vroncards

Christmas roses

2012-01-26T16:30:00.001Z

A simple card this week, this lovely image from Chocolate Baroque doesn't need anything else IMHO - and lack of time has nothing to do with it! The image was stamped in black versafine and clear embossed before colouring - the foliage with pencils, and the flowers with H2Os . I cut the image out and mounted it with foam pads onto a piece of white card that had gone through a cuttlebug folder, and rounded the edges. The two smaller mats were a bit of paper from a bagful of bits I was given, torn and embossed round the edges with a mix of EPs ( black twinkle and golden ocean) , the second was a bit of core-denations card that went through the same cuttlebug folder before being sanded back and the edges distressed. The main backing sheet was most of my last sheet of a greeny gold paper bought from a show ages ago - am hoping I can find some more this year!

This card is for 3 challenges - am not usually that lucky.....

52cct - theme 1 - flowers

make my Monday 33- flowers and leaves

moving along with the times 133 - blooming marvellous

MMM32

2012-01-18T19:57:00.000Z

the new challenge at Make my Monday is to create a scene - I wanted to use tree stamps originally, but couldn't find the particular ones I had wanted to use, and the ones I could find just weren't right -grr - that will teach me to put stamps away properly (perhaps!).

In the end, I did my scene using distress inks and sponges - sky is tumbled glass, broken china, tattered rose, milled lavender and wild honey;. the land is shabby shutters and peeled paint, with a little bit of forest moss as shading. The foreground stamp was the large image from the SU set Just believe - I couldn't resist this set when I first saw it, but it has sat in the heap ever since without being touched until today - why is that stamps you just need when you see them can then sit there neglected once you get them home? Tjhis stamp didn't seem to like the distress ink, so I used the SU always artichoke pad and stamped it 3 times across the front of the card.

The finished scene was mounted onto matt silver, then onto a square blank cut down from A4 in always artichoke card - I may not use the few SU stamps I own much, but I love their card!

This card is also for Judith's Forgotten Friday - I don't usually get around to this one, but this definitely qualifies!

black/white/red

2012-01-18T19:40:00.000Z

The challenge on 52cct. this week was a colour one, use black and white, with a splash of red. Took me a while to come up with this one, until clearing the desk revealed this old SU santa stamp at the very back, unused since it arrived a while ago as part of an assortment of stamps from ebay.
Base card is a black square cut down from A4, and the embossed backing panels are using a snowflake die, I think an old quickcutz one. The black panel was swiped with a white ink pad after embossing, then sprayed with crafters companion silver spray - the white panel was just torn, edged with versamark and vanilla ice EP. The top note die was cut from the same black card as the base, spritzed with the silver spray, edged with versamark and vanilla ice EP again. The santa image was stamped in black versafine, red is poppy promarker, cut using an xcut die - the red layer uses the next size die from the same set, just twisted round.
This card also fits the simply stampin challenge I found a link to somewhere in blogland

alphatags

2012-01-15T17:46:00.001Z

These are my first 2 tags for the Chocolate Baroque Guild alphatags swap - 26 tags over a year to make a tag book eventually, usually 2 or 3 tags each month; hopefully I shall be able to keep up!
Paula has already blogged her first tag, which reminded me that I needed to photo mine and get them in the post, so a blog post while my memory is working!
The tags are cut using the Tim Holtz large tag die from Sizzix (had a little trouble tracking this down at a reasonable price, but managed to find it in the end). I used TH masks bought ages ago for the letters, with chipped sapphire ink to outline them, and all the stamps are Chocolate Baroque.
The angel tag uses the angel of light stamp - base layer embossed in gold on white card, halo painted with gold H2O,mounted onto backing paper from the Artylicious Seasons greeting cd (also from CB). Stamped again in black versafine onto white card, coloured with watercolour pencils, with clear glitter on the flowers. I stamped the bottom layer of the wings in white onto vellum, then again in white onto some ancient fusible film - both wing layers were cut out and decoupaged onto the white layer.

The blue butterfly has a background using several flower/foliage stamps mostly from the wild meadow plate stamped with the chipped sapphire DI - the carnation stamp was stamped several times, then sprayed with water to blur the image. Once it was dry, the same stamp was repeated over the blurs using night of navy ink from SU , and the foliage stamps added to fill the gaps. The butterfly was stamped twice in black versafine and clear embossed before painting with H2Os, with the top layer decoupaged over the base layer.
Flowers were cut using the TH tattered florals die and a drinks coaster - the tissue layers were separated out, scrunched up and fasted with a brad before liberally spraying with glimmer mists and scrunching up again before being left to dry. Leaves from the matching tattered leaves die cut in blue card, edges roughly inked in the navy. The edges were distressed, and embossed with a mix of EP remnants in blues and sparkly black.
They have both ended up quite dimensional, but the flowers are quite soft and ended up relatively flat, so hopefully they will be ok!
I have replaced the original photos with scans, which are far better!

MMM31 -animals

2012-01-14T16:28:00.002Z

A very last-minute card for Make My Monday challenge 31 - animals. I got this lovely Jayne Netley Mayhew stamp of a siamese cat from Joanna Sheen as part of a Christmas voucher spend, and had to try it out. Very simply stamped in black versafine onto white card, cut out with an Xcut die and inked round the edge with SU crumb cake ink while still in the die.The markings on the cat are also crumb cake, applied with a cotton bud, eyes coloured with promarker. The mat using the next size up die was SU baja breeze card, darkened with baja breeze ink. The DP was a digi download, from Lesley Wharton many moons ago -have just checked her blog, and it was May 2009 -doesn't time fly! Mats are crumb cake and baja breeze card, and the white edges of the base card were sponged with baja breeze, as the white was too harsh.

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T14:01:00.000Z

Happy New Year to everyone, hope that yours will be all you could wish!
Bah humbug was my salvation last year - I actually ended up with a few spare cards, almost unheard-of before, although I have to admit to buying some charity ones for general use. Unfortunately for me, Ann and Max have decided to have a well-deserved break - then (thanks to Val) I discovered a similar new blog here, so I shall still have something to push me into making Christmas cards...............
Anyhow, this was using up one of the housemouse images I had already cut out but not used - otherwise I would only lose the bits! I thought that this would also make a nice New Year card. Very simply matted onto green and gold, then onto a card blank covered with holly paper from the Artylicious Seasons greetings cd (from Chocolate Baroque)- and a new year resolution is to buy a new blade for the paper trimmer, as the current one seems to be catching................

angel of light

2011-12-22T09:40:00.000Z

This is the card I sent to Carol as part of the Chocolate Baroque Guild card swap - having done quite a few all-white cards, I headed the other way for this colour-wise. Having sent it, I did start to wonder if it was a bit gloomy for Christmas, but fortunately Carol liked it!
Base card was 8x8 silvery pearlescent, and the angel image from Chocolate Baroque was stamped on white card with versamark, embossed with Stampendous twilight EP. I tore the image out, embossed the torn edges with vanilla ice EP, mounted it onto torn black card sprayed with Crafters Companion silver spray, edges embossed with vanilla ice again. Final torn backing layer was white card run through a snowflake embossing folder, rubbed with weathered wood distress ink, then sprayed with silver bells glimmer mist before being embossed round the edges again with vanilla ice (haven't got much of this left, and it was only a small pot from Graphicus in the first place, so will be looking for something similar after Christmas).
Flowers were cut from differing shades of silver pearlescent card, 2 with a Marianne die and 1 with a Crealies die; mini gems added to centres. Silver scrolls were from a Sizzlits die.
I would like to wish everyone a very happy Christmas, and a happy and healthy New Year, and special wishes to the lovely people who follow my blog - thank you

Christmas housemouse

2011-12-07T17:01:00.001Z

Way back in the summer, I used part of a gift voucher to get a set of Christmas housemouse decoupage from the wobbly shelves- I used one image, carefully stashed the rest away - they surfaced last week, so I thought I ought to use some more! As luck would have it (it has to work sometimes!) , several challenge blogs all have themes that would fit these little meece, so this is for the last Bah Humbug of the year (cute critters), CD Sunday (things with whiskers), Make my Monday (seasonal glitter) and the new Joanna Sheen challenge (Christmas).

I spent a happy afternoon at the weekend watching tv and cutting out meeces, finally deciding to use this pic of two snoozing meece. I matted it onto some green glitter card, added a bit of glitter to the snow on the roof, mounted it onto a square card over a square of snowflake paper from the Artylicious Seasons Greetings cd (from Chocolate Baroque, there may still be some in stock). The snowflakes were from a Sizzix die, cut from white card (wouldn't you know I didn't have any white glitter card ?) then glittered with Art institute crystal glitter - I now have a glittered carpet as well after dropping the tidy tray I was using ............and will probably soon have a glittery cat, as there is bound to be some I missed still there.
Now to start using up the others I have cut out................

fabric flower

2011-12-01T12:05:00.001Z

This is a rather late entry for Bah humbug, where Ann and Max wanted something using fabric - I thought I had some glittery fabric, couldn't find it, so dug out the felt and net I bought ages ago to try out with the tattered florals die. I cut one layer in felt, several layers in different nets - afraid they all look the same colour in the shot, but there are actually 4 different shades in there somewhere - and layered them up, adding a chipboard circle triple embossed and stamped with a poinsettia stamp from an old Elusive Images set. Leaves are paper from the tattered leaves die, and all mounted on a box created from the Sizzix top note die from Stampin up
Am also linking this to the craftroom challenge, for flowers, thanks to Kate !

Sue's White Christmas

2011-11-27T20:41:00.001Z

This is the card my Baroque Guild buddy Sue Stone made for Glenda's White Christmas challenge. Sue doesn't have her own blog yet, so she's piggybacking on mine for now.
She created the background using torn paper masks and sponging inks over them, stamping trees to create the landscape for the house (CB home sweet home), which was stamped and cut out.She has added glitter paper, ribbon, sentiment and snowflakes from the CB winter wonderland plate.
A very wintery card, with subtle shading - nice one, Sue

White Christmas

2011-11-25T16:04:00.001Z

Glenda Waterworth has a White Christmas challenge until the middle of December - check out this post for details - the possible prize is well worth winning! I decided to do an all-white card, which believe me I regretted when trying to photograph it, though I was quite pleased with how it turned out.The base card is a pearl 8x8", the plain white layer was embossed with a snowflake folder (no name on it, and I can't remember where it came from ). The angel image from the angel of light plate from Chocolate Baroque was embossed with white detail EP onto a pearly vellum, torn out and matted onto another torn piece of plain white card, which had the edges swiped with versamark and embossed with vanilla ice EP - I used pinflair glue gel to attach the layers, so they are ever so slightly raised up. the flowers were cut from a pearly paper using crealies dies - 2 with flower die no 1 and one with no 11 - leaves were an x-cut embossing punch. I sprayed the flowers with a homemade glimmery spray - isopropyl alcohol mixed with Tsukineko shimmery ink in frost white - and added a dab of stardust stickles in the centre of each.

