Stampotique Design Challenge time!

Gog Lin by Jill Penney for Stampotique Originals

Mushroom Group, Quiet Place by Jo Capper Sandon for Stampotique Originals

Inks and paints by Dylusions

Well, it's that time again! Time for another challenge over on the Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog and this time Jo has challenged us to include old text / newsprint / magazine pages in our creations. I often stamp images onto vintage text anyway - I find it takes the distress inks, that I like to use to colour the images, really well. I stamped Gog Lin at the top of a page so that his head was above the text, and that way the text didn't obliterate his gorgeous face :-)

This is a double page spread in my teeny tiny journal - it's fun to work on such a small scale.

As its the first challenge of the month you can use any stamps but of course it's great if you choose to use Stampotique. Here's the cheeky little rascal, Gog Lin, hiding under Jo's 'shrooms - looking for his own quiet place.

There's a $30 gift certificate up for grabs for one lucky winner to spend on Stampotique stamps and who wouldn't want to win that?!

Just click here to enter the challenge. Look forward to see what you come up with for this one!

Don't forget, if you're looking for inspiration, you can visit all of the design team by clicking here.

Byeee for now.......



A bit of this and a bit of that .....

'Right up your Street' and 'How does your garden grow?' stamps by Dylusions

Paints and inks by Dylusions

Lots been going on creatively round here but nothing that I can share at the moment........watch this space!! But there are a few bits and bobs that I have to share. I created the tag above after I was inspired by the lovely Sue Roddis (credit where credit's due and all that...) after she made a journal page with birdhouses. I really loved it so I just had to have a go myself :-)  And do you remember the song by They might be Giants?  It went something like this ......

'Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch

Who watches over you?

Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul'

Lalalalala I'll be singing this all night now :-)   I used to love that song!

And here's another tag, just 'cos I love tags, and this is a mixture of Doolally Doris and Ruby rainbow:

Doolally Doris and Ruby Rainbow stamps by Dylusions

Well, I'm off. The Easter holidays have begun ahhhhh bliss :-) Byeee for now .............

More mermaids ....

Mermaids and octopet by Daniel Torrente for Stampotique

Inks and paints by Dylusions

I've been playing with the fab mermaids by Daniel Torrente again - just love 'em! This is a page in my very old Time Book, from the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company, with all the original handwritten notes in, which was sent to me by the lovely Tumblefish. The pages are fragile (well, they are 100 years old!) so I kept the paint and inks to a minimum to allow some of the original text to show through.

This quote came from an old book which was going to be thrown out at the school where I teach, and its all about children's nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes used to be really quite gruesome I discovered!! The poem is by Stevie Smith. So, I'm sorry - this page is a little dark - even I'm not sure how my head works LOL!!

Right, must go ...... Byeeeeee

April already??

Wow, just where does the time go? How did it get to April already? Somehow I blinked and missed March! Thanks to everyone who linked up to their calendars - you're all amazing! Hope you all managed to visit at least a few of the linked blogs to see what everyone else was up to. I'm constantly surprised by just how different the calendars are. I think I visited all the blogs that were linked but if I missed you it wasn't intentional - give me a cyber poke if I did and I'll come and take a peek at what you're up to :-)

So, here are my completed March pages. So, now you're wondering where my April pages are. Hmmmm. I'm just going to come clean here .... I haven't done them yet! Ah well, life just got in the way, but don't worry I'll catch up soon. Don't forget to link to your pages on the Mr Linky at the end of this post.

So, what else has been happening? I taught a lovely inky messy class at AFTH on Wednesday. You know you have had a good day when your hands are a completely different colour by the end of the day LOL! Here's a sample I created during the class:

Inks by Dylusions

Image by Tumblefish Studios

And here they all are hard at work. (Can't you just feel the concentration?!) It was a lovely, relaxing, chilled out day ...... :-)

Donna

Jill

Sisters, Sue and Trisha

Pat

(You can read about the class on Pat's blog here)

Ann

Well, it's the first Friday of the month so that means the new edition of Craft Stamper is in the shops (UK). This month I have an article on creating mail art. Fun! Here's a couple of sneak peeks:

As of today, you can download Craft Stamper e-zine for free! Click here for more details. Who doesn't want something for free?! Go check it out! There's some blog candy up for grabs too - don't miss out!



Tags, ATCs, Classes and a springtime walk!

Minky by Daniel Torrente

Crown by Jo Capper Sandon

Sentiment by Carols collection

Paints and inks by Dylusions

Recently it was my niece's 12th birthday so I made her a door hanger to hang on her door to ward off unwelcome visitors! Naturally, as a 12 year old, her favourite expression it 'whatever' so the sentiment suited the occasion perfectly :-)

I can't seem to get enough of Minky at the moment, and I think she looks especially great with beeswings:

Large bee by Jo Capper Sandon

Sentiment by Carols Collection

Number stamps by Ma Vinci

I made this background using Dylusions inks only rather than my usual combination of acrylic paints and inks. Look! I even left some white space on the background!

Whilst I was in the mood for creating backgrounds with inks, I made a quickie ATC. Love these cutie house stamps by Dylusions:

Right up your Street stamps, and inks by Dylusions

Yesterday I held a workshop in my village, as I have been doing now for about 6 years. An amazing group of ladies attend on a regular basis, aged from 9 to 89! Here's Kathleen getting stuck in with the new Distress Stains and Tim Holtz stamps:

Ooooh just look at the concentration here!! :

Wowee, what a productive morning! :

Ok, so the weather here in the UK has been unusually good and we have been enjoying some beautiful spring weather. My family and I went out for a stroll in the glorious spring sunshine today and discovered that everything has started to burst into life. Have a lookie:

These bullrushes are fit to burst!

Now, back to the new Distress Stains by Tim Holtz. When I first saw these I didn't know if I needed them. How could they be different from Distress inkpads? Or re-inkers? So I tried a few (it would be rude not to!) and now I know why I need them. They are lush! Have you tried them yet?

Right. Off to visit a few blogs - I'm a bit behind recently - life has been busy busy busy! Byeeeeeee for now.