Variations on a Theme and a Green Challenge

I needed a last minute Christmas card on Christmas Eve and as luck would have it I had one already partially made. As I had been rather pleased at how dimentional the first folded Tea Bag Tree card I had made looked I had made a few more in other colours - red, blue and green. For the first one, which I previoiusly posted about, I had used golden yellow papers. By Christmas Eve however the green tree was still not mounted on a card and wasn't really destined for anyone, so when I realised that I did need one more card and pretty quickly too, it was the obvious solution as the tree was all ready, the backing paper printed and it just needed to be assembled into a finished card. As the challenge on My Time To Craft is the colour green I guess my green tea bag tree fits the bill for that too!






Anyhow here is my little paper forest, green card first - all the trees and backing papers are from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD, the variations are mainly in colours and card the way the card is folded, oriented and embellished. The blue card was made with a male recipient in mind - seemed a more appropriate colour for a man. The golden yellow one can be seen in an earlier post.

Poinsettia

This card was made for a swap and as it's now in the possession of the recipient I can share a pic here. Unfortunately my camera was not behaving - someone had left the auto focus function off but I didn't realise it so the picture is not as clear as it could be.

I used a stamp from Elusive Images to create my poinsettia, it's from the Poinsettia Script themeplate. First I created a background by blending Ranger's Distress Inks in Shabby Shutters and Peeled paint with some Cut N Dry Foam. This was edged it with some Aged Mahogany Distress Ink. Next I used some more of the Peeled Paint to stamp the image onto the background. I then stamped the image 2 more times onto white card using Versamark and embossed them with gold EP. The embossed images of the Poinsettia were painted with Twinkling H2O's and a tiny amount of gold Stickles glitter used on the centre of the flower, then cut out and decoupaged onto the background. This was mounted onto mats of green and red foiled card. For the main card I used some red card stock and covered it with some lovely paper I had printed from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD. I edged my paper with a gold Sakura Pentouch pen. Finally I added a the red ribbon bow and some red cabochon gems.

Christmas Mouse

I love those House Mouse stamps and invested in a couple recently. This is a Christmas card I made with one of them - isn't that lil' mouse sweet! Due to unforeseen events that kept me from stamping much for about 3 weeks the last week has been pretty hectic trying to finish off cards for Christmas and this card was really quite simple and fast to make - just what I needed!

I cut a label shape from some white card with a Nestabilities die then stamped the image with gray Versafine ink and coloured it with Twinkling H20s. This was then layerd onto the next size up of lable in the Nestabilities set which had been cut from red foiled card. Finally I attached some ribbon with a brad. The card itself is just some red card stock to which I applied a white panel which I had embossed in the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and then stamped a little greeting on the bottom edge which I had deliberatly left unembossed to take the greeting. I added a border of red Stickles Glitter where the white panel meets the red card and then adhered my mouse tag with foam pads.

Simply Santa

I guess we all have our own ideas about how Santa should look, well for me this stamp from Rubber Stampede is more or less my "perfect santa", wrinkled and weather-beaten from riding that sleigh throught the night in the dead of winter, but with a twinkle in his eyes and the hint of magic surrounding him!

The image was stamped with Adirondack Dye Ink (Red Pepper) onto white card. I trimmed away all white edges from the image then mounted it onto red foiled card, layered that onto more white card that had been embossed through the Cuttlebug and then on to silver foiled card. I added just a little more sparkle with some stickles glitter and then applied the whole thing to some red card stock.

Tea Bag Tree and a beautiful swap.

I got the idea for this Tea Bag Folding Christmas Tree from Shirley's Blog - I know she got the idea from an online tutorial and there is a link on her blog if you want some instructions for how to make this folded tree.

For my version I used papers from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD. I used the same design from the CD to cut my squares for the Tea Bag folding and for the background. I added a tiny peel off star to the top of my tree and some sparkle with gold Stickles Glitter. This is actually quite an easy card to make but gives a lovely dimentional effect.









The second card I wan't to share is a beautiful Christmas Swap I received from a fellow Graphicus Guild Member. Thank you Val, the card is gorgeous. The stamp is, if my memory serves me correctly, the very first Graphicus Guild Members' Limited Edition stamp. Val has not only embossed the stamp with gold EP as her main image, but has also used it to create a gorgeous background by overstamping it onto colour washed paper in red, magenta and metallic gold.

Holly Swirl

Well I forced myself to break the block and finish one of my "bits". I have loads of Christmas "bits" that need to be turned into card but couldn't decide on what to do with them. This one is a lovely Holly Flourish stamp by Elusive Images. It can be found on the Christmas Flourish themeplate.

I made the background with Distress Inks, blending Shabby Shutters and Worn Lipstick then spritzing this with water and letting it dry. Once dry I stamped over it with a script stamp from The Artistic Stamper and more of the Shabby Shutters Distress ink then blended a little Aged Mahogany Distress ink round the edges. Next I stamped the holly flourish with Versmark and heat embossed it with Gold EP and then ran the edge of of the card round the Versmark pad and edged it with more gold EP. I can't resist sparkle so some Burgundy Stickles Glitter glue added a touch of sparkle to the holly berries. This was matted onto red foiled card and adhered to some pale green pearlescent card with foam pads. Some gold peel-off corners and a greeting finished off the card.

Christmas Wish List .....

.. aimed at Ranger...

T’was the night before Christmas when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse

The stamps were inked up with infinite care
Embossing powders ready, laid out by my chair

With a flick of my wrist I sprinkled powders with glee
My card would be perfect, so beautiful to see

When up in the craft room there arose such a clatter
The family sprang from their beds to see what was the matter

My dreadful heat tool, the source of the noise
Had woken my hubby and both of our boys

Away up the stairs father ran like a flash
He entered my craft room all of a dash

The moon thru the window threw down it’s pure light
As father beheld the most terrible sight,

Surrounded by powders, all blasted and dusty
I sat in the chaos, my embossing was crusty

“Oh why must you use that”, hubby growled and frowned
It shatters our peace, and blows powder around.

The answer is simple, said I with a sigh
Here in the UK there’s no Ranger heat tool to buy!

If you are a UK crafter who wishes the Ranger Heat tool was once again available to buy here in the UK, why not e-mail Ranger - the addy is info@rangerink.com. I sent them my poem. Why not put something on your blog too - let Ranger know that there are deprived crafters here who would like to buy their product!

