Peacock Colours

 I bought a Sizzix layering die set called Kaleidoscope Layers recently. It's a set of 4 dies 2 of which I have used on this card (the other 2 are for the centre space). I went with peacock colours for the 2 layers and mounted it on a black card blank after trying various colours. The black gave the most impact and showed off the 2 layers the best. I added some gems and a Marianne die sentiment in the centre.

A New Monthly Challenge

 Having completed the Alphabet Challenge last month we have decided to start a new monthly challenge featuring tags. There are no major rules  - just to have fun. This month the theme is Orange.

I wanted to use my new Stamps By Me Lily stamp and die set and also my Glimmer Mist (decanted) spray in perfect peach. My tags are all going to be 14cm x 8cm.

The dies don't cut out the whole of the lily so I fussy cut the remaining parts and pruned one of the buds off  because it didn't fit. The base of the tag was sprayed with Glimmer Mist over a Tim Holtz stencil called Scribbles (although it looks more like roses to me). I edged the tag with crackling campfire DO and then used watery Twinkling H2Os in ginger peach and golden jade to make splatters over the tag. I lined the tag hole with some washi tape and also punched some photo corners.

The 2-step die was first stamped with Archival tangelo (I wiped the ink off the leaves) and then the detail with Versafine onyx black. I coloured the leaves and stamens with Coloursoft pencils and mounted the image on foam tape for dimension.

The text is from the same set and comes with its own shadow die. It was too long to fit so I cut it in half. I finished with some sequins, a couple of punched dragonflies and some ribbon.

Shadow Alphabet

 

There are a lot of shadow sentiment dies around at the moment and after looking at a few I decided to buy a shadow alphabet set of dies. I thought they would come in 2 parts - letter and shadow - but it proved difficult to separate the 2. It's not really a problem as it means you get 2 sets of the die cut word at the same time.

I made 2 quick cards with the letters. The first is a mini slimline card (6.5" x 3.5") for which I used the waste from the die cut. I used a flower stencil and my new blending brushes (I'm loving these) with fossilized amber, crackling campfire and spiced marmalade DO's for the background. I could have just used the waste and floated the black letters in the shadow space but I decided to inlay the shadow and the black letters.

The second card uses the flower stencilled letters and the black shadow. I used the same DO colours with a diamond stencil for the background and mounted it on a white A6 card blank to which I added a border of crackling campfire DO. The flower die cut is from a Tim Holtz wildflower set that was lying on my desk.

Now I have to think up some suitable words for the front of cards...

Travel Notes

 

I've been watching a lot of mini-book videos on You Tube recently. There are so many different varieties and I have been trying a few out with old patterned papers. This one is a simple notebook made out of bits and pieces prompted by a thread on a forum about the Bind-It-All. It reminded me that I hadn't used my B-I-A in a long time.

Front

I cut two 9.5 cm squares from heavy card and covered them with paper from Papermania's  All Aboard paper pack. The blank paper inside was cut (9cm square) from my son's old Maths exercise book. I die cut words from Tim Holtz's adventure words script set for the front and back. The front sentiment was getting lost in the patterned paper so I decided it needed a shadow background to help it stand out. I drew around the outline of the die and fussy cut it. This can't be done with all dies but it worked for this one!

Back

The covers and inner pages were bound together with red 3/8th inch wires. I think I'm hankering for a holiday but this will have to do until I can get away!

Inside Back

Inside Front

Lilies

 I recently bought a lily layering stamp set from Stamps By Me. They call them 'lamination' stamps and I have a tulip and dahlia from the same company. This one also came with a co-ordinating die set for all the stamps including shadow dies for the sentiments. Of course I had to have a play straight away...

I have stamped sentiments I already had rather than the ones that came with the set and left one card blank until I know who I'm sending it to.  The outlines were all stamped with Versafine onyx black. For the first card on the left I used Brilliance pearlescent orange and Coloursoft pencils for the leaves and stamens.  I matted it onto some marbled orange paper. I felt this was a little too pale so used Archival bright tangelo next and die cut the flower and frame. The final card uses Brilliance pearlescent orchid and Coloursoft for the leaves and stamens. I used Wink of Stella on the coloured parts of all 3 cards. 

Double Stencils

I decided to have a play with my stencils after leaving them neglected in a drawer (or two) for a while. I started with a mini star stencil by Balzer Designs and Victorian Velvet DI. I then used a stencil called shattered over the outside of the star stencil with Seedless Preserves DI.. I wanted the white star frame to be more prominent so I cut the star border by hand from another piece of card and stuck it on top. The sentiment was die-cut four times, stacked up and Seedless Preserves was applied to the top layer. I added some Wink of Stella to the sentiment for a little sparkle.

I recently bought a set of ten blending brushes and have been trying them out - so far I'm very pleased with them. I will continue to use my blending foam pads and am quite keen to try out the new domed foam pads but for now these brushes are a useful addition to my tools.

 

Amended:

I completed the sentiment and added a few clear sequins.

Monthly Challenge - May

 Finally we come to the last letter of our alphabet challenge which I started with some crafting friends on a private forum. We started in April 2019 (so much has happened in the world since then!) with 'E' and fittingly our final  letter is:

                                                                 F for Flower

The colour options were fuchsia, firebrick and forest green all of which I have managed to use for once.

The flowers are all cut from various Tim Holtz Wildflowers and Wildflower Stems sets which I coloured with Twinkling H2Os and water-based markers. My flower arranging skills are non-existent so I struggled with putting the die cuts into some sort of bunch. When I had something I was happy with I secured it with sticky notes, flipped it over and applied glue to all the areas I could. I then placed it on the background, carefully peeled the sticky notes off and added glue where needed. I know Jennifer McGuire uses something called Press n' Seal which I think her husband invented but I used what I had to hand.

The background is a Jennifer McGuire technique using white pigment ink as a resist with a floral Hero Arts background stamp. The technique works best with darker colours so shows up better on Peacock Feathers and Mowed Lawn DIs rather than the Mustard Seed I've used at the bottom. The text reads 'Flowers are the earth providing a new perspective' and is from an unbranded set with a beautiful tulip corner stamp that you can see here .

So that's the end of that challenge - not sure what we will do next but watch this space...