Tanda Teaser For the Big Man!

This is the card I've made for my Dad....no he's not fat, he is just my font of all knowledge and hence my big man! He has always loved sailing, but had to give it up when my brother and I appeared on the scene. The love of sailing didn't get passed on to me, despite my Chemistry teacher's best efforts, but it did to my brother who trained as an instructor and can blame crewing on the Tall Ships for finding the love of his life and moving to Boston MA. He's now got two boys and has given up sailing too!

I spotted two Tanda Stamps that I thought would have a lot of potential if they were resized....so I asked Andrew to do just that....The waves can be found on one of the Pirate plates and is tiny...blown up to this size it fits the DL card as a border perfectly...it also has a lovely oriental feel...but more of that in later weeks! The ship is on the Transport set and again works fabulously at this larger size.

The ship was stamped in Distress ink as were the waves...the waves were then coloured using Copic Markers. I also used the waves on the Tag...

I know that not everyone has a father around...I have one less Father's day card this year, so I just want to stress that this is a Man card challenge rather than a Father's day challenge..I hope you have time to join us over on the Tanda Blog and Forum, and look forward to seeing your work!

And just incase this was all getting a bit too man orientated....here are a few more flowers....

Take care
Sue
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F is for Flowers and more flowers

Over on the alphabet challenge this week the theme is F for Flowers. Not more flowers I thought and then I remembered that I had just cut up and mounted the large flowers from Graphicus. I've had them for ages and was thinking of selling them (I bought them as part of one of those mega deals, you know, the sort where if you buy a load of stuff you want you get something for free that perhaps you didn't really want) Anyway a few weeks ago, my eldest daughter decided that she wanted to use them for her GCSE Art exam piece so I ended up mounting them all on EZ mount...Having done that I might as well use them myself now I can't sell them as new!

I stamped the flowers onto paper printed from the Arylicious Decadent Brocade CD rom and layered them up with card run through a cuttlebug folder that complimented the flower shape.

The flower petals were curled slightly, distressed and a small amount of glitter added to the edges to give a bit of dimension.

As I mentioned before, my lack of blogging has been down to spending loads of time gardening and also having the kids home for half term...so I just thought that I would share some pictures of the flowers in my garden that I have taken over the last week.......

That's probably enough pics for today...will blog some more tomorrow hopefully!
Sue
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Oh forgot to say....

I almost forgot....one of the reasons why I have tried so hard to take part in this week's Tuesday Taggers challenge is that Zoe is running the challenge this week and because she is offering a fabby prize of Tanda Stamps this week...Well I had no option but to support you guys this week!
Suex

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.....

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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Xtra Large!

This week's Tanda Teaser has been set by Wendy and she has decided to challenge us to do an extra large card....not really my forte....bit of a petite is beautiful girl me so totally out of my comfort zone. I even had to go and buy some extra large card to do the challenge. I found some A4 cards in The Range, but totally panicked on the way to the checkout and just had to put them back on the shelf! Then I found some 8 x 8 cards in my fav stationary store in Worcester...This is the second 8 x 8 card that I have made...you will have seen my first in Wendy's last teaser a couple of weeks back. For this card the main image was Agapanthus Cluster by Stampendous stamped in Impress Ultramarine and then the stems were coloured using Copic Markers. The background panel, main card, tag and edges of the main image were stamped using Agapanthus Bloom again with Impress but also with Weathered Wood Distress Ink..A water colour effect was obtained on the main image by just brushing the blooms with a damp paintbrush to move the ink to fill in the petals. The edges were distressed using Distress Inks.

I hope if you are reading this you can find the time to take part over on the Tanda Blog! Wendy and I look forward to seeing your art work over there!

Sue

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Meet Peggy!

Hi, I just thought that I would share what I was up to last night.

As you will know from my last post Zoe gave me a peg to decorate.....so that is what I got up to last night. It was the perfect excuse to open some Clearly Impressed stamps that I bought at the Stamp Attic on Saturday. I've been thinking about making some art dolls and the Botanical Illustration set seemed like the perfect place to start.

