Tuesday 26 July 2016

PTI SAF 2016 - 4 'masterpieces'

This weekend, I've been playing along with some of the challenges of this year's Stamp-a-fair event on the Pappertrey Ink blog. In spite of the fact that I also needed to work for several hours, I still managed to finish 4 of my own 'masterpieces'. And now I can barely spare the time to upload them before the linky closes...





I'm also linking my little outdoor scene at:
Sweet Stampin' -  Outdoors
Aud Sentiments - Anything goes with a sentiment



I'm also linking my starry sky at:
SSS Work it Wednesday - Use wafer thin dies or stencils
(Smile die by SSS; I snipped off the outer circle)
Craft Your Passion - 322 Always Anything goes




I'm also linking my florals at:
Bunny Zoe - Summer florals
Tuesday Throwdown - 304 Happy birthday



My butterflies (stamp by PTI, coloured using SN coloured pencils) are also playing at:
Cards in Envie - Heatwave - Summer/hot colours
Penny Black and More - Anything goes with a stamp
Ooh La La - 209 Texture
SSS Wednesday - Things with wings
Polkadoodles - 29 Summertime





Thursday 21 July 2016

Uplifting thoughts

Last Friday, my new goodies from STAMPlorations arrived. A few weeks ago, I won a gift voucher and I decided to spend it right away on my first ever STAMPLorations products.


The first product I just had to ink up was the Artful Flutters stamp set, especially after seeing Cornelia's spotlight feature card over at the STAMPlorations blog on the very day that my parcel arrived.

Cornelia's card

I focussed on the ironed off embossed sentiments against the ombre background. I heat embossed my sentiments in white and then created my background using 3 colours of Zig markers and a water brush to blend the colours. To create a little more texture, I flicked some water on my panel and blotted it off using kitchen towel. After ironing off the embossing, I stamped the 3 butterflies from the same stamp set in Archival jet black ink. To add a little gold detail, I tried stamping the floating seed stamp (from Enchanted Garden by SugarPea Designs for the SOA Beautiful World collection) repeatedly using gold pigment ink and then heat embossing them in clear, but this only gave a very light image. Therefore, I added a little water to them to bleach out some of the background colour to make them show up a little better, but you may need to enlarge the picture to see them properly. Before mounting my panel onto a black mat and then onto my card (made out of Bristol cardstock), I added a few gold specks using my Versamark marker and gold embossing powder.

I'm linking my card up at:
CAS Mix Up - Stamping + markers + choice (heat embossing, water colouring, splatters)
The Paper Players - 304 Watercolour
STAMPlortions CAS challenge - July Anything CAS goes with optional colour: orange


 

 



Wednesday 20 July 2016

Playing with distress stuff

Here's a card I made for the OCC Chemistry 102 class by Tim Holtz. Maybe I should have used 'Bah Humbug' as the title for this post. This crazy bird cracks me up.


I have been playing with distress paints, stains, inks, layering stencils and stamps. I also mixed in a few tips and tricks from the OCC Heat wave class and then added a little gold embossing paste through yet another stencil for some festive shimmer and shine. Not my usual style or colours but fun to make.

Challenges:
ATSM - 203 Holiday
SSS Wednesday - Things with wings
CHNC - 290 Cute or anything Christmas goes
CHNC Extra - Always Anything Christmas goes
CCAYR - Anything Christmas goes
Christmas at Sweet Stampin' - Anything Christmas goes
Crimbo Crackers - 111 Anything Christmas goes


One-layer Christmas card

Hello again. After my crafting frenzy earlier this month, I needed a little time to catch my breath and to work hard to earn some money so I can buy all the supplies I want need for my hobby lol.


This weekend, I created this card for a number of challenges, the first of which is Muse: ChristmasVisions 53 where this week's Muse Chriss Blagrave presented us with the following festive poinsettia card:

Inspiration card by Chriss Blagrave

I focussed on the 3 red and gold elements and the bold black sentiment. I left out the splatters but my sentiment happens to have lots of dots.

