Heartfelt

I have to apologise, this blog has been a little neglected throughout August...seems that things got a little hectic and being away from home has not helped with the creative process...just as well I scheduled posts for the Tanda blog before I went away!

This card was made for the latest Tanda Teaser. I used a text stamp from Tanda for the background panel and for the heart. I overstamped the text with a psx rose heart stamp. All stamping/distressing has been done using Victorian Velvet, Spun Sugar, Pumice stone and Black Soot Distress Inks. A smaller psx heart stamp was used on the tag and on the cream background. To give the card a little lift, I heat embossed the heart edges, tag edges and the punched edges with versamark and stardust embossing powder. The ribbon was from Fantastic Ribbons.

I notice that the Alphabet challenge has got to R for Rose this week.....wonder if this will count....if you look very closely at the heart...you might just be able to see the roses.

After all the masculine style cards I've been doing it was nice to get all romantic and girly for a change!

Sue
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I Did It Janet, I Modge Podged!

So this is the last of the Wantage challenges. This was Janet's challenge, she was our special guest of honour. Coming all the way from New Zealand, she set us a challenge connected to New Zealand. this challenge has been worrying me, I wanted to make something special but after a few false starts and almost destroying my whole paula shell napkin, I thought I wasn't going to come up with anything respectable. But thankfully I have managed to make something out of the remaining few inches! Phew!

Yesterday I came across a 4 x 4 canvas for 89p and thought, YES!, that's just what I need to finish this Challenge! Especially with the tiny fragment I had left!

I started off by painting the canvas with acrylic paints over the front and sides, then I modge podged the napkin diagonally across two opposite corners. Next I slathered on some viva ferro paint and stamped into it with my Tanda Klimt swirly border stamp. When this was dry...I smeared the ferro with acrylics and precious metal paint and sprayed with glimmer mist. Once dry I added Stickles and then using Glossy Accents I stuck the Paula shell fragment in the bottom right hand corner and added accent beads to the piece. The next step was to add the seahorse plaque, mentioned in an earlier post, layered up with some mulberry paper (to separate it from the background canvas)

To finish the canvas, I painted the sides with Viva croco paint...this cracked to reveal the acrylic paints and napkin that I painted/stuck around the edges.

Texture and Tuesday Taggers

Hi there, I seem to have been very busy in the garden over the last week so I'm a little behind on my blogging....I saw on Zoe's blog that this week's Tuesday Taggers Challenge is to make something touchy feely with texture....I thought that this was the perfect excuse to get on with two other challenges, namely my own to my Tanda chums who came to Wantage...
basically to alter/decorate a yeast tin and the other was to make something using the Paula shell tissue and fragments that Janet gave usWell I can now report that I finished my yeast tin this morning, and have to admit that I think it worked really well....so I want to blog it with step by step piccies which is going to take rather a long time me thinks! So just for now here is a sneaky peak....





I haven't finished the other challenge yet,but thought that I would share what I have done so far...basically I stamped the PSX seahorse into Fimo, coated it with mica powder, baked it and then added more colour using precious metal paints.

To give even more texture to the piece and emulate the seaweed that seahorses love to inhabit, I used Croco paint, glitter, stickles, accent beads and copper curls. The piece is still wet so this is as far as I have got....again I suppose watch this spot as I will blog the finished piece/card or whatever it turns out to be..... I still need to use the Paula shell napkin and fragments of course!





Unfortunately, the colours and sparkle don't really show up in these photographs. But here is a close up of the bottom of the piece.....

Simply Spring!

Wendy has set the perfect Tanda Teaser this week! With Mother's Day on Sunday I had the perfect excuse to make a floral spring card..well two actually. They are both the same so hopefully there won't be any thoughts of favouritism!

For my card I used one of my favourite PSX stamps stamped in Ancient Page ink and then water coloured with ordinary watercolour paints.

I hope you can all find time to join in over on the Tanda Blog!

Sue

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Riot of Petals and messy fingers!

This week Wendy has set the Tanda Teaser and she has chosen 'Riot of Petals' as her theme. Just perfect timing as I had to make my mother-in-law's birthday card last night. Her favourite flowers are pansies so my personal challenge was to use the same PSX stamp to make a card that was different to all the previous ones using the same stamp!

While I was doing the messy inky part I remembered reading on Zoe's blog that the Tuesday Taggers wanted to see our messy fingers this week so I grabbed my camera in one hand and photographed the other...have to say I usually get messier than this, and the kitchen counter was nowhere near as chaotic as it usually gets!

