Darkroom Door

Artist Trading Card Swap video gallery: Art De Fleur

We've finished another ATC Swap video gallery, this time the Art De Fleur Swap which was from last year (yikes! So sorry for the delay, we're catching up with these videos as fast as we can!).

Hope you enjoy the video!! Thanks again to everyone who participated :) You are more than welcome to put this video up on your own blogs or share the link with your friends on Facebook & Twitter etc to show off your work!

If you'd like to take part in future ATC swaps, check out the side bar for the upcoming themes!

Click here for full details on how to take part!

Sydney Craft & Quilt Show wrap up

Happy Monday! Last week was a busy week here at Darkroom Door... I was Guest Artist at the Craft & Quilt Fair in Sydney, so that kept me busy and my hands inky all week! It was so much fun to demo stamping techniques to the show attendees. We also ran some make and takes, where participants got to use various stamps (Background Stamps, Word Blocks, Photo Stamps, stamps in tins...) along with Distress Inks, Viva Decor Precious Metal Colour paints, Distress Stains and many other tools and supplies.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to see what I was up to. It was great to chat to so many people and share ideas about rubber stamping! Here's a couple of photos of different things I was demoing during the show...

Creating backgrounds with the new Distress Stains and stamping over the top with Word Block Stamps. Backgrounds created just by sponging the Distress Inks looks great too:

These Word Block stamps are so fabulous (if I do say so myself)! They look great with the crayon resist technique too!

Colouring with Marvy Le Plumes... bringing these cupcakes to life:

Look how shimmery the Precious Metal Colour looks on this tag below:

I showed a few different techniques with the Precious Metal Colour, but haven't got any other photos to show you unfortunately. They were a real hit though - everyone loved seeing them in action!

Thanks again to everyone who stopped by the booth, and a big thanks to Fiona Carter who came in to help out with some of the make and takes! Here's a quick pic of us together:

I'll be doing the same at the Melbourne and Canberra Craft & Quilt shows, so if you're in those areas, I'd love to see you at the show! For dates and details, check out the events page.

Stay inky,

Rachel

Guest Artist: Jowilna Nolte Part 2

We have some fabulous projects to share with you today from our Guest Artist Jowilna Nolte... take a look at these:

Art De Fleur Notebook:

Details from Jowilna:
For this little notebook i used a combination of the Art de Fleur stamps, filmstrips and wordstrips. The image was stamped in black versafine ink on plain white cardstock and inked around the edges using Frayed Burlap Distress ink. I then covered the entire image with a thin lace like japanese paper using gel medium. Once the gel medium was dry I spritzed the image using heirloom gold perfect pearl mist. The image was trimmed to size, matted onto pink cardstock and then adhered to the front of the notebook. For the filmstrip on the left I cut a piece long enough to run the length. I then added some art de fleur images to the filmstrip. The images were sanded around the edges and the centre image was raised using foam strips and glazed with glossy accents. I finished off the notebook using a word and some pretty ribbon. The notebook was made from scratch using pretty floral scrapbooking paper. A nice gift for mothers day or a special friend.
 
Products used for this project:
Art de Fleur stamps, filmstrips and word strips.

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Full Of Wonder layout:

Details from Jowilna:
For this layout I used the alphastrips to create a pretty corner on my enlarged photo. I love how words and letters change the look of a project into something special, and these alphastrips are really very versatile. I cut the strips the length I required and lightly sanded the edges before inking them with creamy brown chalk ink. The stamped sentiment from the art de fleur vol 2 set was stamped in white stazon ink and left to air dry really well. Once dry I used a combination of scattered straw, broken china and frayed burlap distress ink to add colour. The white ink resists the ink and forms a really beautiful effect. Some quick and easy ideas to spruce up your scrapbooking into something special. Remember that you don’t always have to re-invent the wheel – adding technique in small unexpected ways often makes for a stunning project.
 
Products used in this project: Alpha strips and Art de fleur vol 2 stamp.

Stunning projects Jowilna! Thank you so much for being a Guest Artist here at Darkroom Door!! It has been wonderful to share your projects here with our blog readers. Thanks again!

For all of our blog readers... don't forget to check out Jowilna's blog to see more of her amazing talent!

Guest Artist: Jowilna Nolte

Name: Jowilna Nolte

Zodiac sign: Aquarius

Lives: Hartbeespoort, South Africa

Known for: Not sweating the big stuff. Working with scraps of paper on cards and layouts. The stuff people throw away is what inspires me most to be creative with.

Blog: www.jowilnanolte.blogspot.com

Loves to: take photos, travelling, and messing around with paper and inks.

Loves to create: with stamps and unusual elements such as old postage stamps and recycled papers.

Favourite Darkroom Door product: stamps of course!! The detail and quality is amazing and the designs classy!

