Katzelkraft Inspiration March/April

For this month's inspiration challenge we were asked to use shades of green to symbolise the new growth of Spring with a touch of gold for the sun that (we hope) comes peeking through and some drops to symbolise the dew present on the ground in the morning.
I used Impress chartreuse, spring green and emerald and Archival library green for my shades of green with a few squirts of gold shimmer. The dress form is a KTZ stamp which I stamped directly onto the card and masked and the BG text is from the same plate. The splatter along the edges is by KTZ from the I am so special plate. The flowers are ready made paper ones with a Candi Dot centre and the flourishes are Marianne dies. Looking at it online I can't help feeling that something is missing even by my CAS standards. Does the BG need something else? Would ribbon help? What do you think?
Edited to add: Further to gardenpinks suggestion I stamped some more BG script.

It's amazing what a difference it makes! Thanks for the advice. 

First Birthday

Now for something completely different. A very special little boy is one next week and I made this card for him. I used the Paula Pascal for Sizzix banner set to stamp and cut the bunting. I coloured the bunting and added peel-off letters. The frog is from my bit bag, he is on a spring so he wobbles when you touch him. The birthday banner is from my bit bag too.

UK Stampers Easter Tag Competition

There is a new competition on the UK Stampers forum here. Sid has given us a free choice of theme but the tag has to have an egg on it. There are several fab entries but I decided to go in a different direction and use real eggshells as a mosaic background. I washed some shells and soaked them in vinegar to remove any smell. After rinsing I pulled the inner membrane out. The shells were stuck onto an Impress spring green base with mod podge and given a coat of mod podge on top to seal. When dry I dropped lettuce, sailboat blue and raspberry alcohol inks over and spread them with some blending solution. The base tag was coloured with Impress lemon yellow and stamped with a border stamp in Versafine majestic blue. The face stamp is by Tin Can Mail stamped in majestic blue. The 3D butterflies and banners are Sizzix dies and the branches are a Memory Box die. The closing date of the competition is 31st March so you still have time to enter.

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - P

P for plant is my chosen word this week, the verb and the noun. I decided to use gesso to cover the pages rather than white acrylic paint as I have previously done. I wanted to cover the unwanted words but only lightly so I used a thin layer of gesso. I doodled around the words I wanted to keep (I can't believe that was the first thing I did  - in the past it would have stressed me out to draw on the pages). I had a picture in my mind of stylized flowers predominantly in pink and purple. I stamped some background flowers with Brilliance starlite black and then added some flourishes for stems with Stazon olive green. The border is a Paper Artsy stamp with Stazon cactus green. I stamped and die cut various flowers and even found 2 dried flowers that I've had for years. I edged the pages with worn lipstick DI.
You can see the other entries here.

From the Bit Bags

I think I got this punched border card blank at a show when a demonstrator gave it to me. I found it in my bit bag and decided to add the little strip of deep red co-ordinating card. The stamped image seemed to fit and I found a scrap of pink glossy card which I added raisin and mushroom alcohol inks to and die cut some flowers and flourishes.

Poppies

I felt like doing some colouring and remembered a clear stamp set that I bought from Lakeland several years ago when they used to sell craft stuff. This poppy stamp was part of the set and I haven't used it for a while. I used my Coloursoft pencils and Sansodor. I cut it out with a Spellbinders label die and mounted it on some matching card. I might add a sentiment to this later (probably in the bottom left corner) depending on who I give it to.

UK Stampers ATC Swap - March

The theme for this month's ATC swap on UK Stampers is everyday things. I've seen quite a few background techniques on You Tube this weekend and thought I'd try some out. I'm sorry I can't link directly to the specific clips (they could have been by Jennibellie) but if I find them again I will add them. I decided to use some everyday things to make the BG so I covered card with some newspaper (the FT to be precise). I scribbled oil pastels over the page and then randomly added some torn bits of masking tape and some punched and embossed scraps of card ( an everyday item for any crafter!) I covered the whole sheet with PVA glue and let it dry completely. I pounced denim and raisin alcohol inks all over and then used the cap from a spray can as a stamp with Stazon. The trimming is from a reel I picked up in a charity shop and the stamp is by Crafty Individuals attached with a couple of staples. I finished off the ATCs with an eyelet.
Edited to add: This idea came from this video by Rach0113.

