Monthly Challenge - April

 For the penultimate month of the monthly challenge the theme is:

                                                         Y for Yesterday

The colour option is yellow.

I struggled with this one and I'm not sure I hit the brief but I was going for a vintage/ancestors vibe. I started off with a piece of card sprayed with Glimmer Mist in peach. I don't know if anyone remembers but Glimmer Mists were one of the early shimmer sprays on the market. They were notorious for clogging nozzles and I have 3 or 4 of these sprays (I think I won them in a competition) which have barely been used despite repeated efforts to clear the nozzles. I was about to recycle an empty bottle of blow-dry spray when I thought I would see if the Glimmer Mist would work in it. It worked so now you will find peach Glimmer Mist on many projects and I am waiting to decant another colour in another empty spray bottle.

Anyway back to the above project on which I then used a TH clocks stencil with mustard seed DI. I edged the top and bottom with brushed corduroy DI and stamped the text from Paper Artsy Ancestors plate 3. The 2 images are from the same set and I used a new rectangle die set to cut them out. The male image didn't have a defined frame so I cut a rectangular frame and coloured it in black. The shield which is raised on foam tape is the waste from the stamped images and the mopping up of excess brushed corduroy DI on my craft sheet which I used to watercolour the image backgrounds. The die is from a Sizzix set and I added some mustard seed DI and edged it in black.

The flower spray is a die cut I had on my desk (I think it's one of the TH wildflowers). I coloured it with alcohol markers and added glossy accents to the flowers.

Next month is the last letter in our challenge!

Unrivalled Passion Pocket Cards

 Whilst making the background in my previous post I made another background using the same colours and stencil but a different stamp. This piece was sitting on my desk and I thought it would make a good pocket card for my mini album of random things. I managed to squeeze 2 pocket cards out of the piece by matting one onto a postage stamp edged pocket card. These will sit facing each other on a double page.

I bought the text stamp (Dream Big by Visible Image) a week or so ago and wanted to try it out and this beautiful image by Innovative Stamp Creations seemed perfect to go with it. Both text and image were stamped with Versafine onyx black. I added a Crafty Individuals text stamp to the background in Stazon koala grey.

I am enjoying making these pocket cards with desk scraps and the album is filling up nicely.

New Technique

 I recently bought a white pigment ink pad (Stazon pigment in snowflake) and wanted to try out a technique I had seen on Jennifer McGuire's channel here . I used a spotty background stamp with the white ink and when it was completely dry I stencilled over it with peacock feathers and mowed lawn DIs. The ink acts a bit like a resist and appears once the die ink is applied over it. I made the background into a quick card with a frame that was sitting on my desk, my old favourite Memory Box poppy die and a Marianne Designs swirl die cut from dark green card.  

White Rabbits!

 

Sometimes things are just meant to be. I bought a few dies and embossing folders in the big Sizzix sale at the start of the year but their website was playing up, doubling up on my items and generally being difficult. I had to keep deleting items and adding them in again and during all this I managed to miss one of the dies I wanted which I discovered after I had checked out. I phoned Customer Service to ask if they could add it on but apparently it wasn't Company policy. I thought I would place another order for just that die which was very good value but when I went to do that I noticed the price had gone up to £10 which was more than double the sale price.

I've been regretting missing out ever since until a week or so ago Sizzix had a 'Best Performing Products Sale' and my die - Bunny & Bear Hugs #663452 was there for £3.40. Naturally a couple of other things went into the basket as well!

The order arrived last week and I was able to cut several of these bunnies for some very deserving children. The images are self-explanatory and I cut them with white card in case any of the recipients wanted to customise them. There's a tiny bit of DST on one arm/paw which can be used to attach both arms together for a bunny hug or even to hold a mini chocolate egg.

A bit of a rushed job but the bunnies should be with everyone in time for Easter.