Butterfly Blue

For the next month the Creative Expressions Design Team have been sent the "Eco Green Stamp set Garden Chic". I used the lovely butterfly stamp and the tiny sweetpea stamp for this card. The butterfly reminded me of those large blue butterflies that you see at Butterfly farms. I painted the wings with pearlised blue paint and once dry I coated the whole butterfly with glossy accents.

I would like to enter this card into the following Challenges:

"Crafting for all seasons - blue and white"

"Paper Pretties - Blue, Black and White"

"Simon Says Stamp = Anything goes"

"Stampavie and More- Blue and White"

"Creative Card Challenges - the colour blue"

"Lollypop Crafts - Wing it"

Farewell Wendy Veechi

It's time to say farewell to Wendy Veechi's stamps and hello to a new set of stamps that arrived this morning from "Creative Expressions". So I am going to show you my last piece using "Wendy's stamps", having said that I can tell you that I have loved using these stamps and I am sure that I will find plenty of opportunities to use them in the future.

I fancied having a play with glassine paper but I haven't got round to ordering any yet..so I decided to experiment with greaseproof paper out of my kitchen draw instead. I can report that greaseproof paper doesn't react like glassine paper, but it does make some lovely vintage looking roses!






I stamped the lacy background onto greaseproof paper using versafine olympia green. I tried to heat set it with my heat gun, but it didn't want to play ball. So I placed a piece of paper over the top and then ironed over the top. This gave a surprisingly good image on the paper (reversed of course), and looking at it I decided that this would make a good background layer for my card. Ironing solved the problem with the heat setting on the greaseproof paper so I cut out several layers using the Spellbinders rose creations dies.

One of my matted background layers was the previously mentioned "scrap" from the ironing experiment, another of my layers was stamped and heat embossed with clear ep before being sponged with aged mahogany distress ink...(not sure what was going on, but for some reason my aged mahogany came out green? don't ask, I think my craft mat had green ink on it that I couldn't see. This is a card that evolved in every way....ie things didn't come together as expected and some happy accidents worked out rather well.

Once the card was stitched and assembled I sprayed the whole thing with gold mica powder. Overall effect was very green, gold and shimmery.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

"Crop Stop - Distressed, vintage or shabby chic"

"Delightful Challenges - distressed vintage"

"Inky Impressions - Any shape but square"

"Going grey with scrap creations - Die Cuts"

"The Stamping boutique - Die Cuts"

"Stamp and Create - Anything goes"

"Artistic Stamper - Vintage"

"Emerald Faerie Garden - Green and Gold/yellow"

Beautiful Landscapes.

On Monday morning my daughter was in such a rush to catch the school bus that she forgot her PE kit...a few mins later the phone rings..."Mum can you bring my PE kit into school for second period?" So I defrosted the car and off I went chasing the school bus. Normally this is really annoying, but on Monday I didn't feel quite so cross because the frost and the soft morning light was lovely. I just had to stop the car on the way home to take some pictures! These were taken in Wichenford.

With such lovely views I do feel quite privileged to live in the country and with this in mind I decided to set a landscape theme for the next "Tanda Teaser". I have used a mixture of stamps for my sample card, but they are mainly Tanda. First I punched out a circle from a post-it note and used it to mask the sun, then used some ripped paper with distress inks and cut and dry foam to build up the landscape. I used some indigo blu stamps to stamp the fir trees on the hills again using the ripped paper as a mask so that some of the trees looked as though they were the other side of the hill. Once I was happy with the background I removed the mask from the sun and then used the clarity stamp and weathered wood distress ink to stamp the clouds around the sun.

Then I used the foliage stamps, Tanda and Lavinia with Versafine inks in, Olympia green, Spanish moss and smokey gray.


I stamped the sentiment in Olympia green in the centre of the card. The compass was made using some thick card that I die cut, painted gold with eco paint then stamped and triple embossed with clear embossing powder. I had planned to stamp the compass into the hot ep, but it didn't work as well as I wanted it to, hence this was the next best thing.

