playdate 83

 The Playdate challenge 83 was to use black, white and a splash of green - I've got the black and white, but you have to look closely to see the green! Mind you, my poor photo doesn't help, as there was very little daylight left and just using flash indoors totally bleached it out.
The square base card is black, the embossed panel uses a cutlebug floral screen folder, which was brayered over with black ink before embossing the white card - the dye ink has come out more grey than black, and a second impression without reinking gave a lovely delicate grey (but too delicate for this, so saved for something else).

The paper flowers use the 2 smaller flowers on the Tin Holttz tattered florals die, 3 layers of each, and a daisy punch centre.(see previous post for how-to details) stuck on with pinflair glue gel.

I used 3 flowers, with the green leaves peeking out from behind cut using an EK punch

paper flowers

 Warning - making these flowers is addictive!

As I had a request from friends on Chocolate Baroque for details, here they are - there are also loads of other blogs with similar flowers, think the best one I found was this one from Carole (took me a while to work out how I got there).

Anyway, I used the two smaller flowers from the Tin Holtz tattered florals die, and a daisy centre from a Woodware punch - I originally used a flower from a crealies die, but that was a little too small and I could only cut one at a time, the punch is a better size and quicker. I used 3 of each size for these, more is fine but less doesn't seem to work very well. The card is an odd sheet I had, about 180gsm I think - anything from 160 gsm seems to be better than paper, as they get quite wet!Layer the pieces up, twisting each layer round a bit as you go and fasten together with a brad- you can move them around as you do them, so it doesn't matter if they are all lined up originally. The you need to spray the flower with water, and start to scrunch up the layers. You need to do each layer individually, scruch hard and spray again before each layer - second pic shows the scrunching. When I got to the bigger pieces, I found it easier to squish each petal in half   before scrunching it. Once you have run out of layers to scrunch, the delicate bit starts - this is where you need the pokey tool and patience - start teasing the layers apart, working around the flower layer by layer; you need to be careful as the card will be wet and fairly fragile!  Just tease outt he petals until you get a result you are happy with, then leave to dry - after it is dry. it can be sprayed with something like glimmer mists or with a glitter varnish, so a good chance to change the colour of that card you always hated but got in a bundle................

Just remember that all flowers are different, so they are all different shapes and sizes, identical ones don't exist in nature, so no reason why they should do so in craft!

thanks Gemma

This lovely collection arrived today from the multi-talented Gemma - blog candy I won last month on her blog, which I discovered while idly bloghopping some time ago. A lovely stitched book mark, just right for a crime fan like me, a pouch that just fits my new phone (it will now escape the scratched screen fate of my last one!), a huge flower brooch and a sweet mini tag book. The card that came with them is at the back, and not very clear on the photo, and the mini book isn't as washed out as it looks here either!
Thank you Gemma for such a lovely surprise

penny slider card

Challenge 20 on Bah humbug is to make a kinetic card - I thought this would be a doddle as I made several of these penny slider cards last year............. First problem was to find an image - the santa I used last year was borrowed, and no way was I going to drive around 30 miles to borrow it again, so I thought I would use a diecut snowflake - the penny was larget than the centre of the snowflake, so I had to add a smaller one behind the big one to hide the penny - then I absentmindedly glued the bit with the slider slot in it to the blue card - before I had cut the matching hole in the blue card. As I had used the strong red dst, no way was it going to come off, so I had to operate with a pokey tool, and the smallest scissors I had (plus a few choice words) and eventually managed to hack a hole - fortunately it doesn't show from the front! The dp is from the Seasons greetings cd from Chocolate Baroque, on both the top and base blue card, so it shows through the slot in the front.

snowflakes

this is a very quick and easy card for challenge 19 on Bah humbug - the dp covering the card blank is from the Artylicious Season's Greetings cd, and it printed out a little paler than I remembered - could be something to do with my printer being short of ink! The snowflakes were cut from white glitter card using a borrowed spellbinders die set the other week - one got accidentally sprayed with blue glimmer mist, but I thought that a white one got lost in the bottom corner, while 3 blue ones would have been a bit much.

2B's

The challenge this week on MAWTT is 2B's - or more! I had this unused stamp that was a magazine freebie, and immediately thought of this, as there are 3 B's just in the stamp - boy, balloon and baseball cap - so that gave me a headstart! I stamped him in black memento ink, coloured with promarkers, with blue jeans and brown shoes and hair just to add a few more Bs. Don't think I can count the Bigshot I used to cut the oval shape out with - I cut the mat oval out with some fancy scissors, mounted everything onto a card covered with dp from an old K&co pad, and added a bit of green ribbon (with a flat bow thanks to a lot of dst) and then some buttons - I know the ribbon bow and buttons are not normal for me, but sometimes needs must!

