Sir Stampalot September Challenge

We're back to a set theme for this month's Stampalot Challenge, and it is

It's A Frame Up

We want to see a frame somewhere on each project! Plenty of scope there, I think. Just make sure that your frame is an actual "feature" of the design, rather than simply matted layers. For my example, I took inspiration from an article by Emy Buxton in the July 2011 issue of Craft Stamper magazine, where she used stamping and masking to create a frame for a scrapbook page.

I made my frame by masking off a rectangle of the base card and stamping round the edge of the mask with tiny stamps by Rubber Stamp Tapestry, using VersaMagic inks. The picture inside the frame is from the Miniatures book "People & Places 2" by Crafty Individuals, and the card is completed with a sentiment by Darkroom Door. Quick and simple to make, but I love the effect of the floral frame.

Here's the delectable prize donated by Sir Stampalot this month! Check out those gorgeous ribbons! Some fab stamps too, and lots of other goodies, so get those entries in!

And on the subject of Sir S,  HOT news! Watch out for a new weekly feature that Sir Stampalot are promoting, starting tomorrow. It’ll be called ‘Freebie Friday’ and it’ll be sent to you via their email newsletter so if you haven’t already signed up, you’ll need to sign up before end of day today, here. 

Or use the “stay in touch… sign up to smudges” icon on the home page of their website (left hand column).

I started the new job this week. So far so good! Quite different from my previous one, in that I flit from school to school (9 schools in two days!) instead of being in one school for the whole day, but I have certainly enjoyed my first two days. And it's lovely to be able to drive to work through beautiful countryside. Bit of a hold up yesterday morning when I met the school bus which serves several local village schools coming towards me on a narrow country lane, and had to reverse so he could get past. One or two slow tractors as well, but I can cope with things like that! So much better than being stuck in traffic jams going into the city.

Went to have another look at our new house the other day. I'll leave you for now with a photo of the view from the window of what will be my new craft room! If it looks that good in the rain, imagine what it's like when it's sunny with blue skies! I can't wait until we can move in!

Quick update!

Ages since I last posted anything, I know, but things have been moving pretty quickly here! The house hunting was very successful, I'm glad to say! We found just the sort of place we wanted, with wonderful views across the countryside (pics to follow!), and couldn't believe our luck when we found we could actually afford it! We hope to be able to move in by the middle of October. In the meantime, I start my new job up in Scotland next week! So I'm now staying with my daughter and family, but will be travelling backwards and forwards for a while until we have got our things packed up ready for the move. Blogging will have to take a back seat for the time being, I'm afraid, but I will try to keep in touch as often as I can. I managed to bring enough stash with me to keep me going (I hope!!), not that I will have much spare time to craft, but should be able to cope with cards for family & friends and my DT work.

I had a couple of cards to make before I came up north, a wedding anniversary card for my daughter and son-in-law, and a birthday card for my niece, so here's a quick share of those.

For the anniversary card I used my new cameo stamps from Waltzing Mouse, cut out with Nesties. The papers are some I've had in my stash for years, not sure now who made them. I used a Martha Stewart border punch to trim them, and then inked around the edges. It wasn't until I looked at the photo that it occurred to me that the two cameos and the greeting made a face!

 

For my niece's card, the dog stamp and patterned papers were all freebies from magazines. I coloured the dog with Promarkers, and framed it with Nestie diecuts. The ticket stamp and die are by Whimsy Stamps. Now, I know this is cute, and I don't do cute, but my niece likes cute, and dogs, and pink, so I gritted my teeth and did it!

Stampalot August Challenge

Another "anything goes" theme for Sir Stampalot Challenge this month with

WHATEVER YOU FANCY

I decided to use one of my favourite Penny Black stamps, the poppy, embossed on to an alcohol inked background and coloured with Promarkers. This was then attached over some Papermania background paper with some lace to trim the edges. The sentiment, by The Craft's Meow, was stamped on to a Nestie label.

The prize on offer for August is this fabulous selection of goodies!

So good luck everyone! I'm sorry this is such a short post, but I'm just about to head off up to Scotland to do some house hunting. Wish me luck!

Circles

Another great theme at Less is More this week! Chrissie and Mandi want to see circles - lots of them! Or at least, more than one! I had quite a few ideas for this, but unfortunately I doubt I'll have time to make them all. Anyway, here's my first entry. I've counted 57 circles (58 if you count the scalloped circle), think that should be enough!

Stamps used: Owl - Inkadinkado; Branch - Stampscapes; Alphabet letters used to make sentiment - New Stamp On The Block (sadly no longer trading).

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!!

Silhouettes

As part of my ongoing clearout, I'd been going through some of my old Take Ten mags, tearing out the pages I wanted to keep and filing them in a ring binder, so that I could get rid of the rest. In one of them was the most beautiful set of cards by Tilly McLeod, with gorgeous coloured backgrounds and silhouette details, exactly the sort of  style which really appeals to me. Tilly has very kindly allowed me to case her cards, and share the result here, although my method was slightly different from hers. Do go and have a look at Tilly's blog, her work is fabulous.

