Blended Batik Effect with Klimt

Hope you've all had a good weekend. I've had a very busy day baking as we had lots of family here for tea today before my 2 girls head off for uni so I'm very late with this entry for a couple of challenges. The first of these is Gingersnap Creations GC65 - Famous Painters or Paintings.  Mine was inspired by Gustav Klimt and in particular his Lady With Fan painting as I'm always drawn to the beautiful colours and patterns he uses in his work.
As I used Tim Holtz's Blended Batik technique from page 36 of his fabulous Compendium of Curiosities Book to make the background paper with just a slight twist of my own to make it Klimt style, I'm hoping it will qualify for Linda Ledbetter of Studio L3's Compendium of Curiosities Week 11 Challenge.

My little twist to Tim's technique was just to colour the stamped images by sponging and painting with various Distress ink colours before carrying out the final step. My base colours are Scattered Straw and Mustard Seed as I was trying to reproduce the glorios rich colour of Klimt's painting and I think Distress inks are ideal for this.
The lovely image I used is from Dezinaworld's Emerald Collage Sheet and the stamps are Elusive Images Curly Birds UA5SP0253 and Papermania Hampstead Sketch Flower PMA9072100. 

Polka Doodles Sketch and Colour Challenge

Morning folks on this wet and windy Friday. We had yet more rain in the night and it really is weather for ducks at the moment.
I'm here today with the next Polka Doodles challenge which has been set by head doodler Nikky and as she really loves a sketch, she's come up with this one:

She also wants us to use only 3 colours with the sketch and I chose red, green and gold so you can probably guess which type of card I made - yup! I decided to make another Christmas card to add to my collection as I'm quite determined not to wait until December this year.

I chose the background papers from the Jingle Jangle CD as I just love the jazzy text papers on there. I made a mat for my green harlequin panel from gold leather texture card and stuck this to a square card covered in the text paper.
I the cute Polka Doodles angel in stocking in black Memento ink and coloured her with Promarkers in my colours. I cut her out and added her to the green panel with foam tape. I added embellishments made from the smallest holly sprays from the Wreath section of the Paper Boutique 2 Creative Christmas CD with a greeting from the Xmas Doodles stamp set.

Don't forget that there are now only a few days left to the fabulous Letraset competition to win an entire set of Aquamarkers. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning this great set or a runner up prize is to show us your colouring skills using your favourite colouring medium - how easy is that! The competition runs until 31 August so don't delay if you still want to enter!

Little Bird

Here's my second post which I think fits 3 challenges with different requirements which I'll list when I've shown you my creation.

I've gone a bit blue and green today (my previous one had these too) and made the backround with my Distress Ink Grunge Technique ( see side bar) which I'm loving as it's such a quick and easy way to make your own background paper. I used Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Crushed Olive and Peeled Paint Distress inks with the Inkadinkado Garden Delight clear stamp set.
I stamped the sweet little bird image from the Papermania Henbury Lane Collection PMA92061205 Bluebird in VersaFine Majestic Blue ink and mounted the panel on contrasting card.
I made the flower by punching out to sections from metal foil with a Woodware embossing punch and inked it with Olive Green Stazon ink and Palette Landscape to give it a green tinge. I added a little black round the edges for definition. I then shaped the petals to give a 3D effect.
I'm entering my card into the following challenges:
Cupcake Craft Challenges - Blue and Green
Craft Your Passion - Make Your Own Flowers
The Shabby Tea Room - A Little Bit Of Metal

Blue Fairy

Morning everyone, this is my first of 2 posts today and it's my entry for June's Dezinaworld challenge with a theme this week of Fairies.
I decided to go for a fantasy style fairy and have used one of the lovely images from June's Blue Beauty Collage Sheet.

I just love this pretty lady and resized her slightly to fit my card. I made a background panel for her by stamping one of the roses from the Clearly Inspired Stencil Flowers clear stamp set with Whispers Mossy Stone dye ink and cutting out round the roses to create a shaped panel.
I made the background paper by stamping the large rose spray all over beige parchment card (Southfield Stationers) with Encore Metallic ink in blue and embossed with Blue Pearl powder. I then sponged on Bundled Sage and Crushed Olive Distress inks. I trimmed the edges with deckle scissors and stuck to a square card then added some French vintage bias binding which I found a while ago in a flea market.
I stuck the fairy panel on with foam tape and finished off with an epoxy sticker and some flowers with a sticker centre. 

