Vintage Birdie and a few challenges....

I came across a video yesterday of Tim demonstrating the new distress stains and I had not thought of using them to ink up stamps. Makes perfect sense as they are just liquid ink pads but it was so obvious it didnt cross my mind. So I gave that a go today and created that vintage background using an Artistic Outpost stamp - "Ephemeral Backgrounds" (have I mentioned how much I love their stamps at the momen?!?!). The effect works so well with this old writing, just perfect! The idea with the birdcage I think also came from a similar card from the Artistc Outpost page, I have been browsing so many blogs and pages recently I cant even remember where I've seen half the things.
By the way, the grungeboard cage has also been coloured with distress stain, I think my new favourite thing is to colour grungeboard, the liquid distress makes it sooooo much easier than colouring it with a blending tool.
So this is being entered into the Simon says Stamp and Show Challenge as well as the Artistic Outpost Referral Program.

Last ever Compendium Challenge :(

Sad times, it's the last of the fabulous Compendium of Curiosities Challenge. But what a fab time we had.
So for the last entry I have made a little grungeboard bracelet. I just embossed and die-cut the ends of some grungeboard and painted them, then sanded and inked over.

I stitched the pieces back together and here it is wrapped round. Unfortunately I couldnt take a picture of it around my wrist, I was home alone so it proved rather difficult.

Many, many thanks to Linda for such a fab Challenge it has been great. Thanks for all the effort you put in, commenting on everyone's project and sorting out the prizes too. Thanks so much!!! Wish we could do it all over again!

My Wendy Vecchi Stamps album.....

Over at Wee Memories this week we are "casing our favourite".... so I thought it'll either be something Tim Holtz or Wendy Vecchi as they are both favourites of mine.
So I went for a storage album for my Wendy Vecchi stamps. I know you can get the clear acrylic albums for her stamps but I find them a bit pricey for what they are so I just made my own album.
Simply cut some chunky cardboard to size and cover with plain cream card, then distress the edges with ink and I used grungeboard letters. I inked them all in different colours and stamped random background stamps over them in true Wendy style.








Add some 2" rings to make it into an album. I could do with bigger rings really as I have more stamps than fit in this album, but I may just have to make another one.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge - Industrial Grunge

It's been a while since I last joined in on the Compendium Challenge. I have missed it but I've just been too busy with other things and of course I was on holiday.

So this week it's Industrial Grunge. Can't say that I had tried it before. And I don't think I will be using this technique much in the future but at least I've tried it once.

And of course it had to be a christmas card, it's the only thing I'm making at the moment.... card wise anyway.

Only 53 days til christmas, yeah!!!!

Sunday Stampers - Old and New

When I got back from Spain with my market finds like the wooden measure and old keyholes n stuff I already had this design in my mind, I just had to make an A out of the measure. Little did I know at the same time Hels was making an "Art" frame for Sunday Stampers and the theme is old and new. That's pretty creepy.
So I went ahead using old bits like the key, snaps, fabric tape measure etc and combining it with new things like the piece of chain, the vial (I poured some alcohol ink into this) and one of my new Wendy Vecchi stamps.
And there we go, an arty frame worthy of Sunday Stampers (I think) and it's also being entered into the Artistic Stamper challenge.

Alphabet Mirror....

Here is a project I had sitting here for a while now. I glued a lot of grungeboard letters to a mirror frame and painted on many layers of paint. I never seemed to like the colour so I just kept painting over it. In the end I spritzed it with a lot of glimmer mist anyway. It's a kinda blueish/bronzey colour, almost a metal effect.
I then added some distress embossing powder to pick out the letters ANIKA. I feel there is something missing here, hence it has been sitting here for so long, but my boyfriend assured me it is finished. So I'll trust his judgement and present you with my alphabet mirror. Ta da!

CCC #6 - More mini canvas art.....

