Ink Stain Survivor

WOYWW 77

2010-11-24T16:48:00.000Z

Backgrounds I was messing about with last night is what's on my workdesk today. If you want to know why I'm posting this, then take a look at Julia's Blog where you can find out and even join in this weekly snoop-a-thon.

WOYWW 76

2010-11-17T22:58:00.000Z

I've been waiting all day to take this photo - only just made it for Wednesday! So here we are ..... look what my lovely hubby made for me..... ain't he a star! Just finished stuffing it full of inky goodness for the photo - so everything is kinda crammed on there in no particular order - job for tomorrow - organise it properly!

To find out more about WOYWW and even take part if you're feeling brave hop on over to Julia's Blog

WOYWW 74

2010-11-03T08:50:00.001Z

First I must say thank you to all the WOYWWer's who left kind messages about my car crash last week. Heard from the insurance company and, as expected the car will be written off. Anyhow on to WOYWW which is hosted by Julia over at Stamping Ground. This is what's on my workdesk today - I have an illuminated alphabet set of stamps by Elusive Images and I had planned to uses these for a card for the Design Team, but after painting them with those Twinking H2O's that you see there the other elements for the card sort of took control and changed the colourplan on me so I had to make some more and these ones were left. So now I need to decide what I will make with these ones. but before that a coffee refill and some snooping round other work desks will be the order of the day.

WOYWW 73

2010-10-27T08:53:00.000+01:00

Good Morning WOYWWers, first let me thank everyone who kindly wished me well with my dental appointment last week. It was just a tiny filling that didn't take too long. For anyone wondering what WOYWWers are you need to visit the inestimable (ain't that a great word) Ms Dunnit's Blog where all will be revealed.

This week there is not a lot happening - my lovely new Sir Tim die is lying where I left it several days ago because my mojo has done a runner. I had a car crash on Sunday on my way to work, I hit some black ice and lost control, thankfully no other cars were around, just me, the car and that nasty patch of ice. I wasn't hurt much - just a bit sore and stiff, but the car is a write off. Anyhow I just haven't felt like doing much of anything except blubbering which I assume is the shock reaction. Hoping today I can get some crafting done cuz I have some sample projects to complete for Elusive Images.

Heading off now for a wander round some other workdesks and perhaps find something to kick some life back into my mojo.

Elegant Ladies From Elusive Images

2010-10-22T11:21:00.000+01:00

Elusive Images has just launched some lovely new A5 themeplates, each of which features a beautiful lady in a fabulous evening gown. Accompanying the lady on each of the plates are a lovely mix of swirls, ornate corners, chandaliers and candelabras. You can see the new stamp sheets in their full glory over on the Elusive Images Design Team Blog where, if you are lucky, you might win one of the themeplates in a random giveaway. You will also get to see some of the beautiful creations made by my fellow DT memebers to give you some inspiration. We all agreed that these stamps would be very pretty to use for wedding themes, making lovely cards to give to the bride and bridesmaids etc, but their versatility does not end there, as the samples shown on the EI DT blog show! The samples I made did wedding themed items, but this one is an any occasion card made when I gave in to my addiction to Vintage Photo Distress Ink and just had a nice inky play!

The stamp was stamped with the Distress Ink onto cream card, only stamping the upper part of the image. I blended more ink around this and also used the ink as a paint to add some shading to the lady's face and arms. The frame was cut using Nestability dies from more of the cream card which then had lots of that lovely Vintage Photo ink blended over it. The pattern on the frame was created by stamping the skirt part of the lady's ballgown in Versmark ink and dusting with Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls. The frame is mounted over the image of the lady using foampads. The background is more cream card and paper from the Artylicious Decadent Brocade CD onto which I blended yet more of the Distress Ink. To finish the card I stamped a greeting, added some cotton lace and some amber coloured cabochon gems to the frame and as the corners of the backing paper.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - 72

2010-10-20T08:33:00.000+01:00

Good morning WOYWWers and thanks for all the lovely comments last week. Short post from me today as I have to rush off to the dentist soon. Will be back later to enjoy a good snoop round this week's desks. Here's my desk as looks this morning - I left it like that on Tuesday before heading out to work the late shift. I meant to mount those stamps on the foam and cut them out after work last night, but ended up watching telly till nearly bedtime instead.

If you're new to WOYWW and wondering what this is all about, head over to Julia's Blog to find out more.

Haunted House Card

2010-10-17T20:57:00.000+01:00

This is a card I made using a stamp from the Elusive Images Spookylicious themeplate. The background for the house was made by randomly blending Dusty Concord, Faded Jeans and Pine Needles Distress Inks over some white cardstock to completely cover the card surface. I stamped and embossed the house using Cosmic Shimmer Arctic Black Aurora embossing powders, then highlighted the house using a faux bleaching technique.

The faux bleaching is done by simply painting clean water over the areas you want to remove ink from, then dabbing the area with a kitchen towel to remove the water and as much ink as you can. Because the stamped image has been heat embossed the inked background becomes slightly heat set and you don't remove quite as much colour using this technique as you would from unheated card. For that reason I used real bleach to take almose all the colour away from the moon area. Once dry the card was dry, I blended Black Soot Distress Ink around the edges then mounted the finished image onto a mat cut from dark green foiled card.

The base card is a deep purple foiled card and the corners are chipboard pieces from Maya Road which I inked with more of the Black Soot Distress ink then covered in UTEE, two coats of clear UTEE followed by a top layer of the Cosmic Shimmer Arctic Black Aurora embossing powder.

WOYWW 71

2010-10-13T08:03:00.001+01:00

Oh my goodness Wednesday already so it must be time for another WOYWW! I didn't get to very many blogs at all last week so sorry to those who I missed, I will try harder this week as I really enjoy seeing lots of other interesting desks, crafty stash and inspiring artwork. Now if you haven't heard of WOYWW before then the best way to find out more is to visit Julia's blog Stamping Ground where you can find out how to join in this regular Wednesday Snoop-fest.

So on to the business of the day - here's my desk as I left it last night when I headed off to bed - a stamped background I have been working on, a pile of Prima flowers that I plan to use with the background and a mottley assortment crafty clutter piling up and pushed back. Time now to grab a coffee refill and settle down for good nosey at everyone else's desks.

Things That Go Bump In The Night

2010-10-12T00:54:00.001+01:00

This card was made using Hallowe'en themed stamps from Elusive Images. The the toadstools, the spider web on the corners and the greeting all came from the Halloween Candle Themeplate.

To make the card I stamped the toadstools onto white card using black Adirondack Dye Ink. Next I added spots over the tops of the toadstools using a Versamark Pen, then sprinkled clear embossing powder over the image and heated it. With the spots of clear embossing in place I coloured the image using Copic markers then coloured over the whole image with the Versmark pen, coated the image with clear embossing powder and heated it up. The clear embossing was to provide a resist so I could ink the background around the toadstools.

The background was inked first with Pine Needles Distress Ink, blended right up to and over the image. Next I blende some Dusty Concord around the outer edges of the image, then wiped the ink away from the clear embossed area. I stamped the branches of one of the trees from the Arboretum Design-A-Tree themeplate around the edges and inked up just the spider dangling from it's web on the large Candle stamp in the Hallow'en Candle set and stamped it in to look like it was dangling from one of the tree branches.

I made a card blank from some black card and added mats and layers in orange and purple card. On the purple layer I blended Dusty Concord and Black Soot Distress Inks around the edges and stamped and embossed the greeting with black embossing powder. The corners were cut from some of the orange card and stamped with the spiders's web stamp. Finally I added some Black Diamond Stickles Glitter Glue around the corners and around the edges of the mat and some black brads.

Elusive Images Sponsors Play Date Cafe Challenge

2010-10-07T09:31:00.000+01:00

Hi, this week Elusive Images are sponsors over on the Play Date Cafe Challenge and there is a fabulous rubbery prize to be won! The challenge each week gives you a colour story to work to. This week, as you can see from the photo above, it's a fresh take on some tradtional Christmas colours. Over on the Play Date Cafe blog there is some wonderful inspiration from their Design Team so why don't you hop over there for a look and then play along this week.

Meantime here's my take on the theme. Details of the stamps I used and how the card was made can be found over on the Elusive Images Design Team Blog where there is even more inspiration for you from Glenda and some of the other DT members.

WOYWW 70

2010-10-06T08:00:00.002+01:00

Good morning WOYWWers. Sorry I missed last week, I was a bit under the weather last Wednesday and had far too much Elusive Images DT stuff lying around on my desk that involved some new stamps that have not been launched yet so I would have had to clear that up before I could have taken a photo and joined in.

This week however I just have one card - turned over as it need's to wait till tomorrow before I can blog it. The rest is most of my usual stuff - the push back method is working well for now, but I really need to take some time today to clear things up as the what you can see is only the tip of the iceberg, there are a heck of a lot more scraps that need to be binned and stamps and inkpads laying around that need to be put away that you can't see in this photo. Jo - the paint brush holder is working a treat. It's out of shot tho, but within easy reach!

Now before I go on I should explain WOYWW stands for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday, and it's a chance to find out if you really are the messiest crafter in the known universe or just an also ran by snooping round lots of other crafters workdesks. To join in you need to visit the Goddess of Snoop Ms Julia Dunnit over at Stamping Ground.

Last time I joined in someone asked if I was going to label my drawers - if you click on that photo you will see they are labelled with contents on the left side of each draw. I thought it would be easier to share the contents of some of them if I took the drawers out and sat them on the floor. I had just about enough clear floor space to do that - so here are the drawers that contain my Glimmer Mists in the first photo. The second photo shows the draws that hold Stickles and Pearly Stuff in one and the other my collection of Twinkling H20's ... well most of them. I have those lovely little pots of shimmery goodness roughly organised by colours as you can see. Neutrals in one tray, purples through pinks and reds into Oranges in the second one and yellows, greens and blues in the last one. The metallics, the interference whites and a couple of other sets are still squirrlled away on a shelf, I keep meaning to find the time to add them into the trays in that draw...oh well one day I suppose.

WOYWW 68

2010-09-22T09:28:00.002+01:00

Good Morning WOYWWer's, and for anyone wondering what WOYWW is all about, then I recommend visiting Julia's Blog Stamping Ground where you can find out all about it.

Today my desk is covered with stuff I can't show at the moment - new stamps from Elusive Images. So instead I thought I would show off my drawers. Hubby got me these as a pressy a while back and they are really useful for lotsa stuff.

The next pics are the top 2 drawers that contain mostly my Distress inks they are stacked 2 deep in each drawer. I tend to pair up colours so it makes them easy to find; Dusty Concord with Milled Lavender (purple colours), Spiced Marmalade with Dried Marigold (orange shades)- you get the idea I am sure. In the second drawer there is a random assortment of other inkpads too. Woulda shown you more of the drawers but the camera batteries have run out!

Trick or Treat - The Reveal

2010-09-17T20:19:00.000+01:00

Well was it a trick, or was it a treat???.............

Um, yanno getting older make it hard to remember stuff............

Stuff like...................

Was I tricking y'all or not..... and.......

Stuff like........

Where did I put...............

