Animal Farm Housing

Did you ever wonder about the housing in Animal Farm?  No? Me, neither.

But for some reason, when I saw this strip of farm animal stamps from Viva Las VegaStamps! I thought of Animal Farm, and how their houses might look as designed and lived in by animals.  I know--my brain is a wild and woolly place, lol!

Supplies:

VLVS! Images Used--

Farm Animals 1 1/2" Cube Item CB31 Plate 1055

Sakura of America Pigma Micron pen

1 sheet 180 g Garza Papel engraving paper
StazOn Jet Black Inkpad
Strathmore Vellum Envelope Scrap
Gelli Plate
Acrylic Paint-yellow, pink, white
Golden Light Modeling Paste
Miracle Tape
stylus

A while back I used a gelli plate to print on some Strathmore Vellum Envelopes. I wanted to try a parchment effect with the vellum, so I had printed on them with white acrylic, and splashed a bit of yellow and pink here and there for a very light mottled effect.

Although, there are four images here, they all come on one rubber strip, which I stamped on a scrap of the envelope.  I know from past experience that StazOn Jet Black, blends well with the black ink from a Pigma Micron pen, so that is what I used.

I cut each image out, turned it over, and used a stylus to dry emboss each animal into relief.  This particular vellum isn't the best for a parchment effect.  It doesn't turn white, or hold the relief very well, but it did well enough.  

After embossing, I filled the back of the relief images with light modeling paste so they wouldn't totally flatten out.  I used the light paste so that I wouldn't add a lot of weight to the drawing.

With a .03 tipped, Pigma Micron pen, I traced the outline of each image, where I wanted it to fall on the finished piece, and then started drawing.  I had a rough image in my head, and drew on my tangling experience to add detail.  This might look complex, but actually took only about 1/2 hour to do, and with Zentangle® patterns to rely on for detail, the houses almost drew themselves.  The engraving paper is soft with some tooth, so I could build up the values and gets lots of grayscale shading.

When the drawing was finished, and the modeling paste was dry, I attached the stamped images with Miracle tape.

The scan at the top doesn't show the 3D relief, and I had to take a photograph with lots of shadow to pick it up.  I didn't quite get the parchment look I was shooting for, but I'm am pleased with the result.  I love when that happens!  

  

For more of my work with Viva Las VegaStamps!, Amazing Mold Putty, zentangle-inspired art, and daily links to tangles, tutorials, and giveaways please visit my "Life Imitates Doodles" blog.   ~ Sandra Strait

Helpful Links: VLVS! Store for all your stamping needs; the  VLVS! Blog for new projects; VLVS! on  FaceBook,  Pinterest, Instagram. and Twitter.  Be sure to check out the Challenges posted each month.

Five new plates!

Check it out friends... we have FIVE brand new plates of rubber ready for presale!

See the newsletter here : http://ymlp.com/z8MW13

 

Plate 940

 

Plate 941

 

Plate 945

 

Plate 1411 

 

 

Plate 1434

A Note to a Falling Feather

Layer it, color it, stamp it!  An illustrative piece affirmation to give or put up to look at.

VLVS Images:
19126 - Feather Silhouette
19024 - Discover 
19072 - Washi Chevron Background
6038 - Butterfly

VLVS Partners:
Sakura of America - Micron Pen, Gelly Roll Pens
Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive

Feather is stamped using DTR - Direct To Rubber technique.  The feather image is beautiful and mostly solid and so this works well.  Turn, stamp image face up and use dye based inks starting with a pink hue, then blue/periwinkle, then green.  I did press a tiny bit of the blue into the pink for contrast and green into blue on the edges as well.

Huff on stamp (moisture) and stamp image.  You will see (as above) the colors meld together.

Simple swirls drawn with Micron pens, other images colored with Gelly Roll Pens.

"A-R-T" letters drawn on circles with Gelly Roll pens.

The washi chevron image is cut into a flag and the bright color makes the feather pop!


Color your life!  Discover Art.


Cre8tivelea Yours - Lea

Time Flies

Hi guys- Karen here with you again today..

I thought I'd try for something a little different today.. nope it's still a tag..

 

Just a little different with he colour.. well sort off.. I've gone for a brighter than my normal background, but still sort of me if that makes any sense.. So without to much more babbling...

 

 I started off inking my background with several different red/ orange shades of distress ink, Then using the bullseye stamp from plate 949   I stamped using water as my medium onto the background then heated it with my heat gun.

 

 

I then added in a little machine stitching and another layer to my background by randomly stamping the Grunge writing 1787.

 

My next step was to stamp, colour and fussy cut some other images. then lastly layer them all onto my tag. I also added in some gears that I had die cut previously for another project but hadn't used.

 

And as always a couple of close ups..  I love the colour in the background, it's a little different for me..  But I think it turned out ok.

