Stampin' for the Weekend - double or nothing

This week Stampin' for the Weekend gave a choice of two sketches; I chose to use Donna's pretty sketch with the flower arrangement.

I used my new Gorjuss Girl from Sugar Nellie and coloured her with Promarkers and Copics. The sentiment is an Elusive Images one stamped onto heavyweight vellum with black Brilliance ink. It's tucked under the papers at one side and left free the other side. The papers are all K&K and I used a new punch that I bought at Newbury Art Stamps for the lacy border.

I don't have one of the lovely punches to makes ferns/leaves, I was drooling over them last week and couldn't justify the cost. But I had a brainwave: my friend Marion who isn't cardmaking at the moment lent my a lot of her stash, including a punch of a Halloween tree. The branches, trimmed down, make great leaves! One less thing to spend money on... The flowers are a mix of plain white coloured with the Promarkers and ones cut out with punches. I've used pearl gems for the centres. I love the new Sugar Nellie and I do like the card, it took a lot of thinknig about though :). With the pinks and purples I've used I'm going to send it to my PostPal.

Summer Garden - The Next Level

The Next Level is a new Challenge Blog with lots on interesting articles and tutorials. It's first challenge is to create an aperture card, which must have a lollipop flower on it. I hadn't come across lollipop flowers before but there's a full tutorial provided on the blog so that was no excuse not to take part :).



I bought some sumptuous Basic Grey papers earlier this week in the Stamp Attic and was keen to use them, so that set my colour scheme as pinks, greens, browns and apricot. I chose papers for the flower and made it first, leaving it to dry, then I went on to make the card. I haven't made an aperture card before so I kept it simple and chose to cut a circle. I wanted the circle to be off-centre to make room for the flower and other embellishments, so I used a Nestie to cut a scalloped circle and stuck that in the right spot, then cut into that with a smaller circle.



The sitting Gorjuss Girl from Sugar Nellie works really well sitting at the edge of a circle, so I coloured her with watercolour pencils and a little bit of opaque white pen and placed her on the card, with some ribbon behind to make a stem for the flower. I filled the RH corners of the cards with flourishes from Elusive Images, stamped in green, and added a die-cut butterfly to the edge of the circle to balance out the sitting girl.



Then I moved on to the inner of the card. I used some lovely blotchy green paper and began with some grass, using a Stamps by Judith stamp and with a Penny Black tree. I gave the tree leaves and flowers with Tapestry stamps and added some flowers with Craftwork Cards clear stamps.

So far so good... until I decided to spray some iridiscent Glimmer Mist over the scene, to match the lollipop flower. The non-waterproof inks all began to run and I hastily dried it with a heat gun! I also learnt that I should have cut a large square of background, not cut the circle as of course it was a pain to line up and the white around it spoilt its look. I mounted it onto a dark square of paper, only to find that it wasn't quite parallel with the card edges and looked crooked. I solved this by cutting some lace borders from the papers and covering the top and bottom of the square.



I really enjoyed making the card even if the aperture was a steep learning curve :).

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

Shirleys2Girls has a new challenge called 222 World Wide Challenge, which closes at 2pm on the 22nd. The challenge is the nursery rhyme "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" with the colour palette of lavender, orange, lime, black and white. Phew! Quite a challenge to tie the zingy colours with an English country garden inspired rhyme :).

I started with a pretty maid sitting in the garden (a Gorjuss stamp), being contrary by not doing any gardening even though lots of flowers are springing up all over. She is sheltering under a tree with vivid lime leaves coming into bud (Elusive Images arboretum stamp) and the flowers are from Craftwork Card's graceful grasses designs.

I've framed the card with orange and added a lime ribbon. The left hand side has shells stamped onto it for the cockle shells, they don't show up too well but they are there! The lavender blooms are highlighted with Glossy Accents and there is a little gold glitter glue in the centre of the orange flowers. This is the first card I've made for a few days, hope you like it :)

Easy As 1-2-3

Papertake's Challenge this week is to use one circle, two ribbons and three stamps. I've used 3 of the Gorjuss Girls for the challenge, blonde, brunette and redhead :). The bright spring colours fit today, it's a lovely spring day and now I've finished work for the day I'm torn between the garden, the racing on TV and my crafting :). The papers were free ones with a magazine, I found the verse online. Circle cut from the free papers in several layers, with some Stickles added. Ribbons are from the remainder bin at the Stamp Attic, a lucky find.

Corrosive Challenges - #5 - Christmas Cards with Animals

This week's remit for Corrosive Challenge's Blog is to make a Christmas card with animals on it. I've used Foxy, one of the Gorjuss Girls stamps, masked her and added Snow Loved behind. Both stamps are from Sugar Nellie. Coloured with watercolour pencils, mounted onto Graphicus Guild paper, then onto a kind of matt metallic gold card that I bought at Stamp Addicts. The sentiment (from Imagepac) is black embossed onto the card. Last paper is red and gold glimmer misted paper.