THESE!!!!!

Yay...... it was a TREAT!!!

I have used a random number generator at Random.Org to draw a winner and the lucky number chosen was comment 26. Now I should point out that someone commented twice, so technically the winning comment is 27th in the list as I only counted 1 comment per person. And the lucky winner is belindatec:

belindatec said...

I really love your card that cat is just perfect.

16 September 2010 00:17

Congratulations Belinda, please leave me a comment on this post with your name and postal address so I can mail your stamps to you. Comment moderation is turned on for this blog so I won't publish the comment that contains your details.

Now it just remains for me to thank everyone who has taken part for all your kind comments and for entering into the fun of our little Trick or Treat theme. Right now Elusive Images are offering a wonderful inspiration leaflet (actually IMO it's more of a booklet) for anyone who buys more than one set of the Hallowe'en stamps. It's a fab leaflet, with lots of ideas and several sets ofstep by step instructions - great for those of you who are newer stampers and may need a little help. Full details of how to get hold of the leaflet can be found on the Elusive Images Design Team Blog. Retailers should contact Elusive Images for details of how to get hold or the leaflet for their store.

Trick or Treat Part 4 - Time's Running Out

2010-09-17T07:32:00.001+01:00

It’s that time of year again when the nights are drawing in, the kids are back at school, the leaves are starting to turn and the pumpkins are ripening......... and even more exciting it's nearly time to reveal who has won blog candy in the Elusive Images Hallowe'en Blog Hop. Do I have some of these scrummy Elusive Images Hallowe'en Blog candy treats to give away, or is this just a trick? Well if you want to know the answer you're going to have to check back later today when all will be revealed.

There will be winners for sure, but did you leave your comments on the right blogs? The lucky winners will receive one of these Elusive Images Hallowe'en themeplates so if you haven't joined in yet you still have a few short hours in which to do so. Scroll down to my "Trick or Treat Part 2" post and follow the instructions on the post. Then make sure you visit the Elusive Images Design Team Blog and use the links there, or the ones in my sidebar to visit the blogs of the other DT members. There are at least 2 DT members who have some blog candy to give away so hurry hurry..... don't be missed!

Trick or Treat Part 3 - Found that Blog Candy Yet?

2010-09-16T08:54:00.001+01:00

We have been having a lot of fun on the Elusive Images Design Team for the last few weeks ~~playing~~ errr I mean working hard, making samples with Hallowe'en themed stamps. A dirty job for sure, but someone had to do it [Grin]. Today I thought I would share one of those samples with you. The card was made using stamps from the Twilight Zone and Spookylicious themeplates, and paper from the Artylicious Essence of Nature CD. I also used Distress Inks and Twinkling H2Os.

Right now we have a fun blog hop running for anyone who wants to win some hallowe'en themed blog candy. Now the candy is hidden, not every Design Team member has any, some do, some don't. The challenge is to find the blogs with the candy. To give you a helping hand, here is the link to my blog candy post - be sure to follow the instructions in the post if you hope to find that blog candy!

Of course I may or may not have candy, so to be certain of being in with a chance to win some of these spooktacular Elusive Images Hallowe'en themed stamps you will need to visit the Elusive Images Design Team Blog and also the blogs of the other DT members - you can find their links in my side bar and on the main post about the Blog Hop on the Elusive Images Design Team Blog. You only have a day or two left to find that candy, as the winners will be drawn on Friday 17th September 2010. Good Luck in the hunt!

WOYWW 67 and Elusive Images Halloween Candy

2010-09-15T08:00:00.001+01:00

Well, where did the week go? Oh yes I remember, I was busy schemeing with the the rest of the Elusive Images Design Team about a Hallowe'en themed Blog Hop with hidden Blog Candy for you to find. If you want to know more, the start point is here at the Elusive Images Design Team Blog. You have until the 17th of September to hunt down that candy.

But now it's Wednesday again so it's time for WOYWW. Last week I made it round everyone! Geeze that was a lot of blogs, but I enjoyed every visit and found lots lof lovely inspiration along the way, not to mention some comfort in seeing that, after all, I may not the messiest crafter in the known universe.

Anyhow here's my desk this week, not a lot going on at the moment so I thought you might like to see what's over my workspace.... and here's a pic of some drawers that sit on the shelf directly over my desk - they hold Sakura pens, water colour pencils, Stampin' Up Markers, Whispers markers, some stencils, stencil brushes, gems, bits of ribbon and other various itty bitty crafty things. On top are tins with more pencils, Primacolors, Derwent Metallic Pencils and Lyra Aquacolors - and before you say it, yes I have a bit of a pen and pencil thing going on ..... and worse.......I haven't even shown you my collection of twinkling H2O's yet..... maybe I will share that next week.

In front of those drawers is the edge of the shelf - it's about 3 inches wider than the little drawer sets and a very handy spot to stuff things outta the way, I can reach up there while remaining seated at my workdesk! Errr don't ask me what up there, most of it is small bits of card that really ought to be in a bits box or binned. I keep promising myself I will sort that all out Oneday. The problem is Woden gave his name to Wednesday, Thor's name for Thursday, and Freya gave hers to Friday etc., but here's the problem..... for some reason nobody ever named a day of the week after the great god "One"!!! And ain't that most original and best excuse you EVER did hear for not tidying your craft space!!! [Big Grin]

Now if you're wondering what on earth all this is about then I recommend you visit Julia's Blog Stamping Ground as she is the orchestrator of this regular Wednesday Snoopathon.

Oops I nearly forgot, for those of you who visited last week and saw the part-coloured image on my desk.....here's how it turned out.

Trick or Treat Part 2

2010-09-14T00:37:00.002+01:00

Well, the Elusive Images Design Team Hallowe'en Blog Hop is underway and all of the new Hallowe'en stamps can be seen on the DT blog. Some of the EI Design Team have blog candy to give away this week........Do I have candy???? maybe I do, and maybe I don't..... Trick or Treat?????

Here's a card that plays a trick..... open it up and BOO!!! The stamps are from Elusive Images and include a mix from the new Hallowe'en themeplates, Spookylicious, Twilight Zone, and also stamps from Arboretum Design a Tree and Sketchy Alphabet.

So..... do I have hallowe'en candy????..... well my lips are sealed, but if you want to take a chance on this being a treat and not a trick, here's what you must do:

if you are not already a follower, you need to become a follower on this blog
You must also become a follower on the Elusive Images Design Team blog
Link back to this post on your own blog if you have one.
Finally leave me a comment on this post

On the 17th of September the EIDT members who do have candy will draw a winner randomly from the comments on their blogs...... best make sure you visit all of us if you want to be in with a chance to win! You can find my fellow Design Team Members in my side bar. Good luck in the hunt!

Please note this Blog Candy Hunt is now over and the winners have been announced.

Trick or Treat?

2010-09-12T12:29:00.002+01:00

Good morning, I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Just a wee peek at something I've been working on for the Elusive Images Blog Hop which starts tomorrow. If you want to see what happens to my pile of pumpkins, you need follow the Hop. Your launch pad will be the Elusive Images Design Team Blog tomorrow. Take care not to miss anything because you never know, there may be Hallowe'en candy to be found along the way!

WOYWW 66

2010-09-08T08:01:00.000+01:00

Good Morning WOYWWers. Thanks for all the kind comments last week, especially those about the brayered Hallowe'en cards..... what the photo at that distance probably didn't show is that each of those has a flaw of some kind... and that is why I was not happy with them. Things like over inking on the reflected stamping bug me cuz I know it's there - I tend not to use stuff where my "inner school teacher" is writing "could do better" on the school report [Grin] And on that note, I could do better, I really hoped to get round all the blogs last week..... fell short by quite a bit... made it to just over 70 folks. If I missed your's I am sorry - and I will try harder this week.

Anyhow, This was my desk last night, I'm in the process of making a new version of that Lighthouse scene card for someone. Their father, who is quite ill, saw a picture of the card and loved it. However I no longer have the original card to send, so I said I would make one for him. Started the colouring last night, and have a few ideas how to remake the card, but make it different from the original too, even tho I am aiming for the same kind of vibrant colours as the first one.

Now if you are wondering what this WOYWW stuff is all about, then I recommend a visit to Julia's Blog Stamping Ground where all will be made clear..... hmmmmm or maybe not so clear.... more likely to be pretty messy.....but it's all nice creative mess!

WOYWW 65

2010-09-01T08:07:00.001+01:00

I missed WOYWW last week, had a rather shocking visit to the optician for an eye test - geeze the price of varifocals!!! Who ever said old age does not come on it's own must have been thinking about the massive bills for things like that that come with it! Anyhow after some help from other crafters online I found a better deal on new glasses, which I sorely need, at Tesco..... just a case of getting them made up now.

First pic up today is for Julia - the evil genius behind this regular Wednesday madness and if you want to know how to join in the fun, well all you have to do is visit Julia's Blog. Thank you Julia for my lovely WOYWW easel that arrived safely last week. The card was made using a stamp I have been playing with for a forum swap where the theme was "Old Freinds or Latest Purchase" The "Floral Spray" was one of my first ever Elusive Images stamps and is indeed an old and trusted freind - a lovely image for so many occasions. While I was making my swap card another idea for using the stamp was kinda bubbling away underneath and this is what happened.... seemed that turning it into a "thank you" card was the right thing to do. I matted it onto some orange card and thought I would then stamp sort of background on a card blank, but when I went digging in my stash I found that silvery green card that I had forgotten I had, and it just seemed to colour match so well with the leaves in the main image that I decided that leaving it plain was best.

And here's my workspace as I left it at bedtime - sorry the bit of white card on my cutting mat is something I cannot show as it's a Design Team project so I turned it over - but I spend last night colouring the stamped image on the other side with Derwent Inktense Pencils.... mmmm I lurve those pencils. The bottles in the plastic bag are Tinkabella Inks from Graphicus, got an idea for that red colour that's lying on it's side. Behind that some attempts at a brayerd card with a halloween theme... not happy with any of them so not sure that idea will mature into anything worthwhile, but they are there cuz I will probably have another crack at it some time this week.

This is the space to the left of my work area - see I am still being good - no return of the huge piles of stash - I can even have my box of pencils open with both trays available for me to pick colours from! The box of stamps contains the stamps the sets of stamps that I am currently working with, there is more in there than just those house stamps.

Sparkly Stuff

2010-08-20T19:37:00.001+01:00

Today I have been making something just for my own pleasure, one of the stamps from the new Elusive Images Christmas designs kept popping into my head with thoughts of an ice blue and white colour scheme. At first I was thinking "stamp it on vellum", but when I sat down to have a play with the stamp I found my hands reaching for some Stamp 'n' Bond and Glitter.... have I ever mentioned that I am addicted to glitter? The stamp in question comes from the Winter Birds themeplate, it's a sort of counter part to the ornate corner stamps which feature on the Angel of Light themeplate, and yes I used one of those fancy corners too.

The dangly square is actually 2 squares, cut with nestablilites, which I stamped and sprinkled Stamp 'n' Bond onto, heated, then applied the glitter. I edged the squares with a little Tumbled Glass Distress Ink, then stuck them back to back so as no matter which the the dangly bit turned you would see the design.