 

 

Stamps Used:

 

Time Flies

Admit one ticket

Bulls Eye Target

Hot air balloon with flags

Men in Balloon Basket

Flying Watch

Grunge Writing 1787

Set of Pointing Hands ( I used the hand pointing towards the right) 

 

I hope you found a little inspiration  and want to say thanks for dropping by today,

 hope to see you again soon..

 

Happy Stamping - Karen xxx

 

 

 

Momma In Paradise {Layout and Technique Video}

 Good morning, inky friends, it's Amy here today to share a layout and video I created using some fun techniques.  This layout was out of the box for sure, but took me in some new, fun directions that I definitely learned from. I just let the creative muse do her thing.

I'm happy to share my creative experience here today, using the Fancy Grass/Weed (I refer to this incorrectly during the video as the beach grass stamp, oops), and the Hibiscus Flower stamps....along with lots of inks, mists, paints, and more! Have a look at the process:

 

I'm super happy with how this colorful, quirky layout came together....and conveys a true picture of my love of being in paradise (on the beach!)

Thanks so much for having a look at my little piece of paradise on a page, and visit my blog for more inspiration!
Supplies used on this project:







Stamps:
Fancy Grass/Weeds 
Hibiscus Flower
Inks: 
Memento: Tuxedo Black
Ranger Archival Ink: Coffee
Ranger Distress Stain: Walnut
Paint:Plaid Folk Art: Metallic Green, Extreme Glitter Silver, Metallic Gold, Jamaican Blue
Pens:
Faber-Castell Pitt Big Brush Pen, Cobalt Turquoise
Copic Marker, Mistletoe
Ranger Distress Marker, Bundled Sage, Blue China
Adhesive:
Miracle Tape 1/8 inch
Helmar Premium Craft Glue
Mists:
Heidi Swapp Color Shine: Tinsel, Teal
Mr. Hueys: Navy
Art Anthology: Lark
Paper Banner:
Studio Calico
Paper and Alpha Stickers:
7 Dots (9th Wave and Messy Head collections)
Flowers/Jewels:
Prima, Recollections
Twine: 
May Arts
Washi Tape:
Tim Holtz
Smash
Thread:
Coates
Buttons/metal coins: Vintage/unknown

Colonel Mustard {Tag Make n Take}

Hi folks! DeeDee here today :) 

There's a local crop by the Scrap Society every four months and we've been lucky enough to get on board as a sponsor. We do a make n take and bring some of our wares to peddle. It's great to get better connected with the community and share our love of rubber stamping with a wide audience.

Well they just had a crop this past weekend and I wanted to share the tag we did as our make n take! They always center their crops around a theme, and last weekend's was the game "Clue." So I put together a sort of funny whimsical take on Colonel Mustard!

We started with a cream colored tag of Bazzill Cardstock. It was stamped in Distress Marker with the Bingo Card Background and the edges of the tag were distressed with Walnut Stain distress ink.  The next layer is made of the Pointed Pen Tip stamped in Archival ink by Ranger, an UmWowStudio star confetti mask, Gauche Alchemy washi tape, Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels and the Whimsical Man With Whip also in archival ink.

To finish the tag I balled up some black thread (Thanks for the technique, Amy!), fussy cut our new Admit One Ticket and glued down a Geo Tag from UmWowStudio's Arrow Confetti pack.

Packing tape transfer time!

New prompt is up over at A Year in the life of an art journal and here it is:

PROMPT: Emotions: what are you feeling, right now, at this moment in your life?
SHOOTERS: Shoot your photo in a mirror, with your feeling written on the mirror.
BOOKERS: Journal it and we will do a packing tape transfer today! yay!

Exciting right?? Plus I did a very basic tutorial for any of you that want to try a packing tape transfer! First of all you need either pictures or text from a magazine or from something that was printed from a laser printer, an ink jet printer won't work. I ripped this page from a magazine as I wanted to use some of the words. I then took some clear packing tape and taped over the words and rubbed with a smooth popsicle stick.

 Then I cut out the words I wanted to use

 and placed them into a cup full of warm water and let it soak for a few minutes. Then I gently rubbed off the paper so it was all gone which leaves us with the clear tape and the word!

 I let the words dry for a couple minutes

 and then they were ready to be glued onto my journal spread. I use Golden gel medium to adhere the packing tape transfer images to my pages because it's clear and you can still see through the image.

 

 and here is my finished journal spread!

The thing I love about packing tape transfers is that the possibilities are endless and you can use them in layouts, journal pages, canvases, ATC's and more! I used some fabulous stamps from Viva Las VegaStamps! as well such as the checkerboard border,

 the the road not taken,

the coffee ring stain,

the danger skeleton,

spotty background

and last but not least the super cool pulse rate!

I hope you enjoyed my packing tape transfer tutorial and journal spread and until next time!

Fall Splendor Hop {Paper Haus Fall Issue}

Hello Friends! Welcome to our stop on the Fall Splendor Blog Hop for day FOURTEEN!

