More Lumiere leaves

As I said yesterday, I have been playing with the wild rose leaf in my image editing programme, changing the colours. Yesterday's cards were quite graphic, clean and simple, but today I felt the need for something more colourful! So for two of the cards I have used background papers from Crafty Individuals and for the third one, one of their Decorative Card Blanks. This time, unlike the ivy leaf card yesterday, I think the patterned papers work with the leaves, not against them. I guess it was just a matter of choosing the right ones. I considered adding some sort of text or sentiment, but decided in the end that none was needed. Which do I prefer, yesterday's or today's? Can't make my mind up! See what you think.

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!

Cards for men

I struggle a bit with cards for men. I send fewer cards to men than I do to women, so I don't have many male-oriented stamps. Can't justify buying a stamp that I might only use a few times, and I don't feel, really, that I can use the same one each year, even though the recipient probably wouldn't remember it from one year to the next! Though I suppose they might if they got it EVERY year!

However, I couldn't resist some lovely stamps from Innovative Stamp Creations which I think are equally suitable for men or women. Both images are striking enough not to need much in the way of background or embellishments, so I kept those to a minimum.

The boat scene (the stamp is entitled "On The Shore") is coloured with watercolour pencils, and attached to the card with foam pads. The mesh, shells and starfish are all very old stash. I knew I'd find a use for them one day! The text is computer generated, printed on to acetate and sponged with alcohol inks.

The next one, called "Picturesque", reminds me of various beaches I have visited, and I think it's going to become one of my favourite images. I coloured it with Promarkers and mounted it over a background which was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and inked with Versamagic inks.. Again, computer generated text  and another very old starfish embellishment, with a recycled bit of string separated into its component strands to tie it all together. I'm feeling really good about getting some old stash used!

As well as the two stamps I've used in these cards, I also bought a new ISC set called "Mini Ledger", which I think is going to be very versatile, though I haven't made anything with it yet....

Innovative Stamp Creations is owned and run by the very talented Betsy Griffin, who calls her design team the Creative Architects Group. They all have many samples, using ISC stamps, on their blogs, links to which can be found here, as does Betsy on her blog. All worth a look. (FTR, I have no connection with ISC, other than that I like the stamps!)

WOW!!!

What a day! On Friday we decided to have a last day out before I go back to school this week, and as we were heading up the motorway on the way to Robin Hood's Bay I got a text from Sally. It said "You've won the Cuttlebug from the Once Upon A Stamp Design Team Blog!" Well, I had to read it about six times before it sank in. Then I thought, no, it can't be me. Must be a different Lynne K. So I rang Sally, and she said "It's true! No other Lynne K entered the competition. I checked." Woo hoo!!! Now this sort of thing never happens to me, at least it never has until now. I've won the odd raffle prize occasionally, and even 2 sets of  Elusive Images stamps, which was fantastic, but never anything like this. To say I was excited would be like saying the Titanic had a little prang with an iceberg - ie. understatement of the year! How I managed to contain myself for the rest of the day, I'll never know.

We had a lovely time at RHB. The weather was beautiful. We had fish'n'chips, a stroll along the beach, looked in the rock pools, found a few fossils, and enjoyed the fresh sea air.

Then we called on my sister-in-law who lives near Whitby. Home via the North York Moors with all the heather out. It was quite late when we got back, but I had to get the laptop out & see for myself - yes, it was true! I had won the Cuttlebug, along with the new "No More Shims" mat! First thing on Saturday morning I phoned Once Upon A Stamp, as requested, and arranged that, since I'm only half an hour from the shop, I could go up and collect it. Sally came with me.

I'd heard about the No More Shims Embossing Mat, but didn't know all that it can do. It was invented by Gordon himself, and he kindly gave us a demo of its capabilities. I am highly impressed with it. Not only can you emboss through the CB without having to faff about with fiddly extra bits of card (and you get a better result), you can also emboss found objects as long as they are no thicker than a 10p piece. Magic! I tried some real leaves and they came out beautifully. So I made a gift bag to put them on.