I cut an apperture in the main card with one of the bigger nesties, edged it with glue and more of the same glitter. I also stamped the corner stamps in each corner, again using the Stamp 'n' Bond and glitter. The greeting was created the same way. The dangly square was suspended on jump rings and a bow at the top finished it off.

As this weeks challenge on My Time to Craft is "Glitter and Glitz" I have decided to enter my card into the challenge.

WOYWW 62 - I tidied a bit

2010-08-18T13:36:00.006+01:00

Ok the mess got to me.... it was getting to be really tricky to make anything without loosing stuff I was actually trying to use! Now I just need to organise the rest of my storage a bit better, cuz it's pretty much a hodge podge. Anyhow the tidy was done on Sunday, and included the piles of stuff on the left side of my desk. What you see now is something I have been working on... a stamped image which I have had to cut out as I can't show it yet, and some card and papers in colours I might use with it. The papers are from an Artylicious paper pack which I think you can see in the second photo. I also included a piccy of a cupboard where I keep a lot of my unmounted stamps and a few other bits and pieces.

Thanks for all the lovely comments last week.... perhaps I ought to explain about the wallpaper... When we moved in, that was the wallpaper that was on the walls, we thought OK that can wait to be redecorated...BAD MISTAKE... because the spare room ended up becoming a dumping ground for stuff we couldn't find a space for, we never seemed to get around to doing something with it and then my I got my first computer and needed a place for that....and finally when I took up stamping I needed a craft room! The room still fulfills all of those functions, but as a result I'm sorta trapped as to how to change that wallpaper cuz I have no idea where we could put our stuff if we had to empty things out to redecorate.

Now there were somes questions in amongst those comments last week, so I figured I should reply.

Pam, what I was doing with the trees will be revealed in due course .... but it's something spooky.

Bleubeard and Elizabeth, the white looking thing is a one of those La Blanche foam backed rubber stamps. As for the stamp in tubs... well there's more, check out my third photo today.....all those A4 storage boxs stood on end like books contain more rubbah.

Sunshine Girl, the trees are from an Elusive Images Themeplates called Arboretum: Design-A-Tree. They are bare trees that come with small leaf and flower stamps to "dress" the tree with - if you want a spring, summer or autumnal tree you can have it... or just leave them bare as winter trees. I've put a link in for you cuz I love to enable fellow stampers!

Julia, yes haha.... I adore trees so of course I have a bit of a "tree thing going on" [insert evil grin here]

I hope I have answered everyone's questions, sorry if I missed any out and for writing such a long post. And there you have it, the crazy snoopy fun that is WOYWW - to join in the fun, visit Julia's Blog Stamping Ground - but be warned, it's addcitive!

Last but not Least

2010-08-13T10:58:00.001+01:00

The last of the 6 cards I made for the Elusive Images DT application - a colour challenge. Glenda had specified that one of the projects submitted must follow a specifed theme and given a choice of about 4 or 5 themes, I chose a colour challenge - Brown and Teal.

This time the main image is by Clarity Stamp, but the patterns in the dress, and on the edge of the inside back, are done using what I tend to think of as "incidental stamps". Those small decorative stamps that come on sheets of unmounted stamps which, while they are pretty, often sit around unused because we are not sure what to do with them! The stamp in question comes from the Elusive Images "Delightful Damask" themeplate

To make the card I stamped the lady onto some white card using a permanent black ink, I also made several stampings onto pages of a post-it note pad, making sure that part of the image fell over the tacky area, this was for cutting out to make masks for the dress. I placed the masks in turn over various parts of the image and coloured the dress using a stencil brush and Versamagic inks in the appropriate brown and teal colours. The pattern was added by overstamping through some of the masks with the pattern stamp from the Delightful Damask themeplate. The border round the image and also on the edge of the inside back of the card was created in much the same way, using masking, stencil brushes and overstamping. The right hand edge of the front of the card has been trimmed back to reveal the stamped border inside the card.

The background layers were cut from card in the challenge colours, the ornate cormers were cut with a Cuttlebug die. I should appologise for the photo, this one seems to have a lot of camera shake in it, I always take more than one picture of my card, but in this instance I must have deleted the wrong image from the camera and as the card is no longer in my possession I cannot take a better picture.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - 62

2010-08-11T12:25:00.005+01:00

Here we are, Wednesday again and time to join in the madness that is WOYWW! Last week was fun, I made it round everybody's space - yipeee. Thanks to eveyone who visited me, I love reading your comments! If you are wondering what WOYWW is all about, take a look on Julia's Blog. I have to say I enjoy having a snoop round other people's spaces, great way to get ideas and be inspired by what they have going on in their space.
This week I have some stamps sitting waiting to be cut out, that will be my next job today, I have some projects bubbling away in my head to make with them. You can also see some failed attempts at an idea, they are sitting there to remind me to keep working on it when I have time, the idea will take shape eventually.

I also thought I would share a peek at some of the mess on the left side of my desk... errrr shameful ain't it, I really must try to tidy that away and reclaim some space! Those tubs contain mostly stamps, I really ought to get them stored away in my filing system - hmmm maybe I should show that cupboard next time, it's fairly tidy.

Quick 'n' Easy Elegance

2010-08-10T01:00:00.004+01:00

One more of my design team submissions, and a break from the nautical theme. This card uses a stamp from the Words of Inspiration themeplate by Elusive Images. It's been heat embossed in gold on to Southfields gold Moondust pearlescent card that I had cut using a Nestabilites die. The card blank is also the same gold Moondust card. The matting layer is cut from Base Metal card also by Southfields. The printed design is from the Artylicous Decadent Brocade CD. I printed this onto ink jet printable pearlescent paper so it would have the same shimmer as the rest of the card stock I was using, sadly the photo does not do the shimmery quality of the cardstock and papers real justice.

I chose the words for this card because it seemed to fit the occasion, applying to for a place on the Elusive Images design team, I was indeed holding onto the thought "why not"! However, while I was making the card I was thinking that any appropriate sentiments could be substituted to suit many different of occasions, Birthdays, Christmas and even sad times such as a sympathy card. For any of these occasions and more, the design printed from the CD would make a lovely elegant background for a wide variety of messages. I suspect that for Christmas this year I may make a few more cards using this kind of layout and some of those lovely papers as it's not a time consuming card to make when lots need to be made!

Seashell Stepper

2010-08-05T16:20:00.001+01:00

This is another of the cards that I made as part of my submission for the Elusive Images Design Team. To make it I used Elusive Images stamps from the Underwater and Seashell Collage themeplates, both of which are available from Graphicus. This was one of those cards that seems to take over once you start making it, and ends up being very different from the card you first imagined in your head.

To make the card I started with an A4 sheet of ice blue pearlescent card onto which I stamped the large corner stamp of the shells and seaweed and embossed with detail silver EP at the bottom right corner. With that done I cut the lines needed to free the middle section of the card from the outer edge, freehand cutting the curve around the edge of the stamped image and scored the lines across the card needed to create the stepped folds. With that done I stamped and embossed the little silver seahorse on the right side of the card and then folded along all my scored fold lines.

For the seashells I used Distress Inks with the wrinkle free technique to colour some white card. The ink colours are Tumbled Glass, Spun Sugar and Bundled Sage. Once that was dry I used detail silver EP to emboss the various shell and starfish images onto it and then cut them out. I glued all my cut out shapes to the front and middle steps of the card.

The card was finished off by making a greeting for the back step using Nestabilties dies to cut and emboss another piece of my Distress Ink coloured card onto which I stamped a greeting using a stamp from Clarity Stamp. I used a little Stormy Sky Distress ink to blend around the edge of this to pick up the embossed detail from the die. If you look closely there are also some small shells stamped randomly in the same Distress Inks used to give the card it's colour, not sure if they really show up in the photo. This was layerd onto some scalloped mats cut from more of the the same ice blue pearlescent card I made the step base with and another cut from silver foiled card. and stuck to the back step of the card .

WOYWW 61

2010-08-04T09:22:00.000+01:00

My latest crafty acquisition is what's on my workspace! I've been lusting after Copic markers for about 2 years now. These are my pressy from hubby to celebrate being chosen to be part of the Elusive Images Design team! Not got time yet to play with them as I have some deadlines to meet. The projects are already underway and were planned without the use of Copics in mind. As I expect to have to work through a learning curve with the pens I figured it's best to wait till I have time to have a proper play and making mistakes won't matter. Off to get a refill for my coffee now then have a snoop round some other workspaces! To join the snooping why not visit Julia's Blog - she's the evil genius behind WOYWW!

More from the Sea

2010-08-02T15:50:00.001+01:00

My last posts have featured some of the lovely Elusive Images Sea themed plates, and this one does too, but after making that very grungy card I felt the the need to make something cleaner and fresher. This card also formed part of my application for a place on the Design Team.

While I had been toying with watery themes it had occured to me that I have the Cuttlebug "Tiny Bubbles" emobssing folder and that if I coloured some silver foil card with Alcohol inks I could make a lovely bubbly background for something. I used Stream, Stonewashed and Lettiuce alcohol inks to colour the silver card, cut a shape using a nestabilites die and cut a frame with the same dies from plain silver card. The background shape was then embossed through the Cuttlebug folder to create the bubble texture. I stamped and heat embossed the little seahorse from the Elusive Images Underwater themplate onto an assortment of card using different embossing powders and cut them all out to find the one I liked best against my background.. My final choice was white EP on white card. With all my bits made I assembled the frame and background and stuck the little cut out seahorse into place.

Next I needed something to mount this onto, so I made a background blending Broken China, Stormy Sky and Shabby Shutters Distress Inks onto some card. Once the inks were dry I stamped one of the seashell images from the same Underwater themeplate and embossed with white EP. I mounted this onto white card stock, added a band of silver card across the centre with some white spotted organza ribbon then finally stuck the framed seahorse over this.

Getting Grungy

2010-07-30T10:34:00.003+01:00

This one is another card that I made for the Elusive Images Design Team Application - remember I said in my previous post that the Lighthouse Scene is a lovely image - well it is an I couldn't resist making a very different card with it. As Glenda has posted a photo of this one over on the Elusive Images Design Team Blog I thought I would share how I made the card.

The image was stamped with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and I used a wet paintbrush to drag colour from the stamped outline to create extra shading in the image. Where I needed more shading I dabbed the ink pad onto my craft sheet and used my wet paint brush to pick up a litte more colour. If you look carefully there is also a tiny touch of Aged Mahogany in the image. The ink was very watered down on my craft sheet then picked up on my paint brush and used to make the sails on the boats stand out just a little more. Once the image was dry I used the blade of my scissors to distress the edges a bit then used Cut 'n' Dry foam to blend more ink from the Vintage Photos pad around the edge to create a vignette effect. Finally I dragged and smudged my Versamark pad around the edge, sprinkled on Gold EP and heated.

