LIM 178

This week's challenge on the Less is More blog is to use a recycled item on a card. Please be aware that no drawers were opened in the making of this card! All this junk useful stuff was on my desk even the kraft card which I cut into an A6 card blank. The leaf patterned card is a tag from an Orla Kiely gift (I think). The leaf pattern is made up of pin holes and I saved it as a template to prick out the pattern (one day). I backed it with some neon red card that was on the back of a birthday card I received in April. I also used the same card for the sentiment. The flower is made up of 2 fabric flowers from my stock and a resin flower that was on another birthday card. Does my desk look better as a result of using up some 'may come in useful' bits? Er... unfortunately not.

Happy Days

This isn't my usual style of card but I guess it makes a change to mix it up sometimes. I originally started this card for this week's Less Is More challenge (see previous post) but decided it wasn't going to end up CAS enough. The stamp set is one I picked up for £1 (at Hobbycraft I think) and at that price I thought it would be useful for kids cards. Detailed colouring is not really my thing but I used my watercolour pencils and tried to create some shading on the fur. The sentiment is from the same set.

LIM 177

Watercolour is the theme for this week's Less Is More. I decided to use my Whispers markers to colour the Darkroom Door stamp and then spritzed it with water. I left the stamp on the paper for a bit longer than usual in order to enable the paper to absorb more of the colour. I spritzed again and managed to get a lighter second generation image which I will use on a slightly different card:

 The ticket stamp is by Papermania. The flower panel has been raised on foam pads for added interest. Here's a slightly better pic:

June Katzelkraft Challenge

There are still 5 days in which to enter this month's Katzelkraft Challenge, the theme of which is summer/summer colours. The details are here so grab your Katzelkraft stamps and have a go. There's a €15 voucher for the lucky winner.

Quotes & Lyrics - Vintage

This fortnight's words for the Craft Barn challenge are Proud and Vintage. I decide to use a quote and the word vintage. The quote is by a musician and record producer called Tony Visconti (who was married to Mary Hopkins  for a while). It reads 'it is easily overlooked that what is now called vintage was once brand new'. Although unintentional my page ended up being a sort of homage to Tim Holtz's products. The label die is the only non-TH item I've used.

I look forward to seeing the other entries this fortnight.

A Painted Card

I bought this Woodware cling stamp on Saturday at the Craft Barn. They had some gorgeous samples using it and at £3.99 I decide it was a worthy addition to my floral stamp collection. I'm trying to give an airing to neglected items in my craft hoard that are languishing in the inner recesses of drawers etc so I pulled out my Twinkling H2Os (remember those?). I had such fun using them and the colours are so vibrant with a glorious sheen. The scan shows up as sky blue but it's got more of a greenish tinge to it and the pearlescent paper (from an ancient Craftwork Cards punching pad) matches perfectly. I highlighted the dots with Ranger enamel accents and went over the squiggly lines with a pen. I didn't immediately think of using a Kraft card blank for this but it's quite a dark Kraft and seemed to fit better than the other base cards I tried. So something new and several old items used. I'm keeping the H2Os out on my desk for a while longer ...

Quotes & Lyrics - Mistake

Mistake and mountain were the 2 words chosen for the 11th challenge on the Craft Barn blog. I found many inspirational mountain quotes but wanted to do a song and finally remembered these lines in the 1986 song Human by The Human League .
Last weekend was the annual Extravaganza at the Craft Barn and I try and go to meet up with old crafting friends and watch some brilliant demos. Unfortunately I only managed to spend a couple of hours there before I had to leave but not before I had seen Helen Chilton demo the Faber Castell Gelatos. I've been interested in seeing these in action for a while and Helen's demo inspired me to pick up a special edition set - 50's Diner and a metallic set of 2. A cruise around the net brought up this tutorial by Donna Downey where she shows the drip technique (OK not majorly complicated but she has some good tips). I gessoed the page and used 3 of the 4 Diner colours to make the drips. The image was found on the net. I've been wanting to try some art journal style lettering and this seemed a good place to use it. I pencilled in the lines and words and then went over them with a 0.08 Pigma Micron pen. Unfortunately I discovered the gelatos rub off with an eraser as well so there are a few pencil marks. I splattered some watered down Adirondack espresso all over and added some Katzelkraft splats as well. For a first effort I'm quite pleased with my lettering and keen to give it another go soon. I look forward to stopping by and seeing all your artwork for this fortnight.

A Tidy Clip



DS2 always leaves his bills and receipts piled up on a shelf before he collates them all at the end of the month. This irritates me no end and so when I saw a jumbo wooden clothes peg at the Craft Barn on Saturday I had a light bulb moment and picked one up. This is an unfinished wooden clip @ 6"/15cm in length which provides a great surface for decorating but I've kept it simple in the hope that he does actually use it.

