One Layer Foliage

Yes it is one layer at Less Is More this week and the theme is Foliage. This stamp from Lavinia Stamps came to mind straight away, it is one that I really like and I have used it a lot.I began by cutting  rectangle and circle masks with nestie dies. I taped the mask with the rectangle cut out onto my card and placed the one with the circle cut out inside it and inked it with Squeezed Lemonade  DI. I dried the ink and then covered it with the cut out circle and inked the rest of the background with Stormy Sky and a touch of Victorian Velvet.  I used Versafine inks in Spanish Moss and Olympian Green to stamp the acer branch, stamping the lighter one first and then masking it to stamp the darker one. The sentiment is from Crafty Individuals and stamped in the darker green ink.

I am also entering this at Challenges 4 Everybody, Anything Goes, and Make it Monday, Anything Goes.

Thank you for taking a look, I appreciate your comments.

Purple and Pink

This is a card that I made for my friend's birthday nearly two weeks ago. I only just got it made in time and thought I had posted it without taking a photo, but when I went to transfer some ATC photos onto the computer I found this, so I must have been having a senior moment and taken the picture without remembering.
I started to make this card knowing it had to be a pinky/purple colour scheme because they are my friends favourite colours. I decided to use this B Line Design stamp and inked it up with Onyx black Versafine ink onto a piece of ivory card. I then coloured it with colour soft pencils and very carefully cut it out . I used a Die Namics  die to cut the decorative oval frame from pale lilac pearlised card and stuck the image onto it. I chose a piece of purple patterned paper from my stash and cut a scalloped edge along the bottom with a memory box die. I did the same with a strip of the lilac card and layered them together.Next I took a folded A5 card and using a stamp from the Chocolate Baroque Texture Fragments set I created a background by stamping  randomly, firstly with dusty concord  and then picked raspberry distress Inks stamping off some of the ink onto scrap paper each time.Then I fixed the patterned panel to the card and added the oval mounted on some thin foam pads. I added a matching ribbon with a bow and then made the flower with circles of chiffon in two shades curled with a heat tool and fastened together with a brad.I didn't have a brad the right colour so I coated one with WOW Ruby Romance embossing powder. I added the flower to the card together with some silver leaves from my stash and some pearls also coloured to match. ( I used permanent markers for that ) I decided that the flower was really a bit bright so to balance it a bit I used two Memory Box dies to make the butterfly cutting the open one from card to match the oval frame and the solid one from bright patterned paper.
I am just about in time to enter this in Fashionable Stamping Challenges;Anything Floral/Handmade Flowers
and also Make It Monday; Always Anything Goes.

 Thank you for dropping by to look at my work, hope that you will like what you see and leave a comment. I appreciate them all. Jean

Alphatags Again

Yes it's that time again, although I actually made these tags over a week ago but just haven't got around to doing the blog. As you will probably see I struggled somewhat this month with the letter Q,and though I had one or two ideas I ended up with Q for question mark, and even this hasn't turned out quite as I intended it to. However I do rather like the colours I used and I hope the person who receives it wont be too disappointed.The base tag was coloured with alcohol inks in Expresso,Terra Cotta and Willow with some gold added at the end with a Krylon pen. I then stamped some Chocolate Baroque swirly corners with versamark and embossed them with WOW gold fine detail embossing powder, and some curly Qs with brown Stazon ink.The question mark I drew by hand onto grunge paper and cut it out. I tried several methods of colouring it with various ink pads and stains but didn't like any of them and while searching for something else I found a jar of Viva Precious Metal Colour in Blue Lagoon that I had forgotten about and tried it out. It is a lovely colour and went well with my background so I went ahead and gave it two coats of paint. I still wasn't really happy with it so I ran it through the Cuttlebug with a Craft Concepts embossing folder, and then just touched up the ink a bit and edged it with the Krylon pen and attached it to the tag with foam pads. I also used the gold pen to edge the tag and the hole reinforcer.
                                     
    For R I went for Romance and Roses. I covered the tag with pink paper from an Artylicious Echoes of Italy pack, and again stamped the lovely swirly corner from the Chocolate Baroque nature swirls set, using Billiance Pearlescent Crimson ink.The Romance image is also a CB stamp from a set called Romantica, stamped I think with Adirondak Raisin and embossed with WOW pearl powder. I trimmed the bottom of the tag with a Fiskars edge punch and used the pearlescent crimson ink and a little dusty concord DI to shade round the edge. The roses and leaves are from my stash but were the wrong colour so I altered them a bit with some pearly paints from my Artquest Sparkling Pastelles pallet. The heart is one I made some time ago with a Das air drying clay in a silicon mould, and  I used several layers of ink and paint to get the colour I wanted. I finished the whole thing off with some ribbon and pearls and a piece of very pale pink lace through the hole.

I now have to set my thoughts to next months letters, S and T which should be a bit easier and then on to the really nasty ones!!. To be honest I have been lacking in inspiration lately, but I have been making some ATCs this week which I might show you later, so perhaps it is returning. Thank you all for dropping by, I love to hear from you.

