A simple pear

Another make on the theme of spring, or rather the colours of spring as my chosen stamp is decidedly unseasonal, at least in the northern hemisphere!

For March the Rubber Dance challenge us to use the following colour scheme:

I stamped the Pear first and masked it before sprinkling Brushos in yellow, orange and moss green. Granted the Moss green is on the brownish side, it dissolves in flashes of green, brown and purple grains as you can see in the lower right corner.
Things went awry when I added water to the card and the background was nearly a write off. The card I used didn't like the water one bit...  my fault really, I should have used watercolour paper. I carried on because I wanted to make sure my design worked but in the end I liked the effect so I went with it.
After drying I stamped the Diamonds background, the leaf, the Art definition inked with pens and the quote inked with Versafine Onyx black.

I coloured the pear with Coloursoft pencils.

I did think of adding twine, buttons etc... but I couldn't bear to hide any of it! Hey ho Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, someone said...


Also entering Craft Stamper and Country View Crafts Anything goes challenges.

Inspired by Deco Patch

This week's Craft Barn  challenge is to cover something with a Deco Patch type paper.
Last year I gave a makeover to a cheap glasses case to give to my OH (you can see it here) and the closure mechanism broke last week so I needed to do another one.

I created my paper with a white tissue paper and stamps. On one side the London cityscape and London name is from a set by the Artistic Stamper, on the back are some Street names from a Paper Artsy set and Big Ben comes from a set by Rubber Dance.

 

I glued my paper in place with Mod Podge over my gessoed case and applied Fresco paint (Blueberry) everywhere but the cityscape, where I only applied a wash of orange to evoke the London night glow.

I finished by several coats of Paper Artsy matt glaze.
I'm crossing my fingers he doesn't break that one too soon...



Other challenge: Pan Pastels UK

March rabbit

Time for a new page in my calendar. The colour is yellow and the word rabbit, given by the Craft Barn. No token smudge of yellow here, I take the challenge seriously. And yellow is sooooo not my colour, it hurts my eyes looking at it now!

I started my background with applying yellow pastel over Versamark with an Hexagon stencil. The idea was to apply some blues and violets to the negative space but as the pastel spread to the yellow bits I had to rethink...
For my second attempt I used a mix of texture paste and yellow paint through the stencil and when dry used distress inks for the recesses.

The image is from Crafty Individuals (CI-202), coloured with pastels.

In the end I decided to overstamp the hexagons with a dotty motif just to knock back that expanse of yellow, using a Pitt big brush pen in Indigo.

I am also entering the Pan Pastel UK challenge.

Thanks for coming by,

Birds in the wood

Artful Times want to see birds on our creation so this was the starting inspiration for this piece.




I selected my Birds from the Crafty Individuals stamp set CI-329 and set out to create a wood background with Brushos and  Imagination Crafts Nature set mica powders trying to match Brushos and mica, colour for colour, as I dropped them on the wet water colour paper. Sadly the shine doesn't show in the main picture so here's a snippet with a better light:



I added a path (Lavinia) and some grasses (Flonzcraft) to complete the impression of a path in the woods.



I want to make this into a card but I'm not sure what colour to use as a card base so any suggestion welcomed!

Thanks for coming by,
Also entering the Country View Crafts Anything goes and
Imagination Crafts challenges.

Olde Worlde

Welcome to the new challenge at Vintage Stamping Challenges where I chose this month's theme, Olde Worlde. Think Victorian era, chocolate box houses or villages, engravings, Steampunk... any thing older than a century!

I pulled my Flonzcraft True Gentleman set and stamped the "older" of the 2 gentlemen with Versafine as well as the top hats, for which I'd prepared a mask, on a piece of ivory cardstock. I tore and distressed the panel before affixing to a brown mat.

For the background I started with a piece of patterned paper which I inked with various distress inks, a piece of baking parchment (loooong story) embossed with a folder and wet embossed (Walnut stain ink + Frost embossing powder).
I added a border made with textured paper which I coloured with Walnut Distress ink and added 2 screw-shaped brads.

For embellishments, as my faithful readers will know, I love to make my own, so I created a "seal" using a postmark stamp and gold wax adding it over some multi-coloured threads.

 

I created a metal frame for my silhouette portrait also from the True Gentleman set.



I am enjoying this set very much and I find it invaluable for those difficult masculine cards!

Hope I have inspired you to join us! You don't normally need to create a vintage project but this month vintage is definitely an option considering the theme! Remember that you DO have to include stamping - no digis allowed. Our lucky winner will receive a fab prize of a $20 voucher from Flonzcraft so don't miss out on your chance to win!

Go on and hop on over to the Vintage Stamping Challenges blog and see all the DT’s work for more inspiration.


Challenge : Stamping Sensations



Spring Greens

This is a fairly simple, although not quite clean!, card which I made because I fancied playing with Brushos.

I used IndigoBlu's Flutterby Dinkie stamp, coloured with alcohol markers and masked the image before splattering water and Brushos in Leaf Green, Emerald Green and Yellow. I used yellow because the Emerald Green is rather blue!

Hope you'll like this card!
Challenges: IndigoBlu, Country View Crafts Anything goes and Wedodoobadoo

Miniature & Embossing powders

The topic over at Paper Artsy blog is Miniatures. I was inspired by the glossy pieces Leandra showed in her post but as I don't have Ice Resin I thought of embossing powders.
Now have you ever had cardstock buckle after a layer of embossing? So much that the embossing cracks? Well, me too... For this project I wanted to make sure there would be no buckling so I selected a hard and thick surface, a Tando Wavy Arch.

