Guest Designer - Kerstin

Please say hello and welcome to our Guest Designer for this challenge.  Kerstin whose blog is Scrapbook Dreams was the winner of our Autumn Colours challenge.

"I was so pleased to be asked to join you all as a Guest Creative Guide here at Stamps and Stencils. My name is Kerstin -Inga Peters, but I am more known as simply Kerstin F.

I have been creating for many years now, always in search of new techniques and yet unexplored territory, because I love to try out, products and ideas and share inspirations, because it's always an adventure, a discovery tour, which I like to take my friends and all the other crafty people with me.

My favourites are colours and textures with a view to the small things, details and a big faible for 3D projects or elements. With Scrapbooking, Home decoration, Art Journaling in combination with Mixed Media Style I have found 'my' perfect favourite genres. My creations are always a little bit magical, romantic, sometimes funny, but always made with heart and mind."

"This month the challenge theme is "Tags, Bags & Boxes". I decided to make a tag in vintage style, Mixed Media ART a little christmas inspiration for you.

For the background I used a wonderful deer stamp, an old book page, glimmer mist sprays and a metallic acrylic paint, not to forget a distress ink (Walnut Stain from Ranger) for an altered effect.

On the left corner you will see a christmas lantern (it's a foil chip from Tatterd Angels), painted with Snow Tex from DecoArt together with a pom pom ribbon. On the upper edge an icicle die with textured paper. With two little tags To - From and small silver bells I finished my gift tag.

If you would like to know more about my creative world just pop over to my blog at Scrapbook Dreams. I would love to see you there!

Huge thanks to the Design Team for inviting me to be their guest this month."

Tim Holtz Stamped Silhouette Gift Tags Tutorial

Autumn here with you today to share a fun tutorial on using silhouette stamps for making tags for gift bags.  Follow this simple process to achieve dynamic layered mixed media creations.

Step one: Stamp, stencil and splatter!  To begin, dip your tags into lightly misted Distress Ink pools on your craft mat.  Here I've shown three color options for your Christmas tags.

Next, stamp onto your backgrounds to add a subtle pattern.  I used music and snowflake stamps, embossing the snowflakes.  I added several stencil variations.  On the red tag I stenciled a dot pattern and embossed it with glittery gold embossing powder.  On the green tag I used gold texture paste.  On the white tag I poured Distress Rock Candy glitter onto my wet paste for a soft shimmer of the dots.

Step two: Add a bow cluster!  I attached a coordinating bow around each of my tags near the base.  I tied one strip of ribbon around the tag, then adhered my loopy bow made with a bow maker.

Step Three: Silhouettes, sentiments and frames.  I stamped each of my silhouettes in black for a dramatic effect onto coordinating inky paper.

I layered the silhouette stamped images over frame die cuts.  This one was simply painted black.

I used the same gold texture paste here to add coordinating color to my frame.

Each sentiment was added in a different way, this one onto inky paper with a curl for dimension.

This die was coated with crackle paste.  Each tag has a jingle bell.  This one has a layer of cheese cloth.

Finally, I tied my tags to a kraft bag and added coordinating tissue.  I hope you'll take some time to try these simple tips for creating a set of gift tags of your own.

Upcycling a box

Hello there! Rachel here today to share with you how I upcycled a box to look like this....

I started with a piece of white card - A3 size and a box that an oil drizzler had been gifted to me in.

I liked the black of the box and wanted to work with this - I decided to make a masterboard with the card and cut it to size to fit the box. To start the masterboard I added 3 paints with a brayer....2 fresco paints - wisteria and spun sugar and a metallic purple paint from decoart.

Next I used some stamping on the background - I used tim holtz snowflakes and stamped in paint.

Then I added some stencilling using ink and outlining in a posca pen..

Next I measured the box sides and cut the masterboard to fit - then I stuck the pieces to the box leaving some of the black showing.

The final step was to make the tag which I did using a TH die and embossing folder.

Finally I added the snowflake to more of the masterboard and cut around it. I punched a hole and added the ribbon to the box and finally tied the tag on.

I hope this inspires you to have a go at upcycling some random boxes you may already have!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Winners - Elements of Nature Challenge

Today we are back to announce the winner and Top Three from our Elements of Nature challenge.  The Design Team agreed that there were fabulous projects and so many of them included real items from nature.  They also agreed that their winner was #26.

Ioulia

JulD Handmade

Congraulations Ioulia!  The real leaves look fabulous with all the texture added to them and mounted in that wooden frame.  Cec will be contacting you shortly to discuss your Guest Designer spot.

And now, here are the Top Three as chosen by Autumn, the hostess for this challenge:

Butterfly

Lula

Nate

Congratulations to our Top Three.  Please email cwcardcardcreations@rogers.com to claim your Top Three badges.  All of our winners will be pinned to our Stamps and Stencils Pinterest Board.

The current challenge, Tags, Bags and Boxes is running now and you have lots of time to enter as it will be open until November 30 at 20:00 UK time.

Tags, Bags and Boxes

It is Cec here and I am your hostess for the November challenge.  I am calling it Tags, Bags and Boxes and here is what I have to say about it:

"With Christmas coming up and the gift buying underway, we are going to need something to wrap them in. Let's make some mixed media tags, bags & boxes that will be as treasured by the recipient as the gift itself. Don't forget to include some stamping or stenciling."

The Design Team would love you to join us for this challenge and will choose a winner who will have the opportunity to Guest Design with us in the future and I will choose my top three. 

In the meantime the Design Team has created some wonderful inspiration for you and if you want all the details of their project just click on their name and you will be taken directly to their blog.

Ruth

Autumn

Branka

Cec

Rachel

Toni

You have until November 30th at 20:00 UK time to enter this challenge.

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