Hanging Hearts Anniversary

Hi there.  Today I have another anniversary card to show you.  Less is More have a challenge to use stickers, sticky labels or peel offs and as I still have quite a few peel offs which haven't seen the light of day for quite a time, apart from the odd sentiment now and again, I decided to use some here.  Who knows, maybe this is the start of a huge revival. 

I used a NBUS swirl which came with a set of flower stamps from Honey Doo Crafts called  Flowers for Design.   I used the flowers as poinsettias on a wreath for a Christmas card last year but have never used the stem which looks rather like a flourish which is how I used it on this card.   This is with a challenge in mind which is run occasionally by Darnell over at djkardkreations which is a NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff) challenge.  This is the seventh challenge that Darnell has run, and as most of us have lots of things which we have bought but just haven't got around to using yet, some from way back and some more recent purchases, this is the ideal opportunity to drag them out and use them.  So thank you Darnell for enabling us.

I started with a snippet of white card 4" square and stamped the flourish using Archival Black Ink which stays wet long enough to heat emboss, which I did with WOW Clear Embossing Powder.   Before going any further I decided to add some colour to this piece of card.  I used three Distress Inks, Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves and Shaded Lilac,  swiping the pads randomly over a piece of acrylic and then spritzing with some water and moving the piece of card around in the inks until sufficiently covered.

After searching through my stash I managed to find a heart stamp small enough in an old set from Hunkydory called Celebration.  I found another small snippet of white card and covered it with Picked Raspberry Distress Ink straight from the pad, and used a piece of kitchen towel to take a little of it away and this left a bit of a pattern on it which I thought looked quite nice.  When dry I stamped two of the hearts on the reverse and cut them out.  When dry I added some Clear Wink Of Stella to the hearts to make then sparkle a little.  Unfortunately this doesn't show up terribly well.

I found a line peel off in silver and to match it in with the flourish I used a Black Promarker to colour it, and cut two pieces to hang the hearts from.  I then matted this on to a snippet of black card.

I finished by fixing this to my white square base card and then added a sentiment peel off, again coloured with the Black Promarker.

I hope that there is enough white space on the card for it to be an acceptable entry in the LIM Challenge, but it is quite plain without any extra embellishment, so I am taking a chance and entering it anyway. 

Thank you for looking at my blog today.  See you again soon.      









I am also entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 244 where we use our snippets of paper and card etc.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - It's Hip To Be Square.

My New Look and Thank You Violets

Hi there everybody.  Well as you can see some wonderful things have been happening here!  I have a fabulous new look and it's all down to that lovely and oh so clever lady, Loll Thompson of Stamping with Loll, who has been helping me create this, and I certainly couldn't have done it without her.

Thank you Loll for all your time and expertise.  I am totally thrilled with the results and I can't thank you enough!  I made the card below with Loll in mind.

I used this Violets stamp by Sheena Douglass from her Floral Fantasy range, and in fact I don't think I have used this stamp here on the blog before, so this is by way of being a NBUS (never before used schtuff).  I bought a whole set of her stamps but for some reason this one has never had an outing.

I found a snippet of smooth white card and stamped and embossed the image using Versamark ink and WOW Opaque White Embossing Powder.  I then coloured with inks using a waterbrush.  I used Adirondack inks in Eggplant, Sunshine Yellow, Lettuce and Bottle, and Distress inks in Seedless Preserves, Shaded Lilac, Mowed Lawn and Walnut Stain.

I decided to cut a strip off the side of the stamped topper cutting round one of the flowers and a leaf which is now hidden under the vellum, and used a snippet of dark green down the side which stands out nicely against the white embossing and the white background card.  I found a piece of white vellum to place across the front of the card with the sentiment repeated across it which has been stamped and heat embossed with the White EP, although in the photo the vellum doesn't look that white.   I used a Lawn Fawn set of Stitched Scallop Borders, the smallest one of the three, and die cut it on both edges.  I cut it a little longer than I needed so I could wrap it round the back before adhering it to the card.  I then highlighted each of the scallops with an embossed dot using a fairly large ball tool and a parchment embossing mat, and then added Mowed Lawn Distress ink to the edges.

It's great having this new look now as next month the blog will be three years old and it can be a double celebration,  an anniversary and a fabulous newly designed blog.

