Two into Three

It's the 25th today which means it's time for the Rudolph Day challenge at Sarn's blog Stamping For Pleasure, where we are required to make two or more Christmas cards or projects. I set out to make two identical CAS cards using this quirky little Christmas tree stamp from Chocolate Baroque. I first cut and folded two white 4.25" square cards and stamped the image with Versafine olympia Green ink. As I went to add a little colour I realised that I had stamped one of them upside down so I cut the front of the card off and trimmed it down a bit and then looked for something to mount it on. I found a sheet of red pearlised card that would do the trick, and then decided that while I was cutting one small card from it I may as well cut two.I then stamped the image once again on what had been the back of the original card and hey presto! three cards from two. I used Sakura sparkle pens for the colouring and alternated the colours on some of the baubles so they weren't quite exactly the same.The greeting is also from Chocolate Baroque.
Thank you for looking and for your comments, I really appreciate them.

90th Birthday

This is the card that I made for my brother in law's 90th birthday earlier this week.The ivy stamp I used is from Inkylicious and because I didn't want the stamping to look too heavy I used Brilliance Lightning black ink. I had trouble finding the right greens to colour the leaves and I think in the end I used mainly ColourSoft pencils blended with Sansodor and added little touches with Promarkers and Distress markers for the stems and roots.I coloured the wall with promarkers.I trimmed this and mounted it on a mat cut from a snippet of dark green card. I had a piece of ivy backing paper from a Papermania christmas pack but it looked rather whitish next to the stamped piece which started out as ivory card, however as it fitted the card theme so well I photocopied it onto some thin ivory card, and then used a TH Alterations brick wall EF to emboss it.I cut it down to fit the front of an A6 kraft card and stuck it in place. The stamped panel is fixed with thin foam tape. The greeting is stamped onto a snippet of the printed card and matted on another snippet of the green card, and the 90 cut from another  tiny snippet of the same green using a TH  Upon A Time alphabet die.
My brother in law, who very fit and healthy for a 90 year old had a lovely birthday. My sister arranged a tea party for him and all the people from the flats where they live were there as well as some family, and now they are on holiday in the south of France.
I am off  to Pixies snippets Playground now to show this snippety card. No matter how many snippets I use the box just keeps getting more full up !!

I am also entering at Allsorts Challenge - All About The Boys
                               Ruby's Rainbow - Happy Birthday


Thank you for looking and for your comments which I really appreciate.

Abstract Birthday

This is the card that I made for my sons birthday this week. I was inspired by an article by Joanne Allison in the February issue of Craft Stamper magazine in which she showed several techniques for using Drywall tape, available in the DIY section of many £1 shops. I thought  it would be ideal for making abstract cards suitable for men. By making small snippet sized samples I managed to incorporate most of the techniques she showed. As you can see the tape is in the form of a fine mesh, which is sticky on one side. The first technique, that I used on the right of the card is to simply lay it on as a stencil and ink through it, which I did gently with black soot Distress ink using a piece of cut and dry sponge. The next was to cut a piece of the tape and colour it with a permanent marker, I think I used a Whispers bright red marker. Next I stuck some tape to a snippet of card and covered it with some foil tape, also from a DIY shop I think. I used a paper stump to make sure the mesh really showed up.  It should then have been painted with black acrylic paint but I didn't have any black so I coloured it with a black permanent marker, and then sanded it lightly to reveal the metal. In the magazine this was left with the silver showing but fancied to see it gold so I rubbed some Treasure Brass gilding wax over it. For the last sample I stuck the mesh to a piece of double sided sticky sheet and then onto another snippet of card and tipped some gold glitter over it and used my fingers to press it down and burnish it before tipping off the excess. I realised at this point that it would have looked better if I had coloured the mesh first, but I rescued it by using a fine line black pen to go over the mesh lines. This was a little tricky as the pen kept collecting glitter on the nib and I had to keep cleaning it off, but as I had only made a small sample it wasn't too bad and the result was worth it.  I punched out a couple of stars from this, and one from the black and gold piece and glued them to the card. I stamped the greeting with a Chocolate Baroque clear stamp from the Amazing Birthday set, in the middle of the card and used a gold gel pen to highlight the word Amazing. I'm not sure if this shows in the photo but it might if you click on it to enlarge it. To finish I added the black and red dots with a random dots stamp from Denami Designs and black soot and fired brick Distress inks.
I had fun playing with this and as I now have a large roll of the tape I might well be using it again soon.
As I used little snippets of card for the samples I am going to pop over to the Snippets Playground with it and see what they have been getting up to this week.

I am also entering at Crafty Creations Challenges - Happy Birthday
                          Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

Thank you all for looking and for your lovely friendly comments I really appreciate them.

