Welcome to today's Guest Designer, Sara Emily !

Hello and welcome ! Today we are welcoming another very talented lady who is well known in blog land. Sara Emily of Saras Closet was the DT's chosen winner of the Make it 3D challenge and was invited to join us as Guest Designer for a day. Let's move on to hear from Sara Emily:

Hello! My name is Sara Emily, and you might know me as sarascloset, which is the name of my blog and also where I do most of my crafting. I live in Wilmington, North Carolina in the USA, just minutes from some of the most beautiful beaches on the East Coast. I am married and have 17 year old boy/girl twins and boy/girl twin kitties.

I’ve dabbled in many crafts from stain glass to up cycling discarded furniture and the occasional handmade Christmas ornament. I’ve even given a variety of art mediums a try in high school and college.  When my sister became seriously ill several years ago, I promised her a homemade card until she was better.  I made and sent her a daily handmade card for about 18 months without fail. So, I’ve had lots of practice and love making cards!

When Sue told me the theme was “Grungy Christmas”, I almost jumped for joy!  My favorite style is vintage/grunge, and I knew exactly what I was going to make. Since I’m a little behind with my greetings this season, I decided to make a Christmas card.

   

I started with my base layer of card stock and applied gesso, Distress stain and texture paste and embossed using brass embossing powder. I think my stains may have still had a little moisture when I embossed, but I love the look. I gave the edges a good distressing for a grungy look.

I stamped the plaid layer with background image I picked up at a yard sale, so I don’t know the make. I used a brayer to apply paint to the image, placed my card on top and rolled with a second brayer. I dried with a heat tool then spritzed the card well with water. Next I spritzed with Distress Stains, and dried with a heat tool, adding more water until I was happy with the effect.  More distressing and blending of ink on the edges and a little splash of water for those lovely droplets! This was Tim’s technique from his November tag, if you remember.

The frame is Tim Holtz Ornate Frame (cut from Grunge board, of course!) painted with gesso, crackle paste, Tarnish Brass Distress Paint and highlighted with DecoArt Raw Umber Antiquing Cream.   I added some poinsettias cut with Tim Holtz Tattered Poinsettia die and embossed them with his poinsettia Texture Fade. I coloured with Distress paints, inks and Stickles.  I chose a Tim Holtz Holiday Collections stamped image to place in my frame and a Tim Holtz Handwritten Holidays die cut for my sentiment.

Thank you Sue and the entire Stamps and Stencils Design Team for allowing me to join you today!  I am so excited to be crafting alongside such a talented group of artists! If you would like to see more photos of my card and details, please visit sarascloset.

Hugs and Christmas Blessings!

Sara Emily

 

Thank you Sara Emily for sharing such a fantastic Christmas card ! I'm sure this has provided lots more inspiration for the current challenge of Grungy Christmas. 

If you would like to join us for a day as Guest Designer make sure you join in with the current challenge.

Fabric Paper

Hi there, it is Cec here and I am going to bring you an inspirational post today.  I am going to show you how to make fabric paper and then I will turn it into a Christmas ornament.

I started with a piece of white cotton duck fabric.  If you are going to use your finished product on something that will be turned into a wearable, it is recommended that you wash it first to remove any sizing.  I have a habit of always washing new fabric as soon as I bring it home from the store so this was ready to go.

The next step is to paint the fabric with a mixture of acrylic paint and fabric painting medium in a ratio of 2 parts paint to 1 part medium.  In this case I used Festive Berries Metallics, Champagne Gold Metallics and Dark Scarlet Multi Surface acrylic paints by Deco Art along with the Deco Art Medium.  I painted each one separately in random areas making sure to cover the piece of fabric.  The fabric medium keeps the paint from making the fabric stiff.

The Festive Berries paint didn't look as red as I wanted so I took a sea sponge and dabbed some Crimson Acrylic Ink by Daler-Rowney on those areas to add a little more depth of colour.

Next I added some stenciling with a TCW stencil called Mini Pattern Strips and Watering Can Archival Ink although I wish I had used Jet Black for the stenciling.

I did use the Jet Black to stamp a variety of snowflakes over the fabric from some Recollections sets.

The next step was to glue some crumpled tissue paper over the fabric with Mod Podge.  This is what turns the fabric into paper.

When the tissue was dry, I felt that it did not allow the stamping to show through as much as I wanted so I scraped some of it off and this turned out to be a good move.

 

Then I did more stenciling with some Wendy Vecchi Translucent Embossing Paste and allowed it to dry.  

Unfortunately this stenciling didn't show up as much as I hoped because it is translucent, after all.  I figured there would be a workaround and there was.  I laid the stencil over the various areas and added some Poppyfield Alcohol Ink.  Because the fabric is still flexible, I just bent it a little so I could see where I needed to lay the stencil down.  Once I coloured all the areas, I dry brushed some of the Champagne Gold Metallics paint over each of them and wiped them back with a baby wipe.

I wondered if there was a way to colour the embossing paste and still keep it translucent so I mixed it with a little of the Crimson Acrylic Ink and tried it on another painted fabric scrap.  While it was no longer translucent when it dried, it did maintain its smooth and shiny texture.  I would do this another time so wanted to show you how it looks.