3 Amigos

Hello everyone, finally managed to finish my entry for the current Ready, Steady, Stamp challenge where you have to pick at least 5 ingredients from the long list of DT member Nefertiti's gorgeous set of skinnys.
The ingredients I picked as as follows:

Skinnys 3 x 5 inches

Cats

Multi Colour

Hand Drawing

Gems

Here's what I made:

I made the backgrounds by brayering with Kaleidacolor inks in Blue Breeze, Desert Heat and Berry Blaze. I then doodled on each one with markers to make a background pattern. I then stamped over the top with Memento black ink and my favourite script stamp, Hero Arts Old French Writing H2365.

I stamped the cats, The Party Cats set by Lost Coast Designs, in black Memento ink and coloured them with Promarkers in various shades. I cut them out and added gems to the hats. I just adore these cats which are so whimsical and cute but a little bit naughty.

I added the cats to the skinnies with foam tape and added computer generated text to finish.

I'm thinking these will make great card toppers when I need a quick card with a bit of a difference.

Art and Nature

Hello everyone on this rather breezy Monday. We have quite strong winds here but at least it's not raining at the moment.
I'm finally starting to get back into challenges and have a card to show you that I've managed to fit into 3 different challenges.

The background paper is made using my Distress Ink Grunge Background Technique (link on side bar) with Scattered Straw, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Dried Marigold, Worn Lipstick and Fired Brick Distress inks. The stamp set is my favourite Inkadinkado Garden Delight 97623.
The butterfly is also from the set and was stamped in Memento black ink (essential to avoid colour bleeding when working with alcohol based pens) and coloured with Promarkers. I then sponged on embossing ink and embossed with crystal powder for some glitz.
I finished off with a quote from the Butterfly Kisses stamp set Clear 2 Collage stamped in the Memento black and coloured with a Meadow Green Promarker. I added some pearls and gems from the Prima E range as the final touch.
I'm entering this into the following challenges:
Sir Stampalot August Challenge - Bring On The Bling (this is about as blingy as I get lol)
Alphabet Challenge Blog - Q For Quotes
Craft Your Days Away Challenges - With Wings

Roses

Hello everyone, hope you're having a good weekend despite the damp weather. It's very warm and humid down here on the South coast as well as wet which is playing havoc with getting my washing dry!
I have a card to show you that will be my mother in law's birthday card in a couple of weeks as she loves roses and when I saw this gorgeous vase of roses as part of Teri's Delicious Doodles Birthday giveaway, I knew it would be just perfect for her.

I printed out the beautiful sketch style digital image twice and coloured just the vase and leaves on one and the roses on the other using watercolour pencils. I cut the roses out and layered them on top of the vase for a 3D effect. I cut the vase out with an oval cutter and trimmed the edges with mini scallop scissors.
I made a background for the panel with strips of My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus papers and made a border to cover the joins with embossed daisies cut from the 2 spot design papers and an X Cut Botanical Embossing Punch.
I assembled the card as shown, adding some glitz to the edges of the leaves and petals with a pink and green American Crafts Ultimate Glitter Gel Pen. I added a greeting by Hobby Art (GR1105C With Love), some pearls and a butterfly cut from my bargain butterfly illustration book.

I'm entering my card in Teri's Challenge at Delicious Doodles and also the following:
Papercutz Challenge - Anything Goes
Fab 'n' Funky Challenges - Flower Power
Craft Your Passion Challenges - Anything Goes

Polka Doodles Challenge - Vintage Style

Morning all, it's Friday again and I've just realised this is the first post since last week.  I think my mojo has gone for a holiday now as I've tried to do several things but haven't been happy enough with them.
This week's challenge over at Polka Doodles has been chosen by yours truly and looking at the theme, I'm sure you can guess why I picked it.  I wanted to show you all that you can do vintage style cards with the CDs and the stamps as I know there are loads of vintage fans out there.
Here's what I made:

