Parks and Gardens

This week's challenge at Allsorts is called "Park Inspiration", and they want our entries to be inspired by gardens or parks. There's a £10 voucher to be won to spend at One Stop Card Crafts! Well, of course, parks and gardens say "nature" to me, and since that's my favourite theme it was no hardship to come up with a card to fit.

Having recently treated myself to the Katzelcraft "Nature & Travel Quotes" set by Isabelle Norris, this was the perfect opportunity to use some of them. The background was stamped with Versamark and clear embossed, to act as a resist, and I coloured over the stamping with various pigment inks. Then the embossing was removed by covering it with kitchen paper and ironing over it with a hot iron.

The sentiment is an Aspects of Design stamp from The Stampman. (Such a pity they had to spell "marvellous" the American way.) It's from a sheet called (IIRC) "Rambling", but I can't find it on their website now. I bought it at a low sale price some time ago, so I'm wondering whether it's now no longer available.

The butterfly, from the gorgeous "Patchwork Butterfly" sheet by Elusive Images, is coloured with Promarkers and has a touch of Diamond Glaze on the flowers and body, although it's hard to see that in the photo.

Tuesday Taggers 9th March

I haven't had much time lately for blogging, or for crafting, come to that. Unfortunately, at the moment real life is having to take priority. However, I have managed (at the last minute!) to make something for this week's Tuesday Taggers, where the theme is St. Patrick's Day. Since I don't have anything specifically to do with St. Patrick, I'm hoping a general Irish theme will be okay.

I decided (inspired by Debbie Dolphin's host of wonderful examples) to make a round easel card, which I cut with my Nestabilities. I have just bought the Celtic knot die by Joy!crafts (available from Crafts U Love ) and it seemed to be perfect for this project, mounted on to some My Mind's Eye paper. The base of the card is stamped with the Hero Arts Delicate Vine Background. The "Good Luck" stamp is one of a set of stamps free with the current (April 2010) issue of Papercraft Inspirations Magazine. The Irish Blessing & butterfly are Elusive Images from Graphicus. I finished the card with some shamrocks made from punched hearts. (Edit: I now realise, of course, that shamrocks have three lobes to the leaf, so these had better be lucky 4-leaf clovers!)

It was a bit of a rushed job (I should just about make the deadline!) but I think it turned out okay in the end.

Backgrounds

I'm going to do some background techniques with my class tomorrow, including my favourite direct-to-paper with overstamping. I have some new class members who haven't done any card making before, so I've tried to make it fairly simple to begin with. This sample shows the first outing for my new Hero Arts Antique Brocade stamp, which I think is destined to become much loved. I stamped it over paper sponged with Versamagic inks. The girl and butterfly images are from Crafty Individuals' Miniatures Books "People & Places 2" and "Butterflies & Flowers" respectively. I used the huge butterfly from the Elusive Images "Patchwork Butterfly" plate as a background on the base card, and the sentiment is from the same plate.

Next week it's half term, so I'm going up to stay with my daughter & family in Dumfriesshire. Lots of playing and babysitting planned, so I'm not likely to get much time for challenges, or even blogging. There'll be room in the car to take one box of supplies with me in the hope of managing to make a few cards. The question is, what will I be able to conjure up from only one box of stash? Now there's a challenge, if ever there was one!

Sir Stampalot Special Challenge

Here is my entry for the Sir Stampalot Special Challenge, hosted by Brenda. The challenge is to celebrate Sir Stampalot's relocation to new premises, and so the theme is "Moving", which is open to interpretation.

My card has two "moving" elements. Firstly, the main flower picture has been moved from its original location by image transfer, and secondly, inside the card there is a pop-up.

For the image transfer I used one of my own photos. With my graphics programme I altered the colour and toned down the background, and then printed it out on to photo-quality inkjet paper to give a good clear print. I'd never tried image transfer before, so I followed the instuctions given in the February 2010 issue of Craft Stamper. I did the acrylic paint method, which was very easy and worked a treat. One might ask why I didn't just use the original photo! Well, I wanted to try image transfer, and also I wanted the softer look which the method provides. And, of course, it was a way of interpreting the theme. I was very pleased with the result.

The background was splattered with ink and stamped with a flourish by Crafty Individuals. A Hero Arts butterfly and word by Inkadinkado completed the front of the card. Inside I used the Hero Arts Dandelion frame, more Hero Arts butterflies, grasses by Elusive Images from Graphicus and a sentiment stamp which I've had so long I can't remember who it's by!

Challenging!

Well, here's my entry for Phill's blog candy Challenge. This one certainly exercised my brain! The criteria seemed simple enough, except that no die cutting tools were to be used, although punches were allowed. So no Cuttlebug! Hmmm. It had to be square, use a Penny Black stamp, ribbons and fibres, matting and layering, and spring colours.

It's taken me until now, less than two hours before the deadline, to come up with something that (hopefully!) fits. The base card is one of the BIG 8" squares from Craftwork Cards. The bird is the Penny Black stamp, the tree and blossom are Elusive Images from Graphicus. The flowers are punched from pearlescent paper and overstamped with the polka dots. They have glitter glue centres. The die cut butterfly is also from Craftwork Cards (ie. not cut by me!) and the quote on the left was printed on to acetate via my computer.



The finished card turned out nothing like I had envisaged it to begin with, and it's unlike anything I've done before, but then I guess that's what a challenge is all about!

Quilts

A while ago I bought some of the Inkadinkadoo Inchies stamps, but hadn't got round to doing much with them. Small stamps are often difficult to know how to make the most of. Since these are all uniform in size and shape, the obvious thing seemed to be to make a "patchwork quilt" style card.

It was very simple to do. For the pink card, I coloured three pieces of paper by sponging with different pigment inks & stamped three pictures on to each one. Next I cut out the squares and framed them with scalloped squares cut with the Cuttlebug from patterned papers. I matted them on to co-ordinating colours and stuck them on to a base card, finally adding a Prima flower and the sticky-pad-mounted word.



To make the yellow one a bit different, I stamped the base card with stamps from the Stampendous Butterfly Beauties set, along with a word from one of the Inchie sets. This time I stamped the pictures straight on to patterned paper and left out the scalloped frames, before matting as with the pink card.



My next challenge is to think of a way to use the stamps that isn't so obvious!