Balloon Rainbow

I'm playing along with One Layer Simplicity challenge again, where the theme is I've Been Framed.

I've used the challenge theme from Little Tangles, which has this inspiration photo:

I coloured each balloon with two shades of Tombow markers and huffed and puffed then stamped.  I've got to admit to a little enhancement with the markers and a water brush, but who says you have to accept the first impression?  I stamped the bows (don't they look like dicky bows?), strings and sentiment in Versafine Onyx Black then doodled a border to match the sentiment.  I pencilled the border first so that I would get the curls where I wanted them, then went over it with a 0.3 pen, thickening the line in parts to match the style of the sentiment.  I added some square dots of colour with one of the smaller stamps.  All stamps from Neat & Tangled 'Just For You'.

Guest Designer - Just Us Girls: Week 2 Technique

I'm back for week two of my Guest Designer spot at Just Us Girls. Thanks for the lovely warm welcome last week, ladies!

It's technique week, and the technique to try is Watercolour Stamping - colouring your stamp with marker pens, then huffing or spritzing onto the image and stamping.  It's a pretty easy technique - all you need is an image stamp with some solid areas, and some marker pens.

I used images from Paper Artsy and Tombow pens.  I inked and stamped the flower then masked it while I did the leaves, then splattered some of the colour over the card.  The sentiment and the swoosh stamp are from the new release by STAMPlorations - there's a fantastic pre-release offer, and there will be a birthday blog hop later in the month.

I'm entering my card into Time Out Challenges, where the theme is Summer and Flowers,

and Keep It Simple, where the theme is Splatters (oh, yes! - I think I'll be coming back to this one).

So come on over and join in the JUGS technique challenge (it's a great one to combine with a colour challenge and/or a sketch challenge!).

Craft Stamper Reminder - Bleach Blocking

Here's a little reminder for the Craft Stamper Take It, Make It Challenge - Bleach Blocking.  Remember, we're not using bleach, just plain old water on a Distress Inked background.  I was using my new Tim Holtz mini blender tool for the background and realised that if you load up the sponge, then twizz it onto the card, you get lovely deep circles of colour.  Then when you "bleach" the background with a clean wet sponge, you get this fabulous bokeh effect.

I used one of my all-time favourite stamps, My Mother's Dress by Inkadinkado, stamping it onto a spare piece of sponged card.  The sentiment is from Winnie & Walter: The Big, The Bold and Fun and The Big, The Bold and Happy.  I took a leaf out of teamie Tracy's book and added some doodle doodle doo stitching around the edge of the panel.  Matches the scribbly dress image.  I covered the dress in Wink of Stella, and added Glossy Accents to the "shine" which you can't really see on the main photo, so here's a close-up:

So get "bleaching" and join in.  Here's what you can win:

The winning entry gets published in Craft Stamper Magazine (hold onto your card till the challenge closes!) and gets a guest designer spot on a future challenge.

Flowers and Paint

Well, the exposure therapy is definitely working as I'm actively choosing to work with pink these days.  I think it's got as much to do with Pickled Raspberry as anything else, I love that shade.  So today, I've teamed it with greens, all featuring in this lovely inspiration photo for the Uniko challenge:

The theme is "Thinking Of You" but I went for "Just For You" (that would be because I don't have a Uniko Thinking Of You stamp).  I used my last piece of stencilled card from the Online Stencilled class.  Time to make some more, I think.  The dots were stencilled with clear paste and I painted over them with Distress Paint (Spun Sugar, Mowed Lawn, Tumbled Glass) and Distress Stains (Seedless Preserves and Picket Fence).

I bought some Gelatos.  We're not getting on very well.  I think they I need training because they're not making me happy like Distress Inks make me happy.  I used the Gelatos on the gerbera stamp and didn't like the results so I used Memento Inks instead.  Much better.

I'm also entering this into Simon Says Monday Challenge, Paint and Simon Says Wednesday Challenge, Stencil It.

Come back tomorrow for more pink!

Colour Me...! Guest Designer Week 2

Today is my second guest design spot at Colour Me...!  and I'd like to thank the lovely ladies at Colour Me...! for their warm welcome :)

This week's colours are Marina Mist and Pear Pizzazz plus a neutral.  I sponged some Broken China and Shabby Shutters Distress Inks (my nearest equivalents to Marina Mist and Pear Pizzazz) on two pieces of spare card a stamped one with Indigo Blu Vintage Flourish and the other with Indigo Blu Script Background then tore them into little pieces and overlapped them in the centre of the card.  I sponged a Penny Black Blush Bashful die cut and added it over the pieces.  I'm not a scrapbooker but I do like the layouts where there's lots of white space and it's all happening in the middle of the layout, and that's what inspired this card.

Hope you'll come over and join in the fun at Colour Me...!

Happy Mail and a Glitch

I got two lots of happy mail today - some winnings from a Magenta challenge, and my new design team stamps from STAMPlorations.  We'll be having a blog hop on 26 June to celebrate the new release and STAMPlorations' first birthday, but in the meantime, here's a little preview of some of the stamps.  Shery is offering an early bird discount of 30% off the whole release between 9 and 20 June.

The chalk scribble images and the HB2U are from the Vignette: Celebrate Artsy set.  I've teamed them with images from Woodware Mini Flowers, and the scribbled lines are from my pen.

I'm entering this into Fusion and Time Out Challenges where the challenge is Summer Flowers:

I noticed a spike on my statistics this morning:  apparently 1250 of you were all looking at my blog at exactly 8 a.m.  Seeing as I only have 135 followers, I don't think so!  It's done wonders for my viewing stats, but it's a shame that it's not true.  Technology, huh!

Mosaic Birthday

I saw this card from Vicki for the (new to me) AAA Cards sketch challenge and went in for a closer look.  I also saw the inspiration photo from Paper Smooches Sparks.  I think you might just see how my card was born!

I sponged some Distress Inks through my stencil with my new (NBUS) Tim Holtz mini blending tool, stamped the sentiment using Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler and mounted the piece onto some NBUS gunmetal grey card.  I don't normally use coloured cardstock but I bought a pack at the last craft show I went to.

And because I used NBUS (never before used schtuff - and I've got plenty of it) I can play along with Darnell's NUBS challenge to celebrate 500 followers (and counting).  More than 500 of us already know what a sweetheart Darnell is, but if you've never had the pleasure, here are just some of Darnell's more endearing qualities ;)

• entertaining (of the Tena Lady variety.  Some of those tales...) 
• educational (oh, the things I've learned on her blog) 
• uplifting (well, depending on her attire.  She didn't feel very uplifted in that shot with her sister the other day)
• pet-friendly (not only does she Duke-sit, she has her own resident head-hamster)
• eloquent (!)  
• and she even has her own language (see, educational again)

Congratulations on reaching 500+ followers, Darnell, it's no surprise to us.  Mwah!