Good Luck

Another week, another challenge at Stamps & Fun = Creativity and another occasion for me to be a Guest Designer.

The theme this time is Lantern! I guess that at this time of year most people would think of a Halloween lantern... a pumpkin hollowed out and card to make a face, but I don't generally make Halloween cards so I thought I would do a Chinese lantern instead.

To make this one, I heat embossed a WOW background stamp in Gold onto a piece of red card and then I die cut an oval and put it through my paper rippler or corrugator or whatever the piece of kit is called. Actually I think it's called a crimper. Then I grabbed two tiny rectangles from a small part of a complicated die for the top and bottom of the lantern and then added a loop at the top. I didn't have any black thread, so I coloured a piece of stripy thread with a black marker.

I cut two fish tail banners and dry embossed the top one. The sentiment, from Clearly Besotted was also heat embossed in gold.

Despite all, I think it does look quite like a lantern!

 

A bit more luck

Going through my supply of dies, I came across this little trio of shamrocks, which I believe are by Alexandra Renke. I keep my dies on A4 magnetic sheets in theme boxes, so all the packaging is stored away in a separate container which is simply stuffed. I really should employ a definite means of identification for my dies. I write on the back of some with a Sharpie if they are large enough! The ones I use frequently I can remember, but for some it's a question of rummaging through the packaging box or looking them up on the internet. 

I coloured the die cuts with AquaTints and a squidge of water. The background I sprayed with a diffuser. My granddaughter was asking what the tool was and so I let her have a blow!

The base card is quite similar in texture to watercolour paper which is why I used it for this card, however as it is so bumpy it's sometimes difficult to get a good impression from stamping, so I ran the piece of card through the Big Shot prior to stamping, to flatten it a little and so make  stamping the sentiment, which is from Clearly Besotted, a little more effective.

CAS Watercolour

My mojo has taken a bit of a battering recently... I have started on so many projects, only to have them end up in the bin as they didn't turn out as I had hoped. Hey ho, I'll press on in the hope that sometime soon, something will work out as I envisaged. 

Good Luck

I loved this little chap from SSS from the very first time I saw him... I do have his rather larger chum too, but this one is my favourite.

Here I coloured him with Brushos.. after die cutting, I sprayed the bits of card for his clothes with water and tapped on some Brusho greens. I love to see how the colour moves around. I did some scarlet for his nose and left his beard pristine! When dry I stuck the bits to the base die-cut and covered with some Nuvo Crystal glaze.

I dry embossed a Cuttlebug Border EF across the front panel and added a sentiment from Sugar Pea Designs.

I used the layout from CAS(e) this Sketch

and the theme from CAS Watercolour

Citrus

It's colour week again at Less is More and this time we are joined by our new Designers with the emphasis  on Citrus... not necessarily the fruit, just the colours.

I have had fun with my husband's shaving foam this week... I  have seen the technique used SO many times but never actually tried it for myself.  I intended using Alcohol Inks, but absent mindedly used Distress Inks instead, but it seemed to work well... so the alcohol inks will have to wait for another day. I merely squirted a bunch of foam onto my craft mat, dropped a few drops of Twisted Citron and Squeezed Lemonade inks onto it, swirled it around a bit and took prints from it, scraping the excess foam off after a few moments.

One thing I discovered was that my ATG gun didn't want to release the adhesive onto the treated card and so I had to use Glossy Accents to adhere the coloured card to the cardbase. I over stamped with a silhouette flower from Unity and clear embossed it as it didn't seem to be drying readily. I added a sentiment using a freebie stamp from a magazine.
This is for Just us Girls - Flowers

Here is a little more of the background paper used for a Shaker card. The sentiment and the dies are from Wplus9.

I love this delicate butterfly from Concord & 9th,  it's cut from some faux mother of pearl card and accompanied by a sentiment from Avery Elle.

This is a simple card with images from Clearly Besotted and a punched border from Martha Stewart.

Another piece of smooshed card here which I used for the die cuts from Cuttlebug (thanks) and All Occasion Dies (the butterflies) The embossing is from a Sizzix folder.

Next week I shall be in Bath looking after my grandchildren for the week whilst my daughter is off "team building" with her company. I'm not sure of the resort this time but there's likely to be lots of skiing and related activities!
She is having a loft conversion at the moment and I think she has chosen the right week to be away... when the ceiling comes down and the stairs are installed!
What fun!

New Job

A friend of mine is responsible for organising greetings cards for members of staff at her school and for some time has been asking me to make them. She ordered 15 cards the other day and this is one of them.
I took my inspiration from last week's 3 Squares challenge at "Less is More" and used my Baroque Border SU Stampin wheel, which I stamped in Versamark and heat embossed in gold. I then cut out three squares from the strip with square Nesties.
Mounted on white then black, the edges being punched with my Fiskars Upper Crest border punch... I love this punch!
The sentiment was made on the computer.
We've been away since Friday, so I've been blogging on the hoof as it were, but we'll soon be home again so I can get back to my desk!
One Stop Crafts - Black, White  plus one other colour (Gold)
CES Challenges - Good Luck/St Patrick's Day (Obviously this is the Good Luck version)