7 years on.......

It was my birthday last week AND our wedding anniversary, plus we were on holiday. This is the (ever so slightly last minute) card I made for my lovely, long suffering husband. It started life as a birthday card, but as I was making it up I realised I hadn't made an anniversary card, and the 2 little monkeys looked appropriate so........ as I knew I wouldn't have time to make another one, here it is!!

The stamps are Changito monkeys I borrowed at Michelle's house on our last crafty morning. I borrowed her Copics as well, although I think perhaps I'm too used to my harder nibbed Promarkers to do them justice.

It is my entry for the Crafty Cardmakers challenge, which is a recipe (I used punches, orange card and ink and 2 animals!!)

Ingredients


Stamps- Stampendous Changito Dos
Inks- Memento Black, Stampin up Really Rust, Garden Green, More Mustard, Old Olive
Copics- Pale Olive YG95, Greyish Olive G94, Pinkish White RO0, Brick Beige E31, Lt Walnut E57
Punches- Stampin up XL 2 step bird punch (branches), Stampin up Spiral Punch
Paper- DCWV

Stamp Man Challenge blog- Challenge 2- Take 2 colours (DT card)

This fortnight's theme at The Stamp Man challenge blog is Take 2 Colours. Here's my take on it!

Pink and purple are not usually colours I work with, but I really enjoyed going extra bright. The butterflies and flowers are stamped with Distress inks in Dusty Concord and Worn Lipstick, on a background created using the same colours watered down. It's hard to pick up from the picture, but the purple card I matted the main image onto has been stamped with the butterfly wings. Hang on, I'll try an extreme close up.... 

OK, you can see it a bit better. The main butterfly was inked up with the 2 colours, then spritzed with a little water to blend them slightly.

Finishing touches were lots of gems and lots of eyelets and ribbon.

Ingredients


Stamps- Aspects of Design 61 Butterfly beauties (available from The Stamp Man)
Inks- Distress Inks Dusty Concord and Worn Lipstick, Versafine Onyx Black
Stash- Purple eyelets, pink and purple ribbons, purple card, purple glitter paper

Miss Little Legs is a card maker!

This is my little girl's thank you card for her nursery teacher. She will be very sad to leave him this week, but is equally excited about starting full time school in September.

She's only 4, and this is a portrait of her teacher- for some reason he has lots of fingers and red toes!!!! She got the wavy hair right though.

Flowery, summery ATCs

I had a crafty morning at Kay's yesterday and made these 2 ATCs in record time, about 10 minutes before it was time to get my Miss Little Legs ready to go to nursery!!

The first one is a BRAK (Birthday Random Act of Kindness) for a lovely, lovely lady on Do crafts, so I've called it Birthday Flowers.

This one is called Fire Flowers. Both are made with thanks to Kay for the backgrounds, and I used Marvy and Whispers markers on the Hero Arts flower stamps, which I might just have to have......ah well, I can always visit them at Kay's.... Simple for effective.

Fire Flowers is my entry into the following challenges-

Sir Stampalot- Lazy Hazy Days of Summer
Papertake Weekly- In the Garden
Fun With ATCs- Blumen (Flowers)
By the Cute and Girly- Warm Summer Days

Stamp Man Card Challenge Blog has started!!!!

Wooohooo!!!!! Very exciting today, because the first Stamp Man Card challenge begins today. Each challenge runs for a fortnight, and this time the theme is ANYTHING GOES!!!! So no excuse not to have a go!

For more details take a look at the Challenge Blog click on the blinkie above! Don't forget to read the Challenge rules, and you could be in with a chance of winning £10 to spend at The Stamp Man!!!!

Here's my Design Team card.......

It's made using Distress inks and a gorgeous Stampendous agapanthus cluster stamp, all of which are available from The Stamp Man. I inked the central panel background with a mixture of Rusty Hinge, Brushed Corduroy and Vintage Photo Distress Inks, then threw in a little Spiced Marmalade to lighten it up. The flowers were stamped at an angle with brushed corduroy and then in a much bolder Versafine Onyx Black. I then took the colour out of the non-solid flower petals with bleach and a fine paint brush. This is such an effective technique.

The panel was mounted on contrasting card, then onto a ripped book page, again inked in the brown Distress Inks. The card itself is cream, inked gently round the edges with Rusty Hinge and Vintage Photo to tie into the overall colour scheme. I then stamped my favourite Hero Arts script stamp over the top in Vintage photo and Brilliance Moonlight White.

The sentiment is from an Aspects of Design stamp plate from The Stamp Man, all finished off with some eyelets and fuzzy fibres.

Whew, my first Design Team card went without a hitch!!!!!

Ingredients


Stamps- The Stamp Man Aspects of Design 61 Butterfly beauties (sentiment), Stampendous Agapanthus cluster, Hero Arts Old French Writing
Inks- Versafine Onyx Black; Distress Inks- Spiced Marmalade, VIntage Photo, Brushed Corduroy, Tea Dye, Rusty Hinge; Brilliance Dewdrop Moonlight White
Other- Book page, orange eyelets, fluffy fibres, bleach, Orange stickles.

