Simon Says Stamp and Show: Wendy Vecchi Style! And Sunday Stampers

Over as Simon Says the theme is Wendy Vechhi Style. Then today over at Hels blog for Sunday Stampers it is Red! I think I am going to enter this in both!

Ok, so I had a mild panic because I don't own a single Wendy V product! I know, shock and horror, but to my knowledge, I have not seen them for sale here in SA...might have to go on a shopping mission, looking with these yummy products in mind, not that I need a reason to go shop mind you....BUT (and I was put at ease by Linda) then the emphasis was on Style, not products, major relief, PHEW, so here is my offering.

The title for this tag is artistic Light Bulb moment!

Diamonds and Pearls

This is for Hels challenge, over at her blog, I am a little late on this as I "lost" the stuff for this tag in my chaos on my desk, in actual fact, I had put them away where they should be...who would have thought to look there...LOL

Here is my take on her theme Diamonds and pearls. I scanned the beautiful pattern sheet that I found in my moms stuff and cut a tag from it and decorated it as you see. I did not want to hide the word at the top so I pinned the ribbon on with the safety pin.

Whats on your workdesk Wednesday 103

Nearly there folks who follow desks around the world! Next week is the second anniversary of this escapade and we are doing a pass it forward gift thing for all the people participating. This PIF is optional, but it is going to be fun to see who gets involved. Go along to Julia's blog to join the fun if you have not before...click HERE!

Here is my desk in the throws of trying to do Hels challenge of diamonds and pearls...for the Sunday Samper. Not getting much desk time in, so this is as far as I got. The pattern is a vintage one I nabbed from my mothers clean out the other day.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Bella

Grungy Monday 08

OK, so I have calmed down!

This is what I made with the single Darkroom Door stamped Daffodil using distress ink in the background that I misted and dabbed and stuck to the tag and decorated with Sassafras trimmings that came off the edge of one of their sheets of paper. If you are wondering what I am on about, read further, I had to blog about this technique before I had even created something with it!

OH MY WORD! Excuse my shouting, but I LOVE THIS technique!

In case you think I am off my head, (well some people think I should be certified, but that is another matter all together...) go over to Linda's blog (the esteemed hostess of Grungy Monday) where you will get the link to Tims blog back in 2008 where he gives very clear instructions on how to do this water colour technique with stamps...

I am so excited about it that I have to show you what I have done so far and I have not even made anything yet. I just want you to go and play with this technique, it is BRILLIANT! T!m totally ROCKS! Thanks to Linda who enlightened me on this blog link, I am now bouncing round my studio, trying to think of what I can make with all these Darkroom Door flowers...

Bella

Sizzix Die idea

It's the Week-end!

I got some Sizzix dies recently and because I teach classes I have decided to stick the printed sleeve that comes in the box to the actual die so that my students can see what they are about to use. I find that clear visual prompts are so much better than turning the die over and trying to make the pattern out of the black rubber.

First I cut the paper to the size of the die. Then I put my broad double sided tape on the back, corner round it, peel off the tape backing and stick it to the die the right way up.

Here is how I did it in pictures!

Whats on your workdesk Wednesday 102

Here we are on Wednesday again and time to go desk hopping. Julia over at Stamping Ground is the wonderful hostess of this concept so visit her and join in! Where I live in South Africa it is voting day for local constituencies so we have "the day off" because the government made it a public holiday. Like we needed another one... we have just recovered from a whole set of them in April! For those of us who have our own businesses, this is a right royal pain as deliveries etc get all mucked up AGAIN, life was just back to normal (such as what is normal anyway...)! I worked this morning as for me "no work - no pay" is just not an option as I haven't recovered from last months 10 days unpaid leave...

Enough grouching from me - here is what is on my desk. My mom is having a clean out (after 30 years) and I am the happy recipient of these vintage books and her traveling typewriter! There was also a box of my old toys which have come home to roost and so I still need to go through that. Another day though, cos now I want to play with these finds.

Oh the other thing I have done in the last week is put stickers on my Distress ink pads and coloured them so I can see which one is which at a glance. I think it was Minxy's desk that I saw this idea on, but I thought it a great one and set to implementing it immediately.

I also got hold of a whole lot of Keizer Kraft pouches which I moved my clear stamps into so that I can flip through them easily. These now stand on top of my pidgin holes and are easy to reach.

Grungy Monday 07

Here is my take on the project for Grungy Monday on Tuesday, but hey if you think I am quick off the mark, my friend Kaz did her tag in 10 min and yesterday, mine took 20! She must be a speed demon!

I used the colour blocking technique as required for this challenge over at the newly Certified Ranger Educator: Linda's blog, done by none other than the Tim Holtz himself at CHA 2010. You can find the video on how to do this simple yet effective inking here.

Stamp Man ATC's

I entered my first international ATC swap over at The Stamp Man for April where the theme was Birds. I am new to all of this so am taking a little while to get to grips with everything involved, but I am pleased so say that they have arrived in the UK safely and I see that one lady has already received one of mine in her swaps. I can't wait for my envelope to arrive with my 3 swaps in return! I will be like a kid waiting for the post to arrive every day in a weeks time, as our post is SO SLOW! I will be entering the June swap so my ATCs have enough time to get there without delaying the process on the other side. It did not help that we had a million (well it felt like it) public holidays in the 2 weeks prior to the April deadline! (our post office is closed on such days...) I closed my studio for 3 days and had 10 days off!

Here is how I made it:

Having stuck the hessian flower down, I then used the backing as a mask and put two mask leaves down and sprayed with my Color Wash Espresso to texture the background.

