Butterfly and Blogger

Got this fabulous butterfly from Uniko Studio Challenge, just as Beverley from Uniko was guest designing at Muse with this card, so I had to play along :)

I stamped the image off the edge, and sloshed and splattered some Distress Inks (Barn Door, Faded Jeans, Chipped Sapphire).  I blatantly stole CASEd the partial frame idea from Cornelia, adding dots every time the lines intersected, to reflect the dots in the butterfly image.  I deliberately left the card flattened out while I splattered so that it would continue onto the back.  The sentiment is from Winnie & Walter The Big, The Bold and The Happy.

I'm playing along with Less Is More, where the theme is Watercolour

One Layer Simplicity, where the theme is I've Been Framed

and City Crafter, where the theme is Red, White and Blue

Anyone else having problems with Blogger feed?  It's decided to only show one post in my reader.  Not one post per blog I follow - ONE. SINGLE. SOLITARY. POST.  Whichever blog post is the most recent.  Apparently it's a bug known to Blogger but there's no sign of a fix yet.  How's a girl to cope?  Until yesterday, I was very happy with getting my posts through Blogger, but I can't cope without you all, so I'm now stalking you by Bloglovin until normal service is resumed at Blogger - if ever!

Sweet Peas

Ok, so I'm not quite done with pink yet.  Remember the gingko stamps I made last week?  Well, I thought they could double up as sweet peas when I saw the challenge from Curtain Call:

I used Tattered Rose, Worn Lipstick and Shaded Lilac Distress Inks, a bit of water and a bit of splodging and squidging, then added the short stems, which are also stamps I made, and just extended them down and added a few curly fronds.  The background numbers stamp is by Tim Holtz and the birthday stamp is Penny Black - I placed it in the bottom-right corner to make it look like a signature on a painting.  I sponged a bit of Antique Linen around the edges of the panel for a bit of an aged look.

I'm also entering it into Simon Says Monday Challenge, Anything Goes.

But not Everything Goes.  These sweet peas are faring much better than the ones in my garden, which are refusing to grow despite the warm weather we're having.  Maybe I'll just stick this card on the fence and pretend.

Just Us Girls Guest Designer - Week 3

I'm back with Just Us Girls for my third appearance as guest designer for June.  This week it's a juicy summery colour challenge:

I'm also playing along with CASology where they are celebrating their 100th challenge and the theme is, appropriately enough, Celebrate.

So I made them a cake of the no-calorie variety.  And because there are no calories, I doubled the recipe quantity by stamping an extra image and doing some cutting and layering.  All the stamps are part of the new release by STAMPlorations (see here for details).  For extra yumminess I added some glossy icing and some frosting - here's a close-up:

I'm also entering it into Simon Says Monday Challenge, Anything Goes.

Mellow Yellow

Today's card is brought to you by the colour Yellow.  Or more precisely, the colours in this challenge at Just Add Ink:

Then we have the joint challenge at CAS(E) This Sketch and Fusion:

And bringing up the rear we have The Paper Players' 200th challenge, where we can choose to revisit one of the challenges selected by the Design Team.  I chose Jaydee's clean and simple watercolouring:

I smooched some Distress Inks (Mustard Seed, Iced Spruce) onto an embossing folder (Craft Concepts, Grunge Stripe) and took a print, sloshed some Iced Spruce around the edges of the base card, grabbed the good old credit card and added some distressed lines.  Stitched a piece of cotton tape to the panel, stamped a butterfly (Uniko Studio) onto spare card and sloshed some colour on, then fussy cut and stuck it onto the tape.  And added a sentiment (Hero Arts CL646 Happy Birthday).

I'm in a Yellow phase at the moment, after having done Pink to death.  More yellow tomorrow.  It must be all the sunshine we're having :)

Seize The Birthday - No Toppings

It's Seize The Birthday time, and for this challenge there's no topping.  So, anything goes (as long as it's a birthday theme!).

I used Clearly Besotted Fabulous Fuchsias, applying Tombow markers directly to the stamps and spritzing then stamping.  The sentiment is stamped in Versafine Onyx Black.  Oh, and there's a bit of splattering going on ;)

I'm entering this into Clearly Besotted's challenge - Anything Goes.

Pop on over to Seize The Birthday for inspiration from the rest of the team, and join in!

Colour Me Guest Designer - Week 3

I'm back for week 3 of my guest designer stint at Colour Me...!  Here are this week's yummy colours:

I inked up the raised side of an embossing folder with Tattered Rose, Worn Lipstick and Evergreen Bough, spritzed with water and pressed my card onto the folder to get a print.  Trimmed it to an angle, adhered it to the card and added my latest craze, doodle stitching.

I'm entering this into Simon Says Monday Challenge Anything Goes.

Come on over to Colour Me...! and join in the fun!

The folder is Dream by Couture Creations
The stamps are from STAMPlorations Sentiment Builders: Happy

Two New Stamps

I've been playing with new stamps.  Or to be more precise, I've been playing with my Teresa Collins Stampmaker and I've been making new stamps.  I bought the machine last November - it was going to be a birthday present but I changed my mind before my birthday, thinking I probably wouldn't use it.  But then it was on offer and I managed to get 35% off, so I decided I needed it after all.  And there it's been, Darnell - languishing in the NBUS department.

Before I get to the detail, (and before I forget!) I'm entering this into Darnell's NBUS challenge which is a friendship theme (there's no sentiment on mine, but flowers are a token of friendship) and Time Out Summer Flowers.

 

So. Two things prompted me to have a go with the machine:  

This fabulous creation by Ruth which was the winning entry in the Craft Stamper Take It Make It potato stamping challenge.  Ruth used gingko cookie cutters, I've drawn some flower shapes and made stamps from the images.

Ruth's card - isn't it fabulous?

The other thing that prompted me was that I wanted a walking boots stamp for male cards and I couldn't find one.  Not one to take the easy route, I decided that I would create my own stamp from a photograph.  Got walking boots, got a camera, got a stampmaking machine.  Easy, right?  Almost. I couldn't fade out the background completely so in the end I printed it out then traced over the photo to get my image.  The quality of the stamp isn't brilliant because I printed the negative on the wrong setting, but I actually like the roughness of it, reminds me of a charcoal drawing.  The photo on the left is what I traced, and the image on the right is the stamped image rather than the traced image.

 So here are a couple of cards I made with the stamp:

I'm entering this first one into One Layer Simplicity Challenge where the theme is I've Been Framed and Keep It Simple, where it's Splatters.

And I'm entering this second card into Simply Less Is More where it's a One Layer Off The Edge challenge, and Just Add Ink where you've to use three out of the five colours.

The HB2U stamp is part of the new release from STAMPlorations.  Look out for our birthday blog hop coming soon!

Sorry it was a mega post but two of the challenges are closing today and it was easier to combine into one "new stamp" post.  Thanks for sticking with it to the end ;)