I made my own backing paper for the card with the lovely floral flourish stamp from the Daisy Doodles stamp set.
For the pink paper, I stamped the flourish in Memento Sweet Plum and then sponged Distress inks in Scattered Straw, Wild Honey and Victorian Velvet over the top. I then stamped on a few more flourishes in Victorian Velvet.
I made the green paper in the same way using Scattered Straw, Crushed Olive and Peeled Paint Distress inks. I mounted this panel on a darker green mat made by sponging Peeled Paint ink just round the edges of the card and embossing with clear powder (Distress ink allows for this as it stays wet longer than conventional dye ink, part of the reason I love it so much as it blends so beautifully).
I made the flower by printing out some of the Housey, Housey text paper from the Back To Nature CD and then printing the digital Stacking Flowers and Rose Leaves stamps from the Love and Cherish CD on top. I then coloured the petals and leaves with Letraset Aquamarkers. I really love these as they have the most beautiful watercolour effect totally unlike conventional markers. I simply made streaks with 2 or 3 colours and blended them with a damp brush to give a lovely soft effect.
I then cut a circle with a Nestabilities Scalloped Circle die and coloured this with an Aquamarker and water brush. I embossed it with a Quickutz folder and then rubbed the side of the same Aquamarker round the edge for a distressed edge look.
I stuck the pink panel to a card blank and added the other elements as shown with a greeting from Back To Nature CD coloured with Aquamarkers and a domed sticker in the centre of the flower.
The Aquamarker challenge is running until 31 August so for a chance to win some of these unique markers, pop over to the Challenge Blog for details and another fab tutorial from Nikky plus details of her Create and Craft show on 22 August at 10am.

Finally, I'm entering my card in a couple of challenges:
Stampin' For The Weekend - Anything Goes
Stamp Something - Something Digi (my flowers and leaves)

Polka Doodles Challenge - Acetate or Vellum

Happy Friday everyone, it's Polka Doodles time again and this week's challenge is to use Acetate or Vellum on your creation. I was rather pleased to see this as I think it's something that doesn't get used nearly enough and really made the creative juices flow.
i chose to use vellum as I wanted a soft look for my card.

 I printed the pretty daisy paper from the Love and Cherish CD on to pale yellow vellum and cut out a square which I stuck to a cream square trimmed with deckle edged scissors. I put the tape just across the centre.
I stuck this panel to a peach card blank and then added a border of lemon card trimmed with a Martha Stewart punch on both edges and a central peach strip embossed with the Cuttlebug daisy folder.
I printed the beautiful lace butterfly from the All Around & Everywhere CD on to pale blue vellum and mint green card, cut these out and layered them together. I added peach pearls to the body.
As a finishing touch, I coloured one of the greeting panels from the Back To Nature CD with a lemon Promarker to match it to the card and put this on a mat of peach card trimmed with deckle scissors.

The Letraset Aquamarker competition is still ongoing so if you haven't yet had a look to see what's on offer, just pop over to the challenge blog for all the details. i also think there might be another fab tutorial from Nikky so it's definitely a must to take a look.

Holiday Photos From Slovenia

Hello everyone, got back from my hols yesterday after a 4am start so was really tired and overslept this morning.
I've got a few photos to share with you of the absolutely beautiful Slovenia which is a little fairytale like in parts. Apparently 70% of the country is covered in forest and I can believe that as when we took off yesterday all I could see through the plane window was miles of trees. We stayed at Lake Bled which is quite a small lake and it's possible to walk all the way round in about an hour (if you don't stop for coffee and cake that is - the Slovenian people love their cake!)
Here's a picture of our hotel which was right by the lake with a gorgeous view of the castle opposite.

The hotel isn't that large but it had enormous rooms used for the restaurant, lounge and so on and free tea, coffee and cakes were served in the afternoon. Lots of walking needed after this!

This is Castle Bled which we could see from our hotel room window. We did climb up there on a path that would cause British Health & Safety to throw a hissy fit!

The lake has an island with a church and we were told that traditionally, if a couple get married there, the groom has to carry the bride up all of those 99 steps! I think this is my best photo too as I really love the way the church is reflected in the water.

