My favorite....

...things to work with are corrugated card, embossing powders and patina (well, everything, that provides an aged look), steampunk images, gears, tags, accordeon booklets and cool embellishments, so when I got all the wonderful "pre-X-mas goodies" from wonderful Sandra (shown two posts earlier here on my blog), I couldn't help but to get started!

Simon Says Stamp and Show this week wants us to show our favorites - so the coincidence really is a more than lucky one!!!

So here's what I made (and enveloped afterwards and sent to.... oooops... won't tell ;) :

I used one of the marvellous accordeon tags, namely a brown cardbordish looking one, and covered all of the tag-pages with wide strokes of white gesso, paying attention that not all of the surface was evenly covered with it. Then I blended the edges with Distress ink "walnut stain".

I tried to do double-pages in the tag-booklet, collaging various steampunk images from stamp-sets from Artistic Outpost, Oxford Impressions and Paper Artsy, using stamping colours "vintage photo", archival ink "siena", "black soot" and "walnut stain".

Here they come in their order of appearance in the booklet (as usually click on pictures to enlarge):

(This is the back single page of the accordeon tag of course)

And it ends with the beginning - the cover ;)

Heat embossing was done with white, gold and copper embossing powders. For the front cover I used my all-time favorite "aged copper embossing enamel"  from Ranger.

Some spaces and edges on the tags (and on the front cover) I also treated with patina, which alltogether gave the booklet a black&white, cardboard-brown, metal and patina colour scheme.

I really tried to give this project the most shabby look I could afford, as I love shabby and worn things.

For the cover I treated a cut-to-fit piece of corrugated card with patina, aged copper embossing enamel and "walnut stain" Distress ink. The bulb - isn't it wonderful? (thank you so much again, Sandra!!!) - was glued onto it with transparent glue and the thin leather string was fixed onto the accordeon-tag front by attaching the prepared cover to it.

This is, how the accordeon tag looks like, when opened:

Here are some close-ups. Hope, you like it:

Wonderful events - Part II

I also had the lovely opportunity to recently swap some awesome ATCs with Ellie. I am sure, most of you know her and her great artwork, as she is a member of some very talented Design Teams in challenge-blog-land ! Have a look at her lovely blog here.

Here are the ATCs I got from her and now proudly call my own!

Thank you soo much, Ellie!!! And for the wonderful old bookpages too!!!! They are true treasures!!!!

I so enjoyed our wonderful swap!!!

Hugs,
die amelie xx

Wonderful events Part I

There are two wonderful events today I would like to have you participate in!

This is No. 1 - a "pre-X-mas Candy-Lottery" from wonderful SanDee, whose great ATCs you can admire here.

Look at all the wonderful things she sent me!!!

On the left you can see three of her gorgeous ATCs, which I had the great luck to swap with her too!
I am sure, you will see many of the things shown in the picture worked into some projects during the next weeks!! ;)

Thank you so much, SanDee!!!!! This really was like "Pre-X-mas"  to me.



*****



I also had the luck to get some lovely ATCs from Jeannette some weeks ago (which I forgot to share with you here. Sorry for that!). Love the colours, she used, so much!!!! 

The ATCs made on corrugated card backgrounds were an additional gift, which I am sooo happy about, because I had admired them in the forum FwATCs so much!!!! Thank you, Jeannette!!! I am so happy, I can call these my own!

"When you are through changing,..."

I cannot sleep tonight, so I use this time to show you my latest project, which I made for a very good friend of mine, who has been going through some hard changes for quite a while now.

It is a rather small canvas - about 20 times 30 centimeters - which I first covered with structure paste, masking some of the areas with "Malerkrepp", as we call it in Austria, which I removed after applying the paste.

I added white gesso, various acrylic colours, some Glimmer Myst and drie-brushed the edges of the structure-paste-stripes with gold acrylic color. The image of the beautiful butterfly was stamped on a thin layer of tissue paper and then glued onto the almost finished piece.

The close-ups should show the stripes of structure paste a little better, I hope.

Hope, you like it.

Hugs,
die amelie xx

"Fall is the door to renewal"

This tag was inspired by the challenges from DragonsDream Tag It On "Leaf me alone", from Fashionable Stamping Challenges theme "Shades of Autumn/Fall" and Simon Says Stamp and Shows "Rustification"-challenge. (which I will enter of course with this project ;)

I had one of the prepared leaves left over from my "A leaf is a leaf is a leaf" wall hanger, that matched perfectly. This time I stamped a Tim Holtz leaf onto it, using gold embossing powder for the image. The inner part of the leaf was blended with "broken china" Distress ink and the non-stamped part of the big leaf was treated with various alcohol inks, to receive more contrast.








For the tag I chose a paper from the autumnal Bringmann's folia edition. I distressed the edges and blended in some "rusty hinge", "spiced marmalade" and "walnut stain". To add a little texture I stamped a bigger Tim Holtz leaf with "rusty hinge" quite randomly over the whole tag. At last I covered some areas with Stampendous' "aged copper embossing enamel" to get a weathered look.



In the meantime I had painted the beautiful wooden key with the first undercoat layer of my patina set and let dry. A small bit of lace was coloured with "walnut stain" and dried with the heat tool.

I stamped the "FALL" word with the undercoat as well, adding the paint with a little sponge tool, which is normally used to apply some eye-shadow. This made it easier to control the amount of colour applied to the stamp.

After about an hour's rest in the sun, the undercoat was ready to be treated with the oxidant, which I used a thin brush for. Then I had to wait one more hour until the patina had developed. Luckily it had beautifully developed on my glossy paper plate too (which I love to use as a mat when gessoing or doing some other sticky stuff).

From this plate I punched three small lovely patina leaves, which I adhered to the lower section of the swinging tag, after embossing the edges with "aged copper embossing enamel". I gave the key the same treatment, adding also gold "Sternenstaub" embossing powder at some areas.

I decided to use simple leather string to tie the parts together, as it would match the tag without standing out too much. A truly gorgeous rosette ornament, which I had been given to by wonderful Sandra, when doing a swap, as a goodie, was treated with alcohol inks and added to the big leaf, as I felt I needed something  a little "pompous" as an eye-catcher.





Done!
Hope, you like it!
Hugs,

die amelie xx

Some close-ups as usual! Enjoy!