I am also entering this into the Make my Monday challenge, which is for a Christmas card with foliage, flowers or snowflakes - I've got all 3 here!

Bah Humbug boxes

2011-11-20T15:16:00.001Z

The latest Bah Humbug challenge 45 is for a gift box - so I used my Sizzix pillowbox die from Stampin Up. This is a disappointingly small die - ok for jewellery, but too small for the mini chocolate bars I wanted to use. I did try folding the card before cutting it to get a longer box, then decided it was far easier to just cut 2 out of different cards and put them together. I trimmed the flaps from the red card, and cut the gold one in half before glueing the halves behind the red one. The greeting from Chocolate Baroque was stamped on white card with black memento ink, coloured with promarkers - the extra fine tip was a great help - cut out and glued on top.
The second pic shows 2 more pillow boxes, the smaller one is the original size, stamped with a lovely flowery pear stamp by Artemio and embossed with detail gold EP - I went over the design on the par with a white gel pen, as I didn't think it stood out enough - next time, I will stamp onto white card and cut it out! The second box is another extended one, with a flower made from glassine and baking parchment using the Tim Holtz tattered florals die - the leaves were punched using an EK punch.
The bottom pic is what I call a cheese slice box, made from 1/3 A4 piece of card. The reindeer was from a die - Marianne?- cut from white card, glittered and a gem on his nose. The trees are from a chocolate Baroque stamp.

cd sunday trees

2011-11-20T15:03:00.001Z

This week's challenge on CD Sunday is trees - having come across this Chocolate Baroque trees stamp, I decided I have better use it now - I have recently set out to do challenges and found that they had already ended..............so am trying to reform! The dp background is from the Artylicious Essence of Nature cd (also from Chocolate Baroque). The main image panel was a mixture of brayering and sponging for the background, with the trees stamped using black memento ink. The reflection was brayered on first before stamping the trees - it is quite a large stamp, so the brayer only takes part of it.

November craft club

2011-11-18T20:24:00.001Z

last Sunday was the delayed craft club meeting at Moira's, and this was based on the card Janet designed. The background used the faux pearl technique, with white acrylic paint mixed with mica powder dabbed over the car first using crumpled cling film. Once this was dry, then we used various distress and dye inks sponged over to create the sky before multi-stamping the trees stamp by Clarity stamps in the foreground. Greeting was also a Clarity stamp. My sky was supposed to be a sunset, but now I think it looks more like a misty landscape! I mounted the finished scene onto matt silver, then onto a white card previously stamped with the Tim Holtz pine needles stamp in weathered wood along one side.

The second card from an idea by Moira was a large card, basically a back-to-front easel card with a battery tealight inside, with a very fancy aperture cut using a big die and a caliber diecutter. Snag here was that I assembled it the wrong way, so took it to pieces once home and redid it. The image was originally a large Papermania nativity stamp, but I stayed with the Clarity stamp from the previous card, and did a proper misty sunset scene on vellum. As it was a large aperture, I could rescue it by using my largest oval to cut apertures from two A5 cards once home and sandwiching the vellum between them to make the easel card base. The scan was done with white card behind the image, as I have found it almost impossible to get a good photo with the tealight in position. Actually, the easel card is lined with mirri card, which reflects the tealight.
Having got on a roll, I made two more, using the stamp I had originally hoped to use, from Chocolate Baroque, which was far too small for the original aperture.

this time, I used black card for the base, and stamped using black versafine ink and clear embossing powder onto a tinted vellum. This was the best shot I could get with a tealight lit, and i think you can just see the gold mirri card lining the base card.
the second one used a slightly larger card, with a handcut rectangle aperture - as the aperture was offset, I cut both layers together so that they would line up properly. This version is lined with silver mirri card, and the palm tree image and greeting (also Chocolate Baroque) are embossed in silver.

bah humbug 44

2011-11-09T21:34:00.000Z

Bah humbug 44 challenge is to use a snowman - took me quite a while to remember that I had this Tim Holtz stamp, which had never seen ink before today. I made a tag, using DIs in antique linen, tattered rose, milled lavender, shabby shutters and tumbled glass for the background, and chipped sapphire round the edges. I ran the tag though the big shot with a snowflake embossing folder - no name on it though - brushed shimmer paint over the snowflakes and glued some snowflakes cut from glitter card with a Martha Stewart punch over some of them.
the snowman was stamped in chipped sapphire, and embossed with a holographic EP, then stuck on top - ribbon is a bit of shiny pale blue organza that was lurking in the bottom of the drawer

a time to remember

2011-11-08T19:43:00.000Z

Cynthia has challenged us to use poppies this week, and this is the first of my efforts (at least, I hope I can finish the second improved version!)
The stamp is a very old one from Funstamps, stamped in black memento ink and coloured with promarkers. I used a post-it note mask, and stamped the grasses stamp from Chocolate Baroque several times in varying DI green inks before sponging some shabby shutters over the bottom of the card. and pink, purple and blue inks over the sky to try to give a sunset effect.
I cut it out with a Sizzix topnote die, trimmed it down and mounted in onto a gold card using the same die. The backing paper is from the Essence of nature cd (Chocolate Baroque), so making this card eligible for the CD Sunday challenge as well

gift tag

2011-11-08T19:32:00.000Z

Another challenge site that I haven't been to for a long time is Moving along with the times - this week their challenge is food and drink. I couldn't find the original stamp I had intended to use, but did find this Christmas pudding from Chocolate Baroque, and decided to turn it into a gift tag to go with one of the Christmas cakes that I have started to bake.
The tag was stamped with a pine needle stamp from Tim Holtz using forest moss DI, then stippled and sponged with antique lined, shabby shutters and fired brick DI in a random way. once it was dry, the needles were stamped and embossed in gold round the edges, edges distressed and gold embossed as well.
Pud was embossed in gold on white card, then again with the image coloured in inks applied over versamark with cotton buds then clear embossed. It didn't work as well as I had hoped, so after cutting the pud out, I added more brown inks to the pud again with cotton buds. I cut the image out with an Xcut die, then sponged antique linen and shabby shutters round the edges, ran a versamark pen round the edges and gold embossed them. The coloured pud was decoupaged onto the original gold image, which was then added to the tag, with red and gold ribbon to finish.

flower die

2011-11-01T09:55:00.000Z

I have not been able to keep up with all the challenges that I would have liked, and this is the first one for Playdate that I have managed for quite some time. The colour scheme was kraft, flesh and pale blue for challenge 105, and I thought that would do nicely for a Christmas card that would also fit Bah humbug 43, to use die cuts - also a chance to play with my new stamps from Chocolate Baroque! I started with a kraft card blank, cut down from A4, and stamped the image from the Christmas cheer plate in bashful blue ink - so far, so good - problem was matching the blue ink with card to make the flowers, almost had to resort to colouring white card with the ink ( can quite see the attraction of stampin up's colour co-ordination now!) I used a Marianne die to cut the flowers, and a top note die to cut the backing shape from glitter card, the nearest I could find to a flesh colour. I partially decoupaged the trees and tree trunks in the front of the image, cut it out and glued it over the die cut before adding the flowers. I added some shimmer paint round the edges of the petals, and a quick squirt of silver spray as well. The second card will also qualify for Bah humbug, as I used the same dies. the stamp is from the Peace on earth plate, embossed with copper EP onto white card. The card was then brayered over using the waterfall big'n'juicy pad, before using night of navy ink to darken the sky immediately round the star, then chipped sapphire DI over the rest of the card. Cut out, mounted onto a thin layer of copper card, then onto a piece printed from the peacock summer party cd (also chocolate baroque) before adding to an A5 card in dark blue. Copper card for the marianne die flowers, with the leaves from an EK punch in green.

good to eat

2011-10-20T11:57:00.001+01:00

the Bah Humbug challenge 41 is 'good to eat' - mine is still on the hoof!
A very quick card using the stag stamp from Crafty Individuals, stamped in versamark on blue card and embossd with white detail EP, then the stag coloured with pencils. There was a little purple pencil in the corners of the background too. Just trimmed down, mounted on a very thin mat of blue glitter card, athen a larger of matt silver. The backing card was white, the trees from the Pilkington Lane set by Stamps Away were embossd with the white detail powder again, then a quick swipe of tumbled glass distress ink before adding the stag.

moonlight 2

2011-10-11T21:28:00.000+01:00

Another one for Cynthia's challenge this week - this was one of the first attempts that I decided to try to rescue! I originally stamped it too close to the edge of the card, but then thought that if I used a nestie it would be useable..............Anyhow, this one was just coloured with promarkers in various greys, with olive green added for the grass and a liberal splodge of blender pen, then black for the foreground; sprayed with Crafter's Companion silver glitter spray before cutting out.The silver mat usd the next size up nestie, and it went onto a green base card overstamped with grasses in versamark again.

moonlight

2011-10-11T17:15:00.001+01:00

The challenge set by Cynthia this week is ' in the misty moonlight' - I thought I would try this using stamps from the Chocolate Baroque 'home sweet home' plate. I stamped both the smallest house and the large moon with grasses images in black memento ink, then extended the hill line with a market pen. I used promarkers in 3 greys to colour the house and trees round it before masking both the moon and the house with post-it notes. I used cut'n'dry foam and stampin'up ink spots to sponge the background and sky - sky colours were pale plum, bashful blue,not quite navy and night of navy, with old olive, pale plum, not quite navy and memento black for the land. Moon was coloured with a buttercup promarker and a dash of shimmer paint.

I cut a square green card base from a sheet of A4 card, matted the image onto a pale cream glitter card after stamping the other large grass stamp across the base of the card in versamark.

