My camera doesn't like black... UK Stampers CJ entry

This is Jean's journal, and I wasn't surprised when I saw the interesting page shape and the Zettiology stamp. I loved the stamp straight away, but did take my time deciding what to do with her. Early in the month I knew I wanted to use my Cherry Pie art doll, but it was so much bigger than the page. Then a song came on the radio and that was it... listen here:

Shame the camera doesn't pick up the details- I used a lot of interference mica powders in the background to create a sort-of psychedelic wallpaper effect. The lyrics to the opening verse are written around the door, and in the mini-envelope is the key to the door!

Colour: Versafine, Paint Dabbers, lots of black ep, Moonglow ep, Stickles, Stardust pen, gold paint, Stazon, Ranger white pen, Cosmic Shimmer/Perfect Pearls, Sharpie pen
Stamps: Zetti (head), Cherry Pie (art doll and flourish)
Other: Funky foam (to create the niche behind the door), Grungeboard door furniture, tiny key from my stash, corrugated card (for door, flattened using Cuttlebug)

At Last! April's Inchies

I have finally downloaded my camera and I am ashamed to say there is some quite old work on there. This photo is a month old! Hopefully it is still worth showing, even if the swap is over and done with. These are April's Inchies, and Sid set the theme of 'Bling'. Even though I was already starting to feel a bit stressed with work, I had to join in with this swap- it just said 'Stickles' to me! Mmmm, Stickles...

Colour: Glimmer mist, Distress Inks, Gold ep, Stickles, Sharpie pen
Stamps: Elusive Images (a borrow- thanks, Lucy, it is now on my 'must buy' list!)
Other: Err... nothing- for once!

I added the second photo to show all the bling- yummy!

Mother's Day

Before I start describing the top card, I just want to say that it wasn't that colour! My Mum loves coloured card, and so I used a soft turquoise card as the base. I have tried to get the colour back using various editing tools, and it wasn't happening, so I am sorry, you will have to imagine the real colour.

Anyway, this is the card and stampbord brooch I gave to my Mum for Mother's day. I used my new Elusive Images plate, which I absolutely love- expect to see a lot more using it as it is really versatile.

Colour: Card: Distress Ink, Whispers Dye Ink, Versafine (used on acetate then embossed), aurora ep, Sakura glaze and Stardust pens, Stickles; Brooch: Dee Greunig Blending Blox, Whispers Dye Ink, Stickles, Sakura Stardust Pens, Stazon, Opals UTEE, silver Paint Dabber
Stamps: All Elusive Images
Other: transparency, shrink plastic, wire, brooch back, blue card, Stampbord, butterfly charm.



I also wanted to share with you my own Mother's day card, made by my little budding artist. Inside it says 'Remember when you do my washing that I love you'. Bless! I couldn't eat the cookie as I am gluten intolerant, but my little boy was more than happy to eat it for me :)

Next photos- Domino Jewelry

This was for yet another swap- it's rare at the moment that I do anything which isn't for a swap! I really enjoyed making these, and think I will make some more at some point.

Colour: Domino 1- Sharpies, Stazon, Clear UTEE, Moonglow ep, Stickles (on heart charm) Domino 2- Stazon, Gold and copper ep
Stamp: Rubbadubado
Other: Plastic dominoes, ribbon (on back, not shown), florist's wire (to make loops for necklace), waxed linen thread (for dangle on brooch), jewelry findings, Glossy Accents

Altered Tin- Inspired by Van Gogh

This tin was for a swap on Zuzu's forum, and I was over a week late sending it because I had one of those last-minute ideas that complicated the project but I had to do it! Typical me! Originally, I was just going to decorate the outside of the tin and prettify the inside, but then I realised that the tin was the perfect size to fit slide-mounts (I have rather a lot of these, bought years ago and never used!). So I decorated the slide-mounts and joined them together to make a wallhanging.

Colour: Versamagic, Sharpies, watercolour crayons, Brilliance, Aurora ep, gilt wax, Distress Inks, Vivid Inks, Cosmic Shimmer powders, Barry M eyeshadow powders
Stamps: Paperartsy, Studio g alphabet, ISC butterfly
Other: Crackle Accents, Gesso, Galleria moulding paste, heavy florist's wire, bead, twig, metal from coke can, plastic slide mounts

The tin originally contained saffron, and had the pink flowers as part of the original decoration. I was inspired by a Van Gogh painting and was trying to capture the swirly effect of the background. The three slide-mounts all have Van Gogh paintings in. To capture the vibrancy of the originals I printed each painting on paper and on transparency- when you lay the transparency over the paper print, suddenly the image comes alive.
PS Plastic slide mounts do not like being heated with a heat gun....!
PPS I realise that many of the mediums I used are not supposed to be used on metal, but it's amazing what a few light coats of spray varnish enable you to do!

