Tuesday 23 December 2008

guild swap 2




This is a photo of the gorgeous card I received from Chris as part of the Graphicus Guild Christmas card swap - sorry Chris, it is the best I can do after several tries.

Chris used EI Christmas stamps, with papers from the Seasons Greetings Artylicious cd, mini shrink plastic snowflakes and clear jewels. Warning - the mini snowflakes are great, and an idea I intend copying next year! Check out Chris blog - chriscraftroom.blogspot.com - she may have a better pic on there by now.

Sunday 21 December 2008

guild swap 1



This is the card I made as part of the Graphicus Guild Christmas card swap, usibng the EI madonna stamp. It was stamped twice on white card with black versafine, then again with versamark and gold EP onto 2 different red cards, one of which was embossed with a faint paisley design. All the images were cut out - the white base had the haloes coloured with watercolour pencils and sakure stardust pen, with gold glitter round the edges. Hair was brown pencil using 2 shades and blending with water. I repeated the hair on the second white image, cut just this out and layered over the base. The whole dress from the plain red card was another second layer onto the white base card, then the third layer was the sleeve and the panel of the dress. Image was then matted onto a sheet of cuttlebugged paisley style paper - I think this started out as a red, but wasn't the right red, so it got several layers of glimmer mists in reds and golds until it was a better match! This was then matted onto gold mirri card, then a red shiny card, then onto a card cut from gold card embossed with a greeting.

My gorgeous return card from Chris will be photoed tonight, and hopefully added tomorrow

Friday 12 December 2008

Christmas round robin challenge 1

Four people took up Annette's round robin challenge on the Artylicious blog, and this is my page to add to Phree's-http://inkstainsurvivor.blogspot.com -- I forgot to scan the one I started and sent on to Deby, so will add that afterwards!
I tried to match the background paper from Glenda's Seasons greetings cd - I couldn't match the colour, it was really surprising how different the paper looked on another printer: it was either far too purply or bluey. I also had problems finding a stamp to fit the page, and in the end settled for part of an old Anita's stamp to continue the buildings theme. It was stamped with inks from the encore twilight pad- fortunately the bluey purple and the green were at opposite ends of the pad- then matted onto blue card. A snowflake was sprayed onto the backing paper with silver glimmer mist, then a diecut snowflake - also glimmered with violet and silver- was added. I wasn't really very happy with the result, the colours of the stamp were stronger than I would have liked, but time was limited and I didn't feel that I could realistically fiddle around for any longer.
Hopefully inspiration will return for the next instalment!

Friday 17 October 2008

Christmas cards

These are two tag cards, both with Artylicious Seasons Greetings backing papers, and both tags coloured with green, blue and silver glimmer mists. The one on the left was stamped in black versafine with the tree from the Christmas fusion EI plate, and clear embossed - the branches were painted in H2o's and the snow added with a souffle pen before mounting on silver card. Peel-off greeting added on a piece of tag mounted on silver.
The one on the right is stamped with the EI holly script stamp in black versafine and embossed again with clear ep. The image is painted with h2o's again, mounted on a gold embossed card. I did try just stamping with versafine and painting the image, but it looked rather lost in the background to really be usable



Wednesday 15 October 2008

get well

This is a card I made for an elderly partially-sighted friend, which explains why it has ribbon, fibres and flowers on. I think I am notorious for refusing to put ribbon on a card normally, so thought I had better prove that not only can I force myself to do it but I even have the ribbon! The background is a bit of cuttlebugged card which has been glimmer misted in moonlight, lilac and violet - flower is a mixture of making memories (originally white but glimmer misted) and flora doodles with a clear jewel brad holding it together. The tag was glimmered (what else) in blues and green, with papermania rubon letters - all my alphabet stamps were too big so I couldn't emboss the words, which was the original plan.
I am hoping that Cynthia will accept this for her latest challenge,
http://rainbowladyschallengeblog.blogspot.com

Wednesday 8 October 2008

bandana challenge



This is my first attempt at both the bandana technique and entering a challenge, on http://rainbowladyschallengeblog.blogspot.com/. I think I may have stretched the rules a little by adding some green colouring over the white, and around the base of the image, hope it is ok! The stamp is from a Serendipity plate from Joanna Sheen, embossed in black onto bronze card, then white souffle pen with a green marker pen over the base of the sundial. Not sure if I have done the links right, but will find out.

There is blog candy up for grabs on Edna's blog -http://www.ednasplace.blogspot.com - have a look! She's just got the Artylicious Seasons greetings cd...............