This is the waterfall above Lake Bohinj which is the larger of Slovenia's 2 lakes. It may not look very big but the water streamed down around 70 feet and we had to climb up 553 steps to reach it. This made the island steps seem like child's play!!!

We visited the capital Llubljana and this is one of the famous bridges across the river and is called the Carpenters Bridge. We had lunch at the cafe just seen on the right hand side.

This is my hubby Andrew in a slightly angled photo as I was trying to avoid the lady sitting on the table behind! As you can see the river is not a very attractive colour, it really was that shade of green - ugh!

I couldn't resist taking these photos in the flower market at Llubljana which had stalls full of the most beautiful brightly coloured flowers and the lady in the top photo had lots of lovely garlands and posies for sale.

These are pictures of the last place we visited, the Vintgar Gorge which was in a narrow valley behind a mountain near Lake Bled. We caught the bus up to the gorge, walked through along rock pathways and wooden walkways and the most stunning scenery and walked back. This was difficult although it was broken up as we reached a church at the top of the mountain and to our complete surprise found a Pizzeria next to it!!! You can probably guess that we made a pizza stop before the rest of the journey back which was downhill but still very difficult as it was hot.

I can thoroughly recommend Slovenia for a holiday as it wasn't really very touristy and the people are really friendly and helpful. The scenery is really beautiful and has to be seen to be appreciated as my photos don't really do it justice.

I'll be back tomorrow with the next Polka Doodles challenge and also had a piece of very good news today when I was catching up on my reading list and found that I won last week's Spot Prize Challenge on Dezinaworld and have a gorgeous new collage set to play with so many thanks go to June for this as it was such a lovely surprise to come home to. If you haven't had a go at June's new style challenge, do pop over and have a look - click on the link above or the one on my side bar.

Polka Doodles Sketch Challenge

Hello everyone, all being well this will have posted while I'm on my hols in Slovenia. As it's Friday, it's time for the next Polka Doodles challenge and this week there is a sketch to inspire you.

I decided to make a new home card and resized and printed out the cute house scene from the Housey Housey section of the Back to Nature CD on to watercolour paper. I then coloured it with my watercolour pencils.

I put this on a contrast mat of blue paper and then a larger mat of paper from the Not So Plain Plains section of the Not For Girls CD. I added faux stitching with a black fine liner to echo the sketch. I used background paper from the All Around and Everywhere CD and added flowers from the Sugar Birdies CD. 
As you can see, all the CDs mix and match beautifully giving you even more options for your projects.

Don't forget the big competition on the challenge blog and do have a go if you haven't already as all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning one of the fab prizes is to show us your colouring skills. How easy is that! Why not pop over and have a look. There's also a new video tutorial which Nikky has done for you and I'm sure there are loads of good tips.

Vintage Travel Collage

Happy Monday everyone and I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I'm here today with my last post for a while as I'm off on my hols early Wednesday morning and won't be back until the end of next week.
This is the card I've made for the latest Ready Steady Stamp Challenge and I managed to use the following from the long list of ingredients:

Travel

Map

Patterned Paper

Cork

Film Strip

Brad

Glossy Accents

Distress

Round Punch to make Flowers

Ingredients Used:

Stamps : B Line Designs Paris PR217E and Eiffel Tall PR114D

              Hero Arts Old French Writing H2365

              Inkadinkado Vintage Car 91406-X

              Hampton Art Woman In Coat DF2296

              Art Attack Film Strip 

              All Night Media Clear Stamp Set International Intrigue 91416

Inks : Distress inks Scattered Straw, Wild Honey, Peeled Paint, Crushed Olive, Vintage Photo

          Palette inks Raw Sienna, Noir Black

Promarkers for colouring

Glossy Accents on car body and wheels and woman's shoes and hat

Flower made from K&Co paper (circles punched, folded in to quarters, snipped towards centre and trimmed with deckle scissors. Scrunched then fixed together with a brad)

Cork letter P by Craftime

Acetate

Vintage Map from Art Freebies

Glossy card

Happily this card also fits this week's Lots To Do challenge - The Scenic Route so I'm entering it in that one too.

