new stamp

I havent bought a new Tilda for a very long time but this one just jumped off the shelf screaming my name.  Many a time I've had to come home from the beach with sopping wet skirts because I couldnt resist paddling in the waves or reaching in for yet another shell.  Mum is exactly the same so as long as I remember where I put it that's who the card is for.

Papers are Authentique, "Gathering" and are a totally not me colour but they lent themselves to a seasidey theme.  Layout is from Sketch Saturday

Copics to colour Tilda were just various oranges and I scribbled the sky & sea with b0s & bg0s with no attempt to blend them "properly"  The hair is my favourite, E71, 74, 77 & 79 and the shell e20s.

Flowers are from Wild Orchid, frondy diecuts from Marianne Designs, sentiment is a mix of SU and a Whimsy ticket.  SU orange card, payper box burgundy card and the lace from Ribbon Box.  Thanks to Tracy for the pearl trim.. came in dead handy.


It wasnt until I had the card photoed and on the blog that I realised I havent got the oval placed quite straight, oops lol.

A few recent cards

This is a card I made for a good friends birthday.  I wanted to play around with dies rather than using a stamped image as the focus.

It looks quite simple but surprising amount of work,

base cream card embossed with swiss dots embossing folder.

Gold pearl card cut and embossed in a Sue Wilson design spellbinders die edged with black soot distress ink.  Stamped sentiment cut with labels 4.

Black flourish die from Cheery Lynn.

The poppys are my own design cut from red canson Mi'Tientes cherry red paper, inked with black soot before being sprayed with lava red cosmic shimmer mist and a hint of of mango blaze.  3 were layered with black cuttlebug snowflake dies scrunched up to form the centre.  The other three were wound around diamante pins before being shaped.  Leone Em fronds punched from gold card to hide the pins.  And finally in the corner 3 faux pearls using cosmic shimmer gold pearl pva glue.

 

I was so pleased with Jackies card I decided to make one similar for another friend from Playdays, Lorrs.

This time I went with a patchwork embossing folder from docrafts on pearl card which has been distressed with frayed burlap ink.

I used a spellbinders pendant die, scalloped circle nesties, circle nesties and a sentiment from SU.

Again the cheery lyn flourish die.
The flowers are my own pinwheel design cut in various sizes and inked with several yellow & red distress inks.  Sadly I was in a rush so photoed the card while flat and in the box.

A bit of a break from flower cards, this is one I made for my friend Sandra.  I often use Anya stamps for my playday friends and decided I wanted blues & greens so went with my faber & Castell watercolour pencils.  Sandra's very much into distress so I went with papers from either Bo Bunny or paper cellar.  Wild wasabi & baja breeze cardstock all distressed with frayed burlap ink.  Sentiment from SU, cut with labels 4.  Black taffeta ribbon and a few gems.  With hindsight I'd have used copics to colour in the Anya image but by the time I'd decided that the card was already finished and the image stuck.

Huge apologies for yet another bloomin variation on the poppy card, if you think you're bored with them I'm even more bored lol.  Hubby loved the poppys so much I've had to make an identical one for his dads 80th birthday and today I've had to make one for our friend Daves birthday.

Dave is hugely patriotic and has many many England flags around his house.  For those overseas the English flag is white with a red cross and our national flower is a tudor rose.  So for Daves card I had to go with red and white and I drew a tudor rose for scal.  You can't see if from the picture but I went with a SU lattice folder which looks like basket weave from one side but the side I have facing is lots of tiny crosses.  Real red SU ink & card and white card from Annamarie.

May playday projects

The next playday is May 13th and we're making postit note/memo holders which are based on a project in the last Magnolia Tilda magazine.

The first is my take on a remembered view of Sandras mag, without the sizes used I went with 12" * 8.5" so that I could use 5" strips to fit the martha stewart patp on the inner box as well as the outer frame.  Once I saw the mag again I realised I should have gone down a size on each dimension and made the inner box smaller.  Not to worry I enjoyed making the first so much I made a 2nd while at the Yeovil playday.

Concord crush ink, pebbles papers (I think), tilda stamps and wild wasabi and concord crush cardstock.  Marianne flourish die, martha stewart punch around the page, eyelets and flowers from Wild Orchid.

