Alter it Monthly & Sunday Stampers

My second entry for the August Alter it Monthly challenge with Music as the theme is my altered bean (tomato) tin.  As this also has a flower on it, I get to play with Hels Sunday Stampers this week too :)

I started off intending for the main grungepaper jacket for the tin to look a bit different than this, prepped an inky, grungy background, stamped over it then I intended to fade it out a bit with a coat of watered down gesso.  Alas, I did not dry the stamping first!! So I ended up with everything merged in to one faded blue background, lol.  I stamped the swirl from Paperartsy Hot Picks 1005 in coffee archival ink, a butterfly from a CI plate in Adirondack Denim ink along the top, then laced that onto the tin with some blue ribbon (the tin had a coat of Hazelnut paint dabber at the top and bottom).  I stamped the Stampotique musical tag stamp in denim onto some grungepaper inked with Broken China DI, then cut it out and stuck it onto the tin with some foam pads.

I stamped the larger flower from Paperartsy Hot Picks 1004 (the one that has some sheet music on it... see, sticking with the music theme) several times in coffee archival onto some tissue paper I had inked with weathered wood DI then cut them all out.  I sprayed them with some home made shimmer mist with blue mica powder in it (I spritzed that over the grungepaper elements as well), then scrunched the flowers up a bit, flattened them out again and attached them all together with a small brad and some of t!m's sprocket gear.

It didn't end up quite where I thought it was going to, but then, things rarely do! That's half the fun :)

I've got a week off work this week, YAY!! So I can get inky and messy and play!

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Alter it Monthly August Challenge entry

The theme over on Alter it Monthly this month is music (and there is a £20 e-voucher to spend at The Altered Element up for grabs too, so have go! it's fun and you could win some stash shopping!).  Nina Simone has been playing on my zen quite a bit lately (my randomiser isn't randomising properly!) and Feeling Good is stuck in my head, so I made this canvas:

I gave the canvas a glaze of Naples Yellow Hue acrylic then wrote the lyrics with a black sharpie.  I collaged on some sheet music paper and then cut out some musical notes and the wotsit (flourishy thing... can't remember the name.. senior moment!) and used these as a mask.  I spritzed the whole thing with some spray ink and some cosmic shimmer mists then removed the masks.  I then stamped some birds and decorated some bird chip shapes (birds flying high), same with some stars (stars when you shine), stamped and cut out some butterflies (butterflies all havin fun) and used a Maya Road tree branch and some blossoms, plus some punched flowers (blossom on the tree).  I printed out some images of the lovely Nina, cut them out and collaged those on to the bottom left, then splodged on some gold ferro which I stamped with some text and flourish stamps to the top and bottom left corners.  Nina was blended in with some gold shimmer paint and I then re-wrote the relevant lyrics around the images.
I had lots of fun doing this and am quite pleased with how it turned out.

Alter it Montly Challenge - July

EDITED WEDS 28th JULY to say: Anyone popping round on the WOYWW rounds, sorry, I thought today was Tuesday until I saw the post on Helen's  blog! I know, I'm losing the plot (actually lost it long ago!)  Happy Wednesday to everyone x

Sneaking in just under the wire for this month's Alter it Monthly challege, which is Home Sweet Home, here is my entry - a wall hanging.
This has taken quite a while as so much else has been going on.  I started back at the beginning of the month tearing and inking and stencilling and shimmer misting and generally altering some corrugated cardboard (you can see it at that stage here if you like).  I then had a bit of a hectic couple of weeks and the corrugated card just sat there on my desk, neglected, until I found a bit of time and made some background to stick onto the card with papers that I inked, stamped, tore and again generally altered, even making an attempt at shabby chic while I was at it (more about that stage here).
At that point I got fed up with my craft area and started a mass clear up.  That is still going on but I realised I needed to get this finished if I was going to enter it!  So I dug out some stuff and had a fun day yesterday cutting out some letters, covering them with PP, inking them, sticking them on and then just had a play with all kinds of stuff to stick on them.  The flowers are made with t!m's tattered floral die and bits of fabric and left over PP from the letters, the cat is a Stampotique image stamped onto grungepaper and inked with Spiced Marmalade DI, the stamped butterflies are Wendy Vecchi again on grungepaper this time painted with Viva metallic paint (the bodies are a row of beads), and the hearts are grungeboard inked with Nick Bantock Damson, covered with clear Croco and then shimmer misted with a few colours (whichever ones I grabbed that weren't clogged), the lock and key are grungeboard covered with Old Gold Ferro and sprayed with the same shimmer mists.  I also stuck on some random bling and lace just because I could, then used my crop-a-dile to attach eyelets and tied the panels together with some overdied embroidery floss I had in my cross stitch stash. I used swivel clasps at the top to hang it with.
This was really fun to make :)  Now I have to go back to trying to organise my mountain of stash.... not sure how I managed to pack it away before, it seems to have grown since I've been moving it around!!

A Tale of Two Twitties

 I had a couple of these little wooden birdies in my stash and decided to finally get around to altering them.  I started off earlier in the week giving them a coat of gesso, then I set to blending various shades of blue acrylic paints on them.  I was toying with the idea of giving them a night sky look with a dark blue blended background and lots of sparkly stars all over.  I got bored with that idea before I finished the blended background LOL.

So, there they sat on my craft desk all blue and boring and stuff, waiting for me to finish them off.  Today I decided to set to and started by stencilling a flower pattern over the first one with some blue and green Viva decor paints (excuse the crap photos, not sure what is wrong with me today!

Anyway, I stencilled the bird both sides then went around the edge with a gold Krylon pen ( covered the wooden bead with the Krylon pen as well) Then I smooshed some Rock Candy distress stickles over the whole thing.  I coloured a Maya Road chandelier bead with pink alcohol ink and attached that to the ring at the bottom with some gold thread.  I finished it off with a pink bow and gave it crystal stick on gem eyes.

