Another garden card

Just a quick reminder of our July challenge at Stamping Sensations, where our theme, sponsored by Crafty Individuals, is "In My Garden".

Again, I've used stamps by Crafty Individuals, along with some of their masks and one of their gorgeous new background sheets. The sentiment is by Personal Impressions, the butterfly die by Cheery Lynn.

There's still plenty of time to enter the challenge. For full details, challenge rules, and more stunning samples from my talented teamies, check out the challenge blog at Stamping Sensations.

It's getting nearer.....

.... and I have made hardly any Christmas cards yet! Still, at least I have made a start, with a card for our November theme at Stamping Sensations, which is

* * * * * FESTIVE FLOWERS AND FOLIAGE * * * * *

Can't really go wrong with this one - Christmas roses, holly and ivy, poinsettias, mistletoe, winter jasmine, even amaryllis, snowdrops and more! You may use any materials you choose, from any company. All we ask is that you use a stamp as the main focus of your design.

We are sponsored this month by be Creative!, who very kindly have donated a fantastic prize: a great selection (around £60 worth!) of their products, including papers, glitter glues, blending tools and refills, glue wand, tags, loads of embellishments and, to top it all, one of their fabulous totes to keep everything in!

Be Creative! are a new company, in fact so new that their website is not scheduled to go live until December, but you can check them out on their Facebook page. However, if you can't wait that long to get your hands on their stuff, you can buy it now from Once Upon A Stamp. Only some of the products are on their website, but they are all available from their shop, if you're local to them, or by telephoning your order to them on 01623 818910.

I am very impressed by the Be Creative paper pads. The paper is such good quality, and it's also double sided. I used a sheet from the "Winterland" pad for my card.

To echo the printed trees on the paper, I stamped and cut out a tree (from Stampin' Up's "Lovely As A Tree" set) and affixed it to the card with foam pads. I diecut the poinsettias (Marianne Design) from one of the "Winterland" papers and punched out the fern leaves (Leone Em) from metallic green paper (from my stash). I used a Be Creative glue wand to assemble the poinsettias and fasten them and the fern leaves in place. As the glue wand has a fine ball tip, it is very easy to apply the glue to small, delicate or fiddly items. It sticks really well too! I dotted the centres of the flowers and the stamped tree with glitter glue (also from Be Creative) and finished the design with a sentiment from Personal Impressions.

If, like me, you are still needing inspiration for your Christmas makes, you'll find plenty over on the Stamping Sensations Challenge Blog. Please do visit my teamies' individual blogs too, they would really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing all your lovely Festive Floral creations!

Baby Cards!

No, not congratulatory notes for newborns. It's the missives themselves that are miniature! I found some cute little 3" x 3" blank cards in The Range the other day and couldn't resist them. I like making things on a miniature scale. I also wanted to try out some new stamps I got recently, from Art Journey and Stampinback, so I decided to see if they and the cards would work together.

The cards are so small that they would be swamped by lots of embellishments. Instead, I opted for one-layer designs. Having first masked a border around each card, I sponged the backgrounds with pigment inks and then, with the masks still in place, stamped over with various meadow/grasses type stamps (mostly by Inkylicious apart from one which I've had for years which has no ID, though several companies now produce the same image in varying sizes).

Next I removed the masks and stamped the main foreground images. The bottom ones in the above picture are by Stampinback, the top ones are by Art Journey. Had to have a butterfly in there somewhere (Justrite), and finished the cards with sentiments by Personal Impressions.

 Here are a couple of them close up.

Having finished the baby cards I thought I would make a larger version. Same details, except that the sentiment is by Hobby Art.

 And here is the big one and a baby one! Cute or what?!

Is it Spring??

Well, it's April, so it must be, but it sure doesn't feel like it up here! Although the last few days have been sunny, it's still very cold, and there is still snow on the ground in places. And looking at the weather forecast for the next few weeks, I won't be putting my thermals away just yet!

Anyway, it really is April, even if the weather doesn't think so, and we have a new challenge at Stamping Sensations. The theme is

** SPECIAL OCCASIONS, OTHER THAN BIRTHDAYS **

Lots of scope with this one. Anniversaries, weddings, new babies, retirement, graduation, new home, get well soon, congratulations (eg. for new job, passing exams, driving test) even sympathy cards. I'm sure you can think of many other Special Occasions. Just remember NO BIRTHDAYS!

Mind you, the winner this month will probably think it's their birthday! Our April sponsors are PDA Card & Craft, and they have given us this most generous prize!

The lucky recipient will be spoilt for choice! I used to live near PDA, and I miss being able to pop into the shop for a good browse! However, their mail order service is brilliant, so at least I can still buy their products. They are probably best known for their fantastic selection of top quality blank card and paper, but they have lots of other craft goodies too, including stamps (from many companies), dies and stencils, a huge range of embellishments, pens, punches, inks (including Distress), embossing powders, adhesives and beautiful printed papers, one of which I have used for my card.  I've been saving it for a long time, it's almost too pretty to use! But I decided it would be perfect for this card, and anyway I've got another sheet to keep!

