Darkroom Door

Mother's Day project using Photochips!

Hello! Teresa here with a little project I made for Mother's Day.

 

It's a wall hanging, and I'll be giving this to my mum so it can brighten up her room in the nursing home.

 

Here's a close up so you can see the detail:

Totally in love with black, white and yellow at the moment. It's such a cheery colour combo!

I started with a 6x6 square of corrugated cardboard. I stripped a layer off to expose the corrugations, and gave it a lick of white paint.

Then I cut a piece of Basic Grey Half Penny patterned paper down to size and stamped Godelieve's Carved Flowers along the bottom with Wild Honey Distress Ink. After distressing the edges of this piece, I applied a dollop of gesso to the top corners, and stamped Flower Garden Background stamp into the wet gesso. Once it was dry, I attached this piece to the corrugated cardboard and stuck a doily to the centre.

I took a Photochip from the Viva La Flora pack, and distressed the edges. Then I took my Tim Holtz Craft Scratcher and added a border to it before stamping the corners with Scratches Background. I then adhered this to the centre of the doily.

I finished the piece off by embellishing with flowers, cotton gauze and some butterflies from the Wings Stamp Set. I coloured these in with my Wild Honey Distress Marker, then added some Stickles here and there to help it sparkle.

I'm hoping my mum will like it enough to hang on her wall (or I'll just have to hang it up high where she can't reach to take it down LOL).

Thanks for visiting today.

Teresa

Using Background Stamps on scrapbook layouts

Background Stamps are so versatile! They come in a variety of patterns and designs that you can mix and match to suit your project. Perfect for creating your own patterned paper, making embellishments, decorating tags and more. Today I want to share some ideas on how to use Background Stamps on your scrapbook layouts.

Idea #1: Creating patterned paper

One of the easiest ways of using Background Stamps is to create your own patterned paper. This means you can use ink colours that co-ordinate with your photos and layout to make the perfect pattern to accent your photos.

Materials:
Cardstock: Bazzill Basics
Background Stamps: Darkroom Door DDBS006 Harlequin & DDBS019 Flower Garden
Rubber Stamps: Darkroom Door DDRS072 Leaves, DDRS036 Enjoy Life
Ink Pads: Ranger Archival Olive & Sienna, Ranger Distress Ink Frayed Burlap
Punch: Fiskars Threaded Lace, McGill Label Holder
Twine

Idea #2: Stamp resist tags

Another great way to use Background Stamps is with a stamped resist technique! This layout combines lots of different background designs that are co-ordinated together by using only two different coloured inkpads. It gives the layout lots of interest and texture!

Materials:
Cardtsock: Bazzill Basics
Background Stamps: Darkroom Door DDBS008 Weathered Stripes, DDBS010 Criss Cross, DDBS012 Scratches, DDBS022 Polka Dots, DDBS005 French Script, DDBS020 Chevron
Rubber Stamps: Darkroom Door DDRS053 Seaside Vol 1
Ink Pads: Distress Embossing Ink, Archival Cobalt
Distress Stains: Frayed Burlap, Broken China
Tags: Size 4 Buff
Clear Embossing Powder
Twine

Idea #3: Create textured embellishments

Background Stamps are also useful to create small textured embellishments. For this layout I combined Viva décor Ferro texture paste with Darkroom Door Background stamps to create two textured chipboard hearts. It’s a simple technique that adds lots of dimension to your projects!

Materials:
Paper: Crate Paper
Cardstock: Bazzill Basics
Chipboard: Heidi Swapp Alphabet
Rubber Stamps: Inkadinkadoo Alphabet
Background Stamps: Darkroom Door DDBS010 Criss Cross, DDBS012 Scratches, DDBS005 French Script
Paint: Viva Décor Precious Metal Colour: Purple, Pistachio
Texture Paste: Viva Décor Ferro Steel
Sizzix Heart Die

You can see how to create these embellishments in a video tutorial here!

These layouts with full instructions were published in a recent issue of Scrapbooking Memories magazine.

Hope it gives you some more ideas on how you can use your Background Stamps!

Happy stamping!

- Rachel

Photo Stamp card ideas

Over the past couple of days I've had a lot of fun playing with the new Photo Stamps! As usual, these new Photo Stamps were created using my own photos taken in various parts of the world. I've explained a little about the history of each image below.

English Pub - Stamped with Archival Jet Black onto Basic Grey paper. As the name suggests, this is a pub from England, burtsing with flowers at the top, chalk board signs out the front and old wooden doors. I love the window frames in this pub too! Makes me want to go inside, sit by the window, order a bistro meal and enjoy an ale or two with some friends :)

Star Flowers - Stamped with Archival Jet Black onto white cardstock. Coloured with Marvy Le Plume Pens, using a blender pen to blend the colour. I love Star Flowers (also known as Pentas)! I had one of these in the garden at our previous house, it bloomed red starflowers. So pretty and the leaves were so textured. This image was created with old sheet music and old postcards with the star flowers laid on top.