The bag is made from an envelope, and it's very quick and easy to do. See the video by Lisa Spangler on the Hero Arts website. The definition on the leaves is amazing. All the veins stand out, even the tiny ones. (Click to get the big picture and see them!) Having embossed them onto plain photocopying paper, as Gordon suggested, I cut them out and then sponged over them with various colours of pigment inks. I thought that doing so might squash them, being on thin paper, but the detail held very well. Then I matted them on to coloured card. The bag is stamped with Hero Arts stamps.

Next I tried embossing some mulberry paper which has a raised embossed pattern on it. Again, it worked really well. I decided to use the one with the flowery pattern and made a card with it, having coloured it with pigment inks to make the detail stand out.

I kept the card simple so as not to hide the background, and just added a Crafty Individuals picture, a flourish (a Marianne Design die) and a Nestabilities label. (Sentiment - Papermania, tiny flower - Rubber Stamp Tapestry).

I've been a big fan of the Cuttlebug for a long time and wouldn't be without it, but have always wondered why they couldn't come up with something better than fiddly bits of card for embossing. Well, Gordon certainly has - and it's brilliant!

I want to say a HUGE thank you to Gordon, Robert and all the team at Once Upon A Stamp for such a wonderfully generous prize. Oh, and it all came in a fab tote bag, also part of the prize. While I was at the shop I bought a Scor-Pal ......... but that's another story!

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.

Lovely as a tree

The challenge on this week's Tuesday Taggers is to take our inspiration from a poem. Given that I love trees, I couldn't fail to be inspired by a poem about that very subject - "Trees" by Alfred Joyce Kilmer, an American journalist, lecturer and poet. "Trees" is probably his most well known poem.

I printed the poem on to a shaped cutout from the Artylicious Essence of Nature CD rom and composed my card around it. The base of the card is covered with matching paper from the CD. I stamped an Elusive Images tree on the top part and mounted the poem along with two tree images from the Crafty Individuals Miniatures book Nature's Beauty.

For the stopper, I cut a branch and leaves from Grungeboard and coloured them with Promarkers.

Here's the finished card. I really enjoyed making this one!

Well, I'm back

Had a great week up in Dumfriesshire. My daughter's house is in a rural area, overlooking fields. Just down the road there's a loch with a ruined castle. Buzzards and geese fly overhead. It's really peaceful and quiet, and the air is clean and fresh. I love it there. Not so quiet and peaceful inside the house, of course! Ewan, my elder grandson, who's 5 (going on 25!) will be starting big school this week.

We took him to buy his new school uniform, and I managed to persuade him (with some difficulty!) to model it for some photos so that I could bring them back home to show his granddad. He looks so grown up in it.

His little brother, Andrew, aged nearly 19 months, wanted in on the act, so he put on Ewan's school cap and had his picture taken too!

We had a trip to the Glasgow Science Centre, which was brilliant. There was so much to see and do that we couldn't get round it all in a day. By mid afternoon we were all suffering from sensory overload. Ewan's favourite thing was the model crane which could be operated just like a real one. He went on that several times.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Andrew loved the tunnel slide.

I liked the magic mirrors which made me look tall and thin (well, ok, thinner, they were magic mirrors, not miracle mirrors), but I didn't get a picture of those. It was a great day out. Ewan said it was his best day out EVER. A return visit will definitely be on the agenda.

At the weekend we went to a farmers' market. There was a woman there demonstrating needle felting, something I've never tried before. She had done some lovely pictures and cards with it. I was dying to have a go. My daughter bought me a kit for my birthday, which isn't until October, but she said I could use it now. (So watch this space!)

Have done very little cardmaking over the holidays so far, and I'm getting withdrawal symptoms, but am determined to finish my craft stuff reorganisation. Not much left to do now. I have managed to make a bit more working space on my desk, by finding somewhere else for my printer to live, and a few other bits and pieces. I'm sure that my disappearing mojo of late has been due to the fact that I've felt constrained by the lack of space (not to mention falling over the stuff on the floor every time I stood up!) so I'm hoping that my new arrangement will kickstart it again.