The finished image was mounted onto black card which I embellished with some kitchen twine that had been grunged up to look like old dirty ropes from a sailing ship. I did this by using just about every shade of brown distress ink I own, from Frayed Burlap to Brushed Corduroy! It was easy enough to do, just splodge the brown inks onto a craft sheet, spritz liberally with water then roll and scrunch the peice of twine around in the inky puddle so it soaks in the inky water. Let it dry then repeat as needed to darken. Once the twine was nearly dry I made the browny shades more uneven by smudging a little ink directly from the ink pads onto the twine and lightly spritzing so as to make the inky smudge bleed into the twine more - it bleeds better if the twine is still a little damp when you do this. The knots were tied using an authentic sailors knot - in this case a figure of eight knot. I wanted the knots to be the Real MaCoy, so I did some research online and found this web site with some great instructions on how to try proper sailors knots. Just click on any of those knots and an animated page opens that shows how to tie the knot.

Finally my background layer - once again I turned to my Distress Inks in assorted shades of brown and used the wrinkle free technique to create the background. Once this was dry I overstamped with Versamark using an anchor image from the Seashell Collage themeplate and dusted this with Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls then very lightly spritzed with water to set the Perfect Pearls. The edges were treated in the same way as the edges of the main image - distressed with the blade of my scissors, a little ink blended with Cut 'n' Dry foam, and smudgy gold embossing. The whole thing is mounted onto black card from the same stock I used to mat under the main image.

If you got this far, sorry it's such a long post, but I wanted to share how I made this card because I had a lot of fun making it!

OMG - On Cloud 9!!! & WOYWW 60

2010-07-28T12:09:00.003+01:00

OMG I can't believe this - I got picked. The only sure way to fail at something is to never try.......so try I did, but with no real expectation of success. What am I wittering on about I hear you ask? The Elusive Images Design Team Call, I applied and got chosen! For me this is a dream come true and my feet haven't touched the ground since! I am both extremely humbled and incredibly proud to be a part of Glenda Waterworth's Design Team. Humbled because I see so many wonderful creations on other people's blogs and find myself thinking every time.... "if only I could make something so beautiful"; and proud to think that someone as talented as Glenda considered my work worthy.

At this stage thanks must go to my 2 most wonderful friends Fabyon and Jess. Fab thank you, your support and belief in me when I was trying to put together projects for the DT Call submission helped me to not loose faith. Jess - you know what you have taught me about life and giving it your best shot no matter what - if not for your wisdom I would never even have applied.

Now you may have noticied my blog has been a little quiet, my father in law's death followed by an intense 3 weeks of overtime at work left me with not a lot of time to craft recently. However normal service has resumed and I can now share some of the projects that I made as part of my DT submission.... so here's the first. Nothing fancy, just a simple stamped image from the Elusive Images Seashore Scenes themeplate, coloured with Derwent Inktense Pencils and a brayer for some of the sky, then matted an layered on black gloss and white linen card. This image is so lovely it really doesn't need anything else. However if you scroll down a little bit you will see a different treatment in this post. The greeting stamp is one from Hobby Art and was stamped and embossed with black embossing powder so it would be shiny to co-ordinate with the black gloss card.

What's On Your Workdesk Wedneday (WOYWW) - hmmmm gotta be careful about what is camera view now - but this is what was on my workdesk when I went to bed last night - I am trying to flatten some card that curled when it got wet - Glossy Accents being the culprit in this case. The bits under that acrylic block weighed down by the tub of Rock Salt are for a Design Team project, but I hope I can share the results with you soon. Off now to take a wee peek at some other workdesks, why don't you join me by visiting Julia's Blog. Julia hosts this little bit of fun every Wednesday and lots of crafters join in, I guess we are all a little bit nosey about other crafters workspaces!

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday.

2010-06-23T21:42:00.001+01:00

Well my desk has not changed a lot since last week. Due to a family bereavment I have not had much time to craft as I was engaged in other activities in preparation for the funeral. After that I needed to make some "thank you" cards for my mother-in-law to send out. Stuck to simple ones of which you can see 2 in my pics. Materials were just card stock, vellum printed with designs from the Artylicious Decadent Brocade CD, oval nesties, floradoodle flowers and some peel-off corners. The "Thank You" sentiment is heat embossed using a stamp by Elusive Images. I took a better shot of the cards to let you see them closer up. If you wan to join in the WOYWW fun visit Julia's blog to find out more.

Someone asked last week about my ink pad storage - it's free cassette tape storage that came with boxes of Oxo years ago - hubby found them in the loft a while back and I nabbed them with glee cuz I knew they would be ideal for storing ink pads - just wish I had enough for the rest of my ink pads - they are stacked to one side, or in various tubs and draws. Oh and the mess - err I haven't shown all of it yet - I am too ashamed to show the real extent of my clutter!

Heading off now for a snoop round some other workdesks.

My Messy Desk

2010-06-16T10:50:00.003+01:00

I found this bit of fun on Stamping Ground today - its called What's On Your Workspace Wednesday. Thought I would join in even though my space is a mess. In the Messy Crafter Oymipics I could win gold on a good day! As for my craft mat - well that's soggy toilet paper - saw something on TV that I decided to have a go at last night - still waiting for the soggy stuff to dry out - more on that later if it works!

Two Tags and an Alcohol Ink Background

2010-06-15T18:04:00.007+01:00

Recently I have been playing with some stamps I bought last year from Graphicus, they all have a nautical/sea theme. I have a card idea in my head for the image of the sailing ship, but it's not quite there yet. I thought I would stamp out the images last night and see where they took me. While I was playing I thought I would try out a background technique I have been wanting to have a go at since I bought some Isopropyl Alcohol a month or so ago - a much cheaper alternative to Alcohol Ink Blending Solution and it's pretty good for cleaning up that tacky gunk that cutting sticky things leaves on our scissors too! You can get it through any Pharmacy tho you may have to ask for a special customer order.

Anyhow on to my tags. First step was to chop open on 3 sides one of those tough cello bags that I get every time I buy unmounted stamps from Graphicus so as it could be opened up like opening the pages of a book. Next I dripped Alcohol Inks (the colours are Denim, Stream, Stonewashed and Lettuce and a tiny splodge of Silver Metallic Mixative) inside my "cello book" and spritzed this with some of the Isopropyl Alcohol which I had decanted into a Tim Holtz Mini Mister. Closed the cello pages and sorta smeared things around with my fingers, then opening the pages back up, I took 2 semi gloss tags I bought in Grapicus some time ago, laid them back to back and placed them between the pages of cello and once again kinda smeared things around with my fingers - I really liked the end result, the colours are lovely and soft and best of all permanent so they won't bleed when you do other stuff with them.

The stamping itself was simple enough, stamps from the Elusive Images "Undewater", "Seashore Scenes" and "Seashell Collage" themeplates stamped in Midnight Blue Stazon. The gulls in the tag with the sailing ship are from a stamp by Clarity Stamp.

On the tag with the seahorse I tried adding a little colour with Twinkling H2O paints to the shells and sea bottom to get a more sandy look - it think it looks OK even tho the paints are transparent so some of the blue/green tones of the background show through. On the tag with the sailing ship I used a white gel pen to add some foam to the waves under the ship.

With hindsight the silver mixative may have been a mistake as Stazon does not work so well with the metallic mixatives - the silver floats up to the surface of the stamping - must try this next time with Archival ink and see what happens.

Nautical Card

2010-06-13T14:13:00.007+01:00

A few months back it was Fab's birthday and I made this card for him. The stamps are by Elusive Images and come from the Seashore Scenes and Underwater themeplates. The full range of these stamps can be seen on the Graphicus web site.

I stamped the lighthouse scene image using Broken China Distress ink, used a wet paintbrush to draw a little colour into the image to deepen the shaded areas, and finally blended a little more of the distress ink around the edges. The shell stamp was stamped with Versamark ink onto brown bazzill card and then heat embossed with clear embossing powers. The sentiment comes from the Seaside Scenes plate and was also stamped with Broken China Distress ink. Some brads and ribbon in a shade that complimented the colour of the ink added a finishing touch. Then, just because it was for Fab, and because he not only knows, but actively enables my weakness for sparkle I added the tiniest amount of Broken China Distress Stickles to the roof of the lighthouse. I guess it wasn't really necessary, but it's a sort of signature from me to Fab.

A Birthday Card

2010-06-10T00:05:00.005+01:00

Pink 'n' Girly without being saccharin sweet, or at least that's what I was aiming for when I made this a while back for a friend's Birthday. The card base is some ice blue pearlesenct card - chosen because it would look well with the silver embossing I planned to do. The papers are from an Artylicious CD - "Decadent Brocade" . I addes some shimmer to them by spritzing with Glimmer Mists, blended a little ink round the edges then embossed the big swirl stamp in silver at two opposing corners.

The flowers were embossed in silver onto more of the same pattern paper. I spread a thin layer of Stickles Stardust glitter then cut them out. The large Birthday greeting stamp is from an A6 plate by Elusive Images. It was also stamped onto the printed paper and heat embossed in silver, then matted onto some of the same ice blue card I have used for the main card.

The flowers and swirl stamps are by Sheena Douglass.

Two For One?

2010-06-05T22:56:00.003+01:00

Can I have a 2 for 1 please? The card was made a few weeks back for my husband who was transferring jobs and needed a card to thank his staff for the gift they gave him when they heard he was moving on. It seems appropriate to post this because it is a thank you card and, while it was made for hubby's work colleagues, I want to say thanks to all the kind friends who have popped in to visit when they saw I had posted on my blog again after so long. Thanks folks, your kind word are much appreicated.

The card itself was made using a stamp from the Stampin' Up set "Lovely as a Tree that I received from my "FAB"ulous freind Fabyon for Christmas last year - he's an SU demo - go visit his various blogs because he's a wonderful card maker and scrapper - and his other half Vince ain't half bad either - between them those 2 have so much talent!

To make this card I brayered a background using a Ranger Big N Juicy ink pad - Waterfall, then stamped the trees with black Stazon. Used a nestability die to cut it out and matted it onto some black card cut one size up from the same set of nesties. The main card was simply stamped with the same stamp across the center, the greeting is from an Elusive Images Themeplate, and the birds at the top right left are from Lavinia Stamps. A simple card to make really, the only tricky bit was the birds - I tried to stamp them quite lightly to keep them back in the distance, but that made it hard to get a crisp impression. Anyhow I hoped the final result was a suitably manly for my husband to give - somehow to me it just didn't seem right for a man to give a card that is all flowers and butterflies to a group of colleague who are mainly other men! But heck maybe that's just me being a lil' conventional!

Geeeeze my poor neglected blog!

2010-06-03T00:06:00.006+01:00

A new job, lots of training and I guess my biggest sin - procrastination are to blame for the neglect. Today I was browsing some photos of my stuff looking for an idea and realised I really ought to have blogged this cuz I had so much fun making them. Um forgive me for posting Christmas stuff in Summer but I do want to share.

The Christmas Tree decorations were cheap as chips from Tesco - but rather nasty - just festive shapes cut from cheap plywood that was badly finished. They all had a little loop of red ribbon embedded into them so they could be hung on a tree. Anyhow my first task was to sand them to make sure there were not going to be any splinters.