This time papers are from BoBunny, early espresso & very vanilla cardstock, frayed burlap distress ink, memory box flourish die, flowers again from Wild Orchid and an Anya image.  Both images were coloured with copics.

Bday card for Dad

Not sure if anyone can rember the saga of Dad looking and reading last years birthday card around the wrong way or not... but I haven't ;o)

So this year I wasn't going to spend the same amount of time stamping and colouring images so I thought I'd go for something a bit less me.

Voila, nowt but some inked edged card, my new spellbinder die, martha stewart punch, SU embossing folder & cstock, ribbon, cosmic shimmer pearly glue to make some faux pearls (loving this glue and need more colours) and a stamped sentiment. 

I have used the sketch from Sketch & Stash blog for inspiration.

Fleeting visit from my mojo.

My mojo has paid me a very brief visit no doubt encouraged by the whip master known as last minute desperation lol.

Not amused to find my first visit back to blogger in nearly 5months and the settings are all new... eeek not even sure if this is going to post.

This project was made for one of my facebook friends to give to her best friend since childhood.  Now I couldn't make anything less than I'd like to give to a friend I've grown up with since playschool. (Cass, you still aren't forgiven for sneaking off to the registry office and telling no one) Voila one bookcard, always impressive to look at but not so challenging that the returning mojo is going to take one look at and upsticks ;o)

Sadly it arrived in Sweden a couple of days too late for the wedding but Sara seemed happy enough with it.

Martha Stewart patp, retired SU papers, SU card pretty in pink & concord crush. SU taffeta ribbon in pretty in pink. Wild Orchid flowers, Cheery Lyn die (it hates my bigshot and cuttlebugs) Tilda and Edwin coloured with copics.

I made a small vellum envie to hold a money gift but it's only loosely held in place with the flowers so that the Bride & Groom can place a photo if they'd like to.

Sir Tims Tags

Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas started a couple of days ago.. wooohooo. Time for me to make do, bodge, get inky and burn myself time ;o)


This is my version of the Sir Tims first tag and I've taken more than a few liberties lol. I dont have his noel, banner & foliage dies so I've had to make my own noel in scal, use punches and hand cut the banner from brown wrapping paper then use the SU music wheel to add some pattern, not that you can really see anything of the banner lol.

Tim used silver glitter over his noel but I wanted to do something with a bit less bling so double cut the word, distressed one with walnut stain and covered the other with tombow mono and some gold leaf from indigo-blu before offsetting them to get a slight drop shadow.

Tag was cut from green textured card which was then embossed, partially heat embossed as per Tims instructions. I don't have those pretty pearls or the ribbons so I used 2 different sorts of ribbons and attacked em with a heat gun to get them to crinkle.


I did use the tattered pinecones die (and burnt my fingers on the hot glue gun) but I had to use Cansons Mi-Tientes art paper and distress it up a bit with walnut stain. There are some bits rescued from the year befores' crackers, couple of hat pins and various punched & diecut leaves.

It might be a real bodge job but I really like my tag.

New card on test.

Going back a couple of weeks I was asked to test some cardstock which Joanna Sheen was considering stocking. Now a lot of folk know I like to test things to see if it "does what it says on the tin" so I jumped at the chance to have a play. Oops, adding in it's called Elegance Satin and it's available in 300gsm and 160gsm.

One massive ink & paint testing day later I'm making a start of a review. I'm writing this over a few days and a good week or so before posting to the blog so if you notice any time jumps it's because I'll add in as I go rather than edit to make it look like I sat and typed all in one go.

If you're not particularly finniky about your colouring and are happy with your current card which you buy because it's cheap you might just as well skip the next couple of paragraphs where I'm having my normal rant about card ;o)

From the outset I have to make my feelings clear about paper & card quality. For me the quality of the paper is paramount, if I'm going to spend my time making a card I want it to be as good as I can possibly make it. When hubby first started painting many moons ago I really couldnt see the point in him buying artist quality mediums or quality watercolour paper because in all honesty he wasn't very good at painting. Roll on a fair few years when I've finally taught myself to like rubber stamping and I have a need to "paint"... I finally see the point.

Best quality mediums and papers actually make it easier to blend and give a better result. If I don't get a good result I know it's not the paper or pen that's at fault, it's me needing to improve! Yes the mediums & paper are slightly more expensive but I see no point in saving a few pennies on a sheet of card if it's noticeably cheaper or I don't get as good a result. You will get a better result with best paper & cheaper mediums than you will expensive mediums and cheaper/unsuitable paper.