Thank you again Loll.

Thanks for dropping by and see you soon.

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 243 where we use our snippets of card and paper etc.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - It's Hip To Be Square.
WOW Embossing Powder August Challenge - Flowers.

In Flight

Hi all.  Shock, horror, I am actually ahead of myself with this masculine birthday card instead of my usual trick of leaving it until the last minute and just about getting it in the post in time..lol.  I succumbed to another magazine with this cute balloon die which caught my eye.

 

I decided to use my inks to make a background for it to fly over.   For the sky I used Stormy Sky with a touch of Tumbled Glass, and for that bit of sun peeking through Adirondack Sunshine Yellow applied with a blending tool.  Nearer the horizon I added some clouds using a shape cut from a piece of paper as a mask.   For the hills, again using a mask cut from  piece of paper, I used the Stormy Sky with a small amount of Victorian Velvet to give them more distance, and then added more green to the nearer ones.   The trees in the foreground were made with a stamp from a set by Indigoblu called Here Comes Santa, and I did add a few more ad libbed trees in the background as though fading into the distance.   I decided to add a bit more colour with my Spectrum Noir pencils as I wasn't totally happy with the ink colours on the hills.

I cut the balloon using a snippet of dark blue card and backed the envelope part of the balloon with a lighter blue with some Stormy Sky ink over it, and I also added a little Mowed Lawn to try and harmonise the colours with the background.

I assembled the card backing the main panel with another snippet of dark blue card and die cut a sentiment from another snippet of the dark blue, which I backed with the Stick It adhesive.

After finishing the card I did wonder if the balloon looked a bit too dark for the quite light coloured background, but decided to use it as I know sometimes I am rather picky and overly fussy...lol.  Quite often the finished result in reality doesn't match up to the picture in my head but using inks for colouring is not an exact science and I suppose the beauty of this method of colouring is that every piece of work is different.

Thank you for visiting today, and thank you for all the interest you show in my blog which is greatly appreciated.

See you soon.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 242 where we use up our snippets of paper and card etc.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Summer Fun.

Under The Sea

Hi there everybody.  I love Chocolate Baroque stamps and I have often looked at these sea themed stamps which have a steampunk element to them and thought  that I wouldn't really have anyone to send them to, but then the combination price was reduced even further in a sale, and with masculine cards in mind, which I have to send a lot of, and the fact there are seahorses in there too, that finally swung it. The sets are called Steampunk Funky Fish and Steampunk Sea World.

My take on the underwater theme is a little bit alternative too, as a ship wouldn't normally be found under the sea unless it's a wreck, or a submarine, and the sea isn't normally this colour.  Even the Bristol Channel isn't this shade of brown..lol.  The reason for this absurdity is that Chocolate Baroque has a monthly colour challenge which I haven't entered before so decided this time to take the plunge, excuse the pun, and it is also the challenge's second birthday.  The theme is Chocolate and any colours you might associate with eating it, like mint green or toffee colours or possibly orange, or taking the colour theme literally and just using shades of brown.  Well, here is what I came up with.

For the stamping I used Adirondack Espresso, and for the background and watercolouring I used combinations of Walnut Stain, Spiced Marmalade and Mowed Lawn Distress Inks.  I know it looks as though there is some purple but I think the Walnut Stain when well watered down seems to have that slightly purple look.  I wanted the background light in the middle so when swiping the colours on my glass mat I kept the brown to the outside and then used the orange and green towards the middle and spritzed with quite a bit of water before pressing a piece of  card on to the inks and then moving it around a bit until the colours have mixed nicely.  I dried it with my heat gun and then started stamping the images with the Espresso.  I used the tentacles of the squid for some of the foliage, which is something I have seen done on some other cards, and the top bit of the stamp with the seaweed and cogs,  to make a frame for the scene, and then I stamped the ship and the two little seahorses peeping out of the foliage.   I coloured in using the same inks and a waterbrush and decided to blend more of the Walnut Stain round the edges to give it a bit more depth.

I mounted it on to a piece of brown card before adhering it to a cream square base card, and I stamped the sentiment on to a fishtail banner using more cream card, and then added some Walnut Stain round the edges, using a blending tool, just to take the brightness off the cream colour.

