Happy First Day of Fall

 An ATC.  Dylusions sprays in the background and on the flowers cut from watercolor paper and to color in the Dylusion stamp along the bottom.  White pen in the image at the bottom, black pen around the edges. Studio 490 stamps used in the background and on the flowers.

Tag #3

#8 manilla tag
Dylusions sprays
Gesso sponged through border image of Dylusion stencil
Dylusions number stencil in background
Dylusions word image stamped on white cardstock and cut out
Leaves - Sizzix die - cut from cardstock and sprayed with Dylusions
Flower cut from water color paper, sprayed with Dylusion sprays and Perfect Pearls mist, crumpled, dried, and lightly inked over the ridges.  A silver brad in the center colored with alcohol inks.
White enamel accent dots

Tag #2

I was reminded of this lady image when the new releases for summer CHA were being shown.  She was coming out in one of Stampers Anonymous's classic sheets but I have her as a wood mount. I just had to get her out and use her!!  Again I started with a #8 manilla tag.  The background is Dylusion sprays.  If you look along the right side you can see a "ghosted" image of the word Dream.  I used Tim's movers and shakers Dream die and cut it from plastic packaging... layed it on the tag, sprayed water, took off the die-cut packaging, blotted up the water and dried it.  All stamps used on this tags besides the lady (Stampers Anonymous) and a grungy background image (Tim Holtz) are Wendy Vecchi Studio 490.  Around the top of the tag is a partial stamp of a flower stamped 3 times and embossed with green ep.  The flourishy weed image is stamped with Adirondack snow cap pigment.  The script and grungy background images are Distress Ink.  The lady, word Dream, and sentiment are all stamped with jet black Archival.  A white pen highlights the dot in the eye.  Red ink on the lips.

Back to those tags

Those tags being the ones I made and took with on my trip to Ohio over Stampaway weekend.  If you don't know what I'm talking about scroll down a few posts.  This is one of the tags I made (I'm scheduling the other 2 over the next 2 days) to take with and swap. A very cool technique that was mentioned to me at our last local in-person atc swap by one of the new people that come to the swap, Alexis.  A technique using paint and 91% rubbing alcohol.  She mentioned it was in the book Surface Treatment Workshop which rang a bell and when I got home I checked and, yep, I had the book.  I really need to work through all the techniques in this book... very cool  Anyway this particular one is found on page 86.  For my tag I used a #8 manilla tag from Ranger.  I painted it with Paint Dabber lettuce and let it dry completely.  Then I used Paint Dabber colors raspberry and sunset orange... these need to be watered down... you paint them on and then drip on the alcohol while the paint is still wet.  What I did was use a pipette, made lots of drips and then blotted with a paper towel.  It made the most wonderful variegated color on the tags... totally awesome.  You could do more controlled drips and you don't have to blot leaving a more defined pattern but for these tags I loved how it turned out with the blotting.  After it was dry I used an alphabet stencil (Dylusions) and Archival ink in the background.  Stamped the border image (Dylusions) along the top and bottom with jet black Archival.  Added the white in the borders with a pen.  Stamped laugh with jet black.  "Stamped" all the white circles with white paint and various lids or items sitting around.  The larger black dots were done with a pencil eraser and jet black.  The little black dots are an old stamp.  "laugh" didn't stand out as well as I wanted so I went around the edges with a black Glaze pen.

Making Art Challenge #50

It's very hard to believe that this is the 50th Challenge issued by our most fabulous list mom, Lori, on the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group!!!  Our challenge this time is to take the techniques Tim Holtz shared in the Stamptember video on Simon Says Stamp's Blog HERE but use at least one Wendy stamp or as in the video, stamps from one set.  So I took a bit of time this afternoon and made a tag.  I used stamps from one of Wendy's new stamp sets, Art For You.  This is a fabulous set with insects, a honeycomb background and two word stamps, one of which is the "Be You" that I used.  For most of it I followed the video but then added a couple of other techs too.  I started with a manilla tag and the Distress Stains I used were spun sugar, scattered straw, and picket fence because I don't own the metallics yet.  Distress Inks used in the background are picked raspberry, ripe persimmon, and vintage photo.  Distress Inks used on the main bee are peacock feathers, and seedless preserves applied with a water brush.  After following along for the background and stamping I then used the water brush to put just plain water in the wings and body of the main image bee, let it sit a bit and blotted it up.  This lightened the color in the bee and then I went back in and added color.  The heart is one of Wendy's blossom bucket pieces colored with Archival Ink and then I rubbed Distress Stickles spun sugar on it.  Also around the bee and the heart I added a line of Distress Ink pumice stone with the water brush to give a little shading for depth.  It was great fun getting inky as I haven't had much time for that lately.  Thanks to Wendy Vecchi for her fabulous products and wonderful inspiration on her blog and to Lori for taking such good care of use on the Wendy group!!!

Chunky Time

We just finished a swap on the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group of Chunky ATCs and this is the chunky I made and sent to Susan.  I received an incredible chunky from Anita.  She has pics on her blog Here and also another somewhat similar chunky on her blog Here that is awesome.  

If you don't already know, a chunky starts as a piece of 2 x 4 wood cut to 2 1/2".  A 2x4 is actually only 3 1/2" wide and 1 1/2" thick so by cutting a piece at 2 1/2" you get a piece that is ATC sized and 1 1/2" thick; therefore, a chunky.  Our only requirement was to use at least one Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 stamp but I used many.  I also got my order of Wendy's new stencils and some of her stamps and art parts in time to to use them on my chunky.  So all stamps and stencils used are Studio 490.  

I started out by painting all sides of wood with Distress Crackle Paint weathered wood and broken china... I just poured some each onto my craft sheet and picked up the colors randomly letting them swirl together on the wood.  Once everything else was done to it you can't really see how they swirl together but I'm sure it must have made a different in my finished project :-))  After it was dry and crackled I stamped with the background image from the set Material Art using Archival Ink Manganese Blue on all sides.  Next I brushed watered down snow cap Paint Dabber over a side, let it sit just a few seconds and wiped it off, and then continued until all sides were done.  This toned down the stamped a bit and emphasized the cracks more.  Along the way I did some pieces flake off here and there but not too much and it just added to the distress of it all.  I stenciled dots on the front and back with purple twilight Paint Dabber.  Around the top edge I stenciled on the stripes with espresso Paint Dabber... it sometimes bled under the stencil but that was ok too... and then I used a white pen to bring out the design more.   

The bird nest is just wadded up raffia.  I also sprayed a little brown Dylusions on it, blotted it and let it dry.  The bird is cut from grungeboard - I cut 2 and glued them together.  

The big flowers on the front and back are modeling paste through a stencil, let it dry, colored roughly with Tombow markers and then blended with water, let it dry, put the stencil back on and stamp the flower with a background image.  The center pieces are a couple of Wendy's Blossom Bucket pieces, the colors altered with Sharpie watercolor paint markers (one with regular color and the other with glitter color).  

The flower on this side is an Art Part and matching stamp.

The leaves and flowers were stamped on grungepaper, cut out, inked, leaves stamped with a background image, leaves and flowers highlighted with a white pen.  

The piece around the bottom is Ranger's sticky backed foil cut with a Tim die, colored with alcohol ink, and then coated with matte Glue 'n Seal to tone down the shininess.