I printed out a small section of a local map in sepia tones and folded this so that the location was legible on the front. This was then mounted onto the card and a piece of raffia was tied around the card so that the bow was positioned on top of the map.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

"Cupcake Craftroom - Anything goes"

"Anything goes- anything goes at anything goes"

"Crafty Sentiments - Anything goes"

"Crafty Cardmakers - Anything goes"

"Make it Monday - anything goes"

"Truly Madly Crafty - Anything goes"

"Smudgy antics - masking"

Hidden Messages

Here's my next "Creative Expressions Design Team piece" using the wonderful Wendy Veechi stamps. I made a template with heart shaped petals to open out to reveal a hidden message, bearing in mind I made this last week and only saw the latest Craft Stamper afterwards it's a bit spooky....hidden messages and all that! Ok a bit different, but hidden all the same.

The dotty and stripy papers were from the Treasury in Kidderminster, I bought them for another project...but then decided to use them for this instead...best laid plans and all that.

I used the lacy Wendy Veechi stamp to stamp the heart shaped petals and the sentiment (first time I've used this particular stamp). All stamping and distressing has been done in distress inks. Metallic and bling elements are in the form of brads. The pointy finger....is from the Just rite Cling set. Greetings from Paris. The leaves were die cut using the Spellbinders foliage die.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

"Moving Along With the Times - Spots and or Stripes"

"Pixie Dust Studio - Put your heart into it"

"Southern Girls - show us your Sparkle"

"Simon Says Stamp - Spots and or Stripes"

"Anything goes - anything goes"

"Everybody Art Challenge - shabby"

"Incy Wincy Designs - vintage"

Have Faith

This is my latest Tanda Teaser card (live until next Wednesday). I wanted to challenge everyone to something different, I had realised that up to Christmas I had, sort of, got stuck in a rut with lots of colour themes for the Teaser....not sure how that happened, but I will try to make up for it over the coming months! The idea of the Teaser is to share something that represents some sort of faith, not necessarily Christian, nethertheless, my card does have a Christian theme, I made it for my husband's Uncle Joe in Canada. The stamps were from Tanda Stamps, the Background paper was from the Treasury in Kidderminster. To get the word effect I used a simple resist technique using clear embossing powder and then sponging Chipped Sapphire Distress ink over the top. All in all a quick and simple card to make.

I would like to enter this card into the following Challenges:

"Crafty Card Makers - No floral embellishments"

"Make it Monday - anything goes"

"Stamp and Create - Anything Goes"

"Truely Madly Crafty - Anything goes"

"Addicted to Stamps - Colour Blue"

"Dream Valley Challenge - anything goes"

Hearts and Flowers

Well we are into another week already! Where did the last one go? No Blogging how bad am I!

So I had better share this week's piece for Creative Expressions. This will be the Valentines card for my husband, his favorite colour is purple, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn't see my blog between now and Valentines day! At this point I have to apologise for the photos...even with the biggest south facing windows in the middle of the day I had to use flash for these, so they are not brilliant, but you will get the idea.


I kept some of the packaging from some books and DVD's that were ordered over Christmas and decided to use them to make a tag card. The base tag was cut out of the card board and then painted with Sand Eco Paint. When this was dry I stamped it with the Wendy Veechi (Sentimental Art) lacy background stamp in Blue Violet Archival Ink. I distressed the edges with dusty concord and edged it with Krylon pen.

The sentiment was stamped in the archival ink onto cream card, cut out with a spellbinders die and then distressed with distress ink and gold eco acrylic pain.


The Hearts and Cherub were cut from the same cardboard using a Tim Holtz die that I got for Christmas. The cherub was painted gold and then stamped in black with a fine crackle stamp (another Christmas pressie. I painted the hearts in Eggplant acrylic paint (2 on both sides) and sprayed them with gold cosmic shimmer mica pigment. I also sprayed the base card and the die cut sentiment at the same time. Once dry I punched a small hole in the two double sided hearts. I triple embossed the three hearts and the cherub. I then turned the two punched hearts over and coated them with glossy accents. While these were drying, I died a piece of Seam Binding with Dusty Concord distress stain and allowed this to dry.

When everything was dry I tied the seam binding around the top of the tag, threaded the punched hearts onto the ends and tied a little knot to secure them. Some punched cream vellum leaves and a couple of lilac paper roses complete the project.