Arches - Stamped onto old text book paper with Archival Jet Black ink. Quote is from the Gothic Arches stamp set, mounted inside a Vintaj frame. Old key is from my own stash. This image is from my Malaysia trip. I photographed many old doors and windows while I was there. I love this set of four, all the same shape yet slightly different. This stamp would also look great if you cut the door open so they fold back to see what's inside :)

Bicycle - Created a background with Lake Mist, Pebble and Juniper Alcohol Inks. Stamped over the top with Archival Jet Black ink. Attached a fabric label, stamped 'ride' using Alphabet Medley stamps and stamped it using Espresso Adirondack Paint Dabber. I found this bicycle in one of my favourite cities - Amsterdam! (I think the canal gives it away ;) Let me tell you this - it's easy finding bicycles in Amsterdam, but not so easy finding one that's by itself with a perfect backdrop, lined up just how I wanted. Sure I could have gotten my own bike and set it up myself, but I also believe that the perfect scenario will present itself eventually. I like my photos to be 'real life'. I walked around Amsterdam for 3 days before I came across this perfect scene. So worth it, makes me want to jump on the bike and ride!

Old Car - Stamped using Archival Jet Black ink onto Basic Grey paper. Added some corrugated board for texture. I rubbed Walnut Stain Distress Ink over the edges and ridges. This old car resides in central NSW, Australia. It's not too far from my mother's farm, where a few old Holden's have found their resting place in bush paddocks. I used a panoramic camera for this shot, tilted slightly to give a rounded earth look for the horizon. A country homestead in the background adds some country charm to this image!

Birthday Cake - Stamped with Archival Jet Black ink onto white gloss cardstock, then coloured with Marvy Le Plume pens. I use a Marvy Blender pen to blend out the colours and create a softer tone of colour. 'Celebrate' is from the All Occasions stamp set. It's always a pleasure to create sweet stamps for you guys - of course we get to eat the cake after the shoot and wish we could share it with all of you!! We have a fabulous bakery near by that makes the best cakes. This one has chocolate sprinkles all around the sides with beautiful vanilla frosting on top. The cake stand is an heirloom from my Grandmother, I've always loved the intricate design and I'm so pleased I was able to use it in a stamp!

So... I hope these cards give you a little inspiration! It's always a lot of fun to sit and play with the new stamps, seeing them come to life. There's lots of other ways these Photo Stamps can be used of course, and we'll be sharing more ideas from the Creative Team soon!

- Rachel

Christmas Sentiments stamp set ideas!

It's that time of year again... the silly season is just about here, so for those who celebrate Christmas, we have some long Christmas Sentiments for you! Our original String Senitments proved to be a HUGE hit and we had many many requests for a Christmas version. So here it is - just for you!

The great thing about these stamps is they are long enough to go across a whole 6" card front. Just like I've done here:

I've simply stamped the sentiment with Archival Vermillion ink onto the almond card and sponged around the edges. The images are from the Dear Santa Montage sheet. Distressed those and attached them to the card. Very easy to mass produce!

Here's a card from Godelieve showing how they can be used:

Godelieve has also used the smaller stamps as one long strip too. These little stamps can be used just like this, or you can cut them apart so you can use them individually. Your choice :)

Here's some more info from Godelieve on this card:  I stamped with Versamark ink on smooth cardstock (Bristol from Canson) and heat embossed with clear.  Sponged with Peeled Paint and Barn Door Distress Ink.  White torn edges.

Read more about Godelieve's card here.

The other cool thing you can do with this stamp set is use the words across tags and other smaller items. They become so versatile when you can also use them for smaller projects too!

I've just stamped the sentiment across a smaller tag, and used it as a gift tag.

For this next tag, I've just used 'Merry' instead of the complete Merry Christmas. There's quite a few sentiments that you could single out words with.

Goelieve has another cool idea... she's stamped the sentiments onto clothes pegs! Check these out:

Details from Godelieve:
I used Ranger Archival Ink #Olive to ink up the stamps, and rolled the clothespins over the stamps.
A gingham bow adds a festive touch. The clothespins can be used to decorate the tree, the table, a napkin, or as gift bag toppers.

Hope you like these ideas with the Christmas Sentiments! Who knew this stamp set was so versatile?

Click here to find a Darkroom Door stockist near you!

Tags stamp set ideas!

Today we'd like to share some ideas using the Tags stamp set! There's 8 different tag sizes in this set, along with a To and From if you'd like to use them for gift tags. But there are SO many ways to use these tags, let's take a look...

They can be used on scrapbook pages:

We're so excited to share some projects created by Guest Artist Connie Mercer!

