Let's talk about the weather

Miri has homed in on a quintissentially English quality for this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge - she'd like us to talk about the weather! Feature anything weather related on your card - sun, rain, snow, wind...

I opted for sunshine and promptly obscured most of the effect of the rays coming out from a central sun by stamping my island over the top! I think the tropical sun is still shining through though!

This is a quick and simple all-occasion card, basically just stamps and ink.

Stamps:
My Island (mine is the original Waltzingmouse Stamps set, the same is now available form Gina K) 

Paper:
Bristol board
DCWV textured white core

Ink:
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Sunshine Yellow, Espresso)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Spiced Marmalade)
Versafine by Tsukinko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Corner Chomper
Pinflair glue gel

Thanks for stopping by!

Blooming birthday!

My mum is celebrating a round number birthday this year - this is the card I managed to make for her after suffering a severe inspiration bypass. I’m kind of happy with it, I just wish it had come about more easily. The important thing though is that Mum liked it!

The flowers are coloured with a mixture of Distress ink, Clean Color markers, Copics, pencil and gel pen. The green dots are stamped with the little circles in the Happy stamp set and I used some textured gold cardstock and sequins for a bit of added glamour.  

Stamps:
Roses in Bloom by Waltzingmouse Stamps (no  longer with us)
Happy Stamp & Cut by Hero Arts (die cut sentiment as well)
Say It All by Hero Arts (because I wanted “birthday” a bit bigger than the Happy set one)

Paper:
Bristol board 
Gold linen textured

Ink:
Memento Luxe by Tsukineko (Rosebud, Pear Tart)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Picked Raspberry, Shabby Shutters)

Other:
Tim Holtz/Sizzix dies (Mixed Media I)
Zig Clean Colour markers (pink and light green)
Magenta coloured pencil
Copic markers
Gold gel pen
Tracing wheel
Sequins
Pinflair glue gel

Thanks for stopping by!

Blue skies

It's Friday so it must be Daring Cardmakers day - Nat is setting our challenge this week and she'd like to see us being inspired by the colour blue. We finally seem to have some blue skies so perhaps those will inspire!

This is not the card I set out to make - that one ended up in the circular file in the craft room. This clean and simple affair makes use of a scrap of background from another project and an elegant silhouette of spring blossom.

The background piece is just reinkers dribbled onto wet watercolour paper with a bit of white acrylic paint sponged through circles once dry for a sort of bokeh effect.

Stamps:
Spring Bird by Bloom Art Stamps
Say It All by Hero Arts (retired)

Paper:
Bristol board
Watercolour

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Various Distress reinkers

Other:
White acrylic paint
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by, have a lovely weekend!

April elements

It's the first Friday of another new month and Kathy is setting our "elemental" challenge over at Daring Cardmakers - just choose at least three elements from the inspiration picture to kickstart your project.

I chose the colours, an embossed white feather, overlapping rectangles of different sizes, gold accents (some metal dots, some doodled gel pen) and a white script style sentiment.

The smaller rectangles are made with an acrylic block tapped onto a blue ink pad and spritzed with water before pressing it onto the card base.

Stamps:
My Island (mine is the original Waltzingmouse Stamps set, the same is now available from Gina K)
Happy Stamp & Cut by Hero Arts (die cut sentiment as well)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Shadow Ink by Hero Arts (Mint Julep)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Chipped Sapphire)

Other:
Tom Holtz/Sizzix Feather duo die/folder
Circles punched from tomato paste tube metal
Gold gel pen
Pinflair glue gel
Corner Chomper

Here's the inspiration picture - we'd love to have you play along!

Thanks for stopping by!

Back to basics

It’s my turn to set the challenge at Daring Cardmakers and I’d like to see cards that go “back to basics” - choose one geometric shape and one primary colour as the focus of your design. You can add other shapes and colours as accents, just use those two basics as the main features.

I choose the circle as my shape and red as my colour. I die cut and punched various sizes of circle from red card and sponged a bit of darker red ink on one side of each then arranged them over a simple stamped background strip. A sprinkle of glittery silver stars and a sentiment finish off a card for one of those pesky “in between” boys (not quite a teenager but no longer a little boy). He's a fan of Man Utd so the colour choice was made for me!

Stamps:
Numbers border by Kaisercraft
Essential Messages by Hero Arts

Paper:
Bristol board
Red
Silver glitter paper (10 sheets in a pack in my local £1 shop and perfect for punches!)

Ink:
Shadow ink by Hero Arts (Soft Granite)
Brilliance by Tsukinko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Fired Brick)

Other:
Circle Nestabilities by Spellbinder
Small circle punch
Star squeeze punches by Fiskars
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!

Watch the birdie

Shabneez has set the challenge for us today over at Daring Cardmakers - she'd like to see some birds on our projects. It could be the focal point or an embellishment, a stamp or a die cut, anything birdie goes!

I love the woodcut style of this stamped image. I did have plans to use some of the other elements from the set (flowers and foliage) but in the end he just refused to share the limelight and insisted on flying solo!

I dripped inks in colours I hoped would evoke spring and stamped the bird once the ink was dry. I really wanted the etched lines of the image to show well (the intensity of the inks obscured them a bit) but I didn't fancy cutting out his legs! My usual solution is to stamp again on matching paper, cut out the main part of the image and stick over the top of the original stamping.

After adding some dots with a pearl pen I decided I'd like the ones on the blue ink to blend in a bit so once they’d hardened I painted over with Precious Metal paint. I’ve had my little pot of the stuff at least eight years and it’s probably a good six of those since it was last open but it’s still totally usable - hooray!

