Back to crafting

 

It seems a while since I got down to making a few cards for challenges, and today I thought I might just have to chance, but I decided to upgrade to Windows 10, which was somewhat time-consuming and equally frustrating and probably a mistake. It seems that I no longer have the ability to scroll down a page using two fingers on my touch pad. I have searched the internet for a solution, which to date has been fruitless, however I still managed to make a card!

This was made with a scrap of card left over from some inky experiments which I decided to over-stamp with some butterflies and grunge dots and emboss in gold.

I cut the banner and the square with MFT pierced dies and added the die-cut Memory Box butterfly and  sentiment.

I thought a little Cuttlebug dry embossing added just a touch of texture to the banner. 

It follows the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches 

and is also for Casology Wings 

plus Addicted to CAS Banners 
and finally for Just Us Girls  Autumn (Autumn colours)

This is me in Spain last week about to go out for a meal to celebrate my 70th birthday. We had a fabulous time !

Stacked die-cuts

The challenge at Just us Girls this week is to use stacked die-cuts. I love this technique as it gives definition and dimension without too much bulk (thinking of postage costs).

For this background I used Aqua Tint inks and water, over-stamped with little spots and stars  (Lavinia stamps) embossed in silver.

The butterfly is also stacked, using a base layer taken from the inked card.

The SMILE die is from Mama Elephant, cut from three layers of card.
It's also another submission to the Butterfly challenge at Addicted to CAS

Muse butterfly

The Muse card at the moment is of a super die cut butterfly.

 Here it is... 

I decided to use a piece of card which I had coloured by squishing some flowers through my Cuttlebug. In fact, in the piece I used, you can actually see the shape of the petunia which met its end this way!

From this, I die-cut the butterfly and then from the remaining piece die-cut the rectangle to surround it.

I stamped the sentiment from LOTV  in a sympathetic colour and twinkled the butterfly with a little Glamour Dust. I like the contrast in texture between the hammered card base and the flat coloured piece.

I made a second card with a slightly different method, colouring a piece of card with Aqua Tint inks and then stamping some foliage in black and embossing it in gold. The butterfly is merely die-cut and attached over the panel.

Here the sentiment is from a Tattered Lace die.

The butterfly is from Memory Box.

Missing Mojo

I have been trying to get some cards made but the success rate has been rather low! I have a couple here which sort of do something but there are so many incarnations in the bin!

This one is for the sketch at Happy Little Stampers and is a fairly literal translation of it as you can see.

I stamped the sentiment is Versamark and embossed in white (the clear version didn't fare so well). After this I applied drops of Aqua Tint Inks with a fairly large watercolour brush, which I spritzed with water to allow the colours to bleed into each other and the surrounding card.

The panel was then mounted on some toning card and die cut with the holes.

I kind of mis-recalled a sketch for this one... I omitted a fundamental element of it and then, because of the image I had chosen, couldn't manage to add that element to the card, so I'll have to start again with that challenge. This is however for the challenge at Casology - News, the Springtime challenge from AAA cards and Addicted to Stamps Clean and Simple. The stamp is from Stampin' Up.   

               

More green

Having made a green card the other day for Colour me challenge, another challenge popped up also with the cue word green so here is another card for that.

I used an old SU set, stamped in Antique linen and water-coloured with Distress inks. I think my technique is a little rusty!

It's accompanied by a sentiment from Hero Arts and mounted on one of two raised panels. Simples!

Addicted to CAS has this stimulus!
ALSO for

Paper Players  CAS - Floral

Here is a panel made with a few shades of Aqua Tints behind a Memory Box die cut which I in turn made a frame for with a Lil Inker Stitched rectangle. The flower is from a Creative Time die and the tag from Lili of the Valley!

It loosely follows the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches

Have a great Mothering Sunday!

Tricky colours!

Sorting out a CAS design for these colours from Colours and Sketches proved quite tricky for me, many attempts being abandoned by the wayside!

Anyway here is my final attempt just before the challenge closes!

The happy die-cut is from Wplus 9 and the birthday from Mama Elephant, the butterflies are from SU punched out with the matching punch!

I sliced a chunk out from the front of the card and joined it back together with the happy word which is three layers thick!
The birthday word was cut from an experimental piece of inking using Aqua tints. On the sheet of card it looked dreadful, but when die-cut, took on a new lease of life!