One of the stamps in the set seemed to be the perfect size for the peg so I stamped it out in Stazon onto white card and onto white tissue paper. I watercoloured the skin, wings, bodice and flowers with pearlised watercolours from the works. When this was dry I cut out the tissue paper face, shoulders and bust and used modge podge to stick them onto the head of the peg. I then cut out the tissue paper wings, sandwiched them between two layers of fantasy film, ironed and then trimmed. (I didn't want to risk stamping and ironing direct onto my nice new stamp as it isn't rubber!). I cut out the bodice, arms and garland from the card image and left these on one side.

Using the bodice I worked out where Peggy's skirt would start and then stuck white feathers around the peg to form her underskirt....then I stuck lavender skeleton leaves on top of the feathers to make her over skirt. I used a tiny piece of lace on top of this to neaten it off. Once this was done I stuck the bodice onto the front of the peg and the wings onto the back. Some flower soft and glitter finished the Peggy's garland, hair and dress. I added some more feathers at the back to give her a really floaty look.

As those of you who came to Wantage will know, I do not have my own dedicated craft space so all crafting tends to take place on the kitchen counter. When I had finished Peggie I sat her on top of the Modge Podge bottle to dry. It was only then that I saw that she made quite a funny picture infront of the rice snaps packet my husband had left out on the counter:) Looks like Peggie is about to become a tasty snack!

I hope Zoe likes her....I think that I might just have to make a few more for our Christmas tree!

Just a bit tardy!

Ok so I had a day out...just about caught up on washing, ironing, etc, etc, etc....so feel like I can justify blogging now!

It was a beautiful day...not sure what was going on...a bit surreal really... normally at this time of year a forcast for good weather means that the M5 is totally jammed on a Saturday, especially going south as I was...it was soooo quiet....petrol prices maybe? I don't care...it meant that I had a really nice drive down to Wantage to visit The Stamp Attic and meet up with Tanda Forum friends! Wendy was the perfect hostess and we all had a lovely day playing with Copics, chatting and sharing ideas. Here's the gang....left to right Zoe, Lucy, Janet and me....




One of our lovely forum ladies was visiting all the way from New Zealand so we decided to organise a meet...Wantage and the Stamp Attic seemed like the perfect place! Thanks to Wendy it was perfect! She let us use her studio and even delivered cakes complete with mini smarties! Have to admit we did spend some money....here's my stash...

guess I went a bit mad and totally spent all my pennies! I was hoping to get some of Tim's Dies, especially the flourish but when I saw it I realised that it would not work with the Wizard so I am now feeling a little miffed as I don't want to splash out on the Big shot!





We all made little pressies to exhange at the meet, you may have seen them over on Zoe and Janet's blogs, but just in case you haven't, these are the presents that I received....


Firstly Lucy's Alice in Wonderland chess board which she explains "here"
Having all seen the Tim Burton film recently, my youngest has fallen in love with it and has claimed it for her bedroom wall!












Next, Donna had made us some tissue holders and sent them over from Texas...She may not have been there in real life but she was there in spirit so to speak. We got to choose which tissue holders and I chose the one with blue lupins as I remembered the wonderful photographs on Donna's blog of lupins growing wild in Texas! Donna calls them blue bonnets and you can see them "here"







Zoe had been busy drawing so that she could ask Andrew at Tanda to make some custom stamps for us....She took her inspiration from the current trend in Steampunk and from some of the machinery that she saw in the boat yard where she was working...I think I got this right? Zoe used one of her stamps to take part in the Tanda Teaser this week and you can see it "here"

Zoe also gave us one of her twinchies and a peg to alter and send back to her.




Then lastly but certainly not least Janet brought us some gifts in a lovely personalised bag all the way from New Zealand, we each received a notebook and pen, a stamp (mine was of a hybiscus drawn in a traditional style), some shapes cut using the Circut, a phone charm, a plant stick and a napkin with the paula shell pattern all over it, some paula shell fragments and paper. Our challenge is to make something using the napkin and blog it....so watch this space....I'm still thinking though.....








It was a great day everyone, Thank you all for the great company and the presents!

Right I'm posting this mammoth post now...my battery is about to die!!!!

Sue
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Prom Dress Blues!

S***, S***, S***!!!


