Maude Doodle Dolly

Hi peeps!  Have you seen the gorgeous new stamps by Karen Hayselden for Stampotique?  I fell in love with Maude Doodle Dolly.

I stamped her on a spare piece of white card, then watercoloured her with Distress Inks and cut her out.

On my tall card base I swooshed some black gesso across to ground where she would be standing, splattered some Distress Inks, then added some ring marks using a bottle top and Dylusions Cherry Pie and After Midnight paint, placing one of the ring marks as a halo.

I added a diecut and sentiment from Hero Arts Happy Stamp and Cut set to finish the card.

Pop on over to the Sprinkle of Imagination store for a look at the rest of the new Stampotique designs and all the other new goodies.

Shirley x

new stampotique originals

hello there! 

If you've been to the shop lately you may have noticed a few friends have arrived 

from Stampotique Originals.

If you have been to the shop...well. a few new friends have arrived from Stampotique Originals! 

Its always like THE best Christmas EVER when we get our Stampotique deliveries. 

Here's a peek at a few of the designs we have from Magda Polakow (yes...formerly of our design team... couldn't be happier for her!) , Daniel Torrente and Kate Crane to name a few! 

You can see all the new designs. and some long awaited restocks here in our "new in" section. 

I'm sure you'll find some to add to your Christmas list!

Happy Creating!

Vicki 

Going Dotty

I love creating circles and dots and they do feature in a lot of my journal pages. For me there's something very comforting about circle shapes. My journal page this time is inspired by a trip I'm on as you read this to trek across part of the Tyrolean mountains with my best friend. If you don't hear from me again then I'm lost!!

After adding gesso to my pages the background was simply sprayed which gave the page some immediate colour and a touch of grunge. I sprayed through a home made stencil to add my circle shapes. Once they'd dried I drew in the circles again with a black pen but very loosely, more like a scribble.

I love Magda Polakow's stamps with Stampotique and this one called Romek is so cute. A few pen lines up to some of the circles gives the impression he's flying with bubbles and a small shine line on each one helps to give that feeling.

The stenciling around the edge is created with Graphite texture paste by Finnabair which I think is my favourite at the moment. It has a slightly grainy texture when applied which dries with a beautiful sparkle.  It dries as hard as granite so you need to put your stencils in a bowl of water as soon as possible if you don't want to ruin them. The stencils I used are Tim Holtz layering stencil Dot Fade, Prima and Dylusions Number Jumble.

See you next time (hopefully) ;)

Jaine x

Ruby Tangerine

Hello!
Another 'challenge myself' project today...create a project that looks really colourful but has a minimal colour palette. I chose to use just two colours, red and orange, alongside black and white. Both paints from Dina Wakely, Ruby and Tangerine....

I used my 'go to' technique of the moment to create the background...smearing paint. Watch this space for a smearing tutorial video....this weeks challenge for myself is to finally get into the video tutorial field!!
Anyway....smeared paint, with a brayered layer of white to take the edge off the colour, as otherwise the figure won't 'pop' enough from the background. A little collage stamping...

The figure is created using Stampotique stamps...hearts in two sizes, and a quirky face...

I added a halo effect using red Prima wired thread. Fab stuff, gorgeous colours and keeps its shape wonderfully...

As is usual with my projects, it wouldn't be finished without a random bit of book text..

Hope you like her!
Trish xxxxx

Welcome back after the Christmas break. Thank you for the applications for Design Team, we're loving all of the entries so far and we've had some absolute crackers.

Anyway, getting back to my own blog post, since the new year I've spent a lot of time working in my journal. I think you can tell that my mood has been dark and grungy but even though this isn't my usual style, I've really enjoyed getting down and dirty as it gave me much more freedom to "let go" of certain things.

I adore this Agatha stamp by Magda at Stampotique as her little face really says it all.

In creating my page I've also used, Tim Holtz layering stencils, Dot Fade and Eye Chart.

Don't forget you still have time to enter our DT call so if you're still hesitating, just do it.

Jaine x

Old School 2: Shaving Foam Backgrounds

Hello!

Part 2 of my ''Old School techniques revisited" series!

Today..... Shaving Foam Backgrounds!

Yes, we've all played about with this technique in the past, I think it's about time we tried it again!

This is my finished piece....

Just LOVE the swirly colourfulness going on!