 

This was a very quick make with some old stamping paint I had for the base and a little random stamping. The font is a Cuttlebug die - it's not exactly what I had in mind but all my other fonts were either too large or too small. Hopefully he will be encouraged to store his bills more neatly with this clip.

UK Stampers Postcard Swap - June

This month's postcard for the swap hosted by Sam on UK Stampers has to have circles and stars. By coincidence I had just ordered a star stencil by Memory Box so of course I had to use it. I sponged the background with orchid Fresco paint (it's a discontinued colour and one of only 2 Fresco paints I have) and then used purple Ferro paste through the stencil. When dry I drew around the larger stars with a white Uniball and a black Pigma micron pen and circled around a few smaller stars. The quote is a stamp I bought years ago in The States for a dollar. I stamped it on a scrap piece of card and covered it with a Wink of Stella pen. I've seen this used by quite a few people online and have wanted to try it out so when I saw it at the Craft Barn Extravaganza on Saturday, I picked it up. I'm quite pleased with the slight shimmer it gives and it's very user-friendly. I edged the postcard with seedless preserves Distress Ink.

Crafty Individuals Blog Challenge - June

I'm in a summery frame of mind and in the mood for some bright colours so when I decided to enter this month's Crafty Individuals blog challenge I grabbed my Impress inks and got started. The challenge has been chosen by Helen Chilton and is called 'Tag You're It'. I decided to use CI 376 Party Puffin and stamped him with cobalt Archival ink. I paper pieced him with some scraps from Crafty Individuals' Springtime paper pad and gave him a red glossy accented heart. The base tag is stamped with CI 207 Ferns & Grasses in various colours of Impress ink. I then decided it was too bright and wanted to tone it down. Now I know that all you arty types would have reached for gesso or a Fresco paint to do the job but I decided to use vellum (oh alright not exactly vellum but tracing paper from Smiths). I ran it through a Crafters Companion Beatrix Potter embossing folder and used it as an overlay. If you click on the image you should get a better view of the embossed flowers which give a lovely texture to the tag. I added the puffin and some bunting (the stamp is also by Crafty Individuals and came as a thank-you gift with an order). To finish off I added an eyelet (yay that's one less in my hoard!) and a grommet/washer(?) not sure what they're called but I bought a Big Bite case (I only have a Crop-a-dile) with a load of these things a few years ago. It says 'adorable, delightful, charming' which sums up this Puffin beautifully.

If you enter this month's challenge you can get a very desirable 25% discount on your web purchases here.

LIM 174/Katzelkraft Challenge - June

The theme for this month's challenge on the Katzelkraft blog is summer. Last summer we visited Grasse and the lavender fields and this Katzelkraft stamp from Norris et JMC Fleurs reminded me of that. I stamped it with Brilliance starlite black and coloured in with Coloursoft pencils and Sansodor. The arch was made with a framelit round tag die and the sentiment is from the same stamp set. This shows the card shape more clearly (I've added a punched butterfly because what is Summer without a butterfly or two?)

I'm also entering this into this week's Less Is More Challenge which is to use more than one stamp.

UK Stampers ATC Swap - June

For this month's swap on UK Stampers Vonny has chosen the theme of 'different decades'. I initially thought of the 60's but then I remembered I had a Paper Artsy stamp which I had not used much which had a 50's vibe to it (well it does to me). I am a 50's baby (just) so it seemed an appropriate  decade to do. I was trying to go for a retro 50's American diner feel and thought the checked paper from a range called Kitschy Kitchen matched well. The stamp fitted nicely into a Spellbinders oval die. It has some nonsense text across the centre which I covered up with some decorative tape. I raised the man's head onto a foam pad for added interest and added some photo corners.

Albums

I take part in a monthly postcard swap on UK Stampers and have quite a collection of wonderful postcards. I usually display swaps I've received on my pinboards but my boards were full and I wanted to find another way of storing these so that I could look at them whenever I wanted to. I found an old photograph album at my local charity shop for £1 - it was in good condition but with an uninspiring cover of pink and blue stars. I covered it and made this:

The album is a larger sized one designed for 5" x 7" pics. I used papers from Crate Paper's Pink Plum collection but the 12" x 12" papers were too short to cover the whole album with one sheet. I added another contrasting sheet from the range and used a Memory Box border die to hide the join on the front. The titles are cut from Cuttlebug's Hippy Chick alpha. As there is plenty of space I've decided to use it to store tags as well.

 

While I was making this I found an old album that I had (badly) decorated a few years ago. It was pretty hideous with purple flourishes on a pink background and a metal alcohol inked plate (I wish I had taken a pic of it just to show how awful it was). I decided to give it a CAS makeover:

 

The paper is from a collection called Kitschy Kitchen. I've used the Hippy Chick alpha again and Memory Box's Chloe stem die embellished with some stick-on pearls. The inside has paper from the Pink Plum collection:



So two new storage albums and not a single stamp used which is very unusual for me!