DD1's Prom dress almost finished...yes darling...the boning will keep the dress up!....oh no it won't...oh yes it will....oh no it won't..whoops oh no it doesn't!!!... doesn't matter how tight it is, it's still not staying up...so we need straps....but MuuuuMMMM! I soooo don't want straps!...









Need to be a bit creative here....she wants to wear pearls...so I think we are going to make the straps from pearls and integrate the straps with a pearl necklace....from I'm not wearing that she's a bit more interested ....watch this space!








At least the tiara is made!......










And the hand bag is sorted














as are the shoes















the shoes were one on the biggest headaches...super wide feet are not conducive to pretty shoes, but I think we hit the jackpot with these!

Fingers crossed for the pearl strap route!!
Sue
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Wantage Here We Come!

Looking forward to the Tanda Forum meet at the Stamp Attic in Wantage..Got my bag packed and ready to go....just look at all those lovely Copics just waiting for a day out!

I'm bringing some distress inks too so we can have a good play! Wendy stocks loads of Distress Inks so I think we are in for a good day!

Can't wait till Saturday!

See you there!

Sue

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Toddler Times!

Where did that week go! Can't believe it's my turn to set the Tanda Teaser already!

We have had rather a lot of under 5's birthday's in our family recently so I've been making a lot of toddler themed cards recently. The Tanda stamps that I designed work perfectly for these cards and you may have noticed quite a few creeping into the Teasers over recent months! Well here is another one!

I have coloured my images with, you guessed it, Copic markers. The background papers are from my stash..think they might be K&Co, but not sure!

I hope that you can find time to visit the Tanda Blog and join in with our Teaser this week!

Sue

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Wheel Thing!

Over on the Tanda Blog, Wendy's teaser this week is to use wheels somewhere on your card. I've had the bicycle stamp from Flower Soft for ages and so far hadn't used it....so this was the perfect excuse to get it out! It is a huge stamp so in turn calls for a large card...something I'm not really accustomed to..I tend to prefer smaller, daintier cards, so this was quite a challenge for me.

I stamped the bicycle in Coffee Archival Ink and then water coloured the image, on the metal parts of the bike I used pearlised watercolour to give a metallic sheen, the rest is just conventional watercolour.

The base card has been distressed with Distress Ink and wheels (from the Tanda penny farthing stamp on Transport set 1) were stamped around the edge in the same ink.

Paws for thought!

This week it's my turn to set the Tanda Teaser and I have decided to go with cats and dogs...not sure why as it is dry as a bone here....in some ways could do with some rain...(hayfever..volcano ash..garden) in other ways it's a good thing it's dry, namely a leaky roof!:)....just above this computer tooo!!!!:(! Think I typed too soon! Just heard raindrops outside!

The lovely Zoe will recognise this card....sort of....slightly different to the one I sent her for her birthday....but only slightly! the kitten is a Tanda stamp, stamped in Black soot with Weathered Wood around the edges. His eyes were coloured blue using a copic marker and the made to shine with Glossy accents.

I don't normally do backing papers...but I did love these blue ones...can't remember where they were from..(probably Papermania) ..but you can't get them any more :( .

Em's prom dress is coming on the drape is now attached to the bodice...just need to get the skirt on, the zip in, the lining and boning and then the hem done, then it's finished!...but she's scoffing biscuits every night when she gets in from school!!! The question is...will it fit her in June?

Better had or it might be a case of the Emperor's new clothes! LOL!

Sue

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Vivid Colour!

Hi there...this week Wendy's Tanda Teaser is called Vivid Colour!. I've been a bit busy this week so I have to admit that my card is a "here's one I did earlier", mind you, not that much earlier! You might recognise the style, I seem to like this layout at the moment and I do love the Inkadinkado stamps for teenager cards. I love the purples and lime greens together..needless to say I've used, milled lavender, dusty concord, shabby shutters, peeled paint and black soot distress inks for my card.


