School Gothic Arch

Here is my Gothic Arch for this week. The theme on the Gothic Arches site has been set as Old School. How good does it get!! After working on the Alphastamps kit we received as members of the Alphastamps Design Team I already had bits left of a paper/fabric collage I had made with this, which incorporated into the background stamps from the Pen and Ink Clear Stamp set.

At the top you will also see another Alphastamps images (from the Chalkboard sheet) which I antiqued and printed out on my inkjet printer. Without setting the ink I then incorporated it into my collage so that the wetness almost washed out the colours. I love how this worked out. You can see the image but it fades away into the background. This won't work with the actual sheets from Alphastamps as they are simply so well set that the ink won't run!

I stamped the alphabet with images from The Alphabet stamp sheet, also by Alphastamps, onto a transparency and stitched it on. The text School is from AS sheet Animals in School

Some iridescent glass spheres (2mm) from Alphastamps were the finishing touch. You can see them at bottom right.

The arch was stitched onto a background of Blue Felt so that I can incorporate it into my blank board book (mentioned in earlier posts!) in due course!

Ink is Dark

I've finished another page for my blank board book. At the moment I'm leaving all the pages loose till I have enough to fill the book so I can arrange them best, with suitable pages which compliment each other together. I'll just keep making them and enjoying the process.

This page is based on a haiku I wrote recently, inspired by the fact that really our modern world would be impossible without the written word, whether that is on paper or on a computer screen. Of course as a librarian this fact was never lost on me, anyway!

The haiku reads:

Ink is dark and true

A pen is a mightly weapon

Black words rule the World

The background for this piece is muslin (or calico in U.K.) sprayed with a variety of colours of Moon Shadow Mist. I then added a piece of fabric featuring books (from Equilter), at the right, which was stitched down in the lines separating the books. The Haiku was stamped on plain muslin, using individual letters and sepia coloured ink. At the bottom I stamped Alphastamps Penmanship stamp using black Versacraft ink. I added an image from Alphastamps Chalkboard paper collage sheet, layered it up with blue felt (also from Alphastamps) and stitched this down in position. I added scrolls from Self-Adhesive felt scrol in black.

In the middle I added the words Modern Sunday School, which come from an actual Sunday School book and were applied with Diamond Glaze which was also added to the top.

I stamped the pen (from Alphastamps) on a transparency using Blue Staz-On and stitched it on at the left side.

Finally I added two self-adhesive flowers from Wild Saffron Felt Flower Stickers (also from Alphastamps)

A, a piece for Alphastamps

I've made another piece using the goodies from my Alphastamps package. This is the first page in a blank board book which I hope to fill with pieces of Alphastamps art. The size of this piece is 5 x 7.5" and it's simply called A.

The background is a piece of calico (called muslin in U.S.) which I sprayed with Moon Shadow Mist sprays and then overstamped with a detail of the Alphastamps Principles of Writing stamp. I added a piece of purple felt (Wool Felt Set from Alphastamps) which I cut with pinking shears. Onto this I stitched with zigzag a paper image from the Chalkboard Collage Sheet. I surrounded the image with purple size 11 seed beads and added 2 purple face pebbles on the A and C. Underneath I stitched a piece of a lovely Alphastamps ribbon, from the (Mostly) Metallic Jacquards .

At the sides and the top I sewed pieces of an ABC fabric (from Equilter) which has as its border the inchie tape measure. Another tape measure from another fabric was added at the bottom.

Finally I stamped on the 3 nibs image from the Pen and Ink Clear Stamp Set using purple and a inkpad suitable for fabric.

I'm really looking forward to making more pages for this board book and filling it to the brim with Alphastamps art!