I used a technique shown by Trish Latimer here. I applied several colours of embossing powders in layers finishing with a WOW Blue Pearl in combination with a stencil and detail white with a Paper Artsy stamp (Hot Pick ESN10). At this stage as there is quite a thick coat of EP the surface turns liquid and it's difficult to keep the details. Still I managed to get the effect I wanted and I had LOTS of fun doing it!

And another pic so you can see the Blue Pearl in action:

I am also entering the Craft Barn and Tando challenges.
Thanks for coming by,

Pastel shades footwear

This week's Craft Barn challenge is about shoes. I immediately thought back to my early days as a card maker when the height of sophistication was shaped cards. Back then, not many people had die-cutting machines and I was yet to get into stamps, so shaped cards was a way to make things a bit more interesting. I had designed my own template and as I keep all sorts of things I still have it and pulled it out for this project.

My colour scheme of pink and white was suggested by Pan Pastel UK challenge and as I was pulling out papers to embellish my card I found this pink card base and decided to go with it instead of white. I realised this cardstock had a white core and this gave me the idea of embossing and sanding back.

The folder I used is the first one I ever bought,  Stylised Flowers by Cuttlebug. I added a piece of hearts border (X-Cut 12" border die), eyelets and ribbon. Again if you have been crafting for a long time you will remember that eyelets were all the rage so it seemed fitting for this throwback to give it some of my collection.
I also gave my boot a white sole, well if Louboutin does it red why not white for mine!

There you have it, boot for the girly girls!
Other challenges: Bunny Zoe's Crafts and Wedodoobadoo

Trying out techniques

Yep, I am a technique junkie, I have to try everything.... I decided to have another go at the brayer technique that I have seen Leandra from Paper Artsy use to great effect. My first attempt was so disappointing that I switched to a credit card mid-way through my painting!

I think it had something to do with my brayer being sticky for some reason. I put some talcum powder on it the last time I cleaned it and it seemed to have done the trick.

For the background I used Fresco paints in Vanilla, Tango, Limelight, Sherbet and Lavender and stamped motifs from the EEV06 and ESN10. As a feature stamp I used a sentiment from Hot Pick 1206.

Then I tried out another technique taking inspiration from Nataliya, DT on the Wow embossing powder blog, applying embossing powder on top of texture paste. I used both Wow Grapevine and Cosmic shimmer Aurora because I couldn't remember if the Aurora was translucent or not. Still can't tell from this experiment but having both colours adds variety so it's all good!

I suppose I should tell you what IT IS.... Well this is the cover for the calendar I am making, one page per month,  which is why I added a die-cut piece of clear packaging stamped with... OMG just realised... the wrong year! But PHEW... I stuck it with tissue tape so it could be changed the following year. I guess I will have to change it sooner than that!

Thanks for coming by,

Love travel

Valentine's day is the big event on the blogs and as I have already something prepared I opted for a love of a different kind....

The Rubber Dance colour challenge for February has a theme of Love and the colours Turquoise Chocolate Brown and Deep Red. I went overboard with these dark colours and the result is ... well... dark!

This also meant I had to do most of the stamping in white acrylic which doesn't do justice to the details of the stamps.

For my background I used Gelatos, overstamping images from the Rubber Dance Travel plate, stamps I won recently on their blog.

I added a heart die-cut which I painted with brown paint, a layer of crackle (Imagination Crafts) and a top coat of white paint. I embossed a piece of metal with the word Travel as a finishing touch.

I am also entering the Imagination Crafts and the Live and Love Crafts challenges.
Thanks for coming by,

Mini Album

Last week at the Craft Barn blog was Mini Album week. I immediately selected Dawn's project as one I could actually make without too many hiccups. Hmmm... hiccups were had and what should have been a 3x6" album ended up as a 3x3". In the process it also turned into a pocket book as each page has now an opening in which to store...stuff, haven't worked this one out yet since this wasn't my original plan - If you feel inclined, ideas in the comments would be lovely -
The pockets openings are alternatively at the top or the side of each page.

Anyhoo... I used an unloved double sided paper to make my album and decided to forego any stamping/stencilling etc... on the now small pages. I made 2 covers from recycled packaging, covered with paper from my scrap mountain.
For the front, I die cut vellum with the Persian Accents dies from Spellbinders, and coloured it with alcohol inks (Pearl and Cranberry), layering the pieces on the front.

 

There you have it... I think this style can be easily adapted to a 4x4" album which would be a better size to include photos, otherwise I'll have to try Dawn's album again without making a mistake!

Thanks for coming by,

Calendar Challenge February

For this second page of the Craft Barn calendar challenge, our given colour is Red and we must include Hearts.

February is an odd month, the glow of the end of year festivities has passed, the cold and wet weather is firmly installed and there is little to celebrate. I decided to focus my page on Valentine's day, as most "significant" occasion of the month.

Don't go thinking I don't own any heart stamps, I do. Several in fact, and in a bind I could even die-cut some!
It's just that I had a vision and I couldn't rest until I tried it.

I drew a heart shape on scrap paper and cut it out with a craft knife. Then, using both the innies and outies heart shapes as masks, I stamped in red ink the edges of the big splat from the Messy Art stamp plate (The Artistic Stamper). Here and there I stamped the small spots from the small splats stamp of the same set.
The execution could have been better but the result is fairly close to what I had in mind.

I added the word Valentine in the postal stamp frame (Craft Stamper freebie) and the arrow from another heart stamp, also a Craft Stamper Freebie, extending the line to fit my heart.
As for my January page, the calendar itself is attached by a brad and rotates to open and close.

I am also entering the Artistic Stamper challenge.

Thanks for coming by,