I'm not insane...by Elisa Ablett

Hi everyone,

Elisa here from the design team with the first of my creations for March, a colourful card/journal page with some interesting mixed media techniques!

Let's take a closer look before we start the step by step tutorial..

Here are some of the great stamps I used to create my project by Viva Las VegaStamps:

 

https://vlvstamps.com/i-m-not-insane-1-3-4-x-1-1-2.html

https://vlvstamps.com/musical-note-calligraphy-1-1-4-x-1-1-4.html

https://vlvstamps.com/crackle-background-4-3-4-x-5-3-4.html

https://vlvstamps.com/banksy-wall-singer-2-3-4-x-3-3-4.html

Step by Step Tutorial:

First step is stamping onto a sheet of Acetate, I use Staz on black ink and I tap the ink over and onto the large background stamp and not the other way around. I ease the stamp over the top of the Acetate and press gently, you don't want to press down to hard onto the Acetate.

The next few steps cover making your background with Alcohol inks and pure Alcohol of 96% or more which I purchased from the Pharmacy and distilled into a Fineline Applicator bottle. 

Using a paint palette, squeeze a few drops of your desired Alcohol ink colours into your palette, then squeeze a fine line of your pure alcohol onto your yupo paper down the bottom like the first photo. The add your colour using a paint brush. Repeat with your different colours, you can also add more 'cells' to the background by squirting with your pure alcohol. Work in a ventilated area!

If you want to blend the straight lines a bit, while you have the alcohol on the page tip the paper up and back to make the colours blend a bit.

Using a distress tool and once your background is dry, ink gently around the edges of your background. Stamp your musical notes and title onto cardstock.

Using distress oxide ink pads, smoosh your favourite colours onto a craft messy mat and spritz with water and dip your white cardstock into the different colours spritzing the cardstock as well to create the oxidising effect on the paper. 

Once dry, stamp your Banksy Wall Singer stamp using Black Archival ink over the top of your background. Also stamp your stamp onto white cardstock. 

Fussy cut your two Banksy Wall Singer stamped images, then cut a few pieces off the coloured stamped image and using 3d foam mounting tape, stick them over the top (don't forget to line them up).

Attach your stamped acetate, I used staples and then adhere your black and white stamped image on the left hand side of your card/journal page. I then also cut a few of the coloured off cuts and adhered them so they continued up above the stamped image.

Then adhere your fussy cut musical notes and title to your page and some last minute edging with a fine black marker and you are done!

Thanks for stopping by the blog today, make sure you leave some love in the comments.

Hugs 

Elisa x

That's a horrible idea - ATC by Elisa Ablett

Hi Stamp lovers!

My turn up on the Viva blog today with my latest inspiration for you, a fun Artist Trading Card or ATC featuring loads of Viva Las VegaStamps.

I just love Bicycle Man stamp, so many possibilities for a fun and snarky card or art journal page.

And that sentiment...well that's me all over. 

Here are some close ups of the ATC and I have included a step by step for you as well to see how it came together!

Viva Las VegaStamps products:

SKU 5439 Crackle Background

SKU 18077 Nesting Gears

SKU 20282 That's a horrible idea

SKU 4665 Bicycle Man

https://vlvstamps.com/plate-1495.html

Other products:

AB Studio paper collection, Sepia and Black Versafine ink pads, Uniquely Creative Cityscape Die Cut, Polaroid Die cut, Distress Oxide Inkpads, Distress Ink pads, Decoart Extreme Sheen Paint, Cream Cardstock.

STEP BY STEP:-

Grab your selection of Viva Las VegaStamps, for this project I have included a list above with direct links to the website for VLVS. Stamp your sentiment and Bicycle Man stamp onto cream heavy weight cardstock using Sepia archival ink. Fussy cut your images out and using watercolours and Distress Oxide inkpads and a paint brush, add colour to your stamped images.

Next step is to cut two pieces of cream cardstock around 4 x 6 inch in size and another piece of patterned card to fit on one of the background cardstock with a small border showing. The second piece of cardstock is to use to cut your dies...The cityscape and Polaroid dies.

Add some splatters of distress oxide ink to your background and also around the edges. Colour your city scape die cut as well as a few pieces of ephemera including tickets and music paper. I like to add colour by scraping my inkpad over a craft messy mat and spritz the ink with water until it beads. then I dip my paper and tap it in the colour on the messy mat and dry with a heat gun.

Paint your polaroid die cut in a lovely bronze paint and then once dry, stamp your crackle background over the top of the painted die cut. You can also heat emboss it with black embossing powder at this stage here as well for that extra texture.

Using Aged Mahogany stamp pad, stamp your Nesting Gears Stamp over the bottom half of your ATC, you can see that i have run my ATC through my sewing machine roughly around the edges as well. 

On another piece of spare cream cardstock, using the swipe and smoosh technique for distress oxide ink pads as discussed in the steps above, add a bit of colour to the cardstock, let it dry or heat to dry. Then once dry, stamp using the mixed media edge stamp above using black versafine ink. Then fussy cut it out.

