Katzelkraft Challenge - April

This month's challenge on the Katzelkraft blog is to use a stencil on your project. I stamped the dress form from KTZ123 and covered it with a mask. I used a button stencil with dusty concord and peeled paint DIs and then added the text from the same set. I removed the mask and added some colour to the dress form. I added some trailing flowers from KTZ 132.

KTZ Blog Challenge - February

On the Katzelkraft blog this month the challenge is to use your favourite technique and your favourite Katzelkraft stamp  - a tough choice! One of my favourite techniques at the moment is to use Brushos to make a background so I started with rose red, lime green and yellow ochre and spritzed the card with water. I die cut a circle from this, added the chicken wire stamp (KTZ 96) and stamped the birds  (KTZ 41.03) in archival sepia onto the circle and onto some scrap card. I coloured the scrap card birds with coloursoft pencils and cut them out. They were mounted onto the circle and the circle was mounted onto a Marianne scalloped circle die.
Another favourite technique is using stencils so I randomly added some shabby shutters and festive berries DI through some stencils onto a cream card blank. I then stamped some small dots (KTZ 130) in Impress lemon yellow and the text from KTZ 123 (which has to be my favourite and most used KTZ stamp) in Brilliance starlite black. I brushed shabby shutters around the edges and lightly over the entire card. The central image was stuck on and I added a Marianne die cut leaf painted lime green with Brusho.

Katzelkraft Monthly Challenge - November

It's cold and wet here and I find myself reaching for warmer colours. This month's Katzelkraft monthly challenge on the DT blog is Gesso. Whilst we can use stamps made by other companies for forum challenges, the monthly DT Challenge has to use only Katzelkraft stamps. I decided to use one of my first KTZ stamp sets - contes et merveilles. It has various elements on it that can be used together or singly (I've used 2 stamps here). Although it may not appear so from this card, this set is great for men's cards and I tend to reach for it when I am at a loss for ideas. I stamped the paisley background, embossed with white EP and then coloured with picked raspberry, ripe persimmon and squeezed lemonade. A quick rub with a clean cloth revealed the lovely paisley pattern again. I used a yellow card blank and a tiled chevron stencil with gesso to make the background. While it was drying I stamped the main image in archival sepia and cut it out. This was mounted with foam pads and I sprinkled a little glamour dust on her headdress. To finish I added some flowers and diecut leaves.

Katzelkraft Tag Challenge 3

This month's tag challenge on the Katzelkraft forum asks us to be inspired by 2 tags made by Stamping Matilda. I'm a regular reader of her blog so I had to have a go.
I mixed some blue and green Brusho with water and smeared it over the tag. It's amazing how highly pigmented this powder is - just a few crystals is enough. When dry, I used an old plastic card to spread gesso and then evergreen bough DI over the whole tag. The main image is by Penny Black. I used spanish moss versafine on the leaves and some whispers pens over the blossom. The sentiment and the small flowers are from a Paula Pascual set. The distressed lines in the corners are a KTZ stamp. I used seam binding through the tag hole and a small flower-shaped mother of pearl button attached with carpet thread.

Katzelkraft Monthly Challenge - October

Ok all of you who don't like my scary monkey stamp, look away now...

This month's theme for the Katzelkraft monthly challenge is 'Distress It' and I have given scary monkey an airing. I have just managed to complete my entry before the deadline of the 25th. This is a page of a journal I bought ages ago. When I use a stencil or have any excess ink I wipe it on a page of this book. In addition to scary monkey I have used the clock and the large splatter stamps from the same set and stamps from other KTZ sets. The circle was cut with 2 framelits dies and stamped with the KTZ woodgrain stamp. The alpha used is Sizzix's stencilled die. Click on the pic to see the background more clearly.

KTZ Card Sketch 1

One of the many new challenges on the Katzelkraft forum is a card sketch (see below). I made a quick card using a Kraft base, a gold embossed KTZ stamp and an embossed mat. The sentiment is a piece of washi tape on a strip of card.

Katzelkraft Art Journal - Architecture

Dominike, a very talented lady on the Katzelkraft forum, has devised a 12 week art journal challenge. Architecture is the first aspect of art she has chosen and as we start our voyage she has decided we are going to begin in New York. In addition we have to use paper, stencils and show light on our page.
I used some brown paper packaging from an Amazon order to tear some building shapes (including the Guggenheim Museum 2nd from the right!)  I masked around the Statue of Liberty from the Katzelkraft Capitals stamp and then added TH's rays stencil emanating from Liberty's torch. The sky was painted with blue ice Twinkling H2O. I stencilled the City name and printed the text which is a line from Alicia Keys' homage to New York 'Empire State of Mind'.

Katzelkraft Cardlift 1

There are a whole raft of new challenges over on the Katzelkraft forum and one of them is a cardlift of a card by Bridget . In addition we had to use a stamp in the background. I used a stencil with Brilliance pearlescent lime and a KTZ splatter stamp in archival teal. The stars are cut with a Cuttlebug die set and I had some green and blue star gems and silver sequins. A scrap piece of vellum and a peel-off (yes I am still trying to use up my peel-offs) made the small tag.