PDA also stock the Marianne Design frame die, which I used to cut out the butterfly image. The butterfly stamp is one I've had for years, and I've no idea who made it, it doesn't have any ID on it. I coloured the image with Promarkers and inked around the edges of the frame, and along the border. The butterfly punch used to make the border is also anonymous. It's actually a corner punch, but I took out the corner guides so I could do the border instead. I coloured one of the punched out butterflies and stuck it just above the sentiment, which is by Personal Impressions.

My lovely teamies have some superb samples for you to feast your eyes upon, and if they don't brighten up this unspringlike Spring, I don't know what will! Do hop over to the Challenge Blog and have a look at them. I'll look foward to seeing your Special Occasion creations!

More Fur and Feathers at Stamping Sensations

Just a quick reminder that our theme at Stamping Sensations this month is Fur and Feathers. Entries are coming in nicely, but there's still plenty of time to enter if you haven't already. I've made a couple more cards on the theme to show you.

For the first one I tried to think outside the box and came up with this Art Deco lady with her feather headdress.

She's a stamp which came free with DoCrafts Magazine, and I coloured her with Promarkers and cut her out with a Nestie die. The feather stamped on the base card is one I've had in my stash for many years. I found it in an oddments bin in a shop somewhere. There are no maker's details on it. Until now, I had never used it! Each time I've had a clearout over the last few years I've decided it could go and then changed my mind at the last minute, thinking that just maybe I might have a use for it one day. That day came. Finally, my hoarding of stash is justified!

The dark BP was free with Making Cards mag. The sentiment is by Hero Arts, stamped on a Nestie label, with real feathers, photo corners and feather charm from my stash. I added a couple of stick-on gems to her headdress and sash for a bit of bling.

I went back to the obvious for my second card, which I've called Mysterious Forest!

The birch trees are made with a Crafter's Workshop Mask (it's called Aspen Trees, but I reckon they're birches!). I sponged the background through the mask, and then shaded the trees to give them a bit of dimension. You'll find several little creatures hiding amongst the branches. A Little Claire's owl (small part of a large stamp), a Lindsay Mason squirrel, a Hobby Art deer, and a Crafty Individuals butterfly, again a (very tiny!) part of a stamp. The foreground grasses are by Inkylicious, and the sentiment is from IndigoBlu. The badger (mounted on Stix2 foam pads) is by Personal Impressions.

 There are lots of gorgeous cards entered for the challenge so far, and I think it's going to be very difficult for us to choose a winner! I wonder if it will be yours.......

Less is More Week 62

Well, it's been quite some time since I last made something for the Less is More Challenge. Nine months, believe it or not! Just before the move up to Scotland. Since then, other things have had to come first, but at last I have time to enter again. The topic this week is "Three shades of green".

I immediately thought of paint samples, and found the perfect one. I stamped over it with one of my favourite Chocolate Baroque images, and added a greeting (Personal Impressions). Quick and easy, clean and simple, right? Wrong! Three cards went in the bin before I got one right! The problem was that the paint sample card was non absorbent, and very difficult to stamp on to without the stamp slipping. I tried various different stamps and inks until I got a combination that worked. In the end I used Archival ink. Anyway, here it is.

It's very green up here just now! After a few weeks with very little rain, we've had quite a lot over the past few days. The sheep in the field next door are certainly enjoying the fresh new grass.

And yesterday there was a beautiful rainbow.

Finally, specially for Sally, a photo of The Tree, at sunset. This tree is quite a landmark hereabouts, and Sally and Megan were really taken with it when they came up to stay last week. We all agreed it should be made into a stamp!



Legs is More!

Rushing around again at the last minute for Less is More this week. I'm exceptionally busy with work, coming up to the end of term and my final week (after 28 years and one term!) at school here, before I start my new job in Scotland after the summer hols.

The LIM week 23 theme is a one layer card to include something with legs. Had to make it quick, so I stamped this little sandpiper (Impression Obsession) and just added a bit of colour with watercolour pencils. Sentiment by Paula Pascual for Personal Impressions. All that white space - scary!!

Any left-handers out there?

I made a card! My first of 2011! I wouldn't say I'm back in the groove quite yet, but at least it's a start. Although there's no lack of inclination - I want to do it - I'm still struggling to find motivation. I don't think they are one and the same.

Anyway, here's what I made. I really like the clean and simple cards which Joanne Wardle showed in her article in the October 2010 Craft Stamper, and which were so beautifully demonstrated by the Craft Stamping Quartet in their challenge showcasing Joanne's work. The link goes to Lesley Ebdon's post, but see also the three subsequent posts.