Back to the review, it's a long one so I hope you're sitting comfortably.

I'm going to take this in a few sections focusing mainly on alchohol markers but I'll also test them with: 2. watercolour techniques (pencils, crayons, inkpads & markers) 3 polycrhomo & pastel pencils, 4 timholtz type techniques, 5 a few other oddsies.

1) alchie markers, I tried copics, promarkers, flexmarkers and spectrum noir pens on an image stamped with memento.

I switched to neenah from staples text and graphics a while back because I wasn't happy with how e0000 & e000 were turning a weird orangey colour but while the neenah is ok for keeping a true colour I found it prone to bleed across the lines. Using Joannas 300gsm card and the copics, wow just doesn't do the card any favours. I prefer a very blended look rather than a quick light dark quick blend method so I really scrubbed in a lot of layers in very small areas and allowed no drying time in between. Where I would have expected to get a huge bloom because I'd saturated the card there was none, nada, zip, not even a sniff of bleed. I had to have another go just to make sure it wasnt a fluke but my memento was hiding out of sight in amongst the chaos... so I tried a walnut stain distress ink and coloured in with a 000 pen literally straight away... a few people are going to be reading this and thinking smudgy mucky mess... nope, no smudge at all, the walnut ink stayed in perfect position. I was Impressed with a capital I about that one! Taking more care colouring the images I found I didnt need to blend quite as much as I normally do and looking back on the images a couple of days later I can't see where I changed pens. Not often that's happened before as I can nearly always see an echo of the blending area. I have to be honest I did then try the 160gsm and I had the tiniest of bleed along a hairband on an image, it could have been me going over the lines but until I've done a few more images I'm not going to swear to it being one or the other.

I'm not as comfortable with promarkers & flexmarkers as I am copics but I quite surprised myself and found they blended easier than normal. As with the copics not the slightest sign of bleed and I used a pink lavender flexxie straight over walnut distress ink, again no smudging. I do have my suspicion that the lighter flexmarkers were bleaching out the darker colours more than I'm used to on neenah but it could have been my imagination so this weekend the playday girls are going to be inadvertent testers lol Ok, consensus is in from several of the playday ladies and it's a huge thumbs up with questions on where can they buy and how much. Like me Tracy managed a little bleed but just like me she thinks it might have been her fault rather than the cards. No one reported colours being bleached out so it must just have been me having a rather long day.

Finally I tried the few spectrum noir pens I have with it. If you've read my review of spectrums you'll know I'm not a fan, I don't like how they blend and I don't like the nib marks they can leave behind. Sorry Joanna, the card hasnt made me like the speccies but they did react better to the card than they did on neenah. Nuff said about spectrums otherwise I'll be having more hate mail for not liking them.

2) watercolour techniques.

Umm, odd one this one as I wasnt expecting the results I got. If you're used to watercolouring over the back of linen/hammered cardstock or whatever you happen to dap your hands on first you'll be fine. If you're used to best quality hot pressed watercolour paper you wont be impressed. Using pencils, inks & markers with a damp brush I found I needed more wet than I'm used to which makes it harder to control the shading. I also found the pigment didnt really want to move around which made graduated blends very difficult. Oddly though I found a much better result with my SU watercolour crayons and they felt nice when applying to the card as they glided rather than stuttered over the surface iykwim. I would still prefer to use my langton watercolour paper.

3) polychromos & prismas. If I'm using my polys as a colouring pencil I prefer a paper with a bit of key to it so I can use the lighter pencil to pull the dark colour through. No chance with this card, it's far too smooth and I can't lay down enough layers. Colouring all over then softening & evening it all out with stumps and sansador worked really well. I'm not a big poly user tho and sent some paper off to one of the ladies I class as an expert prisma colourer iner and as soon as she gets back to me I'll add in her response.

