A tale of two stamps

I'm lucky enough to have a DH who will go to the local craft shop and buy me things for birthday and Christmas. Last Christmas he bought me a really unusual Hero Arts stamp, the first of the Clings that I had seen, a negative of a field of flowers. I stamped it out a few times and really liked it, brayered inks across the surface and did a few other things. Set it to one side, as you do, then when I wanted to use it, around March time, it had vanished. I turned my craft room upside down, DH looked everywhere, I looked everywhere, with no luck. In the end, yesterday, I admitted defeat and bought another Cling as a substitute. I joked in the shop that now I'd bought another the original would turn up. This afternoon, lifting down one of my ring binders of stamps, I noticed something on the shelf. Yes, the Cling had reappeared on the shelf that had been searched many times. Deeply weird; perhaps it was abducted by aliens who wanted to make cards...

So in celebration of its return I've made two cards:).
Card number 1 uses the new Cling of a bird in a circle on top of text. I've cut out and popped up the circle; flowers and bird are coloured with Copics, the background are sponged with Distress Ink. I used my MS hydrangea punch on the bottom of the mat for the image, the DP is Basic Grey Capella, I've dry embossed a couple of bits of pink pearlescent card and addded pearls to the centres of the flowers.

This card is for Sketch Saturday's Challenge, and it's colourscheme is based round this week's Simon Says Challenge of Pink or Blue with Green and Brown. My greens look a bit greyish but they are green! This week's ABC Challenge is V is for Vintage, Create4Fun has the same theme of Vintage and the theme at Quixotic Challenges is embossing.
Card two uses the original stamp on this week's Mojo Monday sketch. I've inked it with Distress Inks and added some gems to the daisy centres. They are yellow in real life, the photo isn't great. DP is K&K, sentiment is Craftwork Cards and ribbon is from stash.

Today is about...

The weather has been just gorgeous today, far too nice to spend time in my craft room:). Took a picture of the wisteria this afternoon, how often do you see a sky this blue in England in May?
We went plant shopping with a voucher that we got at Christmas (and a bit of help from Visa) so instead of inky fingers I have earth stained fingers.The card that I have to show you came from a lovely crafty day with my friend Val. We had lots of creative plans but again we were slightly scuppered by the weather, we kept escaping outside to enjoy the sun:). I bought some journalling sentiments from Elusive Images, although I don't have a journal:). Don't know why, but they called my name...

This card isn't a million miles from something that Glenda Waterworth (Elsuive Images) blogged when she released the stamps. I put as many sentiments as I could onto a large arylic block in a very loose, sort-of order and stamped it in Dusty Concrd Distress Ink. I sponged Distress Inks onto the background and used a glue pen and Glamour Dust to highlight some of the words. Matted it onto dark purple card and made a flower from a Woodware punch with a bit more Glamour Dust and a silver brad. I made this for Quixotic Challenge's "How Sentimental" and it's also entered for Secret Crafter's Challenge which is No Patterned Paper

Is it the end of Winter?

I seem to be going through a monochromatic phase at the moment, here's a purple card I've made. I bought a lovely set of Inkadinkado clear stamps of winter branches from Stamp Attic and I've been waiting for the right moment to use them, they've been sitting on my desk for a few weeks :).

My card is based on the sketch at Card Pattern's Challenge, Crafty Creations has One Colour as its theme, as do Stampin' for the Weekend and Pile It On. The Quixotic Challenge theme is Leave It Out, to include leaves. I began this card with this challenge in mind, then panicked that there were no leaves on the branches. However on closer inspection there are leaves in the images - phew :).

I sponged Dusty Concord and Weathered Wood Distress Inks onto glossy card and overstamped the branhces and birds onto it. I added some berries with Stickles. The DPs are all Artylicious, I used a Big Shot die to cut the flower from the DP. The sentiment is from Craftwork Cards and I used some hand-dyed variegated thread from my sewing stash. It's a very cold looking image, but although the ice is solid on the horse's water the sun is shining and hopefully chilly scenes like this will sooon be just a memory...

Thank you - old and new working together

I was lucky enough to get a Martha Stewart round-the-corner punch set from my parents for my birthday and, of course, I was dying to try it out. This week's Simon Says Challenge is to use punches, so this was the ideal time to give the set a try. I have a few sets of Tapestry stamps, the tiny ones on dowelling that were all the rage a while back and I remembered that one set was of violas, which would go perfectly with the new punch. Quixotic's Challenge this week is to ink up an old stamp, so this also worked for the card :).

