Action and exciting news!

Kathy has set today's challenge at Daring Cardmakers and she's given us a word prompt: Action! Interpret that any way you choose - an action image, a card with an action element etc.

A quick newsflash first though: I'm excited to have been asked to do a six month tour of duty with the Dirty Dozen (the design team at Splitcoast Stampers). This is my first month and although content is exclusive to SCS fan club members, one of my cards was chosen for the sneak peek artwork so you can see that here if you'd like to!

For the DCM action prompt, I chose to make a yo-yo spinner card, partly because I thought it would be a cute use for the goldfish stamps I bought recently. When you pull the ribbon, the fish swim round in a circle, following each other as they go.

I used this video tutorial as a guide. I found narrow ribbon worked better than string for me, probably because my circle is a bit bigger and the extra surface area of the ribbon creates a bit more "pull" to get it moving.

The background piece was made using the watercolour imprints technique that the lovely Dina demonstrates here - I used various circle dies to make a ring pattern on a piece of watercolour paper with Peacock Feathers Distress ink.

I might try for just a bit more contrast in my ink layering next time but this kind of set is fun for images with areas of fine detail, I think.

Stamps:
Layering Goldfish by Hero Arts

Paper:
Watercolour
Bristol board

Ink: 
Adinrondack dye ink by Ranger (Sunset Orange)
Versafine by Tsukineko (Habanero, Onyx Black)
Tim Holtz Distress reinker by Ranger (Peacock Feathers)

Other:
Circle Nestabilities by Spellbinder
Sequins
Ribbon
Fun foam
Acetate

Thanks for stopping by!

Pop-up book?

Darlene's challenge this week in the Crafty Secrets member forum at Splitcoaststampers is a great one! She's asked us to "check our calendars" and make a card for any occasion that's printed on there (so not all those birthdays and anniversaries etc you write in for yourself). As soon as I spied International Literacy Day on September 8th I knew I'd found my calendar occasion!

I love to read. I've always loved to read. I don't even remember learning to read and I was pretty fluent by the time I started school so it obviously didn't present too many difficulties for mini me! This little bookish chap is obviously having a fine old time in his imaginary world and I thought he'd be perfect on a surprise pop up card which was yesterday's technique challenge at Splitcoast (there's a tutorial here if you'd like to make a card in this style yourself).

I used a cheesecloth background stamp to make my card base a bit leathery looking like an old book binding and sponged the edges too for a more aged and handled appearance and added a border of machine stitching, again because it made me think of old style book binding techniques.

I made a little tassel at the top of the slider as I thought it looked a bit like a bookmark! I stamped the panel that's revealed when you pull on the slider with a handwriting style stamp in Antique Linen ink so that I can add a message without it being swamped by a strong pattern but there's still some interest there.

I thought I could turn this into a gift by tucking a book token in there so it slides out at the same time as the message is revealed (not sure if my American visitors have book tokens - in the UK we have a national scheme which means you can buy a token in almost any book shop and send it as a gift that can be spent in almost any other book shop).

Supplies: Story of Me and Journaling (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets), Cheesecloth backgrounder (CHF), Tim Holtz Distress ink (Fired Brick and Antique Linen), Versafine Vintage Sepia, Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump, sewing machine and thread, Brass and Cream Hardware stickers (Heartwarming Vintage/Crafty Secrets), Nestability Classic Circle (used as a guide with a scalpel), copper gel pen, old gold cord from stash, corner rounder.

Thanks for your visit today, hope you enjoyed it!