Happy Birthday, Shery!

Today it's STAMPlorations owner Shery's birthday so teamie Nonni has organised a little surprise birthday party on the STAMPlorations blog while Shery wasn't looking.  I'm bringing the cake.  I suspect some of my teamies will also be bringing cake.  And gifts.  From the new stamp release.

I don't know where Wonderwoman Shery gets all her energy from.  Not only does she run her stamp company STAMPlorations, and the corresponding blog, she has an online scrapbooking store, she's on several design teams, she's just started up another challenge blog (The Mixed Media Card Challenge - and I'm on the design team, yay!) and she also finds time to shoot video tutorials.  Oh, and in her other life she's an author, ghost writer, software designer....  I think I need a lie down.

Soooo - as a little extra Nonni has asked us to answer these questions:

1) Your favourite STAMPlorations stamp and why: 

Well, this week it's the cake stamp that I've used on this card.  I love its wonkiness and its versatility.  On various cards recently I've changed it into cupcakes, I've added extra tiers to it, I've added glossy accents to the dripping icing, wink of stella to the piping and Stickles to the candle flames.  And even though it's a detail image, it still looks fab with Distress Inks sloshed all over it.

2) Your favourite piece of writing or book:

The book that had me most riveted is Papillon by Henri Charrière, I just couldn't put it down.  Coming a close second is To Kill A Mockingbird.  It wasn't on the required reading list when I was at school (we got Day of The Triffids) but my kids read it and I borrowed it from them.  My least favourite reading is Dickens, just can't take to his style (a piece of useless information for you there).

3) Your message to Shery:

Apart from Happy Birthday, you mean??  A big, huge, thank you for accepting me onto the STAMPlorations design team (and now the Mixed Media Card Challenge team).  And keep on doing what you're doing, it's working :)  Have a wonderful birthday!

STAMPlorations Monthly Challenge - Stamps and Glitter

It's a new month and a new challenge at STAMPlorations.  We want you to use stamps and glitter.  Easy peasy.  I used one of the new stamp sets, Boxed Blooms and Bold Sentiments.  You get four framed flowers and ten words in the set.  For my card I stamped the boxed bloom then cut out the background sections.  I added a little Pumice Stone Distress watercolour on the petals and also on the edges of the sentiment and popped the panel up on some gunmetal pearlised card.

The Stickles in the flower centre is Tiara by Suze Weinberg for Ranger.  I've had it years - I mean years - and it's a little bit gloopy but otherwise fine.  I googled to see if she was still around and have just spent a good half hour getting completely sidetracked reading her blog.

Anyway, enough about me (and Suze), what about you?  What can you win if you play along?  Well, if yours is the winning entry you get a STAMPlorations stamp set of your choice (or two sets if you used STAMPlorations stamps in your winning creation).

And if you play along with the monthly challenge and both of this month's sketches you could win this:

Our guest designer this month is the lovely and talented Kimberly Wiener.  Pop over to the STAMPlorations blog with your sunglasses to see Kimberly's fabulous creation, and the inspirational designs from the rest of the DT.

Take It Make It - Resist Embossing

Time for a new challenge and a new technique at Craft Stamper Take It Make It.  This month, it's resist embossing (stamp, emboss, colour, iron embossing off and you're left with a flat panel).

I stamped the large background from the Tim Holtz Papillon set in Versamark and white embossed it, then painted Distress Inks (Spun Sugar, Dried Marigold, Shabby Shutters) over it.  The embossing resists the inks.  I then placed it on a wooden block and covered it with clean copy paper and ironed it with my craft iron, which was taking forever, so I used my proper iron (steam setting off) and it worked pretty much immediately.  You know when it's worked because you end up with a complete watermark image on your copy paper and there is no longer any raised outline on your card.

To finish, I stamped the same background stamp in Versafine Smoky Grey on the right-hand side of my card and stencilled an Eiffel Tower.  I dry embossed a Tim Holtz Eiffel Tower which I'd die-cut from pearlised brown card, then swooshed the Versamark pad over the raised areas and gold embossed it.

I stamped a butterfly (Uniko Studio) and inked it in the same colours, added some pearls and a sentiment banner, and stitched some baker's twine down the side of the panel.

Join in for your chance to win a prize, have your card published in Craft Stamper (oh, I've got one in this month's mag :) ) and the chance to be a guest designer in a future challenge.