I had a quick try-out with the punch on a square of card and it worked perfectly first time. Moved on to a rectangle and made a dreadful mess of things, however this was user error I think and my next effort was fine :). The next problem was that the 3.25 x 5" rectangle wasn't really big enough to take a wreath of pansies so I sarted again and just stamped leaves and flowers around the edge of the card, with space for the sentiment, another old stamp, in the middle.

I really liked this as a very simple card and didn't want to add lots of embellishments to detract from it. So I added a bit of Stickles to the sentiment and the pansies and left it be. When I looked this morning I decided it just needed something else on the white card, so I used my Scorpal to give it a 1/2" raised border by scoring from the back. You can't see this too well in my photo, but I'm really pleased with it in real life. So the new punch and the old stamps make a great combination here, I think :).

Shabby Chic

This week's Challenge at Simon Says is Shabby Chic, which immediately lent itself to lots of ideas with stamps and colourschemes. I decided to use my Parisian Lady stamp from Dimension Fourth and really, she is more chic than shabby! However the colourscheme and the distressing fit the shabby part of the theme so hopefully Parisian Lady's not too offended by the theme :). I've used Judy's sketch from the Quixotic Challenge, which works really well for this image.

Image is stamped with Tea Dye Distress Ink onto cream card, I've drawn the ink into the image with a waterbrush and sponged the edges of the card with more Tea Dye and Worn Lipstick. The dotty background paper is a magazine freebie, torn, crumpled and with lots of Distress Inks added before matting it onto pink DP. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder on the circle, again sponging Distress Inks onto it before matting onto a scalloped circle. The sentiment is Papermania and the amazing lace is from my sewing stash, the ribbon is stitched into the middle of it. I think it came as part of a bargain bundle. There are some tiny pearl gems added to the image and one of the paper tears.

Oh, the Simon Says Challenge has a DT call out at the moment, check out the blog for details. I'm entering this card and keeping my fingers crossed :)

Hot Chocolate - yes please!

The weather is cold and snowy and hot chocolate sounds really inviting - if the delivery of milk gets through the snow to the local shop that is - the shelves have been bare for a couple of days, but today the newspapers arrived in the village, which has to be a promising sign :).

Amazingly there are two challenges this week themed to hot chocolate so I reached for the first Whiff of Joy stamp that I bought - Willow with hot chocolate, which is still one of my favourite stamps. This cards was made for the following Challenges:

• Simon Says Hot Chocolate
• Quixotic Challenge - Hot Chocolate
• ABC Challenges - L is for Layering - lots and lots of layering
  
• Corrosive Challenges - a few of my favourite things - favourite embellishments of flowers and ribbons
• Fussy & Fancy - New - Gorgeous new Prima flowers that I won in blog candy from the generous Belles & Whistles
• Sketch Saturday - great sketch from Simonne
• Charisma Cardz - colour combo of pink, brown, cream & toffee - yum!

I'm really pleased with the look of the card, Willow is coloured with Copics and a white Inktense pen. The gold & white stripy and spotty papers are from Craftwork Cards, as is the gingham ribbon, the flower DP says "the paper element" and has been maturing in my stash for a few years :). The beautiful Prima flower came from blog candy, isn't it stunning? There are multiple layers of brown shades of cardstock matting the papers as well as a little bit of gold mirricard on the corners.

New Year Resolutions

At last, back into my craft room :). It's been fun having visitors but it's also nice to be just the four of us. Today is my free day, the last visitor left yesterday, tomorrow I have to go back to work. I'm hoping to get a few cards done, we'll see how the day goes... Here's a bright, cheery card that's based round a New Year's Resolutions Challenge, which takes in a few other challenges at the same time.

Corrosive Challenges is asking for a creation that has a connection with New Year's Resolutions. My only formal resolution will be to continue with last year's resolution, which is to pick up a piece of rubbish from the street each day and put it in the bin. It does make a difference, please think about doing this :). But that doesn't make a very pretty card, so I came up with this: 1.Being thankful for what I have, 2.Flowers because I want to get the garden really looking good this year; the hard landscaping is mostly done but I need to weed and to plant; 3.Enjoying and using the vast amount of crafting stash that I have.

Papertake Weekly's Challenge is a great one for this time of year - Thank You cards.

I've used the sketch from Sketch & Stash, for which I need to tell you what new, never used or neglected stash I've used. The stamp is a lovely new one I got for Christmas (Hero Arts), the MS punch is also new Christmas stash. The papers are old stash and the Big Shot die used to make the flowers is neglected stash. The picot lace is very old stash from my sewing days...

