Hi I’m Michelle and am thrilled to be invited to play
along with Banana Frog this month.
I’m a one time theatre designer come stage manager who
has given up the open roads and living out of a suitcase to get back to my arty
roots and I am loving the rollercoaster that is my life! I am also the long
suffering wife of a comedian but that’s a whole other story LOL
I was thrilled to be announced one of the Best of
British Scrapbooking winners 2008 hosted by Scrapbook Inspirations Magazine and
am an ongoing contributor for them. I was also recently invited to join the
design team for Purple Cows trimmers and tools over in the States and Willow
Tree Crafts here at home. I’ve started teaching as well and love sharing my
ideas. I launched my own website
at the end of last year www.mjm-thearttart so pop on over and check it out
sometime! (my blogs there too!)
And so to the delicious stamps I received! I got It’s
all about Circles, Round in Circles, Steelfish outline alphabet and Diamonds
are Forever…… go on admit it you’re now singing the song too aren’t you?!
That’s where I started for inspiration, singing songs in my head starting with
diamonds are forever, followed by diamonds are a girls best friend …… you get
the picture!! Well I have to say the collection I got turned me into a stamping
fool, the ideas kept coming and the stamps are so well…. stampable! And as I
discovered you can do almost anything too them and with a bit of soap and water
they are like new again! So here’s my first lot of creations…… ‘You
spin me right round’ (told
you singing inspired me LOL Oh and warning you may need sunglasses!!!) I went shopping with my 12 year old niece when she
stayed with me and I could’ve cried when we went into the clothes shops, my
youth was staring back at me! I quickly got the mobile out and started snapping
photos, knowing I had to record the moment. Next came the paper, it’s from
Sultane Vitamines range and sooo 80’s. Then I saw the Round in Circles stamps
and it all fell in to place perfectly! I made it a double layout as the small pictures leant
themselves to going across the pages to tell the story. I cut the bottom border
from one piece of paper, ripped 2 strips from another and laid them all on 2
12x12 pieces of card stock. I also cut the squares from another piece of paper
for embellishments. I laid all the photos and paper pieces out as I wanted them
(Tip; I always mark the corners of photos and embellies with pencil when I do
this so I can stick them back in the right place!) Then the beauty of Banana Frog
stamps, because they are unmounted and see through, is I could lay the dotty
circles in position on my page and play about with them until I was happy.
I removed the photos etc and stamped the circles using
some neon inks that I have been desperate to play with. I then glittered the dots that would be visible with
some neon glitter that I now had the excuse of using as well! I stamped more
dotty circles in the bottom border and glittered some of them. Although the alphabet I had is Steelfish (which I
love) I knew that this layout leant itself to another alphabet set of my own
from Banana Frog Bensfolk. I ripped a piece of transparency film (I use this as
it rips better than acetate) and stamped the title on it using stayz on. I stapled
this to the bottom border and stuck the whole thing to my 12x12’s with foam
pads.
I reassembled my photos and embellishments in position,
raising them on foam pads in places. To add a real 80’s feel I HAD to use the plain circles
to stamp big yellow smiley faces whose eyes I stamped with the little round
stamp, Then I covered them in glossy accent (remember to use stayz on if you do
this or the ink will run!). Finally I stamped several smaller dotty circles in 2
sizes and made these my journaling spots. I really enjoyed my 80’s trip with this layout!
Diamonds
and Pearls mirror. (yet again with the song titles!!!) I wanted to combine the 2 different shapes I had in
the stamps and the Prince song popped into my head, at the same time I knew it
would be a shabby chic feel, and a bit vintage with the pearls and of course it
had to be girly with the diamonds! I then remembered some mirrors I bought in
Ikea eons ago with ‘one day’ in mind and knew it was the day to alter one of
them. I had so much fun texturing the frame, I used a
technique to crackle the paint that I like to call a poor mans crackle, which I
adapted from Claudine Hellmuth. I painted the frame with pink acrylic. When it was dry I dribbled a strong all purpose pva
glue over it and spread it round the frame with my fingers until it was tacky. I then
mixed a little water into some white acrylic and painted it over the top. You
have to be quite light with the brush and mustn’t over work the paint. While it
was still wet I stamped into it with one of the diamond stamps down the left
side and top corner and with some of the dotty stamps on the right side and
bottom corner, this lifted of some of the white paint, so it was like reverse
stamping. (wash your stamps now in a little soap and water!) You can then dry the frame with a heat gun and watch
the paint crack! (Tip keep the heat gun about 10’’ away from the surface as the
acrylic will blister if it gets too hot!) You can also leave it to air dry if
your patient! I love the effect it gives around the stamping, really giving it
an aged look. I then stamped the lettering out using clear versamark
ink on card and embossed it with lilac blonde moments embossing powder. I
glittered the word diamonds with a fine white glitter and I painted the word
pearl with a white pearl nail varnish …. Well it was the only thing that gave
me the effect I wanted LOL! I spritzed a doily with tattered rose glimmer mist and
stuck a bit of it to the bottom left corner with pva to seal it and did the
same to a piece of music for the top right corner. I added prima diamonds and flowers some lace and charms and some butterflies cut from a Hambly’s
overlay. I added the flatback pearls to follow the line of a stamped
dotty circle and some diamonds top left of the mirror. Who wouldn’t feel glamorous looking into this mirror!!