I think she looks quite festive, what do you think? At any rate, one card down, ??? still to make :)

Friday Sketchers Challenge #45

There's a lovely sketch from Claudia on this week's Friday Sketcher's Challenge. I've used the only Gorjuss Girl that I've not yet made into a card, stamped in Timber Brown Stazon and coloured with watercolour pencils. The papers I've used are a co-ordinating set by Crate Paper, bought from the Stamp Attic . I think this is among my favourite sets of paper ever, I've kept using it and buying more... lovely, almost oriental feel to it.

The Coleridge quote comes from an Impression Obesession clear stamp set with yet more trees in it.

Inspirational Card Sketches #9

Dawn has a fun sketch to use on ICS this week. Like Karen on the DT, I used a Gorjuss Girl stamp from Sugar Nellie, I coloured her with H20s and watercolour pencils to match the lovely turquoise/brown papers from the Stamp Attic. I ddin't like the white card she was stamped on against the papers, so I stamped round the edges with some tapestry stamps to soften it a bit. The flowers on against the brown wall she's sitting on are stamps from Craftwork Cards and the border beneath is a fussy cut piece of co-ordinating paper, I've cut round the circles.

I tried cutting and tearing paper to make the long border to the left and didn't like the effect, so I came across some mulberry paper greetings from Papermania that I think came in a goody bag when I was first starting to make cards. Celebrate works for me, I hope it's ok as far as the sketch goes :). The brown flower centre was a white paper flower coloured with Copic pen.

Inspirational Card Sketches #8 - a gift tag

I was lucky enough to get a prize from the very generous Aileen on Papercraft Planet for taking part in a Leanne Ellis/Gorjuss Girls challenge. She sent me a pad of Basic Grey paper and some yummy co-ordinating brads. I wanted to put them to use straight away and show Aileen how much they were appreciated.

The sketch I've used is by Dawn from Inspirational Card Sketches. At first I found it quite tricky to work with, I hadn't used a tag shape before and it needed lots of detail on it. I persevered and am pleased with the result, thanks Dawn, I've tried something new :).

All papers Basic Grey from the Infuse pad. Gorjuss Girl coloured with watercolour pencils. Sentiment from Elusive Images, Prima flowers from the Stamp Attic.

Friday Sketchers #43 & Sugar Bowl Challenge 6

The latest Sugar Bowl Challenge is to make a card that doesn't have to be a Mother's Day card, but is something a mother would love. I don't want to post a Mother's Day card on here until it's been received :), so here I've tried to make an elegant, monochromatic card that I hope would be well received. I've used the latest Friday Sketcher's sketch, by Carol, which is a really nice one that was very easy to use.

The Gorjuss Girl and bird are coloured with watercolour pencils; to be monochromatic she really should have had dark hair but I think she looks great as a redhead :).

The tree is an Art Impressions stamp that I use a lot, paper from the Stamp Attic, printed butterfly sentiment, ribbon and faux brads from Craftwork Cards.

Corrosive Challenges #3

This week's challenge on the Corrosive Challenges Blog is to make a green card to celebrate St Patrick's Day. I've started with a Gorjuss Girl who is coloured with watercolor pencils. The background is Glimmer Misted paper with an Elusive Images tree and Craftwork Cards flower stems stamped onto it for some interest. There's a Good Luck sentiment written onto a label to finish off my St Patrick's Day card.

Good Luck to you all, don't forget to enter the Challenge. The prize includes a great set of stamps - but you've got to be in to win :)

ICSketches #6 & Secret Crafter #22

I found this lovely sketch by Dawn on ICSketches to use. I've been playing with my Gorjuss Girls stamps and combined two challenges - The Secret Crafter's Challenge this week is to use masking.

I stamped the sitting down girl and, having masked her, added a Penny Black tree and foliage from Craftwork Cards stamps. She is coloured with watercolour pencils and I used watercolours to paint in the sky, the white card looked a bit harsh otherwise. The blossom on the tree uses a stubby from Stamps by Judith.

First Gorjuss Card - Cats

Yesterday my Gorjuss Girls stamps arrived! I didn't do the first pre-order due to lack of money :), but when a few extra full sets went on sale at the weekend I snapped one up. They are maybe a little smaller than I was thinking but, as everyone has said who has bought them, they colour like a dream.



Karen from Sugar Nellie has issued a challenge on Split Coast Stampers to make a card using only part of the image, adding some verse or poetry and sending it to a friend. So this card is for our dear friends who until this year were "owned" by Rusty and Jessica. Rusty was a very old gentleman and his loss was not unexpected, but when Jessica was diagnosed with diabetes and swiftly went downhill it was a shock.



Foxy and the two cats are coloured with watercolour pencils. The peom is by Eleanor Farjeon, although not a cat person I've always loved this :). There's some decorative stitching on the cardstock and the flowers are by Hero Arts. The papers are from the Stamp Attic.



The next week is very hectic for me, I hope to find some more time to play with my lovely new stamps :)