London, Paris, New York

This week Simon Says Stamp and Show... London, Paris, New York, take your pick. Well I was a Londoner for 13 years and have no desire to go back LOL, so I have a project for Paris and a quick tag for New York.

Paris

"Paris on canvas"

There are a couple of new techniques for me involved in creating this piece and it was great fun. Firstly, working on canvas. The canvas is prepared with gesso and given a coat of white acrylic paint then set aside overnight to dry. Secondly, the wax paper transfer method. The Graphics Fairy offers links to 12 Easy Transfer Techniques, so when I noticed this one and knowing that Lee (aka Craftyloops) had just given me some wax paper (thank you Lee!), I gave it a go.

The wax paper transfer technique is used to transfer a fabulous Graphics Fairy image of the Eiffel Tower onto the prepared canvas. The eiffel tower image is left to dry, then masked with post-it notes, and distress inks applied to create the French flag. I used a dabbing method so as not to disturb the image too much, which is printed in water-based ink. The colours for the flag are carried over onto the sides of the canvas.

I raided my stamp collection for the stamps in the top right corner, which were applied with matte multi medium (I love this stuff!). The sentiment is from a Tim Holtz stamp which was part-inked with black archival and applied by hand (the canvas surface isn't flat enough for an acrylic block - just hold the stamp in your fingers to position, then gently apply pressure all over the back of the stamp taking care not to move it around or the image will smudge).

Ingredients:

Tim Holtz clear stamp set: French Market

Canvas

Gesso

Acrylic paint, white

Inkjet image freshly printed on wax paper

Credit card (great for smoothing the back of the paper when transferring the image)

Distress inks: faded jeans, barn door

Archival ink: black

Ephemera: French stamps

New York

Did you know that New York was considered the Jazz capital of the world in the 1920s? Neither did I until I googled it after wondering why my Jazz stamp set had a New York postmark included!

"New York, the Jazz Capital of the World!"

This tag uses one of my favourite techniques - the resist method. The butterfly stamp is inked up with distress inks, then stamped and heat-embossed in clear. The tag is coloured with distress inks and overstamped in black archival. I just love that jazz band! It's the same stamp set I used on my candles for the Graphic 45 audition, so will make a great gift tag to go with them.

Ingredients:

Graphic 45 cling stamp set: Curtain Call 3

Distress inks: Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Fired Brick, Chipped Sapphire, Pine Needles

Perfect Pearls: blue patina

Archival ink: Black

Embossing powder: clear

Tag: cut from 300gsm white card (thanks again Lee)

ribbon: black organza

Entered for the following challenge:

Simon Says Stamp and Show take your pick ... London, Paris, or New York!