Round Robin - Part 1

Annette, one the Elusive Images DT came up with the idea of a Christmas Round Robin which people who follow the EI Blog might like to take part in. The idea is that we make a card and decorate part of it then pass it on to the next person to do the next bit. There are 4 of us taking part so the instructions were to divide our card into 4 and decorate one quarter of it then send it on to the next person. I decided the easiest way to do this was to make a concertina card from and A4 sheet of card. So here is my first "quarter" for the card I started off. I will have 3 more "quarters" to do and pass on as the Round Robin continues.

The backing paper is from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD. The stamped image, which is an Elusive Images one, comes from the Snow Is Falling themeplate and was inked up using Petal Point Chalk inks which I blended on the stamp then embossed with a clear holographic sparkle glitter, cut out and matted onto some dark blue Bazill card stock. Interestingly the lighter blue ink I used over the houses seemed to darken once heat embossed.

Cute Snowmen

Wow, I have not blogged for ages, my mojo has been AWOL for a week or so, but here's a cute Christmas card I made yesterday - I just hope I can get back into the groove now cuz I still have some Christmas projects to do!

The stamp is from Penny Black and was coloured with Derwent Inktense Pencils then I added some Stickles glitter glue and stamped the message with one of those little text stamps I have which is a set hubby bought for me - might be a Woodware set but I am not sure. This was then mounted onto some light turquoise card and some glitter card and adhered to my card with foam pads. The paper on the main card is from a Crafter' Companion CD and I added some glitter to the the snowflakes just cuz I can... OK so I am addicted to sparkle!

Look what arrived in my mail!

Isn't this just beautiful! This gorgous card was sent to me by Shirley who has a wonderful blog called Card Art, Etc. I love the card Shirley thank you very much. The leaves and shells and dragonflies have been stamped and painted with Twinkling H20s and then cut out and layered to give a lovely dimensional effect. Mind you I am not sure about how the Nautilus shell image was coloured because - I haven't seen an H20 quite like that one so I am wondering if it was a different product. It seems to be a more dimensional paint and has the most fabulous Mother of Pearl luster which I think the camera has managed to catch quite well in this photo.

If you have time I can recommend a LONG visit to Shirley's blog because she make absolutely beautiful cards.




I also have to say thank you to Anesha and Beryl who both passed on this award to me. I think what it stands for is a lovely idea.
What the award stands for:
This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY- nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement . Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to 8 bloggers who may then pass it on.

Now I am already having trouble finding freinds who don't already have this awards so I am going to say if you are one of the lovely people who read my blog and leave kind comments, please feel free to take this award and share it onwards.

It looks so easy on T.V.

I invested in a Cuttlebug in the summer and have been having fun playing with it. One of the reasons I bought it was I love the effect created by colouring onto the embossed areas of their card. I have seen this demonstrated so often on televsion and they make it look very easy to do, but I think I still need some practice because I am not entirely happy with how this turned out, despite having several goes at it. It was a card for a swap on Craft Telly Forum where the theme was to make either a card with the theme "wide thing" or one suitable for a man. I liked the idea of this card because I felt the little bird is indeed a "wild thing" and the overall effect results in a card you could give to a man.

The the main image is from a Cuttlebug Embossing folder and coloured with chalks. The text is from Elusive Images and was stamped with an Adirondack Rainbow Inkpad. It's from the Words of Wisdom Themeplate. The background is was stamped and embossed with clear detail EP using another Elusive Images stamp, this time from the Wild Meadow themeplate.

Blog Candy

Thanks a friends blog I found my way to Debbie's blog. She has some lovely blog candy on offer right now, but even better she has some amazing work on show - well worth visiting for inspiration and ideas.

A change from Christmas Cards

It's getting to that time of the year where it's nice to make something that isn't Christmas themed. I was at the NEC last weekend and treated myself to one of Joanna Sheen's CDs - the Pamela West Collection. It's stuffed full of very pretty images and some rather cute ones too. Anyhow it was a nice change from Christmas stuff to make this card.

Just Right.

Do you ever play with your stamps, stamping on scrap paper just to see what happens? And do you ever find that sometimes you are really pleased about how your efforts look, but for some reason you never seem to be able go beyond the experiments on the scrap paper and make something? This happens to me quite often. Recently I bought some new stamps from Elusive Images. Members of the Graphicus Guild will have seen these already, but if you have not they will be on Create and Craft this Sunday. Anyhow, when I got my new stamps I got out some Adirondack dye ink pads and started to play. Some of the stamps have been designed to allow kiss stamping, with matched pairs of postive and negative impressions. By chance I had kiss stamped some of these using Butterscotch and Ginger inks and I thought the results looked lovely but could not decide on a project in which to use this.


Anyhow, today I found myself needing to make a card, and now I know why I had that block. As has happened in the past, fate had intervened and made me wait for the right reason to use something because that something was going to be "just right" for the card I needed to make.

The paper on the card is from the Artylicious Season's Greeting CD. The stamps are from the Autumn Hedgerow Themeplate. Inks were Adirondack Dye based ink in Butterscotch, Ginger, Espresso and a touch of Walnut Stain Distress ink blended round the edges.

Simply Stamping

The challenge this week on Stamp Somthing is called "Simple Somethings", and you are to only use one layer of cardstock for your project! Um well, somtimes stamping is not so simple, especially when you are a clutz like me! But the craft gods were smiling on me and despite droping the plastic cover from a Ranger Pigment ink pad on my card I managed not to get black ink all over 2 days of work and ruin it!

The card is simply an A5 piece of white card stock folded in half then stamped and inked. I first stamped and embossed the toadstools with black Adirondack Pigment Ink and used fine detail clear EP to emboss them. The Fairy was stamped and embossed in the same way, using a Stamp-a-ma-jig to help with postioning. These stamps are from Elusive Images, the Fairy is from the Dragonfly Faeries themeplate and the toadstools are from the new Autumn Table themeplate, which so far has only been released to Graphicus Guild members, but which will be on sale in about a week's time, this means that at the moment the stamp is not listed on the Graphicus web site so I can't give a link.

Next I coloured in the tops of thetoadstools with Tinkabella Inks and used an Ranger Inkssentials white pen to create the spots. The stems were coloured with Stampin' Up markers and the colour drawn out with a wet paint brush. Clear Crystal glitter was added to the faery's wings and then the whole lot was coated with Glossy Accents so as the images would resist the inks I was going to use in the background.