From Connie: On this one I stamp two large tags out in brown ink and then adhered them together at both ends.  I folded the tags in half and made a closure for the tag {which I will use as a journal space} with two buttons and some twine.  The layout shows in closed and I also sent a picture of it opened.

They can be used on cards and for gift tags:

 From Connie: My idea on this was to make something that would be useful and a cool gift ( especially around the Holidays).  I made a card using the Dear Santa montage, word strip, and the tag stamp set.  Inside the card I used a large safety pin, as the holder of the small gift tags, and attached them to it.  This is a great teacher's gift!

They can be used for mail art:

 

They can be used as larger gift tags or decorations:

So... there's just a few different ideas! Here's some other things I'd like to share about the Tags stamp set:

* Each circle tag fits a circle punch, so you don't need to cut around it. The small tag fits a 1" circle punch, the medium tag fits a 1 1/2" circle punch and the larger tag fits a 1 5/8" circle punch. All of these punches that are pictured here are by EK Success and they are what I used to punch out these circles.

* The inside circles on the shipping tags also fit smaller circle hand punches, so you can easily make them into 'real' tags. The small shipping tag fits a 1/8" punch, a 1/4" punch fits the middle shipping tag and a 3/8" punch fits the largest shipping tag. If you change the punches and use larger ones, you can create circles like in the mail art sample above.

I hope this gives you some ideas on what we had in mind for these Tags stamps! They really are so versatile, they're a real staple stamp set to have in your collection :)

Click here if you're looking for a Darkroom Door stockist!

 

Garden Inchies stamp set ideas!

The Garden Inchies stamp set has been one of the best sellers from our latest stamp release! You may recognise some of the artwork as we've used our flower, trees and garden stamp sets to create this complete set of Garden Inchies! Each square is an inch in size (just in case the name didn't give that away) and fits perfectly into a 1" square punch! So it's super easy to stamp and punch them out if you need to!

Here's some fab ideas on how they can be used:

From Michelle: Stamped the inchies onto black cardstock using silver ink.

From Rachel: I stamped the inchies in Archival Pale Ochre, French Ultramarine and Veridian inks. Punched them out with a 1" punch and adhered to the card!

From Michelle: Stamp three of the Garden Inchies on co-ordinating patterned paper and cut out. Mount on contrasting patterned paper and then attach to background patterned paper with foam tape. Stamp the String Sentiment on background patterned paper and emboss with clear embossing powder. Attach the 'celebrate' sentiment from the Love Letters Wordstrip.

Here's some ideas for ATC's:

From Michelle: I stamped the Garden Inchies on green patterned paper and then heat embossed them using the Sparkle Embossing Powder. It's so it takes on the colour of your ink with this lovely sparkle. Using a scrap of mesh I mounted the Inchies, the centre one mounted with foam tape for dimension. The flower centres are micro beads. Added some Prague Vol 2 Wordstrips and Voila!

 

Hope you've enjoyed these projects using the Garden Inchies!

Click here to find a Darkroom Door stockist near you!

Bold Blossoms stamp set ideas!

Spring has sprung here in Australia and we have some Bold Blossoms to share with you today! These blossoms were found in our garden, perfect for some silhouette flower images! There's loads of stamps in this set - 13 in total! There's some nice big bold flowers and also some smaller versions, perfect for ATC's and gift tags etc!

Let's take a look at some projects...

From Michelle: I stamped the Bold Blossom stamp on some patterned paper and heat embossed with embossing powder. Then I masked the image and stamped the French Script for the background. I embossed the sentiment on a sepearate piece of patterned paper then rounded all the corners and ran the ink over the edges. I sanded the edges and surface of the Love Letters Montage image too.

Here's a card from Teresa:

From Teresa: I inked the flower stamp using Victorian Velvet and Old Paper distress inks. I coloured the lace with Old Paper too. The butterfly is punched with a Martha Stewart punch, and the pearls were coloured with a Copic marker to match the colour scheme.

From Michelle: I stamped the blossom flower with Monarch Orange ink then sprinkled a little glitter around the edges.

An ATC from Michelle:

From Michelle: I stamped the Scratches background on patterned paper with a second generation impression and then stamped the Bold Blossoms over the top. I simply outlined the blossoms with a felt tipped black pen using a variety of lines and dots then finished with the Venetian Wordstrip which is matted on purple cardstock and then attached with foam tape.

From Rachel: I love this big flower stamp! It was stamped with Vermillion Archival ink a couple of times without re-inking to get the shadow effect. Then added some Spring Flower Soft around the flower. It's so much fun to use, here's a close up photo so you can see the texture:

Lots of fun!

Hope you've enjoyed all of these Bold Blossoms projects!!

Click here to find a Darkroom Door stockist near you!