Am trying using Google chrome, and can't seem to get the text to wrap around the image, sorry for all the white space!

nativity

2011-10-06T11:39:00.000+01:00

The challenge at Bah humbug this week was 'nativity' - an ideal chance to try out my new stamps from Lindsay Mason! A very simple card, as I was short of time this week -stable image stamped in memento, masked then the palm trees added. The town image is an old stamp from All night media. I stick down a post-it circle for the moon, covered the ground with a piece of ripped paper, brayed over the sky using a big'n'juicy waterfall pad, then went over it again with stampin'up night of navy ink. I dragged some of the darker ink over the moon after taking off the post-it as it looked a little too bright. I then used the bit of torn paper to mask the sky of and sponged stampin' up inks in creamy caramel and really rust to create the sand in several layers.

scrapling bookmark

2011-09-22T20:02:00.000+01:00

Suzi came up with (obvious when someone else has thought of it!) the idea of using scraplings to make bookmarks..........gratefully copied by Val and now me..............all because LIM are trying to get 1000 blog entries this week. My scrapling was stamped with 2 stamps from the new chess set from Chocolate Baroque - king stamped with espresso ink, queen with crumb cake (both stampin' up) after masking the king. A hole punched at the top and dull gold ribbon added - one quick bookmark!
Entries were up to the 500+ mark, so over halfway.............

swirl 2

2011-09-22T09:08:00.002+01:00

Found this stamp after moving piles of craft stuff to get at the Christmas stamp drawer - think it is by Creative Expressions, called fairy tree - another one which has not seen much use. Thought I may as well try it out as an extra for LIM, (who were up to 450 when I just checked, so a way to go yet!) also for Bah Humbug 37. Had to give it a red background to get it to scan, card is just white with silver embossing.

swirls

2011-09-22T09:04:00.000+01:00

Ann and Max at Bah Humbug this week ask for swirls - I got this Papermania stamp just before Christmas last year, and it has not seen much use, though it came in very handy for very last-minute cards then. I dug it out quickly to do an equally last-minute entry for the challenge - just stamped with versamark and embossed in sterling silver EP (would have been better with detail silve, but couldn't find that after clearing up to allow visitors to stay!
This also fits with the LIM challenge 33, for anything goes, off there now to see how close to their target of 1000 entries (Blogger permitting) they are getting this week -

LIM recipe

2011-09-01T20:58:00.001+01:00

The LIM challenge this week is a recipe - combine any 3 previous challenges! I have been searching for some time for American Football images, as my son is a keen player, and eventually found this old set by Stampin up on ebay a few weeks ago - the postage from the US cost me more than the stamps, but they looked practically new when they arrived.
I wanted to try them out, so the 3 challenges almost chose themselves - obviously no 7, masculine; no 4 use 3 squares; and then no 29, things that move. Images simply stamped with black memento ink, coloured with gold promarker (the team colours of his last team), cut out with a square punch originally bought for teabag folding papers and matted onto yellow card.

LIM 29

2011-08-25T16:52:00.000+01:00

I was planning on using a butterfly stamp for this challenge, which was 'things that move' - then I got my new stamps from Chocolate Baroque today - the 'home sweet home' set that I had resisted buying earlier. This image of waving grasses is one definitely my favourite from the plate, and I couldn't resist using it! Simply stamped in black memento ink, the moon was coloured with promarkers - pumpkin,gold and sunflower - masked off and the sky sponged around it with a dark blue from my set of old Stampin up inkspots (not quite navy). The ground had more black memento brushed over it, which was carried up into the sky.

bah humbug 33

2011-08-24T13:58:00.000+01:00

Bah Humbug 33 is to use something new - the stamp by Wendie Rhodes is new to me, it was part of the set of stamps I borrowed to use for challenge 25, penguins - I quite liked this scene, so stamped a few images before returning the stamp set to Moira. The one that made it to the card was rhe 3rd attempt, so I may be asking to borrow it again! I coloured the image with promarkers, then covered it with versamark and clear embossed it. The background was brayered and masked. The sky began with the waterfall big n'juicy pad, then stampin up night of navy over the top - I found that the waterfall on its own was too bright, and the navy too dull, but both together was fine! The sand dunes in front were done with stampin up crumb cake ink.

After I had finished the colouring, I thought that my new top note die would go well with the oriental image, so cut it out, with fingers firmly crossed that the cut would be in the right place! (I did mark the die first with white marker so I had a fighting chance of getting it right). The matting layers were cut freehand, 2 in linen-effect silver and one from paper from the Artylicious decadent brocade cd (from Chocolate Baroque) and mounted onto an A5 dark blue card.

Have reloaded the photo, hope the zoom works now - Blogger was playing up when I did the original post, and didn't want to load the photo at all

ex rubbish pile

2011-08-17T21:54:00.004+01:00

This is one from the rubbish pile after a rescue session! The inky marks got covered up with more ink, so quite a bit bigger 'scene' as a background to the Stampin up boat stamp - I stamped the boat again on white card and cut the sails out, then pieced them over the original image.
second entries for LIM and Cynthia's challenges, also an entry for St Luke's charity challenge, which has a seaside theme this month

craft club cards

2011-08-16T17:25:00.001+01:00

Sunday was craft club again at Moira's - she had been watching C&C, and got inspired! The first card used rubber stamp tapestry sets to make the background, and her new Gocreate dies and grand caliber machine. No idea which the tapestry stamps were, basically just small leaves, and I used crumb cake and early espresso stampin up inks around a mask using the largest of the dies. The owl stamp is from a glimmer mist set, stamped in the espresso ink onto white card, with a waterbrush to pull the ink out a bit into the design. The owl was cut out usaing the smallest die, and the mirri mount using the middle size die. An easy card to do, just took time stamping the background - fortunately there were only 5 of us this month, so not too much waiting for stamps!
The second card was also tv inspired - I think Moira said by a demo by Alli. The backing is actually kitchen roll - sprayed with glimmer mists first, then crystal embossing powder sprinkled over the wet paper and heat embossed. It takes a bit longer, as the heat gun has to dry the rather soggy sheet first before actually getting to work on the ep, but you get a great effect!

Mine came out looking rather froggy or snake-y, so Moira dug out this Jeremy Fisher stamp .(stampendous?) ..............stamped with black memento, coloured with derwent coloursoft pencils, with a bit of green ink sponged round the edges of the card. Think the bp was DWV, but not sure.......and am still working on getting Moira to start her own blog................

one layer inky

2011-08-16T14:16:00.000+01:00

The LIM challenge this week is for a one-layer card using inks - was very tempted to use my current favourite sailboat image again, but decided that it would be too similar to previous cards. This little tree image comes from the Chocolate Baroque Teeny Weeny Meadow set, simply stamped in black memento ink with the background sponged over it. This one was the last in a small heap of cards that all ended up with a mark just where I did not want it -hopefully some of them can be rescued, if no other way than as a patchwork card!
Background was done using Stampin up inks - I got a couple of sets of ink spots from ebay, which have proved very useful to carry around in my craft bag, most of the colours are I think no longer available (or perhaps renamed?). Anyhow, the grass was old olive, and the sky a mix of apricot appeal, pretty in pink, pale plum and bashful blue - quite a mix, but it did give the effect I was looking for.
This card also fits the Rainbow Lady challenge this week - it's been along time since I got around to doing Cynthia's challenge!

kiss-mass

2011-08-15T21:55:00.003+01:00

This week's Bah humbug challenge is Kiss-mass - and I immediately thought of the unopened pack of housemouse decoupage that I had had for some time, and this image seemed perfect.
I did decide that I should have chosen something else once I started cutting the bits out though............definitely fiddly, and this was the time my knife blade decided to get blunt .................I gave up a few layers short, matted it onto gold mirri card and onto a card blank covered with paper from the Seasons Greetings cd from Chocolate Baroque.

When I was trying to get a decent photo, my own mog decided to supervise the strange activity, so I aimed the camera at her as well - which was when she decided to go all bashful! This was the best shot I could get as she wanted to roll around my feet instead of posing prettily at a decent distance.

LIM 27

2011-08-11T17:25:00.003+01:00

This weeks is a colour challenge, to use the colours of your national flag - I went for the Brisitsh colours of red, white and blue, and used a sailing image for an island nation. Very very simple card, image from Stampin Up stamped onto a 5"sqaure white card in black memento ink, clear embossed, red promarker over the hull and flag, then DIs waterbrushed over to create a background - I used a mix of tumbled glass and stormy sky.

white on white

2011-08-09T20:03:00.003+01:00

White on white was this weeks' challenge 32 from Bah humbug - the second unstated challenge was to get a picture of the card. The best photo I could get was a delicate shade of blue, so in desperation I scanned it - I did have to put a sheet of snowflake paper from the Artylicious Seasons Greetings cd behind it to get it to show up at all, but it was a far better image!
I used one if my favourite angel stamps from Stampendous, stamped in Versamark onto vellum and embossed in detail white EP. I ripped this out, then mounted it using pinflair glue gel behind the embossing onto a similarly ripped piece of white card that had been embossed round the torn edges with a white puff twinkle EP from Wow that was a regretted impulse buy last year - must admit it came out ok this time though! Background pearlescent panel was run through a provocraft snowflake embossing folder a couple ot times, then mounted onto a pearlescent white base card.

Also on a Christmas theme was this little gift box made at a Stampin Up evening last night - you can't really tell from the pic but there is a little drawer that will take chocs,(or mini soaps if you are malicious!) and the lid opens like a card. Hard to explain, but easy to do - hopefully Lisa will put better photos on her blog at some point. It measures 3" square, and 1" deep when done, so definitely small, but on the plus side doesn't take much card...................can see me doing plainer ones with cash inside for family...........

old and new

2011-07-29T19:40:00.000+01:00

Another forgotten and recently excavated stamp here in the background - a map stamp from Inkadinkadoo, which was stamped with black memento ink onto white card.The image was torn out, crumpled up within an inch of being a total wreck, sort of smoothed out and inked with distress inks in old paper, antique linen and tea dye - definitely looked ancient by then! The netting was originally holding lemons, and the bright yellow colour was more or less hidden by using denim alcohol ink, which was rubbed over using the felt pad on the tool - I now also have an interestingly blue smudged background piece of card as well. The new bit is the sail away stamp from Stampin up, just stamped in black onto white card, matted onto a pale blue card. The base cream card was sponged with tea dye ink round the edges
A second card this weekend for Judith's Forgotten Friday!