To make the card I selectively inked the pansy flowers/leaves with Marvey pens, stamped them onto watercolour paper, and then used a damp brush to fill the petals with colour. I cut the leaves and flowers out and arranged them in two panels on my card. The sentiment, Lost Coast Designs, was stamped using the same pen as the flowers.


Just as an afterthought I've just included pics here of other cards made using the same stamp in the past..it just goes to show how many different cards can be made using the same stamp when chosen wisely.

The first two use the same technique as the card above, the last one is actually some pressed pansies from my garden, but the background was done using the whole stamp and the watermark technique with versamark.

O is for Oval

Over on Linda's Alphabet Challenge she has set Ovals as the theme for this week's challenge. Easy I thought...then I thought again, thinking about it oval is a shape I hardly ever use in my cards...had to have a big think about this one.

February is a month when I have to make cards for a few keen cooks and having bought some asparagus last week (horribly out of season I know, but at £2.99 for two big bunches, I couldn't resist!) I was reminded of this psx stamp. The asparagus and range were both stamped in versafine, watercoloured then covered in a layer of glossy accents.


I stamped the asparagus several times so that I could decoupage the image to make a bundle. I used the Cuttlebug wax resist technique to colour the tag and the oval mount for the asparagus bundle. I used raffia to tie the asparagus bundle together with the tag, and silicon glue to give the bundle depth. All the images were matted and layered using card cut out in Nestibility dies and then stuck onto an acetate card stamped with swirls using cotton white StazOn.

The only thing to remember with these acetate cards is that lining your layers up is very important as if you are slightly out of line it shows on the other side...I always start sticking my inside greeting on first, then the front, then the inside front and finally the back. This way I seem to get good results every time.

Tanda Teaser - Tag It!

This week's Tanda Teaser is to use a Tag somewhere on your card. As I have been away/rather busy over the last month or so, I have decided to do a "here's one I did earlier" card. You can tell I grew up with Blue Peter!

I used the Artylicious, Butterfly Bliss CD to print the double sided background for the card. The front of the card was made using an image from TandaStamps Advert Plate 4. I stamped this in black StazOn onto very heavy weight white card and then watercoloured it. I punched holes in the corners and then fixed the watercolour with acrylic varnish before triple embossing the image so that it looked like one of those old fashioned signs.




For the inside of the tri-fold I used various stamps. For the tags I used the Tanda Travel stamp set 1 and Postage set 1. The other stamps on this side are from PSX and Sir Stamp-a-Lot.

I hope you enjoy this week's Teaser!
Sue
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Forever Friends!

It's Wendy's turn to set the challenge this week and I'm not at home! If you read this at the correct time it means I've managed to find an internet cafe in Turkey! I'm writing my blog posts before I go and saving them as drafts so that I can publish them when I am on holiday. From my experience last year I couldn't read the Greek blogger so I thought if I was a little organised before I go, I would just need to click on the orange button to post....I hope it works!

After everything that has been going on over the last couple of months I am now a little behind with the teasers and I have to admit that this is one I did earlier, quite a bit earlier. The card uses one of my fav PSX stamps and is coloured with pearlised watercolours from the Works.

The saying just reminded my that my mum introduced me to her "old friend" the other day and the emphasis was very much on the old. I said that she must be a very good friend, not realising that the lady was actually 92....she didn't look a day over 60! She sounds like a truly amazing woman, having survived the Holocaust and getting a Phd in Physics, in those days women didn't ususally get to study Physics! Truly a remarkable lady!

I hope to catch up with you all when I get back from my Hols!
Sue
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N is for Net

Another week has gone by and boy, what a week! Well I was a bit stumped for an N, but then I remembered that I had a mesh/net stamp by Aspects of Design and a psx fish stamp, so I decided on N for Net. I stamped the fishes in fawn impress, then coloured them and the background with copic markers, having done this, I masked the fish, stamped the net in versamark and heat embossed with white silver sparkle ep. The N was coloured with a copic marker and then I stamped it with the net stamp and white stazon. This was then triple embossed. Colourbox chalk ink was used to stamp the letters and distress the edges.



I think that we are just about ready for Alan's funeral on Monday. I've just signed off the order of service and now the only things that need to be done are the tribute and writing the card for the flowers and John will have to do them. Alan was a lovely, gentle giant of a man, who would do anything for anyone. Before his stroke, 10 years ago, he was a man of action, racing motorbikes, skiing and rowing. Latterly he had a season ticket for Birmingham City and loved going to watch the football with his granddaughters. These are just some of the things that we will be remembering him for on Monday. RIP Alan.

Sue
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