Monthly Tag Challenge - December

 Yes it's been a while since I posted on my blog. I've been travelling and then got caught up with Christmas things. I have some catching up to do on the monthly tag challenge but I thought I would try and get December's done before the end of the year.

This month's theme was 'one layer'. I started with this fun Crafty Individuals stamp called three (festive) dogs. Having covered them with a mask I added a background of twisted citron, crackling campfire and fossilized amber Oxides. I then used a TH flourish stencil with twisted citron over the tag and added a bubble stamp with Versafine smoky gray using the second and third generation prints.

After removing the masks I used a gold pen for the dog tags and a red pen for the collars. I was looking for a quirky text stamp that would go with the dogs and this was the most appropriate I could find in my collection.

Contemporary Congratulations

 

It's that time of life when many of my son's friends are getting engaged and he wanted a couple of cards 'without hearts and stuff'. I had seen a card on Pinterest (or maybe someone's blog?), liked the CAS, contemporary style and had scribbled down a quick sketch on a scrap of paper. I forgot to jot down where I saw it but if I find it I will add a link.

I die cut a perforated rectangle, embossed it with an old Cuttlebug folder and added some fun foam behind it. The leaf die is from a Sizzix set - Spring Stems. I painted some Twinkling H2Os in majestic blue and mystic blue onto a scrap of watercolour paper, spritzed it with water to blend the two colours together and die cut the butterfly (I have no record of where this butterfly came from).

I wanted a sentiment in keeping with the clean style of the card and after a few attempts went for this small peel off. A few gems gave the card a subtle sparkle.

Monthly Tag Challenge - September

 The theme for this month's challenge was bees and the colour yellow. Although there are many bee-themed stamps available I don't have any and I was thinking of  looking online for an image when I discovered I had some paper napkins with bees on. 

The background was easy enough with my honeycomb layering stencils and fossilized amber, spiced marmalade and crackling campfire DOs. I found a quote that gave me the chance to use some TH wildflower dies which I coloured with alcohol markers.

I fussy cut a bee and added it with the computer generated quote. Yes it's quite busy but then so is a bee!

CraftWorld Masterboard Challenge

 I've been on the CraftWorld forum for a few years but haven't participated in any challenges but then last week I saw a challenge that sounded right up my street. This is going to be a long post!

The idea is to create an 8x8 masterboard and then cut it as follows:

6x4 postcard

4x4 coaster

2.5x3.5 ATC

2x2 twinchies (2)

1x1 inchies (2 but I managed to cut 4)

It's been years since I last made a masterboard and as I'd only recently unearthed my Oriental box of ephemera I decided to go with an Oriental theme.

I find masterboards great for using up those sheets of patterned paper that you get in a set but don't really care for. This sheet was from an old Papermania set called Simply Elegant.

I started by sticking some torn strips of  Oriental newsprint (no idea if it was Chinese/Japanese/Korean). Then randomly applied some texture paste coloured with seedless preserves DI through a stencil. A small Hero Arts fan and a tiny oriental motif were stamped all over and I finished with some splatters of playful peony Twinkling H2O. When dry I cut out the various base elements and brushed the edges with faded jeans DI.

It's been such a long time since I made an inchie but I had managed to cut 4 (2 more than required) so I decided to make them all. I had a look at the 4 bases and tried to work around the bits of background on them.

The first was just folded bits of origami and washi paper with a gem. Next I used some Mizuhiki cord to make a tiny knot and added some gems.Third was a dragonfly punched out of washi paper. Lastly I stamped a Simple Expressions text stamp in Impress cherry pink and added a washi paper punched cherry blossom embellished with some Nuvo Drops.

I rounded the corners of both twinchies. The first was overstamped with an Oriental background stamp in Memento sweet plum and a postmark in Memento love letter. I made a small origami flapping bird from patterned paper, stuck it on a circle of vellum and added some Nuvo Drops. I had an image of a Japanese lady which I cut out, stuck on and outlined with a fine grey pen.The flowers are cut out from some patterned fabric tape and embellished with gems.

