Dance, Sing, Love

Time for our monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are Feature a Creature and Add a Sentiment. 

The card at the top uses my all time favourite stamp Penny Black Dance, Sing , Love, I use it time and again and make no excuses that it pops so often on my blog as I think it is such a happy and uplifting quote.

A year on and I am still exploring my sewing machine that hubby bought for my Birthday last year and just discovered this pretty embroidery style stitch, it's not an expensive or fancy machine but does have a few nice features. So after stitching around the edges of a piece of cream cardstock I stamped the sentiment and embossed with detail clear powder. The flowers and leaves are Tattered Lace Trio sets which I cut from card spritzed with Dylusions and Glimmer Mist and then stamped the centre's with the matching Trio stamp set. A pretty organza bow made on the Embellishment Attic bow maker and ribbon slide to finish.

My stamping Sensations piece is a Fathers Day card I made for our daughter to give her Dad back in June. I masked the central oval and stamped a variety of stamps from Inkylicious, Lavinia, Art Impressions and Clarity and with the mask still in place used Pan Pastles to create the background of the scene. The poppies were inked with distress markers, the sentiment with archival black and the finished piece matted an layered on to a large landscape base cut from a sheet of A3 cardstock.

I do hope you will join in our challenges this month, as always we have some fabulous prizes to be won.

Yet more inky fingers

Good Morning Peeps, just having a coffee break so thought I would do a quick post with a couple of shares and some inky fun.

It's pretty miserable weather here in the Fens still, typical November and getting decent photos is almost impossible as that glimmer of sunshine never arrives so these piccies are not as I would like, but I know we are all having the same problems.

For the one above I sponged Adirondack dye inks sunshine yellow and watermelon and TH distress ink broken china and spritzed with Glimmer Mist pearl, then lifted some of the ink to create a watery sun and stamped over that with a Clarity stamp using Adrondack pebble to give a soft feel. Next I stamped some grasses in black from the Andy Skinner Winter Tale sheet and then Penny Black 3381K Aspire using versamark and detail gold embossing powder. I cut the finished piece into six and mounted onto gold mirri card.

The above card is one I did at my Stampalot demo last week and very similar to one I shared a couple of weeks ago, but this time using Art Impression trees and Hobby Art cows. The background is brayered with Adirondack shy blue, denim, lettuce and meadow. The poem is computer generated an the fence hand drawn with a fine nib black pen.

Messing about with the brayer

Monday morning already, where did the weekend go ?

Well, I guess I should admit to a fair bit of playing about with inks and the brayer. I have been promising myself an inky session for ages and as I went to Coleman's who I do the odd demo for on Saturday to get some new colours of Adirondack inks, it seemed only right I tried out a few of them. Don't know how many of you know about Coleman's warehouse at Rushden, but it's pretty awesome and you can while away hours there. Yesterday looks like a blue and yellow day although it was not planned that way, just how it turned out, so my next session will be a bit more colourful.

Most of the stamps are either Lavinia, Art Impression or Clarity, except the fairy which is a really old Rubber Stampede one. I so enjoy brayering and find it very rewarding and it's always a popular one when I demo. I did think about doing a tutorial, but then decided it might not be fair to bore peeps. So the above card is for:

Crafty Catz - A forgotten stamp

One Stitch at a Time - As you like it

Pear Tree Design - Mainly blue

The card above is using one of the new stamps Hero Arts K5503 Bird Collage, stamped simply with versafine sepia and embossed with detail clear. The October Afternoon DP is double sided and I stamped Hero CG222 Music Background on the lighter side to add interest. Edges have been nicely distressed as is the flower made from TH tattered floral die. This is for:

Paper Sundaes - Distressing

Alys Sundays - For the guys

Gingerloft - Things that fly

Stamping Sisters - Vintage

All aglow

Good morning everyone, time for a new challenge at Allsorts where Helene would like us to 'Light up the Night'.

Afraid my blogging is still restricted to short five minute bursts so I've not got very far in visiting you all. They tell me resting my eyes especially from the computer screen, is the only cure as far as the muscle imbalance goes, so I have been testing their theory all week and doing what I am told. Although nothing was stopping me from my demo day at Stampalot today, even if it's more talk than demo and we are off shortly........hubby is driving me as I dare not test my eyes that far. The Ultimate Rubber Stamping event is becoming a regular in the crafty calendar and always great fun.

I confess to a huge blast of inspiration from Barbara Gray on this card. I always find her inspirational and her use of the Clarity Stamps lamp post and lady really cast a spell over me and this is my take on what she did.

I started by inking the lamppost and lady, with the lady stamped a second time onto some scrap DP. I used a very large makeup brush to swirl Adirondack archival black in circles round the lamp to give the impression of fog, then sponged some Tim Holtz mustard seed to create a glow from the oil lamp. I added some JudiKins snow glitter and a couple or corners.

I added a fence using Art Impression F3047 and leaves using Art Impression F2055, Lavinia fantasy houses, but I just inked the tops of these stamping off first so I ended up with a mist rooftop look in the background.

My vision if this card is a lady on Christmas eve, just leaving Church after midnight mass looking into the village in the distance.......I've never made any secret that I like in a fantasy world have I ? This card is also for the following challenges:

Cupcake - Light it up

ABC - Ice is for ice and snow

One more share using Sweet Pea Poinsettia Fairy. Another easel card stamped and embossed image, coloured with Copics, decoupaged and glittered wings, a Spellbinder frame, Magnolia DP, flowers and lace. This card is for the following challenges:

Flutterby Wednesdays - Open

Sweet Pea - Silver, purple and white

Moving Along with the Times - Someone special (For a Granddaughters Christmas birthday)

Stamp Insanity - Lace

CRAFT - Christmas Birthday (see above)