Stampotique art journaled tag

I love making tags.  I don't know what it is about them, but I love them!

I also love Roc Nicholas' Stampotique images.  'Dog', one of the latest release, stars on this tag.  Roc's designs are so open that you can stamp them onto pre-painted paper for a different effect each time.

I played around with a paintbrush (a bit of a shock for me as I prefer the unpredictability of a baby wipe to apply paint usually, it's a way of getting around my perfectionism) and some watercolour paints for this background.  I did add a hint of orange with a Ranger archival pad and a Primark makeup sponge though.

One day I'll get around to displaying all my tags in my craft room.  For now they live in a box or in a pile on my desk and I enjoy browsing through them every now and again.

Stampotique stamps used:

dog  2433  Roc Nicholas

row of numbers  7213 Amy Wilson Wellenstein

french journal page  10015 France Papillon

barcode text  10020 France Papillon

barcode  10019 France Papillon

adirondack inks and the gelli plate

It was the Happy Stampers rubber stamping festival yesterday and I had a fabulous time meeting up with loads of stamping friends (with no local stamp store anymore it's our twice yearly chance to touch base, other than on the internet) ...

... and shopping of course!  I also learnt a new technique.  It had never occurred to me to use my gelli plate with inks so I couldn't wait to try it out at home after Tracey, from Lavinia Stamps, had shown me.  She has made a youtube video, which you can watch here and I took some step by step photos for my third tag.

I apologise for the light, I took these photos this evening.  The beauty of the gelli plate is that you can see through it, so place a tag underneath and use this as a template for where to brayer and stamp.

After brayering with adirondack inks I stamped some Lavinia stamp images, using the same ink pads, then lined my tag up with the tag underneath the gelli plate.

Using a gelli plate gives a different texture to the stamped images.  I'm still learning about how much ink etc to apply so added some more colour using a sponge.

I used my spun sugar distress ink pad to add a pale pink to my tag as I wanted to enter this month's Lavinia Stamps challenge where the theme is 'add some pink'.  Since I'd used some distress ink I splashed some water on in order to lift some ink off.  The 'water' I used was from my water jar on the table, which I'd used to rinse my brushes off, so had effectively turned into watered down acrylic paint, but I do like the effect it gave!!

Tracey's new zen line of stamps are gorgeous and I bought a fair few with my birthday money!!  

I stamped the teasels onto the tag then stamped them onto some white paper so I could paper piece them......

....I just LoVe black and white imagery against a coloured background.

Thanks so, so much for sharing this technique with me Tracey, I just LoVe it!!  I'm entering this tag in this month's Lavinia Stamps Challenge, 'Add something pink'.

two

I love these little clouds by Stampotique.  I love words and numerals so had a quick play with a tag and the theme 'two'.

The balloons are from the image 'Upward Bound' and, along with the numeral '2' on the 'row of numbers' were highlighted with Diamond Glaze.

Stampotique Challenge 122: fabric or lace

I couldn't not enter this challenge!  I love adding snippets of fabric or lace to tags in particular.   They add that extra bit of texture.  The tag was one I'd mopped up some black soot distress ink on so I darkened it a bit with some black dylusions spray, and added some texture by flicking water (and mopping it off) and stamping my favourite, favourite, favourite text stamp (Stampotique Journey Collage).

I then stamped Stampotique Moon Garden on the tag, paper pieced the moon and added stitching along the stamped lines of the image.  The girl looks a bit odd but I love how the moon flowers look!

I ended up with gold stars on the tag, when I would have preferred silver.  Couldn't find the silver, until a day after making the tag!!  Actually though, I quite like the warmth the gold brings!

Stampotique Designers Challenge 122: Fabric or Lace

inky-painty splatterings in {eggplant} hues

I found some more colours to kickstart a journal page!  I do like a challenge, and the number of colours in this photo definitely felt like one!!!

 ...but really there's just a turquoise with a pale version, three browns and a grey, so just three colours.  I started by digging out the paints and inks I had in these colours/shades.  I never try mixing colours for these challenges, do you?

Then, with supplies at the ready I can get started!  I decided to go for a background in shades of brown, just because!

The flowers are from an idea I had the other day.  I made some terracotta coloured paper then cut out the rounded triangular shapes, adding the ink once the flower shape was on the page.

Squidging the ink off the page yet again gave me some yummy background paper which I used on a tag, stencilling through the paper left from cutting out flowers [see here]

Wasn't sure about this design...

...so finally gave in to the demands of the sewing machine, although looking back at this image, it didn't really need it!

So another 'twofer'! (2 for the price of one), this one for the Stampotique Designer's Challenge.  Although you don't have to use Stampotique images anymore I did use my current favourite stamp 'Journey Collage'; I just love the different sizes of font which makes great texture!