Stamping

Are you having a Giraffe….?

Hello there. I’m managing to craft a little, but when you have builders in it’s a little challenging to maintain the concentration, I find. However, I had chance to play with a stamp set I bought from the Doncaster Crafting Live show at the weekend:

I bought several of the stamp sets from Pink Ink designs, and this one caught me eye first.

I used the colours for the current challenge at Color Throwdown, and stamped the giraffe in Catherine Pooler ‘Be Mine‘ pink ink, used a little masking around the ears of the giraffe for the leaves and flowers, silver embossed the sentiment then ink smooshed the same pink ink so the sentiment card piece matched the giraffe – an emboss resist effect.

The glasses I embossed with silver, fussy-cut, then applied glossy accents for some dimension and sheen.

Overall, I think the card is quite feminine, and I know some of my girl friends would love the sentiment and image………..

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – pink, grey, white, silver

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – animal magic

2 sisters on the blog – make a card for a lady

Only stamping

20171231_120711

Hello again, and a Happy New Year to everyone. I hope the year is off to a good start for you.

I have been in my craft room for a couple of hours, and playing again with stamping and blending. This card was inspired by the current challenge at Inkspirational, with the challenge to use stamping only, and Time Out, with the theme of ‘New beginnings’. I have translated this loosely – a new beginning for someone whose birthday is today……a mixture of a new year for them, as well as a new year for all of us.

I still had my Uniko and Stamps By Me collection on my craft table, along with my Distress Oxides, and this is what I came up with.

The base card is 8 inches square, and the first thing I did was to stamp the ‘Happy Birthday’ sentiment. The same sentiment as yesterday, quite large, and I wanted it to be the focal point of the card.

After stamping in Versafine Black Onyx, and heat setting it in clear embossing powder, I then set about stamping my leaves etc for the back ground. I did set off originally with only stamping around the sentiment, masking it off with some ‘post it’ notes, but I carried on stamping and stamping until I had covered most of the background – large leaves first, using an Altenew green ink, and the leaves from the new Uniko ‘Pure Florals: Rose’.

I then took some smaller stamps from Uniko ‘Originally Organic’ and a small star from ‘Reach for the Stars’ – also Uniko – to fill in the spaces. For this I also used some brown Altenew inks.

Once I had completed the background, I felt the sentiment was a little too open and stark, so I masked the area around it and went in with my Distress Oxides, blending to leave the centre of the word a little brighter. I think I used Twisted Citron – or it could have been Fossilised Amber……! Hmmmm – does anyone else forget what they used when they are all on your craft table? 🙂

 

 

Wild Flowers

20170804_194304

Hi everyone. I wanted to post a quick card this evening, so I attacked my Catherine Pooler stamps, inks, and matching dies. I wanted to use the colours from the Color Throwdown challenge, and as the challenge was to use green, Kraft, and white, I wanted the green to be a bright and vivid green against the other two colours.

‘Grass Skirt’ from Catherine Pooler fits the bill nicely, showing against the Kraft really well, and I am pleased how this turned out.

I stamped the ‘Wild Flower’  stamps in the green, die cut them, and added them to a Kraft piece of card cut with my wonky rectangles. This particular Kraft card is a little textured, certainly not smooth. So this added a very muted feature and detail to the base of the card.

I added that to a white base card, and stopped there. I didn’t add a sentiment, and I am quite liking cards with no sentiments at the moment. They can either be added later, or these cards would be ideal to write a little note inside for any reason at all…….

I shall be entering this card into the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – Green, Kraft, White

Aud Sentiments challenge – no sentiment on front

Craftaholics R Us – die cuts

House Of Cards challenge – floral images and/or colours (floral)

 

 

July Sketch and colours

20170721_102024

Good morning, afternoon, or evening. I seem to be continuing my fixation with Altenew. There always seems to be a stamp set appropriate for any of the challenges I use for inspiration.

This card and design was inspired by the challenge from CASology – Diamond being the theme word, and CAS Colours and Sketches, with a colour theme this time – Night of Navy, Powder Pink, and Soft Sky. These are Stampin Up colours, and even though I don’t have the Soft Sky – I used my Lawn Fawn ‘Mermaid’ – I like the way they look together. I sense a play with these colours on perhaps a floral layout…….

The large stamp set is Altenew ‘Pattern Play – Hexagon’, which I stamped using my Tim Holtz stamping platform. It is a BIG stamp. And even though I knew I only wanted a portion of the stamped image – cut down using my Cutterpillar – (blinking marvellous machine) – I stamped the whole stamp for using the remainder on another card.

I stamped the main image in ‘Powder Pink’, the diamond inserts with ‘Mermaid’, and the sentiment from the same stamp set in ‘Night of Navy’. Not one smudge – so proud of myself. I seem to smudge even when using a stamping platform, maybe I am now doing it right!

You can see from my posts that I am trying different positions and different lighting for photographing. This one is a rusty bird bath on a large stone waterfall feature. I know it looks dirty, but I do think it brings out the crispness of the card and the colours – do you agree?

Poppy stamp set

Hi everyone. So – I went to the craft show yesterday. The bank balance took a hit, and I have been playing with some of my new buys. I have found a new stamp maker – ‘Stamps by me’. I bought three sets and let me tell you – lovely, brilliant, fabulously designed. Gorgeous. And – found out that their store is only an hour away from home – could be dangerous!