Polka Doodles Challenge - Generic Male and Female

Morning all on this bright and sunny Friday. Don't know about you but I've had a good day followed by a bad one as on Wednesday my daughter Sarah received her Art Foundation results and she got Distinction so we're jumping up and down here as it means that she's got her place at Kingston University.
I also gained another Gingersnap Creations award for my card in the last post so thanks to all those Gingersnappers.
Yesterday was not so good as I managed to end up with a scratched left eye again due to a large lump of grit getting trapped behind my contact lens. I'm currently doing everything with just the right one in so it's a bit disorientating.
Going on to this week's challenge at Polka Doodles, Nikky would like to see creations which are suitable for both male and female recipients so it's time to put the creative thinking cap on.
Here's what I came up with and I chose a peacock image as it is the male of that species that struts his stuff!

I've used the stripy background paper and embellishment from the Dad's Birthday Bundle download and combined this with the green Plain Jane paper from the Sugar Birdies CD and the peacock silhouette from the Shake a Tail Feather collection on the Back To Nature CD. The stamped greeting is from the Daisy Doodles stamp set. I added gingham ribbon and toning brads for a finishing touch.
Don't forget to pop over to the challenge blog as the fantastic Letraset Aquamarkers competition is still running with fabulous prizes on offer and all you have to do to be in with a chance at winning is to show us your colouring skills - how easy is that!
Wishing you all good luck.

Sunshine All The Way

A very late post for me today in more ways than one as I need matchsticks to prop up my eyelids as I'm really tired and I'm going to be last past the post with my entry for Gingersnap Creations GCSP4 Once In A Blue Moon Challenge - CASE A Ginger.
I chose to CASE (Copy and Steal Everything) a beautiful card by Lynn Stevens of Trash to Treasure Art as it has a bathing beauty and gave me the opportunity to use one of the gorgeous images from Dezinaworld that I have in my ever growing collection. As I didn't have all the things that Lynn has used, I've improvised quite a bit to make my own version.

I used Distress inks in Spun Sugar, Worn Lipstick, Barn Door, Fired Brick and Spiced Marmalade for the background papers. The tiny sun is by Hobby Art and the shells by Rubbadubbado. The travel collage is by Inkadinkado and the compass by Debbi Moore. These were all coloured with Promarkers.
The corner pieces are made with sepia ink and Hampton Arts Scratch Pattern and were embossed to give texture.
I added computer generated text and a shell charm to finish.

Distress Ink Grunge Background Tutorial

Well here it is, the promised tutorial on how to make my grunge background paper with Distress inks which is not nearly as messy as those involving water although I have to say, your fingers will still get a bit inky. One of the hazzards of DIY but a lot of fun anyway as when you get the hang of this, you can make the papers really quickly (I made 4 in 20 minutes) and it may get you addicted to doing your own decorated papers. I've been doing my own for 14 years now!
It helps with this technique if you use a very smooth card as a slightly rough surface will cause the ink to be absorbed almost at once and it won't move around as mine has done. This won't matter as the technique produces a very random effect and no 2 pieces will ever be exactly the same.

Step 1 - Take a craft sheet or a plastic clipboard and 2 colours of Distress Ink, a light and medium shade of the same colour. I have used Scattered Straw and Mustard Seed. Starting with the lighter colour, apply patches of ink to the craft sheet then repeat with the darker colour, adding a few patches on top.

Step 2 - Take a piece of card (mine is approx. 15cm square) in white or a pale colour - I used cream so that you can see it better. Place the card over the ink patches and press down all over with your fingers.

Step 3 - Turn the card over and on a craft mat, rub a sponge over to smudge and blend the inks a little. If there are any uncovered areas left, turn the card back over and pick up some ink left on the craft sheet, pressing down as before and repeating until you're happy with the result. If you like the colour at this point then stop here and jump to Step 6.

Step 4 - If you want to add some more colour, choose another light and dark version of the colour - I have used Spun Sugar and Victorian Velvet and repeat step 1  and 2 with these colours.

Step 5 - Rub with a sponge as before until you are happy with the colours.

Step 6 - Stamp a design on your inked paper using the darkest of your colour choices which in this case is the Victorian Velvet. The flourish stamp is from a tiny clear stamp set by Prima, reference Go Green Concepts 850715. You may find that the darkest ink colour doesn't make enough of a contrast so if that happens just take the darkest colour of Distress Ink in your chosen shade.