With that done I set about decorating them - I used a variety of ideas and materials, Tim Holtz Acrylic Paint Daubers, Stazon inks, sticky aluminium foil, alcohol inks, printed papers from an Artylicious CD, Luminarte's Polished Pigments paints, stamps, emobssing powders, Glossy Accents, Stickles Glitter and Gems .... I think that's a fairly comprehensive list! Lord knows by the time I was done - 3 days later - my craft room looked like a small tornado had visited!

Anyhow I really loved how my drab little wooden decorations turned out! The individual photos are some of my favorites. Gave them to freinds instead of giving them a hand made Christmas card. Hoping Tesco have something similar this year so I can make a few more.

Thank You Card

2009-09-10T18:51:00.003+01:00

I got the new Artylicious Decadent Brocade CD recently and have been printing stuff off - stupidly I forgot to take a photo of the first of the card I made but this is the second card from the CD.

The stamped sentiment is by Elusive Images and can be found on the Words of Gratitude Themeplate. The paper was inked round the edges with Memento ink and then spritzed with Gimmer Mists to make it shimmery. The Prima flowers were also spritzed with the Glimmer Mists.

Playing with Backgrounds

2009-07-08T13:55:00.004+01:00

This card was made for a swap that required a brayered background. The main image is a brayered resist. I stamped first with versamark using stamps by Hero Arts then brayer in the background colour and the Versamark resists the inks. I used an Adirondack Rainbow inkpad (Wild Flower) for the background.

The matting layer is also a fun background technique - I used Cut and Dry foam to blend Distress Inks (Faded Jeans, Dusty Concorde and Vintage Photo) onto some white card in a random way then spritzed this with water. Next I used a fairly wet sponge to dab on gold mica poweder from the Luminarte Polished Pigments range and then spritzed this again - this makes the Distress inks move some more and they carry the mica with them giving a lovely diffused look.

The card base is cream card which I have stamped with the same stamps as used for the main image using the Wild Flowers Adirondack Rainbow pad.

Birthday Card for a Man

2009-06-29T08:12:00.005+01:00

As well as our Wedding Anniversary, hubby also has his birthday in June, so I made this card for him.

The background was created using torn paper masks with sponges and a mixture of Adirondack dye and pigment inks. The stamps are all from Clarity Stamp except for the Birthday greeting. I enjoyed playing with my sponges and inks, trying to get a feel the rays of the sun shining down through an early morning mist. However, perhaps the thing I enjoyed most about this card was that for once I seemed to get the matting nice and straight - hubby loves to tease me when my cards are a little squint and this time he couldn't!

About bumblebees

2009-06-23T19:37:00.002+01:00

About bumblebees

Shared via AddThis

I don't know how aware people in general are, but our Bumble Bees are having a hard time, yet without them our gardens would not be the same, our flowers would not be pollinated and perhaps far more importantly our food crops may fail. I have been busy trying to plan a more Bumble Bee freindly garden this summer and as a result have been enjoying watching several different speices of Bumble Bee visiting the flowers. This post has a link at the top called About bumblebees which wiill take you to a web site created by the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust where you can read more about Bumble Bees and how you can help by planting your garden with flowers at the the bees like.

Faux Dichroic Glass

2009-06-18T19:12:00.004+01:00

Well this was a fun way to spend a not so very summery afternoon - wind and rain prevented an outing that we had been planning, however my husband was intrigued by something I have been dying to try out since buying Tim Holtz' DVD "The Journey Continues". The project was to make faux dichroic glass.

It's easy enough to make if you have the tools and ingredients - we started with

Sea Glass (tumbled glass will also do, you need the roughened surfact for the UTEE to stick to)
UTEE - Clear, Black and a variety of colours made by colouring the UTEE prior to heating with with Alcohol Inks. Do NOT add the alcohol inks to hot UTEE - mix it with the cold powder and keep stirring till all the alcohol has evaporated off.
A Melt Pot
Cool Toolz to use with the Melt Pot
Craft Foil (courtesy of my friend Winspiration, owner of Foilplay)
Regular Embossing poweders - (we had some Cosmic Shimmers and some holographic
glitter ones).

To make my pices I first mixed several colours of UTEE by placing some powder into a dish, adding some Alcohol ink and stirring it. At first the powder clumps, but keep stirring and the colour will blend through to an even shade. Once it stops clumping you know the alcohol in the inks has evaporated.

Next step was to heat up the the Melt Pot and place a glass piece in it. It only takes a few seconds for the glass to heat up and then you can sprinkle a thin layer of UTEE on - once it melts use a spatula to lift the piece out and place it sticky side down on the back of some foil. Let it cool and when you lift it the foil will be stuck to the glass.

Next you place the glass foil side up back into the melt pot and start adding the coloured UTEE - you can also add little sprinkles of Metallic EP, glitter EP or stuff like the Cosmic Shimmer EPs. Once all your coloured powders are melted you then add a final top coat of the clear UTEE. With that last coat melted you lift your piece out on the spatula and lay it on a non stick craft sheet to cool.

We had a variety of foils to play with and the photos show pieces made with foil that has an oil on water effect, some self coloured blue foil, some silver foil and one piece used holographic sliver foil. The holographic foil however does not work as well as the others as the heat seems to destroy most of the holographic effect leaving it more like a plain sliver foil.

Anyhow these are the result of our playing today, the photos don't really do the pieces proper justice, but I hope you get the idea of how pretty they look. I plan to use these to decorate a photo frame when I have made enough bits, but that will require another visit to the beach to collect more sea glass! I must say an added bonus today was getting hubby involved - even tho it meant I had to take turn about with him at the melt pot!

From One Tough Card to Another.....

2009-06-16T16:18:00.006+01:00

Well my last post was about difficult to make cards - and here's another difficult subject - MEN!!! This is actually an Anniversary Card, but as it's for my hubby that makes it one of the dreaded "man cards" so I couldn't fall back on easy options like pretty flowers, butterflies etc. that give easy solutions for Anniversary cards being sent to other couples! Anyhow I wanted something that is romantic but in a masculine kind of way - hmmm did I just put "romantic" and "masculine" in the same sentence? Not that my hubby doesn't love me, but he just is not a fluffy hearts and kisses kind of person if you see what I mean. Anyhow this is what I came up with - manly colours with a beautiful, but not in the least bit soppy, heart stamp and text stamp, both of which are from Elusive Images.

The background for the heart was made using Distress Inks and the "Wrinkle Free" technique - one of the techniques we played with at the recent workshop I went to. The colours used were Faded Denim, Broken China and Peeled Paint spritzed very liberally with loads of water. Once this was dry I stamped and embossed a lovely leafy flourish heart which can be found on the Harlequin Rose themplate using Gold Embossing powder then spritzed it with Glimmer Mist - the colour was Sea Glass.

Finally I cut out the heart and mounted it with foam pads onto some dark blue Moondust card from Southfields - it's a gorgeous deep blue pearlescent card but the photo does not do it full justice. Before mounting the heart I had stamped and embossed in gold the word "Love" which comes from the Words of Love themeplate onto the Moondust card. This was layerd onto some gold foil card and then attached to a card blank which I had printed with a background paper design from the Artylicious Filigree Fusion CD which co-ordinates nicely with the leafy flourish design on the heart stamp.

A Sympathy Card

2009-06-06T19:55:00.006+01:00

What can I say, these are perhaps the hardest cards we ever have to make because we want them to say so much and yet there are no words that can be said to make things better. I tried to create a mood of calm and peace - I hope I succeeded

The stamps are all from Clarity Stamp, the technique of creating reflections with a Brayer is one I learned some time ago from Clarity's very talented owner, Barbara Gray. Ink pads were all Adirondack dye based inks from Ranger - mostly Mountain Lake which is one of the now sadly discontinued Adirondack Rainbow pads. I added some of the individual colours from that are combined in the rainbow pad around the edges of the card blank -the colours were Stream and Lettuce.

Tag Book Workshop

2009-05-29T16:40:00.003+01:00

I have been away for a couple of days this week doing some workshops at Graphicus. The first one we did was a Tag book and wes more technique driven with the finished book being more a by-product of trying different techniques on tags. Anyone who is a fan of Tim Holtz will be familiar with the type of stuff we were doing - playing with Distress inks, blending them with Cut N Dry foam, adding water, etc. We also did some techniques with the Adirondack Acrylic Paint Daubers which included an image transfer - that was fun and I was pleased at how well my image came out.

When we had done we bound all our tags into a book so now we have that as useful referrence work to remind us of how to do all the techniques we tried.

I have not finished the other project we did on Thursday - that involved working with Stampbord - but I have all my stuff home with me now and plan to take the time to finish it properly over the next few days.

More Zendoodles

2009-05-14T22:10:00.003+01:00

I decided it would be fun to try the round Zendala type of zendoodling, so I cut some circles with round nestabilities and got doodling. Next I added colour by brayering over my doodled circle using a Kaleidacolor ink pad (Caribbean Sea) which has colour bands that go from blue through to green so I though this might be acceptable for the challenge over on Colour Create this week which is to make something in Blue and Green.

I mounted the circular doodles onto some coordinating scalloped nesties that I had cut from gold foil card and then mounted these onto some light blue card. The greeting is a stamp by Elusive Images and comes from the Words of Inspiration themeplate.

All of a Flutter

2009-05-13T16:02:00.003+01:00

This card was made for a swap on Craft Telly forum where the monthly swap theme was All of a Flutter. The background is made in 2 halfs using a brayer, a Kaleidacolor ink pad (Melon Melody) my cuttlebug to emboss the lower half and stamps by Elusive Images to heat emboss the sparkley Dragonflys and butterflys on the top half. All the stamps for that are on the Butterfly Blush themeplate and I used Stamp N Stuff Kaleidascope EP which changes colour when heated.

The main Butterfly is from another Elusive Images theme plate, this time Just Butterflies. The image was stamped using Adirondack ink in Butterscotch, heat embossed with more of the Kaleidascope EP and then painted using Twinkling H2O paints in colours to coordinate with those in the background. This was mounted onto card cut with Nestabilites dies. The ribbon is from Maya Road.

Zen Wotsit ?

2009-05-03T18:50:00.003+01:00

Ok so did that post title grab your attention? Then please let me explain. I was blog hopping and landed on my SBS20 sister Carol's blog where found myself fascinated by the background on one of her cards. I was thinking OK I wonder who made that stamp then cuz it's so detailed, but as I read her post I discovered that the background was not infact stamped but drawn - it's a Zentangle.

So there was me thinking OK so what exactly is a Zen-wotsit? I did what any nosey person would do - I Googled! It seems Zentangle is actually a trade marked name - and this form of art is also known as Zendoodle, or when done in the circurlar style as on Carol's Blog it is sometimes referred to as Zendala. Anyhow I had to get my black Gel Pen and have a bash and here is what I came up with.

I couldn't resist adding a little colour and as the challenge this week on My Time To Craft is "Black & White plus One" I thought I could submit the card I have made for the challenge with my attempt at Zendoodling.

Grungeboard Flowers Workshop and Assorted Thanks

2009-04-30T16:53:00.007+01:00

Whew yesterday was a blast! I was down at Barnard Castle visiting Graphicus (my fav craft shop) to do a workshop with the lovely and very talented Lynne Robinson-Hunter. Thank you Lynne, you rock, I had a fabulous time yesterday and enjoyed getting very very inky!