Triptych ATC

I put this onto one of the forum galleries, but have never blogged it- mostly as the photo I had taken before did not show the effect of the acetate at all well. This is my first ever stamp, bought in 1998 and just used for that year's Christmas cards. I had forgotten how lovely it is.

Colour: alcohol inks with metallic mixative, silver detail ep, Stazon
Stamps: All Night Media, Non Sequitur (word)
Other: Mirri card, acetate, metal tape, Pebeo gem

January ATCs- Metal, plus Craft Stamper Blog Challenge

I had fun with these! The backgrounds were experiments in finding different ways to add colour to metal, and to create texture. They started off as an ATC sized piece of Mirri card, then I added random strips of self adhesive metal and embossing powder before running them through the Cuttlebug. The top one was coloured using paint dabbers and glimmer mist, the second one with different colours of Sharpies pens and Stazon (which helps to blend), and the last one was good ol' alcohol inks.

Colour: Paint Dabbers, Glimmer Mist, Sharpies, Stazon, Alcohol inks, Stickles, Distress Stickles, Cosmic Shimmer, Gilt wax, Krylon pen, Sakura Souffle pen (for faces), Distress Ink
Stamps: Elusive Images and Cherry Pie
Other: Vellum, acetate, Silver mirri card and ep, text from the computer

I also had a challenge in mind when I made these; Craft Stamper's blog is running a technique challenge each month, and this month's is to use the Cuttlebug. Isa made a beautiful piece for the mag using a wax-resist technique with the Cuttlebug folders. I have tried this, but my efforts were nowhere near as good as Isa's, so I went back to my favourite metal instead. Hope it's OK!

Hello to you!

Hello to you! I am taking a little time out to blog, safe in the knowledge that the housework is mostly up to date, and Dan is happily asleep in his bed! This may not sound like much, but trust me, it is really amazing to me. On Christmas day, Paul's and my main present was Dan, in his sleeping bag (which is really restrictive), coming into our room to wake us up. He had learnt how to escape from his cot, and needed to have a bed, as the escaping was a pretty hair-raising process. Then we came across a new issue, that of keeping in his bed. To start with we were staying in his room to stop him from escaping, and I stopped being able to craft as I was spending up to three hours in there. I got really down, the housework suffered, and none of us was happy. Then I had the miraculous revelation of just leaving him to it (with locks on a couple of doors to prevent him from flooding the house!). So this week he is finally happy, falling asleep in his own time (occasionally on the landing) and leaving us time to be adults again.

Anyway, enough waffling, I usually try not to bore everyone with family stuff, so now about the card! It was only my second ever commission, and I really enjoyed making it. I used patterned papers from an Artylicious CD, and I can really say that it was worth getting, as the designs are beautiful and I could print off what I needed on the medium I wanted- great for a control freak like me! And I have the co-ordinating stamps, of course :D

Colour: Distress Inks, Sharpies, Versamagic, Stazon, Cosmic shimmer, Aurora ep
Stamps: Elusive images and Cherry Pie (butterfly)
Other: Artylicious Damask Delight CD rom, Vellum cardstock (used inside and for the butterflies), mountboard (for hand cut numbers), paper roses, selvedge of silver ribbon, jewel brads, poem from Internet, Fiskars border punch.

The vellum cardstock is amazing to look at, but you need to handle it with extreme care as any crease or mark shows as a white line. I managed OK for this, but will only use is when nothing else will do otherwise!

Colours CJ- Sid's Red Book

I'm still in catch-up mode at the moment with photos. This is last month's CJ entry, in Sid's book. Everyone had to choose a colour as well as a stamp, and Sid's is (obviously!) red. Well, I rose to the challenge, and don't think it could be more red if I tried! I was actually inspired by Gustav Klimt, as Sid's stamp is design from a Klimt nude. I tried to recreate the patterns created by Klimt in this painting, Medicine, but in a more textural way. I used texture paste, red embossing powder, paint and gilt wax to create the pattern, and the main image is triple embossed. I hope Sid likes it- it looks even better in real life, I promise!

Colour: goache, gold and red ep, Liberon gilt wax, Brilliance ink, stickles, Sakura pen
Stamps: Paperartsy and Cherry Pie
Other: Texture paste, red gems.

UK Stampers ATC's for October- Newest Stamps.

