My favourite themes!

I'm loving the Stamping Sensations May Challenge, as our theme combines three of my favourites! Of course, it's

* * * * * BUTTERFLIES, FAIRIES, AND FANTASY * * * * *

So much scope for beautiful designs and colours. It's the perfect opportunity to ink up all those butterflies, fairies, and other magical images, the choice is up to you. However, we do need to see something stamped and associated with the theme as the focal point (ie. the main image) on your artwork: a small punched or die cut butterfly will not suffice. We don't have many challenge rules (check them out here), but there are a few things we insist on to make it fair for everyone, so please do make sure your project qualifies if you want to be considered for our prize or top three.

And it is a superb prize this month! The stunning Mariposa Butterfly Collection of dies by Couture Creations.

Couldn't resist making two samples this time. My first is a card.

All stamps by Lavinia Stamps. (The tiny birds were hand drawn,) I think this fairy is my all time favourite fairy stamp! The background was made with Distress Oxide inks. They were great for this theme as I found I could get lovely misty, ethereal effects with them.

The idea for my second project came when I saw some logs that my DH was chopping for the fire. One had a sloping face, which I then sanded smooth, stamped on to (stamps by Inkylicious), and coloured with Distress Oxide inks. Once it was all dry, I polished it with wax polish to seal and protect it, covered the base with a piece of self adhesive baize, and I now have a handy paperweight!

Needless to say, I can't wait to see this month's entries! And my teamies have come up with some stunning samples to inspire you, so check them out on the Challenge Blog and then see what you can come up with. Good luck everyone!

Fairy Nuff!

We have a new challenge for you at Stamping Sensations, one which I've really enjoyed making a card for, and I hope you will too! A bit of escapism, just the thing to take our minds off the miserable weather we've been having lately! We'd like you to show us your creations on the theme of

*** WINGS, FANTASY AND FICTION ***

We're thinking butterflies, fairies and mythical or fictional characters here, but you are of course free to interpret the theme however you like.

Our fantastic sponsor this month is Crafty Devils, see the Challenge Blog for details of the prize they have generously donated.

Anyway, on to my card. I bought the Lavinia Stamps Hobbit Home stamp ages ago, but had been waiting for a suitable occasion to use it. It was perfect for this challenge!

All the stamps I've used here are by Lavinia Stamps. As you can see, I partially cut around the door so I could open it, and made a little scene to put behind it. (The tree, hill and birds are hand drawn.)

 Background papers are Bo Bunny "Autumn Song", butterfly and leaf dies by Cheery Lynn, and sentiment by Stampingallday. Circle and scallop circle dies are Nestabilities.

Butterflies and fairies are two of my favourite things, so I can't wait to see all your gorgeous projects! Thanks for looking at mine, and keep those entries coming in!

Butterflies!

Less is More has my favourite subject for Week 16's challenge - Butterflies! Great, I thought! But since butterflies tend to make an appearance on many of my cards, even if only tiny, coming up with something I haven't already done before wasn't so easy! Fortunately I hadn't yet got round to using my new Aspects of Design Framie 5 stamps bought a while ago from The Stamp Man, so this was the ideal opportunity.

Very simple, just cut out the stamped image with the matching Nestie (Labels 5) and coloured it with Cosmic Shimmer paints. Added the sentiment (Inkylicious).  Then stamped a flight of Crafty Individuals butterflies across the bottom.

Card number 2 is already in the making!

Therapy!

Earlier this evening I spent a very restful half hour painting butterflies! I used to love "colouring in" when I was a child, and still do. I know I'm not the only one. There is definitely something therapeutic about it.

The butterflies were flying Off the Edge of the card, that being the theme for Week 6 of the Less is More Challenge. I couldn't resist a second entry this week.  The butterflies came from a little set which I bought some time ago in T**cos, (or it might have been S****burys, can't remember now. Nothing on them to say who made them). I painted them with Cosmic Shimmer paints. The two-tone effect of the paints is gorgeous, but unfortunately it doesn't show up on the photo. The sentiment is by Hero Arts. I could happily have covered the entire card with the butterflies, and spent all evening painting them, but since the challenge requires plenty of white space, I thought I'd better restrain myself!

All Creatures Great and Small

That's the title of the Sir Stampalot February'11 Challenge. Of course, for me that had to mean butterflies. I have very few other animal stamps. Here I've used the huge Elusive Images butterfly, on an 8" x 8" card. The background is sprayed with Glimmer Mists (after masking a circle for the sun) and then stamped with Hero Arts grasses and some tiny butterflies from Crafty Individuals. The text stamp is by Katzelcraft.

To colour the big butterfly, I laid the uninked, unmounted stamp on the paper and drew a faint pencil line around its outline, and filled it in by sponging with various pigment inks. Then I stamped the butterfly on top with Versafine Onyx Black ink. Had I stamped first and then coloured, the black would have been subdued. I could have stamped first and embossed with clear powder to protect the black before colouring, but I think it would have been more difficult then to get a smooth blending of colours. I was pleased with the result, anyway. Hope you like it too!