I would like to enter this tag card into several challenges as follows:

"Cards for Men - Must be Masculine - Recycling"

"Smudgy antics - No Cute - Recycle something"

"StampsRus - What you got for Christmas"

"Fashionable Stamping Challenges - Anything goes using your new stash"

"Penny Black and More - Love and Hearts"

"Dream Valley Challenges - Anything goes"

"2 Sisters - Anything with wings"

Hope you all have a wonderful crafty week!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and Thank You to everyone who left me comments over the last year. It is always lovely to get feedback on crafty makes.

We've been doing a far bit of travelling up and down the country over the holiday season so things have been rather hectic here. I've still got to find homes for the new stamps, dies and inks that I had for Christmas! Hubby has proclaimed that the study needs to be decorated....this means relocating my stash and everything else in the room..not sure where it is all going to go or how I will be able to keep the cards coming...here's hoping that I can have the dining room table exclusively for my stash.

I did manage to have another play with the new Wendy Veechi stamps from "Creative Expressions". These stamps have a lovely vintage feel to them so they are perfect for a vintage/shabby chic theme. For my card I have used Spellbinders dies and distress inks (old paper, Victorian velvet and aged mahogany). The flowers were made using hand made paper that I had stamped with the lacy background stamp. The ribbon is seam binding, dyed using Victorian velvet distress stain.

I would like to entre this card into the following challenges:

"Sentimental Sundays - Anything goes, must include a sentiment"

"Truly Madly Crafty - Anything goes"


"Make it Monday - Anything goes"

"Craft Your Passion - Anything goes plus distressing"

"Cup Cake Craftroom - Anything goes"

"Artistic Stamper - Vintage"

Rose Tinted

I should have posted this yesterday, but as you might know if you read my blog, things have been a bit more manic than usual. I am more or less sorted...the alarm has been fixed, the new washing machine works brilliantly, the plumbing under the utility sink is fixed, the new printer will print (not how it's supposed to, but at least it will print) and we can make phone calls although we still need to program the phone....

So now I just have to sort Christmas!

This fortnight the Tanda Teaser is "Rose Tinted". I've had enough of Christmas cards now....got them all made and posted so I'm happy not to make another one for quite a few months! I did realise after I'd posted that I seem to have set rather a lot of colour challenges recently so I'll have to make sure I do something different next time!

My card is single layered. I have used Tanda stamps, Aquastamps (available from Tanda) and my Dune dots stamp (available from the Treasury in Kidderminster). I used stamped the padlock first then masked it before sponging distress ink over an acetate mask that I made using a spellbinders die.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

"Make it Monday"

"Corrosive Challenges - Anything but Christmas"

"One Stitch at a Time - Anything goes"

"Sparkles Forum - Anything but Christmas"

"The Crafty Pad - Anything but Christmas"



This is probably the last blog post that I will make before Christmas, so I would like to wish everyone who has visited my blog and especially those who have left comments a Happy Christmas and to say Thank you for your support and encouragement!

I hope to see you in the New Year!

New Stamps and New Beginnings!

We received our latest stamps from Creative Expressions last Friday and they are gorgeous! I've not had any Studio 490 "Wendy Vecchi" stamps before, but this Sentimental art set is fabulous. The main stamp is a lacy design and is perfect for square cards and the quotes are all very usable!

For my first DT piece I have made an easel card for one of my College friends. Her birthday is right at the end of December and I thought that as it is on the cusp of the New Year it might be nice to make her card into a little present too, namely a desk calendar. I chose the quote..."A perfect day is waking up with a purpose and retiring with a dream for tomorrow" as I thought it fitted the calendar theme perfectly. For stamping and distressing, I used Frayed Burlap Distress ink and Pumice Stone Distress Stain was used to dye the seam binding.

The flowers were made using Spellbinders rose creations (and some wrapping from some flowers that I'd kept), Spellbinders Foliage dies (grey mulberry paper) and the quote was mounted on card cut using the Spellbinders small labels die.

I am entering this into the following challenges:

"Corrosive Challenges - Anything but a Christmas card"

"One Stitch at a Time - Anything goes"

"Sparkles Forum - Anything but Christmas Card"

"The Crafty Pad - Anything but Christmas"

"Die Cut Dreams - Make a Date"

"Stamp and Create - Vintage"

"Try it on Tuesday - Anything goes"

Bon Voyage Tag

Hi, I'm not at home at the moment so I'm mobile blogging...I've come down to mum and dad's to see how they are doing. Sitting in bed burning the midnight oil trying to catch up with a few things and I am scheduling this to go live later this morning!
this Tag is my next DT piece using the Bon Voyage stamp set by Just Rite available from Creative Expressions. Paris makes me think of all things elegant, so I wanted to create something elegant to reflect this. I kept the colours muted and the lines simple. The dies that I used are from Spellbinders.

