Showing posts with label Grungy Monday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grungy Monday. Show all posts

Monday, April 9, 2012

Railroad Stations

I grew up on the east coast of America where trains were everywhere. I didn't start out to remembering those days of course.....but it was kinda fun.

The talented and lovely Hels Sheridan, of Sunday Stampers fame is celebrating her 200th edition of challenging us to make a little something with at least a bit of stamping on it. Fittingly the challenge this week was to include numbers. So I started with that premise and the idea to make a companion piece to a tag I created for the April tag class at Stamp Cache. The steampunk tag was all browns and golds and so I wanted to do a piece in greys and blacks. And along the way I used several Tim Holtz techniques, so I'm doing double duty and entering it in the Simon Says Stamp challenge of do any "Lord Tim" technique. Check.


I did get a jump start on the tag by using the amazing 7 Dots Dreamer paper collection. It is truly awesome paper. I know I'm going to have to buy more. I cut a tag out of the paper, misted it and then used Pumice Stone and Old Paper stains to give a bit more character. I embossed a piece of black paper with the clock embossing folder, sanded it, covered that with Pumice Stone stain and then a bit of Picket Fence stain for good measure. Grunge paper painted with a silver dabber was cut with the On the Edge Steampunk die. I used my finger to smear Pumice Stone, Walnut Stain, and Black Soot on to age it. I rolled the checkerboard stamp from Ultimate Grunge through Pumice Stone Distress Ink and randomly covered the background. I think that's when it started to look like a railroad station to me...lots of brick and blocks in Pennsylvania.


Since the challenge was about number I thought instead of saving the very fun 1/2 I would actually use it. Once again I pulled out the "can't make art without it" favorite color of Jane Davies who teaches a fabulous class on painting and collage I took at last year's Art & Soul Retreat.   I mixed Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and Black Soot stain and black acrylic paint on my craft sheet and colored 'em up. I then used the stamps I made last month from my dies and dipped them in the same paint/stain concoction. I can't get over the way the fluid acrylic creates it's very own shadow effect.....

To finish up I used even more the paint/stain concoction with some Transparent Red Oxide fluid acrylic to color up the faucet, hung some chain, put a pit more on the top of the tag and I had been transported. After all the light colors I've been using it was fun to get grungy again.

Enjoy.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Foreign Jewelry

I am really beginning to like challenges. Somehow they lead me into doing things I've wanted to do, but just haven't gotten around to. This week on Grungy Monday 37 Linda chose the theme of Tim Holtz Wearable Art. Love it. A couple of years ago I made a charm bracelet out of some charms, Idealogy pieces and parts, fragments and whatnots. But I wasn't careful and kind of haphazard about the whole thing. It needed to be re-done. What better time than this??? AND as an added bonus, this weeks' Simon Says Stamp and Show theme was London, Paris or New York. Did I mention the charm bracelet was about Paris?? See. It was fate, karma, kismet, whatever you want to call it...


I had some map stickers I had picked up along the way and cut those to fit the fragments. One is backed in silver, one in clear tape, and the other has a different picture applied to the "back" side of the fragment and which is covered in Glossy Accents. I wanted the piece to feel like it was put together over time, maybe even from a Paris Flee Market. After I put it all together I realized the Eiffel Tower was missing so I popped in a little charm along with some beads for color. The dress represents the good shopping in Paris. I used Tim's type charms for the letters, and from Helga at ArtChix I cut a tiny little "spoil me". Because really, who doesn't want to be spoiled at least once and a while?


When I first met my husband we took a trip to Paris, and it really was a trip of a life time. I had wanted to go back again for so long, and it was a perfect vacation. Beautiful city, romantic trip, good weather, great food, laughter, shopping; so the heart and the muse token that says Lifetime reference that experience.


And when not adorning my wrist, it happily lives on top of this little light on my dresser, adding a bit of, well, something to the atmosphere.