Now to prepare some lunch!

Oh Dear!

Today my camera has decided that it doesn't want to play ball. Firstly it kept saying that the SD card was locked...when it wasn't... and now it point blank refuses to release it! I have no idea how to get the card from the camera, so this morning  I've been struggling with getting my phone pictures to share their secrets with my laptop.

They didn't really want to play ball either... for ages I thought I was doing the right thing but they simply didn't appear on my laptop... after a walk away and a cup of coffee, I have come back to find duplicate copies of the pics I took, where I wanted them to be. Technology most certainly must be male... no rhyme nor reason to why it does stuff!

Anyway here at last is a pic of the card I made from the inspiration below from Michele at Muse

I could have used the same stamp that Michele did but thought I would have a slight change and so used one from Uniko Studio.

My backdrop is a general play around with Aqua Tint inks and a few grungy stamps. I also decided to dry emboss it with a splat folder too.

The sentiment is from Rubber Necker... it was one from a £5 grab bag. I didn't have any black twine so I dragged a piece of natural twine under a black marker.

Yellow is not a colour I am naturally drawn to so I'm glad to be given the nudge to do so.

Let's hope that the next photos I want to send to my laptop make the journey rather more easily than this last one!

Yellow and Green

I really enjoy making little scenes with these tiny Art Impression stamps. The embossing folder is Tied Together from Couture Creations, the sentiment from Penny Black and the panels are cut with Dienamics pierced dies.

This stamp from Stamplorations was coloured with Mirage Pens and cut with a square die, allowing some of the tulips to protrude outside the square.

The sentiment is from Penny Black.

More tulips here, this time from Stampin' Up. The frame was coloured using the Bokeh technique and is quite fun to do. These flowers were coloured with watercolour pencils and blended with a water brush. 

I'm singing in a concert at Portsmouth Cathedral this evening. Finzi, Faure and Elgar...lovely!

Colour Me Orange

Today another consignment of Aqua Tints arrived, completing my collection.

Here I played with a couple of techniques.

I added a couple oc colours in a wash and then stamped with a solid flower stamp using the faux bleach technique and then over-stamped with an outline flower stamp in a slightly deeper shade. 

The flowers are from Marianne's dies and the sentiment I believe is from Spellbinders.

The panel is cut with a SSS stitched rectangle, altered to fit my purposes and mounted on a Dienamics pierced rectangle, also lengthened a little to fit the panel. The flower centres were cut with the smallest pierced circle, also from Dienamics.

The challenge at Color Me is 

Monochrome Tangelo Twist.

More experiments

Today I was experimenting with Aqua Tints again. It was simply  adding a few drops of colour to my glass mat, spritzing and allowing some card to soak up the ink. I added a little gold ink using some scrunched up cling wrap. When dry I simply die cut some flowers and added them to a Marianne Flourish. The sentiment is from Tattered Lace

It's my take on the Card Concept get well challenge. I simply used just one colour for my cascade of  flowers.

I used card with slightly less depth of colour for this card which follows the sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches

I used an embossing folder from X Cut, mounted on a panel cut with a SSS stitched rectangle, butterflies from Memory Box and sentiment from Simon Says Stamp amd Tattered Lace. IRL the ribbon is a close match, coloured with a Copic pen to match the ink.

Aqua Tints

Today I had a play with some Aqua Tints. I dropped a small amount of two shades of brown and one of grey onto my glass mat and spritzed them with water. I then dipped a sheet of card into it until there was some colour all over it, then dropped some grains of rock salt over it before drying off the sheet with my heat tool. I thought that the effect it produced reminded me of burr walnut wood and so decided to use it for a masculine card...hence the addition of the saw and screwdriver.

The 'happy' on this card is three layers thick and inlaid, the 'birthday' is simply added over the base card.

Seize the birthday Masculine & Case this Sketch #112

              

The challenge at Addicted to CAS has the code word Distress

The horizontal panel on this card is severely distressed. I began by stamping Artemio's manuscript stamp and then ripping the upper and lower edges. I stamped the foxing with a SU splat stamp in Tea Dye DI, then inked the rest with Antique Linen and Old Paper inks using sponge daubers. The ribbon snippings from a sweater I bought on sale in M&S were just the right shade to add to it.

The violin is an old stamp from rubbadubbadoo and the sentiment is from Lili of the Valley.