For the Love of Mona

Tina and I love the Mona Lisa Stamp by Lost Coast Designs (so much that she appears on loads of our designs and apart from background stamps she is probably our most used image).

We find Mona a very versatile stamp and hope you will agree.

Queen for a Day - by Tina Hatchman.

Mona Lisa - by Tina Hatchman

The heart border stamp on the left is PaperArtsy Curls and Swirls Plate 4 and the wings are German Scrap.

Jigsaw Mona - by Tina Hatchman

Tina designed and cut her own jigsaw piece. The background is gorgeously textured with an embossed script stamp.

Pieces of Yesterday - by Tina Hatchman
Another gorgeously textured and embossed background.

Hold Fast to Your Dreams - by Tina Hatchman

Tina has cut out a gorgeous arch shape for this ATC, the background is Distress Crackle Paint, the swirl stamp is from the PaperArtsy Swirls and Curls Plate 5 and the bottom border is German Scrap.

Queen for a Day - by Tina Hatchman

Tina has used a crackle stamp for the background, German scrap for the border and wings and has used Glossy Accents to highlight the wording and areas on the crown.

Have the Courage to Make a Difference - by Tina Hatchman
Tina has used German scrap for the border and the pick and axe embellishment.

Art - by Tina Hatchman.

Tina has stamped and made up her own Shrine for Mona. The key adds the finishing touch.

I know everything and I am always right - by Tina Hatchman

The wording is a great stamp by Catslife Press.

Mona-gram - by Karen

The M for the monagram is a chipboard die cut. The little flower is a small bead.

Find a reason to smile - by Karen

The hat is from the Doll Accessory Lost Coast sheet.

Mona-Acer - by Karen

Ordinary Lives - by Karen

Made using one of the alcohol ink backgrounds shown last Wednesday. Mona is stamped directly onto the background. Alcohol ink blending solution has been used to remove a small circle of the ink (making the background white again in that area). There is a fantastic video on YouTube showing Tim Holtz demonstrating this technique (I first saw this through a link Chriss has on her Artist Trading Cards Blog).

Before stamping all the background stamps I made a mask. (Mona was stamped out onto a post it note and cut out so that I could use it as a mask) The mask is placed over the Mona already stamped onto the background - all the other background stamps can then be used (it doesn't matter if you stamp all over the mask as the Mona underneath will remain untouched.) Tina uses the mask technique a lot on her gorgeously detailed, multi stamped backgrounds.

Mona Collage - by Karen

Again used blending solution to remove the ink from the left hand side (so that I could colour with a different colour alcohol ink) and from Mona's face area. Another feature of alcohol inks are that if you stamp on them using Stazon or another solvent ink - before the ink dries you can wipe it off which removes the alcohol inked background in those places. I used this technique here - see the white criss cross stamp bits on the right.

Art - by Karen

Again made using one of the alcohol inked backgrounds - with the face area removed using the blending solution. The mask was used again so that I could use several stamps for the background but leave Mona's face untouched.