The ribbons are seam binding that I have coloured using Weathered Wood and Pumice Distress Stains. You cannot see it in the photos, but these inks seem to give the seam binding a rather lovely shot appearance.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges

"Totally papercrafts - anything goes"

"Cute card thursday - Anything goes"

"Cooking it up with katie - Anything goes"

"Inky impressions - must use ribbon"

"Die cuttin divas - tags, tags and more tags"

"Papertake Weekly - anything goes"

"Lawnscaping - tags or treat bags"

Keep Calm and Carry On!

Good advice in the lead up to Christmas me thinks and certainly kept me going this week! Had a bit of an interesting/challenging week...everything (not everything obviously but lots, you know what I mean!) seems to have decided to pack up, or go wrong, at the same time..the washing machine (beyond repair!), the printer (just as I wanted to print out address labels for our Christmas cards, the pipe work under the utility sink (I took it apart to plumb a new washing machine in and couldn't get it back together again), the telephone and thanks to a jobs worth at the local cinema my daughter's birthday treat.

It was her 15th birthday on Wednesday and we decided to make the most of Orange Wednesday and go to see, My Week with Marilyn. The girl selling the tickets refused to sell us tickets....I'd gone flat out all day (Wednesday is my shopping and errand day so I was only just back to the house when she got home from school)to make sure that Sarah got her birthday tea and a homemade chocolate birthday cake before we went out. I was not impressed! OK I can understand them challenging a child if they are with other kids, but when they are with their mother! It was suggested that we should go home and come back with id....I said that that was pointless as this would take an hour and the film started in 30 mins! She wasn't going to back down...so we left. Luckily there is another cinema in Worcester, the Odeon. They saved the day! We got to see the film and hour later. Having watched it we all agreed that we didn't understand why it had been given a 15 certificate...We saw Breaking Dawn on Monday that was a 12a and much more graphic.

Ooops that seems to have turned into a rant...what this blog post is really all about is the card and key ring I made for my daughter's birthday. She is really into the whole Keep Calm and Carry on thing, so when I saw this on a stamp I had to have it for her Birthday card! Can't remember who's stamp it is at the moment though! I've used triple embossing to make what looks like and enamel sign and attached this to a piece of handmade paper that I had stamped a union jack on and then embossed it in Tim Holtz's brick embossing folder. The Union jack was an Indigo Blu stamp and I coloured it by adding distress ink stains directly onto the stamp, a technique that I had not tried before, but it worked! The flowers and leaves were all made using handmade paper and spellbinders dies.

The key ring was made using a stampboard square, and then triple embossed in the same way as the "enamel" sign.

My daughter was thrilled with her card and key ring, and my other daughter wants a keyring too.

I would like to enter this into several challenges:

"Totally paper crafts - anything but a card"

"Simply Create too - Embossing"

"Art Impressions Stamps - try something new to you"

"Cooking it up with Katie - Anything goes"

"I break for challenges - vintage"

"Papertake weekly - Anything goes"

"Crafty card makers - Heat embossing"

"Stamp and create - Vintage"

Green and Gold

I've just posted the next Tanda Teaser over on the Tanda Blog...can't believe that those two weeks went sooooo fast! The next challenge is to use Green and Gold as your predominant colours...Christmassy but it doesn't need to be..

For my card I have used Spellbinders dies, Tanda stamps (Tanda Christmas set 2), artylicious paper from Seasons Greetings, Distress ink and Copic Markers. The snowflake was from the Treasury in Kidderminster, I triple embossed it with clear ep and glitter.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

"Kaboodle Doodles - Christmas Colours"

"Make my Monday - Seasonal Add some glitter"

"Polly Craft - Christmas Fun"

"Stamp and Create - Vintage"

"Truely Madly Crafty Challenges - Christmas Images and coloures"

"Addicted to Stamps - Must use a stamp - Christmas Card"

Altered Shower Cap Packaging

For this week's "Creative Expressions DT piece" I have decided to alter an envelope that I bought back from Ragdale. This first picture is almost a "before" picture...it's actually my first attempt which ended up as a reject. The card was quite shiny and hence a bit slippy so my stamping was a bit off, I was a bit more carefull second time round!