Once the Glossy Accents were dry, I left this over-night to be sure it was, I used torn paper masks and various colours of green inks applyed with sponges and a Colour Box blending tool to create the background. I used stamps from the Elusive Images Wild Meadow themeplate to create some texture in the grass in the foreground. The trees are from a set of stamp by The Angel Company and the text is from a set of stamps I recently was lucky enough to receive this weekend from Roni when she had a blog candy givaway on her Ink Stains blog. They are from a set by Crafty Secrets and are clear photopolymer, if you have any doubts about using clear stamps then I can vouch for this brand because they stamp beautifully.

Blog Candy Winner

After sorting out the list of people who left me comments to remove "extra" names where someone had commented more than once I came up with a list of 15 comments, here's the numbered list :

1 Inkfairy
2 Anne (1)
3 Shirley (1)
4 Veronica
5 Shirley (2)
6 Carol
7 Ed
8 Far North
9 Beryl
10 Sandra
11 Janet.vince
12 Alison
13 Artyjen
14 Jaqueleine TresBella
15 Anne (2)


Here's the draw














As you can see the winner is comment #3, Shirley (1) who said :

Shirley said...
Phree, I know you don't want any tagging, but this is an award acknowleging your art. I have it on 'the blog' waiting for you. If you do no more than accept it that is okay with me. I love your art and want more people to see it.

01 November 2008 19:29

Can you contact me with your snail mail address please Shirley so I can pop your CD in the mail to you.

Thank you Anne

Wow, I never really expected many people to take an interest in my blog. When I started it I thought that mainly it would be a sort of dairy for me. A place online where I could keep pictures and document a little information about how I made some of my favorite cards and things - safe because it can be retrieved if I ever lost my computer and back-ups. So I feel very honoured when others enjoy the things I post enough that they want to give me an award, so thank you Anne! If you have not visited Anne's blog Stargroves, then do take some time to have a wander round as she always has some beautiful work that covers a wide variety of styles and techniques.


The rules are for this award are:
1. The winner may put the logo on their blog.
2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to their blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

I will have to make some time tomorrow for thinking about who to pass this award on to.

Happy Challenge

The challenge this week on Theme Thursday is to use the word "happy" or "happiness" in a project. For my project I used one of the tags we made at the Graphicus Glimmer Mist Workshop I went to recently and combined it with stamps from Elusive Images. The tag has been spritzed with 2 colours of glimmer mist over a Glimmer Screen, unfortunately the photo is not really showing the shimmer that well. The bird stamp is from the Let Your Heart Sing themeplate and the text is from the Words of Wisdom Themeplate. Both were stamped in black then heat embossed with clear detail EP.

Craft Stamper's New Blog

Craft Stamper magazine has stared it's own blog - there are some cute stamps to be won to celebrate the launch of the blog.

Thank you Shirley

For honouring my blog with this award. If anyone reading this has not visited Shirley's blog Card Art, Etc... then it's well worth visiting because Shirley always has lots of lovely inspirational ideas over there.

The "rules" for the Arte y Pico award are:

1. If you are an award winner, show the award, the name of the person who gave it to you, and link back to his or her blog.
2. Pick 5 blogs you think deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and for contributing to the blogging community.
3. List the author's name and link to his or her blog.
4. Leave a message on the blogs of those you've selected.
5. Link back to the original Arte y Pico blog, so all will know the origin of the award.


So here are my choices to pass the award onto :

Christine - Sketching Stamper
Jenny - Craft Heaven
Sam - A Latte Stampin
Theresa – Crafting the Web

I got stuck @ 4 because it seems that all the other blogs I love to read aready have this award.

Halloween Card

The challenge this week on Daring Card Makers is to make a Halloween themed project. I hope this card counts, I actually made it about a week before Halloween for a Secret Swap over on Craft Telly Forum. The card had to be sent annonymously and the swap recipients posted pics in the forum on Halloween, then over the weekend we have had fun trying to guess who each "ghostly maker" was. Because of this I could not post pics on the blog until today, after we had all owned up to our cards.

Before I tell you how the card was made I need to give credit to 2 people, firstly my freind Fabyon who kindly sent me some halloween themed images stamped onto white card for me to use to create my swap as I don't own any Halloween themed stuff. The ghostie, pumpkins and spider web corners all came from Fab and are from stamps by The Angel Company. Secondly my inspiriation for the background - for that I must pay tribute to the amazing Michelle Zindorf, and in particular this fantastic card. If you have never visited Michelle's incredible blog then may I suggest you get on over there because her work is something else, and she posts the most wonderful step by step tutorials.

To make the card I created the background by very softly sponging on light orange ink from a Kaliedacolor ink pad in a rough circle to create a moon. I used a circle punched out from a post-it note pad to mask the orange area and sponged on dark inks - Adirondack Stonewashed, Denim, Aubergine and near the bottom of the card, Bottle. I removed the mask and sponged some streaky bits in the dark colours across the moon to simulate wisps of cloud. The tree and the small twiggy bits were stamped with black using stamps by Elusive Images which are from the Arboretum Themeplate and finally I sponged some black ink round the very outside edges and corners.

Next I coloured the stamped pumpkins with marker pens and then covered them and the ghost with Glossy Accents. Once the Glossy Accents was dry I cut these out and adhered them to my background with foam pads. I had chosen some lovely dark purple card stock from my stash to make my main card and I was really pleased to find Dusty Concord Distress Ink was a near perfect match for my main card when blended quite heavily onto white card. This let me first trace over the stamped outline of the spider web corners with a Sakura Clear Stardust pen to make them shimmery and then colour the white card on which Fabyon had stamped them so that the spaces between the strands of web would match my main card - these were cut out and adhered to the corners on the right hand side of the card.

I blended more of the Distress Ink onto white card and then using the Elusive Images Sketchy Alphabet stamps created the word "BOO" by spritzing the letters with water then stamping that onto the blended ink and after a few seconds blotting off the water with some kitchen towel. I then sponged a little more of the black ink round the corners and edges of this piece of card. Stamping with water onto distress ink, then blotting it off removes a lot of the ink and results in the misty and, I hope, ghostly look of the letters.

I had a lot of fun making this card, and kinda scared myself in the process too because the background I made turned out to be very sinister indeed, but thankfully Fab's jolly ghost and the brightly coloured pumpkins lighten the mood quite nicely.

