craft club

 Sunday afternoon at Moira's was a very lazy one - think we were all too hot, although the day was much cooler than it has been.
Moira will probably post the details of the card we were supposed to make - as usual, I did something slightly different; am sure she would think I was ill if I didn't!
She found a bargain roll of wrapping 'paper' that inspired the fishy theme, plus some old peeloffs and created an underwater scene.
I couldn't find a bit of the paper that I liked -typical- so made my own background using markers scribbled onto an acrylic block and spritzed with water (have become quite addicted to this, sorry). I stamped the sea bubbles by Ryn, the water weed by Chocolate Baroque and the Coral by Stampin Up in smoky grey versafine ink to create my background scene, then the seahorses by Chocolate Baroque in black. I coloured the seahorses, water weed and shells with markers with markers

and added a few streaks of pink to the coral. Matting was actually as instructed, then I added dazzling diamonds from SU  to the seahorses.
As I had a piece of the wrapping, I felt that I ought to use it, so did another card, this time  with SU stamps - the new ' by the tide' set. The coral was stamped on white card using crumb cake and baked brown sugar inks, the the card covered with the wrapping paper. The shells were stamped on cream card using the brown sugar ink and cut out.The fish were stamped on the same card that had actually been gellied, though it doesn't show really as this was a second print, and embossed with copper EP, then cut out and stuck on with foam pads. After I'd put it together,I felt that it could really have done with some seabubbles, but the wrapping is too plasticky to stamp on, so it stayed as it was. Backing card and matting is actually more of a  greeny colour than the scan shows - I haven't worked out how to adjust the colour balance on my new printer yet

faux chalkboard

 Faux chalkboard is this month's technique on Techniquetime Tuesday - one I saw quite a bit of a few months ago, but never got around to trying until last week.
The first card is following Mynette's video instructions (just to prove I can do as I am told) using my new raindrops stamp by Ryn, and a dirt cheap clear stamp I found in Hobbycraft on Saturday while waiting for the queue at the hairdressers to reduce to sensible proportions. Considering the weather we have had recently, thought this combination was quite apppropriate...................                                            
Moira and Janet can now relax, as I then reverted to normal and started playing around (didn't last long, did it?)
The next two both had the raindrops background again , this time on grey card - you can tell I like this stamp - and sneak peeks of 2 new sets from Stampin Up. the small flower border across the base is from Best of Flowers and the flower and sentiment from Simply Sketched, which is a new hostess set.

After stamping the raindrops and the border, I stamped the flower 3 times, using a post-it note mask and embossed with white EP. Then I went off-course and painted the flowers with a waterbrush and white Stazon reinker, gave it a quick blast with a heat gun to stop it smudging and left it overnight to dry properly. The next day I painted the flowers with a waterbrush again and primrose petals and raspberry ripple SU inks, with a bit of green marker pen on the stalks.

One I just mounted straight onto a raspberry base card, the other I cut out using a topnote Sizzix die.