Here's the card I made with the above piece of paper. The image is a free one courtesy of Craft Stamper magazine and I've put her on a mat of pale aqua and deep rose pink paper. I made a border with the same papers, a Martha Stewart edge punch and scallop scissors and added a butterfly image and golden pearls to finish.
I hope you like this and decide to give it a try as it really is very easy. I've also got another sample here to show you the very different look you can get by using another colour card. If you scroll down to my previous post, you will see a background paper made using the technique on blue card. Here are exactly the same colours using white card.

This just goes to show that the variety of papers at your fingertips can be infinite if you have just a few colours of card, stamps and ink colours.
Enjoy!

Blue Bird

Evening everyone, a very late post today due to my computer and camera both throwing a wobbly so I've only just been able to get online.
I'm here with my entry at last for Gingersnap Creations Colour Challenge GC60 - Shades of Blue which closes tomorrow.
My card was inspired by the colours of Wedgewood China and here it is:

The background paper here was made using my Distress Ink Grunge Background Technique (I'll be posting a tutorial on this tomorrow as I couldn't do it today owing to my technical problems) using blue card instead of white with Tumbled Glass and Broken China inks. I stamped the floral corner design which is from a set by Viva Decor (available from the Craft Barn) in Chipped Sapphire.
The bird panel and blue and white vertical strip were made by using a Crafters Workshop stencil as a stamp (more on this later) with Sky Blue VersaColor ink. The vertical strip was embossed using the Cuttlebug Floral Fantasy folder.
I stamped the bird - Papermania Henbury Lane range - in Majestic Blue VersaFine ink on the square floral panel. I added a dark blue border with the bottom edge trimmed using Martha Stewart's Arch Lattice Edge Punch and a layered flower punched with a Papermania Punch and Emboss. I added a blue gem to the centre.

Polka Doodles Challenge and Competition News

Hi everybody, Friday again so the next Polka Doodles challenge is here but before I tell you about it I have some MEGA news from Nikky to pass on about a fab competition which has started today.
The great news is that Polka Doodles has teamed up with Letraset of Promarkers fame to host a competition with the MOST FABULOUS PRIZES imaginable. If you pop over to the Challenge Blog, Nikky will tell you more about it and I'm totally green cos I can't enter being on the DT.
Now, on to the Polka Doodles challenge this week the theme of which is CHRISTMAS IN JULY. I hope you're not groaning as it's a great way to get started on your cards especially if you're like me and leave it to 1 December then panic lol!
I was actually making Christmas cards in June because the latest CD, Paper Boutique Creative Christmas, actually came out last month.
Here's my card which is a tent shape:

I printed out 2 of the lovely snowflake papers from the CD on both sides of the paper. I then cut an oval out of one of the squares of decorated paper and turned this over to the contrast side.
I printed out the cute penguin digital images and cut out the size to fit the oval. I stuck him on with foam tape.
I sponged clear embossing ink on some of the darker snowflake paper and embossed it with crystal powder for some bling. I used a large and small snowflake punch to make some embellishments for the card. I added a greeting from the CD to finish.
You'll find the tent card instructions by Debbie Dolphin on the Inspirational Tips and Techniques blog - this is a really great site if you haven't yet seen it as it has loads of ideas with full instructions on how to make everything.
Don't forget to check out the challenge blog for those all important Letraset competition details as you really don't want to miss out.

Creative Frenzy!

Hello everyone, hope you're all OK and have good weather at the moment. I'm here today with a mega post to show you all the card samples for a class I taught yesterday in making quick and easy vintage style cards.
I made the pale backing paper myself by washing buff acrylic paint over a piece of watercolour paper and scanning it into my computer using Photoshop. I then adjusted the colour to make it a little paler and printed it out on to thin card. I adjusted the colour again until it was pink and printed out more copies.

The images on these 4 cards are all by June at Dezinaworld from the Spring Ladies collage sheet in the case of the first 3 and the Dance collage sheet the last.