My Birthday and 100 Posts Blog Candy

I thought it would be fun to give a present rather than receive one for my Birthday. It was my birthday during October but I decided that rather than reveal the actual date I would simply wait till the end of October. I also noticed my post count was nearing 100 and this post is my 100th! To celebrate both events I am giving away a brand new sealed copy of the Artylicious Filigree Fusion CD.

All you need to do to win this gorgous CD is leave me a comment on this post telling me why you would love to own this CD. You have until 7pm GMT on Sunday the 9th of November to leave your comment, after that a winner will be chosen in a random draw.

This Blog Candy has now been won.

Glittered Damask

I know people have kindly asked to see what I made at the Glimmer Mist workshop, well truth to tell, nothing is finished yet. You see it was a technique driven workshop rather than a project driven one. This meant that we basically spent the day playing with Glimmer Mists using various types of card stock and techniques such as resists etc so we could learn about how the mists performed in a variety of situations. What we came home with therefore is loads of lovely "shiny bits" that we can then go on to make into projects of our own - something I am working on I promise you - I have devine piece of glimmer misted blotting paper that is unbeleivably shimmery so I need to think of an idea that is worthy!

Meantime tho I would like to share this card with you. It's one I made some time ago and was brought to my mind when Glenda had us spritzing glimmer mist onto acetate... a rather scrummy look ... but I digress...

This card was made using the Artylicious Damask Delight CD and loads of crystal glitter applied with a glue pen. I printed the design onto ink jet printable acetate then on the same side as I had printed the design (because I wanted the smooth shiny side of the acetate on top) I traced and filled in elements of the printed design with the glue pen and added glitter. Once it was dry it was simply a case of matting all my glittered bits up and assembling the card. One drawback of applying the glue to the printed side is that the glue does take on some of the colour from the printing so you get a slight tint in the glue itself instead of it drying in the normal clear way, but doing it the other way means you have the rougher side of the acetate on top, so I guess it's a bit of a catch 22 which way you make a card like this.

Glimmerlicious

Oh boy, I have had such a fabulous day today! Got up @ 5am, left home @ 6:30am, drove down to Barnard Castle (approximately 3 hours not including stop at motorway services) played all day at Graphicus with loads of lovely Glimmer Mists and now have hands that are the most devine shade of blue (Sapphire Blue if you really want to be precise), learned loads of good stuff from Glenda and spent money on stash! The new stamps Hedgerow and Autumn stamps are gorgeous! Left Graphicus around 4:40pm, got home around 8pm and am now contentedly cutting out rubbah so as I can have a play with my new stamps tomorrow :)

Thank you Glenda, all the lovely Graphcius people, and the other ladies who were also taking part in the workshop for a fun day.

Forever Autumn

The challenge on Daring Cardmakers this week is "Forever Autumn" so here is my take on the theme.

The card was made by first brayering colour from an Adirondack Rainbow Pad (Woodlands) onto some cardstock, then stamping the leaf image randomly using various autumnal colours of Twinkling H2Os painted directly onto the stamp. This was matted onto some dark green cardstock. Another matting layer was made by spritzing Glimmer Mists onto some orange card stock and that was also layerd onto more of the dark green card. I chose some russet coloured card stock for the main card and used an Elusive Imgages text stamp to stamp and emboss the Just a Note greeting onto it. The stamp is from the Delightful Damask themeplate

Thank You Sam

I was lucky enough to win some absolutely gorgeous blog candy from Sam who is one of my my SBS 20 Sisters. It seemed like a nice idea to make a thank you card for Sam with some of the lovely things she sent. I made the card a little over a week ago, but I had to wait to post this picture because I didn't want Sam to see the piccy till she had actually received the card and it takes about a week to 10 days for stuff to cross the big pond! Anyhow this is what I made.

The card uses stamps, papers, ribbon and cardstock from Stampin' Up - Sam is an SU Demo, you should visit her blog for some great ideas. The flower stamp was stamped using Brilliance ink and then embossed with clear fine detail EP. The papers were edged with more of the same ink. Thank You text is from an Elusive Images themeplate.

Christmas Resist

This card was made using the resist technique where you stamp with versmark, let it dry then apply colour with a brayer. The stamps are by Elusive Images and are from the Kings of the Orient themeplate and the Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh themeplate. The colour was brayered on using an Adirondack Rainbow Ink Pad, the Stained Glass one. The paper is from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD.

Autumn ATC

The theme for Florrie's Weekly ATC Challenge on Craft Swap forum is Autumn - Season of Fruitfulness. I made the background for this ATC using Adirondack Dye inks in Butterscotch, Terracotta, Ginger and Espresso. The Leafy twig with berries in the center is from a clear stamp set bought in Partners but I can't recall the manufacturer. It was stamped and heat embossed with copper EP and the leaves coloured with a Stampin' Up marker. The leafy spray at the edges a stamp from Clarity Stamp.

Quick Christmas Cards

Half way through October already and not so many card making days left now till Christmas - eek! I have been making some quick cards this week and thought I would share a couple from the bundle I have made recently.

The robin card is a cute stamp from Cuddly Buddly, one of several rather sweet Robin images they have. The pattern paper is a free download from the Cuddly Buddly site. I love Robins on Christmas cards, but it seems to me commercial card manufacturers have been neglecting our red-breasted freinds in recent years!

The snowman is an image from Visible Image which I stamped then cut out. I used the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder to emboss the background, but turned the card over to the de-bossed side and filled in the dots with little spots of Stickles Glitter. Once that was dry I mounted my snowman on top using foam pads. The snowflakes were stamped in white Brilliance ink onto so silvery blue pearlescent card.

Frosty Holly

Another Christmas card made using stamps from Elusive Images. This time I used the beautiful large Holly Flourish stamp and the co-ordinating Holly Flourish corner stamp, both from the Christmas Flourish themeplate.

To make the card I first created a background on some gold foil card using red and green alcohol inks and some alcohol ink blending fluid. With this was done I stamped the large holly flourish by first inking up my stamp with Versamark then White Brilliance ink then tossed on some white embossing powder and set with a heat gun. To be honest I am not sure if the Versamark was necessary, but I wanted to make sure I had enough time to get the EP to stick and I was not certain if the Brilliance inks allow enough drying time for this. I think I may have mentioned before that I am addicted to glitter, and I decided I wanted more sparkle so I used some Stickles Star Dust glitter glue to trace over the holly image all the flourishes, I think the result of that looks rather yummy. This was mounted onto some dark green card stock.