Katzelkraft Challenge / UK Stampers Postcard Swap - August

I missed last month's Katzelkraft Monthly Challenge because I ran out of time so I was determined to get in early this month. The theme is 'Embossing' and the details are here.
DH celebrated his birthday a couple of weeks ago and as a birthday treat I took him for a drive to the coast and a meal at a restaurant by the sea in Folkestone called Rocksalt. While sitting watching the seagulls flying past, I was reminded of this Katzelkraft stamp called mini Seagulls. I stamped it in Brilliance starlite black and clear embossed. The gulls were coloured with Coloursoft pencils and Sansodor and covered with clear Wink of Stella. I roughly coloured the background and added a swirly Katzelkraft stamp with tumbled glass DI to represent waves. I used a Cuttlebug border embossing folder along the top and outlined the stars for definition.
I have made this into a postcard for UK Stampers monthly swap as there is no theme this month.

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.

Katzelkraft Challenge - May

The Katzelkraft DT have started a new monthly challenge the details (in English) of which can be found here. The hard decision for me was which one of my several Katzelkraft stamps to use. As I had used the world sights stamp recently I decided to use it again, but I also had to use my favourite background text stamp and a small flourish. Even the speckled ground below the sights is a Katzelkraft stamp! The main image background was made with mowed lawn, picked raspberry and ripe persimmon DIs. The other patterned papers are from DCWV's tie-dye stack. The base card is kraft. I am trying to make inroads into my brad and eyelet collection so you may see them cropping up on various cards.
If you have a Katzelkraft stamp (or two) why not enter the challenge as well? There's a €15 prize for the winner.

Katzelkraft Technique March/April

The technique challenge on the Katzelkraft forum is to make a graded background. Valou has given instructions on a fast way of achieving this here and has also linked to a tutorial by Béatrice the owner of Katzelkraft . I was inspired by a post on the Katzelkraft DT blog by Gwen Scrap here and decided to do something similar . I used squeezed lemonade, picked raspberry and salty ocean DIs with some ink dusters. The BG text is by KTZ and the main image is a discontinued stamp by Simple Expressions but KTZ do a very similar stamp. I wrapped carpet thread and a small punched tag around the image and mounted it on foam pads.
I made a similar card with a more subtle gradation using wild honey, spiced marmalade, rusty hinge and barn door DIs. The ribbon came from a toiletry gift set.

Katzelkraft Inspiration March/April

For this month's inspiration challenge we were asked to use shades of green to symbolise the new growth of Spring with a touch of gold for the sun that (we hope) comes peeking through and some drops to symbolise the dew present on the ground in the morning.
I used Impress chartreuse, spring green and emerald and Archival library green for my shades of green with a few squirts of gold shimmer. The dress form is a KTZ stamp which I stamped directly onto the card and masked and the BG text is from the same plate. The splatter along the edges is by KTZ from the I am so special plate. The flowers are ready made paper ones with a Candi Dot centre and the flourishes are Marianne dies. Looking at it online I can't help feeling that something is missing even by my CAS standards. Does the BG need something else? Would ribbon help? What do you think?
Edited to add: Further to gardenpinks suggestion I stamped some more BG script.

It's amazing what a difference it makes! Thanks for the advice. 

Katzelkraft February Challenge

Sorry it's a rubbish pic. The challenge on the Katzelkraft forum is to make a card or tag with an element that sticks out of the confines of the card/tag (it sounds so much better in French). I decided to combine this with the Tim Holtz tattered floral challenge.
The base is black card with Katzelkraft's wood background stamp and Brilliance pearlescent orchid(have you tried the Brilliance pearlescent colours on black?). I cut a full set of flowers from Tim Holtz's tattered flowers die in pink card, black music printed card, vellum and Black Magic pink Core'dinations. The pink flowers were edged with spun sugar and worn lipstick DIs, the vellum was embossed with a stained glass effect folder and the black core'dinations were embossed with a swiss dots folder and sanded to reveal the pink core. All the flowers were curled or shaped and then I mixed the different elements up to make the flowers. For the stylised stem I cut a flourish from Tim Holtz's elegant flourishes and coloured it with Brilliance pearlescent lime. The tiny flowers are from a retro punch. The tag was edged with a Uni Posca pen and I added some pink organza ribbon stamped with the word bloom in Stazon cactus green.

Katzelkraft Technique - Feb

I've just started re-reading Nancy Curry's great book Texture Effects for Rubber Stamping so it was fortuitous that this month's Katzelkraft technique challenge is resist. I stamped a Hero Arts dragonfly several times with Versamark and clear embossed them. Then I used Impress inks in lemon yellow, chartreuse, spring green and emerald over the card. I stamped the dragonfly again with spring green near the embossed images and added some Katzelkraft splatters in lemon yellow. The small dragonflies are punched shapes and the white border is the waste from the Memory Box die I used here.

Katzelkraft Inspiration - Feb

 

The Katzelkraft forum which I participate in has started a series of monthly challenges. I don't know how many I will do but I do enjoy taking part and using my not-so-great French.  For this challenge we had to take inspiration from the object pictured below. The whales suggested a marine theme so I used this KTZ seashell stamp which tied in with the circles as well. I used a similar blue to the bag (Impress cerulean blue) and added white highlights. I embossed a card blank with a Crafts Too folder (spots & dots) and coloured in some of the dots.

Katzelkraft sketch - Feb

I have a new scanning program and am trying to get to grips with the editing features on it so please bear with this awful pic until I can sort this out. I hand drew the heart shape and cut 3 out from some grey card that I had painted to use up some white paint and iridescent medium from this project. I then used Brilliance orchid and 3 different KTZ stamps to give different textured effects to the hearts. They were mounted onto foam pads and placed over some pink patterned paper and some blue card embossed with the swiss dots folder. The text stamp is by Elusive Images (I think).