4) Timholtzy type techniques. For those who haven't got on with cutndry and blending over the edges of card.. best try this and think again!! We've been told good alchie pen card isnt good with dye inks but this card is fab! It's silky smooth and the cutndry (I was using the tool) just glided over the surface and even deliberate edge lines blended away really easily. I covered a whole a5 sheet with no problems taking the tool into the centre and the ink reacted beautifully when I sprinkled it with water. From there I tried the wrinkly free technique.. wiping a few pads across the craft mat, misting with water and dunking a piece of card in to pick up the colour. First one not so great as I was penny pinching and used the back of an image I'd tried to watercolour... the versafine was pulled through the card and over the top of the distress inks. New card, same test... great result, I'd have to say the best I've had as there was no muddying of the colours except the edges but that was down to me leaving it to airdry because I was too impatient to get to the next test lol. Next I tried stamping with distress ink and pulling the colour out with a damp paint brush.. the ink didnt move in the slightest.. tried again.. new stamped image and a soaking wet brush.. still the same and not a smidge of colour movement. I'm stumped at this.. the ink reacted so well to raindrops that I was fully expecting it the colour to drag out and leave a soft line, weird!

5) oddsies, bet everyone is wondering about this lol. Will keep it short and sweet as it's just a collection of little tryme's.

Folding, the 300gsm is so heavily pressed it feels more like 250gsm so I wouldn't use it for a postage box but for a hand delivered box it's ideal. It scored and folded beautifully without any cracking, creasing, puckering or scuffing along the fold line. Very neat, precise and professional fold. I found it also embossed in a folder well and again with no tiny rips in the embossed areas, makes a nice surface to then ink over. While the bigshot was out I tried the 300gsm with my very intricate snowflake edge memory box die that's as finnicky as I am about card. It cut beautifully, popped straight out of the die and I had next to no bother seperating the diecut from the waste.

Brayering, now I'm not a Barbara but I get by as a rule. Even if I say it myself I had a good result with a brayer, a kaleidacolour inkpad and the 300gsm card. Very even tones, with no stripes (I'm prone to stripes if I haven't brayered for a while and I haven't had the brayer out for months). The card isn't glossy so I didn't get that polished look but it was nice to have a soft sheen rather than a gloss. I'll certainly be using this card with brayers again.

Paint Fusion/Onestroke. For those who've tried paint fusion you'll know what I mean by sticky dry brush... for those who don't it's when you're halfway along with a brush stroke and the brush feels as though there's no paint left or that it's sticking to the paper. This is one of the worst feelings as you need the brush to move smoothly as you twist & wiggle and as soon as it gets sticky you don't get quite as good a result, well I dont. Normally if I'm doing a long variagated leaf I get to the end of the stroke and the brush is sticky and I can't get a nice lift & slide to finish the leaf. I've often been tempted (and have occasionally) added an artists flow medium to the paint to try and avoid sticky brush. On a stroke of genius I tried with Joannas card and the brush just slid so smoothly not only did I get to the end of the stroke but I turned the card and managed the otherside AND I got the lift that I rarely manage. Woohoo, I might just be brave and onestroke all of my christmas cards this year.. In reality I won't tho as I have the attention span of a gnat and will be hankering after rubber and copics and distress inks before they're all done.

Now if you've skim read because it's such a long review in short,

A maazing for alchie pens, not great for watercolour painting, fantastic with distressing inks & techniques, great for brayers, good for folding but not postage boxes, works well in diecut machines & embossing folders, good for sansador & pencils, must have for paintfusion/onestroke cards. My personal opinion is that this is a fantastic card which more than deserves a home in any playroom.

more dodgy photos lol

Well at least this one is around the right way even if the colours are as murky as the local "stream"

This is a late edition to Sundays playday projects but fits in nicely with the handkerchief card.

I found the project in this months Papercraft Inspiration but Kay found a rather nice project on a blog. Jackies is much nicer than mine though.



Not much to it really, first edition papers, crumb cake 12" card, crumb cake & pretty in pink taffeta ribbon, spray of flowers, retired su sentiment and lots of frayed burlap ink. In real life it's much paler than the pic and the burlap isnt as grungy.

3rd card in 2 days

I've got no idea why this one is posting sideways. It was taken the right way up, is the right way up on my pc then I upload it! Perhaps it's taken offence at the way the camera flash has affected the colours lol.

This is the 3rd card made in just over 24 hours and if anyone is wondering who lit a fire underneath my rather large rear... Kay did when she reminded me we have 3 birthdays this month! lol

This one is using a Miss Anya stamp, first edition papers, SU card (pool party and calypso coral), a marianne flourish die, memory box flourish die, leone em punch & flowers.

