Postcard from Italy

For this card I have chosen my products first (the ones I wanted to play with!), added scraps to my craft table and set about coming up with something!

I chose the stamp because I love photo realistic stamps and this is one I don't get to use often, it's one of a full sheet from Katzelkraft (KTZ55).
Then I wanted to play with the new (to me) embossing folder (Eiffel Tower-Tim Holtz), and selected the Harlequin motif from one side. I was thinking of adding an embossed "postcard" motif, also by TH but run out of space.
For patterned paper I wanted to use the cardboard from a Gü dessert package. They often have lovely patterns inside and it's not the first time I use them in projects...
Do I eat dessert because I want to craft, or am I justifying my dessert purchases with crafting? No comment!
Finally I had to break into a pack of Lutradur bought for me by my OH who knows I am always looking for new materials. I decided to use it to make flowers with the Sizzix Tattered Flowers die as it has been a long time since I haven't used it.

I inked my patterned paper with Distress Inks in Chipped Sapphire and then with a white gel pen went over the motifs.
After die-cutting my flowers I coloured them with lime acrylic paint and over-stamped using Versacraft ink in red with another Katzelkraft stamp this time from an older Christmas set (2008), which may be retired, it's meant to be "falling snow" but worked as my dotty pattern! The ink has sunk a bit in the Lutradur but I don't mind, the effect is softer.
Then I used my heat gun to mould the petals and this worked well except for my fingers!

I am entering my postcard from Italy inspired by Tim Holtz's products in the following challenges Katzelkraft, Pan Pastel UK, Wedodoobadoo and Artful Times challenges.

Thanks for coming by,

Colors of summer

At last I am entering another Impression Obsession challenge! You know how it is, so many challenges... so little time!
I was thinking of doing hot colours on glossy card but as I did that recently, I changed tack and used one of my fancy shaped silk cards. I am a fan of IO's Cover-A-Card stamps, but with the shaped card, the design didn't sit well. Instead I decided to forego the stamps completely and use dies to create a stencil.
I first die-cut the bigger butterflies with the IO Butterflies Die (DIE008-I), then added the small butterflies with a long reach punch, from a scrap piece paper (glossy magazine) to make my stencil.

I used distress inks to create my summer haze, applying them liberally and not trying to get a smooth look.

Now for the shine.... I applied Sparkle Medium in Jade (Imagination Crafts) through the stencil and voila!

I am also entering the Country View Crafts,  Imagination Crafts and That's Crafty challenges.

Thanks for coming by,

Inspired By Keren Baker

I managed to squeeze some time for the Paper Artsy challenge to make this card inspired by Keren's watercolour microscope slide.

I won't give you details of the process since I followed Keren's instructions but I had to substitute the microscope slide for a tag so there is no glass.

A quick look at my shrink embellishment :



















I lost my bottle and didn't fussy cut the anchor, in case I smeared the ink (I am using Brilliance ink in silver).
The Paper Artsy stamps I used are from the Hot Picks 1111 and 1201.

Thanks for coming by,

Clean and simple... Roses

Roses are a girl's best friend, at least for the Pan pastel UK challenge!

Excellent reason to pull out my 3 steps stamping roses. Except this time I did only 2 steps...

To get that velvety look on my main bloom (the darker one) I used pastel on Versamark.

I stamped once and applied the darkest shade of pastel, then stamped the second step taking out some of the pastel. Using that stamp now covered with both Versamark and pastel I stamped the lightest rose in the corner.
I returned to the first rose and applied a lighter shade of pink (I know it looks red but in real life it's more pink).
Finally I should mention that I used negative masks to stop the pastel spreading everywhere. Hence the light pink around the rose is pastel that stuck to un-inked card within the mask. A third step that I got for free if you like!
The leaves were stamped with ink.

Thanks for coming by,

Path and Horizon

The two words for the Craft Barn Challenge this fortnight are Path and Horizon. I didn't try and find a quote involving the 2 words but it tickled me to fit both of them in, visually, in my creation.

I hadn't used the brayer and glossy card stock in a while so I thought I would use inks rather than watercolours to create my sunset.
I sprayed my path with water and also my "moon" before writing the quote.