So what did we do in the workshop yesterday? Well we made some absolutely gorgeous dimentional flowers with Grungboard and a selection of Elusive Images Stamps - mainly using stamps from the Big Flowers, Diamante Delights and Ruby Tuesday themplates, but a few other's crept in too. I had first seen these last year when Lynne showed me some she had been making, they looked very tricky to make, but in actual fact they are not - well maybe a little bit if you are rubish at cutting out like me - slowest in the class cuz I can't cut out at any kind of speed.

We made 2 projects, a tag with a flower which we then turned into a card and a broach. The flowers for both projects were made by first choosing some of the flower stamps in different sizes and stamping 3 of them onto Grungeboard with a permanent ink. The flowers were then cut out and coloured on both sides using Distress Inks applied with some Cut N Dry foam. With that done we flipped the flowers over and spritzed them liberally with water on the back. Next step was to leave the wet flowers for maybe 10 minutes or so to let the Grungboard soak in the water. The effect of this was to allow us to turn up the petals of each flower which we did by folding it back to the furthest point it would go then, with our thumbs, rolling it back open again. This created the curled up edges to the petals and while the Grungeboard was wet you could continue to manipulate it to get the degree of curl into each petal that you wanted. The leaves were done the same way.

With that done it was simply a case of layering up the flowers, adding some glitter, or spriting with Glimmer Mists or whatever took your fancy to embellish it some, and then mounting it onto a tag, or whatever you want to. My Broach is only 2 layers - remember what I said about being a slow cutter - I figured I had best limit myself to 2 layers as we were running out of time. The rest of the class not only managed to make 3 layers but added lovely flourishy swirls behind their broaches! I love the extra shimmer I got on my broach with the added spritz of Gimmer Mists.

Finally some more thanks to Judith from Judith @ Poppy Cottage and Sally from Crafty Salutations who have both given me an award - the "Makes my Heart Smile" Award. Thank you to both of you, I am very touched you thought of me when deciding who to pass the award on to. As this is an award that has been pased to me before I am going to skip on passing it onwards again, but if you are one of the folks who read this blog, please feel free to take it because your kinds comments always may MY heart smile. You can find the award logo in my sidebar.

Blog Candy over the Elusive Images Design Team Blog

2009-04-28T22:01:00.002+01:00

Glenda Waterworth of EI has 4 simply scrumptious new stamp themeplates due to launch and she is giving away some of the new stamps to 4 lucky people, so why not hop on over to the EI DT blog and take a peek - who knows, you might get lucky!

Silhouette Birthday Card

2009-04-17T19:33:00.004+01:00

This card was made for a Birthday Swap Group and now that the recipient has seen it I can post it here. The stamps are from Clarity Stamp.

The main image was stamped using dark blue Stazon ink onto some glossy card which I had first coloured with my brayer and Ranger Adirondack Inks. The Bullrushes were stamped onto some light blue card with more of the Adirondack inks. Both layers have been matted onto some silver foil card. The greeting is from a set by Woodware - the set I have shown on this blog a few time, but couldn't recall the maker - I came across them the other day in an online shop so now I know who makes them and very useful those tiny text messages are. The flower and brad are part of a kit which I bought from QVC, they are made by Paper Mania.

Orange and Yellow Challenge on Stamp TV

2009-04-16T01:19:00.004+01:00

Having caught up with various birthday card makes I found myself with some time to play just for the fun of it. The Orange and Yellow colour challenge on Stamp TV took my fancy and this is what I came up with.

The Butterfly is by Elusive Images and comes from the Butterfly Daisy Collage Themeplate. It's stamped with Fired Brick Distress Ink onto card that I had first coloured using Mustard Seed, Dried Marigold and Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks.

The yellow background is a piece of core'dinations card stock which I embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and then rubbed the surface colour off the embossed areas with an emery board. This was matted onto some orange card stock that was punched along one edge with a Fiskars border punch. The orange corners were cut using my Cuttlebug.

Apologies and a Tiddley card

2009-04-09T17:24:00.007+01:00

I just want to say sorry to friends who's blogs I have not been visiting a lot recently. My old 'puter was getting very wobbly, dying on it's feet actually. Anyhow I had to nurse it along and avoid having it turned on for too long as it was running too hot and getting ready to fry itself. Thankfully the guys in my local computer shop are very cool guys, they kept my old 'puter running for about a year longer than I had expected and they have now built me a nice new one for not too large a number of pennies. Well not too large in the scale of 'puter stuff, but enough pennies to buy rather a lot of rubber stamps with if I hadn't needed the new 'puter.

Anyhow here is a "tiddly" card I made for a swap on Craft Telly Forum recently - the swap theme was to make a small card.. The card is what we refer to in the UK as A7 size - I know I have some American freinds who drop by occasionally so for you guys the card size is close to 1/4 of your American Letter size card which has then been folded in half to make a little card.

The whole thing was made from a piece of lovely pearlescent Moondust card - the butterfly was cut and embossed from some of the Moondust card with my Cuttlebug using one of those dies that has a matching embossing folder. I brayered some ink over the embossed butterfly using a Kaliedacolor ink pad - Calypso if I remember correctly - and finished by adding some sparkle with Stickles glitter glue.

The layer underneath the butterfly was stamped with a small text stamp which I had inked using the same Kaleidacolor pad and the daisy border at the bottom was stamped and embossed with gold EP then painted with Twinking H2Os. I can't recall who made the littel set of text stamps, but the border comes from a set made by Crafty Secrets. The other matting layer was simply another piece of the moondust card which I had coloured with the brayer in the same way as I coloured the butterfly. I did find it was best to give the ink a gentle heat set on this kind of card.

New Challange Blog

2009-03-27T00:12:00.003Z

Just heard about a new Challenge blog, Simon Says Challenge! The challenges start next Wednesday and there is some blog candy on offer.

Shirley Poppys

2009-03-25T02:15:00.004Z

This card came about after something I read made me Google Shirley Poppys, the flowers in this variety of Poppy are a pretty shade of pale pink. It's also another of those cards made for a March Birthday.

The stamp is from Elusive Images and is part of the Flora and Fauna Themeplate. I stamped and heat embossed it with Silver EP, then painted it with Twinkling H2Os. The greetings are also stamps by Elusive Images and were part of a Graphicus Guild Member's Limited Edition stamp plate. The frame is one stamp and there is a selection of greetings that are all made to fit inside the frame.

The image is layerd onto black card and I added some black Stickles glitter to give some more sparkle. The decorative corners were were cut from white card with my Cuttlebug and then painted with the same shade of green paint I had used on the poppy flowers. I am not sure if the end result is a good representation of the real flowers but I like to think that it's just as pretty as the photos I found in Google of the real thing.

With a Cuttlebug and a Brayer...

2009-03-21T19:20:00.006Z

I finally had success with a techinique that I first read about several months ago on my friend Jan's Blog - Far North Designs. The technique was for inking Cuttlebug embossing folders before you pass them through your 'bug. My first attemps were horrible and on the odd occassions I have tried since I was still ending up with a mess. I had been applying ink to the embossing folder direct from my ink pad and things were getting just too inky. Anyhow this time I tried using my brayer to apply the ink - RESULT! I ended up playing for quite a while and created lots of lovely bits of inky embossed designs - this is the card I made with 2 of them.

Both of the embossed bits were inked using my brayer and a Kaleidacolor ink pad - Carribean Sea. The piece for the top half uses a piece of card I had already coloured with the brayer before embossing, once it had been put through the 'bug I ran the inky brayer over it again very lightly to strengthen the colours on the raised embossed areas without squishing the embossing flat again. The bottom section was simply I piece of white card which I had emobssed and then coloured with the brayer.

The rest of the card was so simple, I just chose some lovely vibrant turqoise card from my stash that toned with the colours from the ink pad. Added a little bit of ribbon and a pretty flower and brad. The tag was stamped and embossed with clear EP and then brayerd with more of the Kaleidacolour ink so it would tone in - the clear embossing provided a resist to the inks so the stamped words would show through in white.

I really like the effects I can get with this technique, you can ink first and emboss after, emboss first then ink, or you can do both, and you can apply the ink to either the raised embossed side or the indented debossed side of either your embossing folder or your card - so loads of possibilites! I think my assortment of rainbow style inkpads and brayer are going to be in for a hammering cuz this is just too much fun!

Red Sky At Night

2009-03-20T17:51:00.003Z

The challenge them on My Time To Craft this week is "Nature". This gave me a nudge to get a card that has been in my head for a long time - since last summer actually - made and out of my system!

The stamps are by Elusive Images and come from the Wild Meadow themeplate. Inks are from a variety of Kaleidacolor ink pads, but mainly Desert Heat and Creole Spice. The stamps were heat embossed onto the red sky background with black EP and on the main card I stamped with Versamark then dusted over with Perfect Pearls using a purple colour from the Jewel set.

The red sky background was created simply by using torn paper masks to sponge colour from the ink pads down onto the card, starting with the sponge on the edge of the mask and drawing the ink down onto my card. The colours graduated from lightest to darkest and I moved the mask a little further up with each colour. Once that was done I gently washed over this with a water brush to bleed the colours together even more.

Teddy Birthday Card

2009-03-19T23:43:00.005Z

This card was made for a Birthday card swap. The person who's birthday it was loves teddies and most things cute so I dug out my one and only cute teddy stamp and came up with this. Cute is not really my forte - other people do it better than me but I enjoyed making the card.

The teddy stamp is from Visible Image and was stamped onto some card cut with a die from a set of circle shape Nestabilities then layerd onto a co-ordinating scalloped circle. The image was coloured with Prismacolor pencils which I blended with paper stumps and low odour mineral spirits.

The background paper is from the a Joanna Sheen CD - the Pamela West Collection. I stamped and heat embossed the floral corner flourish which comes from a set of stamps designed by Sheena Douglas then painted all the little leaves and flowers with with Twinkling H2Os. The flower embellishment is from Prima and was given some extra glitz with a coat of Shimmerz paint.

Owl Always Love This Stamp

2009-03-16T20:28:00.004Z

Yes, it's that Elusive Images owl again, sorry if I am being repetative, but I adore that stamp and it helped me out of a creative hole recently. The "hole" was the monthly swap theme on Craft Telly forum. The theme was to make a "half and half" card. Well at first I just couldn't get an idea of what to make, and then it dawned on me that it would be fun to have a go at making this card with the Wise Owl stamp.

First I cut two rectangles with my nestabilites, one in black and one in white. Next I laid the 2 rectangles on top of each other and cut them in half. The reason I did it this way was so as if my cut was not quite dead center I could match the left hand side piece from one colour with the right hand side piece from the other and still end up with a rectangle that was the same size as my orignal rectangle which would fit on the scalloped nestie layer underneath.

