Owl Always Love This Stamp

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.

Tea Bag Tree and a beautiful swap.

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

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









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

Just Right.

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


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

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

Simply Stamping

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

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

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

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

Sunday Stampers Challenge - Alphabet Street

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

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

Some More Skinnys

Well life conspired again to keep me away from my craft stash last week - don't you just love it when you think you have lots of free time and things just happen! Oh well that's the way the cookie crumbles, maybe this week I can have a bash at making some cards for Fab's Christmas Challenge. I want to join his "nutters" this time and try to make 6. But first I have been making more skinnys for the swap list with a floral theme which I joined. The swap is organised by Craft Swap Forum.

From the left the first skinny was made using a stamp which is a limited editon stamp from Elusive Images and made avaiable to members of the Graphicus Guild. I stamped this with Black Stazon then painted the flowers with Twinkling H2Os, allowing the colours in the flower to bleed a litte into each other. The edges are inked with some Violet ink from a Petal Point pigment ink pad.

The middle skinny was made using a brayer and masking technique. The stamp is from the Laura Ashley Contemporary Collection. First I stamped my image onto my card stock using a Kaleidacolor ink pad (Desert Heat), next I stamped the image again twice onto a post-it note and cut the images out to create masks. The masks were then placed over the original stampings and I used a brayer to create my background this time using the Fresh Greens Kaleidacolor ink Pad.

The third skinny on the right was made with some Moondust Pearlecent card - I love the shimmer on that card. First I used a sponge to blend in 2 colours of inks which would work well with the Prima Flowers from the "Stone Rose" collection. The inks were from an Adirondack Rainbow pad called Stained Glass. I used the same ink pad to ink a stamp from Clarity Stamp and stamp the leafy background. Finally I stuck on the Prima Flowers and added a gem in the center of each.

Another Graphicus Guild Limited Edition Stamp

This is another of the Graphicus Guild Members' Limited Edition Stamps which some of us who were at a recent workshop were allowed to purchase early! I think this one may be my favourite.

I have used water colour paper for this project, spritzing it lightly with water as I wanted to see what happened when the paper was already damp before the ink was applied. The inks were Adirondack inks applied with a brayer. First I stamped the image onto some scrap paper and then tried to tear fairly accurately along the line of the hills in the background. Once I had torn this I had a mask which let me apply the green Airondack ink (Bottle) to the bottom and leave an edge which would match the skyline created by the hills. I then used the other peice of paper I had torn to mask my newly created skyline, and a second torn edge just a few centimetres above that to create the deeper yellow area of the sky using Adirondack Butterscotch ink. Next I removed all the torn paper masks and added more ink to the top. At this stage it had not turned out as well as I had hoped. I had been looking for a softer more mellow effect, so I decided I had nothing to loose by spritzing more water onto it to see what would happen. So I did, I spritzed rather a lot actually and the paper was now very wet but I could see that under the water I was getting a result. I got some kitchen towel and blotted my paper to get rid of the excess water and was really pleased to see I now had the background I wanted! Finally, once my paper was dry or at least nearly so, I inked up the stamp with Adirondack ink (Espresso) and lined it up with the paper so as once I had stamped it the top edge of the hills would match fairly closely to the skyline I had created. I like the fact that the texture in the water colour paper has left a kind of mottled effect on the trunks of the trees as I think it creates the look of the bark you see on Silver Birch trees.

I have not put this on a card yet, as I can't quite make up my mind what to use with the image which is just a little under A6 in size. If anyone has any ideas about what would look good leave me a comment. I often get stuck when I have stamped something I really like because I find it hard to decide what other things will be worthy of my stamped image.

Florrie's Weekly ATC Challenge - Week 110

The theme this week is "Anything Blue". I like blues, so it only took me moments to grab a Petal Point Fluid Chalk pad that has shades of blue in it and turn a white ATC blank into a pretty smudegy blue background. I worked the lightest of 3 shades of blue into the center and outwards then nearer the outside edges some of the mid-shade and finally at the very edges the deepest blue.

Once I had made my background I grabbed a new stamp I have been dying to use. It's a "secret stamp" ... well sort of. Last week at the Graphicus Workshop we saw these stamps being made, they are the Limited Edtion stamps which are offered to Graphicus Guild members. There is a different limited edition stamp each month and we saw the designs for the next four months! They are all lovely designs and I wanted them immediately if not sooner, but we were sworn to secrecy by Lynne and Bill - Bill is the gentleman who makes the stamps and had kindly let us interrupt his busy day and had answered our questions about stamp making. Anyhow later when Glenda Waterworth arrived she was told we had had a sneaky preview and when we all said how lovely the stamp were she said if we wanted to, those of us who were guild members could buy them now because we had come to the workshop!

To get back on topic now, the stamp I chose to use today is a lovely floral design with an oriental feel. I inked it up with Adirondack Denim ink and stamped it onto my prepared ATC. After stamping I decided to use a wet paint brush to pull some of the colour in from the outline into the flowers. Now this was interesting, because I got an effect I did not expect! The more I pulled the colour in from the edges towards the centre of each petal, the more a sort of mauve shade started to appear. It's very subtle but I think it can be seen in the picture. I rather like this, but it was a lucky accident and I am not sure why it happened - perhaps it was a reaction between the Adirondack inks and the Chalk inks I had used to to colour the background.