I realise these photos all seem to be taken at a really odd angle, but since these ATCs were all painted with a mixture of Perfect Pearls, Cosmic Shimmer and Stickles, I wanted to show the effect. My newest stamps at the time the theme was set were a set by ISC, which you may have seen on many other blogs- that face stamp is so beautiful that lots of stampers have it and use it well! It was nice to play around with effects, and I deliberately kept these simple, using straightforward stamping for a change! Don't worry, though, I have signed up for another CJ at UK Stampers, so expect to see me get carried away at least once a month!

Colour: Versamagic, Versafine, Cosmic Shimmer powders, Perfect Pearls (both used as paint), Stickles, Aurora ep, Stazon
Stamps: ISC
Other: Vellum printed with script (used for butterflies)

Art Raffle October- Dark

I'm afraid you're going to have to use your imagination with this one, but this is a gorgeous sparkly altered matchbox. It looks more speckley than sparkly in these photos, but this is Glimmer Mist over black gloss card with clear embossed CD pieces, so you can picture how lovely it is when you hold it in your hand and tilt it into the light. It is also my Art Raffle piece for this month, where the theme was 'Dark'. When I Googled dark, Googling being the main way I try to clarify my thoughts on a theme, it came up with images of dark matter, and being a bit of a science geek, I was really inspired! If you don't know what I'm on about, try it yourself! Select images, put in 'Dark', and prepare to admire :D

Colour: Glimmer mist, black ep, silver detail ep, clear ep, Ice Stickles, Sakura Stardust pen, Stazon, black paint
Stamps: Cherry Pie
Other: Matchbox, black gloss card, PVA glue, old junk CD.

I cut the old CD with my dear husband's kitchen scissors, and although the corners were sharp, the edges weren't. The coating did flake off a little, just at the edge. The heat embossing was a bit of experiment, as I wasn't sure if the CD would melt or not- especially as I use the UK's version of the white Ranger heatgun, which is hot, hot, hot! It was fine, though, and stood up to two coats of the ep. This acts as a lens, and magnifies the rainbow effect. I think I may have to make some jewelry next...

Happy Birthday to Vicky!

It was Vicky's birthday yesterday, but I actually gave her this on Tuesday. This is a mini-file box, 6 1/2" wide by 5" high, and it started life as mountboard, coloured cardstock, and an A3 sheet of watercolour paper! Craft TV Weekly had this as one of their webisodes, and I knew straight away that I wanted to make one for Vicky as a present. Naturally I wanted to get really inky, so I made the patterned paper with the watercolour/craftmat technique (clear embossing first to create the white pattern) and stamped it to within an inch of it's life. It is not a project to make in a hurry, but I am so pleased with the result that I may make myself one if I ever get the time!

Colour: Vivid inks, Glimmer Mists, Versamagic, Versacolour, Brilliance
Stamps: All Paperartsy
Other: Bazzill and SU cardstock, mountboard, watercolour paper, lots of PVA glue, velcro for closure (the magnet I tried to use wasn't powerful enough), Making Memories ribbon buckle.

Diane's blog challenge

Diane from UK Stampers has put a challenge on her blog this week, and since I needed to make a card for my lovely Sister-in-Law's birthday, I decided to use the challenge to inspire me.
Here it is:

So, the challenge is that I'd like to see YOU make a card like the one in the other post. A maximum of two stamps, one colour of ink, one colour of embossing powder (can be the same or a tonal one). No pre-printed background papers!

It sounds so simple until you get going- just one colour of ink?! I usually use half a dozen! And then what do you do with the embossing powder? My solution was to use a Brilliance green ink, which dries on anything (with a little help from the heat gun), and to use the ep to do an intaglio effect. I like to think it looks a bit like fossilised leaves here.

Colour: Brilliance, Aurora embossing powder
Stamps: Paperartsy (panel), Cherry Pie (fern)
Other: Transparency, chipboard (for the intaglio) and white card- one layer was coloured with the ink, the other with the ep.

The closing date for this challenge is 25th October, and the prize is excellent. Thanks for the challenge, Diane!

Sunday Challenge No11

Credit crunch?...........
It's all over the news and in the papers.
This weeks challenge is to create a little something using credit cards, well not you proper credit cards but gift cards, you can pick these up free from most places. Lets see what you can make with them!
Happy stamping

I'm sure this is a shock to anyone who comes here regularly, but I have done and photographed this week's Sunday Challenge a whole day before the new one gets posted! I am stunned, too :D. Dan has actually napped three times this week, leaving me time to get on with my crafting commitments. Don't ask about the housework, though, I'll do it tomorrow, I promise!

Colour: Versamagic, Versafine, silver ep, Stazon, Paint Dabbers, gesso
Stamps: Limited Edition
Other: gift card, old book page, coke-can metal, mulberry paper, sanding block.

