Super hero!

Nat is setting our challenge this week at Daring Cardmakers and she'd like us to be inspired by super heroes. It could be a card for the superhero in your life or something inspired by your favourite fictional one, go wherever your imagination takes you!

I needed a card for an 8th birthday so decided to take super hero inspiration for that. The Superman logo is so instantly recognisable that I thought it would stand up to being changed and still retain its essence.

I found an outline graphic of the Superman badge shape online and printed it, along with a big figure 8. Using those to plan it out, I used a scalpel to cut out the red layer and stuck it onto a yellow base then used a Perfect Layers ruler to do the black matting. A fine line black marker added some definition between layers and a little white pen highlighting livened it up.

The stars are stamped onto the textured blue base to get the half-tone dots and then again on textured foil and just the star part cut out and stuck on for a bit of glitz.

Die cut lettering for the sentiment, a doodled border and some sanding to scuff up the edge of the white core card finish it off.

Supplies
Red, yellow, black, white and textured blue cardstock
Silver foil
Star stamp from Kaboom set (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)
Brilliance Graphite Black ink by Tsukineko 
Corner Chomper 
Perfect Layers ruler
Fine line markers (black and white)

Thanks for stopping by!

Can't stand the rain?

The song title for this month's challenge at the Craft Barn is very apt for April - I Can't Stand the Rain!

I'm definitely going to show my age with this one - the disco version by Eruption is the first and only thing to pop into my head on mention of this title (although I confess I did have to look up the name of the group to make absolutely sure I had it right!).

Lots of hand drawing on this postcard - I started by drawing the curved lines and lettering the song title and group name, adding just a bit of Copic colour in shades of blue/aqua. Then I had a go at drawing rain drops (this tutorial on YouTube is very useful) and although I need a fair bit more practice, I don't think they're too bad for a first attempt.

I masked the bottom of the postcard and stamped the paisley pattern to fill in above the top curve.

This is not my usual style and I had fun experimenting - play time!

Supplies:
Smooth white card
Fine line marker
Copics
Pencil, blending stump and eraser
White pencil
Paisley Scrapblock stamp (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)
Brilliance Graphite Black ink by Tsukineko 

Thanks for stopping by!

April: showers and flowers!

Kathy is setting our challenge over at Daring Cardmakers today and she'd like us to celebrate the season by breaking out the spring flowers!

Hellebores are one of the earliest spring flowers and are probably about over by now but I've been eyeing up this image for ages and decided this challenge gave me a good reason to just go ahead and get it! I'm not much of a digital fan in general, I like my crafting to be time away from the computer but every now and again I give in to a lovely image! Since I just printed and then took it to my craft table it didn't feel much different to stamping and colouring in any case.

I printed on kraft and accidentally ended up doing "no line colouring" because the toner didn't fuse properly on the cardstock and mostly rubbed off as I worked. I'd done a test print card on ordinary paper first so I had a strong line image to refer to, though.

I decided to do a super-simple one layer card and just let the image speak for itself.

Supplies:
Hellebores digital stamp by Power Poppy
Sentiment from Big Day Today stamp set (Waltingmouse stamps, no longer with us)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)
Kraft cardstock
Coloured pencils
Corner Chomper

Have a lovely Easter weekend!

April elements

Its Friday so it must be Daring Cardmaker day! It's also the first Friday of the month so that means it's an "elemental" dare with Dawn choosing fresh, spring time inspiration for us this month. As ever, choose three or more elements to kickstart your card.

I chose a frou-frou style flower (in the vase top left), pink, pale yellow, soft blue and green from the colour scheme and tangled nesting material.

This really should have come together quickly but I had one of those days where you just shuffle stuff around in endless combinations and can't make anything look right at all! Looking at it now I realise I've done my default of "shove a big flower bottom left and leave lots of white space"! About the most creative thinking here is using a stamp that should be a spike of flowers and making it into supporting foliage by stamping in shades of green - never mind!