The images of the rose, hydrangea, poppies and delphinium are all digital stamps by Teri of Delicious Doodles and her shop is well worth a visit for lots more gorgeous stamps.
The lace stamp is by B Line Designs and available from LB Crafts.
The corner and border stamps are by Viva Decor from a clear set of stamps available from the Craft Barn and incredible value.
The butterfly stamps, large and small, are by Hobby Art.
The script stamp is by Hero Arts.
The images on the last 3 cards are from June's Art Freebies blog.
The stamps used on the square patterned background papers are some I've had for many years and I have no idea what make they or or whether they are still available.
Hope you like looking at these as much as I liked making them as once I started, it was very hard to stop!

Polka Doodles Challenge - Stamp Away!

Morning everyone on this bright and somewhat breezy Friday. It's time for a new challenge over at Polka Doodles and this week it's Lou's turn to chose the theme. She would like to see Stamping on your creations and she challenged all the Design Team to make a card using just stamps, the gorgeous Fairy Flutterbys collection available only from Polka Doodles.
As I'm sure you all know, this is exactly the type of challenge I love as it's really me. I chose to make an easel shape card and made a resist style background with a slight difference. Read on to find out how!

I made my background paper by stamping the large flower from the Babsie collection all over a piece of white card. I ended up stamping it in Encore Ultimate Metallic pigment ink which is the stickiest I know as it took me 3 attempts to stamp and embosss the flowers - the hot weather made the other pigment inks dry off more quickly than I could get the embossing powder on!!! As the ink is coloured, I embossed with white powder.
I then coloured the flowers with Promarkers in yellow and orange.  The next step is to sponge Distress ink in between the flowers - I used Tumbled Glass. This made a pretty, colourful background but I think this would look fabulous with gold embossing too (note to self - try this soon). I cut the paper and used a square on the front of the card and the remaining strip on the base.
I stamped the very cute Gracie, the butterfly wings and 2 of the little ladybird in black ink and coloured them with Promarkers. I then cut them all out. I used a Nestabilities circle and scalloped circle to make a frame for her to sit on and embossed the white circle with the Sissix Floral Flourishes & Vines set. I did the same with a matching border strip (Tip - as the border strip was too big to fit all of it in the embossing folder, I embossed both the ends only as the middle is hidden). I inked all the edges with yellow.
The card is assembled as you see in the photos with tape and foam tape and the greeting came from the Gracie set too.
If you pop over to the challenge blog, you'll see how versatile the stamps are as there are several ideas using the stamps by other members of the DT as some of us picked the same stamps.

Shy Girl

Hello folks, hope you've all had a lovely weekend and some good weather. It's been trying to rain a little here on the South coast today but the sunshine has just appeared again.
I'm here with my rather late entry for the current challenge at Ready, Steady, Stamp which I started just over a week ago and then had to stop for a while due to other commitments. I managed to finish it off yesterday evening at last. For those of you that don't know, the challenge rules have changed a bit and now every 2 weeks one of the Design Team members will make a project and list the ingredients used. The challenge is to make something using at least 5 of the ingredients and I found this good fun as the list this time is quite long and there are plenty of things to choose from.
I used the following on my card:

Cream, Brown and Green

Rectangles

Embossed Metal/Metal Embellishment

Distress Inks

Dry Embossing

I made my background paper using my grunge technique with Distress inks in Crushed Olive and Peeled Paint and one of the lovely stamps from the Inkadinkado Garden Delight clear stamp set which I really love as the stamps included are so useful. I stuck this to a cream card blank I made.

I made a frame for the lovely photo from June's Art Freebies blog by cutting a piece of cream card and stamping all around the edges in VersaFine Vintage Sepia using a tiny Anna Griffin flourish stamp. I put the photo on a mat of brown paper and then on the stamped panel.

I then embossed a panel of cream card with the Sissix Tim Holtz Alterations Damask embossing folder and put this on a panel of brown paper trimmed on both long edges with the Martha Stewart Arch Lattice punch. I added this to the card with some brown floral ribbon and the photo panel.

As a finishing touch, I made a metal foil flower using a Woodware floral cut and emboss punch. I deepened the embossing effect with a ball tool and rubbed on Olive Green StazOn ink. I then bent the petals for a 3D effect and added a little black StazOn to the edges to make them stand out. I then added a Making Memories round embossed metal brad in the centre.