To mount this I thought that white card stock would be best, but a little plain, so I used the same process (versamark and white brilliance ink) to emboss the holly corner stamp onto my card and once again traced over the image with more of the Stickles glitter glue. Finally I attached my large holly topper with some red brads.

I had been planning on added a red bow somewhere, but I think it might unbalance the card and just be one thing to many, what do you think?

Wintery Card for Christmas

I love this stamp from Elusive Images, it's just such a lovely winter scene. The stamp is on the Hearth and Home Themeplate. The text is not actually part of the image though, that is from a little set of tiny text message stamps my hubby bought for me, but I can't recall who made them.

To make the card I first inked up my stamp with versamark then with a light blue Brilliance ink, stamped and heat embossed with an Holographic Sparkle EP. The sparkle is subtle and hard to catch in the photo. The "season's greetings" text was stamped and heat embossed in the same way. I also ran the ink pad round the edge of the card that I had been stamping on and dipped that in the same holographic powder and heat set it. The image was then mounted onto some silver pearlescent paper.

The main card is some off-white card which has a slight silvery shimmer over it (it's not quite creamy enough in colour to describe it as ivory). This was covered with a lovely paper I printed from the Artylicious Peacock Summer Party CD. I added some light blue satin ribbon and edged the paper with a light blue ink pad. Sorry about the photo, it seems that because the card is generally all very light colours, and the little bit of sparkle from the EP the camera really struggled to get a good image - I even had hubby try as he is the photo expert in this house.

Elusive Images DT Blog Candy Giveaway

There is some truely luscious blog candy to be won on the Elusive Images Design Team Blog this week, nip over there before the 17th of October because if you ain't in it you can't win it!

Suffering for my Art ?

I guess everyone who stamps has the same problems I do - where to keep all those bits and bobs we aquire for our hobby? I have quite a few assorted boxes that originally contained other things, but are sturdy enough to use for storage so I thought I would show you how I have to suffer! Sometimes using up the original contents of my box can be such a dirty job, but someone has to do it! With the original contents gone, and the aid of some lovely papers printed from one of my Artylicious CD's, in this case the Peacock Summer Party CD, I can hide the evidence of my chocolate addiction!


Actually the box has been in service for a while, so it was getting to look a bit grubby, and I think my odd assortment of boxes will be much nicer covered in this way. I am really pleased with how this one looks now, infact it would be perfect not only for storage of my crafty bits and pieces, but to use as a box to give a gift in - just add a pretty bow and one of the co-ordinating tags from the CD.

My First Cuttlebug Card

I treated myself to a Cuttlebug a couple of months ago, but since getting it I have not actually used it apart from playing about and experimenting a bit. Not the machine's fault tho as most of what I have been up to recently has invovled me playing with my stuff, inks, stamps and the 'bug too, but not really actually making things from the experiements. Either the results did not turn out as I had wanted or simply because I often procrastinate when it comes to trying to decide what to make with them. It seems that Fate decided to intervene however when my latest aquistion, a Cuttlebug Die and Embossing folder of a leaf, arrived in yesterday's post on the same day that the challenge on the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog is to make a Fall or Hallowe'en card. The theme also ties in with the current "Anything Goes" challenge on Craft Swap Forum where the theme is "Autumn".

Here is the card I made, it's a rather unusual one for me as not a single ink pad or stamp was involved! I made the card using the leaf die which has been embossed in the co-ordinating folder embossing folder then painted in autumn leaf colours with Twinkling H2Os. The background layer is cream card which I embossed in another cuttlebug folder and then chalked over the raised embossing with some shimmery gold chalk that came in a kit from QVC and finally edged with some ink... oops there was an ink pad involved after all. That was matted onto some gold mirror card. The cardstock is some brown card that has a lovely golden shimmer all over it, I think you can see that in the photo, but in reality the shimmer is quite a bit more noticeable. The the greeting is a peel-off, which says "Birthday Wishes", sorry that bit just kept reflecting too much light for me to get the text readable in the photo.

As we don't celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK and the sending of hallowe'een cards is not a tradtion here I decided that the card would be more useful to me as a birthday card for someone with an autumn birthday, but I guess it would work for lots of things such as a Thank You or a Get Well card at this time of year. That's the beauty of peel off greetings, you can peel them off and replace them with another one!

Brown and Yellow

On the Wednesday Stamper Challenge Blog the theme this week is to create something that combines the colour brown with another colour. I had been playing with Distress Inks last night creating backgrounds. This piece fits the challenge exactly as it has 2 shades of brown distress ink in it, Brushed Corduroy and Vintage Photo to which I had also blended some yellow, Mustard Seed. After blending the inks I had been playing with water, spritzing bits with water, flicking water on and also stamping with some Elusive Images stamps using only a spritz or two of water to "ink" the stamp.

One of the pieces I liked best from my playing was this piece which I had stamped with a flower from the Wild Meadow Themeplate. So after seeing the theme for the challenge today I decided to use it to make something. As it was only a small piece I had been playing with I decided that with a small bit trimmed away it would be just the right size for a Skinny (3" x 5") After trimming I simply restamped the same flower I had been using last night, but this time heat embossed it with Gold EP and then added some pretty amber coloured cabochon gems.

Finally thanks to everyone who has left comments on my little accident with the dog. The bone seems to be healing nicely, tho I get some odd twinges in my face now and again. And for those who asked, Brock, the eternal puppy/canine hooligan is fine. I don't think he felt a thing, bless him!

California Dreamin' and A Cracked Bone

The challenge this week on My Time To Craft is Trees and Leaves. I started this card by creating the image of a windswept tree on a stormy day but then I got stuck with where I would go next to finish the project. However while waiting for an appointment yesterday I came across the lyrics of the song "California Dreamin'" by the Mammas and Pappas and that was my inspiration to finish the card.

To create my picture, I first made the background using Adirondack dye inks and torn paper as a mask to for the hills. The stormy sky was a mix of Distress inks, mainly Weathered Wood and Dusty Concord. The tree is a stamp from Elusive Images, one of my favorites on the Design-A-Tree Set themeplate. I stamped it with Adirondack ink (Espresso) and then used one of the leaf clusters to stamp the leaves by colouring the just one or 2 leaves at a time with Stampin Up markers and stamping a few on the tree but most swirling in the wind.