I'm really glad I bought these stamps now as I am pleased with the result, and I can see the other stamps will work well too.  Thank you for looking at the blog today.  See you soon.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenge:

Chocolate Baroque Challenge -  No 25 Chocolate.
Artistic Stamper August Challenge - Anything Goes.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Lets Go Wild.  (I have a couple of small seahorses on the right)

Musical Hearts Anniversary

Hi all.  Well, guess what, another anniversary.  I have been looking at challenges and trying to get some different ideas as my anniversary mojo is packing up at the moment..lol.  Anyway I found a sketch to start with over at CAS(E) this Sketch No 185 and here it is .....

                                                                                                                                ..... now for the card .....                                                          

I cut the two hearts using a snippet of white card and a Nellie Snellen Multi Frame Heart die, and stamped the musical notes with Eggplant Adirondack Ink.  I used the musical notes from a set of stamps which were a freebie with a Creative Stamping Magazine.   I then blended ink on the hearts with a combination of Shaded Lilac Distress Ink and the Adirondack Eggplant to darken the edges.

I then cut the two layers of stitched scallops using a set of Lawn Fawn Stitched Scalloped Borders dies.  I then cut a strip from another snippet of white card and added two different stitch patterns from a MFT set of Basic Stitched Lines dies and coloured the strip with the same inks as for the hearts.  I then layered them up.  At the moment these are quite hard to find in the UK.

I cut two sizes of white squares to layer up on my white square base card and I inked round the edge of the larger one in order to get the a matching colour, and layered them up on to the base card.  I then added the hearts using Pinflair glue gel, and then added the scallop layer.

I finished with the Sue Wilson Congratulations die which I have had laying on my table waiting for the right opportunity to present itself, and this was it.

See you soon and hope you have an enjoyable weekend.

Pat  x

I am also entering the following challenges:

Addicted to CAS Challenge - Music.
AAA Cards - Stitching.
Happy Little Stampers August Anything Goes with Dies Challenge.

Blue, Green and Gold Anniversary

Hi everybody.  I have so many anniversaries to send cards for this month and I don't like to duplicate but coming up with something different gets very difficult.  I had the CAS Mix Up Challenge in mind, where this month the challenge is stamping, sprays and your choice.  Well, I haven't actually used a stamp but I did stamp using an embossing folder so I hope this will be acceptable as I would really like to enter and support Loll and Bonnie with their relatively new challenge, and each month I have had the best of intentions but for one reason or another I think I have only entered once.

I used a snippet of white card and my Docrafts Hearts and Kisses Embossing Folder opened out, and the positive side inked with a mixture of Mowed Lawn and Peacock Feather Distress Inks.  I placed the paper on top and pressed it down well to transfer to the card.  When this was dry I put some more ink on my glass mat and sprayed with water, and swept the card through it to spread some ink on the background too.  I then emptied most of the water out of the spray and added some Perfect Pearls Gold Mica Powder and shook it up well.  Making sure the card was really dry I then sprayed it, drying in between until there was enough of the mica in random areas to give a nice gold sheen.  I'm not sure that it shows up very well on the photos though.  As an experiment I decided  to add a piece of double sided tape down the side of another snippet of card, and using a brush applied the mica, rubbing it well into the tape.  I buffed it up with a soft tissue, and although some did rub off enough of it stuck firmly, so I was quite pleased with that.  As my piece of inked card had warped a bit and I was in a hurry to finish the card and post it, I glued the inked piece to the mica edged card which gave it more rigidity.

I then found a snippet of gold mirri card and die cut a heart from a set of dies by Sue Wilson called Heart of Hearts using the largest plain heart, and then embossed using the same Hearts and Kisses EF.  When putting the two elements together on my white square base card I adhered a piece of card behind the right hand side of the heart to bring it up level with the now rather thick piece of card which it is sitting on. 

Finally I die cut a sentiment, again by Sue Wilson, using a snippet of white card and this Congratulations die.  Before cutting with the die I sprayed the card with some of the gold mica and did this several times, drying in between with my heat gun, until it had a nice gold sheen.  I then added Peacock Feather DI.  I also backed it with Stick It adhesive before die cutting it.  Again unfortunately it doesn't really show up in the photos. 

Well, that's all for now and thank you for dropping by today.

