angel of light

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 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

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

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!

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

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

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.