IndigoBlu Tag Toppers for Topflight Stamps

Hello Topflight Stamp Adventurers! This week the Design Team is playing with all things IndigoBlu. I had so much fun last week creating my tabs for the sideways waterfall that continuing on that exploration seemed to be a good idea. Currently working on teaching an online Junk Journal class & thought, how about making some mixed media tag toppers? The supply list is below. Let's Go! *Affiliate- some of these companies have given me product to use, play & experiment with. The ideas are my own but I tend to work with companies whose products I like so enjoy the inspiration.  **some of these links are affiliate, I receive a small percentage from the company at no cost to you. This helps me deliver free content!

It became all about the tags. I made the toppers but of course they need something to go on top of.  So I added a bit of shenanigans to some tags for my toppers to have a home.

Look at how many cool images IndigoBlu has & these are just a few, go check out Topflight Stamps to see the whole catalog of these beautiful images.

I stamped my images & heat embossed with Burmese Jade embossing powder. I love using emboss to create. It just adds such a pop of something extra.

Here are the images I started with to create my toppers. Most of them were painted with a watercolor palette but you can use whatever you want to cover the images.

For the leaf, Infusions were used. Powder was tapped on a craft sheet & water was spritzed so I could use it as a water color. 

Here are my toppers all painted & ready to go. 

Now for the tags. 

Tag 1: Die cut a tag from patterned paper. Next stamp images around the edges. Add a die cut element that has the same colors. The topper was fussy cut out and adhered to the tag. 

Tag 2: So simple but has a big impact. These stamps are from the Shine Bright set. A Ranger tag was the base. The topper was simply painted with watercolor, cut in a rectangular & adhered to a piece of batik fabric. The topper was glued on & then stapled to add that metal interest.The sides of the tag were stamped using the edge of the circle stamp. The quote stamped on white card, cut out & adhered then edged with a pen. 

 

Tag 3: This tag packs a visual punch & bonus is interactive. I started with a size 8 tag that had been cut out with a die cut using patterned paper. The pattern is on the back of the tag & the white front was covered with a piece of Art by Marlene collage paper. The 2 topper pieces from the  Be Different set were used. One was used as the topper.

The larger abstract stamp as a pocket piece. The owl is just tucked into the pocket, I love that the top of the owl's head just peeks out. The quote from the set is stamped at the bottom.

 

The owl image is colored non-traditional colors & I love that, especially the pop of yellow on his head. This is one of my favorite all time stamps & comes from the set Autumn Nights set. The leaf that was used in Tag 1 as the topper & also the little leaves used as accents are from this set. Just because it is an autumn set does not mean it can't be used for summer.

The flip side of the owl is a journal spot with some doodle pen work. That is it for this week, I hope you get a chance to play along & get inky!

Supplies:

*remember using code karenbearse saves you 12% at Topflight Stamps you can go to that link to see pictures of the products used.

• IndigoBlu Autumn Nights, Be Different, No.9 Bumblebee, & Shine Bright
  
• Embossing Powder Burmese Jade
• Prism Inks
• Infusions 
• Wow Embossing Ink Pad 
  
• Sizzix Tags by Tim Holtz
• Collage Paper Art by Marlene
• Sizzix Foliage from Brushstroke #3 die cut by Tim Holtz
• Sizzix Embossing Heat Tool Dual Speed
  

Art Journal Page with Hunkydory Dots to Diamonds!

Hello Topflight Stamps Fans, happy Mix Media Monday with an art journal page using Hunkydory Dots to Diamonds products. I have never played with them before so it was fun to turn this into a mix media art journal page. Remember if you use my code KARENBEARSE you will save 12% off your order- *check info on the shop site for exclusions.

I decided to go with a whimsical look. The Dots to Diamond paper pad has 12 designs with 4 sheets each. These sheets tear out so you can just glue this page into one of your art journals when the page is finished, or make a card.The paper did retain it's shape it just needs to be flattened or glued to a page.

