Darkroom Door's Wineglass Bay Photo Stamp

Hi folks! I'm, back with a project using Wineglass Bay - one of the six new Photo Stamps from Darkroom Door. I made a journal cover to hold some nice quotes I've been collecting:

 

The stamp is a beautifully detailed landscape image that looks fantastic with a just little dash of colour.  I coloured the image with Distress Markers and a waterbrush for a watercolour look. Once it was dry, I gave it a little spray with Goosebumps texture spray - it looks like it has been splashed with water.

I then added a piece of mica, which I stamped with French Script with brown ink. It helped to add an aged, vintage look:

On the right hand side, I added a couple of words from the Wilderness Wordstrip and the compass from the Wilderness Vol 2 stamp set under a glass pebble:

Then it was a matter of adding ephemera, hessian and gauze before stitching it to a scrap of denim and adhering it to the front of the journal:

Thanks for looking!

Altered book

Here's what I did to a lovely old book I picked up at an antique shop:

 

Gothic arches surrounding a Darkroom Door photochip of the Notre Dame cathedral. Lots of layers:

...easy to do with the Arched Windows One set of Spellbinders dies. (I'm a bit excited to see this die set called Arched Windows ONE - that would indicate there are more to come! Unless it's like Mel Brook's History of the World, Part I........still waiting on the next instalment Mel!)

Full details can be found at the DownUnder Direct Inspiration blog.

Thanks for stopping by.

100 Proof Press/ Genuinely Jane Studios blog hop

The time has come! Welcome to the 100 Proof Press and Genuinely Jane Studios blog hop!

First of all, a little about each company:

100 Proof Press is located in Ohio, USA and has a catalogue that contains over 2500 timeless images, finely detailed and visually diverse. It's run by Sara Vukson, know for excellent quality, handmade rubber stamps and personalised service that's second to none.

Genuinely Jane Studios handcraft small and medium sized mini-albums made from hardwood in Missouri USA. These albums are perfect for altered art and stamping.

I got to play with the Picket Fence book, and made this little book for my girls to flick through whenever they are scared:

It's going to have stories like Little Red Riding Hood, where female characters have had to show courage in the face of adversity. No princess stories!
 

For the cover I have used Red Riding Hood, Group of Mushrooms, and Mushrooms in Grass. The cover itself is painted with Picket Fence Distress Paint, and the images were coloured with Copic markers. I have used some co-ordinating ribbons and trims to decorate the binding rings.

The second book I played with is the Arrow Book. I pulled it apart, and decided that the arrow turned on its side looked like a house. I have made a wall deco with each of the pages:

 I used KaiserCrafts Pickled Pear range of papers, and some seam binding to cover up the holes where the rings go. Here they are one by one (click to make them bigger).

 

I stenciled some gesso through a stencil, the used a variety of paints, mists and inks to get the background right for this first one. The stamp is Bathing Beauty Row: 

The second page also has gesso through a stencil and some paint, mists and ink on it. The image is Big Cutie Baby, paper pieced and coloured with Distress Markers:

 

This third page was covered with patterned paper, and has Laughing Elephant on it as well as Mushrooms in Grass and Group of Mushrooms. The mushrooms were coloured with Distress Markers.

The last page has Kids Looking, together with some punched butterflies and a handmade nest with pearls for eggs.

Are you prepared for some more inspiration? Here's the blog hop list:

START HERE AND LEAVE COMMENT for Gift Card Giveaway at:
100 Proof Press

 

Tracy
Amy
Teresa (you're here now!)

Caro  

Christine

Irit

Sara
Emily

Kimberly

Lori

SuzeJo
Ildi

END BACK HERE AND LEAVE COMMENT
for Grand Prize Giveaway:
Susan

Of course there are prizes. 100 Proof Press will be offering a $30 voucher to their online store, and Genuinely Jane Studios will be offering a gift pack. In addition, there will be a stamp as a prize drawn from each of the 100ProofPress DT blogs (including this one).  Some blog hop participants will even be doing giveaways on their own blogs, so be sure to stop by each one! To be eligible to win the vouchers, it will be necessary to comment on each and every blog.

Hope you find this hop enjoyable! You have until midnight on Sunday 7th April (New York time) to be entered into the draw for prizes, so hop to it!

ETA: Thank you everyone for visiting my blog and for all of the comments. The winner of the 100 Proof Press stamp is Anna! I have contacted Anna and will have her stamp out to her ASAP :)

Here there be fairies...

This is another collaborative book I'm involved in.  This time we used some chipboard frame pages we obtained through Jenny Crossley. 

