Loved and unused!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "the stamp I love but don't use".  I've had these americana blueprint stamps kicking around in my craft room for a little while now and much as I love them, there's just not much call for 4th July stamps here in the UK!  I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to give them an outing :)

I started out by staining the hinged wooden triptych with Walnut Stain distress stain.  The left panel was stamped with the USA and star images and then coloured with Promarkers before distressing with a little Gathered Twigs ink and a blending tool.  I stamped the ticket from the Odds and Ends stamp set and coloured it with promarkers before fixing it to the panel, which I then fixed to the wood background.

The right panel was stamped with the subway places from the Remnants stamp set and I added a vintage Uncle Sam panel from the Seasonal paper stash to hide the fact that the subway image didn't quite reach to the bottom of the panel.  Finally I stamped and coloured the route 66 image from the Road Trip set and fixed it in place, then fixed the panel to the wood background.

On the central panel, I started by cutting a piece of cardstock to the right size and shape to fit and stamped the "rays" from the Psychedelic Grunge set.  Although I inked the stamp with black archival ink, I used a cotton bud (q-tip) to removed the ink from the centre of each ray so that only the outer edges stamped with any strength.  I then coloured them with promarkers.  I stamped Liberty and the flag in black and then stamped them again separately, colouring them with promarkers.  Before stamping Lady Liberty I used mint green promarker as a background, which was too bold, so I knocked it back with 3 coats of Picket Fence distress stain on top.  Once I was happy with the shade of green, I stamped the statue on top and then cut both it and the flag out.  After colouring the background, I mounted the flag and statue on 3d foam and stuck them in place.  As a final touch I added some red and blue stars from the Psychedelic Grunge set.

Phew, that's about it!  It was a lot of work but it was so nice to finally give these stamps an airing out of their packaging! :)

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!

Upcycled Metal Frame

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "metal-ology".  I've got a few of these cheap Ikea wooden frames kicking around in my craftroom and I thought I'd glitz one of them up with some added metal bling.  Janeen at SuburbNgypsy is guest designer this week, so be sure to check out her blog and watch out for her tutorial on the SSS&S blog later in the week!

I have a display in my upstairs hall of things I've made using this David stamp and for a while now I've felt there's a bit of a gap in it that needs another item to balance it out.  This framed piece should solve the problem perfectly!

I started out by cutting up my metal into pieces of around 3x4 inches and fed them through my cuttlebug, applying a different embossing folder to each one to give a range of textures.

I cut strips from each piece that were the exact width of the frame sections and used redline tape to attach them to the frame.  I then applied a generous coat of Claudine Hellmuth black acrylic paint to all parts of the frame and sanded the metal parts to reveal the hidden silver designs.

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!