The ATC uses the Simple Expressions stamp that I used in my previous post with an origami paper obi. The sentiment is a stamp I had made many years ago.

The coaster took a while to come together. I wanted to use this beautiful old wood mounted stamp by Stampington called Cinnabar. Unfortunately the stencilled texture on the background was exactly in the centre of the 4x4 coaster. I decided to stamp the image so that I got the hair ornaments on the coaster and then to cut out the main part of the image separately to add on top. The image looked too stark against the background and I was thinking about what to do when I spotted a mask I had made for the image for another project. If the mask is reusable I tend to keep it with the stamp - in this case it was actually on top of it. I must have used it to overstamp a fabric texture and traces of it were still on it. It gave me the effect I was looking for and I found some coordinating green and gold washi paper to go with it. The text is a Paper Artsy stamp and I added a floral sticker, a Japanese symbol sticker and a small gem in her hair.

Looking at the postcard I feel I should have added some gesso to it to knock back the background  before adding the stamping but it's done now. I added a Chinese calligraphy stamp in Memento love letter and stamped the brush stroke bird. The text is by Paper Artsy and some washi type was used on the edges.

I really enjoyed this challenge, time-consuming as it was. 

Monthly Tag Challenge - August

 This month's theme is Oriental. This tag is my second attempt. The first was a collage of various rail tickets, menus etc from a trip to Japan in 2005 but it didn't look right so I started again. The background was blended fossilized amber DO with candied apple DO blended over a trellis stencil. I randomly stamped some small flowers over the background and added a few dots of peel-off waste. I used Spellbinders oval and scalloped oval dies on some paper bought from the Japanese equivalent of Poundland called 100 Yen Shop.

I made the knot with some Mizuhiki cord following online instructions. The oriental text is a sticker and the title and the main image are by Simple Expressions. I gave the lady a colourful obi and added some variegated fibres.

All About the Die Cuts

When you need a card in a hurry die cuts can be invaluable.

 

I started with a Pretty Quick die called straight panel which cuts a complete A6 panel. I cut the panel in white card and then blended fossilised amber DO over it. It would have been even faster if I had cut the panel from coloured card. This was mounted on a white card blank. I die cut the sentiment and the butterfly from white card and added them. Job done!

Monthly Tag Challenge - July

This month's tag had the fun theme of fashion with a requirement for some embossing. I kept thinking of the David Bowie song ('Fashion, turn to the left, fashion, turn to the right') and once the earworm embedded itself  only another song could replace it so I turned to Madonna ('Vogue, strike a pose'). This Dina Wakley stamp from her essential silhouettes collection fitted the bill.

I stamped it several times with my stamping platform and Versafine onyx black to get a crisp image, clear heat embossed it and then masked it. The background is a TH stencil in spiced marmalade, crackling campfire and candied apple DOs. It looked a little plain after removing the mask so I added some splatters of red acrylic paint, die cut some stars of various sizes from metallic card and added a heat embossed sentiment.

Monthly Tag Challenge - June

 Playing catch-up with the monthly tag challenge. June's theme was Celebrations with a requirement for some red, white and blue. 

The dies were mainly by Crafters Companion from various sets. I die cut the word and inlaid it into the tag. The confetti and balloon strings were also by Crafters Companion. The cake and stand are a very old Cuttlebug die (coloured yellow as a nod to the lemon jubilee pudding).

Layered Stencil Birthday

 Another card using the hexagon layered stencils. This stencil is designed for square cards but my default card size is A6 so I'm left with a white border both sides to which I've added some thin strips of matching card. The colours used are Distress Oxide fossilized amber, twisted citron and wilted violet. The sentiment die is from Alina Crafts. I cut it twice from white and once from purple card, stacked the 2 white and offset the purple slightly on top. It helped make the sentiment stand out from the bold background.

Bright Daisies

 This is the Woodware stamp I bought at the Sandown Craft Show recently. I just wanted to stamp it out and see what it was like so I added some colouring with alcohol markers and some Glossy Accents to the centres. I managed to stick my finger into the central daisy before the Glossy Accents had dried so I stamped and cut another one out to add over the top.