I am fascinated with the look of etched metal at the moment. I don't have the time to experiment with a new technique (yet), so I decided to try and recreate the look by using silver ep on metal, then rubbing white paint into the depressions. For this piece, I also decided to use rust coloured paint, to give a more distressed look. I am quite pleased with the overall effect, and will definitely keep playing to see what else I can achieve.

Little Art Doll for a Swap

This is my first attempt at a shrink plastic art doll, so please be gentle with me! I think it's mostly OK, but I am not pleased with the face. I do like it from behind, though- do you like the grungeboard wings? It's such great stuff to work with. The tassel skirt was inspired by an art doll by Linda Baldock, although with hindsight I should have been more generous with the fibres. Oh well, you live and learn!

Colour: Versamagic chalk inks, Stazon, Stickles, Sakura Souffle pen, Versafine, Aurora embossing powder
Stamps: All Cherry Pie
Other: Prima flower, Grungeboard wings, wire, Lucky Squirrel shrink plastic, gem

UK Stampers' Sunday Challenge No 10

I was lucky enough to get some serious crafting time in on Saturday afternoon- I had been creating in half hour bites all week, and found I had barely got all of my stuff out before it was time to put it away again! By Saturday, I *needed* to stamp, so I completely ignored the housework and the husband, and got inky! This piece was created for the Sunday challenge over at UK Stampers, and was really about a) using my gorgeous new stamp from Elusive Images, and b) trying out some techniques I have just been reading about in an amazing book I borrowed from the library, called 'Paper, Metal, and Stitch'. I think I may need to buy this book once I have returned it, as there is enough inspiration inside to keep me going for ages!

Panel 1
Colour: Glimmer Mist (Peach Delight and Black Cherry), Distress Ink (Worn Lipstick), Versafine
Other: White cardstock base, pattern created with PVA rubbed over with gilt wax when dry.

Panel 2
Colour: Gold embossing powder, Versafine
Other: Base of silk dupion fabric, frayed at the edge.

Panel 3
Colour: Distress Inks (Spiced Marmalade and Worn Lipstick), Stickles, Versafine
Other: White cardstock base, stamped repeatedly with swirl stamp then embossed with Cuttlebug folder.

Panel 4
Colour: Stazon black, Sharpie pen, Glimmer Mist
Other: Base made from inside of coke can, coloured in a flame, and embossed freehand, using an embossing tool and foam mat.

Header
Colour: alcohol inks followed by Black Cherry Glimmer Mist, Stazon
Other: Making Memories metal shim, freehand embossing, Papermania jewel brads, black ribbon, corner embellishments from my stash
Stamps: Notre Dame from Elusive Images, words and swirl from Paperartsy.

The whole piece is 6" x 6" square, conveniently the Notre Dame stamp is 1 1/2" wide. I promise I will clean the lens of my camera before I take another picture- the soft-focus effect wasn't intentional LOL!

I can't believe it has been 14 years!

It was my Wedding Anniversary on Wednesday, and as the title says, it has been 14 years since we got married! For once, I hadn't made a card, as I was so busy last week, but Paul knew I would make him 'something'! This is a tiny canvas, 8cm x 6cm that my friend got for me from LB Crafts. I have made the reverse into a niche, and I am going to use it for something personal and probably slushy for Paul!

Colour: Glimmer Mist, Stazon, Distress Ink, Versafine, heat embossing, Paint Dabber
Stamps: Elusive Images, Studio g (i)
Other: self-adhesive metal tape, tissue paper, old book page, Sizzlits tag die, embossing tool, drinks can

The little word plate was made by cutting up a drinks can and heating it in a gas flame, and I was told about this by Tasha. It was fun to do! ( Yes, that's my handwriting again :D ) I also planned this piece to fit in with Wednesday Stamper, where the theme is pattern. The damask background was made by stamping a heart stamp three times, close together.

Two Tags

I may moan about making cards, but I can't say the same about tags- I love making them so much! Maybe I should make some tag-like cards LOL! These are for two kind cyber-friends, who both sent me something and saved me from spending money unnecessarily- thanks, Sid and Sarah. I hope you enjoy the little packages I sent back!

Colour: Glimmer Mists, Distress Inks, Versafine, Cosmic Shimmer mica powders, clear and aurora ep, Ranger white pen
Stamps: Cherry Pie, Paperartsy, Rubadubbado, Elusive Images
Other: Manila luggage tags, old book page, acetate, eyelets staples, ribbon and fibres, all from my stash, Cuttlebug embossing folder.

The dragonfly is part of the stamp sheet I bought last weekend, after swearing I would not buy any stamps! But after spending half an hour with Paperartsy's Leandra Frainch, I couldn't resist any longer! Now I just need a melt pot... :D