ATC Swap - "Stamp"ed Heads...

Couldn't resist joining in with this swap over on UKScrappers - make ATC's using postage stamps that feature "heads" and give them new bodies... the freakier the better in my opinion as from the others I have seen you can really go to town on these!

I have a large used postage stamp collection (sad person that I am) because at some stage in the grand scheme of things I want to make myself a screen room divider and cover it in postage stamps - so any time I see any "pretty" ones, whether foreign or UK, I leap on them... I lay siege to the used postage stamp boxes in the two kitchens at work and snaffle the pretty ones out of there, but make sure I keep it topped up with ones I don't want from home.

Finding loads of heads wasn't a problem, finding bodies to go with them was a little trickier. Luckily I get a free newspaper most days from the railway station next to my office and I spent a couple of evenings cutting out likely candidates. Also, our local Co-Op gives away a free foodie magazine each month which has some good pics in too! Thank goodness for cutting out because I am no good at drawing lol...

Backing papers are cut from one of Mr Holtz's paper stacks, images are glued on with Glue-n-Seal - which I have totally fallen in love with as it gives such a great finish to anything decoupaged... and I can write over it with black and white journaling pens with no trouble at all. (FYI I use black Faber Castell Pitt pens and a white Signo Uniball which I personally find gives me the best coverage - but there are plenty of other white pens out there!) I also went around the edges of the images with a black Stabilo All pencil and ran a wet paintbrush over it to give a slight shadow and blend the images into the background a little more. 

Matching the stamp heads to the bodies was certainly challenging but I like how they have come out. My favourite is the pregnant "Mr Punch" - guess it proves I am totally warped...

UKS Monthly Tag Swap - March

I've certainly been doing some crafting recently, here is March's "Spring" tag for the UKScrappers tag swap.

Being the hostess I get to choose the theme, I chose "Spring" because despite its best efforts, the weather is definitely turning springlike. Today has been a beautiful sunny day in Southend, clear blue sky, warm sun - I even had my windows open...

Until neighbours 4 doors down lit their bar-b-que... sigh...

So... background is Dylusions spray inks in greens and blues and zapped with water to blend them together. The boxing hares stamp was a freebie with 'Craft Stamper' magazine a while back, the other two are from a set by Pink Paislee.

The green leaves are die-cut from a Sizzix die I borrowed at my Benfleet Crop some time ago, and cut to fit.

The rosette is one of Tim Holtz's strip dies, cut out of gold embossed music paper, with 3 paper flowers growing out from behind it.

Now all I have to do is come up with a theme for April - and I'm already a day late... ahh... now that has given me two ideas straight away!

And here's the one made for me...

Jazz27 has been busy - here's the fabby domino she altered for me...

 

 

from the top from one side,

 

from the other side,

 

and from the back.

 

This is so lovely - ticks all the boxes - steampunk of course with cogs and mechanical-looking bits, that lovely butterfly for nature and it's positively dripping with purple beads - there are even purple jewels set into the domino spots!

 

I love it - just got to work out how to attach it to my craft tote so I can take it to crops and my retreat with me!



 

They weren't like this...

....when I were a kiddie... Domino's that is... they were ivory/white and chunky, or black and plastic-y... never saw one with flowers, a bee and a ladybird before...

Another swap achieved for UKScrappers, an altered domino. It was a direct 1-2-1 swap and I was allocated Gail, who wanted vintage or nature, so I went with nature.

The flowers are made using the Martha Stewart clay and molds, to begin with I made plain white flowers and painted them purple using PaperArtsy's Fresco Finish chalk acrylic paint in amethyst, which is a dark purple... then I re-read what Gail had said about colours and she is not a fan of purple... so those flowers have gone into the odds'n'sods box for use on something else.

The yellow flowers I made using the white clay and a little of the yellow mixed in to make my own colour, damn but I love these molds as once you have worked out how much clay to put in and squidged it in all the way round, out pops the most perfectly formed flower - so cute!

Once the clay had dried I lightly went over the surface with Spiced Marmalade distress ink, just to give it a bit of contrast colour. There are 2 leaves, one on each of the short ends, but they haven't come out so well.

The domino was coloured using Meadow alcohol ink and some little metal vine-y bits were glued to the long edges. When everything was glued on and dried I gave it several coats of Spray and Shine varnish to try and give some protection to the clay flowers.

The domino was destined to become a bag charm, so needed a "thingy" on the back (which was kindly sent to me by Karen/Kitty Crafts) as I hadn't got a clue what she meant. So the thingy was duly glued on with glossy accents after the back of the domino had been inked with black alcohol ink to disguise the spots.

