On Safari

Hi everyone.  I made this card for our son whose birthday was actually yesterday, and as I had just bought this new Creative Stamper Magazine and the stamps had some fun images of a zebra, giraffe, lions and a cheetah as well as some other coordinated images including these leaves,  I thought that one of these would make a nice masculine card, so in the end I opted for the giraffe which together with the zebra are images by Crafty Individuals included as part of the set this time.  

On looking through the magazine I saw that one of the designs was a CAS card and I liked the look of the giraffe peering out from the leaves.  I stamped the leaf below it first then masked it before stamping the giraffe and then masked that before adding the other leaves surrounding it using some Versafine Vintage Sepia ink.   I then coloured it using a set of brush pens by Staedler scribbling with them on my glass mat and picking up the colour using a waterbrush.  I also added some softly blended inks around the giraffe using some yellow behind its head and some blue around that, and then finished with the sentiment again stamped with the Vintage Sepia and heat embossed with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.  

I sent the card to Australia three weeks ago thinking that should be more than enough time, but by the weekend it still hadn't arrived, but luckily yesterday it turned up...phew!  Thank you for dropping by today and I hope to see you again soon.

Chequered Chess

Hi everybody.  A masculine card today for a family birthday coming up shortly.  I decided to use this Aall & Create Chess Border Stamp and also an embossing folder called Chequered which is by Papermania and I have had it for a long time but I think this is the first time I have used it..tut tut!

I decided to make the background using acrylic paints on my gelli plate.  I covered the plate with orange and opened the embossing folder and using the embossed side I laid it on the gelli plate, lightly pressing it to remove some of the paint, laying it down a second time to cover the plate, and then pulled the print.  It worked well and I cut it down to fit my 6" square white card and then stamped the image using some Versafine Smokey Gray Ink and heat embossed it with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.  The stamp is very long so I only inked part of it.  I darkened the edges with some blended Ripe Persimmon and then Hickory Smoke Distress Inks and used some beneath the image to ground it, and also added the Ripe Persimmon behind the stamping and added some White Inktense Pencil to highlight the image a bit.  I then added the sentiment using the same Smokey Gray Ink and Clear Gloss EP.

Thank you for coming to visit my blog today and I'll see you again soon.

I am enterering the following challenges:

NBUS Challenge - No. 50 Where we used our Never Before Used Schtuff.
Colour Hues Challenge - No. 64 Orange and Slate Grey.
Allsorts Challenge - Week 729 Absolutely Anything Goes for their 14th Birthday!
We Love Stamping May Challenge - Anything Goes/In the Garden.
Stamping Sensations May Challenge - Anything Goes/Stencil.

Wild Flowers and Ferns

Hi all.  I needed a birthday card for a family member and I thought I would use this pretty silhouette flower stamp from Crafty Individuals which came free with another stamp I got, and there were also some lovely papers too, being given away as an extra over the Coronation weekend.  I wasn't sure whether I would get the extra things as it was an 'only whilst stocks last' offer, but I was lucky and there were a few offcut stamps too which I will definitely use and which I was not expecting to receive at all, and very generous of them.

I started by doing a background on my gelli plate using three alcohol inks, and adding blending solution and using a puffer I moved them around to make a circular shape and then using a normal piece of white card, not yupo this time, I laid it down and rubbed over it to transfer the inks which they did very well.  I have not tried using my gelli plate with alcohol inks before but it was a technique being used over at the Group of Seven Cardmaker's Blog this month and so I thought I would try it.  I then added the silhouette flowers and a sentiment using Versafine Olympia Green ink and heat embossed it with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder, and added it to a 6" square card.  As an afterthought I decided to added three little birds in the sky which I did using a Black Micron Pen.

There is one thing to bear in mind when using alcohol inks on a gelli plate and that is there can be some staining and it seemed to be the yellow I used which only lifted slightly when rubbed with some more of the blending solution.  It doesn't greatly matter except that the colours added to the plate in future will look a little different because of this staining.  Thank you for visiting my blog today and I'll see you again soon.