Pat  x

I am also entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 241 where we use up our snippets of paper and card etc.
CAS on Sunday -No. 89 Sketch.
Happy Little Stampers - August Anything Goes with Dies. 

Crackling Rose

Hi there everyone.  I have a new stamp from Chocolate Baroque called Crackling Rose and it is the loveliest rose to colour so I used Festive Berries and Mowed Lawn Distress Inks, and Sunshine Yellow and Lettuce Adirondack Inks, and also a little Seedless Preserves on the shaded parts of the flower.  This was actually made before the Coneflower card which I have shown recently and which was made in a similar way.  I expect you will probably guess who this card was made for.

I found a snippet of white card slightly smaller than my base card and using a blending tool I placed the red and the green at opposite corners and the yellow towards the centre.   I stamped the flower using Versafine Smokey Gray ink and coloured the flower with the same colours using a water brush.  The red with yellow gave a nice slightly orange look to the flower and the Seedless Preserves just darkened the shadows slightly.

The stencilling was done using a piece of non slip matting which I thought might make a nice pattern. We have used it under a few items around the house and it has also come in handy on the bottom of the Sat. Nav holder on the dashboard to keep it in place.  I inked through it which gave the solid pattern, and I also inked the fabric which gave that chequerboard look.  I also used a mini stencil from Creative Expressions called Shabby Harlequin.

I decided to blend a bit more of the yellow over the whole thing to try to bring it all together, and I have to say I was rather pleased with the result as I haven't actually stamped and coloured straight on to a coloured background much before and I thought that everything mixed and complemented each other fairly well. 

p.s.  I was surprised to find that this card found its way into the Chocolate Baroque Reader's Gallery Post here.

Before I go I have a few more photos to show you which we were taken whilst Darnell was visiting us and didn't want to show until the trip was over.  It's Hammy of course, and I think he stowed away in her luggage as he didn't want to be left behind, and as he wanted to surprise everyone along the way we kept him secret, though I think there were one or two photos where there may have been a sneaky peek.  He was very well behaved and was definitely a talking point.

 
Thank you for stopping by my blog today.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Artistic Stamper August Creative Challenge - Anything Goes.
Uniko Studio - Challenge No 34 Flowers.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Fabulous Florals.
Country View Challenge for August - Hot Summer Days ( I have used hot colours)

Kiss Stamping Birthday

Hi all.  Well, you might think what a weird title for a post.  I got the idea from Happy Little Stampers where one of the recent challenges was Kiss Stamping, and I thought  I would give it a try and enter.  I unfortunately ran out of time but decided to make a card with the topper I had made and this is the result.   I used a Crafty Individuals stamp called It's Your Birthday which I have had for ages but has never been used on here.

For those who have no idea what the kissing technique is, it entails inking the silhouette stamp in one colour and then inking a second stamp with a pattern on and pressing one down on the other and stamping with either of the stamps to create a two toned image.  I used Adirondack Pink Sherbet on the CI It's Your Birthday stamp, and then Memento Bamboo Leaves ink on the stamp I used to kiss it with, which was another CI stamp called Crackle Background.  The actual sentiment part of the stamp I did make sure was covered with just the green ink so it would be easier to read.  There is another form of kiss stamping whereby you ink the main stamp and then use another stamp without any ink on to kiss with and this just removes the ink and leaves the pattern.  My stamp is a silhouette with rather a busy design which perhaps doesn't work so well but I liked it well enough to use it on the card here.       

It doesn't actually look as though I used the crackle stamp but I think I probably pressed the stamp down rather too firmly which spread the ink a lot,  but I haven't used this technique much before.  I backed the topper with a snippet of dark green card and then another piece of light green card which was smaller, so only backs the left hand side and goes part of the way across.

I found an embossed snippet which I thought would go and covered the raised areas with the Pink Sherbet ink using blending foam,  but decided it was a bit pale so added some of the Bamboo Leaves over the top which in the end made it look more or less all green.  In the picture it looks more of a gold colour but the snippet was pearlescent white card which I think makes it look different because of the shinier surface.

I found another snippet of white card and coloured it with the same pink, and then to make the topper stand out I found another snippet of dark green card for the left hand side of the background.

I assembled it on to a white square base card and didn't need to add a sentiment as it is on the topper.

Thank you for dropping by today.

Pat   x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 240 where we use up our snippets of paper and card.