Blooming Marvellous!

Time for our February Challenge at Stamping Sensations, and what better theme to brighten up this cold, gloomy month than

* * * * * ANYTHING WITH FLOWERS * * * * *

I have a feeling this is going to be a very popular topic, and of course, the scope is endless, but please do remember that the main focus of your project must be stamped and must comply with the theme (ie. your creation should be all about the flowers, not just a couple of tiny ones hiding in the background!) if you want it to be eligible for the prizes or top 3.

Our fab sponsor this month is Bee Crafty, who have given us a fantastic £25 voucher for our winner to spend in their online shop. I've used one of their stamps, the Backdrop Frames Splatter Swirl Upright Rectangle for my sample.

 I stamped it directly on to the front of the base card and cut away the inside of the frame. On a separate piece of card I stamped the tulips (Technique Tuesday), coloured them with watercolour pencils, masked them and stamped the text background (Stampin' Up). I then adhered the image behind the frame. The butterflies (Dovecraft) and sentiment (Hobby Art) are also stamped on to the base card.

I love most flowers, and tulips are a particular favourite. My daughter surprised me with this beautiful bunch the other day.

I'm looking forward to seeing lots of lovely flowers in this month's entries, tulips or not! I'm sure you'll have plenty of your own inspiration for your floral projects, but do go and look at my amazing teamies' creations as well, they're absolutely gorgeous! You'll find them here on the Challenge Blog. Let's brighten up this frosty February with some flower power!

Another tile

This time I stamped the poppies (Technique Tuesday) on to the tile with Brilliance ink and clear embossed it, stippled the background with Be Creative alcohol ink markers as in my previous post, then coloured the poppies with the markers. I rather like the stained glass effect.

Orange!

It's my turn to make a mid-month sample for Stamping Sensations. The current challenge for the DT mid-month posts is to create a project using our least favourite colour to work with.

My first thought was, of course, that it would have to be pink. I'm certainly not a lover of pink.My favourite colour is blue, followed by purples and greens, cool colours. However, I do use pink now and again in my cards, albeit the softer, dusky shades which, depending on what I'm making and in combination with certain other colours, I actually quite like. It's the hot, bright pinks that I really dislike. However, the colour even less likely to figure in my work is orange. I would use it in small amounts along with greens, reds, yellows and browns for an autumn theme, but not as a main colour, so I decided to go with it for my mid-month sample.


Hmm! Easier said than done! I have very little in the way of orange card or papers in my stash! A search produced a few sheets in shades of coral, peach and apricot in a 6"x 6" multi pack, and an odd A4 sheet in a slightly brighter orange which I used to cover the front of the card.

To fit in with this month's theme of Anything Goes With A Stamp And A Die, I chose a couple of Spellbinder dies, and the gorgeous poppy stamp from Technique Tuesday. I coloured the image with Promarkers and was unable to resist adding a touch of pale turquoise for contrast. In the end I was happy wih the result, in fact I quite liked it, but I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy more orange papers!

We've had lots of lovely entries already for our August Challenge, but there is still plenty of time to enter if you are inspired by this or any of my teamies' beautiful projects on the Challenge Blog, and don't forget that there is the fabulous prize of a £50 voucher from Tattered Lace for the lucky winner! Thanks for looking!

Five Favourite Stamps!

Our current mid-month challenge for the DT at Stamping Sensations is to choose our five favourite stamps and make something using some or all of them. This month it's my turn. Five stamps??! I have hundreds, if not thousands of stamps in my collection! How can I possibly choose just five favourites?! If I were to think in terms of favourite stamps, it would probably be my newest, or whatever I happened to be working with at the time. However, let's try and narrow it down a bit.

My favourite topics are nature themed - trees, butterflies, flowers, grasses, country scenes, etc.  so my preferred stamps are likely to come from those categories. I could pick any of Chocolate Baroque's flowers or butterflies, for instance, or just about anything at all by Inkylicious. I tried to make a shortlist, but by the time I was on to the third A4 sheet (of narrow-lined paper!) I gave up!

In the end I decided to think about which stamps I find myself reaching for most often and have selected five of those. That was today. Tomorrow it could well be a different five!

Anyway, here's what I've made. As well as the stamps, three of my cards also use diecuts, to reflect this month's challenge theme of Dies and Punches. Don't get me started on favourite dies.....!

My first card uses one of my oldest stamps, a butterfly by Hero Arts. The original is wood mounted, since then I have also acquired the later clear and cling versions! To me it's just the perfect butterfly, both in shape and in scope for colouring.