I stamped the outlined leaf stamp from Eva's favorite flower set by Winnie & Walter (originally part of a SOA collection) 3 times in Memento Rich cocoa using my MISTI, coloured them using red Promarkers, adding the tiniest bit of shading, and then stamped the outlines again using Versamark ink and heat embossed them in gold. The advice to heat emboss after colouring with alcohol markers was a tip I picked up from Yana Smakula on the first day of the current Online Card Class, Heat wave. The line from the same stamp set was also heat embossed in gold, while the sentiment (Holiday Sentiments by Clearly Besotted) was stamped in Archival Jet black ink. This is my go to ink for stamping sentiments. Love the crisp results this ink gives.

Challenges:
Muse: ChristmasVisions 53 - Inspiration card by Chriss Blagrave
One-Layer Simplicity - OLS29 Christmas in July
Cas Mix Up July - Stamping + markers + choice (heat embossing)
Less is More - 285 Theme: Repetition
AAA Cards - 69 One stash favourite (Archival jet black ink)









Monday 4 July 2016

1 or rather 3 more Christmas cards

Hello there! I'm back with yet another post and 3 more cards. Here's the first of them:


The only challenge for this week's Share the Love challenges at Winnie & Walter featuring Essentials by Ellen that I had not participated in yet, was the moodboard challenge (see the graphic further down). I was looking for a way to incorporate the image at the bottom right, combining the Christmas tree stamp by W&W with the hydrangea stamps by Essentials by Ellen. I was thinking of using the cutting file that I have for the W&W stamp set using my Silhouette to cut a mask to stamp through, but my Silhouette is hiding in a box in a closet so I was looking for another way...

And then I saw the prompt for the new HLS July CAS challenge: Kissing, and I was thinking OF COURSE!

So, I lined up the tree stamp on the lid of my MISTI, placed the hydrangia images (the main stamp + 2 petal stamps) onto my Fiskars stamp press, inked it up in Versamark and stamped that onto the tree stamp on the lid before closing the lid and stamping the tree onto my panel of watercolour cardstock in the corner of my MISTI. After heat embossing in clear embossing powder (HA), I used my Zig markers to dab spots of colour onto my cleaned tree stamp (still positoned on the lid), spritzed with water and stamped this onto my heat embossed panel.

While my panel was drying, I heat embossed the W&W sentiment onto a strip of vellum using detail gold ep (Ranger). When all my panels (see below) were ready, I die cut them all using a SSS stitched reactangle die. I wrapped the vellum strip around my card, adhering it at the back and then mounted the panel onto my SSS card base using foam tape.

I'm linking up this card at:
W&W Share the Love feat. Essentials by Ellen - Day 5 Moodboard
Ellen Hutson June Pin-sights challenge
HLS July CAS challenge - Kissing
CAS Mix Up July - Stamping + markers + choice (heat embossing, vellum, die cutting)
W&W Gossip Column with Taheera - No. 4 Spectrum

 



The other two cards were created in a similar way. For card number 2, I had stamped the hydrangea onto my tree stamp using white pigment ink. I decided to use bands of colour for this one, but because I had found the colours on my first card to be rather vibrant, I wanted a more softer look by using a second generation impression of my water colours. So I grabbed another, plain panel of water colour cardstock to stamp the first impression, which I used to create card number 3.


I'm glad I did, because the hydrangea pattern is really subtle and only visible when you tilt the panel in the light. Below is a picture that I created in my craftroom in the daylight. I feel I might have ruined it if I had been using stronger colours. I added a simple sentiment (Essentials by Ellen) in black and used a gel pen to add a little gold sparkle to the flower hearts.


And this brings us to card number 3. For this one, I decided a sparkly and festive gold glitter sentiment die cut (Essentials by Ellen) would be all the embellishing it needed.


I'm linking up this card at:
Jingle Belles - Ombre colours of Christmas

 

Virginia's View - 22 All about colours (Summer)
CHNC - 288 Vintage or anything Christmas goes
CHNC Extra - Always Anything Christmas goes
Catch the Bug - July anything goes
SSS Wednesday - Anything goes

So there you have it: 3 more cards, based on the same idea but with a completely different look and feel. Do you have a favourite? I'd love to know.


Sunday 3 July 2016

Totally fabulous

Here's my fourth card in a row for the Winnie & Walter Share the Love Week featuring Essentials by Ellen. I think it's safe to say that I love the products from both companies, which is why I have collected quite a few of them. I tend to buy them in bulk during the Black Friday sales LOL.


