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.