Oriental Poppy in Red & Blue

 Another Oriental Poppy card using the Hampton Arts stamp, this time on a background brayered in  Adirondack reds, Watermelon, Red Pepper & Cranberry. Again the post it note Sun mask was added after the first colour was brayered. This one is also heat embossed, and matted onto black cardstock. I used a blue & gold washi paper for the card base here, as all the red papers are very heavily patterned, and the result was just too busy. I also stamped  a kanji  letter, onto a piece of card coloured with red ink, then triple embossed and the letter stamped in Black into the last layer.  A coin and a piece of knotted blue ribbon finish it off.

85th Birthday

The lady who ordered the Ruby Anniversary card, also wanted a card for her Mothers 85th Birthday, and again I went with an easel design. The base and face of the easel were covered in a rose print paper, and both edged with a silver peeloff border and corners. as the lady seems to be wearing a pale lilac and silver dress, I went with these colours for the card. I cut silver & lilac paper with a deckle edge blade on three sides, then punched a fancy border on the last side. These were layered up, then the photo matted on top. I wrapped White & lilac ribbon around the front and tied in a bow before I mounted it onto the easel. A triple embossed heart in White & silver finished the front. The base uses Nesties Petite scalloped rectangles, again in Silver & lilac with white/lilac roses (Craft Creations) in the corners.The word MOM was cut out with a Quickutz squeeze and Alphabet die. Its been a very long time since I last used that- I’m not even sure if they are still making them! I bought it very early in my crafting, to add names, ages etc to cards, then got annoyed at not having any real choice in size of letters, and that I would constantly have to buy new Alpha sets if I wanted a different style, and still not have much of a size range. So I ended up buying a Silhouette digital cutter- I found them on a really good promotion, loved the fact that I could cut any font on my PC, in any size I wanted. I have had it now for about 7 years, and I have to say it was the best money ever spent, when you consider the cost of Alphabet sets/shape dies for manual machines.

Ruby Anniversary

 I used to work with the lady in the picture, until she retired recently, and her sister asked if I could do a card for her Ruby Anniversary.You will have seen the Harlequin Rose Panel image before, from Chocolate Baroque, as well as the triple embossed hearts.I really love those hearts, so easy to do, and very effective as an embellishment.I even did some in black & silver recently for a male birthday card- the colour makes all the difference. The Harlequin Rose is such a useful image too- Weddings, Anniversaries, Engagements,Valentines Day  all spring to mind, as well as birthdays. The die cut labels are  Nesties Labels 4, and I stuck to the dark red & black colours to fit the occasion.I also added a few stick on acrylic gems in red.

WOYWW #111

A few bits & pieces on my desk today, firstly a card,
using CI 185, from Crafty Individuals. The two images are all one stamp, I just split it into two images. The background was chalked with blues & greens, then overstamped using Versafine Black. They were stuck onto thick card, then triple embossed. You need to have a heavy weight cardstock for your card base for this, as the images are quite heavy when finished, I also thought after that they would make good fridge magnets, fixed to the card with re-positionable glue dots. I punched the border strips from blue paper for the wide one, and green for the narrow one. The butterflies were punched from some paper I had used to roll my brayer off onto! I overstamped it with a swirl stamp, and added a sparkle embossing powder, then punched out 9 butterflies. Each butterfly is 3 joined at the wings to get a 3-D effect. I have no idea where the message stamp came from, sorry.

Here is the same image, this time in its original form. I stamped onto an alcohol ink background, matted & layered onto black, then another alcohol ink sheet, then black again.

Next up is a purchase this week from Joanna Sheen, in her monthly e-mail was this item:on special offer at £1.49, instead of £1.99, for a pack of three, ultra-fine nib attachments for Promarkers.

I have tried for a close up here, so you can see the nib size, if you haven’t seen them yet. You just clip them onto the existing nib, and you get an ultra fine line. Apparently it is best to buy 1 for each colour group, so you don’t get ink crossover, and the recommendation seems to be to fit them to the widest nib. You can just unclip them anytime you want to use the wide end.

Finally, some more wicked bargains from The Works. I just LOVE this place, I really do. Packs of 20 luggage tags,and packs of  30 miniature mirrors, all 99p each.