think bike

2011-07-28T21:25:00.000+01:00

I had been very tempted to buy a motorbike stamp recently, but resisted - was very glad I had when I came across this stamp by PSX during the ongoing clearout - didn't look as if it had ever seen an ink pad, so thought I ought to at least try it out! I had also recently bought some seam binding ribbon - I know this is somewhat earth-shattering, as I very rarely put a ribbon anywhere near my cards, but I really like the soft effect of this stuff, (sorry for the shock Moira - hope you were sitting down comfortably!) and the muted beigey colour goes well with my favourite autumn colours............
It had to be a very simple card, to get away with adding the ribbon as required in Less is More 25 - stamped on white card using early espresso ink from Stampin up, with a bit of added shading using a waterbrush, then matted onto a piece of milky-coffee colour card which had a ruffled strip of the ribbon taped around it, pushing the ruffles to the side of the image. Edges of the white piece and of the base card were sponged with more of the ink - there are ladies who ride bikes after all, and I don't think it is too frilly for a man anyway...............
Am also linking this to Judth's Forgotten Friday challenge, as this stamp definitely qualifies as forgotten

bah humbug shape

2011-07-20T08:49:00.001+01:00

bah humbug want a shaped card this week - I ended up with this one after trying to make a rocker card with an oval die and failing miserably (well, I did end up with an ok one, but it was sooo small...........). Mind you, this one isn't too wonderful - the faulty cutting really showed up on the scan, so obviously I should have measured it rather than just cutting round the original shape!
The stamp is by Stampin-up (assume it is an old one) , and came in a batch of Christmassy stamps from ebay - this and a santa were the ones that caught my eye originally, although I started out looking for more angel stamps.............. Anyhow, it was coloured with watercolour pencils after stamping with black memento ink before being cut out and matted onto white glitter card

blue butterfly

2011-07-18T20:23:00.002+01:00

Had a quick play with my new butterfly flourish swirls stamps from Chocolate Baroque- thought they would go well with the St Luke's challenge to use black, white and one colour - admittedly several shades of blue promarkers! this is the large swirl image from the plate, just stamped in black memento ink and coloured - very very simple!

craft group cards

2011-07-18T20:17:00.003+01:00

Yesterday was our regular monthly get-together at Moira's, and these are the results. The first 2 were Moira's idea after seeing a demo on tv - why not use diecuts to emboss with? The diecuts were all Marianne dies, cut out of scrap card then run through a diecut machine - between us we had a wizard, grand caliber, big shot and cuttelbug, and it worked in all of them, only snag was just the one set of dies..................... The embossed images were sanded down- mine were on a sheet of black cordinations card - then the diecut bird image added on top. I added a flower made from the same orangey card as the bird die cut, the leaves were cut down from another bird - flower and leaves were inked with pumpkin pie ink from Stampin up, which was also used round the matting layer and the base card.

I did a slight variation - I had time, as I got to the dies first!- and used the diecut as a mask. T he pale pink card was a piece of graduated colour card, and I spomged another SU ink cameo coral to produce the bird background, and around the edges again. the leaves by the flower were from a new nesties set of Janet's, and both they and the bird diecuts were cur from the darker bit of the card and sponged over to darken them still further - I quite liked this, and carefully preserved my 'stencils' to use again.

The last card was an idea from Janet, using her favourite Clarity Stamps in alium designs. A post-it mask for the centre square, and I used the small stamp randonmly around the edges using pale plum and perfect plum SU inks, with both inks sponged round the edges again. the large alium was stamped in the centre of the frame and embossed with purple powder - wow? -before the centre of the square was outlined with marker pen and matted onto a plae lilac and then onto a fancy edged card. A spare strip of card wa added to one side with sparkly brads .
I have told Moira she needs to get her own blog, but am not holding my breath!

poppy

2011-07-14T20:51:00.001+01:00

this is a card for two challenges I haven't entered before - St Luke's Charity and Forgotten Friday - both of which have sat on the to-do list each week without actually anything happening.
During the on-going clear-up of the craft room - admittedly very slow going there!- I came across this poppy stamp by Funstamps, which must have been among the first stamps I bought more years ago than I care to remember; as I love poppies, it was never going on the 'dump' pile. The St Luke's challenge is for a black and white card with one colour, so that was the colour scheme sorted, and Judith's Forgotten Friday is self-explanatory!
The background uses a collection of assorted stamps from Chocolate Baroque - the far ones were from the teeny meadow set, and I think the front ones were from eastern grasses - poppy was coloured with promarkers.

vintage glassine

2011-07-13T09:58:00.001+01:00

I really didn't need to add another challenge blog to the hopeful-to-do list, but I discovered Make my Monday through Val's blog, and as the theme is vintage, it fit in quite well with my current fixations on using the Tim Holtz kraft glassine aand making flowers! As MAWTT is also on the list, I decided to try a vintage style Christmas card - I stamped the angel from Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque) onto the glassine using Stampin Up chocolate chip ink, heat dried it, then carefully scratched the flower detail and the edges of the wing feathers. The image was torn out, mounted onto a beige card embossed with a Provocraft houndstooth embossing folder which was then rubbed over with another SU ink, creamy caramel - I used to be rubbish at inking embossing, but have found that the mini pads seem to work better, probably because I can't be as heavy-handed with them. The edges of the embossed bit and the base card were sponged with brushed corduroy distress ink. The flowers were made using the TH tattered florals die and old brown paper envelopes, with a quick spritz of copper glimmer mist to cover the different browns - gold leaves from an EK punch.

meeces - well, one anyway!

2011-07-11T17:01:00.001+01:00

I finally managed to sneak some craft time in today, and made this tag for Bah humbug, who want meeces (sorry ladies, only one lonely but very contented meece!) and Play Date Cafe who have a colour scheme of mint, buttercream and taupe. The nearest to buttercream i could find was a light manilla tag, and I had a creamy caramel SU ink pad, so the green had to be the shoe, which was coloured with pencils.I did colour some cream ribbon with promarkers as well..........the stamp is from Clarity Stamps, and was a stamped image I found lurking- had to cut the image out as the background wording had got crumpled...background wording is an SU stamp repeat stamped across the tag in caramel ink, which was also used around the tag edges.

penguins

2011-06-28T19:38:00.001+01:00

The challenge for bah humbug 25 is to use penguins - as I live in a penguin-free zone, my friend Moira lent me her Wendie Rhodes stamps, and the lovely swirly penguins come from the winter wonderland collection. As soon as I saw them I thought they would fit with the Less is more challenge sketch, so long as I used squares for circles. The backing paper is from the Echoes of Italy set by Glenda Waterworth - it just looked iceberg-y to me- and the penguins were stamped with black memento ink. Base card is white pearlescent 8x8, and got the sides trimmed slightly on the scan.
Am also entering this for the MAWTT challenge 104, clean and simple - you could hardly have anything simpler!- and for Crafty Hazelnut's challenge 26, anything goes.

kraft glassine

2011-06-27T19:46:00.000+01:00

I have been playing with some of the Tim Holltz kraft glassine papers this weekend - ever since I saw this stuff on Tim's blog I wanted to try it for making flowers. It does make lovely flowers - the photos on the left are my first attempts. The one on the left in the first pic was the first, which was a disaster area in many respects - all was fine until i tried adding Pearlex powders and heating it - I had totally forgotten that PearlEx doesn't have a binder in it like Tim's recommended Perfect

Pearls, so a fine cloud of white powder rose in the air the moment I turned the heat gun on, followed by a distinct smell of melting wax as I overheated the paper trying to get the pearls to stick. Fortunately a spray of glimmer mist in dewberry sort of rescued that flower - the next one was just sprayed with the glimmer mist to be on the safe side! For the 3rd one I printed a blue flower download from Glenda Waterworth on both sides of the glassine - i had to tape it onto a sheet of A4 to put it through the printer, and it worked fine - could have been a coincidence that i had to run the headclean routine twice afterwards.... It came out greens rather than blues, but made a nice flower all the same, with a quick spray of silver glimmer to finish.

I printed a different download onto another sheet, which came out very faintly, and I was stuck what to do witrh it at first, then i spotted a corner had creased and the wax showed whiter there - so I got my stampbord tools out and started scratching away. I needed to be careful, as the wax coating isn't very thick, but it certainly improved the look of the images, and I turned them into these two cards. The first one, the glassine panel is cut from a nestie, with a sheet of white card behind to try to show up the colours better. This is on a gold mat cut after drawing round the nestie die used to cut out the image, then on to a cream base card stamped with an Artemio script stamp in SU creamy caramel ink.- the flowers and leaves are cut from old envelopes. The image on the second card was a scalloped circle originally, and I used the only scalloped circle I die I have to cut it out before adding it to the base card. the flowers this time are from cream card also overstamped with a script stamp - this one was borrowed, and I don't know who it was by.

catching up

2011-06-22T09:44:00.001+01:00

Am trying to catch up on craft time, without a great deal of success! June has been a very busy time with markets and WI and I have not even been able to keep up with my favourite challenges - hopefully after next week things will be back to normal! Just to prove I am still here, these are some cards I made while back using the flowers I am currently addicted to making - I even made a pile during quiet times when at the Easton College open day with Country Markets.

The cards all use sentiments from the loving sentiments plate from Chocolate Baroque, and a cuttlebug folder as background. As I am too heavy-handed with an ink pad to get a good finish if I ink an embossed card afterwards, I used the cheat way of inking the embossing folder using a brayer and a big'n'juicy pad before embossing the card. I inked the background, but you can also ink so that the embossing bit is coloured, depending on the effect you want - I found that you can get 2 images from one inking, the second will be pale and delicate.

At the WI meeting this month, we had a fascinating speaker on straw craft, with some beautiful creations to show us. We all had to make a countryman's favour - sounded simple, kept us all very quiet for a surprisingly long time, and we did all manage to produce something resembling the original! Considering that these little favours only used 4 straws, they felt surprisingly heavy after a few minutes working at arms length, and no way would I ever consider trying something as complicated as a bell!

If you are coming to the Norfolk Show next week, please visit the WI marquee and have a look at the cushions - there are some fantastic cushions (around 100!) going to be on display there. We sorted through bags of them on Monday - ranging from knitted, embroidered, ragged to patchwork, and probably some others I didn't see while I was fixing the lunch for the rest of the Home Economics committee - after lunch it still took almost 2 hours to sort out the winners from the shortlisted ones!

bah humbug22

2011-06-09T09:39:00.000+01:00

this challenge theme was 'surprise' - and I have to admit that I surprised myself by actually doing it! My mojo had totally gone, and my first thought of a shaker card was that it was hardly a surprise, and the next ideas were dismissed as too complicated for the time available. My clearout produced remnants of an ancient Christmas-themed goody bag - complete with unused paper and reindeer stamp - and with time running out I decided to go dead simple and wrap a chocolate bar. Having forgotten then to buy a decent choc bar to wrap, I had to use a cheapo supermarket bar from the baking stock, so hope it fits a better bar later on. Just a piece of paper wrapped round the bar, with the reindeer stamped onto a nestie shape and coloured with promarkers and stuck on top - sorry the scan is a bit squiffy, and cropped a bit tight as well.............. must do better next time!

bah humbug bells

2011-06-01T20:48:00.001+01:00

Challenge 21 from bah humbug is to include bells - I was getting worried ,then I unearthed this stained glass image from Funstamps when doing some much-needed clearing up (I am one of those people who would never dare to put a pic of my desk on the blog, 'cos I can very rarely actually see the desk!), partly driven by having to find the bed for my daughter's threatened visit and also by a clearance sale at the local Focus store.
Anyhow, I stamped the bells with black memento ink, coloured them in with promarkers, cut them out and glued them onto a kraft card also found during the mammoth event. The wallstones were hand-drawn with sandstone promarker, deliberately squiffy to look ancient, and heavily smudged with blender pen.

playdate 83

2011-05-31T21:15:00.001+01:00

The Playdate challenge 83 was to use black, white and a splash of green - I've got the black and white, but you have to look closely to see the green! Mind you, my poor photo doesn't help, as there was very little daylight left and just using flash indoors totally bleached it out.
The square base card is black, the embossed panel uses a cutlebug floral screen folder, which was brayered over with black ink before embossing the white card - the dye ink has come out more grey than black, and a second impression without reinking gave a lovely delicate grey (but too delicate for this, so saved for something else).