The next step was to join the 2 bits of card together on the back with some masking tape and then stamp the owl with versamark onto the front, postioning the owl as centrally as I could over the centre join. With that done peeled the masking tape off the back of the stamped image taking care not to smudge the versamark impression and seperated the 2 halves. This allowed me to sprinkle white and black embossing poweder over each side without any cross contamination of colour and heat emboss. Once that was done I rejoined the 2 halves and matted them onto the scalloped nestie shape which had also been cut twice in both colours and cut into 2 halves. This in turn was layerd onto 2 more pieces of black and white card which I had edged with a gold Sakura Pentouch pen.

The golden amber eyes were stamped seperately onto white card and embossed with black EP. They were painted with Twinkling H2Os then cut out and stuck down over the original image. The golden card was chosen from my stash to theme with the colour of the owls eyes and was stamped with a stamp from a Graphicus Guild limited edtion stamp using Encore gold metallic ink.

Bluebell Woods for a Floral Challenge

2009-03-13T14:03:00.005Z

The challenge this week on Theme Thursday is "Flowers". I love bluebells, such pretty colours and delicate flowers, so this stamp from Elusive Images is a favorite. The stamp can be found on the Snowdrop Script Themeplate.

I used green Stazon ink to stamp the image then painted it with Twinkling H2Os. This was matted onto layers of dark blue and lilac card stock from my stash. Next I made the picture of the Bluebell woods using stamps from the Elusive Images Arboretum and Wild Meadow themplates. The background was brayered using Adirondack Dye Inks then the trees and grassy bits were stamped with more of the same inks. Finally the bluebell flowers were added using a mix of stamping with the H2O paints and adding some extra spots of colour with a paint brush.

The card base is some blue card from my stash that has been spritzed with Glimmer Mists over Glimmer Screens. The Bluebell text stamp was stamped over the Glimmer mists using Azure Stazon - the shimmer of the Glimmer Mists still shows through the Stazon.

Cute Digital Images From Sandra Dry

2009-03-12T21:40:00.002Z

My forum friend Sandra has just launched a new venture online. Sandra already designs stamps for the Craft Barn's Kadoodle range of stamps and now you can buy digital images designed by Sandra from her site Sandra Dry Digi Stamps. You just download the image and print it. Once the printer ink is dry you can colour it, cut it out etc - all the things you would normally do with a hand stamped image.

Another Owl Card

2009-03-11T01:36:00.005Z

This time it's for the Sunday Stampers Challege. I was ever so pleased to see the challenge involved Owls this week because after making Fab's birthday card I was itching to try stamping that Elusive Images Owl on the same brayered background, but this time with the bands of colour running horizontal to the owl and using brown ink rather than dark navy for the owl itself. Anyhow here is the card I came up with.

As before the background colours for the Owl image are from the "Country" Kaleidacolor ink pad brayerd onto white card. This time the owl was stamped with "Brushed Corduroy" Distress Ink and embossed with clear EP. The eyes were glazed with Glossy Accents and once this was dry I cut the owl out. The cream matting layer was cut with one of my Nestabilities dies and my Cuttlebug, then stamped with a little feather stamp that comes on the same Wise Owl themeplate as the Owl stamp. I used more of the Brushed Corduroy Distress ink to stamp with and then edged the layer with a gold Sakura Pentouch pen.

The card itself is some russet colour card from my stash. The ornate corner flourishes are also by Elusive Images and can be found on the Butterfly Daisy Collage themeplate. They were stamped with versamark and then I used some Perfect Pearls in Heirloom Gold to dust over them.

Birthday Card for a Man

2009-03-09T23:05:00.004Z

It was my dear freind Fab's birthday the other day and I know he loves this Elusive Images Owl stamp so it made it easy for me to decide on the main image for my card. The stamp is from the Wise Owl themeplate.

I started by making a brayered background using a Kaleidacolor ink pad (Country) which has bands of brown, green, blue, pink and yellow. I stamped the owl onto this using Midnight Blue Stazon. As I had chosen to stamp the owl with the colour bands of the background running vertically and had kept the stamp to the side with the brown, green and blue colours, the yellow band of colour my brayer had created was left clear. After cutting out the stamped owl I used the unstamped area of the background to stamp the owl's head again on the yellow area so I could cut out the eyes and glue them over the eyes in the orignal stamping giving the owl those wondeful amber eyes. I applied a thick coat of Glossy Accents to the eyes to make them shine. My finished owl was mounted onto some cream card that I had cut with an oval Nestability and then matted onto a scalloped oval cut from some brown Bazzill cardstock and which I had edged in gold using a Sakura Pentouch pen.

The card itself is a lovely amber yellow card from Stampin' Up which I thought picked up nicely on the colour of the owl's eyes and the pattern paper is also from Stampin' Up and was part of some lovely blog candy I won a while back from my SBS 20 sister Sam. I added a narrow strip of the same brown Bazzill to the card to create a contrasting border at the edge of the printed paper. Some very plain gold peel off corners added a finishing touch. I think think the image and the colours make this a lovely card for a man.

Two lovely awards

2009-03-04T15:29:00.004Z

I have been a bit busy just now with cards I can't post on the blog as they are for upcoming birthdays and I am not sure if the intended recipients read my blog or not. Despite that I have been priviledged to receive not one, but 2 lovely awards.

First I must thank Shirely over at Card, Art Etc for the Premio Dardos Award, and secondly Pamela over on Pamela's Pages for the Makes My Heart Smile Award. Please take time to visit these ladies blogs, Shirley has been bloging for a while and her blog is always full of the most wonderful ideas and inspiration. Pamela is a new blogger but a very enthusiastic crafter that I have known through one of the craft forums for a while.

Now the rules for the awards :

Premio Dardos

The "Premio Dardos" award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in their effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day. The rules for this award are :
1. Post it on your blog.
2. Name of the person that has granted the award
3. Hyperlink back to his/her blog.
4. Pass the award to another 10 people worthy of this acknowledgment.
5. Contact each of them to let them to pick up the award and rules on your blog.

The "Makes My Heart Smile" award has much shorter rules - pass it on to 10 of your favorite blogs.

Now as I am required to pass on both awards to 10 others then I hope I can get away with cheating a bit and passing both awards on to the same 10 people. All the blogs below are truely deserving of both awards.

Here are my 10

1 Jan at Far North Designs for not only her amazing art work but for her interesting and informative post about life in Alaska, a severe but stunningly beautiful part of the world.

2 Fabyon (OK Fabrizio) at Cardmaking Scrapbooking and ATC: from a male point of view my wonderful Italian/Canadian/English multi-lingual friend, thank you fab, my life would be so much less fun without your friendship.

3 Anne at Stargroves - another amazing crafter who always inspires me with the diverstiy of her ideas.

4 Allison at Stampin' When I Can - I don't comment on your blog Allison, but I susbscribe to it and enjoy sharing with you the blogs you link to in your "newly discovered" posts.

5 Kath at MuckyPaws yet another crafter who amazes me with the variety of work.

6 Jo at The Little Peach Tree who does not post often but when she does you can be guarnteed to see something exquisite.

7 Stellamaris123 at Atlantic Bubble - yet another blogger who makes the most wonderful things.

8 Hels at Ink On My Fingers - love her altered art and the fun Sunday Stampers challege that I so often just don't get time to take part in.

9 Hazel at ...But is it Art? - another blogger who creates wonderful things.

10 Penny at Penny Duncan Creations - yep, another very talented crafter who make things that are lovely to look at.

Moon Card

2009-02-27T18:01:00.003Z

The challenge for Sunday Stampers this week was to create something with the Moon as your them. This is what I came up with.

My starting point was a stamp I have from Clarity Stamp which is a quotation from Walter de la Mare - it's hard to read in the photo but it says :

Slowly, silently now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon:
This way, and that she peers and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees.

I started with a base of navy card, punched a circle of white paper for my moon and stuck it to the card. Then, using a one of the tree stamps from the Arboretum themeplate by Elusive Images I stamped and heat embossed the tree using silver EP.

I then added some silver chalk to create the impression of thin streaks of cloud across the face of the moon and also applied some of the chalk at the base of the tree to ground it. This was matted onto silver foil card then onto more of the navy card stock.

A Thank You Card

2009-02-23T20:42:00.005Z

This was a card I had an idea for back in January, but at the time didn't feel up to following through with the idea. The stamps are by Elusive Images, the leafy swirl is from a Graphicus Guild members limited edtion themeplate and the text is from the Words of Gratitude themeplate.

Both were stamped with green pigment ink and then embossed with clear EP. I blended Distress inks over the card stock and stamped the small thank you message over that. The clear embossing over the leafy leafy swirl resisted the blue of the distress inks.

The paper on the background is from the Artylicious Damask Delights CD and the gems were from my stash, they started as clear gems but I tinted them with Denim Alcohol ink.

A Whiter Shade of Pale

2009-02-21T18:28:00.007Z

Not only one of my favorite songs, but a post title that suits this card. The card was made for a swap on Craft Telly Forum with the theme "a mostly white card".

All cardstock used is bright white card from my stash. The flowers are from a stamp by Personal Impressions. I stamped and heat embossed them onto white vellum using powders from the Cosmic Shimmer Range of embossing powders . Some of the flowers were stamped with Tropic Pearl Luster and some with Iced Blush Luster. The "Luster" Cosmic Shimmers are the very translucent powders. I used a ball tool to dry emboss onto the back of the vellum inside each of the petals to turn the vellum opaque white and then cut the flowers out. I added some translucent yellow glitter to the center of each daisy.

The matting layers were cut using a Spellbinders Nestbilites die and the larger one embossed through my Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder. On the smaller layer I embossed the sentiment with more of the Iced Blush Luster. The text stamp is from Elusive Images and can be found on the Rose Script Themeplate. It's hard to see in the photo but the text says "Earth Laughs in Flowers". I swiped my Versamark ink pad round the edge of both of the layers and used more of the Cosmic Shimmers on that to give each layer an edge. Iced Blush again on the top layer and Tropic Pearl on the Swiss Dots layer.

Finally I assembled all the elements using Pinflair Gel Glue (which behaves like a Silcone Glue but without the smell) to mount the flowers. The final touch was to add a bow of pale pink organza ribbon. I was really pleased by how pretty and delicate the finished card turned out.

Pink and Brown - Meh...

2009-02-20T16:52:00.003Z

...not too sure about the outcome with this one - in my head it was going to different. It was made for the challenge on My Time To Craft this week for which the theme is to us a Pink and Brown colour scheme. Lovley colours, shoulda been an easy make. Time permitting I think I may have another crack at this challenge later on.

The stamps are from a themeplate by Creative Expressions, more designs from Sheena Douglas. The inks are Distress Inks, Tattered Rose, Worn Lipstick and Vintage Photo. The sentiment stamp is by Elusive Images and was part of a Graphicus Guild limited edition stamp set. Glitter is Pink Stickles Glitter Glue.

Another Green Snowdrop

2009-02-18T19:55:00.003Z

Yesterday when I was deciding what to do for the Feeling Green challenge card I stamped the same Elusive Images Snowdrop Script stamp onto some green card, then using stipple brush added some ink to adjust the colour of the card to a more yellowy green. I painted the image with Twinkling H2Os again - and yes Jo, incase you didn't see my reply to your comment in yesterday's blog post the white paint is an H2O. It's the colour called Oyster from kit #655 and the only one in that kit that does not have an inteference colour.

