Add Some Texture - Simon Says Stamp Guest Designer

This may be my favourite theme of all the October posts for which I've been in the Designer Spotlight at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this month... let's Add Some Texture.  And with Halloween fast approaching, my texture definitely has a spooky quality to it!

As always, it's been a delight to be part of the inspiration team at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this month, even as a temporary member!  

I'm so grateful to the team for inviting me, and it's been a joy playing alongside the fabulous creatives and crafters on the regular Design Team, especially this week as we Add Some Texture!

As ever, Simon Says Stamp are sponsoring the challenge, with a lucky prize draw to win a voucher for a shopping spree in their fabulous online store.

I love adding texture to journal pages, especially when I'm working in one of my altered hardback books. 

There aren't really any making-of photos in this post - though of course I'll talk you through what I did with some close-ups... but you'll be able to watch the whole process over on my YouTube channel from Wednesday.  (I'll come back and add a link here when it's live.)

So make a note in your diary, and you'll be able to see the layers of texture building on this page spread in all the detail you could possibly want!

For now, let me share some of the steps and the products I used to achieve them.

It all started with a layer of gesso to soften the book text and prepare the pages for the wet media to come.  I glued in some scraps of my PaperArtsy Printed Tissue PT08, leaving plenty of wrinkles, plus bits hanging over the edges of the page... lots of texture already.

Next, I used the Tim Holtz Shatter stencil to ink some cobwebs into the corners using Pumice Stone Distress Ink.  The little spider comes from the Mini Halloween 3 stamp set - though he had migrated onto my Apothecary set!  And the little bits of script detail are the text stamp from Apothecary, one of my all-time favourite script stamps.

I glued down some frayed linen ribbon and strips of Idea-ology Mummy Cloth next to Shakespeare (!), and used a spatula to add Ranger Distress Opaque Crackle Paste in various places.

Obviously, you need to leave that to crackle and do its thing.  Once it was dry, I added Pumice Stone DI and Distress Crayon over it to highlight the cracks.

Time for some collaging...  I had some snippets left over from the Add Some Text project in week two... typewriter letters made with the large Typewriter Embossing Folder and Black Kraft Stock.  I thought they would be great elements within the collaging, and also add some more dimension and texture.

Otherwise, I grabbed bits and bobs from various packets of Idea-ology Halloween ephemera that I've collected over the years - both paper and metal ephemera.  

I can't say for certain what came from which edition, but you can find this year's collection here (and of course you can also buy the packs individually).

And there's one of the Halloween Paper Dolls too, of course.  (Again, she's from a while back.)

She's the fortune teller who might take a hand in how your fate unfolds by using one of her poisonous potions on you.  You'll hear more about all that in the video when it comes out on Wednesday.

Once again, there are a few of the Curator Snippets labels in the mix... I don't know where I would be without them!

I think that's about your lot!  It's certainly my lot for this month in the Designer Spotlight for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.  Head over there to see what the Design Team have got in store for you - it's bound to be inspiring.

They'll pick out a few favourite projects at the end of the week, and one randomly-drawn winner will go shopping at Simon Says Stamp with a prize voucher.  All you need to do is Add Some Texture!

I hope you've enjoyed this spooky little detour into the pages of my altered book journal.  And don't forget to pop back on Wednesday to get the direct link for the process video.  Of course, if you already follow my Words and Pictures YouTube channel, then you'll spot it when it pops up anyway!!

Thank you so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll have a wonderful week adding texture to whatever you are making.  Happy crafting, all!

There are poisons that blind you, and poisons that open your eyes.
August Strindberg

BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
Ambrose Bierce, from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Counting the Twelve Days...

Apologies all... the days before Christmas got away from me, with all the running around and preparations. I'm sure you know what I mean!  These quiet days after all the hustle and bustle are my favourites - curled up by the Christmas tree, with candlelight, music and good books - time for hibernation and reflection. 

But I did keep up my tag-making over the days of Advent, so I'm here to share those creations in a couple more batches.  Even though we're done counting down to Christmas, instead we're counting the twelve days of Christmas.  Today is the fifth day so, instead of five gold rings, here are some more tags!

