Gelli 2

This is the second card using one of the backgrounds made last week with the Gelli plate, using red, black and gold paint, matted onto black card. I couldn't decide what size card to use, so this is the 8" square version with a gilded dragon - the 6" square version will follow in due course..............
The dragon is an old Creative Expressions stamp bought many years ago after a workshop in Norwich with Jayne Nesterenko - as is often the case, it got used to death for a while then put in a drawer and forgotten until it was unearthed while searching for a different oriental stamp (that one is still hiding in the chaos). He was stamped on black card with versamark, covered with stamp'n'bond powder, heated, then gilded before matting onto gold mirri card and red card - the layers are on straight, though they don't look it on the scan.
Version 2 may be a while, as I have to at least excavate the bed from under the craft stuff - daughter does like to have a bed she can find when she visits!

Gelli 1

Had an interesting afternoon at Moira's on Sunday trying out her new Gelli plate - made some lovely backgrounds, and some very yuk ones too.
This card is the only completed  result so far - background used blue, green and white paint, spread out with a brayer which was then bounced across the plate to give some texture. The sea bubble stamp by Ryn was stamped after the card was dry using a blue Adirondack ink- sorry, can't remember which one, I did wish it had been a bit darker though! Boat stamp from Stampin up, stamped in black versafine onto pool party card, cut out with Sizzix framelits die. Sail and clouds highlighted with bleach, sea with watercolour pencils and white gel pen. Mat cut from blue card using die to draw round (I seem to have mislaid the next size up die).
Once I find my ancient clear oriental stamps I will finish the card using the red/black/gold paint print - there are also inked stamens waiting to become butterfly antenna when dry.........(life is too short to cut round antennas)
It was a very interesting afternoon, but I don't think I will buy a Gelli plate just yet - they're great fun to use, but I could see me having a huge pile of backgrounds and nothing else............................but that sea bubble stamp is a totally different matter, as is the raindrops one I borrowed.............

ATCs

Way  back in January I signed up to the ATC challenge on Chocolate Baroque - am ashamed to admit that this is the first month that I have actually got around to doing any! And even than I owe this lot to a WI promotions evening that was somewhat of a non-event - possibly due to the sudden outbreak of sunshine...................I had agreed to demo something stampy for the Arts & Crafts committee, and thought of ATCs as small, quick, and inexpensive (alright, downright cheap )  to give away to anyone interested. The theme this month was 'night sky', which simplified what to take enormously - believe it or not, I got everything into one small  box and one bag , which by my standards is definitely travelling light!
Inks used were tumbled glass, faded jeans, chipped sapphire  and black soot distress inks, midnight muse by Stampin up, and black versafine. Stamps from the new landscape and floral edges sets from Chocolate Baroque, plus a small CB tree stamp (can't remember which set it belongs to)

 and a very old Clarity stamp of grasses (so old that it is definitely yellow now). Those and a craft mat, card, sponges, baby wipes and a punched circle mask were all I took along with a few sample cards to display with some stuffed mice  (that's the next workshop the committee is organising - means sewing, so definitely not involving me).
 A few did get given away, haven't decided which two to send in to Mel for the swap - who knows, I may even do some more

May quintiles

 Believe it or not, I have actually finished my May quintiles at the beginning of the month - can't quite believe it myself!
The theme this month was 'Chelsea flower show' - I decided to base mine on the gardens that are created for this.
The poppies are from different Choc Baroque stamps, all stamped in black versafine on white card, coloured with promarkers and cut out. All the background stamps are from the new edges series -  the wall from the landscape edges set (it is meant to be used horizontally, but I thought it worked fine vertically as a pillar) stamped in grey up the left edge and along the top. The leaves are from the floral edges set, coloured with green marker pens, and the meadow grasses from the same set, repeat

stamped with marker pens. There is a pale blue sky brushed on in tumbled glass distress ink, which doesn't show up very well on the scan.
The same leaves and grasses were used on the second tile, with a rather darker sky this time, and black soot sponged round the edges. the roses were made using the small flower from the Tim Holtz tattered floral die.

water stamping

 Techniquetime Tuesday features water stamping this month, and I tried this with the new Sheena stamp 'ancient arches' - it is really far too detailed a stamp, but I thought that I might be able to get a moonlit impression..............didn't really work though!
These two cards are using later efforts, but I still had to overstamp the image to get a decent effect, not sure if that is strictly within the challenge though! Top one used SU inks in not quite navy and midnight muse, and although the image came out best on this one, I missed 'inking' part of the stamp with the water.
The lower one used distress inks tumbled glass, broken china and faded jeans, and had the best water impression of the lot, just the background colour wasn't dark enough. I quite liked the faded effect, and over stamped it without reinking, so got a muted grey second image.







The third card actually uses the first image I made, and the final effect is actually closest to what I was aiming for - you just can't see the water stamping bit...............I inked up the card with distress inks as in the second card, but adding chipped sapphire and black soot where I hoped the darker parts of the image would be when it was stamped. It worked quite well, only trouble was that the black soot was far too overpowering, and it just didn't look right.

Miraculously, when I over stamped it in black versafine, the two images almost completely matched up and the black bits were in just the right places - - and I got almost exactly the effect I was looking for.

blue and brown

The challenge this week on Make my Monday is to use blue and brown, which fitted in quite nicely as I wanted to have another go at this technique, that I came across in blogland a while ago- can't find it now, so if anyone knows, please tell me and I will add the link.
 Found it!
http://stampwithamyk.com/2013/02/22/white-embossed-secret-garden-birthday-card/
The  kraft base card is 6x6, and the large flower stamp from the SUI Everything Eleanor set was stamped in versamark and embossed with white EP 4 times using masks. the flourish from the same set was stamped in versamark and embossed with gold EP over the masks, and the small leaves from Just believe were inked with green marker.
The flowers were painted using a waterbrush and SU reinker in craft white, which was given a quick burst with a heat gun then left to dry properly overnight. Flowers were then painted with the waterbrush using ink from midnight muse and not quite navy inkpads, picked up directly from the pads.

April quintiles

 April's theme is April Fool - which absolutely floored me, until several people said that they had used jester or mask stamps. I don't have any of  these, so decided to just cut a mask shape out of black card and stamp a rather baroque floral stamp over it and emboss with gold EP. Then I needed a background - desperation ruled again, and I dug out my TH distress stains and very ancient Ranger Posh Rainbow inks. For the blue one I mainly used the distress stains in gold, brass, bronze and picket fence - the pinker one had a lot of the rainbow inks added and some fired brick distress paint as well round the edges- just splodged over the card and heavily spritzed with water. I wasn't sure if the inks would react horribly with the distress stains, but they didn't.

They looked ok, but a little plain when they eventually dried - then I remembered that I had some TH tissue wrap untouched in the packet, so dug that out and glued over the card using some aqua glass varnish from an old Graphicus lucky dip box (also previously untouched!). This stuff was originally for serviette technique, according to the label - worked fine on tissue wrap, and made a much more subtle background from my splodges.
Am not too happy with these, so will hang on to them for a couple of days, just in case inspiration strikes - you never know what may surface from the combined process of clearing out the rubbish and finally putting workshop stuff away!