Sixth and Seventh Tags

Here are tags six and seven, inspired by Tim Holtz' 12 Tags of Christmas. Tag 7, with the Santa, used a masking technique, so the tag is all one layer, with lots of fun distressing and stamping, etc. I love the gold flourish (Stamp-It)! That was a stamp I picked up when I was visiting my aunt in Victoria and she took me to her LSS (yay!). The Santa is coloured with distress inks and a blender pen, accented with distress stickles.

Tag 6 uses the dictionary paper. Luckily for our French-English dictionary, DH reminded me that I could scan a page from the regular dictionary rather than using an actual page removed from the book itself. I thought the dictionary wouldn't have minded such a noble sacrifice and we hardly ever need the J's.... Anyway, I managed to get a good effect here, and I didn't even need to mail away to some paper supply shop across the border! The pear (Stampers Anonymous) is embossed in black and coloured with the blending tool and distress ink. The dictionary background is as Tim himself does it (or as close as I can come), the flourish is Stamp-It. The gold rick rack has shown up again, this time with jute. I love the warm tones of this, and it could be an all-purpose card, not just for Christmas. But I think pears can definitely be Christmassy. I didn't go with Tim's tree-on-car motif because (a) I only have bright yellow and lime green flock, (b) I don't have a car stamp, only trucks, (c) my only tree stamps are weeping willow and bare deciduous, which would look quite peculiar on my dumptruck stamp, flocked in lime green/yellow. This is sounding kind of funny, and I just might have to try it! 12 Tags of Christmas gone horribly awry.....

Well, I should sign off. hubby has finished tinkering with the various remotes and appears to have stumbled on the successful combination of buttons and pointers to allow us to watch another couple of episodes of The Border before bed. We have the whole fall season backlogged since we missed the first episode and haven't figured out how to watch it on the computer. I just saw it on Sunday and now we are catching up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Alcohol Ink Splatter Card

Here's something I came up with after being inspired by Tim Holtz's video clip on alcohol ink splatter technique. I thought it looked like a really cool thing to try, so I got the few supplies together (compressed air, glossy paper -not photo paper - and alcohol ink), put on an old shirt, and sat down to play. I can't quite recall all the colours of alcohol ink I used, but if I were to guess: citrus, lettuce, denim, sailboat blue, red pepper, cranberry, lemonade, and currant. I am a big believer in using lots of colours! But you knew that about me already.

This background was my second attempt, since it does take a bit of practice. I used a variety of colours, some bright, some deeper, just fooled around a bit really. DH was not at all impressed with the initial (pre-stamped) background, and to be fair, it did look a bit blobby and messy (but to be fair back again, this is the point).

I thought my grungey-collagey stamps would be perfect for this. I got them in Victoria (BC) when I was there last year and my aunt took me to her LSS. They're Australian (Stamp-It) and are really useful for this kind of thing - very pretty background stamps in interesting textures and shapes. I used the corner mesh with a flourish and the large flourish and stamped with black India ink. The sentiment is embossed in black and sponged in yellows and greens, with a bit of navy around the edges. It's more vibrant in real life. (I couldn't get through a post without saying it looks better in real life, now could I!)

Normally I have a hard time figuring out what to do with this kind of background (generally being loath to cover up the splendid colour, but I took a deep breath and went for it. This one looked great on an early try with black and real red. I thought the sentiment panel being fairly plan balanced things nicely. I had some flowers in my stash, with some brads to finish it off. As an afterthought I pried off the sentiment panel and added the cord, and stuck it down again. This card also has a side hinge. If you're going to go outside the box, go all the way I say. Nothing says "wild and crazy stamper" like a side hinge card......

Here's a better shot of the alcohol ink (at the expense of washing out the sentiment panel and flowers). There's quite a lot of colour going on. It's so pretty that I want to try this again!

I highly recommend this type of card for late-night NVR (no vendor restriction) stamping therapy. The bright colours will really cheer you up and you will feel extremely clever and pleased with yourself for very little effort. Plus you get to use the canned air that has been kicking around the office for ages!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Stamps: sentiment - Full of Life set (Stampin' Up), background - Laura Koh set (Stamp-It, code sisetoo8lk); Ink: versamark, India Ink, citrus, yoyo yellow (yes, I used yoyo yellow on a card!), gable green, tempting turquoise, night of navy (yikes - did I really use that many????); Paper: whisper white, glossy, basic black, real red; Other: Adirondack alcohol inks, black embossing powder, silver cord (SU), Making Memories flowers (Fifth Avenue collection), BasicGrey brads.