The paper flowers use the 2 smaller flowers on the Tin Holttz tattered florals die, 3 layers of each, and a daisy punch centre.(see previous post for how-to details) stuck on with pinflair glue gel.

I used 3 flowers, with the green leaves peeking out from behind cut using an EK punch

paper flowers

2011-05-26T09:29:00.001+01:00

Warning - making these flowers is addictive!

As I had a request from friends on Chocolate Baroque for details, here they are - there are also loads of other blogs with similar flowers, think the best one I found was this one from Carole (took me a while to work out how I got there).

Anyway, I used the two smaller flowers from the Tin Holtz tattered florals die, and a daisy centre from a Woodware punch - I originally used a flower from a crealies die, but that was a little too small and I could only cut one at a time, the punch is a better size and quicker. I used 3 of each size for these, more is fine but less doesn't seem to work very well. The card is an odd sheet I had, about 180gsm I think - anything from 160 gsm seems to be better than paper, as they get quite wet!Layer the pieces up, twisting each layer round a bit as you go and fasten together with a brad- you can move them around as you do them, so it doesn't matter if they are all lined up originally. The you need to spray the flower with water, and start to scrunch up the layers. You need to do each layer individually, scruch hard and spray again before each layer - second pic shows the scrunching. When I got to the bigger pieces, I found it easier to squish each petal in half before scrunching it. Once you have run out of layers to scrunch, the delicate bit starts - this is where you need the pokey tool and patience - start teasing the layers apart, working around the flower layer by layer; you need to be careful as the card will be wet and fairly fragile! Just tease outt he petals until you get a result you are happy with, then leave to dry - after it is dry. it can be sprayed with something like glimmer mists or with a glitter varnish, so a good chance to change the colour of that card you always hated but got in a bundle................

Just remember that all flowers are different, so they are all different shapes and sizes, identical ones don't exist in nature, so no reason why they should do so in craft!

thanks Gemma

2011-05-25T21:44:00.000+01:00

This lovely collection arrived today from the multi-talented Gemma - blog candy I won last month on her blog, which I discovered while idly bloghopping some time ago. A lovely stitched book mark, just right for a crime fan like me, a pouch that just fits my new phone (it will now escape the scratched screen fate of my last one!), a huge flower brooch and a sweet mini tag book. The card that came with them is at the back, and not very clear on the photo, and the mini book isn't as washed out as it looks here either!
Thank you Gemma for such a lovely surprise

penny slider card

2011-05-25T21:28:00.000+01:00

Challenge 20 on Bah humbug is to make a kinetic card - I thought this would be a doddle as I made several of these penny slider cards last year............. First problem was to find an image - the santa I used last year was borrowed, and no way was I going to drive around 30 miles to borrow it again, so I thought I would use a diecut snowflake - the penny was larget than the centre of the snowflake, so I had to add a smaller one behind the big one to hide the penny - then I absentmindedly glued the bit with the slider slot in it to the blue card - before I had cut the matching hole in the blue card. As I had used the strong red dst, no way was it going to come off, so I had to operate with a pokey tool, and the smallest scissors I had (plus a few choice words) and eventually managed to hack a hole - fortunately it doesn't show from the front! The dp is from the Seasons greetings cd from Chocolate Baroque, on both the top and base blue card, so it shows through the slot in the front.

snowflakes

2011-05-18T19:56:00.001+01:00

this is a very quick and easy card for challenge 19 on Bah humbug - the dp covering the card blank is from the Artylicious Season's Greetings cd, and it printed out a little paler than I remembered - could be something to do with my printer being short of ink! The snowflakes were cut from white glitter card using a borrowed spellbinders die set the other week - one got accidentally sprayed with blue glimmer mist, but I thought that a white one got lost in the bottom corner, while 3 blue ones would have been a bit much.

2B's

2011-05-18T12:12:00.001+01:00

The challenge this week on MAWTT is 2B's - or more! I had this unused stamp that was a magazine freebie, and immediately thought of this, as there are 3 B's just in the stamp - boy, balloon and baseball cap - so that gave me a headstart! I stamped him in black memento ink, coloured with promarkers, with blue jeans and brown shoes and hair just to add a few more Bs. Don't think I can count the Bigshot I used to cut the oval shape out with - I cut the mat oval out with some fancy scissors, mounted everything onto a card covered with dp from an old K&co pad, and added a bit of green ribbon (with a flat bow thanks to a lot of dst) and then some buttons - I know the ribbon bow and buttons are not normal for me, but sometimes needs must!

'green' blue card

2011-05-13T19:36:00.001+01:00

not amused by having to redo this post thanks (?) to Blogger having a major hissy fit, especially after having to have several goes to load it the first time . due to another hissy fit.................at least, thanks to Blogger, the deadline has been extended for bah humbug 18, so I can actually redo it.

The challenge was to use green or a recycled element - I am totally out of green card, so it had to be recycled, and the image came from a card I received last year which had fortunately escaped the recycling bin! I dotted cutout snowflakes onto a blue base card, and sprayed it with sapphire glimmermist - it doesn't show up too well on the scan, so will try to get a photo this weekend if the weather stays camera-friendly . I trimmed the image down, rounded the corners, and matted it onto gold card, also with rounded corners, then onto the base card. very simple - had to be, I ran out of time this week!

photo now added, snowflakes show up better here - sorry for gravel background!

LIM 14 - white on white

2011-05-11T11:56:00.001+01:00

The LIM challenge 14 was white on white - not something I would normally try, believe me! Even harder was trying to photograph it - this is the best I could manage, think I should have made it more dimensional then it may have been easier...........
I used the sketch from Corrosive Challenge 115 to give me a starting point, and trawled through my embossing folders, eventually coming up with a diamond cutlebug one and a free mini Papermania dots one - everything else seemed to be Christmas themed, so I will have another go hopefully.
It is ages since I made quilled roses, which seeme to be all the rage at the moment, so I cut some spirals out with fancy scissors - the leaves are an Xcut punch

calorie-free!

2011-05-11T11:46:00.000+01:00

The challenge from Moving Along with The Times this week was 'have some cake' - no problem there, well, not once I had found my cupcake stamp by Carrie Dennison for Elusive Images.
I stamped three times using vintage photo DI, using a mask over the centre cupcake - had to be brown to be my favourite coffee ones! The images were coloured with promarkers and I added glossy accents onto the chocolate decorations. The glittery stuff over the icing is stellar flash from Crafty Notions.
The easel card was covered with paper from a Laura Ashley pack I

picked up in a bargain tub somewhere, and I used the same paper inside too - I thought it looked like wallpaper. The cupcakes are mounted onto a silver oval for a tray, with a strip of punched paper behind them as I couldn't find a small enough doily.

new stamps

2011-05-04T20:26:00.000+01:00

Chocolate Baroque have some new stamps, which I couldn't resist, and this is from the wedding belle set. I used the bride for the LIM challenge this week, and had a play with some of the other stamps to make this. The background is coloured with distress ink in wild honey after randomly stamping the words and the lily in versamark and letting it dry - this way, the image isn't as obvious as when the versamark is clear embossed before inking. The folded effect was accidental - I dropped the versamark pad, so dropped it again a few times in the hope that it work create a creased pattern, and it did! After the first layer of ink had dried, I randomly stamped again still using the wild honey pad. I cut 2 nestie shapes out in white card and a middle one in gold. The larger white one was stamped with one of the flower stamps around the edges (thanks Glenda for the idea) in green (shabby shutters?), then sponged with wild honey. The same flower spray was stamped twice on the smaller nestie, then when it was dry the words were stamped and embossed in gold.
I think this would make a nice anniversary card as well as a different wedding card

blog award

2011-05-04T20:11:00.000+01:00

Thank you to Chris of Messycraftroom fame for giving me this award - now I have to work for it!
7 random things about myself -
1 hate heights
2 belong to the WI
3 was the only person known to have failed needlework at school
4 have a cat called Bibble (she had that name when she came to us)
5 am a mega messy crafter
6 can't speak German, but can follow German knitting patterns
7 adore dark chocolate, especially if it comes with a coffee centre

and I have to pass the award on to 7 recently discovered bloggers - bit difficult there as I usually bloghop round the same few, and if I follow the links I forget who the interesting ones were and how I got there!
Anyhow my 7 victims, who are in no particular order and as far as I can tell haven't already got this award, are
Jill -ladycatfern.blogspot. com
Janet - redmossramblings.blogspot.com
Gemma - makedoandgem.blogspot.com
Kate - manualidades-mamapez5.blogspot.com
Val - valscrafts.blogspot.com
Suzee -thepanachepixie.blogspot.com
Carrie - erasercarver.wordpress.com

LIM 13 congratulations

2011-05-01T14:44:00.000+01:00

The new challenge theme on Less is More this week is congratulations or thank you - and my new Wedding Belle stamps from Chocolate Baroque just fitted the congratulations theme.
My brain is only working in simple mode at the moment - am not used to this much sunshine! - so a very basic card this week. I rounded the corners of the white 5"x7"base card, added a pale gold mat under a piece of white card that I ran though my big shot with my Spellbinders flourish impressabilities stencil - I was very pleased with how well it embossed, as it had just been used as a stencil before. I gave it a quick spray with gold spray & sparkle, as it looked a little stark plain - the cut out stamp was gold embossed, and the dress also had a quick spray of gold. before mounting onto a pale gold nestie shape. The greeting is a peel off - I am sure I found a list of instructions to get an epson printer to print in gold or silver somewhere, but can't find it, or remember where I got it from either, so the peel-off had to do.

bah humbug 17

2011-04-29T09:14:00.002+01:00

The challenge this week was to use pleats or ruffles - I did wonder if I could get away with just using this image from Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque), which is on the same plate as the stocking I used for an earlier challenge. I think I did this the wrong way round - pleating that is - as I stuck a strip of dst on the card and then pleated the paper strip onto it - in hindsight, would have been far better to have pleated the paper first, then stuck it down! (I might also have got it straight that way!- well, it is straight, just not straight on the card, if you see what I mean)
The backing paper is from an old pad of Christmas papers by DCWV, which is coming in very useful after being liberated from the bottom of a heap - it fell over, no tidying involved - image stamped with an Adirondack pad in raisin onto white card. After tearing the image out, the paper was sponged with DIs in old paper, wild honey and rusty hinge, trying my best to avoid the cook's apron. I did use a waterbrush to spread a little ink onto the ribbons and ruffled edge of the apron and to add a bit of shading to the face, hands and head.
Thank you to Ann and Max for letting me play with Bah Humbug this month, have really enjoyed my DT month, and my best wishes for an equally happy time to the new DT team for May

bah humbug 16

2011-04-22T09:03:00.000+01:00

As I was pressed for time this week, it was fortunate that the challenge from Bah Humbug was for Father Christmas - I knew exactly which image I would use, as I bought the My Craft Studio Christmas cd last year just because I fell in love with this Santa image! The problem of what size to use was solved when I found the Tim Holttz snowflake die on a stall at the Thetford Papercraft show last Sunday - I have been looking for this since getting a Christmas card using it (and getting a Big Shot machine for Christmas!). The dark blue square card was cut down from A5, the snowflakes from white glitter card (also from Thetford) and the print sized to match the snowflakes. Santa was matted onto what I thought was silver mirri - turned out to be holographic silver in daylight - and pearlescent blue card, and I added a few dots of white glitter to some of the snowflakes. All in all, a very simple card this week!

