LIM 234

It's a busy week here but I needed a thank you card for a friend who made us the scrummiest chocolate and raspberry birthday cake imaginable. I used an oval nestie as a stencil with tumbled glass DI and then added the Cuttlebug diecuts which used tiny scraps of paper from my scrap bags. An old Hero Arts sentiment finished off the card.

A very Happy Birthday to Chrissie of Less Is More who is celebrating a significant birthday this week!

 

I am entering this into the following challenges:
Less Is More - Snippets
Craft Barn - Clean & Simple

Craft Barn Weekly Challenge

Circles and flowers are the themes of this week's challenge on the Craft Barn blog. I don't have a lot of crafting time this week but when I saw the challenge I knew straight away which stamp to use. I stamped and embossed the Hero Arts image in Versafine Spanish moss. The flowers and leaves were painted with Twinkling H2Os and I added black enamel accents to the flower centres. Three of the flowers have been raised on foam pads for extra dimension. I punched the corners with my old southwestern punch and matted it onto some black card and then an orange card blank. I've left the card without a sentiment for now.

Craft Barn Weekly Challenge

This week's challenge on the Craft Barn blog is to use words in the background. I dug out a very old Stampington stamp called dark dandelion which has a script background, stamped and heat embossed it over some glossy card coloured with alcohol inks. This was matted onto some black card and then put onto a square kraft blank which had been embossed with a script embossing folder. The kraft is not quite so green-looking IRL.

Katzelkraft Monthly Challenge - July

 

 

Flowers is the theme for this month's challenge on the Katzelkraft blog. As I have used flowers in some of the other recent KTZ challenges I had to find something different. The main image is from KTZ51_02 stamped on a scrap of patterned paper. I coloured it with coloursoft pencils and Sansodor. The trailing flowers are from KTZ132. The sentiment and die are from Clearly Besotted. It was all mounted on a pink card blank leaving a slight border on 2 sides.

LIM 232

This week's challenge on the Less Is More blog is to make a masculine one layer card. I went for this horse head stamp from Katzelkraft's contes et merveilles set. I often use it for male cards and it always stamps beautifully to show the intricate detail. After stamping it with Archival sepia, I masked it and brushed a stripe of peacock feathers DI across the card. A sentiment by Winnie & Walter finished the card. I would have liked to have added a few sequins or gems but as it's a one layer week I decided to leave it at that.

UK Stampers Postcard Swap - July

We have a new organiser for the postcard swap on UK Stampers, Jilly and she has chosen this month's theme as underwater. I decided to brush up my long-forgotten origami skills and fold some small Angelfish from scraps of washi paper. The background is a combination of several distress inks brushed and applied direct to paper. I added a waterdrops stamp in Brilliance starlite black and highlighted the droplets with a white Uni Posca pen. The seaweed is a Kodomo stamp and some strips of twisted up paper. I used a speckle stamp for the seabed and a tiny Crafty Individuals shell stamp. I edged 3 sides of the card with WOW whirlpool embossing glitter  - I am very impressed with the quality of this glitter, it is superfine and it seems to stay put (although it will be interesting to see how much is left after Royal Mail have handled it).

If you are interested in taking part in this fun swap, the info is here.

Calendar Challenge - July

The weather continues to sizzle and makes me think longingly of a dip in the sea and the feel of sand between my toes. A couple of weekends ago we took a trip along the south coast from Brighton to Worthing and the memory of the beach huts I saw along the way was still fresh in my mind when I read that this month's recipe for the Craft Barn calendar challenge is turquoise and beach huts.
The only beach hut stamp I possess is by Craft Individuals (I suspect there may be several people in the same situation this month) so there was no long decision making as to which stamp to use. All the stamps used come from the same CI set except for the sand castle which is a very old Rubbadubadoo stamp. I used Adirondack butterscotch for the sand and various shades of blue/green DIs for the sea in the hope that one or a combination of them would be as close to turquoise as my ink supply could get. The seagulls and the beach hut windows were given a lick of wink of stella for a little sheen. So that's it for another month - I like to get my calendar done early but inspiration doesn't always strike.

More Flowers

It's hot, hot, hot here and I'm in the mood for clean and simple flower cards. I used 3 DIs to make a shaded background across the centre of the card blank and diecut 2 sets of poppies from my first (and probably favourite) Memory Box die. I stamped the text, punched the letters out with a small square punch and raised them on foam pads.
I am entering this into:
Less Is More Weekly Challenge - red, white, blue
Memory Box Monthly Challenge - red, white, blue

Craft Barn Weekly Challenge

This week's challenge on the Craft Barn blog is stars or stripes. I've actually managed to incorporate both. I was playing with some Hero Arts cling stamps and trying out a technique called rock & roll (I think). You ink up the stamp with one colour and then rock the edges of the stamp in another darker colour. The colours are Impress lemon yellow and poppy red. I decided to use these flowers to make a small arrangement in a  vase which I cut from striped patterned paper. I liked the look of the flowers against kraft card and as white is very effective on kraft as well, I added some punched stars.
I will add a sentiment as the need arises.