Stamps:
Sweet Havana by Mama Elephant

Paper:
Textured white

Ink:
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Tumbled Glass, Shabby Shutters, Peeled Paint)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)

Other:
Home made stencil (cut with Spellbinder Fancy Lattice die)
Paper flowers (a couple of Prima hydrangea heads and a Wild Orchid cherry blossom, I think)
Crochet thread
Corner Chomper

Here's the inspiration picture in case you'd like to join in and didn't arrive here from the DCM blog!

Thanks for stopping by, have a lovely weekend!

Blowin' in the wind

The song challenge over at The Craft Barn is fun - I've managed to join in again this month making another postcard.

The challenge asks for both the song title and the artist name to feature in the design. This time the song is Blowin' in the Wind which has to be Bob Dylan as far as I'm concerned! It seems especially appropriate when he's finally dropped in to collect his Nobel for literature this month!

The background was sponged with Distress inks and flicked with water before I stamped the ears of wheat, using the Misti so I could restamp over the lettering for a "nearly but not quite" inlaid die cut look. I die cut the lettering for the song title and stuck it onto the postcard, gave it a light wash of ink to make it blend in a bit and then restamped the wheat.

A touch of Wink of Stella on the lettering and a handwritten name along one of the stems finish it off.

Stamps:
Thankful Silhouettes (Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Peacock Feathers, Stormy Sky)

Other:
Font One dies by Spellbinder
Clear Wink of Stella pen
MISTI stamp positioner

Thanks for stopping by!

Grocer Jack?

Enfys is setting today's dare over at Daring Cardmakers and she's asking us to use packaging from a grocery item in our makes.

I used a bit of card from a box that held lasagne sheets to stamp the main image.

Thankfully I'd decided to use the MISTI so that I could paint the face and collar and then stamp again so the detail wasn't obscured. I say thankfully because (as I should have anticipated) the card was coated which meant it took several goes to get decent coverage on areas like his hat. Brilliance ink is great though - it will dry on a slick surface, no problem.

A couple of grocery extras round this out - my age-old trick of using tomato paste tubes gave me the frame (embossed in a folder and swiped with black acrylic paint). I also stuck some textured foil from the inner seal of a pot of spreadable cheese onto a scrap of card and punched out the star. A wee bit of "aging" with the paint brought out the texture nicely - might be more obvious on the detail photo.

A snippet of film ribbon and the "scrap" from between strips of stickers on a Tim Holtz "industrial" sheet finish it off.

The song "Grocer Jack" (proper name "Excerpt from a teenage opera", I believe) started running through my head as I edited the photos for this - who knows, maybe this gentleman really was!

Stamps:
Dashing Gents by Darkroom Door

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)

Paper:
Smooth white
"Kraft" from a lasagne box

Other:
Tomato paste tube
Foil seal from pot of spreadable cheese 
Diamonds embossing folder (Sizzix/Basic Grey)
Star punch (Fiskars)
Rectangle Nestabilities (Spellbinder)
Filmstrip ribbon (Tim Holtz)
Scrap from Industrious stickers (Tim Holtz)
White acrylic paint 

Thanks for stopping by!

Greens

Lythan has chosen this week's challenge over at Daring Cardmakers and in honour of St Patrick's Day she'd like us to use shades of green (and a dash of leprechaun's gold if you wish).

I started by brushing several shades of green acrylic paint randomly onto a piece of watercolour paper. Once dry I used chalk ink to stamp a bit of script and a swirl and added a tiny scrap of torn book page (inked with Distress ink).

There's a tiny bit of gold Rub n Buff on two corners and around the edge but I'm afraid they just look dark and muddy on the photo!

The die cut leaf was also painted with acrylic paint and has white pen highlighting the top edges of each bit.