The little metal bee was a proverbial PITA, it got glued on with glossy accents twice before it decided to stay put, I just hope he survives with Gail longer than he did with me!

The domino has now been received by Gail and she likes it so that's a result. I have yet to receive the domino which has been made for me, I asked for "Butterflies/nature or steampunk - or a mix of all three if my partner is feeling brave enough! Bonus points if they include the colour purple"... looking forward to seeing what I get!

Tags ahoy...

No point in having a lovely re-organised scrapping area (pics to come later) if I'm not going to do anything with it eh... so I've joined in again with the UKScrappers monthly tag swaps. Due to the host being super-busy I volunteered to take over hosting on the basis that it gives me even more incentive to get my tags made - altho it does give me a couple of days extra to finish them as I don't have to post them!

With the deadline for receipt being tomorrow (24th Feb) thought I'd better post pics of mine to show I've actually gotten off my derriere and done them - they have basically been finished for a few days but just hadn't got around to photographing them until this morning!

January's one is "Winter" - evergreen bough and weathered wood distress inks on the background, a PSX fir cone stamp coloured with Marvy brushmarkers in pine green and brown and then "huffed" on to moisten the ink, then the words stamped in Archival Coffee ink. A little fir tree brad to finish and a twist of white ribbon thru the hole and we're done.

I did discover to my horror tho that the Marvy brushmarkers, which granted I have had for years, had all-but dried out, so getting them to colour consistently onto the stamp 4 times was a bit of a mare... I've thrown them all away now as they are no use to man nor beast. But, as I said, I've had them for years!

February's tag is "Love" and is very simple... a background of tattered rose distress ink, then barn door applied thru a Dylusions leaf stencil, which in my mind look like hearts... I outlined each leaf/heart with a thin journaling pen and added a touch of white as a highlight. The stamped sentiment comes on one of the "Get Stamping" magazine stamp sheets (this months I think!) and I've also stamped bits of the Kaisercraft crackle background in tattered rose too. A heart-shaped brad to finish and a partial border of black/white checkers - I love this on a tag but didn't want to totally over-power the design.

I've received 2 sets of tags and waiting on the final set now, then I can swap them around and send them home. Just 4 of us playing for the first 2 months, a good introduction to running a proper UKS swap and I hope not my last!

But that's not all folks... Matchbox Shrine the second...

Being a glutton for punishment I signed up for two entries in the Matchbox Shrine Swap - so here's the second shrine I made for scrappyyo/Yolanda. She had also asked for an open theme, but with "no pink fluffy cuteness" - not specifically being a pink person myself I can go for that!

So I went with purple... and lime...

This time it was a Swan Vesta matchbox, and I kinda went with the style of *the* matchbox I got from Kate Crane with the little handle do-hickey at one end... the cover was painted with purple acrylic paint and then various letters were mod podge'd on top. I then cut the letters A B C together with their shadows using my Cricut Mini and stuck them on top.

Following on with the alphabet theme there's a sheet of alphabet primer cards in one of TH's paper stacks which are almost the perfect size to fit in a Swan Vesta matchbox, so I cut them out, trimmed them a little and then coloured them in using my Pro-markers.

I then divided them into 2 piles, A-M and N-Z, and glued them back to back in order, sandwiching a piece of ribbon between them.

The ribbon was then glued into the base of the matchbox tray and covered with a piece of card which I had coloured using TH's wrinkle-free ink method (sweep 2 colours of distress ink across your craft sheet, spritz with water and drag your card thru it...) I'd been having a play and made a whole batch of pieces of cardstock approx 6"x4", just perfect for cutting up and using on other projects!

The other end of the ribbon was sandwiched between another two pieces of the same cardstock and one of TH's phrases stamped on top - I love this saying, it can be applied to almost everything I do lol...

I liked it, Yolanda liked it - so job done xx

UKS Screen Swap

Amidst all the mayhem of the UKS Matchbox Shrine Swap was the equally mad thread for the Screen Swap - this was based on Linda Elbourne's screen which was on the cover of Craft Stamper March 2012 - and very pretty it was too!

Again it was to be a direct swap and my partner was Viv1 who specified an open theme - which is actually harder than it sounds because you have no idea whether they will like or 'get' whatever it is you have made for them if it's for a theme they have not specified...