 

Blog Hop lineup:

• PAPERHAUS - WWW.THEPAPERHAUS.COM
• Bente Fagerberg  www.paperandglueheaven.blogspot.com
• Trudi Harrison - http://scrappinwitht.blogspot.com
• Emila Van Den Heuvel - http://few-favourite-things.blogspot.com
• Viva Las Vegas Stamps - http://vivalas.blogspot.com

We're helping our friends @ PaperHaus ring in the new Fall issue (And celebrate their 1 year anniversary!) 

 Read the Fall issue Here!

A little about us and our giveaway:
Here @ Viva Las VegaStamps! we design and manufacture our own line of deeply etched pink rubber stamps! We currently have over 19,000 -DIFFERENT- rubber stamps and are seriously close to hitting 20k. You can find stamps in categories like Mixed Media, People, Vintage, Steampunk, Sayings and MORE. We thrive in a sarcastic, funny, vintage sort of world and our stamps really embody that.

Today we'd like to offer up a full plate of unmounted stamps >>> Plate 951 is full of Halloweenie goodness and will aid in anyone's Halloween/Fall themed paper crafts. That's FIFTEEN brand new stamps from our most recent release! Interested in winning today? Just leave comments on all the blogs in today's schedule! Easy peasy! 

We're also celebrating with a LIMITED EDITION Grab Bag!! These grab bags come with 15 random (8 images and 7 sayings) Halloween themed stamps from all the years we've been in business (Since 1991!). $10 for Fifteen stamps.. that's less than $1 PER stamp!

I'd also like to give a few of these way :) -- Follow and like us on Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram(@vivalasvegastamps) and Tiwtter. Then tag us and or leave comments on a post in each social media platform - we'll pick one random winner from EACH to win a grab bag of Halloween stamps!

And as a little Fall/Halloween inspiration we're sharing some projects from last year's Halloween Party!

From top left clockwise : leslierahye, Susan M. Brown, DeeDee Catron and Cheryl Lindsay.

It's FRIDAY the 13th! {September Guest Designer}

Welcome to the first post from our September Guest Designer.. CHRISSY COLON!

 You can find Chrissy's Blog here.

Chrissy says:
Hi! My name is Chrissy and I am thrilled to be guest designing with Viva Las VegaStamps! for the month of September. Since Halloween is just around the corner, I'd figure I'd get the party started with this neat little haunted house shrine.

VLVS's 'Crackle' background stamp was perfect for adding that aged, cracked look to the house facade. See what I did there? I love puns! Even my dancing little skellies are super excited for my awesome house!

Now, I'll be perfectly honest. When I grabbed the Halloween plate from the store, I never thought I would actually use the skeletal turtle. I liked the stamp, but never thought I'd use it. As my muses would have it, it was the perfect stamp for the niche! Just stack a couple skull beads and that's all you need.


I used a bunch of techniques from stamping to heat embossing and had good fun doing so. Thanks for checking out my neato little house and I look forward to bringing you another project later!

Cheers!

Come to the Greatest Show On Earth!

An indexed journal book is a great substrate for VLVS circus images!  Remove "Under The Big Top," or elephant and add a personal pic from when your family attended the circus.  Makes a wonderful scrapbook page.

VLVS Images:
19190 - Admit One Ticket
19193 - Bulls Eye Target Open
19196 - Bulls Eye Target Solid
19195- Circus Lady
19199- Greatest Show On Earth
19200 - Under The Big Top
19219 - Whimsical Elephant
979 - Design solid Circles

VLVS Partners:
Sakura of America - Cray Pas Expressionist Oil Pastels, Moonglow Gelly Roll Pens
UMWow Studios - Chipboard Banners

The first thing I did was create the background.  There is a subliminal orange and creamy orange jacquard-like background.  I stamped the dots and the bulls eye images.   For the dots, do not ink up the whole stamp, just part to give a more natural look.  Edges distressed slightly.

The picture above is my playing with how I might want the finished layout to look.  Things usually change as I work on my art.  Notice, I changed the "Big Top" word placement with "The Greatest Show" word placement.

Each image is colored using oil pastels colored on plastic (An old CD works well for this) and use odorless mineral spirits to create a more watercolor look.  The Gelly Roll pens add pops of color for contrast.  A couple colors of Copic pens also used to finish off the design.

Here is a close up of how I colored the Chipboard banner pieces.  Instead of picking up color from the CD, I colored full strength with the oil pastel on the chipboard and softened with mineral spirits brushed on top.  It would be fun to go further and layer maybe another patterned chipboard shape over the solid - i.e. the orange striped piece over the solid blue.

This is how the page looks standing up in the journal.  The left side could be where you scrapbook or journal words about your memories of going to the circus as a child or with your children.

We all love the Big Top, afterall; it is The Greatest Show On Earth!!!


Cre8tivelea Yours - Lea