Tuesday 30 September 2008

cards for craft club

Both of these cards are fairly similar -I wanted a quicker card for craft club on Sunday. Both start with A4 card folded in half, sprayed with moonlight and meadow green glimmer mists. The square card foreground is stamped with the parsley(?) stamp from the wild meadow plate from Elusive Images. The inks are stazon forest green and what began as ultramarine - it was rubbed onto a bit of cut'n'dry foam which was then splodged with white from the re-inker bottle to make a paler colour. The blue went onto the flower heads, the green on the stems and leaves; the stamp was only inked once, just repeat stamped until the colour ran out. the seated fairy was stamped in the pale blue, balanced on a flower head. The acetate sleeve was stamped with the same stamp and inks, but reinking the stamp for the foreground, while the fairy is stamped in the ultramarine and the wings glittered with crystal glitter.
I was quite pleased with the varied blues, but it was very messy to do, and the stamp got rather over-inked a couple of times as I was only using a small piece of foam - if I do it again, I will use a larger piece of foam.
The second version doesn't show too clearly in the scan, made the same way but the ink used on the base card for both the small seated fairy and the foliage was briliance twilight, varying the colours each time they were reinked. The acetate overlay was stamped with the green stazon on leaves and stems and the brilliance again for the flower heads. The larger seated fairy and the flying one were stamped with white stazon, glittered again with the crystal -I didn't quite get them where I wanted them when I turned the acetate over and put in round the card, but they didn't look any better when I thought about trimming the card down to square and repositioning the acetate! i prefer stamping the main faeries in white, I thinl it looks more faery-like somehow.

Monday 29 September 2008

meet Nimbus


for all his admirers, the black lump on the car may look cute, but is a one-cat wildlife extermination squad! He was named by the lady who fed him as a stray before handing him over to the rescue centre (we assume cos he has small white patches on chest and tummy)- we kept it when he was recycled to us as he answers to it, when he can be bothered or if food is involved.

Sunday 28 September 2008

more faeries

I decided to do a popout this time - must have had a mad moment! The card is A5, cover is glimmered in pink, violet, green and blue, then a backing piece from butterfly blkiss cd glued on top. The fairy is stamped on acetate with white stazon, glittered with crystal, then glued over another piece of acetate also stamped in white with a wild meadow stamp that was similar to the paper design, the whole lot then mounted onto lilac and purple pearlescent card.

The inside was coloured with watercolour pencils to create the landscape, with a little bit of moonlight blue glimmer at the top. The castle is stamped with weathered wood distress ink, the unicorn with versamark and silver embossed then coloured with a white souffle pen, mane , tail and hooves with a silvery stardust pen; the small fairy was stamped with brilliance twilight pad, with alittle bit of glitter on the wings. I then stamped the small grasses from the wild meadow over the base of the landscape, then the small
version of the cover stamp in different greens over that - there were a few dots of red pencil to link it with the top piece as well.
The outer sheet was scored on the groovy, using the box maker side as I didn't want the panels to all be equal - had to allow room for the faery to hang.

The sky was done with blue whispers pads - I was very disappointed with these when I bought them, took them back to the store twice before ending up with something I could live with, but they worked ok here where colour depth didn't matter. The foreground was stamped in various greens with the grasses from wild meadow,then overstaped with the (cow parsley?) small stamp used before,first in memento bamboo and then with a marvy blending block in red for the flowers and memento cottage ivy for the leaves and stems. The two seated faeries were stamped with twilight onto acetate, glittered with crystal, cut out and balanced on top of flower heads -glued on with art institute glue. The hanging fairy, stamped in white stazon on acetate, crstal glittered, hangs from a strip of the acetate, glued to the back of the aperture. She's not very obvious in this photo, will try to find a close-up shot. It's still not very clear, but it is the best i can do!




I was quite pleased with the effect, now all I have to do is find a deserving cause to send it to!

The original idea when I started was a card for craft club, before I got carried away, so now need to have another play to get a card that doesn't take all day to do....

Saturday 27 September 2008

chuffed to bits



thanks to Lesley (http:/craftymammalovenhugs.blogspot.com) for the award - I was really chuffed and not a little stunned to find that someone thought I was inspirational! thanks a million Lesley , you really made my day! After reading the rules, I wasa little stumped cos I didn't know how to do the techy bits, but I think I've got around them - I hope. My nominated blogs , after much hard checking (real hard labour!) have ended up as a rerun of Lesley's- there was no way I could leave Glenda and Lynn out, tho they must have enough awards to fill a blog.......
Deby- http:/just-add-love.blogspot.com
Glenda - http:/artylicious.wordpress.com
Jenny - http:/craftheaven.blogspot.com
Jo - http:/littlepeachtree.blogspot.com
Lesley - http:/thepaperengineer.blogspot.com
Lynn- http:/inkyartitude.blogspot.com
Phree - http:/inkstainsurvivor.blogspot.com
Ros - http:/stampandscrape.bl;ogspot.com
-

Monday 22 September 2008

gossamer wings

I was lucky enough to win a sheet of Glenda's faery stamps a couple of weeks ago - here are the presentable results so far! One bright(?) idea using chalks ended up in the bin 3 times, but these survived.