Blue and Green

  This is the first time for a while that I have got round to entering the Less is More Challenge. This being the the first week of the month their theme is a colour one, namely Blue and Green, which I believe used to be a taboo combination but seems to be OK now. I think the modern shades make them more compatible.    
 I used a white square base card  and used post-it notes with a with a circle die cut from the centre to add an inky background.I used Distress Inks in Shabby Shutters and Bundled Sage. I then Stamped the Hero Arts image over the top with Broken China ink. I can't tell you whose the birthday greetings stamp is because it is a wood mounted stamp with no name on it.  I then just added a matching ribbon across the bottom.   I apologise  for this awful photo, it makes my card look really out of shape but I can assure you it is really square.
I will also enter this at Make it Monday, anything goes.
I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately I was without a computer for most of last week.It's back now with hopefully less gremlins to frustrate me and prevent me from visiting all of your blogs.
Thank you to all who look in and for your lovely comments. Jean  

                                                 

Alphatags O and P

Time once again to show you my tags for the Chocolate Baroque Alphatag swap. The letters O and P were much easier for me this month as I am a literal thinker rather than a lateral one so I like doing the letters that easily lead the thoughts to a specific subject.


O is for Owl


It wasn't hard for me to choose owl because it gave me the chance to use this lovely Crafty Individuals stamp. I stamped him twice with black ink and coloured one image with coloursoft pencils and cut out the owl and his perch. The other one was coloured around the owl with distress inks, in antique linen and various browns, I'm not certain which ones now.The backing paper I found  in the bottom of one of my odds and ends boxes while looking for something else, and is the result of a long ago play session with some Starburst Stains. I don't think the shimmer shows on this photo but it is a coppery brown colour and had a textured look to it that I believe I had made with cling film. As soon as it caught my eye I thought tree trunk, perfect background for my owl.I cut a piece of this paper to make the tag and used a Tim Holtz wood grain embossing folder to add more texture.The leaves were cut from some patterned paper with a Sissix die and then I used some rub on coppery gold to enhance some of the leaves and fixed them to the tag with a large brad. Unfortunately I made a proper bish of it and had to start again which is why this one has a narrow border of card showing as my nice shimmery background paper wasn't quite big enough to cut another tag. The owl image was fixed to the tag with DS tape, the word owl was cut out from the second image and mounted to match the tag and fixed in place with foam pads. The coloured owl was mounted over the image with silicon glue and I also added some glue under some of the leaves to secure them.

P is for Poppy


Poppy wasn't first on my mind for P, but just when I was deciding, Chocolate Baroque released this lovely set of stamps called Pretty Poppies. My regular readers will know that I was singing the praises of this stamp set in my last post.
This is is the other main image in the set, there is also another flower stamp and some sentiments too. Anyway this time I decided to colour them differently and chose this mauve because every year I have lots of poppies this colour growing in my garden. They are only annual plants but I love them so much and they produce so many seeds that I just sprinkle them around all over the place, so that there will be plenty the following year. These were stamped with Memento black ink onto the tag and coloured with Distress Markers and a waterbrush. I then stamped again onto thin copy paper and cut out to make a mask to cover the poppies while I stamped my favourite Crafty Individual crackle background stamp randomly all over the tag with antique linen Distress ink.The shading round the edge was done with dusty concord. The letters were cut from mauve pearlised card using x-cut dies.
Now I am waiting to see what the postman delivers at the end of the month when the tags are swapped and sent out. You can see collage photos of all the tags so far here.

I am going to enter the poppy one at Penny Black and More @ Allsorts; Summer Blooms,
and at Make It Monday; anything Goes.

Thank you to every one who takes the time look and for your lovely comments.

Sweet Summer Poppy

This lovely stamp is from one of the latest sets from Chocolate Baroque called Pretty Poppies which was simply tagged  "must have!!" as soon as I saw it. I love poppies of all sorts and colours although the red ones are my favourite so when I saw these I ordered them straight away and thanks to CBs  super fast service they arrived in time to make this card for my friends birthday. I started by stamping the image three times onto ivory card and once onto thin copy paper. I coloured one image completely with coloursoft pencils and then the two flower heads and butterfly on  another and just the front flower head on the last one. Next I cut out the image stamped on paper to make a mask to cover the poppy and stamped Crafty Individuals crackle background with Antique Linen DI. The two part coloured images were then cut out and layered on top with silicon glue to add some dimension. I cut a mount from gold mirri card and used a Memory box bistro label die to cut a gold label to carry the greeting. The red panel was cut to fit a square card leaving a border all round and then I used a Fiskars edge punch to decorate the left hand side. when all the layers had been stuck down I tied an ivory ribbon around and stamped the greeting on an offcut of background stamped card and cut it to fit the bistro label adding red brads for decoration in the holes and fixed it to the card using foam pads.

I am adding a couple of close ups to show the layers on the flowers. I didn't want to make it too chunky but just add a little dimension.

 I am going to enter this for The Stamp Man fortnightly Challenge,Anything Goes/ Summer Colours, and Make It Monday, Always Anything Goes.

Taste of the Orient

The challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges at the moment is Oriental and as I haven't made anything
Oriental for a long while I decided to dig out some stamps and see what I could do. The image of the Japanese ladies is a wood mounted stamp by Just For Fun, which I stamped with black Archival ink and cut out close to the image and mounted onto gold mirri card. I covered the front of a square card with a piece of oriental style paper. I stamped the Acer branch  (Lavinia Stamps) with Versamark ink onto black card and embossed with clear EP. I cut a panel from this and stuck it to the right side of the card overlapping the patterned paper and inserting a strip of gold card to leave a thin border between.Next I stamped the Acer again onto red card and embossed with gold EP.  I cut this to fit across the card and again mounted it onto gold mirri card. I fixed the main image to this panel and added the little fan charm which was silver, so I used gold EP to make it the right colour, and tied some red and gold embroidery threads to make a tassel.The greeting was printed on the computer using an oriental style font.
I am also entering this at Make It Monday where as always Anything Goes.
Thank you to everyone who stops here to take a look and for all your encouraging comments.