Easy Distress Ink Stenciled and Stamped Valentine Tags

Last year, I took a wonderful online class given by Marjie Kemper called "Inventive Inks."  I had accumulated lots of beautiful tags as I practiced her inking techniques.  

If you have some pretty backgrounds laying around, here's a quick project to make unusual Valentines.  (Somehow, my Valentines are always quirky, as you can see here.)  

First, over-stencil your backgrounds using a deeper version of the color you have underneath.  I did this with more distress inks, or you can use paint.  (I used my Hearts, Flowers and More stencil but you can use something in your stash.) 

Then, create some embellishments by stenciling or stamping using black ink or paint on music, book or ledger paper.  (I used motifs from my Coffee, Mugs and Love, and Teacups and Teapots stencils on old music paper.) If your paper is fragile, as mine was, first give it a coat of clear gesso or matte medium to strengthen it.

These motifs are from the Build a Villa collection at Rubbermoon.  I painted them with Peerless watercolors.  

Then, let your muse take over as you cut out your motifs, assemble, embellish, doodle and add words.  

You should end up with a stack of funky, quirky Valentines!

Have you made Valentines this year?  I'd love to see them so please leave a link in your comment! 


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Handmade Holidays Day 3 - Ornaments and Embellishments

Welcome to Day 3 of Handmade Holidays!  Today, I'm sharing handmade ornaments and embellishments.  Remember that every post has a giveaway, and all the comments for all the days count!  So if you haven't commented on the previous posts, go back and do it before Saturday!

I made my ornaments and embellishments using the Build a Villa stamps from Rubbermoon, as well as the Hamsa and Text Stamps from my line.

You can also do all these techniques with stamps from your stash.

Make sure to scroll down for the giveaway!

For the first set of embellishments, I followed these Paper Casting instructions by Judy Shea.  Basically, you separate the plies of tissue or toilet paper, and lay them one at a time over your stamp, brushing matte medium between each layer.  I used six layers and it worked pretty well.  Here's how two of the houses and one of the Hamsas looked after they dried.

I gave them a coat of off white paint, and then painted two of them teal and two Quinacridone Gold.  When they were dry, I used my finger to brush gold and silver metallic paint on them.

I added some dimensional dots and swirls with glitter glue to the Hamsas...

and glued one of them onto the top of a previously decorated box.  What a fun, quick and easy technique!













Next, I decided to make some ornaments using polymer clay.  (Air dry clay would work too.) While my dedicated clay oven was preheating, I rolled out some clay.  I happened to only have orange, blue and green, but since I'd be painting them anyway, that was fine.

I stamped the images into the clay, then cut them out with an exacto knife, poked holes using a bamboo skewer, and baked them for 30 minutes at 300 degrees.  Here's how they look all painted up!   In addition to glitter glue, I embellished these with my Pearl Pen.  I think these will make nice hostess gifts for friends, and ornaments for our tree.

They were so sweet, that I decided to make some more clay ornaments for mini canvases.  These two are on 3 x 3" Black Art Minis, like the ones I used in a RubberMoon tutorial here.    The compass is a stamp by Mary Nasser.  

I created the background using the Six Point Starry Night stencil from stencil Girl.  I used silver metallic paint and then glazed over the square with Pthalo Turquoise Fluid Acrylics mixed with Glazing Medium. 

 For this one, I created the landscape background using the Teapot and Teacup stencil upside down!

Remember to always look at parts of your stencils, and don't be afraid to turn them!

The substrate for this one is corrugated Cardboard leftover from a project I did for Valentine's Day (!).   I really like how the cardboard added texture behind the clay pieces.

So... I hope this post gave you some fun ideas.  I will give away one of the ornaments to a lucky commenter.  Remember, for extra chances to win, make sure to comment on all the Handmade Holiday posts!  I will pick all of the winners on Saturday morning, 11AM EST.

Please leave your email address in your comment (like this: jessicasporndesigns at gmail dot com) to be considered for the giveaway!

And the winners are:

Corrine Gilman’s Brooch:  Lou Lou in Texas!  

Art is you Trade:  Suzie Q 23!  

Clay Ornament:  Karen!  

Hamsa Stamp:  Lisa Meyers! 

Three Trees Stencil:  Lu 

our comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

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