UK Stampers ATC Swap - A for Angel

The background for this Angel is part of a sheet I created while playing around with some inks and stamps. The Non Sequitur angel was stamped with Brilliance beige and heat embossed with gold. I'm sure I've used Brilliance inks to heat emboss before but for some reason the powder only stuck in some areas. This however gave quite an interesting effect with the pearlescent ink showing in some areas and the gold embossing in others. I coloured the angel in with pencils and Twinkling H2Os and added the text.

Dictionary Challenge - S

This fortnight's letter for the Craft Barn dictionary challenge is S with the added twist that the page has to have a shell. I have to confess that I was not thrilled with the twist because of all the S words in the dictionary I really did not want to do a sun/sea/sand themed page. I debated making a background with some random shells stamped into it but then I thought of the word 'surf' and a very old Rusty Pickle stamp set that could do with some inking again. The background is a mix of Gelatos and DIs and I did some double and triple embossing to ensure the surfboards looked waxed to perfection. The 'surf' is a lot clearer IRL and was achieved with WOW white puff twinkle embossing powder. I had a pot of tiny shells from which I selected a few to scatter in the sand.
So that's it for this fortnight. If I had had more time I might have attempted something a bit more off beat but... onwards and upwards as they say.

Memory Box Challenge - April

This month on the Memory Box challenge blog we have been asked to make anything but a card. My son had passed this box on to me saying ' it's the sort of junk you like to keep' and it has been sitting among the detritus on my desk for a while. When this month's Memory Box challenge was announced I thought it would give me the incentive to do something with it. My problem is I don't have that many MB dies in my collection (I have a lot on my wishlist though) so it was going to have to be a die I had used before. I went along with the pink and black theme that I used recently here and added some washi tape to the edge of the lid.

A layered flower topped off the box.
I think I will be using this box to store some of my paper flowers.

UK Stampers ATC Swap - A for Autumn

A look at my blog design will tell you that I love Autumn, the season and the colours so there was no doubt that I would be using this quote stamp that I have had for some time. The leaf stamps are an old set by Simple Expressions and I have stamped, cut out and added some leaves for a little extra dimension.

LIM 271

This week's challenge on the Less Is More blog is to make a one layer card with a geometric shape or pattern. I used a sentiment from a Kaisercraft stamp set and added a chevron from the same set.

LIM 270

Sneaking in a last minute entry for this week's challenge on the Less Is More blog which asks for a card on a coloured card base. The diamond die is by Tim Holtz and the sentiment by Simon Says Stamp.

UK Stampers Postcard Swap - April

Say 'hello' to version 3 of my postcard for this month's swap on the UK Stampers forum. There had to be a face on the postcard and my initial idea was to use a very different stamp with some masking. However that did not work out at all as I imagined it (it was a disaster!). Version 2 involved the face stamp above (it's by Non Sequitur and I got it in a grab bag) with stencils and little flowers but that didn't work out either.
I've been following Carolyn Dube's Let's Play weekly workshops/tutorials and some of her advice has obviously rubbed off on me because I decided to go with the flow and see what would happen. As she always says 'What's the worst thing that can happen? You waste a bit of paper'. I roughly applied acrylic paint over reject no2 (you can just about see a couple of the original flowers on the right hand side) and stuck small bits of gold foil (from an Easter egg) here and there.  I had a scrap of bubble wrap on my desk so I grabbed that and inked it up with Impress peony purple and stamped bits all over. The circles were 2 Memory Box diecuts left over from a project (they were cut from different patterned papers so I flipped them over to the blank side). I made some lines with a plastic hotel keycard and Impress cherry pink. Weirdly it all seemed to come together in a much better way than before. I added the stamped image, some die cut words, some photo corners and a squiggly border. Job done!

UK Stampers ATC Swap - A for Ampersand

The first of this month's ATCs for the Alphabet Swap on UK Stampers is A for Ampersand. I used a Memory Box die to cut the circles and added some random peel-off letters. The ampersand was cut several times and stuck together to give some dimension. I added a doodled border to finish.

Dictionary Challenge - D

This fortnight's letter for the Craft Barn dictionary challenge is D with the added twist that the page has to have some pink on it. I decided to go for the word diagram. I had an old diagram of an art gallery and I added some Paper Artsy stamps to the page as well. The arrow is a stencil which reminded me of those 'you are here' diagrams you see in parks and museums. I kept the page very simple in keeping with the definition of the word.

April