So what's my excuse? Well I've started making my daughter's prom dress...She has chosen a vintage 1952 design from Butterick. In the picture it looks fabulous, but the actual thing looks nothing like the picture. This isn't helped by the fact that my daughter's measurements span 3 sizes and that one of these sizes is not covered by my multi size pattern! So far I have had to make 3 toiles to get the bodice to the right shape for her and it has taken several attempts to get the drape around the bust right! In the picture the drape around the bust looks very full, but the actual pattern lies flat over the bust...The fabric is taffeta and I have found to my horror that the tiniest spot of grease immediately gets sucked up into the fabric...I have two daughters who seem to think they can eat and leave crumbs all over the house...so I have been shouting at them to keep away from the areas that I am working in! I can't afford to have any accidents as there is no spare material!


This is where I got to earlier...the drape is lining fabric that I used to make my pattern pieces for the real thing. I'll post more pics as I go.....

A Little Teaser!

Us Tanda girls are planning a little get together to honour one of our forum members who is making the huge effort of visiting us all the way from New Zealand! We are hoping....volcano ashes permitting.....to meet up in May at the Stamp Attic in Wantage...I'm so looking forward to visiting this shop in real life, only done the virtual web thing so far..I think the real thing will be so much better!...Just heard...as I type live....planes are flying!!! Yaay way to go....!!! Wooop Wooop!!!

So don't get too excited...we are putting little pressies together to exchange at the meet.....I've made some boxes...I love making boxes!...the contents are secret...but these are the boxes...I've only done them for those of us who have confirmed already....Donna don't worry if you don't see yours in the piccy....it's flat packed ready to post!! Can you do skype?...if we can go somewhere in Wantage with wifi maybe we can skype?

Y is for Yellow

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Over on Linda's alphabet challenge the theme is Yellow. It's not a colour that I naturally go for so I thought it would be a good exercise to do a yellow card for a change.

The image is a Lili of the Valley stamp, coloured with you guessed it...Copics and then distressed with Mustard Seed and Crushed Olive Distress Inks. the backing papers were from K&Co...the only yellow paper I could find in my stash (I told you I don't normally do yellow!), the flowers have all been punched from the same paper and attached with tiny yellow flower brads

Thinking Outside the Box!

Hi this week's Tanda Teaser is a tricky one...I just thought that it would be fun to try something that wasn't obvious and to think of innovative ways of using our stamps to get more out of them than initial appearances! Basically the brief this week is to use something on your card in a way that it wasn't designed for....In my case I've used a corner stamp to form the roof of my house, a square design to form the walls and swirly border stamps to form the background and what looks like a whiff of smoke coming from the chimney. All stamps used are by Tanda. The background was stamped in Versamark and then chalked together with the torn edge. The house and roof were stamped in black ink and embossed with clear on paper that I had printed text onto with the printer. The centre of the square was flooded with Glossy Accents and a heart brad was added to balance and compliment the sentiment on the tag...(this was just a little custom stamp).

A Few More Mins of Fame!

Em sang live on BBC Hereford and Worcester again tonight!!!

The link is here for the iplayer....but only for one week!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00770z3/Nathan_Turvey_12_04_2010/

should be cued up with any luck if not....fast forward to 2hrs 44 mins!

Enjoy!
Sue
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Congratulations and Celebrations and something watery

The result came through at Lunch time today...Em is now Next Teen Singer 2010!!! Apparently the voting was very close so I just want to say thank you (from me and from Em) to everyone who voted! Your votes really did count!

I thought it only right that I should make Em a card....then Wendy set a watery challenge....perfect...apparently mermaids lured sailors onto the rocks with their beautiful voices...

So here is a mermaid congratulations card. I didn't have any Tanda stamps to fit the theme so I used stamps from Lavinia stamps...brayering...and various Ranger inks. The mermaid is coloured using Copic markers and her tail is given a little shimmer...not visible in the photo...with a Sakura pen.

Hope you find time to join in with the teaser this week!
Sue
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Way to Go Em!

Just a quick update on Next Teen Singer.....Em is now through to the final. Way to Go Em!

For the final she will have to perform 3 songs...one by Micheal Jackson, one of her choice and one that the public want to hear her sing again...voting is currently live on the next teen singer website for the songs the public want to hear again, so I think she will hear tomorrow which song she has to do.

Keeping fingers, toes and everything else crossed...not my eyes though Burn!

Thanks for all the support guys we appreciate it!

Sue
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