The leaves on the front of the fold back part of the card are from a set of stamps that I bought in Partners some time ago. I tried a technique I first learned about on Michelle Zindorf's blog a while ago which was to ink my stamp first with Versamark then with the Adirondack dye ink and then once I had stamped this, heat embossed with clear EP. Once the leaves were embossed I coloured them with the Stampin' Up markers. I also used Versmark and the leaf stamp to stamp a watermark effect on the dark green cardstock, but it's not showing up very will in the photo.

The paper is from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD, but I copied the image into my graphics programme and fiddled about a bit to get a grayer more stormy colour and added a text box with the opening lyrics from "California Dreamin". They may be a bit hard to read in the photo but they say : "All the leaves are brown , And the sky is grey, I went for a walk, On a winter’s day".

And the appointment I was waiting for when inspiration hit? Well that was my appointment with the Oral Maxillo Facial Clinic yesterday. If you read my blog regularly you will know I had a rather painful head to head collision with my dog last week. It turns out I have a hair line crack along one of my cheek bones. It will heal on it's own so thankfully no nasty treatments are needed.

Two Projects - "Christmas" and "Something Funny"

The 25th of September marked the start of another month in the countdown to Christmas and time once again for Fab's Big Christmas Challenge. This month the nutter's challenge would be to make nine Christmas cards. I might even make that many but most of them will be quickie cards with using stuff like, dare I say it "peel-offs" I doubt if I will be adding them to my blog or to the challenge. Whew, OK I hope nobody noticed that shame-faced admission! Anyhow here is my entry for the September's challenge, but who knows, I might manage to make another 8 cards worth blogging about before the 25th of October comes around.

This one was stamped using a lovely Christmas Wreath stamp from Hearth and Home themeplate by Elusive Images. I stamped and embossed the wreath in gold, painted it with Twinkling H2Os, added a touch of red Stickles Glitter on the holly berries and some red Sakura Glaze pen over the bow to change the colour and texture of the bow when compared to the colour of the poinsettia leaves. With my wreath all coloured I decided it would be nict to cut it out. This was mounted onto a circle of gold mirror card with foam pads and then that was mounted onto my card. The card itself is a from some cream pearlised card I bought in the Paper Mill Shop and cut to a 5 inch square card. I covered this with a lovely paper from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD leaving just a border of the cream card showing and then added some gold strip peel-off borders round the edges of the paper. More foam pads were used to mount the gold circle of card onto this for more dimension and as a finishing touch added a narrow bow of red organza ribbon to provide more contrast with the green design on the paper.

My other project was to make "Something Funny" for Florries Weekly ATC challenge on Craft Swap forum. I have a small set of mini clear stamps by Inkadinkadoo which are definately meant to be humourous so I thought this was the ideal project for giving these stamps and outing. The actual text on the stamps says "I gave up coffee, sex and chocolate" but as I had decided to make a chocolate bar for my background I only stamped the bit about chocolate.

The chocolate bar was made by inking a white ATC size piece of card with some brown ink from a Petal Point ink pad then I used the box making side of my score board to score grooves into the card to form a grid. I used the edge of the same ink pad to darken the brown colour in the grooves so as to create the appearance of more depth and a chunkier bar of chocolate. The stamps were just stamped onto some pink card with Adirondack dye in (Espresso), cut out and adhered to the chocolate bar background with foam pads.

Edit : Perhaps I ough to own up and say my comments about peel-offs were meant to be rather toungue in cheek. I do use them, mostly I use borders and/or corners, also sentiements. There are infact both a gold border peel-offs and a "Merry Christmas" sentiment on the Christmas Wreath card.

Peacock Fan - Getting A Round Tuit

Well, it only took me four months to make this card - for me it's been a bit of an epic, in fact you might even describe it as an obsession! I saw the Peacock Fan themeplate by Elusive Images with it's beautiful stamp of a single fan blade at the end of May this year and as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to make it into a fan and add real feathers behind each blade, but as the stamp was the Graphicus Guild members offer of the month at the end of July I waited to buy it at the offer price. I finally got my themeplate when I was at Graphicus for some workshops during my summer holiday. By this time I had a copy of the Artylicious Peacock Summer Party CD which has been designed to co-ordinate with all the lovely Elusive Images Peacock Stamps so now, early August, I was all set to roll.

I knew it would take me some time because I am not particularly good at cutting out and I knew that cutting the feather detail at the top of each fan was going to be fiddly so I decided that I would make 1 or 2 "feathers" at a time till I had the 7 I needed. In all it took me about 3 weeks to get all my feathers made and painted in between making cards for birthdays, challenges and trying to build up a stock of Christmas cards too. So since the end of August my fan elements have sat with me picking them up at regular intervals, popping my Peacock Summer Party CD into my computer to browse through the designs and pondering what to do next! This is perhaps one of the downsides of Glenda Waterworth's Artylicious CDs - there are so many beautiful designs on each CD to choose from that I often struggle to make a choice over which one I will use and for this fan card I had spent so much time making the fan I wanted to be sure I had the right paper.

I finally took hold of myself today after seeing a challenge called "A round tuit" on the This Thursday It's All About challenge blog. Yes that was what I needed! I needed to get "a round tuit" and make a decision about how I would turn my fan into a card!

Anyway here is the finished result, at the end it just suddenly came to me which paper to use and I hope I got it right, I think I did. With this card finally "out of my system" perhaps I can get my teeth properly into that fabulous Peacock CD because there are so many lovely card ideas I have been pushing away until I got my fan card made.

Each blade of the fan was stamped using holographic black EP, then painted using Twinkling H2Os. The black parts were coloured with a Sakura black Glaze Pen and I used a clear Sakura Glaze pen over Twinkling H2O paint on the gems in the fan to make them look more like facet cut Amethysts, Emeralds and Paraiba Tourmaline. The "Pearls" were created by using Ranger's Liquid Pearls in White Opal.

The card itself is A4 - the fan is too big to fit on an A5 card - and because Glenda creates Full Bleed images on her CD's I was able to print the peacock feather design borderlessly to cover the whole sheet of card. I then lightly spritzed the sheet with gold Glimmer Mists to give it a gentle lustre.

Damask Delight and not so delightful face injury

One of my dogs, Brock, is the eternal puppy - full of bounce and always up for a lark. However last night was not such fun. We were playing with his ball and as he brought it back I bent over to take it just as he jumped up to give it to me which lead to a nasty crash between my face and his head! End result was over 3 hours spend at the Accident and Emergency unit last night getting my face X-rayed. At first I thought I was OK, but a few hours after the accident I needed to blow my nose but when I tried to a huge lump suddenly appeared right under my eye. I must admit that kind of freaked me out a bit! Apparently I have no broken bones in my face, but the A&E doctor is referring me to the Facio-Maxilliary clinic (think I got that name right) but I have no idea how long it will be to get an appointment to see someone.