The amazing Tim Holtz Layered Snowflake die, and some of my own PaperArtsy text stamps creating detail in the icy backgrounds:

Celebrating some classic Christmas films and film songs - hence the film strip ribbon.  The word stickers tell you what you need to know:

Another of my PaperArtsy EAB28 Juniper berry backgrounds, with some more festive collaging:

Lots of texture in that background, which includes Uncharted Mariner, and some of my favourite Holiday Greens dies in action:

I made several of these starry snowy backgrounds in some mixed media playtime.  Again, it's Uncharted Mariner for the most part (which was fast becoming my colour of the season by this point!)... that beautiful turquoise blue has a gorgeous wintry look when paired with white:

Fussy-cutting is not my strong point, but it's much easier when you leave a white frame - and that works so well for winter.  It was definitely worth the effort to get these sprigs of my PaperArtsy EAB29 Mistletoe layered in with the Tim Holtz greenery (over some more starry snowy backgrounds):

I had no idea where these two were going when I started, and at one point I thought I'd completely overdone it with the layered backgrounds, but it all started to work again as soon as I positioned the two Paper Dolls.  In fact they became some of my favourites of the whole countdown:

That's enough for one go... I'll be back with the rest of the collection before the 12 Days are up (6th January), I promise!

Hope you are all enjoying a peaceful, happy time - and that those of you affected by the winter storms are staying safe and warm.

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.
Winston Churchill

Christmas Countdown Tags Part III

Hello all, and a very merry Christmas to you all.  And if that's not something you celebrate, then I simply wish you the warmest and cosiest of times tucked away from the winter weather.

I'm here with the final instalment of my December tags.  I had planned on 24, which would have been three nice even batches of eight each, but in the end I went for just one more to make 25 in total.

So today you get nine tags... a Christmas bonus!

I hope that, however you are celebrating, you will enjoy days of peace and contentment, and I hope that 2022 will treat us all a little more kindly.  Stay safe, stay well, stay creative all.

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.

Agnes M. Pharo

Freshly cut Christmas trees smelling of stars and snow and pine resin – inhale deeply and fill your soul with wintry night.

John J. Geddes

Encore - Let there be Light

Hello all!  I’m here with a seasonal encore post. Others call them throwbacks, but I’m of a theatrical mindset, so  “Encore!” it is. I created these sparkling candle jars, decked with winter foliage, for the Destination Inspiration post at A Vintage Journey seven years ago (yup, seven!), when I was on the design team there.

Sadly, the challenge blog is no longer active, but that’s no reason not to enjoy the transformation here at Words and Pictures, where they’ve never been shared in full. I hope you enjoy them. Here’s what I wrote all those years ago, back in December 2014...

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Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here with you at Destination Inspiration today.  And, as befits a staging post on the journey, it's a chance to pause and put your feet up with a cup of coffee.  I hope you'll find my offering inspiring somewhere along the line... either from the basic simple idea at the root or from the festive experimenting that went on from there.  It's not really so much a lightbulb moment as the gentle glow of candlelight, spreading its beams on a wintry night!

I've ended up with three new additions to the candlelight fiesta we celebrate with round our way (we always have many, many candles lit at Christmas) each one with a slightly different finish and texture if you look closely.

So that's where I ended up, but I started with the simple idea of covering jam jars with Idea-ology Tissue Wrap.  I love the tissue wrap but, often when I use it, it ends up under layers of stuff, not really getting to strut its stuff.  So I started from wanting to put it front and centre and, what's more, give it an inner glow.

I took various jars from the hoard I've collected, cut pieces of tissue wrap approximately to size, and used slightly watered down multi-medium to glue them to the jars.  (The added moisture just helped with moulding the wrap.)

At the bottom I left enough tissue wrap to spare...

... so that I could fold it inwards.  It pretty much took care of that nice neat pleating effect by itself as I pressed it down.

And at the top I left another spare centimetre (ish) so that I could fold it down into the jar rim for a nice neat finish.

I tied twine tightly around the top while the glue was drying, just to hold it all in place.

For all that my crafty creations are layered and textured, my tastes in home decor are fairly simple and minimal so - for my money - that's pretty much a done deal.  I love how the tea light candles glow, lighting up the tissue wrap, and the twine gives a rustic finish.  A really easy, decorative candle holder, with the tissue wrap taking centre stage.

But it's nearly Christmas, and I felt I should pop a bit more inspiration into your stockings!  So I decided to experiment with zhuzhing them up a bit, each in their own individual way.

Here we go...

Jar 1 got a coat of Rock Candy Crackle Paint to start with, quite a thin layer in places so that the crackle would be quite subtle.  I left that to dry and set off into the next experiment.  (Not much point in a picture which would literally be watching paint dry, so on we go...)

