenge to alter Mona.

Have you noticed that tempting open space in Hunk's head where his brain box would be?
It's a wonderful open space complete with tumble weeds blowing around, just like my brain box.
So I thought I would do some more masking and put Mona in Hunk's brain.

 I thought anything other than white space around him would detract from the goings on in his head. So I put only a boarder around the postcard. Mona is stamped in the deliciously lovely and shiny multi colour Brilliance inkpad called Twilight. I used the Brilliance colour combination called Peacock in the next version and it gets even shinier if you heat emboss it with clear powder.

To give a bit more definition to hunk's shape as his outline is quite pale, I cut him out and mounted him on foam pads so he'll cast himself a shadow.
This is the shiny shot.

I painted Iridescent blue twinkling H2O's on navy blue card. The mount makes the postcard 6" by 4".

Happy creating!
Gini
xx

P.S. I still have some wish bookmarks left if you want one, just ask in the comments of that Happy New Year post and it is yours :-)

Happy New Year and GIVEAWAY!

This post will stay at the top of my blog until 22 January.
Please scroll down for later posts.

Happy New Year to us all!
I predict this year will be wonderfully creative for all of us.
So let's get started.

Most years start with resolutions and grand plans that last all of 3 days don't they? ...Hmmm.
So I thought if we start the year by making wishes instead of resolutions we would be onto a sure thing; because wishes are just visualizations (happy brainfarts) of all the amazing possibilities open to us which are only limited by the size of our imaginations.
You just make your wish and keep your thoughts focused on the wish you made.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

So I thought I'd start the new year by being a wish enabler to my blog visitors.
What could be more pleasureful for me eh?
Truly this makes me full to the brim with pleasure, which is a delightful start to my year.
I have made loads of Make a Wish bookmarks for you.
They look all lovely and shiny and just like this.

 

The black stamping is embossed and the background is all shiny.
(As always they look better in real life.) 

I have tried to find quotes in keeping with making wishes to go on the back.
Here are the ones I found.

Ask and it is given.

We create our opportunities by asking for them.

I accept miracles, healing and wholeness for myself.

(And also this one which is not about asking but it is one of my favourite quotes.)

Angels know no philosophy only love.
 

Basically you can have whatever quote you like on the back.

Just tell me what you would like and I will put it on your bookmark for you.
If it is a short sentence it will look similar to the ones I've made in my photo above. Longer quotes will need a smaller font and different layout.
It's your bookmark so you have whatever quote you want :-)

So do you fancy a little bit of shiny for yourself?

What do you have to do to get it?

Well....... just ask and it is given!

Leave me a comment and what quote you would like on the back of your bookmark and a way to contact you, so I can ask you for your postal address, so I can send it to you.
If you don't want to put in the comments (which are visible to anyone) the quote you want for your bookmark then just email it to me.
gini.owenATgmail.com

All I would ask of you is not to publicize this giveaway, as it is for you, the folk who read my blog, regular lurkers are of course included ;-)  
(A lurker is someone who reads a blog regularly but is too shy to normally leave a comment.)

Let's wish ourselves into the wonderful lives we have imagined.
This year, let's hit the ground running.
Gini
xx