Backing paper  - Docrafts Papermania, diecuts - Spellbinders, music stamp - Stampington, sentiment - Technique Tuesday, butterfly coloured with watercolour pencils and cut out by hand.

Next another oldie, by Funstamps, bought over 20 years ago in 1994! I still often use this anemone stamp as its fine lines and open areas make it ideal for one of my favourite techniques; using a waterbrush to draw the ink out of the stamped image to colour it in, as I have done here.

Backing paper - Prima, circle die - Joycrafts, border die - Die-namics, butterfly die - Cheery Lynn, sentiment - Prickley Pear, image stamped with Distress Inks.

My third stamp is probably in danger of becoming worn out, I have used it so often! It makes a regular appearance not just on Christmas cards, but all year round, although sometimes you wouldn't recognise it as it can make excellent little bushes or shrubs when turned on its side. The background tree group is from the same set, and I almost chose that stamp as my favourite instead of the single tree. But I think I've used the single one more.

Both tree stamps are from the "Lovely As A Tree" set by Stampin' Up, Sentiment by Inkylicious. I used a Spellbinder die as a mask to make the background, along with my Inkylicious Ink Dusters and Mountain Valley Stencil, and Memento inks.

My final two choices are both by Inkylicious. It was really hard just to pick two of theirs, as I love ALL their nature stamps. Stamp No. 4 is a fairly new one, which combines trees and grasses into a scene but which can have different looks according to how the background is done, so it was high on my list.

Again, I used an Inkylicious Mountain Valley Stencil along with the ink dusters and Memento Inks to make the background before stamping the image. The pheasant is by Clarity Stamp, and it was cut out and added afterwards.

Finally, Stamp No. 5. I've saved the best till last! You probably won't be surprised to find that this one was top of my list right from the start, and if I had to choose my single most favourite stamp ever, this would be it! It is, of course, the Old Beech Tree - "my" tree, (not really mine, sadly, but I see it every day across the fields from my house), which Deby at Inkylicious so cleverly made into a stamp for me.

I used a Spellbinders die as a mask to make the ink dusted background, cut it out with the same die and adhered it to the card with foam pads. "Delicate Vines" stamped around the edge of the card, sentiment cut out with a Spellbinders ribbon tag die (I cut off the ribbon slots).  All stamps by Inkylicious.

Hard though it was, I've really enjoyed choosing my five "favourite" stamps and making my cards with them, and thanks for looking at them. There's still plenty of time to enter the Stamping Sensations January Challenge and be in with a chance of winning the fabulous Sizzix dies. We hope to see you there!

Floating.....

Yes, I know, two posts in one day from me must come as a bit of a shock! However, I came across a rather gorgeous background technique on Pinterest and couldn't wait to try it out. It's called reinker float. Basically you emboss a design on to your card, soak it with water and then "float" the reinkers on the water so that they spread and merge. I won't go into all the details now as you can see just how to do it in a tutorial by Selene Kempton here.

I don't have any "shimmer white cardstock" (which Selene recommends and which I presume is from Stampin' Up), so I used some pearlescent card which seemed to work fine. (Bought it a long time ago so can't remember exactly what type it is, but I think it was from PDA and the colour is "ice white".) The main criterion is that the card should hold the water on top rather than absorbing it. 

Most times when I try a new technique it takes several goes before I master it to my satisfaction, but I'm actually quite pleased with my first attempt at this one! Of course it helped that it was easy to do! Using the pearlescent card gives it a lovely shimmer, almost mother-of-pearl like. The photo doesn't do it justice. 

The flower stamp is by Technique Tuesday. I stamped it with Versamark ink and embossed with clear powder (you could also use white powder but I wanted the sheen of the card to show through). Having thoroughly soaked it, I then dropped on Distress reinkers (Dusty Concord, Shaded Lilac and Antique Linen).  The card didn't need much besides the flower panel to finish it off. (Sentiment by Technique Tuesday, butterfly by Justrite, paper flower by Prima.)

I had avoided joining Pinterest until very recently, knowing that if I did I would end up spending quite a lot of time there! However, I've succumbed, and I'm so glad I did! There is so much inspiration out there and my boards are filling up very quickly. That's why I wanted to give this a go straight away rather than spend so much time browsing that I never got round to making anything. Must keep that thought in mind.......

Gelli prints

Been getting messy with my Gelli plate.....

The pile of prints is growing!

Made a card with the one bottom left in the first photo. (Butterfly: Chocolate Baroque; Flower: Technique Tuesday; Text on background:Hero Arts; Sentiment: Inkylicious; Label: Spellbinders.)

Now, what to do with the others.......