Today Sally and I had a get-together with Lesley (Craftimamma) at Sally's house. It was lovely to meet Lesley for the first time, and we had a great afternoon, showing and telling, and having a good old natter. It felt as though we had been friends for years. Sally gave us a delicious lunch, with one of her fabulous coffee and walnut cakes. Yum! Lesley and I were very good and managed to resist a second helping, but only just.

Well, I didn't intend this to be such a long post, but it's so nice to get back to the blogging. I'll try & catch up with everyone else's over the next few days. I can't believe how quickly the holidays are going. Only a week and a half left before we go back to school. I really must make a start on the kitchen before then....

So that's where my desk is!

The decluttering is going well. Most of my craft stuff is stored in the spare bedroom, as my work room is too small to hold much and still leave room to work in. I can now see the spare room carpet, and the bed! Three bags of rubbish went to the tip (yes, three!). Old magazines and stash I no longer need went to fellow crafters. Strangely, there doesn't seem to be any more room in the cupboards, but at least everything is tidy now and I know where it all is. Not quite finished yet, but enough done to make me feel a lot better.

I have also managed to make a bit of space on my desk, just in time. A friend who has recently had a bereavement asked me to make her a set of thank you cards, and she needed them quickly. So yesterday I made 15 cards, which must be a record for me all in one day! She asked me to deliver them through her letterbox, so not knowing how far they'd have to fall I thought they'd better go in a box to protect them. Didn't have one suitable, so I made one.

The brief was: Irises, shades of lilac/purple, black borders, and MS doily lace punch. Not having time to do lots of colouring, I used a printed picture of irises from the Dreamy Flowers CD by Hinny Bop Designs, and a Penny Black iris stamp. The sentiment is a very old one from Make Your Mark. I covered the box with some wrapping paper bought quite some time ago from Ikea.

My daughter and family are coming to stay overnight tonight on their way back from holiday, and then on Sunday I'm going up to Scotland to stay with them for a few days. After all my hard work of the past few weeks, I'm really looking forward to the break. Not that it will be a rest with my two young grandsons around (aged 5 years and 18 months) but we always have lots of fun. Because they live so far away we don't see nearly enough of them so any time spent with them is precious. They grow up far too quickly.

When I come home, my next job is to make a start on decluttering the kitchen. Hmm.....

In Essence...

... I've just realised it's over three weeks since I last posted anything, and that's mainly because I haven't made anything to post during the last three weeks! I was very busy with school concerts and things leading up to the end of term, but also I've been sadly lacking in inspiration. I think my mojo broke up early and went on holiday without me!

However, it came back yesterday with the delivery of the much anticipated new Artylicious CD from Glenda at Graphicus. It's called Essence of Nature, and is simply stunning, full of the most gorgeous papers and elements in wonderful colours. Glenda's best yet, IMHO. I couldn't fail to be inspired by it, but  there's so much on it that the problem was in knowing what to try first!

I love the Elusive Images Eastern Grasses stamp set, and was very pleased to find a matching backing paper on the CD. It's beautifully subtle and makes a perfect background for the stamps. I used the main image from the set as a focal point (stamped on to paper coloured with VersaMagic inks), added some of the grasses along the bottom, and embellished it with a few butterflies from the Artylicious Butterfly Bliss CD. The sentiment is computer generated (not from the CD).

Inspired not only by Glenda's brilliant CD, but also by her posts such as this one about her decluttering, I decided that whilst I've got a decent amount of time off school I should try to emulate her! My craft stuff clearout is ongoing, but I hope to have time to get that finished and then maybe make a start on the rest of the house. (Note the word "maybe"!) So my blog will probably be a bit quiet again for a while (though I'm sure I'll be tempted to stop work now and then and make some more cards with the CD!), but I will do my best to look in on everyone else's blogs when I can. Hope you are all having a good summer.

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.