Something for Sunday

Click on her to link to the full size image on Google Drive

I never blog on a Sunday so I though I'd start doing something regularly every week. Each Sunday I'll offer a free vintage image for you to download and use in your craft projects (personal use only please!). These are pieces from my personal collection of vintage ephemera and might include anything from postcards, to vintage labels and old documents.

One thing I especially love to collect is old postcards, especially portraits. You can still pick these up relatively cheaply at flea markets and antique fairs - I rarely pay more than £2 (although I am not choosy about condition which helps - as far as I am concerned a few creases and dog-ears adds to the vintage look!). So today's image is tinted sepia postcard that dates from the Edwardian era - I think the subject is utterly charming.

Clicking the image will take you to Google Drive, from where you can download the image at full res - all the images are high-res scans and are at print resolution :).

Hope you like today's offering - please let me know what you think of her. And most importantly do you like the idea or am I wasting my time!!!

Thanks for visiting today,
Katy x

Vacation Time

Yes, it's January and with Christmas gone and forgotten I'm already longing for a holiday! So I decided to dig out one of my oldest but best loved Rubber Dance sets and create a card with a travel theme.

I turned to my favourite ever colour scheme - blue and brown again! - and created in a vintage style which I think really suits this particular stamp set.

Here's how I made it:

1) Stamp the Venetian image, 'carte postale' and the postcard onto white card. Watercolour them with Distress Inks and a water brush. I used these colours: Tumbled Glass, Faded Jeans, Blueprint Sketch, Pumice Stone, Hickory Smoke, Vintage Photo. Crumble the Venetian scene and postcard to age them and ink the edges.

2) Splatter a cream A6 card with Tumbled Glass Distress Spray. Stamp the card with various images in Sepia and Jet Black Archival Inks. Ink the edges with Vintage Photo.

3) Layer the cut pout images onto the card blank with 3D foam for dimension - and you're done. Not a difficult card to create this one :).

Katy x

I used these lovely Rubber Dance stamps;

Travel

Postcard

Envelope Stamps

Visible Image Debut!

It's my first post as a member of the Visible Image Design Team today! I found out about the team before Christmas and I've been dying to make a start! My stamps arrived on Monday so I haven't had a lot of time to make - hence I've just done a clean and simple card for today. I'm calling it 'Winter Butterfly' because I think the colours are really seasonal.

I stamped the Edgy image in Pumice Stone Distress Ink onto a panel of card, then stamped the butterfly and sentiment in Versafine Onyx Black. I stamped the butterfly again onto card and coloured it with Distress Stains in Peacock Feathers and Tumbled Glass, finishing with a few dots of white gel pen. I glued just the centre of the painted butterfly to the card panel so the wings are raised up. I added the panel to a white card blank with 3D foam tape - love this white-on-white layering; I think it looks really classy.

I don't often work with clear stamps but I have to say these stamp really nicely and they are SO thick and heavy-duty!

There's inspiration almost every day on the Visible Image blog and if you want to check out more work with Visible Image stamps or share your own, they have a Facebook Group too.

You can find the stamps I used via the links below:

Large Butterfly

Edgy

Imagine Dream Inspire

Thanks for stopping by :).
Katy x

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Art with Mona

Today I am combining two of my fave Rubber Dance stamp sets - my brand new Artist set and an old favourite, the beautiful Da Vinci set. I've created a multi-layered tag celebrating all things art.

For those amongst you as a pedantic as I... yes, I am aware that paint didn't come in tubes in Da Vinci's day - but neither is this tag an original old master, so that's my excuse and I am sticking with it!

I used my beloved kraft card as the base (in case you were wondering - which you probably weren't but I am going to tell you anyway - I love the kraft card from docrafts and it's the only one I buy).

Here's how I made it:
1) I started by cutting three kraft tags. I stamped the largest tag with the paintbrushes from my Artist set in Potting Soil Archival. I stamped the smaller tags in the same ink with other images from the set and added torn book pages to all the tags.

2) I then used black Archival to stamp splatters (part of one of the heart stamps), the art definition stamp and the coffee ring stamp here and there on all the tags. I edged all the tags with Ground Espresso Distress Ink (which, incidentally, may be my new fave).

3) Stamp Mona Lisa onto white card and colour her with watered down Distress Inks (Tattered Rose is the perfect tone for Caucasian skin). Stamp the paint tubes and brushes and 'Art' word and colour them too,

4) Layer up all the bits and bobs as shown - I used foam tape on the tags and Mona, and Pinflair Glue Gel (a bit like silicone glue) for the cut out embellies to make the tag really 3D!

I am not sure I've done the great master justice, but I love my tag anyway! Any celebration of the joy of art makes me happy.

Katy x

I used these awesome Rubber Dance stamps:

Artist

Round in Circles

Da Vinci

Collage Mix (I just used the Art stamp off this one)

I Heart Art (I used the stamp bottom left to create the splatters)

My ColourArte Day

It's my turn to do a tutorial again on ColourArte today and I created a pretty layered background using Twinkling H20s.

There's a full step-by-step tutorial on the ColourArte blog.

Katy x

Fear........

Something a little dark today.... Without getting overly personal, I've come to realise over time that I have an almost paralysing fear of the unknown. Even to the point I like to know exactly what time a visitor will arrive..... Anyway.... enough of the workings of my dysfunctional brain! Onto the art!

I got this stamp with my winning voucher from a recent Stampotique challenge (thank you Stampotique!). It's called 'A Single Tear' and I really love it! The background is created with two of my fave DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic colours - Cobolt Teal Hue and Green Gold. Yum! I layered die cuts and added some light stamping before adding the focal image with foam pads.

A simple make but am pleased with how striking she is; mostly due to that gorgeous stamp!

Katy x

Giveaway!!!

I thought I'd start 2016 with a little blog giveaway (aka blatant attempt to promote my stamps and blog!).

If you'd like to win my Rubber Dance Sew Sweet stamp set, just follow my blog (several ways to follow on the right-hand panel) and leave a comment below. If you also like my Facebook page here I'll enter you into the draw twice :).

Here's a piece of art I made with the set a while back. Closing date: 31st January 2016

GOOD LUCK!

Katy x