I changed tack a few times with these pages - they went from plain chipboard, to having scrunched tissue paper glued to them.  Then I painted them cream.  Then I changed my mind and used some of the paint techniques I learned from Michael DeMeng.  The chicken wire was always going to be included, and then I found some photos of when we last visited the William Rickets Sanctuary in the Dandenongs. 'Fairies!' I thought, and dug out some collage sheets from Lisa's Altered Art.  A quick trip to my local florist supply place, and I had some ivy and not long after that the pages were done!

Want to see a picture of the completed page?

And here's a close up of the words:

I have received some of the other girls' pages, and some of them a quite chunky (especially Liz's page LOL).  I look forward to tackling the challenging task of binding this baby! Of course, I'll blog about it when I'm done.

Welcome home!

I recently welcomed home the tag book a group of us started sometime last year. Here it is:

This is the sign in page I prepared. Once a page was completed, everyone signed a tag and stuck it down.
The second page is by Nikki Whatford - beautiful and bright:

The third page is by Dianne Whatford - delightfully vintage in shabby chic colours:

The fourth page is by Kylie Mell - each image is mounted on chipboard. I saw this on Kylie's blog months ago, and I just couldn't wait to see it IRL:

The fifth page is from Ness Henry - so much texture cheeky little details. I love it!

The sixth page is by Jo Hughes - another very dimensional page with so many gorgeous details to explore - I absolutely adore the buckle on the left hand side.

The seventh page is by Gail Smith (I think a little bird told her I LOVE polka dots!). I regard Gail as the Image Queen - she always uses the best images!

The eighth page is by Debra Murray. I know she laboured over the embellishments on this page, and I think she's done a marvellous job. I just love that shade of aqua with copper. There are even real sea shells at the bottom left:Now all that's left to do is complete the cover. I wish I'd done that first - I've got a lot to live up to after seeing the pages inside.

I want to thank all the participants in this swap - I want you all to know how much I love this book - it's become one of my favourite swaps to date! Thank you!

even more tag book progress....

This is the second last book I'll be working in for this swap. This one belongs to Kylie, and her theme was women.

I used some Darkroom Door photobooth images, and the scroll stamp is by Autumn Leaves.


See that white ink? It's Whisper White by Stampin' Up, and I'm impressed! I bought it from Michelle, and it exceeds my expectation. I was never truly happy with white StazOn unless it was on acetate, but now my dreams have come true. Keeping it clean is going to be a challenge! Luckily they're very reasonably priced, so another one in say 12 months time is not out of the question.

more progress....

Here's another book I've finished working with. This is Diane's, and her theme was wings.


This would have to be my preferred colour palette, despite blue being my favourite colour for decades. Go figure.
Birds.....can't get away from them, can I? And again with the shiny shimmer that's difficult to photograph.....not making it easy on myself!

Tag book progress

Somewhere toward the beginning of the year, I joined a swap where we had to alter a double page spread in a chipboard book. About a million things have happened since then, on a personal level, on a work level and on an art level for me, so this swap has been moved down on the list of priorities a number of times. However, I'm all done now - what a relief!

Here is the page I did for Nikki's book. Her theme was colour, so I chose some colours I love but hardly ever work with. It wouldn't be me if I didn't add a little black and white somewhere!


I first added some texture stamping into gesso, then painted with Twinkling H2Os I think. As if it wouldn't be hard enough to photograph, I then added some gold Rub'n'Buff. The pennant stamps are Zettiologogy and the scroll stamp by Autumn Leaves. IRL, but barely detectable is another background stamp by Tim Holtz. Here's a close up:


Thanks for looking!

something beautiful.....

You know that feeling you get when someone does something wonderful just for you? Well, I've been swimming in that feeling for a couple of months now. This is the reason:


It's my round robin altered book, it has finally flown home. It's beautiful, and I love the girls who have worked in it - they are dear friends, and they've made a supreme effort. Here it is, page by glorious page:

This is my sign in page. Everyone has signed the back of a tag.



This page is by Debbie:



This page is by Jo:
This page is by Greta:


This page is by Gail:


This page is by Amy:


And this page is by Donna:


I think you understand now my euphoric state - isn't it just beautiful?

A doll for Jo

This is a page I did in a round robin book. It's Jo's book, and she chose Art Dolls as her theme.


Can I let you in on a little secret? I don't really like doing art dolls. Shhhhhh.....they creep me out. Anyway, I hope Jo likes it.
There was lots of fiddling and diddling with this page. I've had the book on my desk for a couple of months (well I am the great procrastinator). In the end I went the simple option, and I'm happy with how it turned out. I don't even mind the combination of colours!