UKS Twinchie Swap June 2012

I'm trying to get ahead with my swaps and when Stitcharama-girl proposed a 3 twinchie swap entitled little red heart I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I made a background of scraps of Crafty Individuals background papers. I love these papers and this technique is perfect for tiny scraps. I was shown this technique by Paula Pascual who now designs for Sizzix. I stamped on some scraps of patterned paper and some plain card in a co-ordinating colour & then cut all the scraps to make sure they all had 90 degree corners. I ran a glue stick over a piece of card and stuck the pieces on randomly but making sure that each piece butted up against the previous one. When the card was covered I ran it through the Cuttlebug with the Madison embossing folder. I highlighted the embossing with shabby shutters DI, used frayed burlap for the edges and used my gold Krylon to make a few splatters. I stamped the Crafty Individual house with sepia Archival ink and coloured the windows. I cut a heart using a nesties die and added glossy accents. The text was stamped with my rotary stamp.

LIM 68 - Baby or Child Card

Thanks for all the kind comments last week. This week's challenge on the Less Is More blog is to make a card suitable for a baby or child - a theme that didn't really have me jumping for joy (hence the tardiness of my post this week). I very seldom need to make a baby card these days and am not really into cute stamps so after much scratching of my head I came up with this. When I used to make kid's cards I found the best way was to put the child's name on the front or to use an excruciatingly bad pun (snappy birthday with a crocodile was another favourite). I used tumbled glass & broken china DI for the background and a Komodo stamp for the seaweed. The fish are a Cuttlebug die. I added some glossy accent air bubbles and a computer generated sentiment. The aperture has been covered with acetate to give a goldfish bowl appearance.

Gothic Arches - Black & White

Here is my entry for this fortnight's challenge on the Gothic Arches blog. The theme is black & white. I was a bit stuck for ideas as to what to do and I wasn't sure if the whole arch had to use only black & white (as you can see I decided to give it 2 spots of green). I used the TH umbrella man stamp and a BG of circles from an Inkadinkadoo plate (although I have various grey ink pads for some reason I decided to use my Versafine onyx black for this, stamping the first impression on scrap paper). The flowers are from a TPC Studio borders set and the text is from Fiskars. I finished with some metallic green brads.

LIM 67

Mandi & Chrissie on the Less Is More blog have asked for a one layer card with 3 stamps this week. So here is my entry on marbled card:
1 Frame stamp inked with Brilliance crimson
2 Judikins India cube stamp inked with Brilliance starlite black
3 My own text stamp inked with crimson.
I roughly coloured the image with Faber-Castell watercolour pencils. I think I've got enough white space this week don't you?

LIM 2nd entry

Another entry for the Less Is More challenge. This is more of a sunny yellow and I think looks a lot warmer. The birdcage die is by Marianne as are the flowers and the leaves. The patterned paper is Roam by K&Co and the birds are from  a Crafty Individual set. Some green pearl brads finished the flowers off.

Less Is More 66

Thanks to everyone who left a comment on my entry last week, I don't think I've ever had as many comments. This week's colour challenge on Less Is More is to use yellow as a focal point. The card is brighter in real life but I haven't managed to get the scan right. The chrysanthemum stamp is by Stampendous and it's been stamped with Versafine onyx black & coloured with coloursoft pencils. I hope the week brings you sunshine not showers.

UKS Twinchie Swap May 2012

Well it's May Day and it looks like the April showers are continuing here. I think my garden has been watered enough now may I please have some dry weather so I can get out & do some planting?

On UK Stampers Stitcharama Girl has proposed a twinchie swap with a theme of lettering. I had an idea in my mind and some time last night so I made these. I know that the twinchies will be split up so the fact that they spell 'ART' is meaningless but hey ho I felt like doing it, I think each square is able to stand on its own. The BG is Impress lemon yellow & peony purple (loving this colour at the moment). I stamped a Hampton Arts crackle in Stazon  stone grey and used peony purple again for the text which is a PA stamp. It has different words in various fonts with the last line reading 'no more words'. The doily type corners are part of a round Spellbinder set that I bought last summer in The States for $5! I cut the letters from various alphabet sets - CB curls & swirls and Sizzix mango tango & retro metro (who thinks these names up???). For added interest I rounded off one corner and used my southwestern punch on two more. Looking at them on screen I think it needs something (a gem maybe) in the bottom left corner. Will have a fiddle later today and see but for now WORK beckons!

Edited to add: I decided to go with the gems, they seem to finish the twinchies off.