I stamped the birds nest on the ticket and added the tissue tape, put it on pop dots and slipped a button underneath. I stamped a bird on scrap paper, embossed it and cut it out to stick over the flower. Done!

Grungy Monday 06

Here is my take on the technique you can find on Tim's blog back in 2007! This is the challenge set by Linda over at StudioL3. (She is now a hot off the press Certified Ranger Educator!)

The post I originally published seems to have disappeared when Blogger had trouble today, so I am re-posting....cant remember a thing I said really except that I was super excited about the tags and rushed home at lunch time to finish them!

I loved this technique so much, I did 3 tags! I made my own stamps to fit Tim's ticket strip die and used one on each of them.

Get well Soon:

I die cut the hessian with my scalop die, printed the daffodil from Darkroom Door in coffee Archival Ink on the background, cut round the flower front and slipped the hessian underneath. I stamped the same Daffodil on shrink plastic and inked it with alcohol inks and shrunk it using the heat gun, wow, it really curled and went ballistic until it had shrunk enough and went flat - my heart was in my socks at one stage I thought it was never going to settle down. I stuck that onto a circle I punched out and had covered with diamond stickles which I then put on pop dots (love those little things) over the gold twine I had wrapped round the tag. I punched the bottom of the tag with an EK Success punch and added stickles circles to the bumps as well as some alcohol inks to link up the colours in the flower. I then ran a line of stickles down the hessian and added my tag. Ta-Da Done!

Thank you:

I used the MS border and corner punch on the bottom and the EK Success punch to cut a strip for the centre which I coloured with gold paint dabber. I stamped the cupcakes, inked them and embossed them and added the ticket. I had made the tag from a Darkroom Door stamp "From the kitchen of" using the shrink plastic, only this time I did it in the oven, much less heart failier!

Happy Birthday:

I stamped the flowers using the blue paint dabber on a foam stamp and then added stickles to the one centre. I made 2 cupcakes with shrink plastic and added them to the stamped Happy Birthday tag which I put on pop dots. I stamped a large cup cake and put it in a little flat shaker box so it looks like birthday cake and added a red stickles cherry to it.

Whats on your workdesk Wednesday 101

Wednesday is here again! so its time for What's on your workdesk Wednesday number 101! This is such fun as you get to snoop on other peoples workspaces at Stamping Ground who post from all over the world.

Today I am busy with the project for Grungy Monday over at StudioL3. I am very into making tags ever since I got the die and so my scrapping seems to have taken a back seat...must tackle that as I am building up quite a collection of photos that need to be sorted and scrapped!

Mother's Day

Hello there

It was Mother's day here in South Africa today. I got a home made card from my son and a rose from the grocery store when I popped in there this morning...went to lunch at my Mom in law's together with my Mom and her sister, so it was a special family day. Only, having packed everybodys stuff in the car to go, I left my bag on the couch! So there were nearly no photos to post or scrap about the day. I only just remembered to ask my Dear Hubby to take a pic of me and my son quickly before bed time tonight! Phew, thank goodness or today just didn't happen...you know what I mean!

Here is the card I made using the printable from Rhonna Farrer's blog and the Tim Holtz Sizzix rosette die. This was such a Godsend as I had 4 cards to make!

Have a great week everyone, see you on Whats on your Workdesk Wednesday!

Better late than never! SSSAS Buttons!

Well, last week over at Simon says Stamp and show, it was buttons! I had this project in mind, but no time or surface space...so after a huge desk clean up. I got going. My dear son got his school shirt so dirty, nothing could get the mud stain out so I decided to decorate it with my new Color Washes.

First I put down some masks and sprayed the lettuce and denim over the top as well as some pearl, let it dry and stamped on the butterflies. Then I got hold of a fine nibbed permanent fabric marker and doodled on the masked areas. Finished it off by writing Butterflies at the bottom.

Now it is going to my friends daughter and is not a binable shirt!

Simon Says Stamp and Show: Hands

Well, I have been pondering this one for SSSAS all week and have come up with this mini configurations type box. I have a few empty boxes that I want to decorate and eventually join together to form one huge configuration.

I found the image of the hand in a book my mother was throwing out so "recycled" the book to scan and added the image to my collection of vintage items. A growing trend in my study...

Yesterday, I made the wings for the clock with shrink plastic by stamping them onto it and cutting them out and heating them. This was fun as they wiggle and warp and eventually flatten out when you do it with a heat tool! Your heart goes in your socks cos you think they will never sort themselves out!

I then went on the hunt for my Srinky Dinks stuff from 20 years ago or more when I was a kid and found my Fashion Plates instead which is a system to make different outfits and then color them in with embossing plates to get different textures. I decided to run them through my Cuttle Bug to see if I could get them to emboss and guess what? It worked!

So this is the result of some experimenting with some vintage toys and hot off the press stamps and inks!

I hope you like it!

Whats on your workdesk Wednesday 100

Here is my desk in the great world desk hop...join in over at Stamping Ground, it is such fun to see what everyone is working on and how clean or messy we all are.

Well I woke with a migraine so am not a happy bunny. I have been to the chiro so am feeling a little better. Walking round with dark glasses to cope with the bright African sun and feel like a need earmuffs cos the world is SO LOUD today.

Needless to say, not much on my desk, but two old Atlases I rescued from my moms house's clean out to use as backgrounds on tags etc. I used them for geography growing up, but now they are so out of date, they are vintage! How scary is that thought? I've been out of school long enough for something to belong to me to become vintage....