Technique Time Tuesday - "Water Stamping"

Welcome to another Technique Time Tuesday!


"Water Stamping" is this month's awesome technique and I really love this one! I already used it on this tag, but I definitely enjoyed creating the one I show you today (and will do this technique again):

I once again used the awesome "Stempelglede" grunge scroll. This time I used it to create wafts of mist as you usually see them in the early morning (hiking in the mountains).

And this tag was the perfect occasion to inaugurate the lovely Magenta stamp with the bird on the the pine tree branch! (One of the goodies I bought with my Tim Holtz "12 tags of 2013" win :). I even used the stamp to create the ribbon for the tag

.






The three mountaineers in the right lower corner are listening to the bird's
song and watching the last visible stars twinkle in the early morning sky. (Have you ever been in the mountains in early morning? I admit: I hate to get up early but THIS is absolutely worth it!!)




If you want to know how Water Stamping works, hop over to Mynnette's challenge blog to see the wonderful makes of the great DT I am in and of course the awesome tutorial Mynnette has prepared for you! As usual she did a great job!!!! 

Hope to see you there!!!
Hugs,

die amelie x

12 tags of 2013 - April

As this is the second post today, please scroll down to the previous post if you want to know this month's BRAND NEW CHALLENGE theme over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges!

The April tag really gave me some hard times... Distress paints and I will definitely never become best friends - that's for sure ....even though I really love that marbelizing and in the end I managed at least to create one tag that did not go to the bin instantly...

Well, I made the resolution to do all 12 tags of 2013 and I will stick to it!

I also have no alpha parts or "clearly for art" to stamp on, so I used some acetate from packaging material, which I fixed to the tag with some Tim Holtz tissue tape.

Ageing the clock face with Distress paints went quite well... but I will have to practice a lot until I find the results satisfying. 

The stamps I used (due to the lack of that lovely dragonfly stamp) are once more mainly from the fabulous new "Time Travelers" stamp set (which I also used for this 3D pop up card)! I LOVE IT! In the end my tag turned out very, VERY different to Tim's April tag... but I enter it anyway...

"The most important thing is not to win but to take part!" (De Coubertin) ;)

For a finish I coloured some of the areas within the images white to add some contrast and depth. Done.

I enter SSSS's "very strict challenge"  and Out of a hat creation's "Faces" challenge with this tag.

Thank you for stopping by!!!

Hugs,
die amelie x

Fairytale Steampunk - the April Challenge!!!

is the theme 

of our new Steampunk challenge 

over at SanDee&amelie's! 

(For those who haven't seen it yet: SanDee and me are hosting a new challenge blog for Steampunk lovers and those still to become. We would love to welcome you aboard! ;)
We were overwhelmed by the lots of awesome entries on our very first challenge last month!!! All of them so very artful and a big pleasure to see!!! Thank you so much for giving our "baby" this wonderful start!!!


Now to our new challenge: the fairytale theme was a real challenge for me - not because of the fairy tales (I love fairy tales and good children's books illustrations) but of the Steampunk connection. Not easy to imagine.... but challenges are meant to be met, aren't they? And everything that gets us out of our comfort zones can be a chance to evolve.

My take on the challenge has become sort of a children's book illustration and kind of a riddle as the characters are not visible at first sight... ;)

Counting helps (especially the hills...and the hats...ooops, already said too much *lol).  
In the German version of the fairytale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves the mirror says to the evil stepmother

"...aber Schneewittchen hinter den sieben Bergen bei den sieben Zwergen ist noch tausendmal schöner als Ihr!"  ("...but Snow White behind the seven hills at the place of the seven dwarves is a thousand times more beautiful than you")

whereas in the English version it says:

"But over the hills, where the seven dwarves dwell, Snow White is still alive and well" 

- so it does not mention the seven hills as it does in the German version...so my riddle may not be as easily solved for the English readers... :)

But once you have found the seven hats it should be obvious...(at least I hope that it is). Here they are:

I started creating a background using white card, Distress inks "walnut stain", "vintage photo", "spiced marmalade" and "rusty hinge" and the dip and spritz technique I love so much. 

Then I cut a stencil for the silhouette of the seven hills, put it over the upper half of the card and blended some more "vintage photo" around the edges using the blending tool, trying to let the colour fade out towards the bottom. 

Then I stamped the enchanted forest using the lovely Nature stamps from Art Journey using "walnut stain". 

The space where I wanted the rusted house to be in was blended with lots of "vintage photo" too to have better contrast.

The rusted houses from RedLead are so gorgeous! I gave this one an additional treatment with Ranger "verdigris" embossing powder. Some of the plants in the forest received the same treatment: heat embossed verdigris and rust dots and stamped on gears images.

