Welcome to today's Guest Designer, Ann !

Today we are welcoming Ann of Ann Chuang Crafts who was the winner of the Spooky Fun with an Autumnal Twist challenge.

Hello Artsy Friends,
I’m super excited and honored to be the Guest Designer for Stamps and Stencils’ December Challenge - It's got to be Christmas!

My name is Ann Chuang. I live in Taipei, Taiwan and work full-time as a Junior high school teacher. I enjoy playing with stamps, stencils, inks, paints, die cuts, etc. in my leisure time.

For today’s challenge - It's got to be Christmas! I must confess that I love Christmas theme very much. So when I knew the theme of the challenge, I was very happy. The following is how I made my card.

Hope you like this card and it is inspirational for you. Please join us for this fun challenge and I can't wait to see your artsy project.

Thank you Ann for sharing your wonderful card with us ! There's still time if you would like to join in with the last challenge.

 

Welcome to today's Guest Designer, Martina !

Hello and welcome back ! Today we are welcoming Martina of Piece of Me who was the winner of the It's been a while challenge. Let's move on and hear from Martina:

Hello everyone! My name is Martina Stoycheva. I`m from Bulgaria and live in a small town on Black Sea coast named Burgas, with my husband Stanislav and my 4 years old daughter Ava. My interest in scrapbooking started in 2015. I was making albums for my little (then baby) girl. Almost two years later I found mixed media. It was an instant love. So much freedom to create, so much possibilities.
I was making cards for a few months and then slowly discovered layouts, canvases and off the page projects. I love using paints, pastes, powders, different textures. I like all pretty things and exploring new products. You will see me using flowers often, but then you will see projects without flowers.
It all depends on my inspiration and where it comes from. I really hope I can bring up some inspiration for you.

Hugs

Martina



Martina has very kindly put together a video of her project which you can find here. Below is a taster of the finished article ! 

 

Thank you Martina for sharing your fabulous project with us ! There's still plenty of time to join in with the current theme Remember Remember the 5th of November !

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Welcome to today's Guest Designer, Helen !

Hello and welcome back! Today we are being joined by Helen Liu of Happy Stamping and Happy Life. Helen was the winner of the Grunge/Industrial challenge and was therefore invited to join us for a day.

Hello Artsy Friends,

I’m super excited and honored to be the Guest Designer for Stamps and Stencils’ October Challenge - Spooky Fun with an Autumnal twist.

My name is Helen Liu. I live in Taipei, Taiwan and work full-time as a Banker in a Commercial Bank. I enjoy playing with stamps, stencils, inks, paints, die cuts, etc. in my leisure time. To know more about me, please check out my previous Guest Post in March here (link: http://stampsandstencils.blogspot.com/2018/03/welcome-to-todays-guest-designer-helen.html).

For today’s challenge - Spooky Fun with an Autumnal twist, I must confess that I’m not really into the spooky things, especially that I don’t have little children around me for some years. Yet I’ve decided to challenge myself to create an Autumnal tag with spooky elements. It’s fun to explore something out of my comfort zone. The following is how I made my tag.

1. Stamp text (Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz) with brown shadow ink on a watercolor paper tag.

2. Apply various Distress Inks on tag.

3. Die cut several leaves die (Sizzix/Tim Holtz) to create a DIY stencil.

4. Apply several Distress Inks over the DIY Leave Stencil to create a tone-on-tone effect.

5. Spread a thin layer of Texture Paste over the Gothic Stencil (Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz) on tag.

6. When dry, the Texture Paste will absorb some of the Distress Inks. Further apply several Distress Inks over the DIY Leave Stencil to enhance the tone-on-tone effect over the raised texture paste pattern.

7. Stamp Halloween elements (Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz) in black, die cut and color. Stamp text (Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz) in VersaMark and Heat Emboss in white on a black card scrap.

 8. Adhere Halloween elements on tag.

Hope this non-traditional Halloween tag is eye-pleasing and inspirational to you. Please join us for this fun challenge and I can't wait to see your artsy project.

Thank you so much for your wonderful project Helen ! There's still plenty of time to join in with the Spooky Fun with an Autumnal Twist challenge.

Welcome to today's guest designer, Jo !

Today we are welcoming Jo from Let's Art Journal as our Guest Designer. Jo was the winner of the Ombre challenge and was therefore asked if she'd like to join us for a day. So, let's move on to meet her !

Hello everyone, I’m so excited to be here at Stamps & Stencils as Guest Designer for their It's been a while... challenge this month.

My name is Jo and I blog at Let’s Art Journal. I live by the sea in the North West of England with my hubby and I started Art Journaling nearly 3 years ago as a way of expressing my life through words and pictures. I love using mixed media for all sorts of projects, with stamps and stencils often featuring in my designs. I’m captivated by the variety of techniques and materials that can be used to create so many different styles of art. I’ve always been a creative person, and this has now become a passion of mine which I like to share with others.

I am often inspired by things I see and do, so my art journal page today is inspired by rainbow colours and sunshine to mark the end of summer. I had so much fun layering all the different stamps and stencils to create my page, I hope you like it!

I started by adding strips of old book pages, washi tape and homemade sheet music decoupage paper to the centre of the page using matte gel medium.

Then I applied Faber-Castell Gelatos by scribbling them onto the page and smudging the colour with my finger which I wet using a baby wipe so they blended together easily. I find that using a baby wipe to wet my finger provides just the right amount of moisture to ensure the gelatos smudge perfectly.

I stamped a sponge stamp design from Finnabair and also a Collage Numbers stamp from Gummiapan Stamps using black Archival Ink. Next I used a baby wipe through a dot stencil to erase some of the gelato colour and create the white dots.

Then I stamped a circle stamp from Gummiapan Stamps using black Archival Ink and added high density white gesso through a Wheels stencil by Dina Wakley using a palette knife.

I took an old book page and stamped some butterflies by Graphic 45 from Hampton Arts onto it using black Archival Ink and fussy cut them out.

The butterflies are stuck in place using matte gel medium and when dry, I added more detail to them using a black Uni Posca paint pen. I splattered black and white acrylic paint over the page with a paintbrush after adding the motivational words which are rub-on transfers. To finish, I outlined the wheels with a black Uni Pin marker so they stood out more.

Here are the materials I used to create this page and you can also find a full list of materials on my blog here.

Thanks so much, I have really enjoyed spending time with you today and I hope that you are inspired by this month’s It's been a while... challenge too and are able to join in the fun!

Thank you. Jo x

Wow Jo, thank you so much for such a fabulous project ! There is still time to join us for the It's been a while challenge !