The shots aren't too
good, but you can get the idea.
The basic card was sprayed with glimmer mists in green and blue, and the panels are mounted on hammered silver. The images were stamped using an ancient Encore ultimate metallics pad called enchanted evening, which basically goes through green and blue to purple tones, then clear embossed, the landscape was d-t-p with dye inks, overstamped with small grasses from wild meadow set. The faery wings are glittered with crystal glitter, and the unicorn was coloured with a white sakura souffle pen with the mane and tail coloured with a stardust pen.

These 2 are fairly similar -the backgrounds are glimmer mist again, both starting with fairly yucky green card in different shades, sprayed with green and blue-the one on the left also had graphite, which doesn't show at all - quite disappointed in that colour. The wild meadow stamps are stamped on acetate with the stazon opaque white ink, the the blobby bits coloured with the white sakura souffle pen again. the faery was stamped on to the acetate with stazon black and the wings glittered again - the small one with crystal, the other with crystal and a mix of purple glitters. The larger card is a green with a goldy sheen from Payper box, and the green/acetate panel is mounted onto linen finish gold card (the acetate is glued behind the faeries with pinflair gel). The smaller one the acetate is wrapped round to the back and glued down, this time with collall photoglue, which worked fine - the only trouble was getting the acetate to fold properly, which wasn't too successful.
They're nowhere near Glenda's standards, but hope you like them - can't wait til the 6th to see what she and Lynn do!

Sunday 17 August 2008

stampbord pendants

These are two pendants that i made a while ago. The one on the left has an image from flora & fauna, that on the right from wild meadow. they were both coloured with pigment inks before stamping with black versafine.



The backs were covered with embossing powders in chinese red and denim, blue. The same poppy image was deep embossed in gold for the red one, and a butterfly embossed in silver for the blue one.


I don't like to leave the backs brown, as I don't think it looks good when the pendant twists when it is worn


stampbord again 1





This was stamped in versafine onto a piece of stampbord coloured first with distress inks in weathered wood and denim, then with versafine onyx black. The stamp from filigree fusion was then scratched out, then the image was clear embossed to stop me trying to 'improve' it! The bord was mounted onto matt silver and then black mirri card, then onto a black gatefold card with panels from the filigree fusion cd printed in
greyscale

Thursday 14 August 2008

stampbord challenge






this is my entry for Glenda's latest challenge - love stampbord, so will have another go if time allows, especially as I adore the prizes!




I found the instructions for the fold on a blog somewhere - if it was yours, thanks a lot, and sorry i can't remember where I got it from! The original instructions were for A4 paper, and I changed them to give a bigger card - thought all the work folding was a little wasted on a card measuring 4" sq.



The stamps are rose script from Elusive Images, and the backing paper is from the Peacock Summer Party cd.The image on the left has been watercoloured using markers, and is matted onto a pale gold card



Thanks to a lovely lady called Margo and Freecycle I now have a digi camera, so the next pix were from my new toy - scanner can't cope with these. Have just spotted that the background paper seems to be coming adrift in this shot - will glue it down properly, I promise. Have had great fun with this fold, tho it wasn't easy cutting down an A3 sheet with scissors- roll on the new term when I can borrow a big trimmer!

Apologies to everyone who left comments for the long delay, haven't had time to look recently, thanks a million everyone!

Monday 21 July 2008

glimmer mist tags























since seeing Glenda's glimmer mists show and getting my eager mitts on said mists, have been going tag crazy, as my other half puts it; the one local shop selling tags is very happy to see me!


Having borrowed the digi camera to get a better shot of the challenge card, thought I may as well do some of my tags.

top row are cards made using some of the tags - the poppies in the left hand set are decoupaged.
All the stamps are Elusive Images


Theright-hand set are all butterfly overstamped after misting and using stamps from the Elusive Images wild meadow plate as background. left hand ones are a lot more muted in colour and use the flora and fauna plate.


sorry it's taking up so much room - haven't got the hang of the layout yet

better pic - christmas challenge

didn't think much of the scan image, so borrowed a digi camera, and got a better pic - getting the pic onto the computer nearly drove me nuts, but did it in the end! if I play for long enough, will prob get the hang of editing it propoerly, but don't count on it.

Sunday 20 July 2008


this is the scan of the card I made for Glenda's challenge - it was a lot easier making the card than trying to set this up!

I stamped and embossed the two small trees from the arboretum plate, then sprayed glimmer mists in midnight, moonlight,meadow green and juneberry. This was mounted over a strip from the starry night section of the season's greetings cd, with the christmas tree from last year's christmas plate (christmas fusions?) cut out (I must have been mad) and added on top at one side. the tree was glittered, altho' that may not show up too well