Clarity Stamp Challenge Blog

Hello there the New Clarity Stamp Challenge has just launched, with the theme "Anything Goes" so this gives you lots of play.  You can go for your favourite style, colours, stamps etc or try something completely new.  Whatever it is you do with your entry we will definitely look forward to seeing it. Obviously you will need to use Clarity Stamps/Stencils otherwise it wouldn't be a Clarity Challenge would it?  There is a £50 voucher as the main prize and us, the DT will pick our Top 5 who will be featured on the blog. Not bad eh. ?!

 

I will be honest, I was a little late putting in my DT piece for this - I could give lots of excuses or say my design was so complicated it took me more than a month to do?? But that would be an absolute lie and there aren't really any excuses for forgetting to do your DT piece for a new Challenge, well actually if it makes you feel any better I forgot two!! I also had one due last week.  A little reminder that I had forgotten would have been nice? Except all of my equipment has been going mental again, eew aar madam!!  But seriously you know what the problem was? well one of the problems?  I had had to change my password on my Google account, I had the same one for years but some idiot decided to put a trogen or something into Google and they adviced me to change my well remembered password? then I decided to sign into Google+  well can you guess the rest of this sentence??  Yep I forgot what I had changed my password to, but it didn't matter because now I had a Google+ account, but of course that Google+ account didn't know I had a normal Google account  because I couldn't sign in and my PASSWORD HAD CHANGED!!!!!!! Uuuurgghhh, then I lost Safari on my brand new IPhone 5S so nothing recognised any of my spaces, Blogs, email etc etc etc.  I am so fed up of it I can't even be bothered to explain  the rest???

 

Anyway the bottom line is, I can now comment on Blog posts from my phone, the one that is still without Safari,  but I have lost some of  my blogging friends now because they think I have been ignoring them. Please come back??

 

So what are we here for again?? Ah the Challenge, I think enough waffle has been said so here are a few pictures of my DT piece for this Challenge, I am not sure if it is on the Blog yet but it will appear soon. I will put the link below.

 

 

Well guess how long my project took me to do???

HALF AN HOUR and it only took that long because I couldn't make my mind up on the colours and ideas.  I had three of each in my head??

 

This is one of my ideas.

But really I should have undercoated it first even though I was going to do the whole thing in Inks

 

So I ditched that idea and paintd it out,my next idea was black and green - yummy. 

 You can see a brush here, but at this point I ditched it and got my foam out instead.

 

It needed a little red/orange somewhere though to break it up a little, so distress it, I thought? 

This is what it was all about anyway, apart from me wanting yet another box for in my craft room to keep my Ipod and wires in, they keep ending up under the wheels of my chair? 

This Chess Board Stencil from ... of course Clarity Stamp was my main item in this project.



This Stencil is in my "Favourites" pile, which is quite high really. Its clarity they keep producing really good ones. Just to prove I DO put my Money where my Mouth is, I was looking for this stencil so I could do that link above and while I was there I got engrossed and popped two more stencils into my basket?  The Wheelie Men and Boys Stencil and the New Elegant Ladies 7"by7" stencil that Barbara used on her Blog the other day. I just had to have that one and I have been wanting the Wheelie one for ages.



 Anyway, back to the project. This is what I wanted it to look like.

 

 So how do we achieve it?  You imagine something old and rusty, get your red/orange paint out and brown, rust always has brown in it and maybe a bit of copper. I am going for a rusty type look.

 This Cadmium Orange is gorgeous and is perfect with the Pale Olive Green , you can get these paints from Clarity Stamp,  their paints are a really good price.

 

 

 I added just a tiny bit of brown, but then swapped it for copper, you have to be careful with the copper because it can just overtake the whole project. It isn't see through and is what I call a blocked colour.  See this green acts almost like a semi-translucent paint, which is why it looks so bright.  I painted it onto the background with a sponge so that you don't get any brush strokes and this kind of paint spreads evenly, and very quickly with a sponge.  It dries quick too especially on wood/MDF

 See here is the Burnt Umber - you can see I put too much on here, so if you get a wet wipe you can quickly take some off, we need it to look gappy.

 

 

 

 Here comes the best bit and the bit that gives the real aged look, the Orange.

Just roughly slatter it about with a sponge, no straight edges and no totally filled in spaces.  This is why I say I imagine what I am painting.  Does that sound daft?

 

 Once you are happy with it put the stencil on.  You have to get dirty here I am afraid unless you wear rubber gloves?? I do know some people who do and that's fine.

 

 

So on the top we want a good coverage, just as the Stencil is. It gives us all the pattern we want. It fitted quite well onto the top of this box which  3"by 6" as the thumb measures it?  but I managed to get the small squares on and enough of the big squares to get the effect of the slope.

 

 

 On the Edges you have to fudge it, you can see I messed up a bit on this picture below. But I will go back onto this at some point with some Grunge Paste anyway. Its only finished for the purpose of this Challenge, but I will be going back and putting some little surprises inside. I love doing that to these boxes. My   "Boo Altered Art"??    Mmmmm will that catch on do you think??

 

 

 So here it is, See how the Orange is really patchy, the inked Stencil isn't filled properly, but is filled enough to show you all the edges. But it looks scratchy, well that's just what we want.  But you can always sand it back a bit too to get this effect.

 

 

 And there it is, but the best bit is when you look from the back and it looks like you are looking down into it. I think next time I will put it on the other way round with the small squares at the front, on the top, and the small squares on the top on the side?!! did you get that?   So where the small squares meet it will look almost bent. 

 

 See what a great Stencil this is, the box would be nothing without it.

 

 Ta Da !

 

And you know what, it definitely took me longer to write this Blog than it did to colour this Box.

 

You can see all of the lovely designs the rest of the Design Team have made for this Clarity Stamp Challenge here on our Blog, and gooo awwwn have a go!!!

 

Thank you for stopping by all good comments will be appreciated.

All bad comments will be  deleted!!!

Luv Ya Sam xxx