oldies but goodies

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!

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

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

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

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

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