More Bits & Pieces

You could have knocked me down with the proverbial feather when I found out that my entry into Crafty Individuals' May Challenge had been picked by Malcolm as one of the five winners! This was my winning project (also my DT sample for Stamping Sensations May Challenge). For details of how I made it, and more photos, see my earlier blog post here.

My  prize was a free stamp of my choice. I chose the beautiful Butterfly Trio Panel, which I have long admired but for some strange reason never got round to buying, so I was delighted to have the chance to add it to my collection.

The first thing I made with it was a thank you card for Jean and Malcolm.

I embossed it with copper embossing powder on to black card, diecut the corner of the card with a Sizzix/Tim Holtz die and matted it with a paper from Crafty Individuals' "Travels In Italy" background paper book. The girl image is from the Crafty Individuals A4 Glossy Sheet "Domino", mounted on to Spelbinders diecuts. The smaller diecut is also copper-embossed around the edge. Sentiment by Crafty Individuals (a freebie). Can you tell they're one of my favourite stamp companies?! Not only for their stamps, but also for all the other gorgeous bits and pieces they sell to go with them!

I am, though, still loving my Altenew stamps, particular the "Beautiful Day" set, which I have used again for a birthday card for a friend.

She asked me to put it on my blog and explain how I made it. Hmm! I think it was actually much easier to make than to describe the method! But I'll have a go!

1. Stamped the silhouette part of the flower twice and the leaf spray three times on to post-it notes and cut them out to use as masks.
2. Stamped the left hand flower (four-part stamping) and masked it.
3. Stamped the right hand flower and masked that too.
4. Stamped the leaves three times and masked them all.
5. Keeping all the masks in place, sponged the entire background with various colours of pigment inks.
6. Overstamped with the harlequin and text stamps (Cherry Pie), butterfly (Chocolate Baroque) and flower sprays (from the Altenew set). The harlequin stamp was only partially inked as I didn't want the hard edges to show.
7. Removed all masks.
8. Sighed with relief, as that's the point where you find out whether the design has worked!
9. Coloured the butterfly and added shading around it and the main flowers and leaves with pencil crayon to make them stand out a bit.
10.Sponged pigment ink around the edges of the picture to define them.
11. Mounted it on to a 6" x 6" blank card.
Phew! Definitely easier to do than to describe!

Since I wasn't able to get to the recent Stamp Magic show (see my previous post) I decided I was fully justified in cheering myself up by spending the petrol money I saved on new stamps! Thank goodness for mail order! Haven't had time to ink them up yet, but the school hols will be here in a couple of weeks so watch this space! Thanks for looking!

Butterflies and Blossoms 2

I've been wanting to make an exploding box for ages. I got as far as making the box and decorating the outside a while ago, but never finished the inside. Anyway, finding myself with some time when for once I had nothing I needed to do and nowhere I needed to go, I set to work and completed it. And since I had always intended it to be on my favourite theme of butterflies and flowers, and since the Sir Stampalot Challenge this month is just that, and since the challenge allows two entries as long as they are different types, I'm entering it along with the card I made earlier!

Here's the closed box. The papers and butterflies are from the Artylicious Butterfly Bliss CD, with Prima flowers.

Inside there are three layers. The square printed pictures are from Crafty Individuals, stamps also by Crafty Individuals along with Cherry Pie and Art Impressions. Other decorations include stickers, more Prima flowers and text printed from my computer.

Looking down on the inner layer:

Middle layer:

And finally the outer layer:

I've really enjoyed this challenge, and all the other entries I've looked at so far are gorgeous. Of course, I know we wouldn't want the butterfly theme every month, but...... maybe every few months?? ;-)

Miniature landscapes

Had a hectic week. Both my computer and my car have needed attention, and we had family to stay at the weekend, so I haven't had much time for crafting or blogging. However, I did manage to get a few cards made.

I was inspired by a project from the New Designs Clarity Club by the wonderful Barbara Gray, owner and inventor of Clarity Stamps. The project showed how to make landscapes using frame stamps and masking. They are quite simple to do but look very effective. I tried out a couple of Barbara's ideas to get used to the method, and then came up with a few designs of my own.

The backgrounds are sponged with torn paper masks to create the hills and then overstamped. On the two square cards I've used a Cherry Pie landscape stamp (all one stamp). The large silver birch in the background on the white square card is by
Beeswax.



The ferns and grass on the blue card are from Crafty Individuals.





On the purple card I've used some Craftwork Cards stamps for the tiny landscapes. These actually qualify as inchies. I think the grasses in the background are by
Stampscapes.


It's a bit difficult to see some of the detail in the small photos, but if you click on them to open the larger image they are much clearer.

Back to work

Creative Lynks has a nice new look to begin the New Year! Thanks very much to Lesley, aka The Messy Crafter for pointing me in the direction of The Cutest Blog on the Block.com, who supply free backgrounds. Unfortunately their site is experiencing problems at the moment, but hopefully they'll soon be resolved.

It was a bit of a shock to the system, going back to work after the Christmas break, but at last my cold has gone, & I'm coping! I've even managed to make some ATCs for the Crafty Individuals ATC competition. There are so many talented artists who send samples to the Crafty Individuals gallery that I'm not expecting to win anything, but in true ATC tradition, all entries will be swapped, & I'm looking forward to getting some back in return for mine. The card class restarts this Wednesday, & I'm going to do ATCs for that. I'm quite addicted to making ATCs. I think it's their small size that appeals to me. Also they're quick to make and can become the focal point of a card if you need one in a hurry. I'm not going to post my competition entries here until after the closing date! But here are some I made earlier.

All of the people depicted in this first set are members of my family, grandparents and great grandparents.



The second set uses facsimile cigarette cards with stamped backgrounds. I tried to go for an aged look with these.



The "stamp" stamps in the next two are by Cherry Pie. Their website has some wonderful samples in their galleries.



The final two use mostly Crafty Individuals stamps.