As before, I started with a few left-over bits from previous cards. I managed to cut the Totally sentiment (Essentials by Ellen) from what was left over from my distressed panel for this card, and then the width of my panel determined the width of my white panel onto which I stamped a flower and some leaves from In Bloom: Anna's Florals (W&W) using a light green dye ink (Going green by Studio Calico). I die cut the Fabulous sentiment from the same die set from a snippet of cardstock that I had coloured using the same green ink. It so happened that my panel fitted perfectly onto this grey mat (Journal Card die set by SugarPea Designs) that was left over from this card. I layered all my elements onto a white card base and my card was done.

Challenges:
W&W Share the Love feat. Essentials by Ellen - Day 1: Florals
W&W Share the Love feat. Essentials by Ellen - Day 2: Sentimental
W&W Share the Love feat. Essentials by Ellen - Day 3: Background building
Shopping our Stash - 258 How does your garden grow?
Penny Black and More July - Anything goes with a stamp
SSS Wednesday - Anything goes


Beautiful day

This is my third post today, featuring another card I created yesterday. Again, my card started with some UFOs (unfinished objects). I had created the background and the vellum leaf overlay for a previous challenge at the Winnie & Walter blog but at the time it was not coming together the way I had hoped and so I abandoned it, until now...


The sentiment panel is from an other UFO. I had tried to create a night sky using layers of water colour paints but it looked like one large dark blob (with lots of different colours if you see it up close). But I thought it would work perfectly with the blue and bronze splatters on my card base and has an organic feel to it (especially after fussy cutting along the ragged edge) that IMO perfectly matches the die cut blooms (Wild Garden, Essentials by Ellen). The large bloom was left over after creating my oval panel for this card and I simply die cut a few smaller ones from the left-over panel. I finished off with a few enamel dots (Studio Calico).

Challenges:
W&W Share the Love feat. Essentials by Ellen - Day 4: Transparent
Shopping our Stash - 258 How does your garden grow?
ATSM - 200 Happy Birthday
SSS Wednesday - Anything goes




Home sweet home

For this card, my starting point was the vellum overlay that I had hiding in my box of UFOs (Unfished objects) that I had stamped in black and then heat embossed in clear. The stamps are from the Happiest of Holidays set (Winnie & Walter by Evelin T. Designs).


I coloured the image using some Promarkers on the back of the vellum and folded it over the top of my card, adhering is at the back. To creat the background, I used a little ink smooshing (distress inks) and stamping in black (Bokeh dots, Essenials by Ellen), making sure the circles were lined up correctly behind the sentiment on the vellum and above the birdhouse to make it look as if it's hanging down from there.

Challenges:
W&W Share the Love feat. Essentials by Ellen - Day 3: Background building
W&W Share the Love feat. Essentials by Ellen - Day 4: Transparent
CAS Mix Up July - Stamping + markers + choice (smooshing, heat embossing, vellum)




Merry

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend so far. I was able to spend most of the day in my craftroom yesterday and have created several cards, all for the current Share the Love week by Winnie & Walter featuring Essentials by Ellen. I'll be posting each of my cards in separate posts so I can link them to the varisous challenges.

I will also (try to) keep these posts short so I can go back to my craftroom and create some more cards, since I still have a few ideas lingering in my head. Love when that happens when I actually have time to act upon them.

So here's my first card:


This card came about fairly quickly, since I started with a Brusho panel that I had created some months ago. I die cut the Merry die (W&W) from white stamping paper (Sheena Douglas), and adhered it to my panel after stamping part of one of the sentiments from the Corzy Christmas stamp set (Essentials by Ellen) in black Archival ink. I used the Christmas tree from the Tis the season set (Essentials by Ellen). In the stamp set, it's lying on top of a car, but I thought it would be fun to put it on my sentiment die and balance out the green on the left of my panel. I simply made a few brush strokes using 2 green Zig markers and blended these with a water brush before stamping the tree on top and then fussy cuting it.

Challenges:
Just Add Ink - 318 Just add S (Sentiment die, stitched rectangle die, splatters)
QKR Stampede - 198 Christmas in July
Crimbo Crackers - 110 Anything Christmas goes