Christmas stocking

2011-04-15T11:00:00.002+01:00

The challenge on Bah humbug this week is to use a Christmas stocking - I have a lovely stocking stamp by Elusive Images (now available from Chocolate Baroque) which I had never used last year. It is a very detailed stamp, stamped and embossed and coloured with promarkers - I felt it needed to be in dark colours to stand out from the glimmery background (the first version was stamped in gold, and painted with H2Os, and just looked way too gaudy with the background).
The background took a little while to do - I randomly stamped the stockings in versamark across the paper and clear embossed them. Distress inks came next, peeled paint, forest moss and red brick sponged on fairly randomly to cover the paper - then it was ironed through copy paper to remove the embossing. The next step was spraying a mix of english ivy glimmermist and cosmic shimmermist in rich gold over the page, ;eaving overnight to dry thoroughly. I cut out an interesting-looking piece to fit the 5x5 card blank, and added the stocking matted onto gold mirri card.

less is more 10

2011-04-13T19:52:00.001+01:00

This week's challenge is a one-layer card with a sentiment as the main focus. I needed a sympathy card, so used this sentiment I found at Ally Pally last year, stmaped in black versafine. The leaves are an Elusive Images stamp, randomly inked with pigment inks - I was trying to get an effect of falling leaves.

grace

2011-04-13T19:47:00.000+01:00

I first saw this little cutie on Edna's blog quite some time ago, and was very tempted, especially as it is available as a digi image - I did eventually buy it, plus another one in the range. It is very different from the images I usually use, actually a point in it's favour! I had just finished colouring several in with promarkers, and feeling quite pleased with how they had turned out, when I discovered the sugarbowl blog while bloghopping - the current challenge was for a purple and green colour scheme and a sketch - as I had just finished colouring this in in purples, I followed the sketch using a green base card, with papers from K and Co and Artylicious. The green mat was cut using fancy edged scissors.

candy canes

2011-04-08T11:33:00.001+01:00

This week's challenge at Bah humbug is to use candy canes - I found it difficult to get my head round this one, to me candy canes are seaside holidays and watching fascinated in the rock shop as the letters were rolled into the rock!
Anyhow, not having any stamps - or even bp- that fitted, I went on a trawl around the internet, and eventually came up with a couple of digi stamps; not many companies seem to be admitting to having Christmas images at the moment..........

The basic candy canes image came from Squigglefly, and I coloured it with promarkers before cutting out with a nestie and mounting onto a sheet of paper printed from the Artylicious Season's greeting cd (now available from Chocolate Baroque, at a bargain price when I looked), then onto a DL card.

I used a DL card again for the second one, this time from Pollycraft, think it was called Sherbet elf. Again I used promarkers, with a glitter gel pen on the wings then cut out the image and sat her on the base of a green mirri card nestie shape before using Anita's dimensional glue over the fur trimming on her outfit. Bp again from Season's Greetings cd.

Bah humbug is really making me use themes that I would never otherwise use, and I suspect that I will be making a nuisance of myself causing friends to dig deep into their stash for me several times before the year is out!

three kings

2011-04-01T21:01:00.001+01:00

The challenge on CHNC this week is for a square card, so lots of options there! This stamp from Elusive Images turned up during the week, when I was looking for something else - I printed outt he starry paper from the Artylicious Season's greeting cd, stamped and embossed the kings in black below the large star. I then stamped them out again onto 3 Artylicious papers in yellow, orange and brown and paper pieced the image - it is a very detailed image, so quite hard to colour in, and I had run out of the gilding flakes I usually used with this stamp.
Apologies for the scan, have had to fiddle the image so that the colours show up better, the background is a bit darker in real life
Elusive Images stamps and Artylicious cds are now available through Chocolate Baroque online.

bah humbug 13-unlucky for some?

2011-04-01T10:00:00.003+01:00

the 13th challenge from Bah humbug was for a humorous card, with the option of plaid/tartan - have to admit I groaned when I read the email details from Ann and Max! I eventually found my one and only bit of plaid paper and some matching card, then hastily begged my friend Barbara to find me a funny stamp (she has grandchildren, so has several funny stamps). The one she could find easily - see, it is not just me who puts things in such a safe place she can't find them again - is the reindeer from Anita's. I stamped him with black versafine, then coloured him in with promarkers - the tinsel round his horns was dots of a very ancient Suzie Weinberg Pure Glitz in sequin - no idea how long I have had this, it is very similar to Stickles glitter glues, and actually still worked after a good shake! I cut him out with a nestie after the glitter had dried, then cut a larger one in red mirri card.

The second card follows the sketch on Less is More and uses the adorable scruffy angel from Judikins - I think she counts as humorous anyway, and is the nearest stamp I have to that! Black versafine again, promarkers, and glitter pen on the wings, and the small nestie agin too. The border is a Martha Stewart punch, backing paper left over from a boxes workshop last year, think it was Papermania. I like this one best, but then I am a sucker for angel stamps........

Ann and Max were kind enough to say they liked them, but I think i have a fair way to go to ctach up with Judith and Fiona from last month!

hope this works, first time I have tried to schedule a post!

christmas tree

2011-03-30T09:01:00.000+01:00

Having used trees on the last few Christmas challenges, I thought that I ought to use a different tree this time - still an Elusive Images stamp though! I stamped it in versamark onto a scrap of Artylicious bp, embossed it in white regal ep, then cut it out with a small nestie - having mounted it, am not now sure it was in just the right place when cut.......anyhow, it was mounted onto copper card using the next size up, then onto another sheet of Artyylicious paper - this time from the Seasons Greetings cd, that had been spritzed with glimmer mists. White peeloff greeting added to a copper mount using the smallest nestie in the set - have loads of DL blanks that need using up, so there may be quite a few DL cards being made!
This is for the latest Bahhumbug challenge 12, for Christmas trees - hopefully I won't need a Christmas tree again for a while!

Fountains abbey

2011-03-23T19:23:00.000Z

The challenge 7 at Less is More is for a masculine card - while I have been making some recently, they did not really fit the CAS requirement!
This set of stamps by Crafty Individuals features Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, a really beautiful place to visit if you are that way, looks much better in rubber than on my photos! I stamped the base card with a script stamp from Artemio using tea dye DI, which was also sponged around the edges. The stamping was in black versafine, and the separated images mounted onto copper card - it needs a greeting, but I haven't found one that fits yet..............

silver tree

2011-03-23T11:40:00.001Z

challenge 11 on Bah Humbug is metallic, and that on CHNC 12 is silver - for once, I was sort-of organised, so one card for two challenges! When I wanted it earlier for an embossing challenge, I couldn't find the cuttlebug tree folder, no problems this time fortunately - I didn't have any metal, ( have too much stash anyway, so resisting any more techniques) so used silver mirri card to emboss the tree. Silver card for the base, and I cut a freebie piece of dufex card in a wavy line for the backing - looks a bit too much in the scan, but ok on the actual card

CHNC 11

2011-03-18T21:58:00.002Z

the CHNC challenge 11 is 'go for gold' - I took the easy way and used gold EP! Stamp by Clarity stamps, BP from Glenda's cd Season's greetings sprayed with English ivy glimmer mists to make it tone in better.
I really crawled in under the tape for this one after Mr Linky played up a bit- thanks Hazel for fixing it!

off the page

2011-03-17T11:20:00.000Z

the Less is more challenge this week is for a one-layer card off the page - snag this week was that i had planned to use the big Elusive Images butterfly stamp, then realised several others had already done this in much the same way that I had thought of - great minds obviously think alike! With time running out, I dug out my wild meadow stamps, also from Elusive Images. I used a grassy stamp in the background, in distress inks in weathered wood, shabby shutters and peeled paint, then the cow parsley(?) in forest moss in the foreground. the butterfly was added using faded jeans.
Apologies for the scan, for some reason it insists on leaving a black line at the top at the moment, and the card is clean, all marks from the scanner!!

Bah humbug 10

2011-03-17T11:10:00.000Z

The challenge this week on Bah humbug is to use an aperture - I was a little limited as I only have a few nesties, none of which really seemed to match any of the stamps I had thought of using. In the end I cut a middle-sized oval out, used the Judikins angels behind the aperture and the Elusive Images tree in front to hide some of the spare space. The angels were coloured with promarkers, and the tree with H2Os.
Just crawled in under the finishing line this week.............

