Oh what a day, what a lovely day!

Over at Viva Las VegaStamps blog a new monthly challenge has begun. This time they are also pairing it with a swap hosted through their facebook group on their events page. I love trading ATC's so I definitely signed up for this one. The theme is STEAMPUNK and I let myself be inspired by words from their inspiration post like rusty, steampunk, mail art, pipes,vintage, metal,copper, gold, bronze, nickel, handles, diving, divers and more! The pictures below of the items I made is the result of the inspiration.

Stamps used Whimsical Diver from plate 1436 and the phrase "Oh what a day, what a lovely day" (from Mad Max) from plate 1473. Some really awesome stamps are all on the plate, but I wanted to put the focus on these two in my designs.

Each of my partners (and Dee from VLV store) will get a set like this.

Close up of the ATC: The background is made with distress inks Old paper, vintage photo and aged mahogany with a blending tool. Then I took this stencil from Dylusions and dabbed some more aged mahogany through it. I have masked the diver while doing this. Stamped the sentiment with Memento tuxedo black. The diver is then colored with promarkers and the piece matted on black card stock.

I then made a notecard with the same stamps. Background (yellow notecards) went through my cuttlebug with a gears and cogs embossing folder. Fter that I rubbed bronze, silver and copper pearl metallic rubs over the raised embossed parts to make it looked aged. The diver as well as the sentiment is stamped on gessoed and brusho'd kraft paper. Matted and lined with a black marker and outlined with a white gel pen. Then adhered it all with tape runners to the cards. 

I am pretty pleased with the end result! I think I might make another one to keep for myself, but hopefully my partners will like receiving this steampunk inspired set :) 

Needless to say that I am entering these for this month's challenge at VLVs Blog, so wish me luck :) You can still enter until the end of the month, so play along if you want to.

Hope this inspired you to get your steampunk hat on :)

ETA: It's totally amazing! I've been chosen as one of the July winners with this piece, huzzah!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

namasté

Inkadinkadutchies Challenge - September One Layer

InkadinkaDutchies is a Dutch based webstore where rubberstamps from brands Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda are being sold so there is better European access to these stamps. I am happy to say that I am part of their design team :)

Today we start our monthly challenges on Inkadinkadutchies. We hope you are just as excited as we are! There is also going to be a bi-monthly ATC swap that will start up later this month. So stay tuned for that! 

First of all, here is the topic for this month's challenge: Make a “one layer project”. That means just use rubberstamps and ink. No embellishments, layers or model paste etc.

To inspire you here is my example I made for this challenge

Davinci's Muse

This is how I imagine Leonardo DaVinci's Muse must have looked like...

I used "back view woman" stamp from Carmen's Veranda and "steam punk fly girl" wings from Lost Coast Designs. For the background I used semi-glossy paper. First I stamped the woman with Memento Rich Cocoa and then just inked up the wings part of the Steampunk girl with Staz-On Jetblack to give her wings. It took me a few tries to get the placing right on her shoulders. Then I took a q-tip and dabbed it with stazon cleaner and gently rubbed away parts of the steampunk girl that I didn't want to have in the over-all look. The image is colored with Letraset Promarkers and Copic markers. The background is colored with a waterbrush and distilled peeled paint & fired brink and spatters with distilled dusty concord distress stains. I matted the piece on purple cardboard to give it a finishing touch. 

If you found your muse and feel inspired to play along with the challenge,

this is how you enter: 

We have created an album on the Facebook page. Click on 'photo's' and put the photo of your project in the album called “Challenge September 2015”. Last entry dateis Wednesday the 23rd of September. State your name and let us know what materials you used to make the project. 

The winner will be announced on the last Friday of the month, in this case on the 25th of September. Inkadinkadutchies will give 10 Euros on rubberstamps, as a prize, to the winner whom will be chosen by the Design Team. 

The Challenge topics are the same as on the official Lost Coast Designs blog so you can also enter your project there and have two chances to win. (The more people participating, the bigger the prize). Just make sure to read the Challenge rules at the LCD Designs blog. 

Good luck everyone and have fun :)

Namaste

Mailart Sunday - Wigging out

One of the 'Warm up's' for the Craftorij Zomer Challenge 2015 was 'use only green' and this is what I made. The background is made on a green paper bag and splattered Peeled paint and Moss Green Distress Stains on it. The large stamp is Steampunk Profile Head by Carmen's Veranda. I stamped it with versamark and added a bit of green patina perfect pearl and embossed other parts with Mint Green WOW embossing powder. The text on the left is about how to fit a mens wig is a copy from a vintage text book, ripped and colored with distress stains. As I like word puns, I stamped 'wigging out' with my fave typewriter alphabet font rubberstamps with memento green ivy and tuxedo black on some green cardstock and colored it similarly as the text paper to complete the piece.

With a little more light and offset back ground you can see the details of this piece a bit better.

Close up of the mix of perfect pearls and embossing powder. I really like the end result and effect is has on the whole image.

Thanks for stopping by!

Namaste

Tarah