Layering Stencils - 2

 The second of my Nellie's Choice layering stencils is a floral one. I used DIs in evergreen bough, cracked pistachio and lucky clover for the 3 layers. These die cut flowers were sitting on my desk. I had coloured them with alcohol markers some time ago for a project which is only half-finished but they seemed to go well with the background. I added a silver embossed sentiment strip and mounted it on an A6 card blank.

Layering Stencils

 After over 2 years I finally made it to a Craft Show! How wonderful it was to see everything and be able to touch it instead of on a screen. Evidently there were many people who felt the same as I did because the show was packed. I had decided to leave it until the afternoon to visit when it tends to be quieter but it was very busy for the first half hour or so.

I was very mindful of what I bought - some white card from my usual supplier Lime Tree Crafts, some white and silver Nuvo Drops, a Woodware flower stamp that I've seen Natasha Foote use and 2 sets of background layering stencils. Of course I had to try out the stencils straight away and made a quick card with the Honeycomb set.

I used Distress Oxides in spiced marmalade, crackling campfire and candied apple and added some gold peel-off strips to the left and right. The sentiment is gold embossed from a sentiment stamp and die set and I mounted it on foam tape. That's it really!

Quadrilaterals

 This card uses a sketch I saw on Robin Armbrecht's YouTube channel here. She uses 6x6 patterned papers cut into quadrilaterals to make a set of cards. I used some patterned paper that I think was from a magazine freebie and some pink card that I embossed with a Cuttlebug folder.

It's a great idea for batch-making cards and using up odd sheets of 6x6 paper.

Monthly Tag - May

 

April was a busy month for me - not on the crafting front but life seems to be opening up again and we have had family from abroad to stay and friends for dinner (yay!). May is shaping up to be equally busy so I was relieved that inspiration for this month's tag came quickly.

I have been following a YouTube channel by Cori Dahmen called Creating with Scraps and at the start of the year she did a video on collages and clusters which you can see here . I collected some of the bits on my desk together and had a go at making some clusters. One of these is the focal piece for this month's tag, the theme of which is bits and bobs.

This is what I started with - it's a collection of bits that were remnants from other projects which I inked, embossed and stuck together onto some music manuscript. The flower is a TH wildflower die cut coloured with alcohol pens and with Glossy Accents on the flower head. I added some washi tape, gems and a scrap of stamped text.

The above is what I thought I might use for the tag (in the end I didn't use the leaf patterned paper). I think the sheet with the red splodges was protective wrapping in a parcel and I had used it to mop up some ink. The lacy trim was a leftover piece from a TH die cut that matched the green patterned paper on the cluster.

I stamped some flowers onto the sheet and a Crafty Individuals text stamp and glued it to my tag blank. My cluster went on top and I added the lacy trim at the bottom.

The completed tag:

Monthly Tag - April

I've managed to complete my tag in record time this month! The theme was Time and it had to be monochromatic so I decided to use various shades of grey.

I started with hickory smoke and weathered wood DIs on a plastic sheet which I spritzed with water and smooshed my tag blank through. I added a Dina Wakley stencil called little birdies with a blending brush and some hickory smoke DI and some text in the background with weathered wood. All the stamps are from an old Paper Artsy series called Ding & Dong. They are all mounted on foam so I went old-school and used my stamp positioner to get the best placement. I stamped the main image in Versafine smokey gray and stamped the clock face a second time on a scrap of card. The hands of the clock are separate stamps and I tried to stamp the time as 4.23.

I added a few extra swirls and squiggles and coloured some tiny pearls with a grey alcohol marker. 

Sunflower

 I'm not sure I've blogged this stamp before although I've had it for a while. The set has a very big sunflower image and some useful sentiments, one of which I used in my previous post below. I heat embossed the image in gold and then used mustard seed, wild honey and peeled paint DIs with foam blending pads. The sentiment is from a stamp and die set of sentiments which I raised on foam pads.

Monthly Tag Challenge - March

 

This month's theme for the tag challenge is 'Circles' and bright colours. I wanted to pay homage in a small way to the people of Ukraine and the terrible things that are happening in their country.