I added the lace in, just the right shade for the card, which means the card is eligible for the Quixotic Challenge, to use lace.

Dutch Dare's Challenge is to "make it happen" - using home made embellishments. I've made the flowers for my card with a die and a small punch.

Hero Arts stamp was stamped in Kaleidoscope blue inks onto glossy card. Sentiment is Elusive Images. Papers are K&K.

Have a Magical Christmas...

I'm still struggling with conjunctivitis in both my eyes, wasn't able to go to the Hennessey (Newbury Races) for the first time in years to my great disappointment. I've had dreadful withdrawal symptoms for my crafting and I've made this card over the last couple of days, which has been a struggle as it's so hard to see what I'm doing. The matting has been cut smaller and smaller on shapes as I've tried to keep it even, to the point you can barely see it all! I have so many ideas buzzing around in my head, just can't wait to get back into action :). But at least I've managed to make something :).

I've used a Shirleys2Girls digi image of a snow-woman. You can buy her as a digi or you can buy the clear stamp for a bargain price while it's still in stock. I printed twice onto white and once onto card sprayed with Glimmer Mist. The idea was for my snow-woman and the hills behine her to be paper pieced from white onto the Glimmer Mist. However I wasn't really thinking and glued the snow-woman onto blue hills. So how did I get out of that one??? Well thanks to Craft Stamper magazine, which came on Friday, it was easy... I read an article in there about watercolour scenes which removed colour with bleach. I used my waterbrush, dipped into a little bleach, and painted until the Glimmer Mist had gone from the hills. I wondered what it would do to lines from the inkjet printer, happily they remained unchanged - phew!

Extra colouring on image was done with Copics, hat and gloves are cut out a second time and foam mounted. Papers are Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses, I've Cuttlebugged some more of the Glimmer Misted paper and rubbed Distress Ink in Dusty Concord across it. The "Snow" sentiment (torn and mounted onto mirri card) and the snowflake brads are Papermania, the image and the dry embossing have some Glamour Dust sprinkled on.

I'm entering this for several challenges:

• Basic Grey - followed Tara's sketch
• Saturday Spotlight - Hat's On - use an image with a hat
• Charisma Cards - Anything Christmas
• Quixotic Challenges - Tearing - the sentiment
• Papertake's Challenge - Christmas Cracker
• Simon Says Challenge - Winter Love - wouldn't we all love a white Christmas? Mmm, maybe as long as it doesn't last as long as the snow last year :)
• Cuttlebug Challenge - Glitter
• Crafty Creations Challenge - Christmas
• Whimsy Stamps - Christmas
• Dare U2 Digistamp - Glitter

Happy Birthday Mum

Yesterday Shirleys2Girls held a Digi Event on SNR Cardiverse . Much fun was had by all with a free digi download called Birthday Girl. It's still not too late to join in, do check out the group.

I used the image to make a card for my Mum's birthday. Mum always enjoys her baking so I hoped that the cake was a good birthday image for her card. Unfortunately the present hasn't worked out as well as the card :(. Mum asked for a large, non-stick casserole and I ordered one online that looked suitable. When she opened it it isn't suitable for their type of hob. Drat, hope we can sort out a refund. The casserole is the reason for the Halloween image inside the card, I had a spare image of Jinx available and coloured it to match the papers I'd used.
I'm entering the card in Quixotic Card's Challenge to use stitching and also into Papertake's Digi Sparkle Challenge. I've used a great sketch from Friday Sketchers Challenge to make the card.
Image is free from Shirleys2Girls group, coloured with Copics and lots of Stickles and Liquid Pearls. Both cakes are printed and coloured twice and use glue pads to give them dimension. I've stitched around the DCWV papers with a silver metallic thread, the scalloped rectangle is cut with Nesties and decorated with Liquid Pearls and the flowers are Prima. The stamp inside is Elusive Images.

Happy Birthday Mum!

First Quixotic Card Challenge - Fishing You Many Happy Returns

Quixotic Cards have begun a Challenge blog and their first challenge is Birthdays. You might be unimpressed with this very simple, plain card but it took a lot of doing! This is for a fishing friend of DH, I had to keep telling myself to pare it down and simplify :).

Image and sentiment were both bought last year at Ally Pally, can't remember the name of the stand. They are copper embossed and Distress Ink used on the edges. Image is matted onto copper metallic paper, brown paper and a very tweedy DP from Artylicious. Copper coloured "card candy" from Craftwork Cards added and that's it. Who would have thought it could take so long?