Today I edged my stamped image with some green ink and dipped it into some of the pearl Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder (Tropic Pearl Lustre) and heat set it. I made a matting layer from some ivory pearlescent card and stamped a border of little snowdrop flower heads using green ink and embossed these with more of the Cosmic Shimmer EP. The little Snowdrop flower head image is from the same Themeplate as the main image.

The main card is some ivory hammer card and I have used one of the paper designs from the Artylicious Damask Delights CD as a background on it. The paper was edged with some green ink and overstamped at the bottom corner with a large flourish stamp that comes from Creative Expressions and was designed by Sheena Douglas. The flourish is also embossed with the Cosmic Shimmer EP, but it was hard to catch the shimmer in the photo.

Glad I was still in Green mode today because I can include this card in the Anything Goes Challenge on Craft Swap Forum where the current theme is "Green"

Spring Snowdrop

2009-02-17T20:52:00.003Z

The challenge this week on Daring Cardmakers is Feeling Green and challenges cardmakers to use lots of green on their card.

My card uses a stamp from Elusive Images and was stamped with Forest Green Stazon then painted with Twinkling H2O's. I edged the image with some lighter shades of green from a ColourBox Queue that has an assortment of green shades in it. I made a shimmery green background layer by blending a little more of the green inks onto some white card then spritzing with Glimmer Mists in green and yellow. The Snowdrop word stamp is from the same Snowdrop Script themeplate as the flower image and was stamped in green pigment ink then heat embossed using a clear pearl Cosmic Shimmer EP that has a green mica sparkle to it once heat set.

Another January Rose

2009-02-12T16:29:00.003Z

I was in the mood to get on with my half-attempts at crafting that have been lying around since January. This card was made from things I had been playing around with in a plum and gold theme. It's the same stamp, the Elusive Images Harelquin Rose.

This time I have created a background in the plum and gold tones using Adirondack Alcohol Inks. The colours were Wild Plum, Cranberry, Raisin and a little of the Gold Metallic Mixative. Onto this background I stamped and heat embossed the rose using White EP and edged the piece with a gold Sakura Pentouch Pen. This was mounted onto white card stock and then onto another piece of card that had been coloured with the same Alchohol Inks and edged with the same gold pen. These were then mounted on to some plum colour Bazzil card stock. The Bazzil looks a bit bumpy on the folded spine of the card and this seems to have been emphasised in the photo to the point where it almost looks torn, I may have to think about remounting this onto something else.

Better Late Than Never

2009-02-11T20:03:00.004Z

As the challenge this week on My Time To Craft is "Going for Gold" I decided that I really should take that as a sign that I needed to finish a card I had started making in January, it was originally meant to be for "Plum and Gold" for the challenge on the Graphicus Team Blog, but as I have mentioned January was a bit of a nightmare. Anyhow here is my "Going for Gold" (with Plum) card.

The stamp is by Elusive Images and can be found on the Harlequin Rose Themeplate. It was stamped and embossed with Gold EP onto black card first. I then bleached out the card where I wanted to paint the rose and used Twinkling H2Os to paint the flower and leaves. This was matted onto some plum colour Bazzil card and then onto gold mirror card.

The main card is black card which I have partly covered with paper printed from the Artylicious Damask Delights CD. A narrow gold peel off border was added to the edge where the paper joins the card. Finally this was spritzed with Silver Bells Glimmer Mists to give both the printed paper and the blank card a lovely shimmer.

Birthday Card for a friend

2009-02-09T12:46:00.003Z

First I should say sorry to all my lovely blogging friends who have been wondering where I have been. I had to have some dental treatment in January which included having some teeth out. It's been a nightmare, pain from the extractions, pain from infections and sockets that just didn't want to heal. All of which lead to the dentist doing more stuff that left me once again feeling like I had been belted in the face with a cricket bat and no craft mojo at all! Anyhow things seem to be on the mend now and I am hoping my mojo is back cuz I have a few projects on the go just now.

A friend had a birthday recently. He and his partner make lovely cards so I tried to make something in a style I hoped he would like. Not my usual style so I am never very sure if my efforts at this kind of card are that good, but I enjoyed making the card and love how crisp and fresh the colours in these papers look. The papers are by ScribbleScrabble and the stamp is from an HOTP set that came in a QVC TSV.

New Collage Themeplates from Elusive Images and Blog Candy

2009-02-08T10:40:00.002Z

The new Butterfly Collage Themeplates have been revealed over on the Elusive Images Design Team blog..... yummy! And even more yummy - there is blog candy up for grabs to celebrate the launch of the new stamps so why not pay the EIDT blog a visit!

Fab's Christmas Challenge is Back!

2009-01-06T07:39:00.003Z

Last year my freind Fab ran his Big Christmas challenge all year and joining in as many challenges as I could certainly helped me to have a stock of cards ready for Christmas just past. If like me you have made a resolution to be ready in plenty of time for Christmas 2009 then why not visit Fab's new for 2009 Christmas Challenge blog and join in this year - there is a link on the right hand side of my blog right at the top where you can't miss it - just roll over that and click or click the link in this post. I certainly plan to join in again this year and here is my first card - well 2 actually! As the colour scheme is Red and Green and the whole card is based around a the stamped greeting these also fit the terms of the current challenge over on Christmas Cards All Year Round - a twofer!

The stamp is from The Artistic Stamper and was stamped and heat embossed onto ivory pearlescent Moondust card using Green Sparkle EP on one card and Red Sparkle EP on the other. I painted in the text using gold Twinkling H2Os. These were then mounted onto foil card, using red foil card with the Green embossed stamped greeting and green foil card with the red embossed stamped greeting. I chose red card to mount these onto. For one I used a small left over piece of paper I had printed from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD, and for the other I used Versamark and Perfect Pearls to create a background using the same stamp. I think the one with the printed paper background is my favorite, but both were really quite quick cards to make.

There's a moose loose aboot this hoose...

2009-01-05T21:03:00.005Z

... um sorry, my Scottish genes were getting a bit carried away there! I have always rather liked the House Mouse stamps, such cute characters! I think this is such a sweet image of the little mice taking a shower under the spout of a watering can. This is a card I made for someone's birthday and as it has now been received I can post a piccy here.

The image was stamped with black Stazon because I planned to use a wet medium to colour the image. Once stamped I used Derwent Inktense Pencils to colour the image, these pencils are cool because unlike normal water colour pencils they dry permanent. You can use them like a regular watercolour while wet but once they are dry you don't have to worry about the colour bleeding if you want to add other wet stuff such as clear glaze or glitter glues. I did infact add some clear glaze from a Sakura Gelly Roll Glaze pen to the water coming from the spout of the watering can and to the puddle that has form around the feet of the mice to give it a shiney wet look. For some reason the photograph is not showing very clearly that there is a weak wash of blue over the puddle and this was the colour I did not want to have bleed into other areas.

The background paper was made using the 3D2 Card builder CD and Joanna Sheen's Pamela West Collection CD. On the Joanna Sheen CD there was a lovely image of some blackberries, but unfortunately the co-ordinating paper did not incorporate any of the berries so I used a graphics programme to cut a tile of the image out that did include the berries and some leaves. Then using the 3D2 CD I created my own a backing paper. I need to play some more with the 3D2 CD however as I could not figure out how to make the tile big enough that you can actually see the blackberries repeated across the page and I was running out of time to get my card into the mail, so I went with what I had made as the colours were just perfect to match those I had used when colouring the stamped image.

Easy Elegance and a Thank You

2009-01-04T17:22:00.005Z

The challenge theme on My Time To Craft this week is "Easy Elegance" My interpretation of that is something elegant but simple to make - a nice way to ease back into making something after the rush of Christmas crafting! So my card is just one stamp, one ink pad, a gold pen and a few peel-offs - couldn't be simpler.

The stamp is from Clarity Stamp and one I have been lusting after for a long time! I finally treated myself to it and a couple of others at the NEC in November and this is it's first outing. I stamped the image using Tim Holtz' Distress Ink in Aged Mahogany then, using a water brush, pulled in colour from the stamped image. Using the same ink pad and Judikins Color Duster I stippled some of the ink round about the image to soften the background and added the gold edge with a Sakura Pentouch pen.

The image was mounted on some Basill cardstock and then onto white linen finish card. The greeting and corners are peel-offs.

I also need to say thank you to Smullis for passing on to me a Kreativ Blogger award - it's in my side bar. As I had received this award previously I hope I can be excused from passing it on again as I think most of the blogs I love to visit already have this one. Please take time to visit Smullis blog Dragonfly Dreams, she has some lovely work to share. Oh, and incase like me, you find yourself wondering what "letterboxing" is then you may find this wikipedia link useful.

Christmas Left Overs - Not More Turkey!

2009-01-02T07:10:00.010Z

In the final run up to Christmas I made some cards using Joanna Sheen's Enchanted Christmas CD. As I was in a hurry at the last minute I didn't mess about printing only the bits I wanted, so this left me with some pages of partly used toppers and bits and bobs of co-ordinated backing papers piling up in my craft room. It seemed like a good idea to use them up and get a head start on my cards for 2009. In fact I have promised myself faithfully that for Christmas 2009 I will be ready with plenty of cards made well before any deadlines for mailing them out come around. That way it won't matter if my mojo does it's now annual trick of heading off to warmer climes for a December vacation leaving me stuck at home with no creativity! Anyhow here are a couple of cards made with my "leftovers".

For the first card I simply added red and green Stickles Glitter glue to the Poinsettia and also traced the sentiment with gold Stickles. The image and the co-ordinating backing papers were matted and layered onto gold foil card and I added a pretty bow as a finishing touch.

For the second I matted and layerd the image and backing paper onto dark blue card and, using my favorite Stardust Stickles, added lots of sparkle to the snowy scene in the main image and traced a fine line of glitter round the edges of the mats. The sentiment is a silver peel-off sticker. I still have more unused bits - seems a shame to waste them so if I find I am still in Christmas mode I may put together a few more cards in the next few days.

Variations on a Theme and a Green Challenge

2008-12-29T06:47:00.006Z

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

2008-12-24T09:01:00.007Z

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

2008-12-21T19:12:00.003Z

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

2008-12-20T00:15:00.005Z

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.

2008-12-19T07:34:00.007Z

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

2008-12-16T07:49:00.006Z

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 .....

2008-12-12T21:10:00.005Z

.. 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

2008-12-05T18:38:00.004Z

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

2008-12-03T15:55:00.005Z

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!

2008-11-27T18:33:00.006Z

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.

2008-11-24T01:59:00.004Z

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

2008-11-20T00:28:00.002Z

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

2008-11-19T21:05:00.003Z

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.

2008-11-12T23:16:00.005Z

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

2008-11-10T00:12:00.006Z

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

2008-11-09T22:24:00.004Z

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

2008-11-08T19:03:00.004Z

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

2008-11-07T17:41:00.005Z

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

2008-11-06T17:21:00.001Z

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

2008-11-05T19:21:00.004Z

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

2008-11-03T15:05:00.004Z

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

2008-11-01T17:23:00.005Z

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.