It did have a shower cap in it but I have decided to turn it into something special...



It would now be perfect for a gift card/token. The stamps I used are from the JustRite Bon Voyage set and the JustRite Paris set. When I looked at the Bon voyage stamps on the website I saw the Paris set and thought that they would work really well together.

I have used both stamp sets to decorate this envelope.


This project seems to fit with the following Challenges:

"Divas by Design - anything goes"

"Paper Crafting Journey - Anything Goes"

"Southern Girls - Ribbon Madness"

"Bloggers JFF - Anthing but a card"

"Challenge up Your Life - Packaging/box"

Easel with a Twist

Just thought I would share this card with you as it fits several challenges atm. The card is for hubby's aunt. It's her birthday on Monday, but I think I am safe to show it as she doesn't know about my blog!


Basically this is perfect for her as she is an excellent cook and makes all the special birthday cakes and wedding cakes for the family. The stamps are from Lili of the Valley (except for Dune Dots which is exclusive to the Treasury in Kidderminster). Colouring has been done using Copic Markers and distress inks. The jam jar, umbrella and jam have been coated in Glossy accents and some glitter has been applied on the icing sugar. The flowers were made using Tim Holtz tattered florals die and the leaves were made using a Spellbinders foliage die.

This fits with 6 challenges as follows:

"Delicious Doodles - Hairy Legs"

"Glitter Fairies - Easel Card"

"4 Crafty Chicks - Birthday"

"Some Odd Girl - Show us your easels"

"Stampavie and More - Easel cards"

"Lili of the Valley - Anything but a Christmas card"

Goal!

I just thought that I would show you a man card....never an easy card to make! This is the card I made for my husband's birthday....He is a football (soccer if your're American) referee in his spare time so Football is always a good place to start..only problem is that he has probably had at least two cards from each football themed stamp that I have already. So I had to find a new image. I found this Momanning image and downloaded it from her site. Hubby's fav team is the Blues or for the uninitiated...Birmingham City. So my footballer is coloured in blue. The papers were all from the Treasury in Kidderminster...(About a Boy series I think), the rosette was made using a Tim Holtz die and the tab was a Stamp'in Up punch. The image was coloured with Copic markers and distressed with Distress inks.

I would like to enter this into several challenges as follows,

"Birthday Sundaes - Must have Birthday Sentiment", some of the paper had got a bit neglected at the bottom of a pile of offcuts.

"Here come the boys - Cards only, must be masculine for the man in your life"

"Marks finest papers - Make it masculine"

"Alphabet Challenge - V is for Vibrant"

" Delicious Doodles - Hairy Legs"

Pretty in Pink!

Hi There. I 've just got back from a lovely break at one of the best Spa Hotels in the UK, now another 3 days behind, but it was a nice break all the same!

Before I left I made this Pretty pink key ring as my next Creative Expressions design piece. I didn't quite have this in mind when I started...I was thinking of making a pendent using the Eiffel Tower image from the Just Rite Cling stamps that we are demonstrating this month, but when I went through my stash my ideas changed and this where I ended up. My girls are now fighting over it so I guess it's a hit.

The fob is made from Stampboard. This particular piece was already coloured and ready to go....an aborted previous project...well you know what they say about crafters! I do remember that it was coloured using Color Box chalk inks as these stay where you put them when you heat emboss over the top. I stamped the postage stamp and the corner flourish in Jet Black Archival ink (again this will stay in place when embossed). Using a cropadile, I punched a hole in the top corner and inserted an eyelet before Triple embossing with clear embossing powder. To get a really smooth finish I like to use the normal powder rather than the coarser powders more usually used for this technique.


I have attached a small loop of distressed silver chain and then attached pearls and crystal beads to add a bit of sparkle.

I would like to enter this into several challenges as follows.....

"Fussy and Fancy - Make a gift not a card"

"Samuel Taylor's - December Challenge, anything goes"

"Creative Inspirations Paint - Anything but a card"