NEW Award - Thanks AliMayes

My friend Ali has just awarded me her very own, brand NEW award, along with some very exalted other friends, so I am really pleased and proud to post it here It is for a beautiful blog, and in addition, she has awarded it to me for jumping into the bloggy waters with her, a couple of weeks ago!! I said I was starting, and she took up my challenge!! so do have a look at her work, because she makes some lovely things. THANKS Ali, much appreciated...

Transparently Alcoholic Lotus Blooms

This is my card for today - rather late in the day as I have been busy with other things!! It is inspired by the Arty Girlz Challenge for this week, "Transparent". It will also fit with Rainbow Lady's Challenge from guest, Hazel, "peeloffs". The roundle is stamped on acetate, with versamark and stone grey stazon, embossed with clear ep. I then painted the image with alcohol inks. The stamp is by Creative Expressions, and is a firm fav of mine. The paper image is one from my stash of oriental paintings, and is decoupaged with one roundle layer to echo the stamped shape.



The background paper was created in 3D 2 Card Builder, using the lotus image to form the tiles. The dragonflies peelsoffs are stuck on to another sheet of the paper, and painted randomly, with a mixture of alcohol inks and Glaze Drops.


The backer contains elements created in a similar way, and the round shape is cut from silver mirror board. The whole card is quite large at just over 8ins square, and is white, as a base, for a change - I don't often use white crease card. I thought it looked completey different from my other cards this week!!. Hope you like it ...

A Lovely Award

I have been awarded this lovely little HUG by Ali, my new partner-in-crime/blogging!! Thanks honey, it's really appreciated. Lots of people I know already have this, so I will ponder and come back to hand it out to others... in the meantime, please go to Ali 's Space and look at her fantastic work.

Ok, 1st person to get this award from me is Ann from Spirit of Creativity - well done you... thoroughly deserved as you are such a nice lady!!

2nd person is Cynthia here, for her lovely painting and also being SO nice and helpful.

A Moo of Moos - Happy Chinese New Year

In reply to Ali's moo here, I decided to do one with a Chinese New Year theme. It will be the year of the ox, beginning on 26th of January, hence the "moos" on my moo!! It is a tiny little thing, 1.1" x 2.8", and was printed with 4 of my ox images. The larger one is covered with diamond glaze, sprinkled with some cosmos glitter. I used Glimmer Mists in reds and a splash of lemon zest, and trimmed it with a narrow red organza ribbon. Red is a very important colour to the Chinese, especially at new year. So "Xin nian kuaile" - Happy New Year!! The other phrase you hear, "Gong xi fa cai" means wishing you prosperity, so I wish you that too, moo!!

Love Song

Here is my card for challenges today. First I was inspired by Ali's dotty card for the Penny Black Challenge. I haven't got any of their stamps, but fancied doing a different dotty idea - music! The second inspiraton was for the Cuttlebug challenge for a different kind of Valentine's card, and I have entered that one.

I tried something VERY new to me today - I used black shrink and stamped the fab dragonfly in Versamark, embossing it with gold ep. I had to heat very carefully in order for the ep to fix BEFORE the shrink plastic began to move too much... it worked!! The central image and the large musical panel are both Cuttlebug folders, and the music is enhanced using distress inks, brushed corduroy and old paper, applied using Cut n Dry. Some of the notes are also picked out with a brown Sakura stardust, put on with a blender pen.

The backing paper is a sheet of music, distressed and enhanced with gold ep at the edges. The whole is mounted up with gold mirri and dark brown card. the backer has all the similar elements used on the front. Definitely a different Valentine, but perhaps suitable for a man... think my man would have liked it!!

A Wonderful First Ever

Thanks to the generousity of Ann, I have my first ever blog awards... not just one, but two!! That is such an honour and I am so pleased that my blog has got off to such a good start. Ali has these too, and I am glad I goaded her into starting a blog too!!!

As you are here, why don't you award one or both to yourself, if you feel you deserve the boost!! ENJOY...

Thanks to all those people who visit me here, and who generously give their time to write comments. It is very encouraging, and helps to inspire me to do more, when I feel down and bereft...

January RF Card Swap

Here is a swap card for January on our lovely Creating Rainbows forum. The theme was "New Year, New Ideas" . I have used a new set of stamps from Stamp Addicts - trees and cloudy moon, bought at the NEC in November 2008, when I was helping out with Make and Take...

I used Gumdrop Big and Juicy and a brayer, to create the misty background. The smaller trees were printed with Old Paper Distress ink, and the large tree, in the foreground, was stamped in black Stazon. The moon was masked before I brayered so it would stay the colour of the card, which was cream. The whole thing was put together on dark blue card and silver mirri. Quite a dreamy look. The backer was created by stamping on the silver mirri with black Stazon and then embossed with clear powder and it came out quite sparkly. I hope my swap partner likes it when she gets it, later this week!!