UKS Postcard Swap - March

For this month's Postcard Swap on UK Stampers Sam has given us free rein to do whatever we want to. This is always a problem for me because I can never decide what to do. I decided to focus on a stamp I haven't used yet and narrowed it down to Katzelkraft's So Special plate which I bought recently. I've been wanting this plate for the splatter and splodge stamps which I have already used a lot but I'm not sure about the main image on this plate which is the monkey gentleman above. To be honest he freaks me out a bit but I decided to have a go and see what I could come up with. I stamped the monkey image, masked it and then used the DI on craft sheet technique to add colour.  I was inspired by this post on Stamping Matilda's blog to use her colour scheme of rusty hinge and picked raspberry DIs. I added spiced marmalade DI on the parts close to the image that didn't pick up any ink. I stamped the clock image from the same set randomly over the card with Memento London fog and the splodge stamp with Brilliance cosmic copper. I also used Penny Black's bead border, MME's wild asparagus and a decorative square by B-Line Designs. I added some decorative tape to the top corners.

A Scrap Card

I was playing with some pastels and a scrap piece of card and decided to use the result to cut some shapes from my tattered florals die. I only managed to cut the 3 smaller flowers and decided to make  a quick card using them, a Sizzix ornate frame and a scrap of Crafty Individuals background paper.
I am entering this into Tim Holtz's tattered floral challenge.

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - M

Some days you just know immediately what you want to do and this was one of them. This time the Craft Barn Alpha Challenge was for the letter M but with the added proviso that the chosen word had to be between Ma and Me of the dictionary. So music, mystery and monster were out. I covered both pages with white acrylic paint making sure I masked the definition.
My M for Man started with a stamp depicting Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam (the first man). I stamped it on some PA Crackly paper that I bought from the Craft Barn yesterday. Leandra has done a very informative (if a little long) video on how to use this and I picked up several tips from that. I wanted this week's DPS to be monochromatic but I wanted a hint of flesh colour so I used watercolour pencils to colour the back of the stamped image by picking up a bit of colour onto a wet brush (thank you Lina for your excellent demo at the shop yesterday). The image was stuck down with Mod Podge. The BG of the image is made up of speckles so I decided to carry this over onto the whole DPS with a Hobby Art speckles stamp. The right hand page was stamped directly with an old Rubbadubadoo vitruvian man stamp, watercoloured and masked before adding the speckle stamp. I doodled some X's and Y's around the definition (a man's chromosomes). I added the computer-generated quote from Hamlet and some arrows.
Thank you once again for all your kind comments and the wonderful inspiration that your entries provide.
Edited to add: A Wall of Fame winner.

Tim Holtz Tag - March

I LOVED making this tag! It was such fun! Some months I look at Tim's tag and spend most of the month thinking about it but I saw this and started straight away. You can see the original tag here.
Instead of Easter BG paper I decided to use the spring seasonal DIs, applied randomly and spritzed with water and a gold shimmer spray. I cut a styled label in kraft card, distressed the edges and applied brushed corduroy DI. The banner (cut from the regal crest die) was given the same treatment and stamped with a homemade stamp. I don't have the bunny die but I do have the Crafty Individuals Alice Palace crowned bunnies stamp which I cut out and covered with blue glitter (and gold for the crown). Now for the grass - I sponged Adirondack meadow and Impress spring green onto some card and scored it with my Martha Stewart scoreboard. That gave me a perfect cutting guide for my strips of grass. I didn't cut the grass in a straight line to give it a more natural appearance (it usually looks like that when I cut my lawn!). The flowers and leaves were cut from a variety of  dies and punches I have and coloured with DIs - I wasn't looking for realism here more a whimsical feel. I attached them to brads and toothpick stems and anchored them in with glossy accents. Some lilac organza and blue ribbon completed the tag with a sun-shaped brad in the hole at the top. Hello Spring!

Perfume Bottle

I was inspired by Suzanne Czosek's instructions for making a background on the Paper Artsy blog this week and decided to have a go myself. I made the BG on an A5 sheet of card and then cut a piece for this card. I had none of the PA stamps used but this is my version.
The distressed lines are a Hampton Arts stamp. The post marks are by B-Line Designs and the splatters are by Katzelkraft. They were stamped with Memento London fog and Brilliance starlite black.  The 'art' stamp was in a grab bag stamped with Archival plum. I used a watercolour pencil to highlight the postmarks. The perfume bottle is part of a set called 'message on a bottle' by Crafty Secrets. I coloured it with coloursoft pencils and Sansodor. I was thinking of embossing the base card but then decided it would look too fussy.

Brilliance on Black

Having mentioned stamping Brilliance pearlescent inks on black card yesterday reminded me of a tag I did in my pre-blog days. This was entitled 'mystical' and the BG was made of pearlescent sky blue, galaxy gold and cosmic copper (although the latter could have been rocket red gold). It's great when you want a BG with impact. I'd love to see what you come up with if you try this.