Today, as my eye is still half closed due to the lump and I still have a headache, I don't feel up to finishing of the project I started yesterday so I thought I would share a picture of a card I made some time ago. I came across it yesterday when browsing through some photos trying to decide what papers I wanted to use on my latest card.

This card was made using the Artylicious Damask Delights CD and stamps from the co-ordinating sets by Elusive Images. First I printed the backing paper and 2 of the greetings tags from the CD onto cream card stock. I chose some dark green card to make the card itself and covered it with some of the paper I had printed from the CD. When printing the greeting tags I had left one of them blank and on this one I stamped and heat embossed the central motif using gold embossing powder and a stamp from the Delightful Damask Themeplate. This was layered onto another piece of cream card stock which has been stamped and embossed using the co-ordinating stamp from the Damask Backgrounds Themeplate. I had printed the other tag with a Birthday greeting and this was layerd up on more of the gold embossed background and dark green card. Finally I added a narrow bow of gold organza ribbon as a finishng touch and then mounted my finished elements onto the card with foam pads.

Thank you Sandra

... for this award, I am honoured! If you haven't visited Sandra's blog yet then do pop over there. Sandra is an inspriation for crafters, not only because of the lovely cards she makes but because of her story too. She was the winner of a competition to design some stamps for The Craft Barn and now she is one of their DT members and regularly designs more stamps for them. So if you have ambitions to make stamping more than just a hobby, let Sandra inspire you too!

In my turn I would like to pass this award on to Roni over at Ink Stains. She has a fabulous blog and almost daily shares inspirational techniques and tutorials with her readers. If you are not sure how to use products then often you will find some great ideas by checking out Roni's blog archive and labels for posts that contain the tips you need.

Autumn 4x4

The theme in a recent 4x4 swap that I joined was "Autumn". So here is my take on the theme.

I used torn paper to mask the background to create the skyline and hills and the setting sun. The tree is a stamp from the Elusive Images "Arboretum Design-A-Tree Set". I stamped the bare tree using Adirondack dye ink (Espresso) and then added the leaves by colouring the small leaf stamps with Stampin' Up marker pens in various autumn shades and stamping them on the tree and on the ground around the base of the tree. The leaves on the background were stamped using Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I think are from a set of clear polymer stamps I got a while ago in Partners, I think they were sold under the Partners brand name.

Glimmer Mist & Masking in Blue

My friend Jan kindly sent me a Heidi Swapp mask as a little extra treat along with a card she had made for me. I had some fun making a simple card by sticking the mask down onto some pale blue pearlescent card and spritzing it with darker blue glimmer mists. I cut the result out and mounted it onto some deep blue card and then onto a card made from the same pale blue pearlescent card. Added some gems and ribbon for a quick, but I think rather effective card and it's definately "Blue" so it works for the challenge this week on My Time To Craft.

Thank you Jan and Cazzie

How kind both Jan of Farth North Designs and Cazzie of It's CazzieTime are to think if me when deciding who to pass this award onto. Now I shall have to think about all the lovely blogs I read regularly and pick some people to pass it on to in my turn.

The rules for this award are :

Here are the rules for this award:
1) The winner can put the logo on their blog
2) Link the person you received your award from
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4) Put links of those blogs on yours
5) Leave a message on the blogs you’ve nominated

Edit 24th September
OK after visiting some of my favorite blogs here is my list in no particular order of who I would like to pass this award on to.

Glenda - Artylicious
Lynn - Inkyartitude
Rachel - Craftyideas
craftimamma - Crafty Love N Hugs
Fabyon - Cardmaking, Scrap Booking and ATC: from a male point of view
Michelle Zindorf - Freedom in Creating
Deby - Just Add Love

Something for the Boys

I just realised there is a new fortnightly challenge called "Anything goes" on Craft Swap Forum. There is a theme to follow each time but you can make anything you like, a card, a scrap page, an ATC etc. so long as it fits the theme. The current them is "Something for the Boys". Here is my attempt at something suitable for the men in our lives.

The stamp on the main image is from Stampscapes and was stamped using Black Onyx Versafine then watercoloured with Lyra Aquacolors. The matting layer is silver foiled card that has been coloured with Adirondack Alcohol inks (Bottle, Ginger and Stream). The strip behind that is just white paper that I coloured using a brayer and one of the Adirondack Rainbow ink pads (Mountain Lake) This pad has 4 colours in it which include Bottle and Stream. As these were the colours I had used from the alcohol inks I kept to that end of the pad with they brayer. Finally I used a stamp from Lavinia Stamps to stamp the trees onto the strip using the same Rainbow Ink pad, but allowing the stamp to pick up colours from right across the pad.

Sunday Stampers Challenge - Alphabet Street

This week the challenge on Sunday Stampers is Alphabets and as I am still trying to crack on with Christmas card making I decided to make a Christmas themed card using the Elusive Images Illuminated Alphabet stamps once again. Only this time instead of using the complete word stamp as I had done recently on the UTEE card, I used the individual letters to create the word "Noel" These are big letter, measuring 2 inches tall!

First I cut some squares of Moondust card in an ivory colour onto which I stamped and heat embossed each of the letters using a fine detail gold EP. I then painted the illuminated detail in each letter using Twinkling H2Os. I matted my finished letters on to more Moondust card this time using a claret colour, and edged these with a gold Sakura Pentouch pen. Next I chose some dark green card stock and a lovely green printed paper from one of the Graphicus Guild paper packs. I cut the printed paper down so as it was just a little smaller than the size of my card and edged the paper in gold again. I then cut a small strip of gold foil card, added some claret coloured organza ribbon which I tied into a bow and applied the paper and the gold card and ribbon to my card blank. Finally I placed my 4 letters onto the card using sticky foam pads.

A Word about "that word"

.... yep I mean that bliddy annoying word that appears in the word verification box, aka a Captcha.

Recently I have seen on more than one blog campaigns to persaude people to turn this annoying little device off. I have tried to leave a comment on one of these blogs which clamied they would accept comments both for and against the idea. It seems however that my comment and the aruguments I presented in favour of word verification was ignored.