Stamps:
Spring Bird by Bloom Art Stamps
Sentiment from an old Hot Off The Press set

Paper:
Watercolour

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Time Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Mowed Lawn and Salty Ocean reinkers)

Other:
Misti (invaluable for a solid image on textured paper!)
Pearl pen by Viva Decor (Ice White)
Precious Metal paint by Viva Decor (Blue Azure)
Fineline marker

Thanks for stopping by!

Getting to know you

Dawn has set the challenge this week at Daring Cardmakers and she’d like to know a little more about our crafting selves, asking: what is your favourite crafting style or technique? Where do you craft?

I found this quite difficult as I don’t really have a single style or favourite way to do things so I tried to zoom in on a few common denominators!

I  almost always use stamps when I craft and I like to colour in. Floral stamps are a favourite thing to use. I keep telling myself  “no more flowers, you have enough” and then something like this pretty magnolia shows up in a sale and I can’t resist!

Mum has observed in the past that I often go off the edge with images so obviously I had to do that here.

I tend to use minimal layers; even if something is not necessarily a clean and simple design it’s unlikely to involve more than a couple of layers and I’ll often use just a card base, as I have here. I often round a single corner of a card, too.

I really enjoyed using a single die cut word with stamps to complete the sentiment on my Christmas cards this year so I thought I’d try extending that idea to other occasions. This Hero Arts set has lots of options to go with the ‘happy” so hopefully I’ll get plenty of use out of it.

I’m lucky enough to have a room to craft in. On the down side that does mean that it’s often a complete mess because I don’t have to clear up after myself as a I go!


Stamps:
Magnolia by Stampendous
Happy Stamp & Cut by Hero Arts

Paper:
Bristol board 

Ink:
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Espresso)

Other:
Copic markers
Wink of Stella pen (clear)
Sequins
Corner Chomper 

Thanks for stopping by!

On the March!

Can you believe it’s a new month already?! That means it’s time for an “elemental” challenge at Daring Cardmakers - choose at least three elements from the picture Miri has for us this month as a kickstart for your card.

I really struggled with this! In the end, I put an extra restriction on myself and that seemed to do the trick: make it masculine (or at least not girly)!

I chose the dark wood grain (floor bottom left), denim, flash of yellow, circular frame (chair backs bottom right) and silver accents (chair legs bottom left). I carried the wood grain patterning over into the embossed texture on the base layer as well.

Stamps:
Country Charm Textures (Cornish Heritage Farms,  no longer with us)
Essential Messages (Hero Arts, I believe this set is retired)

Paper:
Smooth white
Silver glitter (10 sheets in a pack from my local £1 shop and the perfect weight for punches!)
Scrap of yellow DCWV

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo, Mustard Seed)

Other:
Denim fabric
Nestabilities by Spellbinder (large and small circles)
Pine planks embossing folder by Stampin Up!
Small circle punch
Star squeeze punches by Fiskars
Glue gel by Pinflair
Brown fine line marker
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by! We’d love to see you over at Daring Cardmakers and the team has made lots of lovely samples - looks like it was just me who struggled! Here's Miri's inspiration picture if you'd like to show us what you make of it - which three elements inspire you?!

Stencilled Scrapling

Svenja has set the challenge for this week's Daring Cardmakers - she'd like to see stencils and shades of green on our projects. I've made a scrapling in which the stencil took a bit more of a supporting role that my original plan but I find you can't always dictate what happens at the craft table!

I started with a piece of mixed media paper with Juniper ink sptritzed and pooled on it that was left over from a previous project and built up from there, stencilling and stamping over the top. A pretty die cut butterfly, a spatter of Enamel Accents and pen dots and some messy silver thread and I called it done - I seem to be having a problem including sentiments on things at the moment!

Supplies:
Mini Butterfly Duo dies by Time Holtz/Sizzix
Wings stamp set by Darkroom Door
Bamboo Mixed Media paper by Hannemuhl
Scraps of black and orange cardstock
Juniper Adinrodack dye ink by Ranger
Bundled Sage and Peeled Paint Distress ink by Ranger
Cressida stencil by Memory Box
Copic markers
Clear wink of Stella pen
Black Engamel Accents by Ranger
Fine line marker
Silver thread
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!

Take a break

We have a challenge from Enfys over at Daring Cardmakers today - she'd like to see something you associate with a morning break. Coffee, tea, biscuits, cakes - what do you have mid morning?

I'm likely as not to choose a cup of tea if I'm at home. If I'm out and about I might go for a cafe latte but even then it might well be tea, usually Earl Grey and no milk!

This set is perhaps more of an afternoon tea image but they're pretty stamps and I'd be happy to see a tea pot like this one at a morning break - it's usually a much more prosaic mug around here!

The tea pot is stamped on the die cut and the rest of the images are stamped and cut out with the coordinating dies then popped up at various levels with some gel glue. The spoon has some Wink of Stella on there for a bit of metallic sheen.

Stamps:
Tea Time (stamp and die set by Graphic 45/Hampton Arts)

Paper:
Smooth white

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Hioltz Distress ink by Ranger (Bundled Sage)

Other:
Lables 20 Nestabilities by Spellbinder
Copic markers
Charcoal pencil
Pinflair glue gel
Piercing tool
Wink of Stella clear pen
Jamara embossing folder by Cuttlebug

Thanks for stopping by!