This particular stamp set is called ‘Beautiful’ due to the sentiments in the set, but the flowers are simply stunning, no matter what colour you use.

You have the outline, then the water-colour effect for the colour. As you can see I used several colours from my Catherine Pooler collection, and tried different techniques. Some I just stamped the colour, others I water-coloured, and one of them I did both – water-coloured then stamped on top. I didn’t even use my Misti as the Catherine Pooler inks seem to stamp well first time. (I am sure I’ve mentioned that before!)

The four I have not added a sentiment to, will probably be packed together for a cute little notelet set, after adding some plain white paper as an insert. The last card I played with a different background, embossed with a Sue Wilson ‘Rope Chain’ I bought yesterday at a bargain price.

I particularly like the orange cards, as they are different to what one would expect. I’ll be playing with these a little more over the next few days, as not working all week, and will be adding bits and pieces to them, maybe some water-colouring backgrounds…..the choice is endless.

I shall be entering the following challenges with one of these cards:

Paper Craft Crew – share a project using something new

Crafty Catz – anything goes (option ice cream – not used)

QKR Stampede – anything goes (option seaside not used)

Crafty Friends Challenge – floral

Stamping Sensations – stamping and flowers

Hello Sunshine Flowers

Hi everyone. A later posting today, as it took me so long to sort out the placement of this flower and leaves. I had an idea in my head, but just couldn’t get it right. It seems to be a running theme with me these days – taking ages to plan my layout…..

This card has been inspired by the colours from Just Add Ink, and the sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch.

I used my Altenew stamp and die set ‘Hello Sunshine’, stamping the flower in black on some Whisper White cardstock, but the leaves in a softer grey. I don’t have the Smokey Slate from Stampin Up, so used Evening Grey from Altenew. I thought the leaves would be too stark if stamped in black, and I wanted a softer look for them.

The flower I stamped in black, and coloured all of them in Lemon Lime Twist, using my water brush on the ink pad casing. I must say, this is now one of my favourite colours. I love it. It comes a very close second to the Catherine Pooler ‘Lime Rickey’ ink – love them both.

The sentiment is from Altenew – Wood Pallet Background. I was going to use the wood pallet, but I used my We R Memory Keepers next level embossing folder instead, to give a trellis look. (I need to move away from the trellis look, I think!)

I stamped the banner in Crumb Cake, as well as the sentiment, and cut it out. And – no die cut for this! All my own snappy scissor work……. 🙂

The base card is Crumb Cake, layered with the Whisper White embossed layer, the sentiment added with 3D glue gel, and the flower and leaves stuck behind this.

So – Whisper white is used for the stamping and the embossed layer, Lemon Lime Twist for the colouring, Crumb Cake for the base card, and Evening Grey instead of Smoky Slate for the outline of the leaves.

Challenges I will be entering:

CAS(E) This Sketch – sketch

Just Add Ink – colour combination

QKR Stampede – anything goes

 

 

‘A’ for Avant Garden

Hi everyone. Today’s card was inspired by several challenges, including the colour and the theme.

The first challenge was from Color Throwdown and the challenge to use three colours – orange, green, and brown, the second challenge was from Just Add Ink with the challenge to just add ‘A’, and the third was from Inkspirational with the theme of ‘rural’.

Looking at the colours to use, I must admit I followed many of the inspirations already on the challenge from the other entrants, and thought of flowers. As I hadn’t used the ‘Avant Garden’ stamp set from Stampin Up for a while, I thought this water colour effect from the stamps would suit the orange colour, and of course the title of the stamp set begins with ‘A’.

As for Inkspirational – I was guest designer on the last challenge, and just had to try and enter this challenge also. Such a great theme – rural, and a fabulous card from the current guest designer.  I felt the Avant garden stamp set and the colours would suit just fine.

I used colours from my Stampin Up stash – Tengelo Twist, Old Olive, and Crumb Cake. I started with the three flowers, then used a masking technique to stamp some of the leaves. Now my masking technique does need a little work…..and my mask itself is a sticky note! I just placed it where I thought it needed to go, tore it if it didn’t need a 90 degree angle – and hey presto! And I didn’t use my Misti!

The sentiment is from IndigoBlu, a lovely set called ‘Nature 1’. I love the images on this set and have used them previously. Stamping the sentiment in brown instead of black really lends to a more muted effect, don’t you think?

Colourful sketch

Hi everyone. A short Saturday night posting from me today. I have been playing with the sketch from Hand Stamped Sentiments, and created the card above, which could be used in either direction. I think my preference is for the card with the heart on the bottom left.

I started with a new Concord and 9th stamp set I bought in Doncaster Dome last week, called ‘Cuddles and Hugs’. I stamped the heart with my Misti, just to be sure, and then masked this off and stamped a little cluster of hearts multiple times around it. I wanted it to look like the smaller hearts were underneath the bigger heart and kind of exploding from it.

To keep in with the sketch, I stamped a sentiment round two sides of the card, to look like the layer on the sketch, as I didn’t really want to add another layer.

I will be entering this card into the following challenges:

Hand Stamped Sentiments – sketch

Colour Crazy Craft Challenge – anything goes