Another great Blog Girl Day at Sir Stampalot

This was our third get-together, and it was lovely to see some familiar faces again and some new ones too, especially Lisa Jane, who I'd been looking forward to meeting for ages. As usual, Brenda and Chris had designed some beautiful projects for us to make, and not only that but they had each made us little gifts. A wallet filled with flowers from Brenda, and a butterfly bookmark from Chris. Thanks, both of you, they are gorgeous! Here they are.

Our first make of the day was a twisted easel card, by Chris. I'd never made a twisted easel before, so I was really pleased to learn how to do it. Next was a card by Brenda, featuring a Penny Black stamp (which was the first thing into my shopping basket!) and a flower (made with Tim Holtz Tattered Floral dies) dipped in UTEE using a Meltpot. A fabulous effect, but I don't think I'll be buying a Meltpot. Sally & I reckoned that we could do it by melting some UTEE in a tinfoil dish with a heatgun. Haven't tried it yet, but I'll let you know if it works when I get round to it!

Once again, Brenda and Chris co-ordinated a delicious lunch, to which we all contributed, but the highlight of it had to be Chris's amazing raspberry cheesecake, which didn't last very long!

Hunger pangs banished, we went back to work on two more pretty cards (which I've yet to finish off), and finally a delightful little divided box designed by Chris for holding stamped images waiting to be used, or paper snippets, or recipes, or photos, etc etc. Chris had put Molly Bloom on the front of hers, but not being a fan of cute characters I decided to be different and have a butterfly on mine instead. We made the flowers with the Cuttlebug quilling dies, which are good but very expensive! (They didn't make it into my shopping basket!) A Marianne swirl die completed the decoration.

The day flew by, but we managed to save a bit of time for some retail therapy at the end! Huge thanks to Brenda and Chris (and Janice and Andy) for another fantastic Blog Girl Day. Can't wait for the next one!



Focusing on the sentiment

Week 10 already of the Less is More Challenge, and this time they would like to see one layer cards with the focus on the sentiment. Having just taken delivery of the brand new Teeny Weeny Meadow stamp set from Chocolate Baroque, I couldn't wait to start inking it up and soon found a suitable sentiment to go with a tree from the set.

The sentiment is from the Tall Trees set by Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque). One of the tall trees in the set has a mini counterpart in the Teeny Weeny Meadow set, and I thought I'd make another version of the card using that one. I can't decide which one I like best! Good challenge this week. I might be tempted to have another go at the theme.

It's been a great weekend. Yesterday Sally, her daughter Megan and I went to Sir Stampalot for another fantastic Blog Girl get-together. It was a brilliant day. I'll be back later to tell you all about it!

Seeing red!

My heart sank a little when I saw the theme for this week's Less is More Challenge. The word RED leapt out at me! Now, I use red in my cards even less than pink. I much prefer cool colours - blues, purples and greens. I might stretch to yellows if I'm feeling a bit chilly. Hey ho, I thought, guess it's all part of the challenge. Then the red mist cleared a bit, and I saw "Touch of". Phew! The theme is a Touch of Red, which I decided meant that I could get away with as little red as possible. So I did!

If you look closely (might have to click to see a bigger pic), you can just see a dot of red in the flower centres! I hope that's enough to qualify! The stamp is one of the first I ever bought. It was made by Stampendous, in 1992! That's nearly 20 years ago. Have I really been stamping that long? I used it a lot when I first bought it, but it's been languishing in a drawer for years, and so I decided to bring it out of retirement. The sentiment is by Paula Pascual.

When I'd finished the card, I decided I really liked it, in spite of the red. Or, just maybe, because of it. Hmmm...

A birthday and a secret!

It's the first of the month again, and time for me to let you in on the secret I've been sitting on for the past few weeks! I'm now a member of the Sir Stampalot Challenge Design Team! Sadly, Lorraine has had to step down, and while she'll be a very hard act to follow, I'm thrilled to bits and very honoured to have been asked to join the team.

April the 1st marks a special day for the Stampalot Challenge because it's our 1st Birthday! It has been a brilliant year, and with fantastic support from everyone in blogland, it's become one of the best challenges around.

Now, not only is it our Birthday, it's also April Fools Day !! So this means as well as a brand new challenge we've got something extra special lined up with a twist or two. But let me tell you about the April challenge first. The theme has been chosen by our very own Lady (Janice) Stampalot who has decreed it will be:

"LADIES AND FASHION"

For one lucky winner, this is the fantastic prize on offer from Sir Stampalot:

So now for the real fun bit.........this month the Design Team will be displaying their Challenge work on their own blogs only. And on the Challenge Blog we have a collection of pictures and pieces of artwork.............a picture of each DT member along with a piece of their work with they have selected which they think best depicts their style of crafting.

Have you guessed what you need to do? That's right, you have to decide which of our Design Team fits which pairing of picture and artwork! Hop over to the Stampalot Challenge Blog for all the details of what to do. When you think you have the answers, email Brenda brenda@ibas.co.uk with your list. There will be a couple of prizes on offer selected from those with all or the most correct pairings that reach her before 25th April. Any received after that date will not be included.

Anyway, here's my card for the “Ladies and Fashion” theme.

Stamps by Hero Arts (the sentiment is part of a larger stamp), coloured with Promarkers, background paper by Basic Grey (sadly discontinued), lace and recycled button from my stash.

I'm so looking forward to seeing everyone's entries, and hope you all enjoy our first birthday challenge!

Celtic Inspiration

I'm a big fan of Celtic Art, and I've had a Celtic design laser-cut border (by Rayher) languishing in my stash for a long time, waiting for a suitable opportunity to use it. When I saw this week's Less is More Challenge, which is a sketch, I knew I'd found one.

