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.

An InLinkz Link-up

Guest Designer - Niki

Please say hello and a big welcome to today's Guest Designer - Niki of Pawsitively Creative. Niki was the winner of our Time to Take Flight challenge.

Hello lovelies! I am stoked to be here as a guest designer and to be among so many wonderfully talented people's. As the winner of the Time to Take Flight challenge, I was asked to create something for this months theme of "Elements of Nature". Before I get into the design process here is a little bit about me.

By day I am a Vet Tech ninja and have been in the Veterinary field for over 13 years. I love my career and being able to use my knowledge to help save any and all animals. Yes, I enjoy the scaled ones, the slimy ones and the smelly ones (baby skunks are adorable!).

I still consider myself new to mixed media and challenge blogs. Back in April 2014 my husband bought me a couple of canvases and an acrylic paint set for my birthday. I wasn't thrilled about it at first. When I was younger I drew, painted, and crafted all the time but at age 17 I broke both of my arms, and never got back into my art because I couldn't use my left hand/wrist like normal. I gave up my art. So when I saw the art supplies my husband bought me I figured I would give it a go just to make him happy. Boy was he (and I) in for a huge surprise when I finished my first piece.

At the time I loved it but kept thinking that I could improve, and I like to believe that I have improved by leaps and bounds due to the challenge blogs that I found and also because of the wonderfully talented and supportive people I have found in blogland. You all make me challenge myself every time I create something and I just want to say thank you very much for that.

I have created a mini garden top hat. This started out as white crafters foam and then I overlaid the top hat with birch tree panels.

Once the panels were in place I did the same thing to the top of the hat and used some brown leather to define where the top piece met the sides. While that was drying I set about making the little door, the leaves, and the filigree mold. The door was rolled out with white polymer clay that I then stamped into.

Cool huh? I used an X-ACTO knife to cut the door into 3 pieces. All the clay parts were baked then painted with a mix of raw umber acrylic paint, Adirondack dabbers, espresso distress paint and some Silks with a dash of Emerald Green Viva Decor.

I then painted my hat with some sea foam acrylic paint and started laying out moss, English moss, and little tree stumps (a stick I cut up with a jig saw).

I used some flower picks that were leftover from a previous project. Everything was glued to the brim of the hat with a hot glue gun since I ran out of my favorite glue. The "dirt" path was made from coffee grounds and the stones are art stones that were painted with distress ink.

I wanted to put a fanciful spin on this design so I got out my stencil and used some washi tape to isolated one word. I stenciled this on a piece of frosted vellum with some modeling paste.

Then all of the bits and bobs were added to the hat! Viola! Mini garden top hat! Here are some pictures of the sides of the hat. This side shows the filigree piece.

This side of the hats shows the little jar of blue stones that bring good luck to the owner of the top hat house.

I added some butterflies, flowers and a little bird to finish off the piece.

Hopefully something in here inspired you to create a design for this challenge. I sure had fun with it!

Huge thank you to the team for inviting me over to have a play. This challenge theme was exciting and awesome sauce! Hugz and Carpe Diem! ~Niki

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What a wonderful project and step x step from Niki. Now that she has inspired you, we would love it if you would create something for our Elements of Nature challenge since it doesn't end until next Wednesday.

Inspiration Post - Upcycled Coasters

It is Cec here and I am bringing you some inspiration today in the form of some upcycled coasters.

I have a bunch of coasters that really should have been thrown out long before now because they have stains on them or little torn spots but the other day I had a bright idea that maybe I could salvage them.

I started by covering the back with some painters tape since I wanted to make sure I didn't damage the cork backing.  Next I covered the front and sides with a couple coats of Liquitex Gesso.

The next step was to paint the coaster with some Folk Art acrylic paint called Italian Sage.  It took two coats to get good coverage.

Next I used Jet Black Archival Ink and an IndigoBlu stamp called Script Background to add some stamping to the coaster.

I crumpled up some tissue, flattened it back out and adhered it to the coaster with some Mod Podge.  This photo was taken of the first attempt at altering the coaster so there was another stamped image that didn't make it on the second version that I am showing you today.  Once the tissue is dry, I trimmed the excess away and added another coat of Mod Podge over the tissue.  Try not to touch the tissue while it is wet because it does tend to disintegrate and you don't want it to come off areas where you want it to be.

The next step was apply some inks of various types in random spots.  I used Tim Holtz Aged Mahogany and Iced Spruce Distress Spray Stain along with some FW acrylic inks in Pearlescent Copper, Pearlescent Silver Moss and Antelope Brown.

I then used Jet Black Archival Ink and a set of stamps from Hero Arts to add some butterflies to the coaster.  I heat set them and then put a coat of IndigoBlu Super Thick Slap It On over the coaster to seal it.  In the future I think I would wait a couple days to ensure that the stamping is really set because the ink still moved a bit when I added the sealer but it wasn't so bad that I couldn't use it.

Here is a close-up view of the finished coaster. I hope you are inspired to rescue your old coasters and give them some new life.