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...........