I stamped the bottom third of the card with some Celtic text (Judikins), layered the border on to a black background, stamped the Celtic knot circle (source unknown), cut it out and added a scalloped border (with my Nesties) and a sentiment (Inkadinkado).
 
 
 

I wasn't sure at first whether to stick with black and white, or whether to add a bit of colour, because a lot of Celtic artwork is very colourful, but I decided in the end that my card would work better in monochrome.




 

It was a great sketch to work with, and one I'll probably use again.
 

Sally and I had a trip up to Once upon A Stamp on Saturday.  I bought some new Nesties, Labels 5, in preparation for the eagerly awaited arrival of some new stamps I've just ordered from The Stampman. They're made specially to fit the Nesties, and they've got butterflies on! What more could I possibly want? (Well, butterfly stamps to fit ALL my Nesties would be good - I've dropped a hint to Jill!) When I first saw the new stamps on Jill's blog I thought I must be in stamp heaven! I'm clearing a space on my desk so that I can get to work with them as soon as they arrive.....

A bit more ...... but not much!

Well, I sat down to make a Less is NOT More card (see previous post!), but when it came to it, I didn't put very much more on it! I think I must have become too used to the minimal style! Need more practice!

I made this card for my niece's birthday. She's not an overly fussy person, so it's probably best I didn't go overboard with it. I was lucky enough to be given a box full of bits and pieces recently. The after-school club at the school where I work had had several boxes full of cardmaking stash donated to them, but some of it wasn't really suitable for them to use. The teacher who runs the club asked me if I would like some! I didn't hesitate for long!

It was mostly paper and card, and embellishments such as the dress on this card. Not something I would have bought for myself, but seeing as I'd got it, I thought I would try and use it. It had a bit of rather naff string tied in a bow around the waist, so I took that off and added the pearls instead. I've just bought a couple of Darkroom Door background stamps, Floral, and Flourish. They're huge (cover the whole of an A6 card), and I've used the Floral one here, stamped in a pale pink Versamagic ink on a cream card.  Unfortunately it doesn't show up very well in the photo. You can see it a little better in the close up.

My camera doesn't seem to pick up creams and pale yellows very well. They come out a mucky looking grey! The spotty paper is by Papermania, with a Martha Stewart border punch and Nestabilities ovals. The sentiment is a very old one by Stamps Unlimited, who I don't think are around now.

It will be back to Less is More tomorrow, but after that.... I've just got some of the gorgeous new printed tags from Crafty Individuals, and they're definitely not clean and simple....

  

Not my forte!

Well, it had to happen, I suppose! The lovely ladies at Less is More have chosen the theme of "Masculine" for Week 7. Definitely not my favourite topic! Still, it's all part of the challenge, so here goes.

I really struggle with cards for men, probably because most of the men I know don't seem to go for typical male pursuits. So it's no good making them cards with footballs on, or beer glasses, or darts. Or even cars (unless camper vans count!) Anyway, I kept this one very simple - just a torn portion of an ancient text (Make Your Mark) and a column piece (Non Sequitur), with a sentiment by Anna Griffin. I'm not sure that any gentleman of my acquaintance will be likely to receive it! But there it is.

I really am enjoying these Less is More challenges. They certainly make me think. But after several weeks now of minimalism, I'm starting to get a bit of snow-blindness with all the white space! I'm getting the urge to go a bit wild with papers and embellishments, dies and decorations, ribbons and roses, borders and bling, and to fling as much on to a card as I possibly can! So watch this space! (Just until next week's LIM challenge, of course!)

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!

Footprints

I'd like to begin this post with a big thankyou to everyone who has commented on my blog.  I was thrilled to get 48 comments on my entry to Week 5 of the Less is More challenge, a record for one post for me, and I can assure you that every single one is much appreciated and makes it all worthwhile.

It's now Week 6 of Less is More, and they want to see a one layer card with the intriguing theme of "Off the Edge". My first thought was of footprints marching on to and off the page. Trouble was, I didn't have a footprints stamps, but I figured it would be a fairly easy shape to carve by hand, so I made one from an eraser. I did, however, have the perfect sentiment to go with it, from an Aspects of Design set by The Stampman. I've had the set for a while, but haven't had occasion to use the sentiment before, and it's one I really like. I stamped that first, then made the footprints walk across the page in different colours of Versamagic inks.

I think this is a great theme, and some of the examples already posted at LIM are fantastic. I feel a second entry coming on, if I get time this week!

Story of an Ink Pad

Many years ago, I bought the most gorgeous ink pad, I remember not where from. I think it was probably at a show somewhere. It's called "Splendor", a rainbow pad with twelve narrow strips of pigment ink in lovely pastel shades.

As soon as I saw that the challenge for Week 5 of Less is More is to use pastel colours, I knew just which ones I was going to choose. All of them!

This must be one of the quickest cards I have ever made! I used the ink pad as a stamp and simply pressed it gently down on to the card. I stamped the butterfly (Penny Black) and the sentiment (Clarity Stamp, I think, it was a freebie at a show) and that was it.

The Splendor ink pad was made by Tsukineko. It has been well used over the years, and a few years ago I emailed Tsukineko to ask them what colours I would need to re-ink it, as it doesn't say on the pad what the colours are. Sadly, I never received a reply. I've never seen any similar pads, and I guess they are long discontinued, but I was hoping that their current range of Versacolor inks would have equivalent colours. I could probably guess them, but the shading from one colour to the next is so delicate that I would hate to spoil it by getting the wrong colour.

I've just emailed Tsukineko again, although their website seems to be unavailable at the moment. I haven't heard of any problems with the company, so I will just have to keep my fingers crossed.....