...so I played it safe... amidst all the thread chatter it was becoming apparent that there is a definite hatred towards one particular member of The Beatles by various members of the swap... so using the anonymous guise of "The Swap Fairy" I checked to see if she had any specific dislikes - and got the answer "anything goes" back...

Right sez I... what have I got to hand... the screen is made from 4 chipboard panels measuring 8"x4" with a curved top... cut them out no problem... ahh there's a roll of music manuscript, thats a good start, so cut and stuck that onto each panel, and just because it was my favourite colour combination at the time, I used Spiced Marmalade and Dried Marigold distress inks on the panels, which were then backed with papers from one of TH's paper stacks.

So music is obviously the base theme here - what to do next?

Running this past my fella (who does come up with some great ideas or even great jumping-off points) he said I could do with something where the number 4 (for the 4 panels) merged with music... and about 30 minutes later we'd come up with the idea of using the artwork from the cover of The Beatles "Abbey Road" album - where they are crossing the road using the zebra crossing? One Beatle per screen, in silhouette, in the correct order, and even the zebra crossing kinda lines up too....

The figures are layered onto plain cardstock which was again coloured with distress inks, and the stars, music notes and treble clefs were cut from black card using my Cricut Mini. The 4 panels were then laced together using brown organza ribbon thru holes punched with my Bind-It-All.

Here's close-ups of each panel - just don't ask me to name each Beatle - I'm far too young!

Thankfully Viv liked the screen so I was able to breathe a big sigh of relief - must admit I did enjoy doing it and may do one for myself at some point - I mean, I still have several sets of hand-cut Beatles silhouettes knocking around...

UKS Matchbox Shrine Swap...

I think one of the projects I have had most fun with recently was this one... take a matchbox (any size) and decorate it to turn it into a shrine... the thread on UKScrappers got rapidly out of hand (alongside the thread for the screen swap which I'll come to later)...

I hadn't really had any bright ideas for what to do, I had been kicking a few thoughts around but nothing was floating my boat, when the thread plunged headlong into the madness that concerned tortoises hibernating in Hannah's fridge... I kid you not, she said it was the perfect temperature for them and that altho it seemed a bit weird it worked... well that was it... the thread disintergrated into total mayhem and general depravity and the most brilliant of ideas began to skulk across my mind...

I'd been paired up with Rebecca (our hostess) whether by luck or judgement I'll never know... but as she seemed most tickled by the whole tortoise concept (altho by that stage we'd mentally tucked them into coolboxes I think!) it became obvious what I had to do - turn a cooks matchbox into a wooden crate and stick a toy tortoise inside it... and pray that French Customs can take a joke and not destroy it en route...

So... a wooden crate needs thin balsa wood sheeting to cover the top and sides with thin strips to represent the batoning... balsa wood supports inside for a framework, grungepaper strap and a magnetic closure and a coat of stain...

Not forgetting the jump-ring chains to hold the lid open - didn't have any ready-made chain so had to fiddle around with a couple of pairs of tiny-nosed pliers and make my own lengths of chain!

Give it all a coat of brown paint inside to hide the wobbly edges and then fill with chopped up beige raffia, which looks a lot like straw... and nestle your toy tortoise inside...

Rebecca loved it!

I'm a winner!

Oh my - I came home to the news that I'd been picked as the winner of a very special blog give-away - Kate Crane http://www.thekathrynwheel.blogspot.com/ had hosted the recent Stampotique challenge and had altered a matchbox into a mini Rogues Gallery using her favourite Stampotique designs, and had decided to give it away to a random commenter on her blog - and it was me! Couldn't believe my luck, I was almost dancing round the lounge lol... my fella looked at me as if I'd gone totally loopy...

And when I got home from work this afternoon there was a package on my doormat - so now I am the proud owner of - drum roll please - a Kate Crane original lol...

She's used a Swan Vesta matchbox as her base, so that should give you some idea of the size... it's about 3.5 inches by 1.5 inches and as well as painting the box and the portraits, Kate has machine-sewn around them as well.

Here's some close-up pics of the Rogues themselves...

Here's the cover with Dweeze - love his wings lol...



Here's Eric

and Carrot...

...and Hiya Cinth...

...Dawwze's legs - wish mine were that thin...

and Quasimoto 3...

...with Mela to finish off!

They are all so cute, I've never really got into Stampotique stamps but having browsed thru their website tonite to find the names of the stamps Kate used, I've ear-marked a few that I wouldn't mind having myself - they are certainly quirky!

Having just signed up to do a matchbox shrine swap I've already had one person offering to relieve me of this fabby piece of art - sorry lovey but this stays firmly with me!