Bah Humbug 9

2011-03-09T12:20:00.001Z

Embossing is the challenge for Bah Humbug this week - I had intended to use the tree embossing folder, but couldn't find it - I did find a snowflake one, so used that with pearlescent bluie card. One of my many angel stamps (this one from Anita's) was stamped onto the same card, embossed in gold and simply matted onto mirri card. A very quick card once I had made my mind up what to do!
Thanks to Hazel telling me about another Christmas challenge, I am also entering this for CHNC 10 this week

pastel poppies

2011-03-09T12:14:00.000Z

Pastel colours were the challenge on Less is More this week - think I may have gone a little too pale here, as the scanner at first decided it was black and white.............I usually stamp and emboss this Elusive Images stamp in gold, and have the traditional bright red poppies, but for this card I stamped in smoky grey Versafine, and coloured the poppies with watercolour pencils in pinks and lilac. I matted it onto a pink card, not quite the right pink, but the nearest one I had and I think it came out as quite a pretty card - will probbaly become a Mother's day card eventually.

colour splash

2011-03-08T22:04:00.001Z

Play Date challenge 71 is for black, white and a colour - after rejecting several favourite stamps, I decided to use this image from a set of stamps by Carrie Dennison for Elusive Images as I thought that all it needed was a touch of green for the grass - I was very tempted to just add pale blues and make it a winter scene, but it was nice and sunny today!
The image was stamped with black Versafine, and coloured with watercolour pencils - backing strip is from the Essence of Nature cd by Glenda Waterworth

butterfly squares

2011-03-01T09:25:00.000Z

I was wondering what image to use for the Less is More challenge this week of use 3 squares when my new issue of Craft Stamper arrived - the free stamp was this lovely swirly butterfly designed by Glenda Waterworth for her new company Chocolate Baroque - problem solved! I used the colour scheme from Playdate challenge 70 - I haven't got around to many of their challenges this year - and soon had a pile of rejects; this is the only one that survived, despite the inky squares being on the dark side. The one absolutely perfect pastelly one had the stamp dropped on it, and of course it landed inky side down...........now I remember why I was never that keen on stamping directly onto my card in the first place!
The squares were sponged in distress inks - wild honey, tumbled glass and shabby shutters - through a punched mask - and I found that a cosmetic sponge worked better than the tool or cut'n'dry, but that was probably due to the card surface more than anything else.

things that fly.....

2011-02-28T17:19:00.000Z

Challenge 8 at Bah Humbug is things that fly - I decided to save my angels for later challenges (surely there will be an angel one?)- and use this Rudolph stamp from Elusive Images a couple of years ago.
I did try creating a sky background with a brayer, but couldn't get the colours right with my big'n'juicy pads, and mucked it up even more trying to brayer DI ink over the top! So I used a piece of blue card, stamped Rudolph in versamark and detail silver EP. I then darkened the sky with black soot DI, stamped a roofline using more Elusive Images stamps - I think mostly village life plate, but possibly townhouses too - fairly randomly along the bottom and colouring them in with black marker pen. Rudolph looked a little lost, so he got the sakura stardust pen treatment, and I added dots along the stardust trailing from his hooves as well. I matted him onto matt silver card, then on to a black card cut down from a folded A4 sheet.

use a cd

2011-02-24T09:16:00.000Z

This challenge from Bah Humbug took me back years - I was the sad person who always accepted free cds from internet access reps, so that I could use them on cards ; now they come free with everything and get thrown out, and I had to dig one out of the bin! In those days, I embossed them and then stamped into the hot ep - I still have some of the many colours of ep I used in the drawer.
This cd got coloured with alcohol inks, also dug out of a drawer. the medallion poinsettia stamp also came to light in the search for the inks, so I stamped it several times on green and red card and decoupaged it. The red was coated with a gloss finish after painting some gold in the centre, then stuck on the cd. Corner stamp was by Elusive Images.
The most trouble I had with this was taking the photo - it wouldn't scan well, and the weather has been so dull and grey that it wasn't bright enough to get a decent photo until this morning.

spring challenge

2011-02-23T20:48:00.000Z

This is my card for the Less is More challenge this week, with a spring theme. The hellebore image stamp is from Elusive Images, stamped in grey versafine and colopured with watercolour pencils, matted onto green card. I tried following the tutorial on creating greetings, and eventually managed to do this one, in what I hoped would be a matching green - my version of Word7 didn't quite follow the instructions; it was ok until it got to the point of moving the boxes as a unit, which is when it didn't.
After around an hour of cursing everything microsoft, I decided to stick with this version, which I was reasonably happy with - also before I ruined it by trying to tweak it!

earth spirit and pudding

2011-02-15T09:41:00.003Z

The challenge at Less is more this week is for a one-layer card featuring either trees or flowers - I have had the set of stamps by Elusive Images from carvings by Carrie Dennison for some time, and not got around too using them, and they definitely need a simple treatment. I may be pushing the boundaries a bit, but my favourite earth spirit carving is definitely a tree spirit..... It was stamped in versafine and clear embossed, then sponged with distress inks in bundled sage and tumbled glass

Bah humbug 's challenge is to use doilies - I had just bought a pack of these when I read the challenge, couldn't believe my luck! Admittedly, they don't seem to punch the holes out as well as they used to these days, but a doily is a doily even so, and these ones just fitted onto a gold 5x5 card. The stamp is from Elusive Images, and seemed to fit nicely in the centre. I added a little colour with promarkers, and used dimensional glue to add some texture to the cream topping.

more challenges

2011-02-09T21:27:00.002Z

I definitely felt challenged this week! The first card was for the Bah humbug challenge 5, bows and buttons - I very rarely use ribbon, and never as a bow, and as for buttons...........After much cursing I finally found a couple of buttons left over from the days when I did a lot of knitting, pale blue ones, so that sorted the colours out...........the organza ribbon was coloured with promarker, and the white added over the top, complete with required bow. The image is from Joanna Sheen some years ago, stamped with stormy sky distress ink and painted with a bit more of the same, cut out with nesties and mounted onto a larger blue shape. the scanner was not too happy with the bow, but eventually gave in...........

The second card is for a new challenge blog called Less is more, where there was a colour scheme of pink, black and white. Inspired by the cards done by Lesley, Judith, Elaine and Jo of the Craft stamping quartet I thought this would be a relative doddle ......the only pink distress ink I had was far too pale, but fortunately I had not thrown out an ancient set of Colorbox chalk inks, and the pinkish one still had a little life left in it, so I inked up a homemade shadow stamp. That was ok, but I got too many sprinkles of black ep over the next version (looked like it had measles!) which definitely reminded me to heat dry the chalk ink before adding the image from Elusive Images!. Then I couldn't find a text stamp that would fit - it was going to be a thank you card - then found this one, which eventually I managed to stamp on straight............. Then the scanner decided that it was a black and white image , so had to rescan it with some red card behind to convince the scanner that it was actually coloured.........grrrrrrrrrr The splotches across the front were on the scanner screen, and that was after I cleaned it (honest) and that was where i gave up!

oldies but goodies

2011-01-31T20:23:00.000Z

The latest Bah Humbug challenge is to use oldies but goodies - I've used two stamps that had been around for more years than I care to remember. The wise men is by Inca stamps, and the little town by All night media. I started with the town, stamping in black versafine, with the star picked out in silver ep. Distress inks came next - I did get the brayer out, but didn't have the right ink colours, so back to the cut'n'dry and the DIs instead. The sky was stormy sky, with the ground mostly old paper and vintage photo, with a bit of bundled sage in near the town. I used the traditional torn paper to mask out the dunes, then stamped the wise men in roughly the right place. I forgot that the DIs dry so slowly, so couldn't emboss the versafine as I'd intended - instead, I brushed off the image,dried it (should have thought of that first before trying the ep!), painted it with H2Os , then coloured it in with a versamark pen before finally embossing it with clear ep.

living dangerously - pay it forward!

2011-01-28T19:21:00.001Z

Am feeling quite proud that I have managed to pick this image up from Lesley's blog and put it here without any problems - my son would be stunned! Having made the first 5 there, now I have to pass it on - the first 5 people to comment on this post will all receive something handmade by yours truly - no idea what yet - and will all have to offer the same on their blogs.
Just hope that enough people see this to make it work...............
I am feeling very chuffed today - I won a Tim Holtz hoodie from Jennie and it arrrived today . It is a lovely muted browny-grey colour, and it fits me - I have to admit to being on the large size, so this is something of a miracle - and is lovely and warm, which is even better as the weather here may be bright today but it is VERY cold! A very big thank you Jennie!

green,grey, orange

2011-01-25T20:35:00.002Z

the original plan was to make one card, using the colour scheme from Playdate 65 of green,grey and orange, and the sketch from Moving along with the times 82 which also needed a flower image.

The rose image is from Elusive Images (yes, I do have an awful lot of their stamps) stamped in smoky grey versafine, coloured with pencils- torn our, matted onto dark green paper. Base card is Stamping up, and the cuttlebugged panel was glimmermisted..This is the one I prefer, and is for the Playdate challenge.

The second card -well,actually it was the first- is for MAWTT - uses the same image, this time with the edges sponged with spiced marmalade DI. The grey panel is embossed using a Tim Holtz music folder, rubbed over with bundled sage DI; the ribbon was coloured with pear green promarker; flowers from a woodware pack. Sorry, the scan isn't too good, will try to get a photo tomorrow

bah humbug 3

2011-01-24T17:06:00.000Z

The challenge this week was Christmas Cracker - well, not only did I not have any stamps with crackers on, none of my craft cds had any cracker images either, not even as a background, and a desperate search through the backing paper piles draw a blank as well. I did try cutting out a cracker shape, and a more mis-shapen effort you would have to go a long way to find!
To cut a long story short, I decided I would have to do a different sort of cracker, hence the lady in the bauble - she came from a demo My Craft Studio cd, (winter wonderland) and the background from the Star of Wonder cd I was tempted by at Christmas. I was quite pleased at how easy it was to mix the 2, as I usually just use these for papers and the occasional topper.........the pine branches at the top are stamped using a Tim Holtz stamp and 2 green DIs, know the darker one was forest moss, think the paler one was peeled paint, but not sure!

bah humbug 2

2011-01-20T11:22:00.002Z

Bah humbug 2 challenge was to use stencils - that had me worried, as I don't have any - then Janet provided the helpful hint that glimmermist masks counted, so I dug out - eventually - my masks. I used the snowflake -like one, even though it was a bit on the big side, sprayed blue glimmer mist over it to make the backing. The stamp from Elusive Images New England plate was stamped with DI in broken china, with stardust stickles rubbed over the tree in front.
One very last-minute entry here!

bah humbug 1

2011-01-12T21:32:00.002Z

I found the bah humbug site last year while bloghopping, thought it was a good idea, and did nothing about it.........then ran out of time at Christmas, so few people got a handmade card, and the supermarket sold me several very last minute boxes of cards. I decided to be a reformed character this year, and at least make an effort - I have only just scraped in with the first challenge, which I have to admit does not look good for the rest of the year!

I had great fun getting inky and making the holly background - for instructions see Elaine's blog - this version just used one colour of Distress ink, think it was bundled sage, where I got my revenge on the holly which savagely attacked me when arranging church flowers. Not so pleased with the robin, who came from a CraftsUK set found in a sale bin last year - I used promarkers for speed to colour him, and think he would have been better painted or coloured with pencils. I tried stretching one of my nesties dies to cut him out, which sort-of worked, and then used it as a template to cut out the silver border.

