Haunted House Card

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.

A Whiter Shade of Pale

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 Silicone 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.  With a change of sentiment to something more relevant I think this would make lovely Wedding card.

Another Green Snowdrop

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

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.

Not a Tree

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

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

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

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

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

Grid Challenge Card

A member of a card swap group asked us to join in a challenge swap making a card using a Grid Scoring technique she had recently discovered and enjoyed doing. The technique involves scoring parallel lines across your card in both directions to create a grid. In the challenge I have scored on the diagonal, but it would work in the horizontal and vertical axis also. I am not really a pink person, but I used pinks for this because the person I am swapping with tends to create what I think of as very feminine designs so I hope she likes this one.

After making my grid layer I found my mind kept wandering to the trellis people use in their gardens to support climbing plants so I decided to decorate my card with leaves and flowers. I inked the grid with some Adirondack ink to make the embossed lines stand out more, the leaves are punched out and the flowers are from the center a stamp which came with a recent edition of Craft Stamper. I stamped only the centre flower and then heat embossed it with some Cosmic Shimmer EP. The petals and center of the flower were coloured using Sakura Stardust pens in pink and orange. I then cut the flowers out and stuck them and the leaves to my "garden trellis"

The get well sentiment was a bit of an accident as to my knowlege the person I am sending to is not sick right now. I had meant to pick up a "Just for You" stamp from a set of clear Hot Off The Press sentiment stamps but didn't realise I had grabbed the wrong one until after I stamped it! That will teach me to double check by stamping on some scrap first as it's tricky to read text stamps that are in such an elaborate font!

Two More Cards for the WSW Challenges

It's been a busy week this week, so I have not managed as many of the World Stamping Week Challenges as I would have liked to, but here are 2 more I have done. The first was to make a Long Tall Card, or as we call it here in the UK a DL card. The second challenge was to create a project with the theme "Winged Creatures"

For the Long Tall card I used a floral stamp from the Elusive Images "Damask Squares" themplate which I stamped in Versamark and embossed with Cosmic Shimmer Embossing Powders onto some Moondust pearlescent card. I then blended in a little Adirondack ink in Eggplant around the edges and finally ran my versmark pad around the edge and sprinked on more of the Cosmic Shimmer Powder to edge the piece. This was mounted onto black card which I had randomly stamped a background on using a butterfly stamp from the same themeplate with Opalite Ink in Orchid Ice. The Opalite ink is an interference ink so can appear almost invisible until the light catches it - it works best on dark card.

For the "Winged Creatures" Challenge I decided it would be fun to make a card featuring a dragon from the Elusive Images "Here Be Dragons" themeplate. First I created my background using a brayer and some torn paper to mask a skyline and a seperate mask for the moon. The ground was brayered on with Distress ink (Pine Needles) and the sky was layered using Adirondack Dye inks in Stonewashed, Denim and Eggplant. Once this was done I used a stamp from Clarity Stamp to stamp in the moon and cloud details using Encore Silver ink. The trees were stamped in Versafine Onyx Black using stamps from a set by The Angel Company and now my background was ready. Next I stamped and embossed the dragon image in with black embossing powder, painted this with various shades of Twinkling H2Os and then cut him out. The dragon was mounted onto the card with foam pads. Finally I used some Distress Ink (Old Paper) to age a long narrow strip of paper by applying it with an ink blending tool and stamped a text stamp from the "Here Be Dragons" themplate in the middle of the strip using Adirondack ink (Cappuccino. The extra length of paper at the top and bottom of the strip was rolled up to create a sort of scroll and this was stuck down on the card. The message on the scroll reads "Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup"

Q? When is Purple not Purple ?

A: When it's a mostly Green card!

A few days ago I had settled down to make a card for a swap, the theme was to to be the colour Purple. All was going well, I had stamped and embossed in white onto some purple card, a little flower stamp that came as the free stamp with a copy of Craft Stamper several months ago. I then painted my little flower with some purple H20's, edged the card with some Brilliance ink (Lavender) and all was looking good - very "purple" - buth then the rot set in! I decided to add some sparkle in the form of some rather nice green glitter, just a touch, not a lot, it was looking good, a nice point of contrast with the purples. Next came a greeting, well my eye lighted upon some rather nice Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder, Malachite Fire Aurora to be precise, and my brain decided that as it has a lovely green shimmer it would co-ordinate nicely with my touches of green glitter. So I chose a stamp with the word "Celebrate" from an HOTP set of clear stamps and proceeded to emboss my greeting onto some more of the purple card and still things were looking good....

My next decison was what to stick these bits onto? Well, I had some rather nice bright juicey lime green card, and after all a little of that showing around the edges would again bring in a hint of the green contrasts I had been using. However the green card ended up being a much larger piece, with more on show than I had envisaged but no matter .. back to purple card for another layer. This time I stamped the stamem part of my flower stamp around the edges of my purple card using the Brilliance Lavender ink, edged the card by running the ink pad round it and layerd this up - I was back on track, my card was going to be a purple card after all! But hang on a minute wouldn't that look even better with an edge of green glitter? So I added more green glitter along the border where the green and purple card meet.

Now there was one final hurdle to clear - what was I going to use for my card itself and after trying lots of different things I found the only card I liked was more of the lovely lime green! I was pleased with my card, but it just was not a "purple" card, however as my next project was to make a card for a Birthday List which has a birthday today I decided my "mostly green" card would make a nice card for a birthday card and so I hope "Craft Addict" enjoys her card and her birthday today!

Cute Birthday Card

I made this card for a Birthday swap. The very cute teddy, or at least in my opinion very cute teddy, is from Visible Image. I bought this stamp quite a long time ago not just because I liked it, but also because it seems such a versatile design that is suitable for so many occasions.

Ted is stamped in black Stazon, then coloured with Prismacolor pencils. I mounted the coloured image on to some fushia mirri card. My main card is from the Papermill's new colour range and the papers and brad are from an Hot Off The Press kit that was sold by QVC last year. The celebrate was a stamp from the same kit, stamped using a magenta coloured ink and then embossed using Cosmic Shimmer powders (Iced Blush Luster) which is a very translucent pink, made more vibrant by the colour of the ink underneath. Finally some blue fibers were added to tie in with the blue paper.