Butterfly frills

I'm sorry I haven't been getting round to comment on everyone's blogs lately. I'm afraid real life has had to intervene for a while. I'm still in the process of dealing with my late father's estate, which has taken a very long time, but hopefully the end is now in sight and I will then be able to relax and put my mind back to crafting.

I noticed the other day that S****burys were advertising a new product - decorative cupcake frills. And the decoration was butterflies! Naturally I lost no time in getting to my local store to procure a pack. They are really pretty and delicate: pure white butterflies interspersed with little flowers.

Now, it would be a crime to waste them on cupcakes, wouldn't it? So....

Sir Stampalot July Challenge

The theme for the Sir Stampalot July Challenge is Lazy Hazy Days of Summer. There's not much that says summer to me more than poppies, so when I found a pack of gorgeous poppy design napkins in S****burys I thought they'd be just right to make a card with.

As you can see, they are rather bold and bright, so a large size base card was called for, in this case an 8" x 8" one from Craftwork Cards. I wasn't quite sure what to do at first, as the large, bright flowers would overwhelm any image I tried to put with them. However, when I separated the layers of the napkin, I found that the middle layer had picked up some colour from the printed top layer, and was in effect printed with a ghost image of the poppies. Perfect! It became the background for my card, with a narrow border sponged around the edge with Barn Door Distress Ink.

Next I glued the top layer to a piece of thin card to strengthen it and cut out some of the flowers and leaves. These made a border down the side of the card along with a strip of paper coloured with the Barn Door DI and cut with a Martha Stewart punch.

The stamped image is the beautiful new "Poppy Field" by Crafty Individuals (currently free with orders over £30!) which I coloured with Distress Inks (Barn Door, Bundled Sage and Shabby Shutters).

A computer generated text on a Nestabilities label and a few punched butterflies were the final embellishments.

And here's the finished card.

PS. My lovely butterfly blog background from Scrappin' Blogs disappeared this afternoon! On investigating, I found that Scrappin' Blogs are having problems with Photobucket (basically it seems they are too popular!) and need to find a new server. I'm not sure what the situation is with their backgrounds at the moment, so I've found another for my blog for the time being from The Cutest Blog on the Block. Maybe it's time I had a change anyway.

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?? ;-)

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.

New challenges!

Another of my crafting aims for the new year is to start entering some challenges. I didn't really have the time to do so last year, but I'm making a start here with a card for Tuesday Taggers. The theme for this week is "Classic Black and White".

The flourish stamp is by Hero Arts, and the butterfly and sentiment are Elusive Images from Graphicus. I used two Martha Stewart punches, the Simple Scallop, and the gorgeous new Pop Up Butterflies. The bonus with the latter is that you get lots of little punched-out butterflies left over, so I stuck a few amongst the swirls, having coloured them black with a Promarker. The sentiment was cut out with a Nestabilities frame.

Working to a brief like this is a bit outside my comfort zone, but it will do me good! I did enjoy the challenge.

Tidy start to the New Year!

The jigsaw is finished! It didn't take as long as I had thought it would, once I'd got all the edge pieces in place - and worked out that parts of the picture were not the same as the one on the box lid!

It was laid on a big piece of card, and by taping across the finished jigsaw with some low tack tape so it wouldn't move, I managed to bend it enough to get it through the doorway, and it is now residing on the spare bed until I can bring myself to break it up! This means I now have my desk back. Not only that, because I had to clear it to make room for the jigsaw, my desk is tidy! Here's the proof.

Look well, for you're not likely to see it like that again for a long time! Just got a couple of things to catch up on before I can start messing it up again.....

Happy New Year everyone!

Well, last post for 2009. No picture to show, I'm afraid. I had hoped to get some crafting done this week before we go back to school. However, my daughter bought me a jigsaw for Christmas, and once I start something like that, I have to get it finished. It's in the shape of a butterfly, all filled in with hundreds of butterflies, and it's proving fiendishly difficult. The main problem is that it's a lot bigger than it said on the box. I had to put it on a board on my desk, and I can't move it until it's done, as the board would only fit through the door on its side! So I haven't got any space left to craft in.

Anyway, I just wanted to wish everyone in Blogland a very happy, healthy and peaceful New Year, and to say thank you to everyone who has left such wonderful comments during the Stamp Man Blog Hop (which is still ongoing, until Jan 3rd - scroll down to the previous post for details), also thank you and welcome to my lovely new followers. To all of you who have followed, commented on or otherwise supported my blog this year, a huge thanks. It is very much appreciated.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!

Metal embellishments

Some years ago I bought some art metal. At the time it was being used mainly for embossing, by stamping or tracing on to it and then marking out the image with various tools & cutting it out with scissors. I wasn't impressed with the results, & the remainder of the pack has been languishing in a cupboard ever since. Until now!

Now there is the Cuttlebug! I found I could cut the metal with dies, eg. Nestabilities or Cuttlebug, and emboss it with the Cuttlebug embossing folders. And then colour it beautifully with alcohol inks or Promarkers. Voila!



