2016 #2 A Little Bird Told Me {by Chris Cresswell}

 2016 Topic 2: Hearts

Hi everyone, Chris Cresswell here, joining you this evening with a post featuring, 'Squiggly Ink' stamps.

These were among the first PaperArtsy stamps I started collecting 'way back when', and have proved invaluable for the various birthday, valentine and engagement cards I have needed to create since then. They've even crept into my mini journaling!

I started my creative journey with stamping and, along with art journaling, it has remained a firm favourite. The wall hanging that I'm blogging tonight is really a tribute to one of my first craft tutors: Sarah Martin, who co-owned a local craft shop with the talented Tracy Evans: Craft Addicts. Sarah taught all the classes and introduced me to stamping (and a lot more) in her varied and creative workshops. This wall hanging that I have made for tonight's post was inspired by something similar that I made with Sarah. It was the first thing I thought of making when I chose these particular Squiggly Ink stamps to 'play' with for this theme.

Step One: The substrate I have used is a piece of corrugated cardboard, measuring 12" x 7", ripped in various places to reveal the corrugations, gessoed and then painted with Caribbean Sea. I then cut a piece of Ranger's Specialty stamping cardstock (12" x 4") and, using South Pacific and Limelight, I brayered over the card having first wrapped several rubber bands along the pad. This produces a resist effect. I then stamped the pretty trailing leaf vine from SIFF6 along the borders, mounted it twice and adhered it to the painted corrugated cardboard.

Step Two: Next, I used Tango to paint over three large wooden hearts. Then, using the Tim Holtz lattice work stencil I added Autumn Fire over the top. I broke up three lollipop sticks to roughly the same length, painted them with Caribbean Sea and stamped the trailing leaf vine once again across the length of each stick with Cobalt Archival ink.

Step Three: I then prepared the background papers for the paper hearts that would dangle on wire from the three wooden, painted hearts. I painted and stencilled two sheets of 240 gms Smoothy card with Caribbean Sea, Hey Pesto and Limelight. I then stamped various images from the stamp sets: SIFF1, 4, 5 and 6 in complementary Archival ink colours to complete the backgrounds.

Step Four: Now they were ready for punching out and assembling. I punched out 84 small hearts as I need six to fold and glue together to make each heart shaped flower (more detail about this on my blog). This gave me 14 heart flowers in all. Using Ranger's Alcohol inks, I coloured six, tiny, glass fragments from the Tim Holtz ideology range and stamped them with 'love' and 'birds' from inside the large heart stamp on SIFF1.

Step Five: The next step was to stamp out various birds and the butterfly from the four SIFF sets already mentioned, and colour them with my prismacolours. I stamped the butterfly three times on a Gelli print design I'd made previously with Fresco Chalks. Unfortunately, I can't remember which colours I'd used! Using Ten Second Studio tools and PaperArtsy's metal on card, I stamped the bird on the branch from SIFF4. I tried hard to remember how to 'puff up' the key elements of the image from Lin Brown's wonderful workshops, then coloured the whole image with alcohol inks.

Step Six: Now to assemble everything! I added PaperArtsy grunge paste, mixed with South Pacific, around the edges of the corrugated card and rubbed over it with Treasure Gold (Emerald). I found some scrim in my stash to tuck behind the painted wooden hearts, adhered these in place, glued the lollipop sticks on each heart then added all the cut out stamped images. I had already made holes in the top of each heart to insert one end of each piece of wire. I cut 6 lengths of wire ( no idea of the gauge I'm afraid) and rolled each one around a glue stick. I added two paper heart flowers and a tag to each length of wire then glued two lengths of wire to each wooden heart with silicone glue to fall either side of it.

So there you have it! I'm really pleased with the result although I now wish I had triple embossed each wooden heart or added crackle glaze to them. Ah well. I do hope you are encouraged to re-visit these gorgeous stamp sets and perhaps have a go at making your own paper heart flowers. Thank you to Sarah Martin for that technique!

Many thanks for joining me here tonight, 

Chris Cresswell 

@artmadnana on Twitter  

www.loopsandlines.blogspot.co.uk

What a wonderful idea Chris, its so nice to see the Squigglies again. I too have a bit of a soft spot for the Flora and Fauna set, love what you have done here! That bright and cheery colour scheme is gorgeous, and the hearts on the wire are totally brilliant!!! ~Leandra

We would love to see how you interpret this Hearts  topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #2: Hearts, on this page HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. 

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The 'Hearts' link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, February 7th. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

NB this link is open for 3 weeks instead of 2 - all will become clear why on Jan 31st!