Add some stitching to your tickets and cluster on the left hand side of your ATC and glue to your background.

Start your layering, adhere your cityscape over the tickets then using 3D mounting tape or squares, adhere your polaroid frame over the top as shown above. Then glue your fussy cut Bicycle Man stamped image to the bottom right hand side. 

I decided to re-stamp my quote onto a patterned background and I also added more colour to the quote before adhering to my ATC.

Glue your sentiment onto your ATC and using a black fine tip marker, trace around the edges to make it stand out a bit. 

And you are finished!!

Thanks for stopping by the blog today, make sure you leave some love!

Elisa x

Boop! I got your nose --- by Elisa Ablett

Hey Gorgeous Stamps Groupies,

It is so good to be back creating after a short break. 

Life sometimes goes sideways and you gotta learn when to tuck and roll with it 😂💪

So to get back in the creative mood, I organised my stamps and I pulled out a few to make something for Halloween and then..... this Art Journal page fell together and it has to be one of my favourites.

Let's take a closer look !

So one of my favourite mediums to work with happens to be watercolour inks and paired with photo paper for the substrate, match made in heaven. When you smoosh, flick, drop, splatter or however you want to add the ink to your paper, it soaks right in and becomes ... permanent, vibrant colour! 

Try it today, i bet you won't be disappointed. Use stencils and waterbased ink sprays as well. All work wonders with photo paper. 

Stamp, heat emboss and fussy cut your skeleton out and put to the side. Then stamp the 'Dancing Lady' with waterproof ink, let dry and then colour using watercolours or if you prefer colour markers.

For the background, I set the 'spooky' scene by adding a landscape for the skeleton to stand on and also a crackling effect in the sky. Use Archival or Versafine black ink to stamp on the photo paper.

Add some stitching around the edges and staples for texture and effect up one side and then glue to your background cardstock and paper. 

Add your handstamped or computer generated 'quote' to finish up.

Stamps Used: - 

Skeleton - https://vlvstamps.com/skeleton-1-3-4-x-4.html

Mountains and Cactus - https://vlvstamps.com/mountains-and-cactus-1-1-2-x-6-1-2.html

Crackle Background - https://vlvstamps.com/crackle-background-4-3-4-x-5-3-4.html

Dancing Lady - https://vlvstamps.com/dancing-lady-2-1-4-x-3-1-2.html

Other Products used: -

Photo Paper

Watercolour inks

Watercolour palette - Prima Odyssey

Sewing Machine

Cardstock - Black

WMRK Patterned Paper

Staples

Thank you for stopping by the blog today!
Don't forget to head over to the Facebook group - Viva Las VegaStamps! Groupies and add your OCTOBER entry.
We LOVE seeing what you create.
Make sure you leave some love on the Design Team Creations, we love hearing from you all x

Hugs x

Elisa 

"#EPIC" scrapbook layout | Sue Plumb

Hi everyone!

Sue Plumb here to share my latest design team project; and today I have a mixed media scrapbook layout to show you. This page features a photo of my daughter when she first got her new tablet and her very own version of Minecraft for Christmas. (To say she was excited is an understatement.) 

For my layout, I wanted to create a background that reflected the theme and the colours that were depicted in my photo. I decided to use the Overlapping Squares stamp (designed by Corrie Herriman) and stamp out a pattern on my page that I could then colour to suit.

I used Staz On ink as I knew that I would be using a wet medium and didn't want it to run at all.

I then used Faber-Castell watercolour pencils to add splashes of colour to the squares, before blending the pencil out with a water pen.

Once the squares were coloured, I also used the pencils to add some shading around and between some of them.

Next, I wanted to add some less structured marks to balance out all the hard lines from the squares, so I used the Crackle Background stamp to add some random, organic lines. (I keep my stamps unmounted for exactly this reason - I like to be able to bend them and manipulate them to only use small areas of the stamps surface.)

I then used the It's Only a Hobby stamp to add a few phrases to my background; before using a Colour Blast Colour Shimmer Spray to add some random splatters around my page.

With the background complete, it was time to add some papery layers to my page. I used some patterned paper pieces from Amy Tan; along with some Project Life cards and a paper doily to create a mat for my photo and then adhered it to my page using Miracle Tape.

I added some scrap cardboard to the back of my photo to pop it up from the page; then added the word woohoo (fussy cut from another Project Life card) using foam tape on top.

For my title I used a wood veneer word from D-lish Scraps, which I coloured using Posca pens.

To finish off my page I added a Charms Creations handmade heart embellishment topped with a flair button from D-lish Scraps. 

Thanks for stopping by so I could share this with you. I hope I have inspired you to get inky too!

Stamps used:

- Overlapping Squares

- Crackle Background

- It's Only a Hobby

Other materials:

 - Miracle tape

- Cardstock

- Staz On ink

- Faber-Castell watercolour pencils

- Colour Blast Colour Shimmer Spray

- Amy Tan patterned paper

- Project Life cards

- D-lish Scraps wood veneer and flair button

- Charms Creations heart

- paper doily

- Posca pens

- felt pen