The butterfly was cut with a Cuttlebug die, embossed with a Cuttlebug folder, and then coloured with alcohol inks. The patterned paper is My Mind's Eye, and the plain paper I have had for so long I can't remember where I got it!


The metal used for the swirl background on the lady card was gold coloured. I embossed it with the Cuttlebug D'vine swirls folder and then carefully inked over it with Brilliance Graphite Black ink, which I then heat set. So long as you do not press on too hard with the inkpad, the recessed swirls do not take the ink. The lady and wording stamps are from Hero Arts. I've had them for years, but they just seemed to fit with the swirl panel. The flourish is by Stampington.

So I have managed to use up some more old stash!

On the second butterfly card, I did even better. The butterfly is cut from a foil yoghurt pot lid, so it was free! The foil has a lovely texture and takes the alcohol inks very well. The inside foil cover found on some brands of margarine also works well. The new Cuttlebug Victoria folder provided a background for this card. The agapanthus stamp is by Stampendous, and the Birthday circles on both butterfly cards are from Craftwork Cards. The base card is pearlescent and it was quite difficult to photograph, but if you click on it to get the larger version, I think the detail will show up better.

Butterflies 2

As I said in my previous post, the dearth of butterflies in our garden has prompted me to put some on my cards instead.


A fairly simple one to begin with. I didn't want too much to detract from the main image, which is an old Penny Black stamp from 1999, but still one of my favourites. I coloured it with Promarkers (my first attempt with them!)


This one uses an Inkadinkadoo stamp. The butterfly is diecut & mounted with the Cuttlebug, with my Martha Stewart punch for the borders.


Next a set of four Hero Arts patterned butterflies, stamped over My Mind's Eye papers.



Another criss-cross card, using papers from the Butterfly Bliss CD from Graphicus. The stamps are Elusive Images, also from Graphicus, except for the sentiment which is by Rubber Stamp Tapestry. The white butterfly, which appears when the insert is removed, is punched.


Finally, a mini landscape card. I cut a square mask, along with a few butterflies, and then sponged over them with pigment inks to make a background, adding the stamped images (Elusive Images) after removing the butterflies but before removing the square. The result was then cut out and embossed on the Cuttlebug, before being mounted on to a card stamped with more Elusive Images (from the Wild Meadow set). Of the five, I think this is my favourite. I may not have many butterflies in my garden these days, but they'll never be far away from my cards!

Butterflies

The buddleia bushes in our garden are in full bloom just now. We have three, two blue and one white. Until a few years ago, once the flowers opened they would be covered in butterflies, of many different types: small tortoiseshells, peacocks, painted ladies, red admirals, various whites, commas, gatekeepers and more. To see twenty or thirty at a time was not unusual. One year we counted 14 different species over the summer. For the past few years, however, there have been few. Loss of habitat and poor summers have contributed to the decline, which is a great shame.

Here are some photos I've taken in the garden in previous years.


Small Tortoise - shell.


Peacock.


Painted Lady


Painted Lady, underside.

I love to see butterflies. I think most people do. I guess it's partly because they are so pretty and colourful, but I also wonder if it's because they remind one of fairies. As a child I loved the Flower Fairy books by Cicely Mary Barker (ok, I'll admit it, still do and I bet I'm not the only one!). I'm sure it's no coincidence that she painted her fairies with butterfly wings. Some of them are even copies of real butterflies.

Because there are no butterflies on our buddleias, I've put some on my cards instead. (See next post!)

Contrasts

Still busy with my Nestabilities. I cut a scalloped frame for a Crafty Individuals flower image from their book "Butterflies & Flowers" (currently their free gift with orders over £25). Background and butterfly are Cuttlebug embossed. The wording around the frame is computer generated. Rather proud of myself for that because it's the first time I've figured out how to do it to make it fit! The edge of the frame and the Prima flowers are tinted with Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink.



Then, for something completely different, A Walk in the Woods. That's the title of my newest stamp, which is from Innovative Stamp Creations. As soon as I saw this stamp I simply had to have it, because I love trees anyway and a walk in the woods is one of my favourite pastimes. It's a superb stamp. Doesn't look much until you stamp it, & then it has an almost photographic quality, even on plain paper, though it's even better on the shiny card I used here. I coloured the picture with diluted Distress Inks. On the background card I stamped birch trees (from Beeswax) and part of A Walk in the Woods (though that doesn't show so well in the photo). Punched leaves extended the path out of the picture, balanced by three co-ordinating brads on the opposite side.

Butterflies

Some more Nestabilities/Cuttlebug cards.

For the first one, I used the Nestabilities to cut the two frames, then cut the butterfly out of the smaller one & embossed it with the Cuttlebug dots folder. The stamps in the background are from one of the new sets in the Crafty Elements range from Crafty Individuals. Both the flowers set and the butterflies set are must-haves.



The second card has a Cuttlebug embossed background and butterfly motif, and the flowers around the motif are from Rubber Stamp Tapestry. The "butterfly" word is from the new Crafty Individuals butterflies plate.



I found lots of inspiration for both the Cuttlebug and Nestabilities here at Sue Nelson's Heart Prints website, where she displays many beautiful cards and ideas, well worth a look.