Ambrose is much better now, his ‘eyebrow’ has regrown, I shall post a picture later. Thanks to everyone for their good wishes to him :).

Now I am off to post this, and start my way around everyones desk. Happy Wednesday everyone, I shall get round everyone over the next few days.

The Writings on the Wall

I decided I would finally get around to joining in with a challenge,and that I would do something that wasn’t a card for the first time, so I went over to Hels Sheridans blog, Ink on my Fingers, to see what her Sunday Stampers challenge was for this week. The theme is ‘Writing’, and to be honest I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do, at first. Hels mentioned that her project started life as a wooden Ikea frame, and I liked that idea, but don’t have any of those! However, I do have piles of Clip-Frames of all sorts of sizes, so I dismantled one of those, and used the back to cut out two more rectangles from mountboard, then cut out the centres to give me a frame. I used two because one didn’t seem thick enough.

                                       I stacked these all up, and stuck them together with DST.
 I quite like the artworks you can buy where the picture spills over onto the frame, if you know what I mean, so that was where my mind was taking me with this. I cut some cream tissue paper down, and overstamped it with a script stamp, using Versafine Sepia.This was stuck down over the whole frame, very carefully(!),not worrying about damaged bits, as it all smooths out in the end.Some more bits of script were stamped onto spare tissue, and I created some mini envelopes then used some excess stamped tissue to make some mini letters. All tied up with some burgundy ribbon. Some lace was aged with Distress Ink, Antique Linen, then added to the inside of the frame, along with some pearl string, the bundle of love letters, an old ear-ring and a cameo made from a Quickutz die. I finished it off with a few stick on pearls, a triple embossed heart and a group of flowers . When the tissue had dried completely I added a little Antique linen distress ink to the edges.

Work in progress

Engagement Congratulations

           I can post this now, its been given out.
The base card is a DL size, and is embossed with straight lines.
 I cut out two hearts from thick card, which works as well as chipboard for this.I inked each one using clear embossing ink and White Pearls embossing powder from Stamp’n’Stuff for the first layer. Then I added two more layers of clear UTEE. I used a swirl stamp-Scroll Pattern,2636K- from Penny Black, inked with Silver Pigment ink, to stamp into the last layer while it was still wet.
 The same stamp & ink was used to stamp onto a scrap of white pearl paper, and this was heat embossed too. I trimmed it down to a square with a deckle edge blade, then cut a slightly larger square of silver card to mat it onto. I mounted this to the top of the card and the hearts were added on top with silicone glue. A strip of the white pearl paper was punched with a Fiskars Hearts border punch for the bottom, and stamped the Congratulations phrase,which is a Whispers Words stamp from Do-crafts, in silver & heat embossed. I added the dots before the word with an Embossing pen, and heat embossed them in silver too. Finally tied a length of silver eyelash wool around the spine. This design could be easily adapted for Weddings, anniversaries etc. I think I may do a few more in different colour combos, as they are quite quick & easy to do- the longest bit is the triple embossing!

WOYWW #102

Happy WOYWW to all, lets hope that Blogger decides to let us play this week! I shall try to get around everyone over the next few days- overtime at work, so I am up at 5.00am, not getting home till 4.30 pm, then shower, do lunches, cook dinner, collapse! Anyway, here is my offering for the weekly stalk, lol.

This is what was on my desk this week- a 75th Birthday card for a work colleagues Mom.

  This is how it came together- some gold paper overstamped with an ornate background stamp for the bottom, and some gorgeous embossed vellum by K & Co to 
go on the main panel.

 

 Harlequin Rose panel, Elusive Images, was matted onto Gold card embossed with a Cuttlebug and Forest Branches folder.I wrapped a band of gold organza ribbon round this, then knotted some cream ribbon over it.

Then mounted it onto the front panel.

I added some triple embossed hearts.

   

   

Then the numbers 75, cut from gold card on my Silhouette, and embossed with the Swiss Dots folder.

My Silhouette.

The finished card, with sentiment cut out with the Silhouette, along with a matt for it. 

