decorate a tag with The Stampman Challenge#12

I'm still in Christmas mode at my making table, I don't give up on snowflakes that easily, and I'm a bit of a last minuter so still have cards and gifts to make before the big day :)  Of Tim's tags my favourite was day 9; I just loved that colour combo so decided to use something similar for mine.

[apologies for the shadows, the sun was out when I took these!]

I stamped this gorgeous Big Snowflake from Hero Arts [on offer now over at The Stampman!] with white acrylic paint, then used Starburst Stains and my Mica Paint palette to add a shimmery, watercolour background.

Moonglow embossing powder around the edge of the tag adds some more dimension.  I used the same powder to stamp and emboss the snowflake on some dark brown card followed by lots of fussy cutting!  That's only one snowflake on there so not too much cutting out.

Check out the rest of The StampMan DT tags

HERE

and don't forget to make and add yours :)

I just wanted to say THaNK You to my new followers - there's something so nice about crossing the 200 boundary of followers - I truly, truly appreciate it!

On a different note entirely - anyone had side effects from a Ventolin inhaler?  I've had the flu this week (swine or not we neither know or care, it was just nasty!) and I've been left with an annoying cough.  The doctor gave me an inhaler yesterday which worked wonders, but then I couldn't get to sleep and have been jittery ever since.  Aaaaagh, I just need to be well to get on with stuff!!!

Sorry, thanks for listening ;)

EDIT:  It's snowing :) :) :)

USArtQuest DT project #6 - hopping around the design team's blogs

For today's design team project we've made it easier for you to hop around the whole team and see all the USArtQuest projects together.  After starting at the USArtQuest blog itself, you should have come to me from the talented and generous [did you see she had a giveaway?]

Lori

We were all supplied with a wonderful MicaColor watercolour palette, again something I've seen many times but never actually owned.  I've always meant to make my own up, but never got round to it [sound familiar?]

With just a small amount of water you can make a really rich, creamy metallic paint

or with more water, you can produce a more 'watercolour' effect.  The colours in the palettes co-ordinate beautifully so I chose the blue, gold and brown to make a shimmery ATC.

I laid down three patches of blue paint, followed by gold, 

then brown.

When using a paintbrush and paints I always want to blend my colours together nicely, and yet I love the effect of  strong contrast, so I've got over this by putting my colour down onto a piece of foil (as I can never find my teflon mat lol; another alternative is a plastic box lid)...

...then taking a print off this by laying my card on top.

Hey presto, a marbled like effect which I'm more than happy with :)

I often wipe my paintbrush onto a piece of paper before washing it clean, which then means I have lovely sweeps of colour to stamp over then cut out.

MicaColour is thick and creamy enough to stamp with, just use a little water to get enough paint onto your brush, then apply this to your stamp

I made up some more pieces of card with the MicaColour paint and stamped an apt saying onto a co-ordinating piece to create my ATC

I'll pick a name using random generator next Monday [6th September] and send this ATC to the lucky person, along with a few USArtQuest bits to play with yourself.

Now it's time for the last stage of the hop, and a visit to 

Terri

whilst I sit here thinking - pearly roses , now they'd be nice to make with these paints :)