Let’s say you’ve been invited to come into our darkroom for a day. What would you bring with you? My camera and a notebook! There’s so much to learn from someone like Rachel and I won’t want to miss out on anything I can learn and also to have some creative time with the awesome darkroom team. I would of course take lots of photos to scrap and document such an awesome occasion. All that is left to do now is to save up and book a flight :)

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We are so excited to have Jowilna as a Guest Artist here at Darkroom Door! She has created several scrapbook pages to share with us, let's take a look at the first one...

Details from Jowilna:

I used a combination of the house stamps from the home sweet home set to create some dimension. I stamped the images in vintage sepia and black ink respectively and cut them out. They are grouped together and raised using foam tape. I just love how the combination of the stamped images, stamped sentiment and photochip worked together on this layout.
 
Products used for this layout:
Darkroom Door photochips wilderness collection
Darkroom Door home sweet home stamp set.

Fabulous work Jowilna!

We have more of Jowilna's pages to share with you tomorrow... so be sure to check back and take a look :)

Craft & Quilt Fair - Sydney

This week I will be a Guest Artist at the Craft & Quilt Fair in Sydney, which is open 9am-5pm from Wednesday 22nd June through to Sunday 26th June.

I will be demonstrating and running make & takes with Darkroom Door Rubber Stamps (including the new Word Black Stamps and Background Stamps!), Viva Decor products and Ranger products! It's going to be a fun filled week and I have lots of different techniques and ideas to share with you!

My booth is in Aisle J, which is just inside the front entrance.

Hope to see you at the show!

Cards in our mail box

We've received some beautiful cards in our mail box lately with the ATC swaps... take a look at these...

Created by Belinda Spencer using the Butterflies stamp set and Paris Vol 1 Wordstrip:

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Created by Sandra De Marchi using the Wildflowers Vol 1 stamp set and Wilderness Wordstrip:

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Created by Vicky Fernando using the Fashionable stamp set:

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Created by Robyn Wood using the Home Sweet Home stamp set for the main images, and the background forest is a stamp from Wilderness Vol 1 stamp set:

Thank you so much for sending these to us - I adore them!! It's so wonderful to see how you are all using Darkroom Door stamps, and I love seeing how you use different stamps together or combinations of wordstrips and stamps. Very inspiring!

Hope you all have a relaxing and inky Sunday!

Baby Word Block Card

Creative Team member Godelieve Tijskens has created a beautiful card using the new Baby Word Block stamp!

How cute does that teddy bear look layered on top! The bear is from the Hello Baby Vol 1 stamp set. Godelieve's also used the Dots Background Stamp for the background. 

Love the colours too! See more photos of this card here.

Thanks for sharing this with us Godelieve!!

Newest Creative Team Member: Teresa Abajo!

We have some BIG news to share with you today!!! We are so delighted to welcome Teresa Abajo to the Darkroom Door Creative Team!

Teresa was a Guest Artist for us back in 2010. She has also created various projects for us to display at trade shows and to showcase on the blog here. Teresa also teaches at Little Bits and Scraptacular in Melbourne along with other shows and events. Her artwork is published regularly in magazines, including Take Ten and Somerset Studio by Stampington. We have always loved Teresa's artwork... and not only that, she's a fabulous fun loving person too. Whenever we see her at shows, she's always having a laugh and fun to be around!

We are so pleased to welcome Teresa to the team, we are sure all of our blog readers will be happy to see more of Teresa's work on here soon too :)

Please help us welcome Teresa to the team by leaving a comment here on the blog! We'll throw in a prize too - one lucky commentor will win one of the new Background Stamps!

Love Letters ATC Swap Details!



The ATC swap theme for June is 'Love Letters Collection' which means you can use any image or rubber stamp from the Darkroom Door Love Letters Collection to create your ATC's.

The deadline is 30th June.

Click here for all the info on how to participate.

Please remember our new address:
Darkroom Door
PO Box 8039
Tumbi Umbi NSW 2261
Australia

(As a side note... we're collecting the postage stamps you use on your envelopes for our family stamp album and for charities, so we love it when you use stamps (instead of printed postage labels) where possible! Or if you have any used stamps that you don't need, you're welcome to include them in with your swap too if you'd like to help out! Thanks so much! So far we have donated over 1500 used postage stamps just from these swaps alone! Every little bit helps :)

Looking forward to seeing your creations!

Please email me if you have any questions: (info @ darkroomdoor.com)

Unlock the artist within!

Love Letters Mini Canvas

Creative Team member Michelle Loffler has created a cute mini canvas using the Love Letters Collection and Viva Decor Precious Metal Colour:

Michelle's covered the canvas in Turquoise Precious Metal Colour, then collaged various papers and laces on top before adding the Love Letters Montage image and Love Letters Wordstrip. Some metal embellishments from Tim Holtz Idea-ology range

Just gorgeous!!! Thanks for sharing this with us Michelle :)