Stamps:
19th Century Script (Hero Arts)
Beautiful (CHF, sadly with us no more)
Sentiment from Big Day Today (Waltzingmouse Stamps, retired, keep an eye out at Gina K in case it comes back via that route)

Paper:
Watercolour
Cryogen White

Ink:
VersaMagic by Tsukineko (Tea Leaves)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)

Other:
Acrylic paints - various greens
Back to Nature dies by Sizzix
White Posca pen
Gold Rub n Buff

Thanks for stopping by!

Take the rough with the smooth

I'm setting my very first dare over at Daring Cardmakers this week. I'm asking for projects that take the rough with the smooth - combine a rough (or bumpy) element with something smooth/shiny.


I've die cut some circles of sandpaper for my rough texture and added glaze to circles that are inked and domed out for the smooth. There's a bit extra shine as I used Perfect Pearls and a stencil for the background.

The shells have just the tiniest touch of Copic shading but the stamps are detailed enough that they really don't need much doing to them - I do love this set!

Stamps:
Antique Engravings and Say It All (Hero Arts)

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)
Versamark by Tsukineko
Tim Holtz Distress in by Ranger (Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers, Tumbled Glass)

Paper:
Smooth white
Sandpaper

Other:
Circle dies (Spellbinder)
Cell Theory 6x6 stencil by Crafters Workshop
Perfect Pearls by Ranger (Forever Blue, Blue Raspberry, Turquoise)
Triple Thick Glaze by DecoArt
Corner Chomper

I'd love it if you could play along with my dare! Thanks for stopping by!

March Elemental

It's the start of a new month so Daring Cardmakers has an "elemental" challenge for us - Enfys is asking us to be inspired by at least three elements from her striking picture (it's at the bottom of this post if you didn't arrive here from the DCM blog).

I chose the grid lines formed by the window frames, the various vases and bottles (including some twigginess!), the shiny chrome of the light fitting and the overall black and white/muted colour palette.

The image was stamped first and masked with a Post-It note mask. I used low-tack tape to make the grid and gently sponged on grey ink. The image is lightly coloured with Copics (the tiny flash of yellow is a nod to the yellow book that drew my eye on the bookshelf).

I used Flitter Glu and shiny silver flake for the sentiment which looks pretty but does tend to "disappear" with the light at certain angles which made photographing it a bit tricky!

Stamps:
Vases (Serendipity Stamps)
Sentiment from Big Day Today (Waltzingmouse Stamps, retired)

Ink: 
Soft Granite by Hero Arts
Brilliance Graphite Black by Tsukineko

Paper: Bristol Board

Other:
Flitter Glu and Sheffield Steel Mega Flake by Indigo Blu 
Low tack tape
Copic markers
Charcoal pencil

Here's the inspiration picture:

Thanks for stopping by!

Sombody to love...

I've managed to play along again in The Craft Barn's Song Title Challenge - this month's song is Somebody to Love by Queen.

Queen were one of my favourite bands when I was in my teens, I had all the albums up to The Works and can still remember being so excited to find an original copy of their very first album in a record shop in Morecambe after the (flimsier!) one had been released under the "Fame" branding.

When I saw the challenge, an image popped into my head straight away, inspired by the lyric that says "I just gotta get out of this prison cell". I've decided to make a postcard for each of these challenges and this time I had fun with cocktail sticks, corrugated card, die cuts and dry brushed acrylic paint! 

As the challenge wants us to include the artist as well as the song title, I made a little plaque for the cell door by hammering letter punches into a scrap of mountboard before giving it the acrylic paint treatment.

Dry brushing is probably not the technique for you if you're in a hurry but it's great to watch details emerging if you have time - I used some texturising paste for a corroded effect in places as well as the die cuts and embossed plaque.

Stamps: Jane by Indigo Blu

Paper: 
Black
Corrugated card
Mountboard 

Ink: Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)

Other:
Cocktail sticks
Copic markers
Typeset strip die by Tim Holtz/Sizzix
Letter punches
Texturising medium by DecoArt
Pewter and Silver acrylic paints 

Thanks for stopping by!