Sir Stampalot September Challenge

We're back to a set theme for this month's Stampalot Challenge, and it is

It's A Frame Up

We want to see a frame somewhere on each project! Plenty of scope there, I think. Just make sure that your frame is an actual "feature" of the design, rather than simply matted layers. For my example, I took inspiration from an article by Emy Buxton in the July 2011 issue of Craft Stamper magazine, where she used stamping and masking to create a frame for a scrapbook page.

I made my frame by masking off a rectangle of the base card and stamping round the edge of the mask with tiny stamps by Rubber Stamp Tapestry, using VersaMagic inks. The picture inside the frame is from the Miniatures book "People & Places 2" by Crafty Individuals, and the card is completed with a sentiment by Darkroom Door. Quick and simple to make, but I love the effect of the floral frame.

Here's the delectable prize donated by Sir Stampalot this month! Check out those gorgeous ribbons! Some fab stamps too, and lots of other goodies, so get those entries in!

And on the subject of Sir S,  HOT news! Watch out for a new weekly feature that Sir Stampalot are promoting, starting tomorrow. It’ll be called ‘Freebie Friday’ and it’ll be sent to you via their email newsletter so if you haven’t already signed up, you’ll need to sign up before end of day today, here. 

Or use the “stay in touch… sign up to smudges” icon on the home page of their website (left hand column).

I started the new job this week. So far so good! Quite different from my previous one, in that I flit from school to school (9 schools in two days!) instead of being in one school for the whole day, but I have certainly enjoyed my first two days. And it's lovely to be able to drive to work through beautiful countryside. Bit of a hold up yesterday morning when I met the school bus which serves several local village schools coming towards me on a narrow country lane, and had to reverse so he could get past. One or two slow tractors as well, but I can cope with things like that! So much better than being stuck in traffic jams going into the city.

Went to have another look at our new house the other day. I'll leave you for now with a photo of the view from the window of what will be my new craft room! If it looks that good in the rain, imagine what it's like when it's sunny with blue skies! I can't wait until we can move in!

Clearly a challenge!

The theme for Week 11 at Less is More is "Acetate". Now this is one I like! A favourite technique of mine is to colour acetate with alcohol inks, to use either as a background or as an overlay. Here I've made an overlay for the Hero Arts Poppies.

I stamped the poppies on to white pearlescent card, which gives a lovely sheen to the picture through the acetate, although unfortunately it doesn't show up on the photo. The pearlescent card, being shiny, doesn't take ink very well, it tends to puddle a bit, so after it had dried I went over the solid black areas with a Promarker to make it nice and dense. I ran the card through my Xyron machine to put the adhesive on the right (picture) side, so that I could then stick the coloured acetate over the top, letting it overhang the picture a little so that when mounted on to the base card with foam pads you get a 3D effect.

To get the requisite white space, I mounted the picture on to an 8" x 8" card, and finished it off with a Darkroom Door sentiment.

Great challenge this week! I'm looking forward to seeing all the other entries.

A bit more ...... but not much!

Well, I sat down to make a Less is NOT More card (see previous post!), but when it came to it, I didn't put very much more on it! I think I must have become too used to the minimal style! Need more practice!

I made this card for my niece's birthday. She's not an overly fussy person, so it's probably best I didn't go overboard with it. I was lucky enough to be given a box full of bits and pieces recently. The after-school club at the school where I work had had several boxes full of cardmaking stash donated to them, but some of it wasn't really suitable for them to use. The teacher who runs the club asked me if I would like some! I didn't hesitate for long!

It was mostly paper and card, and embellishments such as the dress on this card. Not something I would have bought for myself, but seeing as I'd got it, I thought I would try and use it. It had a bit of rather naff string tied in a bow around the waist, so I took that off and added the pearls instead. I've just bought a couple of Darkroom Door background stamps, Floral, and Flourish. They're huge (cover the whole of an A6 card), and I've used the Floral one here, stamped in a pale pink Versamagic ink on a cream card.  Unfortunately it doesn't show up very well in the photo. You can see it a little better in the close up.