I decided to go more grunge for the other one. I found some stiff sort of calico lineny guazey stuff in my stash (who knows where I get this stuff, I must go shopping when drunk or something!) and stuck that all over birdie.  Then I went mad with my cosmic shimmer mists.  I think I used all of them (except the one with the bunged up spray).  I used the same mists on some bits of lace and then stuck those on top of the wings.  I only attached them at the bottom part of the wing so they give some dimension.  I used more stick on crystal gems for eyes, Krylon pen on the wooden bead then tied some glittery hairy stuff on the ring at the bottom (no, I haven't been glimmer misting the cat..... although... that might be kinda interesting.... but I digress, it was some wool stuff - again, no idea where it came from). 
I decorated both sides of each of them, and they are slightly different on each side (mainly because I can never replicate anything exactly!) so here are their other profile shots:

This month over at alter it monthly the theme is Birds of a Feather, so these will be my entry.

Two challenges in one

Still on the theme of Tin Pan Alley this is my second entry for the Alter it Monthly challenge for May.  I think it might also qualify for Hel's Sunday Stamper challenge this week which is We Are Golden.
I went over a small tin with a selection of alcohol inks on a felt applicator.  I used wild plum, raisin and caramel.  Once that was dry I rubbed some Antique Gold stickles all over (see, Gold!).  I inked a tiny grungeboard heart with Nick Bantock Damson Plum ink (love that colour), then triple embossed it adding some gold pigment powder to the final layer and stamped into it with a text stamp (more Gold).  I then gold embossed a grungeboard heart (yet more Gold).

I covered the inside with wild plum alcohol ink, then lined it with some K&Co verbena paper that I stamped with a Wendy Vecchi scroll stamp.  I stuck a Crafty Individuals image into the lid, then took a Maya Road chipboard flower, inked it with the Nick Bantock damson plum and triple embossed.  I stamped it with a text stamp on the last layer then rubbed in some gold wax once it was cool (and more Gold).  The Wendy Vecchi small butterfly was stamped onto grungepaper, cut out and then coloured with the Nick Bantock ink.  I used some purpley seed beads for the body and stuck gems on the antennae (or however you spell them).  I used some UTEE inside the base with some purple micro beads and gold mica flakes (there's the Gold again) and stuck a Prima pebble in that matched the colours.
So, Gold and a tin, I think that qualifies for both challenges :) 
Happy Friday..... only 7 more sleeps to Artsy Crafts :)))

Wall Hanging on a budget

I'm on a strict stash diet at the moment (mainly due to the tax man stealing all my money!) so I'm having to adapt techniques to match in with what I have laying around - it's kind of fun in some ways.  Anyway, I have been wanting to try out Lin Brown's technique tutorial here (mainly the background metal stuff although I will get around to the UTEE one day.... when I dig out my melt pot and pluck up the courage to use it).  I didn't have a mould, and wanted to get one at Ally Pally but alas, cash would not stretch that far.  I did get a different mould from Creative Expressions though and, whilst not quite the right thing sort of worked.  So, here is what I ended up with:

The basic shape is cut from a cereal packet. I used TSS Dark Chocolate metal, and filled some of the diamond shapes with glossy accents and micro beads.  Other diamond shapes were filled with crystal stickles and a few  I scratched off the colour with the brush tool.  I went around the edge with a scootchy wheel.  I don't have any terra so I used Golden moulding paste instead on the left at the top and a few places around the edge, and I used iron ferro and a damp text stamp on the right.  Once it was all dry I used Copper viva precious metal paint to highlight the paste and the ferro and decided to carry that on into the scribbled diamond shapes.  I also decided the bare metal didn't go well in the piece so I painted on some raisin alchohol ink.

I went to the magic box of broken jewellery and other assorted junky stuff and took some chain and a few charms off a sort of belt thing one of my DDs discarded a while ago.  The colour was wrong as they were a sort of antique brass colour, so I coloured them with the raisin alchohol ink as well and used them to finish off the hanging.
As the Alter it Monthly theme this month is Tin Pan Alley (alter a metal item or use metal in the piece) I thought this could be my entry.

Alter it Monthly challenge 1

So there's a new blog in town - Alter it Monthly.  You can visit from the button in my side bar or click here.  Basically, it does what it says on the tin - issues a monthly challenge for altered artists.  This is so cool because I hardly ever have the time to make something from scratch for a weekly challenge, so I only get to enter if I have made something that happens to coincide with the theme.  A month gives plenty of time to think of something and get it made.  This month the challenge is to alter a matchbox.  Well I happened to have one sitting on my pile of stuff - probably left over from one of those matchbox altered calendars.  So, I gave it a coat of gesso, then sprayed it inside and out with a few different shades of cosmic shimmer mist.  After that it sat there on my desk looking at me for a few days and I had no idea what to do with it.  I gave the bottom of the inside a triple coat of UTEE with a sprinkle of a few different mica powders in the last layer, and then it sat there again and looked at me, and again I had no mojo.

Finally I was playing with some tranparent Croco on something else, and inspiration struck.  I coated the outside with the transparent Croco and, once it was dry, gave it a coat of pink Precious Metal Paint.  I smooshed some black paint into the cracks to highlight them a bit then ran a gold Krylon pen around the edges.  I've had this corset charm for a while and thought it looked cute inside, and the rose is leather from my treasure chest (aka the box with the broken bits of jewellery and other interesting tat) which I seem to have edged with some kind of frosty looking stuff at some point.  I thought it looked good on the top.  So here it is, my entry for the first challenge on the Alter it Monthly blog!

PS- please excuse the crappy first photo, I think I have the shakes today!