 I used the Crafter's Companion spots and dots rotation stamp with Impress lemon yellow and Versafine majestic blue. Although you normally use 4 colours with these stamps I used 2 but double-stamped the second blue and yellow for a slightly darker image. I know the blue is not quite the correct shade but it was as close as I could get.

Having cut out my tag shape (8x12cm) I wanted some sunflowers on the tag as they are the national flower of Ukraine. I don't have a sunflower die but I have a Sizzix Bigz daisy die that I cut 4 times and layered to create my sunflower. The die has 3 different sizes of daisy, this was the smallest but I used the centre of the largest die for the middle. I coloured these with a brown alcohol marker and then stamped a speckle stamp over that in black for the seeds.

The leaves are from a Lisa Horton variegated leaf die and I embossed the veins with an old Cuttlebug maple leaf embossing folder.

I didn't know what to put on as as wording for the tag - there really are no words to describe the plight of the Ukranians. I debated adding 'Slava Ukraini' which means glory to Ukraine but then remembered I had a stamp (coincidentally part of a sunflower stamp set) which I felt was appropriate. I stamped it in the same blue and yellow to give a shadow effect and mounted it on foam pads. Some yellow and blue ribbon finished the tag.

Another Shaker Card

 I decided to have another try at a shaker card using the Crafter's Companion cut-in numbers. The balloons are a Sizzix die and the stamped text is from a Winnie & Walter set. I was more successful with the sequins and beads but I think I have too many this time.

Meadow Wreath

 This is a card I made from the Crafter's Companion Meadow Wreath turnabout stamp. It was stamped with Versafine inks in crimson red, imperial purple, majestic blue & spanish moss. I mounted the 14cm square onto a 15cm square ochre card blank. I die cut a circle from white card and added a Crafter's Companion die cut sentiment in ochre.

Monthly Tag Challenge - February

 

I have struggled with this month's theme which is 'Romance'. I wasn't sure what to do - maybe I'm getting to old for romance or just being cynical about the hype that seems to engulf Valentine's Day nowadays. I finally decided to go for the supermarket version of romance which consists of hearts, flowers, chocolates and a bottle of fizz. 

The background is mustard seed, worn lipstick and peeled paint DIs blended over a web stencil by Pretty Quick. I added a stamp with random numbers and a dotted strip stamp which are both by Paula Pascual. The heart ballons are a die cut coloured with alcohol markers. I stuck the strings down but left the balloons to float freely for some dimension. The other die cut is from a set I purchased years ago for a wedding card which I raised on foam pads.

I added the sentiment and edged the tag with red ink to finish it off. I hope next month's theme is easier!.

A Quick Card

 Sometimes you just need a quick card so made this lattice-stencilled background with Memento toffee crunch and added a die-cut sentiment with a couple of card strips top and bottom.

My First Shaker

 

A significant birthday seemed the ideal time to use the Crafter's Companion Cut-in Numbers and Cut-in Sentiments sets that I purchased recently. The numbers are very big so I kept the rest of the card clean and simple.

The patterned paper is from My Mind's Eye and I used it to cover the front of a 14.5cm square card blank. I die cut the numbers and the 'th' (called an ordinal) from a 14cm square piece of card, covered the back with acetate and put foam tape around the cut numbers and the edges of the card blank.

I dabbed powder around the edges of the tape to prevent the sequins from sticking to the sides but I don't think I added enough as some sequins did get stuck. I used a combination of sequins and seed beads and bunched them up onto the patterned paper and then placed the cut card on top. Next time I might try to do it the other way around, placing the sequins in the 'well' and placing the card blank over it. I think I should have used more sequins as well but you live and learn.

I used some old peel-off strips to form a border around the front and die cut the sentiment from the Cut-in Sentiments set in a coordinating paper from the same pad.

I'm very pleased with this bundle of dies and think it will be very useful for a variety of occasions.