Right...refresher time..here's how you do it!

Firstly, squirt some shaving foam onto a paper plate...

Paper plates are brilliant because you can just bin the whole messy lot when you're done. If you want a bigger print though, you'll need to find something bigger! You really need the cheapest shaving foam you can find, nothing posh with fancy bits added, no need for them. This can was 26p from Tescos!

Next, smooth it out so you have a flat-ish surface...

At this point you need to restrain yourself from going all 'slapstick clown' and shoving the resulting pie into someones face. Unless that's just me.......

Next, drip on some inks. I've used a combination of Bombay inks and Daler Rowney inks, but I'm sure any drippy ink would work. Experiment!

Using a skewer, drag the inks into each other. I've just used a simple design first..

Take a bit of card (I've found the thicker the better, and NOT coated!), and place it on top of the inky mess. Gently press down so all the surface touches the inks..

Peel it off....

Now we need to remove all the excess foam! You will get the best results if you scrape it off all in one go, so try and use something a little wider than your card. I have used a bone folder here, but things like long rulers work just as well.

Scrape the foam off in one movement, dragging your chosen implement in one direction across the card.

Then admire your design!

You can also go back to the foamy mess and do a little more pattern making...

This time I have created swirls and circles with the skewer on top of the lines already made. The result from this looks like so....

You can also take multiple prints without messing about with the design in between...

With these three prints, the one on the left was the first 'pull' from the foam. I went straight back in with more card to produce the middle print, then the print on the right is the design created when going in for a third time. As you can see, the inks get less the more prints you pull, but the designs are fab!

I chose to use the middle print from the three above in my final project.

The ink swirls are great, with no mixing or muddying of colours..

You can add stamping over the top of the design...

I used a bit of another print for the dress of my Stampotique figure...

I must warn you though....once you start you can't stop. I now have a big stack of prints all ready for use!

The other thing you need to know is that it's messy...very messy! Make sure you have a lot of paper towels on hand to wipe up after yourself!

Have fun,

Trish xxxxx

Butterfly Doll

Hello!

When is an Art Doll not an Art Doll?..... um.... when it's a butterfly attached to a canvas on legs?!

My project today is a variation on a theme...yes it's a doll, but this one isn't a free standing piece by itself, it's an embellishment..

I'll show you how I made her...

The three main bits are made from clay. As I wanted holes through them, I poked a bit of wire through in the appropriate places! 

The clay then got painted and stamped a little...

The easiest way to get a detailed design on a curved surface is to use stamped tissue paper. I stamped everything, then made sure the ink was dry...

(I stamped two faces as I wasn't sure at this point which one I was going to use!)

The stamped images were then cut out and glued onto the clay using Mod Podge..

It's really useful having holes in the clay, as the wire can be pushed through again and rested on something whilst the Mod Podge dries!

Once the Mod Podge has dried, we can start to assemble the doll.

You'll need lots of craft wire for this! Cut two pieces, then thread both through the horizontal hole...

Make spirals at the ends of the wire (you can always fiddle about at the end and make these smaller or larger if you need to)

 Next, make a loop at one end of a long strand...

Thread on the large 'body'..

Thread on the 'head'

Tightly coil the remaining wire around and around the top of the head, both creating a design feature and securing the head and body of your doll...

I wrapped more wire around her neck...

Now, adding on the 'bead' at the bottom requires a bit of jewellery making technique... but really, just practice making loops and wrapping wire around things. We're not making jewellery, so it doesn't matter if it's not perfect!

Thread a bit of wire through the hole in the bead, and bend like so...

Make sure one 'tail' is a lot longer than the other at this point. Make a loop with the shorter tail, and join it onto the loop under the body...

Wrap both ends loads of times around the wire and the top of the bead. Messy is good!

Now for the wings! Stamp the Stampotique wings twice, once onto acetate, and once onto painted cardstock...

Cut out, bend the acetate then glue together....

Once the glue is dry, glue on the clay body...

Now the butterfly doll is finished, it can be attached to whatever you fancy!

I painted a canvas, stamped it with dots (Darkroom Door) and glued the doll to the front..

The doll gives a fabulous 3D look to your work..

I used painted spools as legs..

and added thick wire as a hanger. More thin craft wire was wrapped around to echo the wire elsewhere on the piece, and a cut out word added...

Phew...! Hope you like her!

Trish xxxx