A little sunshine?

Not a chance here today, it's grim and drizzly. It's DCM day though and Kathy's asked us to make a card with no more than 5cm square decorated. We're allowed a greeting/sentiment in addition. I had a little paperclay starfish out on my desk left over from another project so I decided to inject a little sunshine into my card for this dare to make up for the weather.



I made my square just a shade smaller than 5cm so things could break out of the edges if necessary! Sponged with three shades of blue ink, added some jute garden twine as 'rope' and then added the starfish. I hope Kathy will forgive the little bit of piercing to accent the sentiment!

ETA: I made push moulds a while ago with polymer clay and things from a bag of decorative shells etc I picked up for a pound in a charity shop. If you dust the mould with talcum powder and let the paperclay shapes dry thoroughly before trying to release them from the mould, it works perfectly! I just coloured the starfish with blending chalk.

Supplies: Adirondack inks - Cloudy Blue, Stonewashed, Denim; Delight paperclay; push mould made from a real starfish; jute twine; Sunny days stamp (Cornish Heritage Farms), Plaid chalks (autumn)

Thanks for taking a peep - I'd love to know what you thought if you have a moment to leave me a comment :o)

Look - no ink!

Carolyn has set the most recent Crew Challenge over on CBC. It's one for the rubber stampers and she's asked us to make something with our stamps but no ink pad. Here's mine:



I've cheated just a tiny bit as I used Versamark for the sentiment and brushed it over with gold lustre but that's barely cheating really, is it?

I made the pear by rolling out a very thin sheet of paperclay and stamping into it. I found brushing a bit of talcum powder over the clay before stamping helped me get a nice clean 'lift' as I took the stamp off. Once the paperclay dried, I cut round the outline and then coloured it with metallic wax rubons.

Supplies: Delight Paperclay, pear stamp (unmounted, unknown maker - eBay purchase), sentiment stamp from MSE set, Cuttlebug D'vine swirls folder, metallic wax rubons, Versamark and gold lustre powder.

Some cards I've made this week!

I thought I'd blog a few things I've made this week and shown only of the forum they fit into a challenge on!



I found out that one of my customers is moving on to a new job and thought it would be nice to send her a little card to congratulate her. Adding spotty ribbon meant that it fit in with the Get Spotted challenge on Carolyn's, too.

NEW JOB is stamped with the See-D Typewriter alphabet set in Whispers Sugarloaf Green on green cardstock. I've rounded off one corner and inked the edges, too. The little flower is made with the QK football die for the centre and punched hearts for petals. The good luck stamp is from a HOTP set and I used Tangerine Cat's Eye chalk ink.

One of DH's colleagues had his 60th birthday this week. At short notice, I was asked to make a card with beer, whisky and hill walking as themes! This is a bit out of my normal range but I had fun with it.





It's a trifold and each panel has a pocket and tag with something appropriate to the question for that panel. The boots are cut on the CraftRobo and I plaited embroidery thread for laces and used mini brads as 'anchor points'. I snuck the whisky reference onto the beer tag (it says A fair few (and maybe the odd wee dram to follow)). I tried to make the tag here look like the clips you get on beer pump handles and T.A. are the recipient's initials. The answer to the candle question is obviously 60!

I showed a card on Just Bex that was made for the decorative edge scissors challenge. The shell on it came about as a result of a forum conversation with Kathy about paperclay. I decided to have a go at making my own push moulds and this is the first experiment! I used a cockle shell and moulded Fimo around it and baked. Then pushed paper mache into the mould (still waiting for my paperclay to arrive!) and rubbed chalks in various shades of brown/grey white over the resulting paper shape. I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.