CAS Challenges

When I was looking for something else, I happened upon  this stamp from Rubberneckers, which immediately made me want to do a background for the challenge at CAS Mix Up, which is to use Alcohol Lift Ink!

I used drops of three shades of green alcohol ink om some YUPO paper and then added a little Blending solution an mix up the colours and allow them to mingle. I inked the stamp with Alcohol Lift in and stamped onto the paper once is was totally dry. after dabbing any excess ink with a piece of paper towel I buffed the leaves with clean paper towel, lifting the remainder of the ink. I love the effect it gives.

The sentiment stamps and dies are from Clearly Besotted and I decided to raise the words on dimensional pads for a little more interest.

Alcohol Lift, Stamping, Die Cutting.

Meanwhile over at CAS Watercolour Challenge, a celebration for my lovely friend Darnell's birthday is taking place and she is being presented with heaps of bouquets of flowers!

Mine is a simple bunch of tulips, from stampin' Up, gently coloured with watercolours. I love to watch the reaction of the pigment with the water as it doe its 'thing'!

As she is such a special lady I may have to try another one for her, I must have a rummage through my stamps!

Happy Birthday Darnell.

Christmas Sparkle

The challenge at Happy Little Stampers Christmas as ever is Anything Goes and this time with the option of adding Sparkle!

For this card I began with a metal stencil from Sweet Poppy and after taping it to my piece of card, I applied some Pearlescent White Embossing paste, also from Sweet Poppy.

After removing the stencil I sprinkled over some Glamour Dust Gold powder and allowed it to dry. I did toy with the idea of adding a sentiment but in the end opted to leave it as is. It is really twinkly and lots of individual flakes catch the light at different angles.

It does seem odd making Christmas cards at all times of the year, but when the festive season comes it's so good to have a ready supply of cards to send to friends and family. I can thoroughly recommend making Christmas cards ahead of time and Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge is a great place to display your creations.... so do join us!

ABC Christmas 

N - No peeking

and

 O - Ornament

Alcohol lift ink

The joy of the CAS Mix Up Challenges is that is makes you try stuff that you meant to do long ago!

I wanted to try the alcohol lift technique some time ago... got the products I needed but as they arrived in dribs and drabs I didn't get around to trying it! SO here we are with my first attempt. I used a half sheet of Yupo paper and dropped a few colours of alcohol ink onto it together with a few drops of belnding solution then swished them around a bit with a sponge tipped  pad. Then I added a stencil from Stamplorations and tamped over it with a felt tipped dauber with a few drops of Alcohol lift ink. I dried it off and then buffed with a paper towel after removing the stencil

I die-cut  an aperture in the card to put the panel behind and added a stamped sentiment from Clearly Besotted.

I feel a few more attempts with this medium coming on!

Negative Space

The latest challenge at Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge is to use Negative Space. This is not a term I have come across before although I guess that I have in fact done this technique before but not realised there was a specific term for it!

The leaf die I used is from Simon Says Stamp, cut from a piece of black card, which was mounted over a watercolour background.

The word die was picked up on the internet, not sure if it was eBay or Amazon, but I'm not sure of the manufacturer.

I think that with this colour backdrop, the dark card front makes quite a dramatic contrast.

Do join us!