Lavender Fairy

When I was looking through one of my stamp files last week I came across this Crafter's Companion set which I haven't used for ages. I love all the Flower Fairies and this  is one of my favourites, I have a cross stitched version of her hanging in my bedroom that I made some years ago.
Anyway I decided to give this set an airing and began by stamping the fairy onto white card with Memento Tuxedo black ink.I then stamped the lavender around her using first,second and third impressions without re-inking to give the illusion of depth. I coloured with Colour Soft pencils using Sansodor to blend. For the wings I used a little pencil colour and Sakura sparkle pens and just blended with a water brush. I stamped the butterfly from the set twice and coloured them first with a cream pencil and the blended in a little colour and sparkle with the sakura pens. I don't think the sparkle shows in the photo, it is quite subtle but pretty in the right light. Next I trimmed close to the image and then using duster brushes and Distress Inks I shaded in the background with bundled sage and milled lavender at the bottom and broken china at the top. I used some purple pearl card for a mat cutting it a bit longer than the picture and trimming the bottom edge with a Memory Box scalloped die. This was then stuck to an A5 card, and the birthday greeting stamped below with dusty concord Distress ink, and a Chocolate Baroque clear stamp from the Amazing Birthday set. I have added two pieces of toning ribbon attached at the top of the card with a staple and left them hanging free. I looked for a button to hide the staple but couldn't find one the right colour so I used this one which was a pale blueish lilac and coloured it with a promarker to match. In fact all the elements tone with each other much better IRL than it looks here, I think it probably it's the purple card that hasn't photographed very well. Anyway I tied some purple metallic cord through the button and stuck it on with a glue dot.
I am entering this at Seize The Birthday - Anything Goes Birthday
         Fashionable Stampers Challenge - Anything Goes
 and Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge - 3 B's where she has asked for butterflies, buttons and bows, at least one of each.

Thank you for looking and for all your lovely comments which are greatly appreciated.

Two Of A Kind

I can't believe it is the 25th of February already and that means that it is Rudolph Day at Sarn's blog,
Stamping For Pleasure, where we are required to make at least two Christmas items for one blog post.
I decided to make this pair of little cards, just 4.5" square. Not my usual style really but I received these Penny Black clear stamps as part of a prize last year and thought I would see what I could do with them. I had trouble getting a good black impression on the foreground images, I don't know if that is due to the card I was using or the clear stamps, anyway I ended up using black Versafine Onyx Black and embossing it with clear powder, it still wasn't very black but at least I could use Promarkers to colour it with. I stamped again onto masking tissue and cut out and masked the images while I stamped the tree with Versafine Olympia Green ink.I think it looks as though I stamped them on a bit of a lean, they must have suffered in the recent gales!! I coloured them with a bundled sage Distress Marker and used Sakura sparkle pens for the baubles.I added snowy white highlights to the tree and the ground with a white Signo pen.I made another mask for the tree and used it while I shaded the background lightly with tumbled glass Distress Ink, and then stamped some snowflakes with a Crafty Individuals background stamp and the same ink. I used the largest of the Spellbindres Marvellous Squares die set to cut matting layers from some snippets of red card. I trimmed the images to fit and rounded the corners. After fixing all the layers together I stamped the greeting from the same set of stamps and added some Stickles glitter to the snowy bits and some gold coloured gems in the corners.
I am going to post this at the Snippet Playground as well seeing as the red card came from my snippets box.
Thank you for coming to look and for all your kind comments which are greatly appreciated.

Sending A Smile

Today I have a card that I  made for a new Butterfly Challenge started by Mrs A, who is also one of the  playmates at the Snippets Playground. For the first challenge she wants to see at least one butterfly and one flower on your creation. It is a fortnightly challenge starting on a Wednesday and the first one finishes on this coming Tuesday evening and a new one starting on Wednesday.So if you like using butterflies in your artwork why not pop over and take a look.
I stamped this Chocolate Baroque image onto white card with Memento Rhubarb Stalk ink, and coloured it with Promarkers. I shaded in the background very lightly with a duster brush and Broken China Distress Ink, and then cut it out. I used a piece of navy card to mount it and fixed it to the white A6 base card.I stamped and coloured the two butterflies again and cut them out, and then fixed them over the original ones with silicon glue to lift the wings a little. I used Cinnamon coloured Stickles to add a bit of sparkle to the flower centres. I finished the card by stamping the sentiment from Chocolate Baroque Amazing Birthday set with the Rhubarb Stalk ink. As I didn't have anyone in particular in mind when making this I chose this sentiment as it makes usable for several different occasions.
All of the image stamping was done on snippets of card and the navy mount was also a snippet so I am off to the Snippets Playground with it as well.
Thank you for taking a look and to those of you who leave comments, they are really appreciated.

Another Pink Flower Card

I seem to be in a pink and flowery frame of mind lately . Maybe it's an antidote to all the Christmas cards I made last month or just that I'm looking forward to spring. This card started out as an A6 size but when it was done I didn't like it, it looked too cramped and the sentiment didn't look nice at all. So I dismantled it and cut an A4 sheet of card to make a folded 5" x 7" base card. I covered the front with paper from a Papermania pad called Regency, cutting it slightly shorter than the card with a scalloped edge at the bottom. I added the ribbon before fixing it to the card so that I could tuck the ends in neatly.
The main panel was embossed with an EF that I don't know the name of, I think it was one that is sold by Do Crafts. The magnolia is a clear stamp from Chocolate Baroque, stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, and coloured with Promarkers. I wasn't totally happy with how it looked and decided to colour the narrow scalloped line in the embossing with one of the pink pens I'd used on the flower. Promarkers are brilliant for this kind of work, I could never have coloured that thin line with a pencil.Then I thought it would look better with a coloured background so I filled it in with the palest blue Promarker that I've got. Next I trimmed the piece close to the embossing and inked the edge with the pink pen. I rummaged around and found these two dragonfly brads which matched, that have been in my stash for ages. The greeting is another CB clear stamp from a set of greetings and sentiments called Amazing Birthday. It is stamped onto a very small snippet of card with the black Memento ink and coloured and edged to match the image panel.
As I have used that little snippet of card I am off to Pixies Snippets Playground to join in the fun there.
I am also entering at Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes
Thank you to everyone who has visited my blog and for all your generous and encouraging comments, I appreciate them all.