Third card also coloured with copics! I can't say who but someone else is to blame for that as she asked me to try a new card that she's thinking of stocking. Well what could I do but give it a good testing. I'll post in a few weeks with a review and let on who it was but I will let on that the card was enough to reignite my interest in copics and cause me to go spend a fair few pennies on the new ciao shades.... and a few more sketch. Kay spent ages at playday sorting all my pens into numerical order and marking the charts as to which of the storage cases they were in... oops Sorry Kay... not only have I had about 60 of them out without putting them back yet.. when the new ones arrive the system will need doing again ;o)

Anya bday card

Taking photos mid evening in winter is never a good idea but the weather has been foul here today and if I wait for decent light this one would never have seen a camera. In real life it's a very pale mint blue with mink & soft pink papers and I've used a sketch from sketchnstash

Very neglected miss anya stamp with new papers from firstedition. Pool party cardstock, crumb cake taffeta ribbon and a sentiment from SU.

Coloured with copics, predominently g000, 00, 02, R00, 02, 20 & e40s.

ott or what lol

It's one of my bestest mates birthdays next month and I'm always pulling her leg that she puts too much stuff on a card. So in honour of her 80s disco dancing days I had to go ott (for me) with the flowers and glitter lol.

Layout from Sketch Saturday.

Tickled pink image coloured with loads of copics, mainly 0xx ones, (g000, b00, bo2, rv02, rv04 etc).

Papers are retired SU ones, with retired barely banana embossed in a folder and a weeny amount of stickles added to each dot. Tempting turquoise card & the curly cute sentiment are from the current catty. Bling & loads of flowers to finish. She'll prolly say it needs something down the left side and she'll prolly be right lol.

No stamping

This one is sort of a mix of an idea I had when I saw this snowflake border die and one of Sue Wilsons samples cards on c&c today. Surprisingly it doesnt have a single stamped image! Now that's a phrase I thought I'd never say.. it took me best part of 14 years to teach myself to like stamping, now I have I can't remember not using a stamp of some sort even if it is just a sentiment!!

Photo doesnt show it but I've used a pale cream pearlescent card stock with some gold pearl card. Swiss dots embossing folder on the base layer then top & bottom is diecut with a memory box snowflake border die. The die is truly beautiful, unlike some dies the card pops out as easy as anything and soo delicate (it's a bit of a pain to stick 3d) but, and it's a big but, it was an absolute nightmare to seperate the ends of the flourishy/snowflakey pattern from the waste and the end of the die left a shadow crease which I've hidden with the ribbon. The die preferred to run longways down my bigshot plate and right up against the side. It cut white 300gsm card ok but it didnt go near to cutting some thick (and tough) white double side pearl even with a couple of shims and rolling it back and forwards a few times. Not so sure many people are special enough to warrant me using this die for their card and if they are can I face it again? lol.

The (2) bauble dies are also memory box and they went throught the bigshot beautifully and I'm really chuffed with how they've came out.

Ribbon is one I picked up years ago from one of the ribbon stands at a show.

yeovil playday

This is a sneaky peek of my project for the playday we're holding in Yeovil on Oct 30th. Pics arent great thanks to dodgy weather in bristol yesterday so my daylight bulb is glaring on the image.




Card, ink, floral punched strip & script stamp all from SU. whiff of joy image watercoloured, marta stewart patp around the edges.

I do still need to stamp and distress another 4 triangles for the inside but the ink's put away for now and I'll finish off before playday.. prolly the night before lol.

flexmarkers 2nd impression

Havent had chance for much more than a small play blending a few of the colours and I have to admit to being sort of impressed. The brush tip is really soft and flexible and was lovely to brush over the paper.

I didnt find they blended quite as quick or as easily as they did on tv but using light dark light method I managed to get aniseed & chartreuse to blend in together very quickly and easily. The blending seems to take a few seconds after the colour has been applied rather than as you're going. Admittedly it wasnt the super smooth transition you get with 4 or 5 different copics, it was a sort of bleed in together more akin to 2 watercolour paint meeting together than a soft gradient, but for quite a light yellowy green and a more bright leaf green it was impressive.