Jar 2 got another coat of multi-medium over the top of the tissue wrap, and then I poured Rock Candy Dry Glitter all over it.

And again, as far as I'm concerned, you could stop right there if you wanted to!

Jar 3 got the Ranger Texture Paste option, applied through the wonderful Holly Bough Layering Stencil.  I used some tissue tape just to secure the stencil while I did it, though I also held on quite firmly at the same time (oh, for a third hand...).

Since it didn't quite meet all the way round the circumference of my jar, I had to wait for that first application to dry before filling in the gap.

So far so good... now for some colour.  I grabbed some of my new Distress Stain Sprays (how happy I am they exist!).  Evergreen Bough, Iced Spruce, Tumbled Glass, Broken China and the fabulous Brushed Pewter all play a part here (as well as a not-pizza box from a crafty delivery!).

Since tissue wrap has a pretty non-porous coating, you sometimes have to help it along when applying colour.

I was expecting a sort of Cracked Stains (Tim's technique) effect with the crackle paint, and that's what I got.  After all, these are Distress Stains, just being applied differently.  And it was great fun letting the inks run and blend into and over the cracks.

Gotta love the gleam of that Brushed Pewter.

The Dry Glitter was also fine.  It takes colour well itself and, with the coat of multi-medium holding it in place, the sprays took really well.  In fact, they sank in really quickly - unlike with the crackle, you don't get much drippage/blending play.  But again, it's a wow when the light hits it.

But for Jar 3, I knew I might need to give the tissue wrap a bit of extra tooth before spritzing, so I coated the whole thing - texture paste and all - with Clear Gesso before applying the colour.  I didn't try without the Clear Gesso, so I can't tell you what that would have done - but having it there certainly seemed to do the trick.

Again there was lots of drippage and blending play as I applied the layers of colour and of course the Ranger Texture Paste is specifically designed to play nicely with Distress Inks, so that was fine.

Of course with all that spritzing and dripping there was quite a lot of leftover ink going spare so I quickly grabbed a few Manila Tags and did some mopping up, as you saw in the not-pizza box photo.  So now I have some ready-to-play backgrounds awaiting more attention, though I knew I had a use for the really inky three.  With all that co-ordinating colour and beautiful silvery sheen, these had to play a part here.

I ran them through the BigShot with the fabulous Holiday Greens Thinlits - so in love with the delicate fir fronds.

I used some of the wax paper kindly sent me by Marci from the States - before they started stocking it around the place over here.  It really helps to make it easier to get delicate die-cuts out of the dies.  But of course you also end up with really gorgeous additional die-cuts - very delicate, deliciously frosted - and so they also got pressed into service!

I tied the bunches of greenery onto my jars with Crinkle Ribbon, and did a bit of gentle additional spritzing (adding Bundled Sage into the mix this time).

I didn't want too much colour on the ribbons - a touch of white never hurts at Christmas - and the sprays also gave the greenery a bit of extra detail too.

The final touch was to add a few frosted berries, clustered around the ribbon knot, and I decided I was done.

I'm very happy with the results (even though I will definitely be making myself a few more of the very simple first versions for use throughout the year!)...

The crackle is subtle, but pretty cool I think...

The shimmer of the Dry Glitter delights me far more than I expected - not being much of a glitter type in the general way of things!

And I just love that Holly Bough texture - such a great stencil, and the texture really benefits from a little extra dusting of Silver Treasure Gold wax.

It's never easy to capture the effect of candlelight on camera.  You always get a really intense light from the candle flame, and never really see the diffuse glow filling the whole of the jars that you get in real life.

But I've tried to share a little of the effect you get with these, whether through the crackle...

Or candlelight on glitter...

Or through the texture...

And always with the lovely text and images of the tissue wrap coming through from underneath.

They also look great lit by candlelight from the outside, so I gave a little spritz of Brushed Pewter to an already teal-green coloured nightlight holder, and added that to the collection for a really festive look.

I hope that's given you lots of ideas to play with, and that you'll have candlelight glowing in your homes this festive season. 

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Thanks so much for stopping by today - I'm so grateful to have my laptop back, repaired and ready to play again.  Maybe I'll even manage some of that long-promised visiting!  Happy crafting all.

The pine tree seems to listen, the fir tree to wait: and both without impatience: - they give no thought to the little people beneath them devoured by their impatience and their curiosity.

Friedrich Nietzsche