Fab Stamp Man Blog Candy!

Jill at The Stamp Man is giving away some fantastic blog candy! The prize will be a choice from 3 of Kay Carley's recent designs, the gorgeous Aspects of Design Funky Flowers, Funky Frames, or Fancy Flourishes. Nip over to Jill's blog to stake your claim. These really are beautiful quality stamps (they're all on my Christmas wish list!) and Jill has some lovely samples using them on the blog. The closing date for the candy is midday on Tuesday, 15th December.

Quick Tip

I'm sure I'm not the first person to have thought of this, but just in case anyone else hasn't, I thought I'd share it. I needed a black brad & didn't have one. So I tried colouring a different one with a black Promarker. It needed a few coats, but I was amazed at how well it worked. So now I won't have to buy lots of different coloured brads. Obviously for pale colours I'd need a white or very light coloured one to start with, but I can just colour one whenever I need it with whatever colour I'm using on my project & it will match perfectly. :-)

How many days until Christmas.....?

Another card made with the Brilliance Ink background. The flower stamp is from the Aspects of Design sheet "Summer Flowers", by The Stamp Man, (currently on sale at half price while stocks last!) and the sentiment is by Crafty Individuals. I used my Nestabilities and Cuttlebug to cut the circles and the label and punched a few flowers out of the leftover Brilliance-inked background paper.



Now I really should make some Christmas cards......

Ideas from The Stamp Man

I managed to catch The Stamp Man's recent show on Create and Craft, and really liked Jill's ideas for making backgrounds with Brilliance inks. She put the inks on to a craft sheet, sprayed them with water and then laid her paper on top to pick up the ink. It gave a lovely, shimmery, watercolour effect. The link above is to Jill's blog, where she explains how to do it. I've had Brilliance inkpads for years and never thought of using them in this way. Of course, I had to try it out, and here are the first two cards I've made.



I wanted a marble effect for the Roman gods, so I used starlight black, galaxy gold and moonlight white Brilliance inks. I inked up two pieces of paper. The first one took up some of the ink, then I picked up what was left with the second piece which gave it a lighter coverage. I used that piece for the background and stamped and clear embossed the image on the first piece.



For the second card I used pearlescent sky blue, pearlescent purple and pearlescent orchid. All stamps are Aspects of Design by The Stamp Man, except for the sentiment, which I think is by Papermania. Border punch is by Martha Stewart.

Meadow

Taking the colour removal technique a step further, I made this.



Using encaustic art card, the background was sponged with Distress inks, then the honesty seed pods were stamped in black and clear-embossed. I was thus able to remove the colour from them using a damp paintbrush without the water overflowing on to the rest of the background. I did the same for the campion flower near the centre, but having removed the background colour I then painted the flower with Distress inks. The remaining elements were simply stamped with Versamagic inks.

The picture was mounted on to an 8" x 8" card from Craftwork Cards, from where also came the background paper and the butterfly greeting. The butterfly was coloured with a Promarker. All stamps are Elusive Images from Graphicus, except for the trees in the background. The tiny fir trees are by Stampscapes, and the other tree is from Lavinia Stamps.

Bowing to the inevitable

Well, I've been a bit out of touch lately, having been away for the best part of two weeks, so I decided that now I'm back I'd better show willing & get on with some Christmas cards. I really don't know why the prospect doesn't fill me with enthusiasm. Maybe it's because I'd rather not start thinking of Christmas before December and then don't have enough time to spend on them and end up with rushed designs that I'm not happy with.

However, whatever the reason, I've managed to make a start. I've continued with the colour removal technique using Distress Inks as in my recent posts, with brass stencils this time to produce the backgrounds.

The teddy & cat stamp was free with a magazine, so I thought I might as well try it. It's a bit too cute for my liking, but that's okay because I won't be sending it to myself. I cut it out with one of my new Nestabilities Labels 8 set and coloured it with Promarkers. I wanted a border around it, but the next size up Nestie was too big, so I went around the edge with a Promarker instead. The greeting is from Craftwork Cards. The snowflake stencil was also a magazine freebie.

The poinsettia on the second card is made from a couple of Craftwork Cards flowers, originally white but coloured with Promarkers. Likewise the greeting. I couldn't avoid the gold lettering with the Promarker, but I found that I could remove the ink from it afterwards with the Promarker blender pen.The all-over holly stencil is one I've had for several years, and I'm afraid I can't remember where it was from. The scalloped border around the Cuttlebug-embossed circle, and the outer red border, were coloured with Promarkers to match the flower. Can you guess I'm really into Promarkers at the moment?! I love being able to co-ordinate everything with them. I nearly got carried away and coloured some ribbon to match as well, but then I found some paper lace hiding at the back of a drawer and decided to use that instead. Of course, I could have coloured that too, but I thought I'd leave it as it was to go with the white circle.



Well, that's two done. I feel better now!