The Dandelions are from Lavinia Stamps so I am entering their challenge.

Let me know if my path be beautiful in your comments....

Fence

Yep, must be in my "fence" period as, even though I have a die to cut the shape, I felt compelled to make one from a raw piece of wood!
Artful Times challenged us to make something on or with wood and I immediately thought weathered wood and fence.  And of course in front of my fence I had to have some flowers... just perfect for the Fashionable Stamping challenge.

I used the colour scheme suggested by A sprinkle of Imagination with the Irish cream, steel blue and seafoam green with a touch of deep cobalt and rich ruby. Or at least it WAS ruby when I stamped it but then dye ink has a habit of sinking in gesso and appearing paler.

I created the fence look by scoring the wood with an embossing tool and a ruler and cutting the top of the fence with a Zigzag die.
Then I painted the panel in blue acrylic paint, in crackle paint and cream (mix of gesso and brown paint) as the top coat. In a few places I had smeared a bit of petroleum jelly and was able to go back to wood at the end.

The small flowers were inked with multiple markers (Zig graphic, Faber Castell big brush) to get the right colours. The large flower was inked with Memento Rhubarb Stalk and Zig markers.

As usual, I didn't want to cover my background but since there was such an expanse of empty space I created a house number with a Spellbinders label die, embossing the centre with WOW Vanilla powder. Unsurprisingly the 7 didn't stamp very well on top of the embossing... I let it lie on the basis that it is supposed to be weathered...

Thanks for coming by,

About a bird

I am revisiting my bird image with gilded flakes for this card, teaming it up with a new technique as inspired by the Craft Stamper challenge. It's called bleach blocking and I used a stencil to bleach my blocks over a piece of glossy cardstock, discarded from a previous crafting session.

The piece was originally stamped with Versamark (Impression Obsession Branches) to resist the layers of pink and violet inks I then applied with a roller. It looked a bit garish and you certainly couldn't see the "Trees" but if I "bleached" it would knock it down a bit... maybe it could work as a background.

After gilding the bird image I fussy cut it and put in on double layers of foam pads.

I made a sort of nest with fibres (they look like Angelina fusible fibres but aren't) and added a cardstock mat (Spellbinders label) before applying my embossed die-cuts. You can see I was experimenting because each die-cut has its own colour!
The long flourish (Spellbinders) has been embossed first with Pearl Blue (WOW) then Aurora (Cosmic Shimmer) then again with Pearl Blue because I didn't like the initial results.
The smaller flourish has been embossed only once but I sprinkled both colours over it.
Finally I embossed the frame with Pearl blue only.

I am also entering the Pan Pastel UK, Fashionable Stamping and  Stamping Sensations challenges.
Thanks for coming by,

Proud & Vintage

I can't believe a week has passed already! Time again for the Craft Barn quote challenge and the words are Proud & Vintage. I had difficulties finding a quote I liked for the word Vintage (it had to be Vintage as I had stamps for that) and had a look at lyrics too... you've had a narrow escape is all I will say...

I started with a piece of kraft cardstock and applied white acrylic paint and Inktense colours.
Some stamping with a doily stamp (there seems to be a fashion for all things doily at the moment and I am hooked too!), some Sparkle medium (Imagination Crafts) with a stencil, and some vintage stamps of course... I have lots of images to choose from but I selected this set of clear stamps as I fear it will be unusable very soon.
And since I'd already started a glitter theme I die-cut the mat for the quote with double sided adhesive and applied gold glitter. I have seen people do this before, so I tried to colour the glitter with alcohol pens, aiming for a chocolate brown colour. Sadly it didn't work for me, I guess it depends on what type of glitter used!

I am also entering the Imagination Crafts challenge.

As a final note, I would like to thank the other competitors who have left comments on my posts and if I haven't responded in kind, it's not through lack of trying but I don't do Facebook or Google+. I have often really liked their entries but... This time I will post my comments as a reply to visitors comments on my blog, so if they come back later or click on the Notify Me button they will be able to read my comments.

Have a lovely weekend, over here it's sunny and I am enjoying the weather!