Edit : I have since re-read that post and realised I have mis-interrpreted the bloggers statement about accepting comments. While the blog owner was happy to read politely worded arguments against the idea of turning off word verification there was no guarantee made that such comments would actually be published.

Anyhow this is why I have word verification turned on :

Firstly I have seen, by chance in real time, a friend's blog being spammed. I subscribe to her blog and saw she had posted so went to look - her post was only a few minutes old and I was surprised to see there were already about 5 comments! I clicked on the link so I could leave my comment and low and behold there were now 7 comments.... duh? how did that happen so fast..... well I looked at the comments and it was immediately obvious to me that the blog was being spammed and it was happening right there and then!

Google (it was a blog hosted on Blogger) then took over and I assume some safety measure in their programming stepped in to shut down the ability to comment on that blog. Certainly that stopped the spamming in it's tracks, but it left the blog comments facility locked up for quite some time - I know because I really wanted to leave that comment to tell my freind how fab her work was so I kept trying and it was quite a while before I was able to access the comments page!

I have seen spamming happen in real time to on a forum, the spam posts were hitting at a rate of over One Thousand per hour and were full of profanity. I worked as a sysop on the site and alerted a tech to the problem....it took him over an hour to write his own script to block the spams and delete them faster than they were arriving! That was the only way he could fight it at the time as the site owner was not available and the tech did not have full access to all aspects of the programming. The next day the site owner promptly added a Captcha to the forum to prevent similar spam attacks in the future

So while that word verification tool can be annoying why make it easier for script kiddies to have fun at our expense? Do you really want to find profane comments on your blog.... or adverts for god knows what unsavoury web sites? Sure the "word" can be the pits to read sometimes...but you know what ... some of them are dead easy to read ... so just keep hitting submit and the "word" will change each time till you get one you CAN read easily and type back into the verification box.

Edit : Incase anyone would like to know a little more about captchas then this site offers relatively simple information which you may find interesting, particularly if you have been led to believe that captchas are so easily broken that they are effectively worthless.

UTEE Card for DCM Mid Week Challenge

It's been a busy week, but I love messing with UTEE so when I saw the midweek extra challenge on Daring Cardmakers I just knew I wanted to play along. The challenge was to stamp into Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE). But first I had to cut out my stamps, a full Illuminated Alphabet set from Elusive Images which I bought recently! Anyhow here is my card.

I made the UTEE piece by using an Adirondack Rainbow ink pad to stipple colour on to a piece of chipboard. There are quite a few variatons of there Adirondack pads, the one I was using is called "Noel" Perhaps I should say there were several variations of these ink pads, because I hear that Ranger have discontinued most, if not all of them. Such a shame as they are lovley to use. Once I had coloured my chipboard I covered it with UTEE heated and stamped the word "Noel" using gold Encore Metallic ink into the hot UTEE. Next I mounted my UTEE piece onto some gold foil card.

The matting layer was created by using a brayer and the same Adirondack "Noel" Rainbow pad to colour some glossy card stock which I then stamped and embossed a patten over using detail gold EP and a stamp from the Elusive Images Filigree Fusion themeplate. This was also layered onto more gold foil card. Finally I used the same stamp from the Filigree Fusion Themeplate and the rainbow pad to stamp a background all over some Stardream Pearlescent card and then mounted my elements.

Sorry about the photo, it's a tricky card to get a photo of because the light keeps shimmering of the pearlescent cardstock.

We Have A Winner !

The lucky winner of the new Elusive Images "Dragonfly Faery" themeplate is . . . . .

Drumroll...........

Claire

Congratulations Claire, I hope you have lots of fun using your new stamps, and that when you have time you can blog some of what you make with them. Please contact Glenda to let her know where to send your prize.

Claire said :

"CraftyC said...
I would love to win some of Glenda's stamps, she has a narural talent and creates some wonderful works of art!!Clairexx"

I would like to say a huge thanks to Glenda (Artylicious) for coming up with the idea of this fun Blog Candy Treasure Hunt and for offering such beautiful stamps as the prizes. Also thank you to everyone who has visited my blog and left such lovely comments. Now that the draw is done I will be trying to pay return visits to everyone over the next few days.

Not a Tree

I can't exactly say most times where I get the idea for a card from, probably something in my subconscious, but for once I do know what inspired this card!

While I was cutting out the stamps from my Arboretum Themplate from Elusive Images I was struck by the fact that the canopy of one of the trees was exactly the right sort of shape to fill a pot full of flowers! In my garden, despite the dreadful wet and horrible summer, I have some lovely tubs of Impatiens (Busy Lizzies) in flower. I had been admiring how pretty they looked that very day. Have you ever noticed how the petals of these flowers are almost irridescent? I had also seen some beautiful things made by Glenda Waterworth which involved using shimmery embossing powders to add flowers to the trees from the Arboretum themeplate and it occured to me that the tree stamp and Glenda's embossing technique would let me create my own version of the tubs of flowers in my garden - ideal for a birthday card I needed to make.

First of all I stamped the tree by inking it with green inks, then used shades of magenta and pink chalk inks to stamp the flowers. Next I went over each flower with a Versamark pen so as it would be sticky and then sprinkled on some Cosmic Shimmer "Iced Blush Luster" Embossing powder and heat set it. It'a very pale translucent powder so the colours of the ink show through. Next I cut out a plant pot shaped template, wrapped some ribbon round it, added a tag with the greeting on it and attached it just under the tree branches, hiding the trunk part. This was matted onto some of the same green card I had used to cut my pot template from and I had my "pot of Impatiens" ready to afix to a card.

I made the card from some of the same green card and made a backing paper by starting with some pale pink paper to which I added some depth by applying some Cerise and Magenta colour if ink with a sponge. I used a pouncing movement to dab the ink on, rather than sweeping the sponge around on the paper. Next I took the little flower stamps I had used on the main image and stamped them randomly over the paper, and finally spritzed the whole thing with some pink Glimmer Mist to give it some shimmer. This was applied to the card and the pot of flowers was then adhered with foam pads.

I guess it's not a very elaborate card to look at in some ways, but I do think it looks very like the real flowers in my garden! In case you are wondering which tree from that themeplate I used, it's one of the smaller ones - the one that sits upside down in the top right quadrant of the plate. I would have added a photo of the real tub of flowers to this post, but once again it's a horrible wet day here, not good for taking photos! Perhaps I can add a picture before they all fade for the winter if the sun ever decided to show it's face again.