Black & White

I noticed a beautiful black & white card on Ellie's blog, which she made for the Allsort's Challenge and I decided to play in the challenge myself.

I stamped the Doc Marten boots (Deep Red Stamps), then masked the boots and stamped the Artsy Border (Stamplorations). To finish I stamped the sentiment (Impression Obsession), matted the panel with black and added to the white card base.

I love the look of the black and white and think it can give great impact.

I'm entering the following challenges:-

ALLSORTS CHALLENGE 'Black & White only'

Quickest Shaker ever!

I'm very proud of myself, because as I've mentioned before, shakers are a bit of a challenge for me and this one I managed to make in 15 mins (already had the alcohol ink background in stash) as I had the architect coming for a meeting and was also cooking a roast! So I must be getting the knack!

Once again I used Alcohol Inks (this year's Pantone Colour) and gold foil as well as Gold AI.  It's fun getting messy with the inks and then turning it in to a CAS card by using dies cuts. The butterfly die is an oldie from Memory Box and the window is from MFT Dienamics. The stamp is from Clearly Besotted. 

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Frame It

Foiling Fun

We had a cold day yesterday and I thought 'that's it, Summer is officially over! So I got my winter woollies out and today the sun is shining and it's going to be back up in the mid 20s until after Easter. So I'm looking forward to a lovely few days at our beach house.

I made a card inspired by the code word at Casology *FOIL* ...

I blended some Alcohol Inks on Yupo and added gold foil before some of the sticky bits dried. I love these colours! The die is from Kaisercraft and the sentiment stamp from Clearly Besotted. The inks were a combination of Ranger and Pinata.

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Bunny Cards

I bought 2 cute stamps sets recently and thought I should break them out and make another couple of cards for the Twofer Card Challenge.

 I coloured them both with Copics, trying to make it look a bit more Painterly in the 2nd. This 1st card is using the Art Impressions Easter Blessings and I used Kaisercraft dies. The 2nd card I used the same stamp, plus the bunny stamp from Craft Consortium which i've fussy cut and mounted with dimensional tape over the bunny in the AI image. The oval frame die is from MFT Dienamics.
In case it's not clear the 2nd card is a love or friendship card.

                                                 I'm entering the following challenges:-

Floral Frenzy

First Attempt with Prismacolor Pencils

I have had this Altenew stamp set sitting on my desk for a few weeks and haven't been sure where to begin, but when I saw the AAA Challenge theme, I knew this was a good stamp set to use.

I managed to get a set of Prismacolor pencils on special a few months ago and this is the first time I've used them.
I'm not so sure about my colour choices, but it was a bit of an experiment. Just after I bought the pencils, I noticed that everyone was raving about Faber Castell Polycromo pencils being way better - oh well! Anyhow, I can see it will take a lot of practice to learn how to blend and I'm not sure if it's going to be even harder than Copics, but it's fun trying, I can definitely see one plus and that is that it doesn't show on the back of the card so it's easier to do one layer with pencils.

The stamp set is Altenew 'Garden Grow'.

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It's another Twofer & an NBUS

First of all let me say, I know these cards clash terribly side by side, but the purpose of the Twofer Card Challenge is to create 2 different cards, using the same stamp set. I love this idea - it makes me create more cards and stretch the use of my supplies:) So, although together they look bleh!!!, if you look at each card individually they look much better!

I used WPlus9 Watercolour Anenome Stamp set - I think it was released in 2015, I bought it in 2016 and I've only just got around to using it! I used Zig Markers and spritzed with water for the first card and Simon Says Stamp and Memento Inks for the second card.  The 'hello' sentiment is from Pretty Posh Pink and the 'Happy Birthday' is from Inspired by Stamping.

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Floral Frenzy

It's their 4th Birthday!!!!

A Hint of Spring

Sometimes I get so confused about the the seasons. I play in so many challenges that are Northern Hemisphere based, so when I'm making Spring themed cards I forget that it's actually autumn here.
I'm very excited because our annual Craft Retreat is later this year and it's right in the middle of the Autumn Festival, so the colours will be amazing! In the the mean time here is a very Spring-y card!

I stamped the Dogwood Flowers from one of my fave Hero art's sets 'Antique Flowers and Butterflies' with memento ink and coloured a bit with Copics and then did more stamping to get some definition.  The paper is from Prima and I sponged the edges with ink. The sentiment is from Pretty Posh Pink.

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Easter/Spring

Penny Black Saturday Challenge Reminder

It's half way through March already!  Seriously, the now that my kids have left school, the days seem to go quicker!

Today I have another Penny Black card to remind you about the Penny Black Saturday Challenge. The theme as always is Anything Goes, with an optional twist  being 'Easter' or ' to use Chocolate Brown'. You can guess which one I chose!

I'm still enjoying colouring with Copic Markers, so I coloured the fox with them and used Distress Ink and Zig Markers for to stamp and colour the berry bush. I decided to do some lighter coloured berries to add variation and depth - not sure if that worked. The fox has been stamped twice and I trimmed off the back foot and ear and mounted with dimensional tape.
I knew I wanted a CAS design and it took me a long time to settle on a background, but I'm really happry with this wintery scene. I thought about adding some blue, but decided 'less is more' and it's more CAS this way.

Go check out the inspiration on the Penny Black Saturday Challenge blog and enter the challenge here.

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FOREST FRIENDS

Feature a Creature

Vintage Rose

I've had this beautiful stamp sitting in my stash for a long time and I thought it was about time I used it again.

Although it is a fairly busy image, I tried to make it fairly CAS, by using a soft colour in the background and letting the rose take the limelight.  I coloured the image with Copic Markers.

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Acetate, Alcohol Ink and an Embossing Folder

I decided to make another card for the CAS Mix Up Challenge (2nd Birthday) Challenge and instead of one card, I ended up with a Twofer!

As most people know, it is very difficult to photograph acetate and metallic colours, but I hope you can get the idea from my pics. I began by dropping some alcohol inks on the acetate sheet, spritzing with alcohol and then letting it dry. For the first card I die cut the bird.The background has been dry embossed and then I randomly swiped versamark ink over the raised part and gold embossed. Next I constructed the shaker. I used glue tape to adhere the bird and branch. To finish I stamped the sentiment and adhered it on top of the window.

This card is much more CAS, but not so transluscent.  I dry embossed the acetate this time and then matted it with the window from MFT Dienamics. The Dragonfly die is from Penny Black and the sentiment is from Stampers Annonymous.
I nearly added swquins, but reminded myself this was a CAS card(:

I'm entering the following challenges:-