It's monday and time for CCC #6.
So this week we are playing with medium and anything we can cover in it. Sounds fun, but then I went to work and it just wasn't working for me today. I covered various things in gloss medium (unfortunately I have no matt yet, it's on my to buy list) including grungeboard, but nothing wanted to stick properly and when it came to 'revealing' the shape afterwards it just went wrong.
So I consulted my compendium and Tim mentions canvas in there. So I thought I have a go at doing another mini canvas. I really enjoyed working with them recently and thought I make another little hangy thing. I bought an old 'little prince' book from the charity shop recently and thought that be perfect to make something for my nephew.
So got the canvas, stuck a grungeboard heart on it and covered it with the page. I placed the page so the title would be just above it. I painted over it and then wiped off the paint where it says the little prince. Red stickles over the heart and a little crown added.
That's the middle one done, the other two I used the back of and added photos of my nephew. They are filled in with utee by the way. I'm getting better at pouring it now which is nice. Looks much neater than the last one. Add some foliage, type charms and memory thread and it's done.
So bad start to this week's CCC, but it all turned out ok at the end.

Home sweet home....

I've had this design in my head for a little while. I just love the little house stamps from Paper Artsy. And I also wanted to make houses out of the memory frames and corners. The other larger house is actually made from them wedges that come with a canvas. You know the little bag of wedges that's always stapled to the back?! That's with A5 or larger canvases. I was about to throw them out and thought, hang on, 2 put together make a little house. So there you go. It's covered in book page and painted and stamped on.
The HOME letters are grungeboard painted with crackle paint and then spritzed with the chalkboard glimmer mist, I love the finish of that stuff, gives an actual coverage of the colour whilst still being glimmery. Gonna have to buy more of that, although at £6 a bottle is quite dear.
This is being entered into the Alter it monthly challenge. Check it out here.

A week of firsts ..... memory bubbles

Here we go with another first. Memory capsules. I used old ideaology packaging for these and filled them with things that remind me of London. Top left has little underground signs in them, below that I punched out shapes of old train tickets. Then there is a bubble filled with beads, ok not strictly London but I do go to the bead shop in London quite a bit. The one with the game spinner attached to it has watch parts in it, that's my Greenwich inspired one, and you can see the Greenwich Meridian goes all the way up the mirror in red stickles. The last bubble is filled with money. Behind the bubbles I stamped London scenes like the London eye etc. Add a few stamps, some grungeboard letters and an old penny, done!

Addicted to crackle paint....

I think I have a serious problem, I am addicted to crackle paint!!!

So here's another frame, painted with above mentioned paint and spritzed with glimmer mists. I'm still grateful to Hels for introducing me to this technique, you just don't know what kinda crackle monster you created!!!

I had a little play with the alterations on the edge die and since I love anything laced up I thought the 2 pieces of swirly grungeboard be perfect to be laced together with some string. Although I did lace it up about 4 different times til I ended up with this result. So many different options. The birds are crackled too and the tree bunch covered in distress embossing powder (had that for ages and never got on with it until now, it makes the perfect texture and look for a tree branch).

Some detail here for you.

I added a little frame that has part of an old stamp behind it and then it's filled with glossy accents.

The leaves have been cut from card with a punch. I inked up some white card and splattered water over it to make that effect, then just punched loads of leaves from the whole sheet.

There is also a little light bulb vial filled with watch parts hanging in the tree. I couldn't get a good enough close up shot, sorry.

I'm off to crackle some more.....

Idea-ology storage box....

As mentioned before I've been working on some long needed idea-ology storage boxes. Well, I do store other things in it, like any old metal finding and bit but you get the idea.

I bought 2 of these boxes on ebay and they are perfect to alter.

I gave the outside a good coat or two of a neutral basecoat. I just use an acrylic paint from the art shop. Then I use a lot of crackle paint, again a neutral colour like old paper (not the one in the photo, sorry for any confusion). And then I got spritzing with glimmer mists.

Add some grungeboard elements, some idea-ology and done. To be fair it sounds much easier than it was, I spent hours doing the glimmer mist and getting it right and then deciding what to put on the lid, but I guess that's the creative process and it should be fun. So if you attempting something similar, take your time to get it right, sometimes it's better to leave something overnight and then come back to it in the morning.

And here it is with all my bits in it:

I did buy 2 boxes cause I knew one wouldnt be enough to organize everything, so I will be back with the other box soon to show you what I did to that one.

Anika xxx