Now it was time to turn my fabric paper into an ornament.  I am super lucky that my husband has bought a laser cutter so that he has something to keep him busy when he retires in 2 weeks and he cut strips of wood for me so I could make a Christmas tree.  Alternatives would be to cut strips of heavy chipboard or if you want to make a much larger tree, you could use paint stir sticks as long as you have a way to cut the cross pieces.

I forgot to take a photo but I painted each of the strips, front and back with Gesso, rubbed them with a piece of tulle (which acts as really fine sandpaper) and then coated them with the Champagne Gold Metallics paint.

Next I cut strips of the fabric paper to fit the cross strips and glued them on using Liquitex Matte Super Heavy Gel.   I only did the front for this ornament.

I glued each cross strip to the long piece using the same Gel and a piece of the wood as a spacer.  To finish my tree off, I added some seed beads and a satin ribbon at the top for a hanger.

I tried to take a photo of this on my tree but the camera starting giving me fits and every photo came out blurry so I am giving you a final look on my kraft mat.

I think this fabric paper almost looks like rich brocade and that is making me quite happy.  I hope I have inspired you to try your hand at making fabric paper and turning it into one of your works of art.  I can see it added to a card or canvas and although I didn't try it, I am sure you can die cut it.

You still have time to make something for our current challenge, 'Grungy Christmas' and perhaps you could consider adding some fabric paper to your creation.

Winners - Remember, Remember !

Hello and welcome back ! It's time to share the winner and top three for the Remember, Remember challenge and what lovely memories you shared with us ! This made it soooo difficult to pick a winner, but as always we got there in the end !

Congratulations Lula ! 

We loved the vintage feel to Lula's craft envelope and the memory of being a child looking forward to Christmas. Lula please email carringtons22@yahoo.co.uk for details of your Guest Designer spot and winners badge.

 Now on to the top 3: 

Jenny

 Joi@RR

 Lys

Congratulations everyone, please email carringtons22@yahoo.co.uk for your top 3 badge. 

All of the winners will also be pinned on the Stamps and Stencils Pinterest Board! 

 

The current challenge is Grungy Christmas so if you have any spare time before the big day, you've still got plenty of time to join in

Grungy Christmas and some changes !

Hello and welcome ! Today we are kicking off the last challenge for 2015 and also announcing some changes. This is quite a long post so grab a cuppa and get comfy !

First of all we'd like to introduce you to the new DT members. Sharon has decided to leave and go on to other things and we wish her well and also Yvonne and Julia will be leaving us at the end of the year. So, it's a big thank you to everyone for the fabulous projects they've shared with us and a big hello to three more new teamies !

Autumn

I am the wife of an amazing man, who is my biggest supporter.  We have four children and are naturally quite busy.  The stamping craze took hold of me about 15 years ago and I have loved it ever since.  It is truly my outlet from the busyness of life.  I define my style as grunge meets elegance.  Though I love distressing, I like to balance it with a touch of pretty and neatness.  In addition to stamping, I love to draw and paint and have found that mixed media allows me to blend these skills and create rich artwork, filled with depth and texture.  I am thrilled to be a part of the Stamps & Stencils DT!  What an talented group of ladies!

Branka 

Hi! My name is Branka (also known as Vintage Handmade).I am very excited and honored to be a DT member here at Stamps And Stencils! Let me introduce myself. I am a proud mom of two amazing children - a boy (18) and a girl (11) and I am a wife of a wonderful husband.  We live in a small town in Croatia in our family home, we have a huge yard and a sweet little puppy that we all love. My main profession is an interpreter/translator. In December 2013, I discovered scrapbooking/paper crafting by chance. It was love at first sight :) and it was a beginning of my art journey. My biggest love is mixed media art and art journaling and I like to mix different medium and techniques. I have so much fun in experimenting :) I started with my blog last year and my first challenge entry was in October 2014. My style is rather masculine and grunge but I try to express myself in other styles, as well. I also create cards, mini albums and journals for my friends, relatives and people I love. 

Rachel

Hello There! My name is Rachel Fisher. I am a widowed mum of two beautiful girls aged 7 and 9. I love to craft and have been crafting in one form or another for most of my life. I make cards and 3D items and alter items too. I am influenced by all things Tim Holtz but also love most things painty and inky. Stamps and stencils are two of my most favourite things so I am utterly delighted to be on the design team here and hope that I can bring something useful and interesting to the team.

I hope you'll give our new teamies a warm welcome, they will be sharing their talents with you from the January challenge.

Time now to move on to the challenge for December, Julia is our host and here's what she has to say:

I love Christmas but I'm a little shy when it comes to the bling, glitter and tinsel bit. We'd like to see you step away from the normal Christmas colours and create a mixed media piece which has a real touch of grunge. Think alternative colours, layers, antiquing and all things which are not pristine red and green! Remember to add in some stamping or stencilling too!

Ruth

Yvonne

Cec

Julia

Sue

Toni

So now it's over to you !

An InLinkz Link-up