Tilly made her backgrounds by inking up a palette stamp with various colours and stamping straight on to the card, then adding definition with watercolour pencils or the edge of an inkpad, whereas I painted mine with a wash of distress inks and mounted it separately with a thin black border. The stamped couple (Stampscapes) and birds (part of a stamp by Inkylicious) were added, along with the sentiment (The Craft's Meow).

I really like this clean and simple style. Thanks for the inspiration, Tilly!

Shades of Blue

I'm loving the challenge from Less is More this week. It's Shades of Blue, and blue just happens to be my favourite colour! I was in a painting mood, so I painted a little landscape background and then stamped a few images on top. Shades of blue from navy right up to very pale - all done using just one Distress inkpad! The beauty of Distress ink is that it can be diluted with water but retains the colour integrity, in other words it just becomes a paler shade of the original according to how much water you add. I used Chipped Sapphire, my favourite of all the Distress colours.

The tree on its little mound with the grasses either side of it (all one stamp) is by Beeswax, all other stamps and the sentiment are by Hobby Art. There are some fantastic entries this week. I'm really enjoying looking at them all.

Sir Stampalot July Challenge

Time for a new challenge at Sir Stampalot. We've made it nice and easy for you this month, as the theme is

*ANYTHING GOES*

So you can make whatever you like! The design team decided that we would showcase the new summer Molly Blooms stamps, which are available right now, right here at Sir Stampalot. We were each given a Molly stamp to use however we wished. Mine is George on his hols.

Here he is on an easel card, taking a break from a hard day's surfing! The beach scene behind him was made with Hobby Art Scene-it stamps, also available from Sir Stampalot here. I coloured the beach scene with watercolour pencils, and the other elements with Promarkers. There is a little surfboard in the Hobby Art set, but it was too small for George, so I drew him one instead. The sentiment is by Hero Arts, stamped on to Nestie circles.

The wall (stamped three times to get the right length) came from Toomuchfun Rubber Stamps, bought when I was in the USA about 16 years ago, and would you believe, this is the first time I've used it! I visited the Toomuchfun shop, which was huge, and it was like being a child in a sweetie shop - I wanted everything! Back then there was all sorts of stuff you just couldn't get here, and of course it was before the days of easy internet shopping. I had taken an empty case with me (not a huge one, honest!) especially for the purpose and brought it back full of new stash! Somehow the wall must have got overlooked at the back of a drawer and I came across it again during my recent clearing out. Anyway, just the thing for George to sit on, I thought!

Of course, you want to know what the prize is for this month's challenge! Well, it's fabulous! Loads of the new Molly Blooms stamps, and much more besides to keep you busy with your summer crafting. Take a look at this lot:

With the theme of "Anything Goes" it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a winner, so get those entries in! Just remember - to be eligible for the Stampalot Challenge, your entry may only be combined with 5 other challenges, ie. 6 challenges in total.

Clouds

We've had some fantastic cloudscapes over here recently. I love to watch clouds. I like the fact that they are ever-changing, and you can see pictures in them. On Sunday the sky was a gorgeous deep blue, but with different types of white cloud in amazing formations. It was a "mackerel sky", which eventually started to break up, with some fluffy white cumulus and wispy cirrus. I went out into the garden and took some photos.

My editing programme has an "auto levels" facility. I use it rarely, because it often throws up some strange results. Sometimes, though, they can be quite interesting! Such as this:

Yesterday evening the sky turned very dark and grey, though the storm which seemed to threaten never materialised. You couldn't see much of the sunset, but the bit that did show was quite dramatic, with orange beams of light shining upwards.

Playing with the auto levels gave this result:

Hmm. Backgrounds for cards, maybe.......?

It seemed so simple.....

Week 21 of Less is More Challenge is a sketch.

Very simple, just 3 circles in line on a square card.  They made me think of music notes. Three music notes sitting on a stave, I thought. What could be easier? I'll make the notes into flowers for a bit of added interest, and the sentiment naturally has to be "Just a note..."

Cutting the thin strips of card to make the stave was trickier than I expected. I've got some of those shredding scissors, and thought it would be easy to cut strips with them. It wasn't! Couldn't get them to cut in straight lines. I resorted to ruler and knife. Several strips went in the bin because they weren't even in width. Eventually I had five strips that were similar enough. I managed to stick them in straight lines across the card first time! I punched three small circles from black card, and three flowers, rather proud of myself because I could use up some scraps! Stuck the circles on the flowers, and then cut more thin strips to make the note stems. Stuck the notes on the stave. All going well and looking good! Then I inked up the sentiment (Papermania), and... disaster! I don't quite know how it happened, must have been the heat, lost my concentration, but somehow a large black splodge of ink had appeared on the card! Right in the middle of the white space! Oh, the annoyance, the frustration! Could it be salvaged? Or would I have to start all over again?

I went and made myself a stiff coffee, and came back to think about it. Aha! Maybe I could just cut a piece of white card to cover the stain. I did just that, and it worked! Then just the sentiment to stamp without smudging it....phew! Here it is:

Whenever I order from Crafty Individuals, those lovely people Malcolm and Jean send a few freebie stamps with the order, and I've got quite a few duplicates now. I'll send a couple of them to the first person who can tell me (in a comment), where the join (of the bit I had to stick over the stain) is on my card!