halloween

As I don't usually do halloween cards, I was a little stuck on what to do for Rainbow Lady's challenge this week - then I remembered that I had downloaded a sheet of Papermania decoupage featuring Pumpkin and Aubergine, and Glenda kindly put a halloween freebie paper on her Artylicious blog............card sorted! The letters came from a Sizzix die that my friend Barbara got in a show raffle and passed on...........just don't ask which cat is on the broomstick!

poppy challenge

This card is my entry for two challenges - Rainbow Lady's for a poppy, and the sketch from Corrosive Challenge. The main poppy is from the Elusive Images Flora & fauna plate, and is one of my favourites. It was stamped onto white card with black versafine, then coloured with inktense watercolour pencils. The image was then coloured using a versamark pen and clear embossed, then spritzed with glimmer mists in wheatfield, meadow green and english ivy. The mini poppy heads came from a Graphicus Guild stamp set, and were coloured the same way as the main image, then stuck on with pinflair glue gel. The greeting is a peel off.

star card

Cynthia's latest challenge is for a Christmas card with at least one stamp and a star....I wanted to make the lovely star from Elusive Images Christmas fusion plate the main image, then decided it needed something else added................ in the chaos that is my craft room I couldn't find the stamp I wanted to use of the 3 kings (still haven't come across it despite a tidy-up in progress) so tried the village scene and the nativity stamps instead. On the whole, I prefer the village scene, it looks much more atmospheric.
Anyhow, both cards were basically made the same way - star stamped and embossed in white EP, backgrounds coloured with inkpads and cut'n'dry foam. Village card used pale and dark turquoise from a Marvy blending block , then weathered wood and old jeans distress inks, with the village (Personal Impressions) stamped in the old jeans.
Nativity card, the image (Angie Bhatia from Friends Stamps) was stamped in Memories chestnut ink,,clear embossed and coloured with distress inks then clear embossed before the background was inked using blues from a kaleidacolour pad. The star was painted over with mica powder, and I tried to use the powder to suggest rays of light, but not very successfully

substitute melt-pot!

After seeing Glenda Waterworth's recent posting of a Rudolph card made using a meltpot, we decided we would try to do something similar at craft club - no one had a meltpot, but Moira came up with the idea of using a heatgun and a foil container to melt the EP - it did work, but you need the vital accessory of a wooden clothespeg to hold the foil (or asbestos fingers). This is the card I made, using the new Elusive Images Christmas tree stamps - one deep embossed, and the filigree one to make the background. The EP was a homemade colour using clear UTE with odds and ends of ordinary coloured EP - it was coloured with a mix of perfect pearls and pearl-ex powders after stamping.

The owl card was made at home using the same technique(?) - stamp again Elusive Images. DP from a download from Lesley Wharton , flower stamps also Elusive Images. This fits 2 challenges this week - Rainbow Lady's is for an owl, and Corrosive challenges provided the sketch.

bookmark

This is for Rainbow Lady's latest challenge, to use acetate on a card, and it also fits with this month's challenge of the Joanna Sheen forum, which was to use something old - the Clarity stamp (Irish prayer?) was one of the first Clarity stamps I bought, and is so old it is a delicate shade of yellow now - it has been hidden in a drawer for ages. The asymmetrical gatefold card has been stamped with Elusive Images wild meadow stamps, which have also been used for the acetate which forms the pocket for the book mark and a strip along the other flap. The tag was first brayered with I think waterfall ink pad, then stamped with the wild meadow stamp usinga green ink, then over stamped in black with the prayer.

inky at graphicus

Have just got back from a workshop with Lesley at Graphicus, finding out how to use a brayer properly, and getting extremely inky in the process! We mostly used the big'n'juicy and kaleidocolour ink pads, and loads of glossy card and even more copy paper! There were 7 of us, though we were so quiet they kept checking to see if we were still there - just shows how much concentration was needed - think it took about an hour (and a lot of coffee) before anyone managed to get a decent-looking background, then we moved on to the textures in the first set of scans. Textures were a lot more forgiving, and we were all pleased with the results using wallpaper samples - especially as we found out that adding the texture on top of a previously rubbish background did an awful lot to improve it!

After a pause for lunch - mine came from Mr Buns, the mobile sandwich van that arrives each morning on the industrial site, and I can thoroughly recommend the tuna salad - Lesley let us loose to create a reflection using Clarity stamps. This was slower going, but we all managed to get a decent reflected image using the brayer to transfer the image, then adding water via cling film,the moon and finally foliage round the edges. It was surprising how different they all looked, even between the two of us who used the same waterfall ink pad - several had almost surreal and alien effects, but they all looked great! I only had a very basic camera with me, and the photos I took were rubbish, which was a shame.

Next, Lesley showed us how she created a landscape using rubber bands round the brayer - after a morning remembering not to put pressure on the brayer, we all found it awkward to press hard enough to get a decent image this time, so we got through quite a bit more card before we all had something we were ok with. After a lot of work with sponges and Elusive Images tree stamps, we ended with a sort-of park scene. It was surprising how many effects you can get out of one inkpad, even if it was a five colour one to begin with. As a finale, we all created a stampbord pendant, using UTE , metallic ink pads and a fairly large Clarity stamp. Mine used a bronze UTE, sprinkled with silver and red dragon powder on the final layer, before stamping with gold metallic encore ink.
Those who used black UTE as a base ended up with very dramatic results
When Glenda and Lynn came to see the results, they couldn't believe how inky I got - I couldn't either, especially when I realised just how far up my arm the ink went! I did eventually work how how I had done that, though I still can't quite believe how inky my hands got - and yes, it did all come off eventually!

All in all, I had a lovely time at Graphicus - even if I did have a slight shock when my bill was added up after a browse round the shop, and I didn't even make a dent in the wish list! Most of it was essentials, like the brayer, ink pads, glossy postcards but I did treat myself to the Christmas tree stamps after ruthlessly ignoring the lovely Christmas bears.
(ignore the date stamp on the horror photo - I dropped the camera and it chose its own date)

dragon cards

Rainbow Lady's challenge this week is for something with a dragon on - so here is a dragon card faturing one of the dragons from the Elusive Images set.
This actually was the second card, the first attempts drove me mad, so I opted for the easy way! The dragon was inked with black brilliance ink and stamped into a piece of triple embossed card - well, more like 5 layers actually! The card was stamped with an Encore metallic inkpad called enchanted evening, then clear embossed 3 times; a layer of chunky embossing crystals in verdigris from Once Upon a Stamp was next, then a final layer of clear before the stamp was used. I used the sketch from this week's Corrosive Challenge blog for inspiration - the backing paper came from my Graphicus Guild pack (I really must start printing some out, rather than being lazy).

Having bought some Viva pearl pens on sale at Jarrolds a couple of months ago, I decided to live dangerously and try a tip from Glenda Waterworth on one of her recent shows on Create & Craft - basically covering a stamp with the pearl, leaving it to dry, then you get a triple-embossed effect. The first several goes resulted in bits of dragons - none big enough to be useable - then I discovered that you need to put the paint on thickly, and really leave it to dry, preferably at least overnight, then peel the stamp off very carefully. This time I got a useable dragon - admittedly minus the last bit of his tail! - so did another card, using the same sketch, before he got damaged any further, because I really liked the effect. Backing paper is again from the Guild pack Nett result is 2 empty tubes of pearl (copper and bronze), one heap of dragon bits, and 2 rather battered stamps - somehow the pearl got under the stamps in places, so now I need to remove the Klingon backing and remount them - grrr.