My camera doesn't seem to pick up creams and pale yellows very well. They come out a mucky looking grey! The spotty paper is by Papermania, with a Martha Stewart border punch and Nestabilities ovals. The sentiment is a very old one by Stamps Unlimited, who I don't think are around now.

It will be back to Less is More tomorrow, but after that.... I've just got some of the gorgeous new printed tags from Crafty Individuals, and they're definitely not clean and simple....

  

Less is More Challenge Week 2

Getting back into challenges is helping the lack of mojo I've been cursed with over the past few months, I think. I'm loving Less is More.  For week 2 they would like to see one-layer cards with a flower or tree. Apart from the fact that I do like the clean and simple look, I also like the fact that it doesn't take long to make! My entry for this month's Sir Stampalot challenge (see previous post) took me all day yesterday to produce. This one (randomly sponged background, Hero Arts tulip and Darkroom Door sentiment) took less than five minutes!

Normal service is resumed!

Back to my more usual style for this card. I love the look of the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals dies, but they are too big for the sort of things I'd want them for, so I decided to make my own distressed flowers using the EK Success retro flower punches. I wanted them to look as though they were made from old book pages. I've been wanting to do this for quite some time. However, I couldn't bring myself to tear the pages out of a book! A friend of mine even gave me an old book which she'd got specially for me to use, but it was a book of wild flowers with some lovely old pictures in, and I just couldn't do it! I thought I would scan them instead. Then I found a website where you can download copyright free books, so I printed some pages from that and made them look old with Distress Inks (Tumbled Glass and Antique Linen, which I also used on the butterfly and sentiment). Having punched out the flowers I just tore the edges of the petals a bit & then inked around them. Not quite the same as Tim's, but near enough to the look I wanted.

The background paper is a digital download from Two Peas in a Bucket, one of the "Art Papers III" digital kit by Vinnie Pearce. The text-printed leaves on it went perfectly with my flowers. It's such a pretty paper that I kept the embellishments to a minimum so as not to hide it. The photo doesn't do it justice. The punched butterfly is overstamped with Hero Arts "Delicate Vine", and the sentiment is by Darkroom Door. The lace and ribbon came from my late mother's stash. She was a crafter, though her speciality was in fabrics and dried flower arranging. She was also a hoarder and loved a bargain, with the result that she had more materials stashed away than she was ever likely to use. I think I've inherited the tendency! But if that's the price of also inheriting her love of arts and crafts and making things, it's one I'm happy to pay!

Butterflies and Blossoms, and my favourite things!

Well, some of my favourite things! The Sir Stampalot Challenge for May is right up my street, as is the prize! Butterflies and/or blossoms tend to appear on most of my cards, and anything by Tim Holtz would find a good home in my craft room, so this is one challenge I couldn't miss.

The only materials I've used for this card are paper and one shade of ink. Having finally managed to get my hands on some of the new Distress inks, I think Chipped Sapphire is going to become my favourite colour. More of a purply-blue than the denim of Faded Jeans, and just what I was hoping there would be in the new range. The flower stamp is an old favourite, by Funstamps. I've had it for years but use it often, as it's so pretty and versatile. Here I've used a favourite technique to colour it. I'm not sure what it's really called, but I call it the magic painting technique, because it reminds me of those children's painting books which appear to have blank pages until you paint over them with plain water, and the picture magically appears. I used to love them when I was a child (and confess I still do!).

I stamped the image with Chipped Sapphire, and then, with a fine paint brush and clean water, drew out some of the colour from the outline to shade it in. By using more or less water and blotting areas you want to be paler, it's possible to vary the depth of colour. When I've used this technique before, I've always done it with Adirondack rainbow inkpads, and this is the first time I've tried it with a single colour, but I really like the result. The Distress ink works perfectly for it. And to think that when Distress inks first came out, I didn't see what all the fuss was about! Now I wouldn't be without them.

The background stamp is Dots & Flowers by Hero Arts, the sentiment by Darkroom Door, the circle and oval shapes were cut with my Nestabilities and the butterflies were punched from paper coloured with the Chipped Sapphire ink. The overall effect reminds me of Delft Pottery. And, of course, blue and white is one of my favourite colour combinations.