Bon Chance…

‘Good Luck Card’ by Neil Burley


For the ‘Lady Luck’ theme this month over at ‘The Crafting Cafe’ I chose the ‘Moving Car’ digi stamp from the wonderful Bugaboo Stamps, our sponsors. I think it’s such a versatile image, whether for moving house, emigrating, marriage… perfect for wishing someone good luck. For more details, see my challenge blog post.

Experimental Stencil Tag

Experimental Stencil Tag

 

I took a little time out from enjoying the [rare] sunny weather today to put together this experimental tag. I used the Random Circles mask from Tando Creative to deboss the circles – inked up with Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink, embossed onto a pre-decorated tag from my stash, and then covered with Vintage Photo Distress Powder for that authentic rusted look. I used the same mask to select areas of cardstock from the Tim Holtz Lost and Found stash and then stitched them onto the tag using my machine – stitching on card seems to be a bit trickier than into fabric! I aged all the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. A few TH cogs and sprockets, and various metal embellishments decorated with Distress Paints are then added with brads before adding the florist ad from the TH stamp set. A bit of unravelled jute string finished the tag off nicely. Not really my normal style, but hey, that’s what experimentation is about 🙂

 

Handmade tag book

Over the last couple of days I have been putting together this handmade book as a potential project for a gathering of some of the UK course graduates of the Creative Chemistry 101 online course with Tim Holtz. The cover is made from 100gsm paper dragged through Distress Paints, which has the bonus of being waterproof once dry. The lining was done the same way. The pages are folded from A5 printed sheets of paper and stuck down the opening edge with 3mm wide double sided tape to form the tag pockets. They are handsewn for binding before gluing the spine and sticking into the cover.The completed book contains 25 different #5 tags with the instructions, and I probably need to explore a concertina binding on the spine to account for this…

[Book dimensions: 31/4″x51/4″ (8cm x 13cm)]

Stone carving… with a scalpel?

As previously mentioned, I’ve just completed my level two training in the use of Powertex and their Stone Art product. I was considering what I’d learnt, and decided to attempt another piece to test a concept I’d had an idea for…

And I think the concept works really well – I just need to tweak the colouring a little, but the carved lettering was really quick once the outlines were traced on to the ‘stone’ and with a sharp scalpel, there was minimum effort and mess. The pencil and brushes were added as an afterthought and were just as easy to ‘carve’ into the stone. I’d love your commissions for carved signs and just about any shape and size is possible! And postage shouldn’t be prohibitive… the sign is stuck on with double sided tape!