Steampunk album

I love the altered books and book covers I often see on other creative blogs, so I decided to alter the cover of the album in which I store stamped bits and pieces and collage images.

Here’s the result:

 

Here’s a detail:

This is my entry for the following challenges:

• Macabre Monday: Steampunk junk
• Artistic Stamper: Embossing & texture
• Three muses: Turqoise & lime
• Sirstampalot: Dies & punches
• Artful times: Spray away

Products used

• Gesso & Golden gel medium
• Dylusions sprays
• Glimmer mists
• Distress inks
• Stampers Anonymous movers & shapers die cuts (baroque ornament, heart & cogs)
• Cuttlebug cogs & gears texture plate
• Old watch parts
• Crackled background stamp (Hampton art)

 

 

You make my heart happy

And still more hearts to come!   Stampotique Designers Challenge # 85′ wants us to do whatever makes us happy. There’s no doubt that crafting makes me very happy… especially creating ATCs for swaps with creative people all over the world!  Moreover, Kira’s cute little monsters always make me smile.

As the monsters have been paper pieced and my ATCs features a  Hero Arts sentiment, I’d also like to enter this ATC into the Blog named Hero ‘Snip N’ stick’ challenge.

I love art

Here’s another ATC featuring a heart. This one’s for Stampotique Designers Challenge # 84 ‘Love theme’.

 

I coloured the heat embossed Tim Holtz heart using wax crayons and added a bit of dimension with Glossy Accents.

Rusty heart

Stampotique Designers Challenge # 82 focuses on  die cuts and punches and Wicked Wednesday has chosen ‘Gothic Love’ as this fortnight’s theme. I really enjoyed making this rusty heart ATC:

I used wrinkle free distressing to create the background and overstamped it with a script stamp (Darkroom Door). I stamped the Stampers Anonymous mosaic stamp with Brilliance ink on a torn piece of crimson paper.  I used a Tim Holtz mini heart die to cut the shape out of golden cardstock, which I then dry embossed using the cuttlebug ‘clockworks’ folder. Next, I heat embossed the raised parts with copper embossing powder to create a rusty look.

That’s the kind of Valentine’s heart I like, I hope you do too!

Another clean and simple card

This week, the Less is More challenge provides us with a sketch, Crazy Amigo wants to see dies/punches and The Stamp Man wants to celebrate. Here’s my card:

The strip of black paper was moistened, wrinkled and dabbed with perfect pearls. The hearts were dry embossed, covered in Versamark and dabbed with perfect pearls.  The only stamp used on this card is the Crafty Individuals sentiment.

 

Embossed ATC

Today, I finally found the time to do some crafting and I had a great time! Here’s an ATC I made:

I know, this is a song quote that I’ve used before (here and here), but it just keeps inspiring me.

I’d like to enter this ATC into the following challenges:

• The Stamp Man ‘Favourite technique’
• Inspiration Avenue ‘Art with heart’
• Simon Says Stamp and show ‘Anything goes’

Now, let me introduce you to my favourite technique: heat embossing. I love using this technique in my work, the melting powder is like magic, alchemy! For example, I often tend to create a heat embossed border as a finishing touch to my atc, or I heat emboss the main image or (a part of) the background. I also love to use heat embossing to create a cracked glass look.

This time I tried something new: (triple) heat embossing combined with dry embossing and sanding. Really fun to do! You can watch the tutorial here.

Stamps used

• Heart: Tim Holtz
• Sentiment: Scrolls Work

Heartfelt thanks

Wow, what a creative week it’s been: this is my 5th blog post! I’d like to share with you a card using the techniques explained by Kate Crane in her dvd ‘Art journaling: right from a blank page’. It’s my first attempt at using gesso and acrylic paints and adding texture in several ways.

It’s my entry for the following challenges:

• Pile it on: Heartfelt thanks
• Crazy Amigo: Hearts
• The Stamp Man: Texture
• Drunken Stampers: Texture
• Creavil: Hats and bonnets
• Crafts and me: Distressed
• Simon Says Stamp and Show: Anything Goes

Stamps used

• Weasel by Stampotique
• Texture stamps by Tim Holtz

A heart that hurts…

Well, I know, I’ve been rather quiet the last couple of weeks. Maybe that’s because I’m not a big fan of  Valentine, and of course this theme is omnipresent at this time of the year.  We often tend to forget that it might be a difficult period for those who have no one by their side or who’ve lost a loved one.  Only two weeks ago my best friend lost her loving husband, and so for the first time in 17 years he won’t be by her side on Valentine’s day.

So this ATC is my tribute to all people who lost a loved one.

 

This was meant to be my entry for the Haunted Design House ‘Shot through the heart’ challenge, but I didn’t finish it in time. Fortunately, I still can enter it into this week’s challenge, which is ‘Freaker’s free for all‘.

It’s also my entry for Studio L3’s Holtz-ian ATC challenge. I used a Stampers Anonymous heart stamp, an Idea-ology game spinner and Ranger’s Glossy Accents. The computer generated sentiment is an extract of the song ‘Bright lights’ by Placebo (I already shared it with you in this post).

Thanks for looking!