Guest Designer - Uniko Studio Challenge #11

Hello, I'm thrilled to be guest designing for Uniko Studio for their Challenge #11, Birthday using this fabulous colour palette:

As part of my prize for winning Challenge #10, I chose the Paradise Hummingbird set.  I googled hummingbird images and was inspired by this painting, and how the splattered paint implied fast movement.  I can't resist a bit of splattering and sloshing outside the lines, so I set to with the Distress Inks (Seedless Preserves, Dusty Concord, Peeled Paint, Mowed Lawn) and a paintbrush.  I inked the flower stamps with Seedless Preserves, spritzed and stamped, then repeated with Dusty Concord to get the two-tone look on the flowers.  Oh, and I added some Wink of Stella to imply iridescence on the feathers and a tiny AB crystal for the eye.

So come and play - you could be a winner and get the opportunity to guest design too!

It's a busy blog day for me - Craft Stamper Take It, Make It Challenge up next, followed by STAMPlorations monthly challenge.

Seize The Birthday - Stars and/or Stripes

Time for Seize The Birthday, and for this challenge it's Stars and/or Stripes.  I used a star embossing folder to take a Distress Ink print and made a colourful cake - just think if it was real - all those e-numbers!

Come on over and join us.  If stars or stripes don't do it for you, you can still enter as long as it's a birthday card.

The cake and celebrate sentiment are from the new release at STAMPlorations.  The happy birthday sentiment is Dymo tape.

I'm entering my card into CAS on Sunday - birthday challenge

Happy Birthday Darnell!

There's a party going on over at Ardyth's blog for birthday girl Darnell.  I'm bringing flowers to the party.  I usually take wine to a party and I'm always made very welcome.

I entered a similar card into Darnell's NBUS challenge, using my homemade gingko stamps, so I thought I would make this one to send, not realising that we'd be partying today and there's a fair chance it may not arrived in the US of A yet.  So, Darnell, if this hasn't arrived in your mail yet, just close your eyes...

Oh, wait a minute, open them again, I want to show you my good deed for the day.  I saw this dragonfly apparently dead with a broken wing on the conservatory windowsill, but then it started fluttering, caught in a spider's web.

So I scooped it up with a biro and the tiniest ever spider came rushing out to try and claim its prey, but we escaped.  You can see the spider gunk around the pen in this second photo.  I managed to pull most of it off and the dragonfly was able to fly away.

On another completely random note, I went on a little jolly to York and Harrogate with my friend Melanie and her son Henry.  We spent most of the journey spotting diggers and trucks for Henry, who is nearly 3, and as we approached Harrogate we kept seeing bicycles painted yellow - one with a stuffed sheep sitting on it wearing a yellow jersey; small bikes, large bikes, trikes, a penny farthing, all yellow.  Chained to railings, up telegraph poles, in gardens, on roofs.  Then we saw bunting made from knitted jerseys - yellow, green, red and white spotted.  Then it clicked - it's the Grand Départ of The Tour de France on Saturday, and the community has really gone to town with its decorations.

One local council's Elf 'n Safety department ordered the knitted bunting to be removed because they feared that when it got wet (as it surely would in England) the weight of all that wet wool would bring down the lampposts that the bunting was attached to.  As one local resident pointed out, sheep don't fall over when they get wet...

Thought you'd enjoy that little digression, Darnell :)  Have a wonderful birthday!

The Mixed Media Card Challenge #1

Hello, and welcome to the first  Mixed Media Card Challenge!  Now, if you're thinking mixed media isn't for you because you're more of a CAS person, just stop and look and think.  A little texture, a die cut, some thread, some ink, some embossing powder = more than one medium.  You're probably already doing it on your cards, aren't you?  And you can have as much white space as you want, you don't have to colour the whole card or throw everything on it.  You do have licence to get a little messy - if you want.  If you're still not sure what constitutes a mixed media card, click here for the lowdown.

So today's theme is a touch of nature with an optional element of a tag.

I swooshed a piece of cotton canvas into Distress Inks and stamped on it once it was dry. The die cut flower (Tim Holtz Tattered Florals) was languishing in my stash already sponged so I added some Stampendous Frantage embossing powder to the centre and also onto the base card. Frantage is best heated from below otherwise the big globules of powder will just blow away. I wrapped a bit of gold thread and placed it behind the flower, then added a sentiment from the new STAMPlorations release (Vignette: Celebrate Artsy).

The challenge lasts until the 25th, so I do hope you'll join in.  Pop over to the Mixed Media Card Challenge blog and you'll see from the Design Team's gorgeous creations that mixed media needn't be scary.  In fact, it's quite fun :)