Inspired By Sara Naumann

Keren Baker was on the Paper Artsy blog this week but her marvellous shadow box was too much for me. Sara Naumann's project looked ever so easy when she did it in her video, that I jumped at the chance.

In the end, of course, it took me more time than expected to create the card, but I am quite pleased with it, so well worth the extra time!

I used stamps from the ESN07 set, Hot Pick 1205 ({memo} is hidden underneath the flower) and postmarks from my collection.
The flower, I made moons ago using individuals die-cut leaves layered in decreasing size order.

Hope you'll like this project!

Fantasy garden

It's been a while since I made a tag so the Crafty Individuals challenge is giving me a welcome nudge.
I didn't really have a plan, I just put some white paint on kraft card, then some Inktense colours and pulled out my CI-207 set to stamp what became the middle ground.
I embossed all around the tag with a little green powder and lots of gold embossing powders.
For the foreground I added a fence, die-cut out of wood, which I stamped in white to give more of a wood effect.

I decided to add some Flowersoft, to break the green colour and also because I haven't used any for such a long time.
The more I look at it, the less convinced I am by the fence, maybe it's the colour, maybe the placement... I'll try to live with it for a bit and see if I have any brighter ideas!

I am also entering the WOW Embossing powder and the Totally Gorjuss challenges.
Thanks for coming by,

Mountain & Mistake

Those are the words for the latest Craft Barn challenge. I chose my quote first and wondered how I could illustrate the word Mistake. I toyed with the idea of doing a few ink splats when it struck me how odd it would be to make a deliberate "mistake" when left to my own devices I make them naturally! I decided to leave that in fate's hands and set about choosing my stamps.

I just had to use my new 3 steps rose stamp set, but 3 steps means a lot more time spent taking the stamps on and off the acrylic block, inking, cleaning etc... To make it worthwhile I organised a production line to get some extras roses for later projects. By the time I'd finished that... I was all spent and I thought the roses thrown over the white card looked great just like that and more wouldn't necessary be better.
So... CAS then, just as well since this is the challenge at Artful Times.

On a practical note, because I didn't have enough shades of red to get the best results with the rose, I mixed my inks directly on the stamp with a Cut & Dry foam, light ink first then darker ink on top (sparingly) them soften with foam.

Where is the mistake I hear you ask? As expected, I provided several with no help... The right hand rose is quite a bit off in the third stamping (the darker shade) and as I took the photo of the finished page I didn't notice the small square of foam pad release paper clinging to a leaf, but I bet you can find more if you look!

I am also entering the Artistic Stamper and My Mum's Craft Shop challenges.

Thanks for coming by,

It's Men O'clock!

I haven't had much time to blog or craft these past few weeks and I couldn't wait to get back into crafting, especially after this weekend's visit to the Craft Barn Extravaganza, a chance to see new products in action, learn new techniques and meet people as well as shop! It' still on today...

Yep, it's June and everyone is thinking Father's day. I know of a clock mad father so this was the start of my design along with vintage colours.

The background paper is from Woodware (Vintage 1 Perfect Prints) and I inked it up with Distress inks and embossed several clocks (Craft Stamper & Docrafts Magazine freebies and an old clear stamp from Art Impression) in gold, black and vanilla powders.

I stamped and die-cut the greeting from Old Crock Stamp Set (Hobby Art), which I won recently, along with the background paper at Lisa B Designs .
I die cut a rick rack shape out of metal (recycled tomato sauce tube), and a clip (Papertrey Ink) added some twine and matted everything on a pierced piece of cardstock.

Finally my (time)piece de resistance... a die-cut and stamped clock out of shrink plastic, which turned out very fiddly to cut,  I had to finish with a craft knife and this took forever!

I am entering the following challenges Fashionable Stamping (Like Clockwork), Country View Crafts (Only Men Allowed), Pan Pastel UK (One for the boys),  Ladybug Crafts (Something for the boys).

An update on my phone cover. The good news is that the width was a perfect fit, the less good news is the cover was a little shorter than I wished. Still, it does the job and this gives me an opportunity to make another, better one!

Enjoy this Sunday's sunshine (if you have it where you are), and keep on crafting...