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.