Group of Seven Cardmakers - Not a challenge but they have left a link to download what you make.

I am entering the following challenges:

Less is More Challenge - No. 483 Spring.
We Love Stamping May Challenge - Anything Stamped with the option of In the Garden.
Stamping Sensations May Challenge - Anything Stamped with the option to Add a Stencil.
Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge - No. 446 Make Your  Mark.

Time for a Birthday

Hi all.  I made this card using a Sheena Douglass Embossing Folder called Trailing Time.  It was a snippet of white card I embossed when making this card here, and I put it aside and when sorting through some things I found it, so I thought it would be good to use it on this card. 

I decided to ink up the piece and used some Tumbled Glass Distress Ink applied with a brush, and I then  used a darker blue fine liner pen from a set by Docraft to colour the stamens of the flowers, and I then added this snippet of similarly coloured blue card and added it to a 5" x 7" card, and finished with a die cut sentiment using another snippet of the same card.

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

I am entering the following challenges:

Snippets Playground Challenge - No. 453 Where we use snippets of card and paper etc.
Can You Handle The Pressure Challenge - Anything Goes/Baby.
Happy Little Stampers May Birthday Challenge - Anything Goes.
Allsorts Challenge - Week 727 'April Showers Bring May Showers'.
Triple B May Challenge - Anything Goes with Birds, Butterflies and Blooms (any or all three).
The Flower Challenge - No. 80 Pretty Pastels.
Cardz 4 Galz Challenge - No. 198 US Mother's Day/Flowers for a Friend.

Dolphins Rocker

Hi everyone.  This is a rocker card featuring dolphins, and dolphins do 'rock' too as I love them.  This is a masculine birthday card for my brother-in-law and at first I was not sure what to do, but I came across a rocker with an added piece of acrylic round a circular shape on the rocker and with the dolphins leaping round the edge of it, and I did try to find it again but had a fruitless search online.  I decided on something simpler and made the rocker base from a 6" square card rounding the bottom using a bowl as a template and cutting the base with scissors.  I then found a piece of card which I had recently inked with a technique I saw by Chrissie Stokes using spray starch and powder colours with wonderful shimmery mica and a piece of crinkled cling film over the top and left to dry...you will find it here.   I used blue, gold and white Pixie Powders on mine and was pleased with the results and thought it had the look of the sea.   I also used a dolphin image from a set of stamps that came with Creative Stamping Magazine No. 97 Beneath the Waves.

I wanted to create a background with waves and a large wave with the dolphins leaping in front, and having looked online I found a children's freebie image of a dolphin and a large wave and used this printing it to fit the width of the rocker and I just cut out the piece I wanted and pencilled round it on the back of the background piece adapting it a little to fit on my rocker base, and then I cut it out.  I wanted to add some texture to the crests of the waves and added some Opal White Perfect Pearls to them and wasn't so happy with that as it wasn't white enough, so I used some white acrylic paint over the top, and then added some more randomly over the bottom section to give the sea some movement and then added some more bits of colour using some Distress Inks in several blues applied with a waterbrush.  I then added this to the rocker base.

I stamped the dolphins in Versafine Smokey Gray ink and coloured with some grey tones of Distress inks again using a waterbrush, and I cut them out and added them to the card.  I finished with a stamped sentiment using Versafine Clair Nocturne ink.  I was going to use Smokey Gray but there is a lot of mica shine on the base and I wanted the sentiment to stand out well so thought the black would be better.

Thanks for visiting me here today and I hope to see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Cardz 4 Guyz Challenge - No. 321 Get Messy - Inks, Paints, Sprays.
The Male Room Challenge - No. 174 - Animals.
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - No Patterned Paper.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Paint It.
Happy Little Stampers May Watercolour Challenge - Anything Goes/Flowers.
Happy Little Stampers May Birthday Challenge - Anything Goes.