Greens arent a colour I have a lot of in promarkers but the flexmarkers worked well with the grass promarker. It wasnt soo happy with a dark bg96 or g99 copic and I did need to work a bit harder to blend the 2 brands together. I'm more likely to use one or the other brand rather than try to blend the 2 together again but at a pinch it wouldnt bother me if I needed a colour in one that I didnt have in the other and I'd happily use the 2 different brands on the same image.

If I had to make a conclusion on such a short play I would say that diehard expert copic users might find the blending a bit clumsy. For those who arent looking for artist quality colouring or are just starting out you'll love them as they are definitely easier to pick up and start colouring.

What wasnt so impressive was the bleed across the lines but I was using staples 160gsm colour laser printer paper rather than a posh alchi pen specific paper. Up until this new batch of staples paper I had been pleased with it but I have noticed that the very pale skin tone copics are developing an orangey glow. Not good so I've gone over to neenah which I wasnt impressed with before compared to my old favourite mondi brand laser paper. Oh well, will try the flexmarkers on neenah and bristol board tomorrow and report back.

Being honest even though I love alchie pens I think I'll always find watercolouring, either from pencils, crayons, inkpads or my SU markers, a lot quicker and easier. It's not going to stop me buying more copics and flexmarkers. Perhaps if I win the lottery I'll try some shinhans as well lol.

New Flexmarkers have arrived

Ok I'll admit I'm a colour junkie, I'm totally addicted to inkpads, inks, pencils, paints & markers. The newest addition has just arrived, 4 sets of flexmarkers. Now I'm not a huge fan of promarkers, love the colours but not the nibs, but the new pens have got a brush marker tip so I couldn't resist.

First thoughts are that I like how the colours have been selected as they seem to each have a natural shading match. I'm also quite impressed with the plastic packaging.. normally it's grab the scissors and fight to get in to the goodies but these are in a clamshell packaging which just popped open and can be closed again. Pens are held in their own nicely fitting chanel so the pens don't *need* their own special storage. Please note I said *need*, that's different to want and chances are if I like them I'll be storing them in a wallet similar to the ones I keep my copics in. For the moment my purse has to remain closed tho.. sneaky peak SU order has more or less wiped me out but it was sooo worth it lol.

Anyways enough about storage & packaging and let's get to the good stuff.. the pens! Unlike normal promarkers these have got a wee coloured circle on both lids so seeing which is which is going to be dead easy no matter which storage is used. On the downside though the lids are the same both end so there's no quick easy way to tell which end is which. Going to be a little bit of an annoyance but hey ho copics get on my nerves when I get them round the wrong way but it hasnt stopped my buying or using them lol.

Crikey these lids are bloomin hard to pull off, can see this being a problem for those who havent a lot of strength in their hands. Ah first problem, colour on the brush end of tea rose is decidedly different to the chunky end and is coming out as more solvent and little pigment. Water melon is ok though, so going to try the rest. Back, tea rose has dried to the same shade but lemon chiffon, honey dew and aquamarine havent. I have read about this problem and the solution seems to be to keep using them and it will sort itself out. I have found another problem (I've read about it happening to other people as well) and that's a duplication of soft mauve and I'm missing a pink lavender. Oh well, will email Joanna Sheen and let her know it's not just the c&c packs that have duplication problems. Will ring letraset in the morning as apparently they're sending out single pens, unfortunately the 2nd soft mauve has a cracked barrel so it's not even worth hoping they'll let me keep it lol.

My palms are now hurting from taking 48 caps off! So I'm going to give it a break while I have a cuppa then I'll have a go at colouring with them and see if I can get the lemon chiffon, aquamarine & honey dew to play nicely.

BTW I've already made a colour chart for them, it's split into 4 boxes just a tad under 15 * 10 cms ready to fit a tag in my flipflop album and has all the set 1 - 4 colours as well as the flexmarker shades that arent available in promarkers. If anyone wants the pdf just email me and I'll send one over. Please don't leave your email addy in the comment section as although I'm sure I only get nice visitors you never know. bbl

Next months project

For those who didnt see it this is the project for Septembers playday, an advent calender. It's roughly 6" cubed and when finished will have an easel card on the top.

Takes a whopping amount of card to make, at least 20 a4 sheets of base card and some scraps to decorate. I've used the waste from last years xmas cards (marina mist card stock, see it pays to save the bits lol).