I also love the masked landscape technique which I first saw done by Barbara Gray a few years ago, and which I first tried back here. Recently there have been several people doing something similar, linking back to Heather Telford, who has some wonderful examples on her blog, including a tutorial. Do go and have a look at it.

I didn't want just to copy what other people had been doing, so I sort of combined the two techniques and came up with this:

I *think* it works - what do you think? To make the shape of the landscape I cut a mask out of acetate (so that I would be able to see where I was placing things) large enough to cover the card, and then sponged the design with VersaMagic inks and torn paper masks. The tree stamps are by Clarity Stamp, the small and medium versions. The landscape was made entirely with the small tree, using just the edge to stamp the little bushes. The larger tree and the sentiment (Personal Impressions) were then stamped with VersaFine ink.

I was quite pleased with the outcome, considering how long it is since I made anything, except for one thing. You can tell it's been a while. The finished card turned out like this!!

I'd totally forgotten to check which way the card opened before I started stamping on it! The perils of stamping straight on to the card! I was so annoyed! I thought the best way to redeem it would be to cut off the picture side and mount it on to another card, but that wouldn't be the perfect solution. Then it occured to me that it might just be appreciated as it is by someone who is left handed! I'll have to test the theory on a left handed friend......

Serendipity!

"Drat!" I thought, when I dropped my Memento Rich Cocoa dew drop ink pad, ink side down of course, on to the pristine sheet of white paper I was just about to stamp on.

Then, "Hmm," I thought, "that looks like a petal." So I dropped it a few more times.

Then I cut out the shapes and made a flower!

Papers: Basic Grey (Capella), punches: Martha Stewart, sentiment: Personal Impressions.

Had a funny old week, busy at work, and then decided to catch up with various little jobs which I've been meaning to do for ages but somehow never got round to, mostly sewing and mending. Yesterday was such a glorious day weather wise that we decided to go out for a walk, just a few miles around our local area, but it was good to get out and get some fresh air and exercise. My pre-new year resolution is to get more exercise! I spend far too long on the computer. I'm sure that the act of switching one on enters you into a time warp, so that you think you've been there for half an hour, but in reality it's more like three hours! I'm sure many of you will know what I mean!  Anyway, we both enjoyed the walk & I took some photos along the way, including this beautiful holly tree, such a lovely shape and laden with berries, in the local cemetery.



If only the weather was like that every weekend! Hope you all had a good one too.



Leaves et Lumiere!

One of the things I did when I was decluttering was to go through the 10+ years' worth of magazines which were taking up so much space, taking out the pages I wanted to keep (putting them in ring binders) and giving away the rest. It took quite some time! Many of the magazines were Stampington publications: Somerset Studio, Take Ten, Stampers' Sampler, etc. In the September/October 2000 issue of Somerset Studio I had marked a project that I really liked the look of, intending one day to use it for inspiration. Well, I finally got round to it!

It was a beautiful framed picture by Leslie Altman. She had painted a gingko leaf with Lumiere paints and photocopied it against black paper. She had then overstamped the copy, matted it with various papers and mounted it into an ornate frame. I liked the way she had enhanced the leaf whilst still allowing its simple beauty to shine through.

No gingko trees in our garden, but I collected a few leaves and painted them with the Lumiere paints. When they were dry I tried scanning them against the black paper, but my scanner didn't pick up the colours very well, so I photographed them instead, with much better results. I printed out the pictures on to a matt photo quality inkjet paper, and then stamped over them with a text stamp (Stampin' Up) using Brilliance Galaxy Gold ink.

The first leaf, an ivy, was painted with turquoise and purple Lumiere paints (although the turquoise has come out more green in the photo) so I used some purple patterned paper to pick up the tones in the leaf, along with some black paper stamped with a Stampington flourish in gold Brilliance ink. However, when it was finished I decided I didn't like it. The background papers seemed to be competing with the leaf for attention. (Leslie's didn't! Maybe I just used the wrong papers. I'd love to put a copy of Leslie's original here, but I don't think copyright will allow it.) Anyway, I kept the next ones clean and simple.

In these three cards the leaves are clearly the focal point, with just a little subtle stamping to complement them, and I think they are much better. The leaf stamps are all by Starving Artistamps, except for the oak leaf, which is from an old foam mounted set for which I long ago lost the labels, unfortunately. The little "Autumn" stamp is by Hero Arts, and the sentiments are Personal Impressions. Here's a closer look at each of them. Click on the photos to get the big picture and see the detail better!

Oak.

Wild rose.

Herb Robert.

So, thanks for looking. What do you think? Are the simple ones better? My favourite is the wild rose. When I had got the photo on the computer I played around with it a bit, changing the colours. I'll post the pics of those when I've made the cards!