I also stamped some gears images to the hills meant for a rough rocky mountain texture. It also adds some more depth to the image. 

I then lightly added some cogs and gears texture to the sky using a stencil and DI "pumice stone" - merely visible, but isn't that the way air is? Especially air with lots of love, danger, betrayal, adventure and bravery in it.... ;)

The clouds were the most fun to make. I first made a stencil using thick corrugated card and the TH Movers and Shapers gear dies. The cut out gear "openings" were the perfect stencils for adding some rough sand paste, which I heat dried afterwards (which makes the paste puff - which is perfect for clouds, isn't it?). Then I blended them with some "broken china" DI and added a little Fran tage "aged aqua" embossing enamel. 

The seven dwarves' hats were cut out and heat embossed (again with Ranger "verdigris" embossing powder). Then I glued them to the back of a prepared gentle hill and the whole piece got fixed to the background using sticky pads.


So you can see the seven dwarves returning to their tiny (rusted) home.
What will they find there? Is Snow White still well? 

(Gosh, I can remember watching the Walt Disney movie...one of the most thrilling Disney's ever!)

Before I show you one more close-up I want you to know that I am highly curious about your ideas and makes for this month's Steampunk challenge over at our spot! I would love to see your fairytale Steampunk creations (in 2D or 3D) and hope you enjoyed your visit with me! 

We have a special guest too!!! 

Mark Perry, the wonderful "Male Crafter", 

who created something awesomely whimsical for our April challenge and for your inspiration of course! So hop over to see his and SanDee's great makes!!! 

I also enter Simon Says Stamp and Show's "very strict" challenge with this project. 

Hugs,

die amelie 

Tim Holtz Time Travelers 3D Pop Up Card

Maybe some of you know that I started my paper passion with Toy Theatres' reprints from British and German publishers (Jackson Pollock or Schreiber for example).Some of them can be seen with my other blog "VonPappe".


So it should be no surprise to you that I love everything 3D like showcases, moving paper cards or paper dioramas. This time I tried to create a mechanical card on my own using my freshly arrived Tim Holtz "Time Travelers" stamp set! (Wow, I LOVE it!) and a model from a book about mechanical cards made after originals of Valentine cards from the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

When closed the card folds flat to fit with an envelope, but when you pull the label on the bottom it unfolds into a 3d showcase with three layers by a card and ribbon mechanism well hidden from sight within the card's design.

First I stamped the traveler, the airplane and the suitcase pile onto white card, coloured the images using watercolours and fine tip brush and then cut them into shape.

They were glued to the cut out and folded frames afterwards and these were then glued exactly into position to provide easy folding for the closing and opening process.

The images work together perfectly with the Tim Holtz "Destinations" paper stash! So I used these for the front of the card, the front of the pull tab and the background of the showcase. The backsides (which are mostly doubled due to aquired stiffness to get the mechanism working without tearing or bending anything) are made from heavy white card.

For the front I did some additonal embellishing with a dry embossed and sanded frame from Kraft Core, some die cut Tim Holtz letters, an idea-ology fastener and an idea-ology hinge clip holding a stamped, cut out and aged ticket.

The explanations in the book were not that detailed and the template way too small so I had to do my own to fit the size of the stamped images. That meant a lot of measuring, calculating, failures and cursing as well....but finally I succeeded!!! Woohoo!

Hope you like it!!!
Thank you for stopping by!!!

With this project I enter Happy Campers challenge "Add Dimension", Our Creative Corner's "designer paper'" challenge and also Simon Says Stamp challenge "anything goes". 

Happy Easter to you all!!!!

Hugs,
die amelie x

Words and Phrases

is the theme of IndigoBlu's most recent challenge. As they want people to use IndigoBlu stamps only I once more had to use my (momentarily only) stamp set: "Sarah's Choice", which I love the most as you can use it in so many different ways (to create texture for example).

This time I used the single words coming from the dictionary explanations for the words ART, DREAM, INSPIRE and VINTAGE to form some sentences.

As I love Shakespeare's works I was very happy to find his name with the stamped dictionary images! The rest of the work consisted in fiddling and puzzeling. My husband saw me doing this and wanted to know if I was doing some blackmail message *lol. But the "message" reads like this:

For the background of the tag I used the script stamp and some heat embossing, blending with ink afterwards and spritzing and stamping to create some depth. Then I glued the sayings onto it and embellished with a philosopy tag and ribbon. Done.

As I think every form of ART (and especially writing) is in one way or another expressed emotion I thought the sentence to be very much up my alley as I write poems or short prose from time to time (trying to do exactly that).

I also enter SSSS's "quotable" challenge  and The Artistic Stamper's "tag" challenge with this tag.

Thank you for visiting!!!

Hugs,
die amelie x