My
Best Friend reverse canvas (no song title
this time!) As soon as I saw it’s all about circles I thought of
the sea, one of my favourite art subjects! I immediately thought about making
my own acetate overlay for a layout and then had the idea of using it as a
cover on a reverse canvas, I’ve wanted to create some art for my bathroom for a
while but couldn’t work out how to protect it, this was the solution! While it
isn’t the most flattering of pictures of me it makes me smile as we took it in
the sea in Tulum, Mexico, we had such a great time and it holds great memories. Firstly I scrunched up some tissue paper and stuck it
into the canvas with a watered down mix of pva (in effect papier mache-ing it). While that was drying I marked out on a piece of paper
the frame and position of the photo and cut a 12x12 acetate to fit. I laid this
on my frame outline and stamped a random pattern using the whole stamp set and
stamped over the edges of the photo position so the images would be suspended
over the photo. I used stayz on to do this in teal and before I stamped went
over that lightly in black to create different shades. I then flipped the acetate over and applied alcohol
inks to the back around the frame area using a mix of bottle, denim and stream
and also some drops of silver mixative. I put this aside to dry and went back to my tissue
paper which I lightly applied gesso to round the edges. I then used the dotty
circles and stamped onto the tissue using white stayz on for added back ground
detail. Once the alcohol ink was dry I picked out some of the
empty circles (on the back of the acetate) with a detail pva and glittered them
in a light turquoise (I love the effect of the different colours you get on the
right side looking at it through the alcohol ink). Leaving that to dry I assembled my layout using some
cosmo cricket paper, ripping some corrugated card, stitching some ribbons and
sequins to some hessian, tying up some twigs and adding shells. Once the glitter was dry on the acetate I stuck it to
the frame using glossy accents. My frame was slightly longer than 12’’ so I
stapled some ribbons along the bottom to cover the gap and mimic the sewn
ribbon inside and added the title from a cosmo cricket paper and some more
shells. This really makes me smile and reminds me of swimming
in that Caribbean Sea! I hope you’ve enjoyed my projects and that they have
inspired you to get stamping! I’m cooking up some more goodies now for my next
spot and singing all the way LOL. Until next time happy crafting! Thank you so much Michelle for sharing 3 amazing projects. Talk about inspiration! I'm off to find picture frames and neon inks! Check back on the 15th to see more projects from Michelle.
Oh my goodness - I am blown away by all of your wonderful creations! So very very inspired to go create for myself.. Thank you for sharing your gorgeous work!
Posted by: SarahLP | June 01, 2009 at 02:58 PM
Great creations!! They are all wonderful :)
Posted by: Chiara | June 01, 2009 at 08:17 PM
I love the incredible detail and design in these Michelle!! Great to see the stages of the process too. I love the texturing and layering and you have a great way of incorporating the stamps into the design as opposed to tacking them on as an extra. Do you get the idea that I think it's all kind of fab yet??? xx
Posted by: Julie K | June 01, 2009 at 09:01 PM
Fab Michelle. I absolutely love love love the mirror.
Posted by: sally j | June 02, 2009 at 08:09 AM
woaooo how many fantastic tecniques!!! great works Michelle, I love your colorful way to scrapbook!
Big kisses
lory
Posted by: lory | June 02, 2009 at 10:30 AM
I am SO loving those two ideas! I'll most definitely try either one or the other... or both... eventually ^^
(visiting this blog today for the first time I think... and I'll definitely be back!)
Andrea
Posted by: Andrea | June 03, 2009 at 03:58 PM
Congratulation, Diddy, nice post, i can't wait to get this album,really want to Thank you for the informative article.
Posted by: Web Designing Karachi | March 19, 2010 at 04:52 AM
I love the tincturing and layering and you have a great way of incorporating the stamps into the design as opposed to tacking them on as an extra
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