Just Us Girls - Guest Designer!

I'm Guest Designer at Just Us Girls for this month, another honour and pleasure!  The first challenge of the month is a sketch, and here it is:

I thought I'd go wonky with the four panels, so I stamped images from Woodware across the panels, then sloshed Distress Inks over the images, deliberately going over the lines and offsetting the colours.  I adhered the panels at different angles to emphasise the wonkiness.  The background pattern is stamped using the back of a strip stamp.

Head on over to the Just Us Girls blog to see what the design team have created with the sketch and join in!

STAMPlorations June Challenge - Stamps & Borders

It's a new month and a new challenge at STAMPlorations.  This month we want you to incorporate borders into your project - and use stamps, of course.  There's a change to the rules starting this month: if you use STAMPlorations stamps and you're the winner, you get two stamp sets of your choice (if you didn't use STAMPlorations and you're the winner, you get one stamp set of your choice).

I used Sentiment Builders: Happy and Holiday Artsy with Distress Inks.

Our guest designer is Kim from Art Keeps Me Sane.  Pop on over to the STAMPlorations blog to see what Kim and my teamies have created.

I'm entering my card into One Layer Simplicity, I've Been Framed.

Craft Stamper Take It, Make It Challenge - Bleach Blocking

Are you ready for a new challenge at Craft Stamper Take It, Make It?  This month it's bleach blocking, but don't worry, you don't have to use bleach to achieve this effect - plain old water is the magic ingredient.  Well, that and Distress Inks.  We want you to create a background with Distress Inks, then with a clean wet piece of foam stamp into your background.  The Distress Inks will react with the water leaving you with a paler area.  You can use a clean blending foam pad, but I used a piece of Cut-n-Dry (grey side).

I had two die-cut rings lying about so I swooshed them through the leftover Distress Ink on the craft mat, cut them up and overlaid them on the card.

The sentiment is from Neat & Tangled Everyday Labels and the chevrons are from STAMPlorations Vignette: Chevron and Arrows.

So what's on offer to the winner?

You get published in the UK's best stamping magazine
You get a guest designer spot in an upcoming challenge
You a lovely prize too!  Hop on over to the Craft Stamper challenge for all the details.

Seize The Birthday - Summer Time

The new challenge at Seize The Birthday is Summer Time.  I used a little beach scene stamp and added a wash of Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean (very appropriate!) and I can't remember what for the sand (I did it a few weeks ago) - probably Antique Linen.  I scored a weatherboard panel and swooshed Weathered Wood and Tumbled Glass over it, then stamped the word panel over it.  The happy birthday sentiment is from Penny Black.  The beach scene and the subway art stamp are unbranded stamps that I picked up after the Port Sunlight show.

So what will you create?  A birthday card without the toppings, or a summer time birthday card?    Either way, come and join us!

I'm entering my card into the City Crafter Nautical challenge.

Colour Me... Guest Designer!

I have the honour and pleasure of being guest designer at Colour Me...! for the month of June, woohoo!  This week's colour challenge is monochromatic, using Coastal Cabana and neutrals.

I used Evergreen Bough Distress Ink to create a stencil print background, and stamped the male image (Dylusions) onto spare card and sloshed some diluted ink on it, and cut it out roughly to keep in with the loose colouring.  The chevrons are from STAMPlorations Vignette: Chevron and Arrows and the sentiment is from Neat & Tangled Everyday Labels.

Pop on over to the Colour Me... blog to see what the Design Team have created and I hope you'll join in!

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2014 - June, Virginia's View

Oooh, Tim's tag for June is using my favourite (for now...) technique - watercolour monoprinting with stencils, and I couldn't wait to play along!  I used the tailor's dummy stamp, but this one is no dummy, she's fashion savvy and into recycling.  She's wearing a leather belt made from a luggage tag, just so that she can enter Virginia's View Challenge - Tags or Scraplings incorporating a Recycled Item.

Here's a close-up of her belt, specially adjusted to fit her tiny waist.

And here's Tim's tag:

I cut some of his sentiment stamps up so that I could use the individual words.  I'm sure he won't mind...

STAMPlorations Sketch #13

Sketch time at STAMPlorations, folks!  I did a partial stencil print for my background on the panel, then stamped some leaves from Vignette: Retro Mod Shapes, stamped some flower circles from the same set and punched them out with a one-inch circle punch and popped them up on foam dots.  I added some card candi from Craftwork Cards.  The sentiment is from Sentiment Builders: Happy.  The basecard was a rescue:  I'd swiped Festive Berries and Seedless Preserves Distress Stains over the card and decided I didn't like it, and it had been waiting around for inspiration.  So I sponged Picked Raspberry over it.  I'm getting to like pink.  Here's the sketch.  I stuck pretty close to it this time.

Pop over to the STAMPlorations blog to check out what my teamies and our guest designer, Monika from Stamping with a Vengeance, have created, and join in the fun :)  As always, there are prizes on offer for our sketch challenges - and if you enter both sketch challenges for June and the monthly challenge (starts Friday) you'll be in with a chance of winning these fabulous Tim Holtz stencils!

I'm entering my card into the following challenges:

Less Is More: more than one stamp (6 in my case)

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

Just Add Ink: Just Add Watercolour (Tim's watercolour stencil technique for me).