Edgar Allen Poe Appreciation Blog Hop: Ghostly Edgar

Hi Poe lover! Thanks for stopping by to check out my offering for the Poe Appreciation Blog Hop 2017! (See below for how you can join the hop and win PRIZES!)

Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda are sponsoring this hop in conjunction with Poe's birthday and the release of some wonderful new stamp images...some of which are used in my project below. (Check out the pages of Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda to see the rest of the new stamp images!)

Here's my offering--a reversed-out effect made by embossing the images with platinum powder on dark paper, with special "text effect" on Poe's face:

The stamps I used were Edgar Allen Poe from Carmen's Veranda, Blackletter text from ATC Text Set 1 at Lost Coast Designs, the License Plate Alphabet Set from LCD, and the Left Zentangle Raven from LCD.

How I got the text effect on Poe: I inked up the image as usual, then pressed the blackletter text stamp onto Edgar's inky surface...then simply pressed the text stamp (which had picked up only the shape of his face) onto the paper. In other words, the text stamp had ink transferred to it only where it had come into contact with the "positive" image of the face. Cool, huh?

Thanks for your visit! I'd love to chat with you in the comment section below!

An InLinkz Link-up

'It's Snowing,' Said the Gryphon: Alice In Winterland

It's Alice in Winterland over at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity! What is that, you ask? It's an art challenge where you enter a piece that uses at least one rubber stamp (from any company) in order to be entered to win a gift certificate for MOAR RUBBER from the fabulous Lost Coast Designs! More details about the challenge are here.

To offer a little visual inspiration on the theme of Alice being in Winterland, I have here this little fantasy project for you:

First I stamped the "Alice and Gryphon" image from the Alice, Dodo, and Griffen set from Lost Coast Designs, then masked it off and stamped the Chessboard from the Chess Set under it. Then I made a mask for the chessboard and added it to the card.

Next I took some snowflakes from the Small Snowflake Set and stamped them in resist ink, which I dried with a heat gun. Then I broke out the Distress inks and chose three shades of blue to start working into the card with a mini ink blending tool. Below you can see the first snowflake start to emerge from the "sky"...

...And here I'm adding the second shade of blue to bring out the next snowflake from the resist. You see that I am inking right on top of the masks I made to cover the central images.

At this point, with the masks still on, I broke out some ink sprays and added blue and silver shimmer to the card. Alas, the shimmer really does not photograph, but it gave a nice frosty look to the piece in real life. I left a little "halo" of uncolored paper around one of the snowflakes for a bit of light effect.

With white and silver gel pens, I added some background dots and tiny snowflakes. I also stamped a few more snowflakes with the Snowflake Set and embossed them with glittery white embossing powder. (The glitter doesn't show up very well here either...you can see it mostly on the snowflake at the lower right.) Then I was ready to remove the masks to let the figures stand out from the wintry background...

Here is the piece with the masks removed, photographed at another angle, attempting to show more of the glitter and shimmer:

Lastly, in InDesign I composed a sentiment (taken very nearly as a quote from Alice in Wonderland!) and inserted it into a frame. I printed this out and mounted the art atop it. Et voila!

Can't wait to see what you make for the Alice in Winterland challenge! You have until midnight on January 31 to enter.  :)

New (Weird) Stamp Release at LCD!

Hi stampy friends! Just wanted to tell you about a release of some new stamp images over at Lost Coast Designs. These guys are WEIRD and I like 'em that way! Look:

Above is a detail shot so you can see the yummy bizarreness of these guys...You can see the whole piece I made below.

I started by brayering metallic and black acrylic paint onto paper, then stamping the squares from ATC Misc. Set 3 here and there for a little background interest.

Next I used the License Plate Alphabet to compose the word STRIDE and embossed it in gold.

Finally I stamped these three Aud Creatures and collaged 'em down onto the prepared background. Weird, yeah? I wouldn't have it any other way!

Click here to visit the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity to see some of our other designers' work featuring even more of these weirdos (there are eight stamps in the series!), plus other new releases including Kukla, Fran, and Ollie puppet stamps. :)  Enjoy the madness!

Oh, and if you have a chance, visit The Three Muses to see their challenge Words for 2017! My word for the year is STRIVE, but STRIDE was so close I thought I'd enter this piece in the challenge. Some gorgeous eye candy awaits you there--have a peek!