Images are from the delightful decorations and contempo xmas stamp sets and stamped with marina mist on to whisper white before using the coordinating bauble punch. Numbers are from a retired spellbinders die and before anyone asks no I'm not bloomin diecutting any more... you can all do your own :op There were times when I was cutting all the 1s that I thought I was loosing the will to live!! For one time only peeloffs will be permitted at playday ;o)

I was right lol

I knew I'd end up cannabalising the card I wasnt happy with a few days ago and I was right to do so, well I think so.

I very carefully took the card apart and cut the castle & pots away using a sharp scalpel. The mermaid thankfully came away without any damage. The base is a stair card which I cut with scal from lilac and white card. The white was distressed with bundled sage and tumbled glass ink before stamping the lavinia fronds randomly around the edges. LOTV sentiment punched out with a SU circle punch and matted with the scalloped circle punch. The lil fish charm has had a thread sewn with some crystal beads before being attached to a sparkly ribbon bow. The card is for our youngest (and best behaved) member at the monthly playday who celebrates her birthday later this month.

Fun in the sun

The theme this week on Kenny K's Krafty Girlz challenge in fun in the sun and this was just the nudge I needed into using this fabby icecream girl image.

I've used copics to colour her and she's matted on to one of my shapes cut with scal. Background papers are from dcwv, either dressed up or rockstar. The pic doesnt show it but there's loads of silver & glitter in the paper. The narrow trellis band is a deep lattice punch from martha stewart which has had the scallops sliced off. Sentiment & matching scallop square punch from SU. Wild orchid flowers, 2 crystal hat pins from creative expressions although I have pinflair glue gelled some beads to the bottom of the pins to hide the point.

One of those cards

After having one of those cards that just comes together sooo well I should have known the next one would be a total disaster.

I bought some new stamps from chocolate baroque and decided I wanted to make an aperature and back it with some caught in crystal acetate. Acetate made, check looked good. Stamped and aperature cut, add a watercolour wash.. check. So far so good and everything was working well... so stuck it all down and in a moments madness decided I wanted to darken the wash. Just one of those moments that you wish you'd stuck to the knowing it was enough, wash was too dark for the caught in crystal so off comes the acetate, grrrrrrrrrr. Next bright idea... stick some of the black pearl underneath instead but add a wavy embossed pattern. Looked ok so I stuck it down well with tombow. Then realised the oval is too big to carry a dark inner and the wash is looking a bit plain. Add in some starfish and shells... still needs something.. I know weeds hanging down.. now where did I put those stamps?? Havent got the foggiest where the weed stamps went to so I was left having to use Lavinia hanging vines.. too late to stamp directly on the card so I had to stamp them on seperate watercolour paper and cut them with a scalpel! Add in some peeloff borders and it's STILL missing something lol. Hopefully someone at playday will have some tiny fish stamps ;o) I'm not happy with it so don't be surprised if it gets butchered and appears as something else lol.

Wash, background, shells & starfish painted with distress & su inks. Mermaid painted with cosmic shimmer drawing ink although used tattered rose distress ink for skin. Hints of daler & rowney shimmery blueacrylic artists ink (interference rather than solid colour) with bubbles made with crystal effects.

playing with browns

Bit of a hodgepodge of reasons for this one.. hubby had a clear out a few days ago and there were 3 fabby cream brocade buttons that just had to be snipped off before the waistcoat went to the recycling. Those ribbons got me thinking.. I've never done an image card in nothing but my favourite brown tones so there was 2 things I wanted to do with it. Then on KennyKs challenge blog the theme is pocket cards and I havent really done one of those either. Next came a thread on one of the forums about feeling guilty about buying stash.. well I'd just sorted out my markers and had a pang of guilt of having a full set of polychromos that have been used so rarely I've not even needed to sharpen the flesh tones. So here we have it.

Kenny K image coloured with just about every brown, yellow ochres and orange polychromo there is. My own nested shape cut with scal, vanilla grosgrain ribbon and ornament stamp & retired papers from SU. MS & SU punches, and flowers from wild orchid.

I'm entering this one in to

Kenny K Crafty Girlz - pocket card
Truly Scrumptious - buttons and bows
Totally Gorjuss - punches or dies
DYSU Challenge - yellow, orange and brown
PixiedustChallenge - monochromatic card in favourite colour.
paperpretties - no markers