Inspired by . . . Natasha

 Although it's been pretty quiet on the blog I have been busy crafting but the cards are of a style I've shown before (several new baby cards). I've also been watching a lot of You Tube tutorials. Someone I watch often is Natasha Foote who posts a video almost every day. I like the fact that she's not always pushing the latest stamps etc but has a small edit of items that she uses in different ways and encourages us to use what we have. It was this video that prompted the card above. I decided to use one of the rotation stamp backgrounds I made here.

Natasha tends to use US card sizes whilst I prefer a standard UK A6 for my cards so I had to tweak the measurements a little but I followed the same principles. I matted the pieces on a sliver of black card and as the background was so busy I went for a black die cut - Frangia Bouquet by Memory Box. The sentiment is from a stamp and die set that cuts several small sentiment strips in one go.

Spots and Dots

 

I used one of the backgrounds I made here to make a couple of quick cards that I needed in a hurry. The first uses a layered sentiment die.

As the backgrounds are square, I was left with a spare strip that I made into another card with a sentiment from the caring thoughts set by Creative Crafts.

Monthly Tag Challenge - January

This month's challenge was to use a favourite poem and the colour yellow. I initially thought of 'Daffodils' by Wordsworth but don't have a daffodil stamp. I have a sunflower stamp but no favourite poem for it.

My choice was 'Still I Rise' by Maya Angelou. You can read the whole poem here and there are some very powerful YouTube clips of the author reciting the poem herself.

Having chosen the poem, I had an image in my head of how to depict it but getting it down on paper was difficult. I knew I wanted to use the hot air balloon which is an old wood-mounted rubber stamp with nothing on it to show who it was made by. Having stamped and coloured it with alcohol markers I put it on a sky with clouds background with tumbled glass and mowed lawn DI for the ground. I added some Crafty Individual birds and some hickory smoke DI to the background. The eyes by Hampton Arts are second generation stamping with hickory smoke.

In my head I had a picture of negative words floating in the background but I didn't want to use my horrible handwriting and none of my many alphas - stamps or dies - were small enough. I finally found some old peel-offs where the letters are @3mm tall. Only problem was trying to pick short words that I still had letters for which is why I used idle instead of lazy (no Ys left and I'd already used up the X's making Ys). The Y from 'ugly' is partly hidden behind the balloon because I had to use an upside down K. I coloured the letters with a grey marker to tone down the shininess. 

Before adding the balloon and verse I splattered some poppy red Twinkling H2Os over the tag and made a few cuts into the edges of the tag.

Not exactly my original image but I'm happy I made use of what I had.

New Year, New Stuff!

 This is a picture heavy post but doesn't show any cards, just backgrounds for potential cards. With Christmas out of the way it's a nice time to just relax and play and I have a few new things to play with. Towards the end of last year I bought some Crafter's Companion stamp and die sets. This of course led to browsing the CC website and receiving news of more offers leading up to Christmas. One offer that caught my eye was a bundle of 7 sets of rotation stamps for an extremely good price. Yes I bought them!

The stamps themselves don't look like anything much when you see them but the idea is you stamp them 4 times with the help of a stamping platform and turn the card stock 90° and change the ink colour each time to achieve a pattern. I haven't yet tried using just one colour but I guess that would work too.

Some of the sets create a wreath effect and have an additional sentiment stamp for the centre. Some create an allover pattern. I've played with some of the sets and these are my first results. The card stock is 14cm square in each example.

Please Note: Below are just examples of the backgrounds I have made using the Crafter's Companion rotation stamps. In line with Crafter's Companion's Angel Policy these cannot be mechanically reproduced.

First is Flutterby Wishes with Memento inks in bamboo, sweet plum, love letter and peanut brittle.

Next Rustic Botanicals in Impress inks spring green, cerulean blue, lemon yellow and peony purple.

Buds & Blooms in Brilliance inks orchid,sky blue, lime and lavender.

Meadow Wreath in Versafine inks crimson red, imperial purple, majestic blue, spanish moss.

The final example is the one I was attracted to in the first place Dots and Spots in Memento pear tart, paris dusk, love letter and sweet plum. This would make a fabulous background to a card with a bold sentiment and different colours would alter the look completely.

I am looking forward to turning all of these into cards soon.