craft club

It was craft club time at Gissing on Sunday, and this was the card I eventually finished off today. Being very awkward , I didn't like the geometric starry tree stamp Moira had brought for her card , so I did the background, collected my deer diecuts and added ' proper' trees at home later - it also ended up as a square card rather than Moira's diorama card..................... Not sure what stamp we used for the snowflake background, but it was embossed in white and distress inks sponged over for the sky - I know I used broken china and chipped sapphire for the blues but can't recall the sun colour. The small trees are from Chocolate Baroque (terrific treescapes), large one from Stampin Up (lovely as a tree), and the snowflakes on the base card are also Stampin Up (snowflake soiree) clear embossed and brushed with the same blue inks as the sky.

halloween

 I had another play with the new halloween stamps from Chocolate Baroque and a pile of distress inkpads, and these are the results.
All the images were stamped with black versafine ink, and the distress inks used were rusty hinge, aged mahogany, spiced marmalade, dusty concord, chipped sapphire and black soot.
Square card is 6x6, with matting layers of black and dull gold, and the spooky drawn in sakura sparkle pen   using the negative from a sizzix die as a pattern. The next  one is A6,mounted onto dull black distressed round the edges and then onto a kraft base card.
 The mini ones are 4x4, stamped  and inked directly onto the white base card.
 I did add a bit of colour to the gravestones with promarkers

am linking these to the Make my Monday challenge, which is halloween this week (obviously)

spooky

 Thanks to winning a set of the new Chocolate Baroque halloween stamps  - many thanks Glenda - I have managed to make my October quintiles early (I know, wonders do still happen occasionally!). The set I won is called 'nevermore', and I loved the spooky candlestick. I also wanted to use the raven on the gravestones, so I excavated a crate of stamps and found a rather gothic-y window in a set of Christmas stamps (stained glass Christmas). I didn't want the candle design in the window, so for the first tile I inked up the edges of the stamp with a grey marker and stamped onto pale grey card, then drew in the stones around the window. I masked off the wall, then stamped the raven in the window using memento black ink. I coloured in the branches, gravestones and fence  with promarkers, and then sponged distress inks round the moon mask to create the sky.

The candlestick stamped with black memento ink and clear embossed, then the background was brushed with a mix of black, concord and sage inks. I coloured the candles with gel pen, drew a huge web with a grey promarker, dotted it with stickles, and added gilding flakes to the flames - the flames blowing in the wind haven't quite worked.
The second tile I stamped the window in smoky grey ink onto darker grey card and cut the window frame out. The raven was stamped in smoky grey onto white card, coloured with promarkers and distress inks, then glued behind the window. Candlestick stamped with versamark and silver embossed, candles in white gel pen again. Some dabs of bleach to show the candlelight on the wall, then the candle flames and the spiderweb were drawn in with a glue pen and gilded.

done fiddling

As promised, this is what I ended up with as my version of Moira's secondhand snowflakes card. I didn't want to use the snowman, but I did have this santa stamp from Stampin Up with me on Satruday, so tried him instead.
Originally, I stamped him in browns on kraft card, but that didn't go with the blue snowflakes, so  I took the bits home and stamped him in smoky slate on white card, cut him out with framelits and then mounted him onto blue card. I cut the mat by hand after drawing round the die I used for santa - the next size up was way too big!

Diva Red September

 Had a great day yesterday with Moira and Janet out in the wilds at Gissing - at least this time I found the village hall first time (it's one of the 'best-kept secret' type, carefully hidden off road without a sign, so you can go past it even if you're looking for it). It was great to be joined by Eileen Godwin, so nice to meet the face behind the blog - and thanks Eileen for letting me plunder your Treasure Gold!
 This screen card was what we spent most of the morning on -as you can see, mine was mainly black and gold. The embossed black panels were rubbed with Treasure Gold white fire wax, then topped with die cut poinsettias and swirls - both Marianne dies- poinsettias had more Treasure Gold and rhinestone centres, and I think the greeting was Hobby Art. Having got the camera out to shoot the card, I couldn't resist taking one of a very concentrating Moira - but she looked up just as the flash went off!
Janet's two cards both used Clarity stamps (no surprise there). For the first one we brayered the card before stamping the tree in versamark and embossing in white, with bits of gilding in the leaves. I used Adirondack latte and Stampin Up coastal cabana inks, and the same inks were used to stamp the tree on the textured base card - the stripe was an offcut from the brayed card., and the mat was white centura pearl card. We all ended up with different colour schemes, from Eileen's very springlike greens to Moira's lovely grey/salmon combo with a brass tree
The last card used bleach on and around  the image, with sakura sparkle pen on the flower.
 There was another card, which I am still fiddling with.................
When Eileen's husband and dogs came to collect her, Holly decided to supervise, and nipped smartly onto Janet's chair - much more comfortable than the floor!

autumn days

 It's quintile time again - it seems to come round quicker each month at the moment, and I have yet again had to apologise for sending mine in late. This time I was searching for my build-a-tree set of stamps,  and eventually had to give up - doubtless I shall find them tomorrow, somewhere in plain sight!
Both tiles are landscape scenes, in what I hope you will see as autumn colours of distress inks with a couple of SU ones as well, using the traditional torn copy paper to make the hills
The first one uses the wall from landscape edges, stamped in black,
 then brushed with smoky slate and crumb cake inks, with a few patches of green marker pen in the cracks. The trees are from the  teeny tiny meadow set, coloured with green, coral and red markers.
The second tile again used the teeny tiny meadow stamps, with the foreground grasses from the floral edges set. This was the one that was due to have the tree on, and after much searching -every tree stamp i found was just the wrong shape - I decided to use one from let your heart sing. I inked up part of the stamp using versafine smoky grey, and stamped it off the edge of the tile. I used the grey as I didn't want ti to be too obvious, but thought afterwards that I should have used black and stamped off some of the ink.

Diva Red

 I don't normally get to any of the Diva Red workshops, but did manage the morning last Saturday, and these cards are the result.
I had to scan them both, as the weather is too lousy for the camera - and the birdcage is meant to be hanging straight down, not squiffy, but I ran out of patience fiddling with the scanner!
The birdcage was Moira's card, and took quite a time to do - and I don't think she has recovered yet from seeing that I did what I was told to do! (mind you, the fact that this session was held in the village hall and all Moira's stash was not available probably had a lot to do with that). it started out as a triple fold card, and the first double fold was cut using a spellbinder die and a grand caliber - this suffered from cutting through 2 layers of heavyweight card, so much so that it got really hot, and will probably have to end up in diecut hospital - which definitely took musclepower.
The front of the card and the insert were both stamped with a Clarity leafy swirl stamp, with a greeny embossing powder used on the front and perfect pearls on the insert. Birdcage was a Marianne die, butterflies spellbinders embossed with an embossabilities stencil, not sure where the swirl die came from. Hopefully Moira will blog the correct details sometime
Janet's contribution was the Christmas card using a Clarity stamps - the colour combination was right up my street, and it would be a very easy card to batch make; details are on Janet's blog, so you are spared my version of how to!