Twofer Pugs

Hi everybody.  These cards are for the Twofer Card Challenge run by the lovely Darnell and the theme is Dog/Cat.  I have not been a good player of late and several times have made one card but run out of time to make the second, so this time it being the final challenge I was determined to get my cards in, albeit still rather late.  The idea of the challenge is to make two different cards for different occasions using the same stamps, stencils and/or dies.   Here are the two cards:

This first was made using this sweet pug couple and a Dotty Heart Embossing Folder by Leonie Pujol, and a set of heart dies by Sweet Dixie.  I decided to make a landscape slimline card and started by die cutting the hearts out of a snippet of white card just a little smaller than the base card saving the heart shapes.  I then embossed this aperture piece using the Dotty Heart EF running it through twice side by side to cover the long thin shape.  I then found another snippet of white card and stamped the pugs using Versafine Vintage Sepia Ink and coloured them using Fossilized Amber, Brushed Corduroy and Ground Espresso Distress Inks applied with a waterbrush and fussy cut them out.  I then blended some Dusty Concord Distress Ink round the edge of the embossed background and the two hearts.

Finally after mounting the background on to the card I inset the two hearts into the apertures and added the pugs over the hearts.  I finished by adding the sentiment onto a snippet of white card cut into a fishtail banner and stamped it using Versafine Imperial Purple Ink and added this to finish the card. 

 

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop Challenge - Where we use up our snippets of card, paper etc (I used lots of snippets of white card for the background and hearts, pugs and fishtail sentiment banner).
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Add A Sentiment.

My second card is a masculine birthday card using a hexagon die set from XCut and two pugs from the above set one of which was used on the card above, also a stencil from That Special Touch called Paws for Thought.  I stamped the pugs with Versafine Vintage Sepia and coloured with Tea Dye and Pumice Stone Distress Inks and fussy cut them out.   After die cutting the seven hexagons I ink blended the four of them with Tea Dye and added the stencilling with Ground Espresso DI.  Finally I inked the other two with more of the Tea Dye but more sparingly just on the edges and added the two pugs.  Finally I added the sentiment to the remaining hexagon using the Vintage Sepia Ink heat embossed with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder and assembled the card with the six in a circle and the sentiment in the middle.

 I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Stamping Sensations Challenge  - August - Any Celebration.
Country View Challenges - August - Monochromatic.
Cardz 4 Guyz Challenge - No. 278 Things with Tails.
The Male Room Challenge - No. 153 Our 8th Birthday.  

 

 

 

 

 

I would just like to say a big thank you to Darnell and the team for all the hard work they have put into the Twofer Challenge, and such a clever concept thought up by the lovely Darnell, and although we understand all good things must come to an end, it will be missed!  Thank you for your visit today and I hope to see you again soon. 

Elephant and Leaves Stencilled Birthday

Hi there.  I needed a masculine birthday card and I was looking through some of my older stash and came across this Clarity Stencil of an Elephant which I got when I belonged to the Stencil Club a few years ago, and which I have never used.  It is a large stencil and Barbara gave us a couple of tutorials showing ways of using it, but I think at that time I didn't feel I was skilled enough to do anything good enough and so I put it away and forgot about it.  Now a few years later I am more adventurous so thought I would see what I could do with it.  I also used an all over leaves stencil which was part of a set from The Range.  I decided to use my Adirondack Inks for a change and chose Sunshine Yellow, Cranberry and Stonewashed.

I started with a 6" square piece of card, the same size as the stencil and using my blending tool and Sunshine Yellow ink I lightly stencilled leaves over the whole thing.  I then place the elephant stencil over the leaves stencil, deciding I would just use part of it and then stencilled Cranberry ink through it, heavier towards the outside and lighter in the centre, and with the under layer of yellow it has more of an orange hue.  I then pencilled round the outer edge of it to make it stand out and went over the line with black micron pen.  I thought it still didn't stand out enough so I pencilled all the internal lines and used the pen over those, I wouldn't say this was very accurate but worked pretty well.  I then filled in the lines with a dark brown Inktense pencil and used a waterbrush to blend it all and went round all the outside lines in the same way.  

I finished by cutting it down a bit and laid the leaves stencil back down and added some blue ink over parts of the background which turned it green, and then put the elephant stencil back and added more yellow there.  I then removed the stencils and darkened the edges using yellow with blue over it which makes it stand out on my 6" square white card and added a sentiment using Versafine Vintage Sepia Ink heat embossed with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.

Thank you for visiting me here today and I hope I'll see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

NBUS Challenge - No. 29 Where we use our Never Before Used Schtuff.
Happy Little Stampers August Stencil Challenge - Anything Goes.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Add A Sentiment.
Watercooler Wednesday Challenge - No. 322 All About Occasions.
The Male Room Challenge - No. 153 Our 8th Birthday (best wishes and lots more great challenges to come!)

CAS Mix Up Challenge

Hi everyone.  I decided to get in early for the CAS Mix Up Challenge this time.  The theme is stamping through a stencil and I used a Dutch Doobadoo Blocks stencil and a very old Hunkydory set of stamps with a wedding/anniversary theme and I used the rose heart stamp.

I lightly brushed the ink blended through the stencil using Tattered Rose and Shaded Lilac Distress Inks and  more of the pink in the centre and then the lilac on the outer edges fading it out, and keeping the stencil in place I transferred it to my Misti and stamped the rose heart with Dusty Concord DI, several times and with firm pressure to get a good impression, as obviously it is more difficult stamping through the mylar stencil.   I then coloured the stamping with my Inktense Pencils and a waterbrush following the image from the packing as there are only bits of it showing through the stencilled shapes.  I wasn't quite happy with it as it was so decided to use the a heart die to give it a heart shape and marked around the inside of it with a pencil just within the open areas of the stencil, and then inked over it with a black micron pen.  

To finish I cut it with a stitched square die and added some Salty Ocean DI over the white lines within the heart shape and also around the edges, again using a brush, and then added the sentiment with Versafine Deep Lagoon ink before adhering it to my 6" square white card. 

The challenge runs until the 24th of the month so lots of time to join in.  Thank you for coming to visit today and I hope to see you again soon.

I am also entering the following challenges:

Uniko Challenge - No. 66 Flowers + Optional Twist: Slimline.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Summertime Blues.
Retro Rubber Challenge - No. 164 Anything Goes (stamp is more than 5 years old).
Stamping Sensations Challenge - August: Any Celebration.
Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge - No. 411 Make Your Mark.
Allsorts Challenge Blog - Wk 635/6 Anything Goes with the option of Roses.