winter dawn

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

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

 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

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.