'green' blue card

not amused by having to redo this post thanks (?) to Blogger having a major hissy fit, especially after having to have several goes to load it the first time . due to another hissy fit.................at least, thanks to Blogger, the deadline has been extended for bah humbug 18, so I can actually redo it.

The challenge was to use green or a recycled element - I am totally out of green card, so it had to be recycled, and the image came from a card I received last year which had fortunately escaped the recycling bin! I dotted cutout snowflakes onto a blue base card, and sprayed it with sapphire glimmermist - it doesn't show up too well on the scan, so will try to get a photo this weekend if the weather stays camera-friendly . I trimmed the image down, rounded the corners, and matted it onto gold card, also with rounded corners, then onto the base card. very simple - had to be, I ran out of time this week!

photo now added, snowflakes show up better here - sorry for gravel background!

LIM 14 - white on white

The LIM challenge 14 was white on white - not something I would normally try, believe me! Even harder was trying to photograph it - this is the best I could manage, think I should have made it more dimensional then it may have been easier...........
I used the sketch from Corrosive Challenge 115 to give me a starting point, and trawled through my embossing folders, eventually coming up with a diamond cutlebug one and a free mini Papermania dots one - everything else seemed to be Christmas themed, so I will have another go hopefully.
It is ages since I made quilled roses, which seeme to be all the rage at the moment, so I cut some spirals out with fancy scissors - the leaves are an Xcut punch

calorie-free!

 The challenge from Moving Along with The Times this week was 'have some cake'  - no problem there, well, not once I had found my cupcake stamp by Carrie Dennison for Elusive Images.
I stamped three times using vintage photo DI, using a mask over the centre cupcake - had to be brown to be my favourite coffee ones! The images were coloured with promarkers and I added glossy accents onto the chocolate decorations. The glittery stuff  over the icing is stellar flash from Crafty Notions.
The easel card was covered with paper from a Laura Ashley pack I

picked up in a bargain tub somewhere, and I used the same paper inside too - I thought it looked like wallpaper. The cupcakes are mounted onto a silver oval for a tray, with a strip of punched paper behind them as I couldn't find a small enough doily.

new stamps

Chocolate Baroque have some new stamps, which I couldn't resist, and this is from the wedding belle set. I used the bride for the LIM challenge this week, and had a play with some of the other stamps to make this. The background is coloured with distress ink in wild honey after randomly stamping the words and the lily in versamark and letting it dry - this way, the image isn't as obvious as when the versamark is clear embossed before inking. The folded effect was accidental - I dropped the versamark pad, so dropped it again a few times in the hope that it work create a creased pattern, and it did! After the first layer of ink had dried, I randomly stamped again still using the wild honey pad. I cut 2  nestie shapes out in white card and a middle one in gold. The larger white one was stamped with one of the flower stamps around the edges (thanks Glenda for the idea)  in green (shabby shutters?), then sponged with wild honey. The same flower spray was stamped twice on the smaller nestie, then when it was dry the words were stamped and embossed in gold.
I think this would make a nice anniversary card as well as a different wedding card

blog award

Thank you to Chris of Messycraftroom fame for giving me this award - now I have to work for it!
7 random things about myself -
1 hate heights
2 belong to the WI
3 was the only person known to have failed needlework at school
4 have a cat called Bibble (she had that name when she came to us)
5 am a mega messy crafter
6 can't speak German, but can follow German knitting patterns
7 adore dark chocolate, especially if it comes with a coffee centre

and I have to pass the award on to 7 recently discovered bloggers - bit difficult there as I usually bloghop round the same few, and if I follow the links I forget who the interesting ones were and how I got there!
Anyhow my 7 victims, who are in no particular order and as far as I can tell haven't already got this award, are
Jill  -ladycatfern.blogspot. com
Janet - redmossramblings.blogspot.com
Gemma - makedoandgem.blogspot.com
Kate - manualidades-mamapez5.blogspot.com
Val - valscrafts.blogspot.com
Suzee -thepanachepixie.blogspot.com
Carrie - erasercarver.wordpress.com

LIM 13 congratulations

The new challenge theme on Less is More this week is  congratulations or thank you - and my  new Wedding Belle stamps from Chocolate Baroque just  fitted the congratulations theme.
My brain is only working in simple mode at the moment - am not used to this much sunshine! - so a very basic card this week. I rounded the corners of the white 5"x7"base card, added a pale gold mat under a piece of white card that I ran though my big shot  with my Spellbinders flourish impressabilities stencil - I was very pleased with how well it embossed, as it had just been used as a stencil before. I gave it a quick spray with gold spray & sparkle, as it looked a little stark plain - the cut out stamp was gold embossed, and the dress also had a quick spray of gold. before mounting onto a pale gold nestie shape. The greeting is a peel off - I am sure I found a list of instructions to get an epson printer to print in gold or silver somewhere, but can't find it, or remember where I got it from either, so the peel-off had to do.