WOYWW

Just a quick post from me this morning. Here's my desk.....

Not much crafting going on this week, I'm afraid. Lots of little ATC envelopes with swaps to be posted, my ATC folder, and lots of debris!

If you fancy looking round more desks, head over to Julia's Stamping Ground blog.

One Stitch at a Time Guest design team member- with a military theme.....gulp!

I've been asked to be  a Guest Designer over at One Stitch at a Time, where the challenge is Military. Oh boy, did I panic when I heard the challenge, immediately thinking of guns and tanks!!! Once I'd calmed down, however, I really enjoyed making this card with my little drummer boy stamp.

Innee cute? The background, card and paper are all inked with Tea Dye and Vintage Photo Distress Inks, and the image itself is watercoloured with the same DIs, and then clear heat embossed. The card is overstamped with my very favourite script stamp, and it's all tied together with some chenille thread.

Ingredients


Stamps- Hero Arts Old French Writing, Personal Impressions P1305N, Whispers sentiment
Inks- Distress inks- Tea Dye, Vintage Photo, Antique Linen; Versafine Vintage sepia
Paper- V& A Quilts
Other- Versamark pen, clear embossing powder, chenille fibres

All who wander are lost.....or something

I got some Tim Holtz stamps this week- first time I've tried Sir Tim's acrylic stamps. Had a crafty session with Kay yesterday, so I tried them out on a couple of ATCs.

The Kokopeli isn't from the Tim Holtz set, but he's fab anyway :) Backgrounds are bothe Smacked acetate technique.

Ingredients


Stamps-  Stampin Up Bird on a branch, Tim Holtz Visual Artistry Lost and Found, Kokopeli (unknown)
Inks- Impress Cerulean Blue and Cherry Pink, Stampin Up Rich Razzleberry, Versafine Onyx Black

Stripy ATCs for my crafty girls

I don't know if I mentioned it before (old age, y'know!!!) but I am part of a little group of 4 who regularly take it in turn to set each other ATC challenges. It started as a way to make sure we were using our new or uninked up stamps, but it's turned into a little bit of an institution for the 4 of us.

Well, this was my challenge theme- to use a previously unused stamp and incorporate stripes. I had a smashing afternoon yesterday catching up on my trashy TV watching and making these....

I think the yellow one is my favourite. The backgrounds are cut from a sheet of waste card used under some cosmic shimmering.

Ingredients

Stamps- Stampendous Petal Plus

Inks- Versafine Onyx Black

Stickles- Christmas red, Turquoise, Yellow

Another wings ATC for the Stamp Man swap

I enjoyed this theme so much I went mad and made two........ here's the second one.

I used the Aspects of Design Butterfly Beauties stamp plate from the Stamp Man stamping over another smacked acetate background. I used the small swirl of flowers and circles to add lots of stamping  in red, blue, black and white to build up depth. Finished with Stickles, as ever!!

Ingredients


Stamps- Aspects of Design- Butterfly beauties
Inks- Stazon Blazing Red, Versafine Onyx Black, Brilliance Moonlight White, Distress Ink Tumbled Glass and Fired Brick
Stickles- Aqua

Stamp man ATC swaps are GO!!!!!

Hurray!!!! Today is the launch of the Stamp Man ATC swap. It's a monthly swap with it's own blog, so to see more have a look HERE.

There are some fabulous Design Team takes on this month's theme of Wings. Here's my attempt!

It's made using the Aspects of Design Artistic Elements stamp plate, available from the Stamp Man. The background is initially coloured using the Smacking Acetate technique (tutorial here) using Distress Inks. I ten stamped the main image using Dusty Concord DI and swooshed over it with Perfect Copper Perfect Pearls for a bit of shimmer, although it could easily have been heat embossed. I then used the twiddly swirly bit at the top of the heart and wings stamp to stamp round the edges of the ATC with pink and then purple inks.

Still not satisfied I decided to blend a little bit of purple ink round the edges, but then it looked a little dark, so I stamped the swirls again in a Brilliance Moonlight White ink, which gave a fabulous slightly translucent effect, but still showed up as white. Lots of white ink pads just disappear, so I was quite impressed with this one.

The words are stamped onto white tissue paper and glued on with a glue stick, any wetter glue just shreds the tissue. I often use tissue paper when I want the words to stand out, but still want to see the background. Very useful!!! A touch of Diamond stickles and my favourite white gel pan and I was done.

And that's it! My very first DT project done and dusted! I've got another ATC for the swap in the pipeline so pop back later for some more inspiration.

What are you waiting for? Go and get ATCing and join in!!!! Don't forget there's some fabulous Blog Candy over on the Stamp Man ATC swap blog as well!

Ingredients

Stamps- Stamp Man Aspects of Design- Design Elements plate

Inks- Distress Inks in Worn lipstick, Dusty concord and Victorian velvet. Brilliance in Moonlight White. Stazon in Royal Purple

Stickles- Diamond

Other- Perfect Copper Perfect Pearls, Tissue Paper, White gel Pen.