Just My Style stamp set ideas!

Today I wanted to share with you some projects using the new Just My Style stamp set! You might think this stamp set is similar to the 1920's Chic stamp set, being that there's 3 ladies in each set, but they both come from different era's. Obviously 1920's Chic is from the 20's, whereas the Just My Style set is from the 40's/50's. Along with that, the quotes are a bit more sassy in this set with a little humour thrown in :) Certainly makes for a fun stamp set! Here's some projects using these stamps...

I stamped the image with Archival Jet Black ink, then coloured in with Marvy Le Plume II pens. The quote fitted nicely onto a small white tag. Wrapped the card with wide ribbon, tied it all together then mounted the image on top.

The Marvy's I used were: #46 Crimson Lake, #104 Caribbean Blue, #43 Brilliant Yellow. All of them were applied with the Marvy Blender pen to soften the colours and blend the ink around. 

Here's a different lady...

I used Basic Grey tags from their Sweet Pea Alyssa Collection and simply stamped the image and quote onto the tag with Archival Jet Black ink. The tags already have brown edging to them so I didn't ink the edges of those, but I inked up the background paper with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink so it matched the tags. Adhered it all to the card to complete!

I love their outfits in this stamp set! Really easy to colour too, I imagine those of you who love Copics will have a lot of fun with these ladies!

Hope you enjoyed these cards!

Hearts Stamp set ideas!

Today we are sharing some ideas for using the Hearts stamp set! This set consists of lots of different styled hearts in all different sizes... from simple stitched hearts through to collage flourish hearts! Loads of different ways you can use these, and of course they're suitable for Valentine's Day, wedding and engagement projects, Mother's Day, heart embellishments on scrapbook pages, or any other projects that requires a little heart :)

Onto some projects...

From Rachel: This card was really easy to make, I just stamped some of the hearts onto white cardstock using Archival Vermillion ink, then trimmed around each heart. I layered them across the red card base and adhered all the smaller ones just with double sided adhesive, but used foam adhesive for the bigger one. Stamped the 'love' sentiment at the bottom right with Archival Jet Black ink to complete it.

Godelieve has created an amazing card which turns into a lantern... it's so beautful! Check this out:

From Godelieve:

-I stamped a large heart with Archival Ink #Vermilion on the front and the back of a regular card
-I scored a line above and below the heart, so I could fold each side in two after cutting around the right side of the heart

-Smaller hearts and the French Script background are stamped with Distress ink
-"Love" is stamped with Archival Ink #Plum

-I sponged with Distress Ink #Barn Door, taped the card together and decorated with ribbon and a metal tag.

-This can be sent in a regular envelope, but when you unfold it you can put it over a (battery operated) tea light.

Isn't this amazing!! Here is the back of the card too showing another heart...

So there's just a couple of ideas using the Hearts stamp set! Hope you enjoyed them!!

Click here to find a Darkroom Door stockist near you!

Tick Tock stamp set ideas

The Tick Tock stamp set is another set of stamps I've been wanting to do for a while now...clocks are so versatile and can be used for lots of different projects! The three round clocks in this set are sized to fit circle punches so it's easy to use them and later them like this card here:

From Rachel: I've used a combination of Archival Olive and Sepia inkpads for all of the stamping on this card. Each clock was stamped and punched out, except for the fob watch which I cut out by hand. Then sponged some ink around the edges and layered them as shown. I used a size 4 buff tag for the quote and just tore off the bottom. The number stamp was used at the bottom of the card.

Here's a fantastic project from Michelle:

Darkroom Door Rubber Stamps "Tick Tock"

Darkroom Door Background Stamps (Scratches, French Script, Postcards)

Darkroom Door "London Collection" (Montage, Photochips, Filmstrip, Wordstrip)

VersaMagic Cloud White Ink

Paintchips (Bunnings)

 

From Michelle: I was inspired by a recent trip to Bunnings when I noticed that Taubmans had released some two-up paint chips making them very versatile for a variety of projects.

 

To make this Mini Book I used an A4 sheet of black card and followed these instructions

http://library.thinkquest.org/J001156/makingbooks/minibook/index.htm

 

I decorated the booklet backgrounds with white ink, Background Stamps and also the Tick Tock stamps. For some pages I just dabbed the ink pad directly onto the background to create blocks of white colour.

 

I stamped and heat set the paintchips with the Tick Tock collection to create collage backgrounds. I randomly stamped the edge of an inked acrylic block on the edges of the paintchips.

 

I then decorated the paintchips using a variety of the London paper products and once finished stuck them into the booklet.

 

Then I finished the cover with some embellishments and twine to keep the booklet closed.

Fabulous project!! I hope you've enjoyed these ideas using the Tick Tock stamp set!

Click here to find Darkroom Door stockists.