Lots of Layers!

Thanks to Zoe, I have just seen that the April Challenge over at "The Artistic Stamper Blog" is Layers. I've just made this card for a friend who's perfect present would be another hen! Best of all I did use a Chicken wire background stamp from the Artistic Stamper on one of my background layers. The main stamp is from Crafty Individuals and this has been coloured with copics. Not sure that the colouring is brilliant, but it did the job, will probably use watercolours next time as I think they will be more subtle. Other stamps used are my dotty stamp, LOTV (sentiment) and Paper bag studios. The layer stamped with the chicken wire and Paper bag studio grungy stamp (have no idea what it is called) is brown parcel paper, the next layer up is some handmade paper that I made in a class over 10 years ago....it just resurfaced in my pile of stash! All four layers were stitched together and the raffia tied around before being stuck to the base card. The eggs were coated in glossy accents to give a bit more interest. The punches were from Stampin' Up. Edges have been distressed with distress inks.

PS...Just seen Zoe's simply square card for the "new Crafty Individuals challenge" and thought this fits the square theme too!!! How lucky is that!? Unusual for me to do two challenges in one.

Q is for Quotes and Sayings

This week's challenge on the Alphabet challenge blog is Q is for Quotes and Sayings. Over the last couple of days I have been busy with the water colours, makes a change from Copic markers! When I was at mum's last week I watched a dvd on painting with acrylic inks and paints....whilst not watercolours I did think that I fancied getting back to splashing a bit of paint about. I even bought myself a tube of Payne's Gray. Having said that there wasn't a lot of splashing about on this card!...there is Payne's gray though!

Last week I managed to make a trip to the Craft Barn....I have been wanting to go there for ages and last week I was practically driving past the door soooo I dragged the girls in kicking and screaming....the youngest was pleading with me not to spend too much time in there, but then the eldest realised that she could get loads of stuff for her art and graphics...so guess what...we ended up buying more for her than me....I did get a couple of Tim Holtz dies, some alcohol inks, a Martha Stewart round the corner punch and a crafty individuals stamp. I am pleased to say I have used everything I bought except for the stamp...(will use that later today probably) and the alcohol inks.

The stamps I used for my cards are from Paper Bag Studio and my dotty stamp of course! I really like this stamp and actually ended up making two cards, slightly different colourways, but very similar.

E is for Eyelet over on the Alphabet Challenge

This is my first card using my new Paperbag Studio stamp, 'Forever Young', purchased on my trip to Wantage. I thought that the stamp would be perfect for Anniversary cards and so it is!

I stamped the image in Archival black ink and then made an elaborate mask from Eclipse tape. This allowed me to colour the image selectively with distress inks before adding colour to the children using copic markers. all the time leaving a nice clean inner frame. The main image was then matted and layered with My Mind's Eye, Wild Asparagus papers. I stitched around the edge of the main image and made a border and flowers from the same set of papers. Before adding the Tag I spritzed the whole card with a fine mist of gold glimmer mist. This gave the card a lovely subtle shimmer, without being totally in your face!



The tag was made out of the same paper and was fitted with an eyelet to give it some strength. Thanks to this eyelet I'm very pleased to be able to take part in the alphabet challenge "here"

I had better go now as we have visitors! Hope you are all enjoying your bank holiday weekend!

Sue
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