I was sent a papercraft pad & tons of fun bling! You can see all the links below in the supply list & if you order through my link just add in the coupon code karenbearse & you will receive 12% off your order!!! 

Let's get started!! I chose to play with a butterfly design. The dots on the paper show where placement goes for the bling so it was necessary to use something translucent on the page. Watercolor paint was the perfect solution & the 250gsm paper actually held up really well. 1st an image was stamped with archival ink so it would not bleed. I chose a cute owl.  

A wee spritz of water first then adding fairly wet water color paint randomly to create a messy background. Avoid painting the stamped image so it can be colored later. 

Time to add the bling!! You will want the paper to be really dry before you do this so the self-adhesive bling will stick. The bling is called Diamond Sparkles & comes in both pearl & gemstone in a huge range of colors. If you pull the Sparkles out of the package you can see how the different size gemstones line up for placement. 

I choose to use Beautiful Blues for the body & Vintage Browns Pearlescent for the wings. Simply peel the gem off the backing & stick. 

You can also use a tool to make it easier. 

All that was left was to jazz up my page with some doodling, background stamping, a quote & coloring the cute owl. I hope you try out this fun Hunkydory Dots to Diamond product! 

Supplies:
Dots to Diamonds Papercraft pad
Pearlescent Gemstones in Vintage Browns
Gemstones in Beautiful Blues
Watercolor Palette
Stamps by Paperartsy- ZA41 and ECF06
Dye Inks by Prism- random colors
quote from stash
Paint Pens
*Affiliate- some of these companies have given me product to use, play & experiment with. The ideas are my own but I tend to work with companies whose products I like so enjoy the inspiration. 

**some of these links are affiliate, I receive a small percentage from the company at no cost to you. This may help me continue to bring you techniques & more inspiration.

IndigoBlu Art Card with Water Color.

Hello Inky Friends, I am on the Topflight Blog today playing with watercolor. You can check out the stamps I used on my blog post there.
 

The holidays can be so busy, I hope you get a chance to play with some inks!  I will be back with a tutorial for you next week, until then HoHoHo & have some good cheer!

Watercolor Art Cards Class

Welcome to a sneak peak of my new watercolor art cards class, currently in the making. It is also Thursday so it must be time for my Topflight Stamps blog post! This class will be offered in the VA, & MD areas to start so keep an eye on my blog for more info. Following me on Instagram (click on the button right side) also gets you more info on classes & much more art. 

How fun are these? I totally love how they turned out. They are 3x4" of wow. The thing I love about making art cards is the instant gratification. Quick & done! My plan for the class is to house them in a really cool box, which I am also working on. 

Now for the stamps! This week I played with Carabelle Studios sets. First up is "Loving Thoughts". 

The next set are these cool sketchy stamps called "Les Geometriks". Check out the links which will take you directly to the sets. Shop Topflight Stamps which has a wonderful selection, check out the daily deal. 

I am also entering these cards in the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge because the colors are too perfect! I hope you have a chance to get inky today! See you next time.

Inspired By... Athanasia Papantoniou

Hello Blogland, today I am inspired by the wonderful art of Athanasia Papantoniou, who is a member of the Finnabair creative team as well as quite a few others. 

Here is the art journal page that inspired me.To expand on the thought of "Inspired By" if you are like me you get to see all the wonderful creative art out on Instagram, Facebook, blogs... Quite often I see art that completely inspires me to make the project or learn the technique. It is rare that I take the time to follow through on that brief flash of excitement! 

I made the point of following through on this one. In my busy schedule of designing it was a nice change to be the student. I did change the page up quite a bit, but do you thing it is a copy or different enough to be simply inspired by? 

I can't quite decide! Athanasia's blog post has a full tutorial & she also made a video so please go check it out here & hopefully you will play along!
You can find more of Athanasia's work on her blog Me and myself.