Leaping forward

It’s a leap year so Svenja is asking us to use things or people that leap this week over at Daring Cardmakers this week.

Kangaroos can take huge leaps so I chose this cute Kanga and Joey stamp.

I’m playing along at Lost Coast Designs as well where the current challenge asks for monkeys and/or repeat stamping. My monkey stamp has gone awol so I went for the repeat option - a stamping platform let me line up the Bubble Border so that stamping twice gave me a wider background strip with no obvious join. I used the earthy colours often seen in Australian Aboriginal art to go with the kangaroo and used Copic markers and a gold gel pen to fill in some of the circles.

Stamps:
Bubble Border (Lost Coast Designs)
Kanga and Joey (High Hopes)

Paper:
Bristol board 

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Coffe Bean)
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Espresso)

Other:
Copic markers 
Gold gel pen
Charcoal pencil
Corner Chomper 
Misti
Pinflair gel glue 

It would be lovely to see you at one or both of the challenges if you get chance - Daring Cardmakers is for the fun of it, Lost Coast offers a prize if there are enough players (and there already are, but more players means a bigger prize!). Thanks for stopping by!

 

String theory

Kathy has set this week’s challenge over at Daring Cardmakers - we’re “all tied up” using string, twine, ribbon etc on our cards.

I went for perhaps a slightly left-field take on this one since I used string but it’s not there on the finished card, if you see what I mean! I’ve seen “string pull” art several times and finally got round to having a try.

You basically ink up some string, put it down on the page in a wiggly pattern, put another piece of paper on top, apply pressure and pull the string. Totally unpredictable but fun!

There are loads of video tutorials out there if you want to have a go and prefer to learn visually - this one is as good a start point as any, I reckon!

Stamps:
Birthday (Letter It by Ranger)

Paper:
Smooth white, black, gold linen texture

Ink:
Flame Orange Acrylic ink (Daler Rowney)
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Crochet thread
Corner Chomper 

Thanks for stopping by!

Who/what do you love?

Our challenge theme at Daring Cardmakers this week is "love" - who or what do you love?

I love bird images! After florals, I think they come a close second in terms of what I have in my stamp collection.

I also love clean  and simple and one layer designs. CAS designs are often great when you need a romantic card that's not too feminine - anniversaries, Valentines or "I love you" for the man in your life perhaps. Can you guess what hubby's Valentine looked like?

Pan Pastels made this a quick card -  I blended three colours into a square masked off with low tack tape, stamped the image and sentiment after removing the tape and gently erased colour from the birds' breast and cheek areas.

A stamping platform is really helpful here as the first impression tends to "lift" the pastel, a second stamping will give you a cleaner image (give the stamp a wipe in between).

Stamps:
Tree Swallows and Key Expressions (both Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)
Paper: Bristol board
Ink: Graphite Black Brilliance by Tsukineko
Other:
Pan Pastels (Turquoise, Phthalo Green Tint, Magenta Tint)
Spectrafix Degas fixative
MISTI
Low tack tape
Putty eraser

Thanks for stopping by!

Tag - you're it!

I was lucky enough to win some stamps from Lost Coast before Christmas so I thought it only right to use one to play along with a new challenge!

The current challenge is "tags" - make a tag, use a tag on something else, use a stamped image of a tag... details here.

I went for an "office supplies" vibe with the pencil border stamp, a tag and some string. Black and white with just a tiny splash of colour keeps things simple.

The tag is stuck on with gel glue so it's raised just a little from the card base but is still plenty flat enough for regular postage.

Stamps:
Pencil tops Border (Lost Coast Designs)
Say It All (Hero Arts)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)

Other:
Stitched tag die (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)
Copic markers
Black Fineliner
Corner Chomper
White crochet thread
Pinflair glue gel

There are always prizes on offer in the Lost Coast/Carmen's Veranda challenge and there are still a few days to play if you fancy doing something taggy!

February elements

It's the first Friday of the month so that can only mean an "elemental" challenge over at Daring Cardmakers - just use at least three elements from the inspiration picture to help kick start your project.

I won a grab bag from the lovely folk at Retro Rubber a while back which included a set with several cacti - since it hadn’t seen ink yet I thought this would be the perfect opportunity! As well as cacti, I chose red/green/pink, a bow and a handwritten style sentiment as my elements.

I’ve gone very clean and simple with a one layer card, just the tiny bow made with silver thread and a line drawn with a silver gel pen as embellishment. The flower is a line image so I stamped in light pink and coloured that with pencils, the rest are solid stamps so the inks did the heavy lifting.

Stamps:
Cactus (Momenta)
Say It All (Hero Arts)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Momento Luxe by Tsukineko (Love Letter)
Distress Oxide by Ranger (Evergreen Bough)
Versafine by Tsukineko (Spanish Moss, Smokey Grey)
Distress by Ranger (Spun Sugar)

Other:
Silver thread
Silver gel pen
Charcoal pencil
Coloured pencils
MISTI (useful for solid stamp, especially new ones!)
Corner Chomper 

Here's our inspiration this month if you'd like to play along and didn't arrive via the DCM blog:

Thanks for stopping by!

New year, new chain!

It’s reveal day over at Card Chain Challenge. The first chain of 2020 saw my card winging its way to Shylaa in India.

From the options on offer I chose the colour palette and die cuts.

I finally caved in and added some pretty floral dies to my birthday wish list and was lucky enough to get these. I cut them from watercolour paper and used a combination of watercolour pencils and a Momento marker to add colour. A little bit of background stamping and my “trademark” rounded corner finish it off.

Stamps:
19th Century French Script and Say It All (both Hero Arts)

Paper:
Bristol board 
Watercolour paper

Ink:
Tim Holtz Distress by Ranger (Walnut Stain)

Other:
Tim Holtz/Sizzix dies (Wildflower Stems #1)
Watercolour pencils (Emerald Green, Light Violet)
Momento marker (Lulu Lavender)
Silver gel pen
Corner Chomper 
Pinflair glue gel

There are still a few days left to sign up for February’s chain if you fancy it - make and send one card, get a lovely handmade card from somebody else!

Thanks for stopping by!