distress paints/stamp platform

This post includes a product review, using older paperarsty stamps by Kay Carley and distress paints

Firstly a product review the new tonic/Tim Holtz stamp platform. I purchased  this one some time ago so i have given it a good road test. The base is made of strong plastic and this is where your card or project sits, on two edges there is a ruler guide, and a lip to butt your card up to. It comes with 2 super strong magnets ( not shown in the photo) which hold the card or project in place. Hinge on the opening part of the platform is super strong and flips, one side is deep so it will take rubber stamps and the other takes clear stamps which is clearly marked. This tool really helped with my project this week because i could stamp and then re-stamp in the correct place, so my stamping was crisp and clear. 

There aren't may down falls to this tool, its very well made, a little heavier than other stamping platforms, hinges appear very robust the only down fall i see is, i would like more than two magnets as I'm a bit of a messy crafter and tend to lose things 

on to this weeks project, an altered small hessian bag, recently purchased from a large craft store. As you can see I'm no quilter and the machine sewing is poor but, i kind of like that effect. So taking a piece of canvas cut to around 8.5 inch square which i primed my with gesso. You can use white gesso but here I've used clear and allowed to dry. Backed my treated canvas with a bond-a-web sheet and used my stamp platform to stamp the Kay Carley paperartsy stamps. Stamped a couple of times to get that clear crisp image and that's where the stamp platform comes into it own. Using a masking technique i was able to create a flower cluster, with flowers from both stamp plate sets one and two.

Once stamped, on to the fun part of painting and for this I've used 4 distress paints weather wood, broken china, chipped sapphire and picket fence. If i wanted to make any of my blues lighter i added some picket fence. I die cut a circle from a post it note to create a stencil so i could paint a perfect circle on 3 of the flowers. Used some quilting squares cut up to frame the piece, a small metal tag to the bottom of the project to finish the piece. Adhered with bond-a-web and small but of hand stitching, completes the bag.

Finally a new summer holiday activity has been super popular on Facebook called Felistowe Finds. Basically its taking stones from the beach, decorating them and putting them back on the beach for someone else to find. So after a day at the beach collecting stones i finally got round to painting some, my son wasn't that interested so armed with the distress paints i came up with these. Mainly hand drawn, one uses a stamped image from stampotique. So this week I've kind had lots of painting fun. i hope everyone is having a wonderfully creative summer holidays