Townscape

Sorry, I'm getting abstract again. Slap my wrist! I was playing with some stamps yesterday. Now, I don't use stamp cleaner of any kind. Mostly to clean my stamps, I just stamp the ink off on some scrap paper. But that sort of wastes the ink, so I thought I'd stamp off the excess ink onto a nice piece of white card and use it to make a background. This is what I made with the result...

"Safe as Houses"

The background is from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th stampings of archival ink. After stamping, it was coloured with distress inks, and clouds added by splodging with Picket Fence distress stain. The houses are coloured with inks and overstamped with the butterfly before adhering to the background with a little glossy accents at each edge, bending the centre of the diecut out to create a little dimension.

"Front view"

All that was left to do was a little matting and layering onto deep red and pale blue card. And yes, that is sunshine and shadows in the photo - we have Sun in Northern Ireland, woohoo!

Ingredients:

7Gypsies Stamp set - Conservatory

Distress Inks - Tumbled Glass, Bundled Sage, Aged Mahogany, Pumice Stone, Chipped Sapphire, Pine Needles

Distress Stain - Picket Fence

Archival Ink - Cobalt

Cardstock - white, red & pale blue

Entered for the following challenge:
Polkadoodles - Let's Hear it For the Boys
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes

A Tribute to Tim Holtz - 12 Cards of Christmas - Card 1

The Stamp Man's current challenge is to make a card based on one of Tim Holt's "12 Tags of Christmas" designs (of which there are currently 48!). I had a look at Tim's tags from last year and had a go, then got a bit carried away. So far I have made five! Well, here's the first card based on Tag 1 from 2010.

"12 Cards of Christmas - Card 1"

Of course, I don't have access to the same huge array of equipment and consumables, so made do with what I could find. The house is cut from the Sizzix 3d pop-up house, instead of a fence we have an iron gate, and the die-cut tree was a present from a friend of mine, Linda (thank you!). The house and gate were cut from empty cat food boxes (no grungepaper available here).

"House die-cut from an empty cat food box"

A brick embossing folder was used to dry emboss the house, before painting with Picket Fence distress stain, leaving to dry, then going over with Brushed Corduroy distress ink to bring out the raised areas. The door was painted with Barn Door distress ink. The back of the door and behind the door were covered in scraps of V&A paper, and the window lined from behind with acetate. (If you're going to do this, learn from my mistake and do any heat embossing first!!). I used liquid pearls to add dimension to the frosting on the roof and windows, then heat-embossed alternately with hi-puff and bright white embossing powders to get a snowy effect. A small red pearl makes a good door knob.

"Inhabitant"

Behind the door lurks a little boy (from the Graphics Fairy of course), he's just turning to the others in the room with something in his hands. Did you give him a present?

"Iron fence and tree"

The fence was also die cut from an empty cat food box, and both the fence and gate repeatedly embossed with alternate layers of hi-puff and bright white embossing powders to build up the snow.

"Sentiment"

The "Let it Snow" stamp (from a Crafty Individuals set) was stamped in green distress ink and heat-embossed in clear, then punched into a circle and mounted on a die-cut circle of silver mirri card. The holly sprig is made up from a couple of holly-shaped sequins (thanks again Linda!) and some small red pearls. You can see the background quite well here - made using the technique in Tim Holtz's tag with inks, stamps and Perfect Pearls for shimmer.

Entered for the following challenge:
The Stamp Man

Now the children have all gone to bed...

...well you didn't really think I'd miss the chance for a really scary one on Hallowe'en did you? Especially when there are two challenges asking for houses!! How could I resist a haunted house? Well, I couldn't Mwwwaaaahhhhaaaaahhhhaaaaaa *Maniacal laughter*

There are way too many pics, so why not pour yourself a glass while you're waiting for it to load... and if you are easily offended, please look away now and come back another day ;-)

"Haunted house"

[House cut from Tim Holtz' grungy cardstock. Well whose else could it be?]

"Blood"



[The "blood" is really a deep red gritty embossing powder with lots of splatters!]

"Shingle roof"

[Small pieces of cardstock stuck on as individual shingles.]

"Ghosts"

[Characters from the "Lost and Found" paper pack are peeping out from the windows.]

"First corner view"

We're moving around the corner a little here... what's that in the doorway??

"Foot"

Aaarrgghhh - a Graphics Fairy severed foot!!

"End of house"

Eeeewww, a severed hand on the doorknob and another reaching into the window!

"Severed hand"

Oh no, that one seems to be grasping a smaller hand on the inside of the house!

"Through the keyhole"

We look through the doorway, but it's too dark to make out the inside properly [the inside of the walls are decorated with more Tim Holtz people and perspectives from the Graphics Fairy, but they won't come out with the camera - boo hoo!]. Let's move on...

"Second corner view"

Oh no, it's getting worse...

"Side view"

...is that a gggggrrrraveyard??? *shakes with fear*

"Pet Semetary - R.I.P Spot""

No worse, it's a "Pet Sematary" aaaarrrrgggghhhhhh

[aside: I love horror novels. "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King is the only horror story I've ever read that scared me! - and yes, it's supposed to be spelt like that :)]

"Spiders"

Noooo, spiders... [drawn]

"Ants"

...and ants!  [stamped]

"Hands on the roof"

Those hands are trying to get into the house by prising the shingles loose - looks like it's working.

"Eye eye"

Yuck, there's a disembodied eye peeping out from behind that window, and blood running down the frame from the hands on the roof.

"Hand behind gravestone"

Another hand appears to be clawing it's way out of the grave.

[The "mud" around and on the gravestones is actually lots of brown embossing powder. Overheating it leads to a grey colour which looks great on the front of the gravestones]

"Third corner view"

For the first time, we get a glimpse of the word written in blood on the last wall.

"Help..."

Well, I guess that's all the guy managed to write before he was stuffed upside down into the chimney...

"Feet in the chimney"

...at least, I think it's a guy. Not so easy to tell just looking at the feet.

Entered for the following challenges:

Haunted Design House