Happy Valentines Day

I’m still with the easel cards, lol. I think I’ve got stuck here. Its nice to have more than one surface to adorn, though.This is todays Valentines card, using one of the Elusive Images Rose plates  from my desk a couple of weeks ago.Matted onto black & Burgundy card and tied with ribbon. A sheet of rose patterned paper was used to cover the card front.

  The triple embossed hearts were made by inking first with a mix of Fired Brick, Barn Door and Aged Mahogany Distress ink, then a few were stamped with a word stamp ‘LOVE’ before covering with Clear embossing ink.

 Sprinkled with UTEE, 3 layers, then some were overstamped with a swirl stamp and Gold Encore Ink.The INK IT UP Pad is my clear Embossing pad- It picked up red ink the first time I used it for this, so I keep it for Reds. These pads are really cheap- only a couple of pounds, so its no loss. The Really Useful Box with the spoon in it is my UTEE- I bought it off e-bay, loose in a bag- much cheaper than buying a branded jar.
They were attached with a few dabs of silicone glue.

For the base, I covered it in a pale gold paper stamped with a lovely Baroque style stamp, by Magenta, 26019-R.

This is the stamp, and this is what it looks like when stamped a number of times to make a larger sheet. Stamped in Gold Encore, and heat embossed with Gold detail powder.

The stopper part of the card was made by cutting a band of black paper which was punched along both sides with the Martha Stewart ‘String Lace’ Border punch, then a panel of cream card that had been stamped with Hero Arts ‘Italian Poetry’ , S1832, in Gold and heat embossed. The Valentine greeting was stamped & heat embossed  in Gold again on plain vellum, then matted onto black then burgundy card, held together with a gold heart brad either end.The panel was attached with foam pads.

As I had a few images, and quite a lot of hearts, I made up some more panels, as I think this will come in handy for Weddings/Engagements/Anniversaries.

Oriental Butterflies

Two versions of the same stamp,which is available as part of a sheet from a couple of suppliers: Tanda Stamps,Far East set 1,where it is also available as a single stamp,and in both rubber or clear polymer, or from Non Sequiteur, Plate 67, Samurai Plate. Apart from the Butterfly block, both plates have different stamps on them. For both cards, the butterfly block was stamped in black ink, then heat embossed, onto alcohol ink backgrounds. The butterflies, flowers and leaves were all painted with H2O’s.For the black & red card, the design was then cut into 8 tiles then remounted onto black card, trimmed then matted onto a second sheet of inked card. The sentiment was stamped onto a scrap, matted onto black card and fixed with foam pads.The butterfly embellishment was made using fusible fibres over the butterflies on the block, then cut out and mounted with silicone glue. An Oriental coin had a length of black/gold mizhuiki cord threaded through it, and was attached with silicone glue in the opposite corner.
This card is an example of how a card can change as you are constructing it, and of the benefits of putting it aside if you aren’t happy- coming back to it later often helps. This one was originally cut into 4 horizontal panels, then re-matted onto black card. I wasn’t sure about it, so left it and completed the blue one.When I looked at it again, I thought the 8 squares would work better, maybe because it seems to mimic the oriental Shoji panels?
For the blue card, the background is printed from a Joanna Sheen cd,Tales of the Orient.The kanji strip on the left was done in triple embossing, using black ink as the base. The sentiment was stamped onto a scrap of inked card, and small black brads added in the corners.

Collage Art

The main image is Illuminata, by Inkadinkado, stamped in black versafine onto cream linen card, then green, red & ochre inks  added with a stencil brush. The card base was cut to 15 cm square, and a sheet from the Kay & Co Lifes Journey pad torn and added to the left side. The image was matted onto dark green card and trimmed with a deckle edge blade then mounted partially over the torn paper. The letter A was die cut and overstamped with the same stamp, and inked in the same way. This was then triple embossed and left to cool. The word stamp from Winter Wonderland Plate 1, from Paper Artsy, was stamped in Gold Brilliance ink in the top right , then heat embossed with clear powder. The letter was fixed in place with Pop-up Glue dots. Live Well Laugh Often, Love Much was stamped in Espresso ink down the left, and some narrow brown & green ribbon tied around the spine.