Decided that I would have to post this, even if not too happy, as otherwise I would have failed miserably on the first challenge

I was much happier with this calendar card made for a friend who I didn't manage to see over the holiday - it was started on Sunday at Moira's, where Jill was showing us some fancy folds. If I can get a decent photo of the inside, you would be able to see that it is a squiffy easel card. The base is stamped with wild meadow stamps from Elusive Images in 3 shades of distress ink - milled lavender and dusty concord were the main ones, and tattered rose, then sponged round the edges. The silver scroll is a Marianne die, and the floweres were from Crealie dies.

Have managed to get a halfway decent photo to show the inside of the card - basically, there is a diagonal fold across the base card to get the squiffy effect

guild card swap

2010-12-27T14:51:00.003Z

Every Christmas there is a card swap in the Graphicus Guild - it means we each get a lovely handmade card, but also a lot of anguish trying to do something special for our swap! I had lots of wonderful ideas that didn't work, and eventually ended up doing simple. the stamp was from the New England plate by Elusive Images, coloured with watercolour pencils with added glitter in places. The overlay idea was swiped from Tim Holtz - if you're going to swipe an idea, you may as well go for the top!- who embossed packaging plastic for one of his 12 tags of Christmas series this year - I think the packaging I used was a little thick, but it worked, though I had a little trouble gluing it down with glossy accents........The bp was a freebie from Glenda Waterworth, and the lh strip was cuttlebugged and glimmer misted, no idea which glimmers though as I did it ages ago.
The second card is the beautiful one I received from Val, with a lovely misty forest background - have a look at her blog, it's well worth it!

I hope everyone had a happy Christmas, and I wish you all a very prosperous crafty New Year

brown, grey and silver

2010-11-30T21:36:00.003Z

The Playdate cafe challenge this week has been for cards in brown, grey and silver - not having done any challenges for some time, I was determined to do one, and the early snow here has helped as traffic was backed up past here most of yesterday due to accidents on the main road, so going out meant walking, which I am not a great fan of in snow!

This card is actually the second effort, and uses a stamp from the Elusive Images 'New England winter' plate, which I had had for a few weeks and not got around to using.............Just stamped using vintage photo distress ink, ink brushed out with a waterbrush; image cut out and mounted onto a bit of cuttlebugged and glimmered card (it is much greyer really, the scan is very much bluer than in real life) torn and edged with silver EP - the silver EP was also dotted onto the tree by the house. The bp is from my Graphicus Guild pack, and the white card remaining was coloured with DIs in old paper and black soot . The second card was the first attempt, stamp was borrowed from a friend, and I think was from Personal Impressions - anyhow, stamped in vintage photo, clear embossed, torn out, mounted on a piece of torn brown paper, then glued at an angle across a grey gatefold card. The inner fold of the uneven gatefold was covered with a piece of the cuttelbugged card, and a silver strip of punched snowflakes (Martha Stewart) added to the larger side.

mica stencils

2010-11-16T14:18:00.002Z

At our last craft get-together Moira passed on a technique she saw demoed by Dot from the Stamp Hut at the recent Suffolk Papercraft show in Bury St Edmunds - basically stamping with versamark through a stencil, embossing with stamp'n'bond powder, then dusting with mica pigments (through the stencil? -I didn't see this, as there was almost always a huge crowd round Dot, and she had moved on to other things when we eventually got to see late afternoon)

Being Moira, she thought it would be simpler to emboss the stencil first, which is what we tried. Being me and born awkward, I had to choose a large stencil - I thought I had something at home that would just go in the centre - well, if I did, I haven't found it yet! Still, I was quite pleased with the result - it probably doesn't show too well on the scan, but the base card is a dark green, with mica in autumn colours over the leafy swirls. I did several versions before the stencil got too filthy, and one has actually made it to a card!!! The base of this one was blue, and the mica was basically the leftovers from the others, mostly a mix of gold and silver. Having had a pre-Christmas present of a

big shot, I treated myself to the Tim Holtz tattered

florals die. I cut it out several times in various gold cards, layered it up with a green cutout and added it to the centre of the frame, and it just fitted.

The samll gift tag was more the sort of stencil everyone else was using, and I was quite pleased with the snowy effect using white and green mica, with a gold for the moon.

Maybe now Pauline and Moira will stop complaining about how bad a blogger I have been lately! (sorry ladies, couldn't resist that).

halloween 2

2010-10-18T19:39:00.002+01:00

When looking for more beads in my local Range store, I found some readymade diamond-top cards in black -just right for more halloween cards - and no, I couldn't find the beads! I used the same stamp from Elusive Images as last time, but this time stamped on to a freebie paper from Glenda Waterworth last year. I copied an idea of Glenda's by adding a coat of gesso to the prrinted paper to get a misty effect, then stamping onto this with versamark and embossing with black sparkly Wow EP. I coloured one bat in in black on the background, as it was orange originally, then sponged round the edges with black soot DI. The image was mounted onto a dark grey mirri paper, then onto black card bfore mounting across the diamond top. The same paper was printed out on draft to get a simialr misty effect, stuck onto the base of the card, then the word was stamped along the bottom, using two different SeeD alphabet sets that have been lying around for ages, and consequently losing letters....................the edges were again inked with the black soot DI.
I am entering this for 2 challenges, from Moving Along With the Times 68 (halloween) and Corrosive Challenges 86 (no white).

spooky

2010-10-07T11:55:00.000+01:00

I was lucky enough to win the twilight zone set of stamps on the recent Elusive Images design team bloghop, and had great fun getting very inky at the weekend! I used distress inks in old paper, milled lavender, dusty concord, faded jeans and black soot all applied with sponges, and a post-it provided the mask for the moon. The black cat was embossed with a sparkle black EP. The base card was stamped round the edges with the tree bit of the main stamp, using versamark dazzle - I picked this pad up in a sale bin, and I can't see that it does anything different to an ordinary versamark pad ! - then the large bat was stamped randomly in the trees as well.

winter dawn

2010-09-14T11:56:00.001+01:00

The playdate challenge this week is for black and white, with a choice of copper, gold or pink. I went for the pink, and ended up with this tag.

I started by sponging my only pink DI over the white tag - as this was tattered rose, it didn't have much zing, so I carefully blended in some fired brick to give it a bit more impact. Black soot then went all around the edges, with several applications to get it dark enough. The tree stamps are from Elusive Images, and the small trees were stmaped with black soot after stamping-off onto scrap paper first. The main image was stamped in black memento, then clear embossed so it stood out a bit more - I then sponged more black soot around to try to give a landscape effect, ending up with very little white left. I used white inkessential pen to highlight the base of the trees and a few of the branches, then added dots of crystal glitter on the leaves - the dots of glitter are rather larger than I would like, aas the replacement for my quickie glue pen does not have such a fine nib.

spooky candy

2010-09-14T09:06:00.000+01:00

Fancy some Halloween stamps? Check out the Elusive Images design team blog this week for a chance to win, and to see the fab samples

challenges

2010-09-07T15:28:00.000+01:00

The first card is for Playdate challenge 45 - the colours this week were more to my liking, but I found it hard to use the maroon and ended up using it as the base card, a bit of a cheat I know! The tag got the DI treatment, using old paper, marmalade, brushed corduroy and photo inks, overstamped with an Artemio script stamp in marmalade. The trees and words came from Elusive Images- I used small trees in the background, in marmalade - they aren't terrbibly obvious, but they are there! the taller trees were stamped in brushed corduroy, which has come out nicely fawny and the words in black memento. Backing paper from Essence of Nature cd by Artylicious, and I used a couple of punched swirls to 'hold' the tag in place

When bloghopping I found that the Stamp Man now have a challenge site as well, up to no 4 with a musical theme - very timely, as I found this stamp when having a bit of a clear-up, from the very first set of atamps I bought from the Stamp Man long ago. It was stamped on white card with vintage photo DI and more DI was rubbed around the edges. I stamped again and embossed with copper EP, cutting the butterfly and dragonfly out and adding colour with marker pens before gluing them over the original. Backing bits were from stash, also unearthed from the depths - have no idea what I coloured the embossed bit with now, but DIs probably came into it! The flower is from a pack from Woodware

dreaming

2010-09-06T17:03:00.000+01:00

This was the card I did for the Graphicus Guild 'green with envy' album for those of us on the forum who could not go to the paradise weekend - after it was finished I realised that it would fit Cynthia's latest challenge very nicely.
It started as a beige DL card. with a download image from Craft Stamper transferred using nail varnish remover on an ink-jet print and a lot of rubbing down with the back of a spoon. I then sponged the card fairly randomly with DIs, starting with old paper and shabby shutters. After roughly masking out the face, I overstamped with a script stamp from Artemio in shabby shutters. I then used Elaines's leafy technique again to fill in the rest of the card using shaby shutters, peeled paint and bundled sage. the flourish stamp from Elusive Images was stamped in forest green, and the same shade was used around the edges of the card. The words came from a sheet of foiled words from Graphicus, which also got the leaf treatment before being matted onto gold mirri card.

playdate 44

2010-08-31T19:27:00.000+01:00

The challenge for Playdate 44 was to use hot pink, navy blue and mustard yellow - I was stuck for ideas until I remembered this stamp from Elusive Images. I sprayed the back ground with glimmer mists - can't tell you which ones, as I did three versions, I just dug out all the relevant colours and got messy! far as I can remember, this one used 2 each yellows and pinks, a red and a blue - I added the red as none of the pinks was really a 'hot' one. The image was stamped in black versafine, clear embossed, and the lettering coloured with a marker pen as the paper was a bit too pale at that end. A very bright pink paper that came in a mixed pack made the bakground, stamped with an Artemio stamp in faded jeans DI - the flower is prima, and the base card is navy blue.
Hopefully the next challenge will have nicer colours!

blog candy

2010-08-28T20:23:00.000+01:00

There is some lovely candy up for grabs! Jak has some, closing 3rd September; also Val until 8th September - why not pop over there and drool?

butterfly

2010-08-24T13:54:00.000+01:00

I've been quite hooked on leafy backgrounds lately, and as they have mostly been greeny, thought one would fit the Playdate 43 challenge, which was to use lime green, dark green and blue. I stamped the butterfly from the Elusive Images patchwork butterfly plate in versafine black, clear embossed it, then painted it with a mix of H2O and cosmic shimmer paints - I used the nearest to lime green I had, which was more of a goldengreen on the paper, plus a turquoise and a dark green to paint the butterfly. The sentiment from the same set was stamped onto a nestie shape, edged with DIs in greens- I think peeled paint and forest green.
This is also for Rainbow Lady challenge 115, which was 'paint'.
Sorry the scan is squiffy, the 8"x8" base card is a dull gold - but it came out better than the photo.