Not a house of cards...

...but a couple of notelet cards featuring houses!

The card on the left features some of the new clear stamps from Prima. This set is the music themed collection. The cherub was stamped first, then masked. The background was Tim Holtz distress ink pads blended onto the house using cut'n'dry foam. Finally, the clock image was stamped using Walnut Stain distress pad.

The card on the right is by far the simpler of the two. Distress inks were blended on the house and then the Tim Holtz swirls were stamped on top with Walnut Stain ink.

Both houses are of my own design, and cut out using the Cricut and the Sure Cuts a Lot software. I hope you like em! Click on an image for a larger view :o)

1 - 20 Somebodyelse's Street

Well, I've received the 20 houses I was due in the "Little Boxes" swap. Aren't they great? Thanks so much to all the talented artists who made them! :) Click on the image to see a larger view.

20 & 21 Dan Street

... and that's the last of them! All houses now sent to the swap orgainiser, and receipt has been acknowledged (yay!). Now all I have to do is wait patiently for some of the wonderful creations I've seen in the swap gallery to start winging their way to me! Many thanks to Sarah (aka Flo) for organising this swap so well, the addition of a gallery and dedicated chat site really made the whole thing a pleasurable experience!!

What will I do now, with no new houses to build? I have several ideas bubbling on the stove, so watch this space! :)

18 & 19 Dan Street

Phew!! Houses # 18 and 19 finally finished... only got 20 and 21 to go! This has become a more major undertaking than climbing Mount Everest!!! I'm absolutely exhausted from making all these houses!! Who would ever have thought that it could be so completely physically draining???

Of course, those among you with your fingers on the pulse will know that the previous paragraph is just a pathetic pretense. I have actually finished ALL of the houses already, and they were ALL sent off to the swap organiser on Wednesday!! AND they were a joy to make! You wouldn't deny me a bit of dramatic artistic license now, would you?

And anyway, my friend Kate, right? You know, Kate that I used to teach with in the college for the deaf all those years ago. Kate! Yes, the one that I used to go to Disney with every year with her and her kids, that one. Well, anyway anyway... Her sister Grania? You know, Grania, the horsey one that lived in Ireland all those years and was the editor of a countryside magazine? Well, anyway, Grania actually HAS climbed Mount Everest (check amazon for Grania Willis if you don't believe me!), and I'm sure she'd say it was harder than making a few houses out of card. But anyway, you're deliberately trying to distract me, you mischevious so-and-so!! I digress...

More stamping, hand painting, ink blending tomfoolery on these houses. You know, the kind of thing that is the bread and butter of this blog! Anyway anyway, I hope you like em! Click on the image for a better view :o)

3 More Ticky-Tackies

3 more of the houses that I've sent off to the Little House swap. I had some fun with these, using some images I've not used before, and a LOT of mask making!! :) Some ink blending, some hand-painting, yada yada yada, you know the drill by now :) Oh, and the shapes were cut out from SCAL, on the Cricut.

I hope you like em, click on the image for a larger view! :o)

So good, they named it twice!

EDIT: I've just realised that "holiday" was meant in the halloween/christmas/USA type of sense, not in the "vacation" sense as we use it here in England, so my effort might seem a little strange to some, lol. Ah well, these differences make life interesting!!

This is my entry for the Theme Thursday challenge, which this week is "favorite holiday".

The holiday I have referred to in the creation of this piece is one that I took in 1994, to New York and San Francisco. My best friend was terminally ill at that time, and only had a few months left, and as I'd just collected a heathly redundancy payment from the job I'd had, the timing was perfect for one last big adventure together!

We had a wonderful time, it was a bit like the slogan in that TV ad they have for holidays in the US right now - "You've seen the movie, now visit the set!". It seemed like just around every corner was a diner, or a street, or a bridge or something that we could recall from some movie or other!

We arrived in New York at around 9 pm, and as it was October it was already dark. We set off walking hesitantly from our hotel in Chelsea (on the fringes of the "meatpacking district") down to Times Square (this was in the days before it was all "cleaned up") and we felt certain that we were going to be mugged or shot at any moment!

Ah, look, you got me all distracted then for a minute, with my reminiscing, but that's enough for now! I hope you like the house, click on the image to see a larger version :o)

Dans ma maison il y a ... de la musique

A somewhat late entry for the Dans ma maison challenge!

The house was cut out on the Cricut, then spiced marmalade and dusty concord distress inks were applied with cut'n'dry foam.

The music stamp, from the Artistic Stamper, was applied with black versafine ink. Large eyelets were set in place, and the twill music ribbon, also from the Artistic Stamper was tied in place.

Finally, the roof gable, window and fence were fixed in place.

I hope you like it, click on the image for a larger view! :o)

Dans ma maison, il y a du soleil

I'm a bit late entering this weeks Dans ma maison challenge, but they do say better late than never. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! :o)

The house was cut on the Cricut using a template I created a while back. Stamps were applied using black versafine ink, and the house was then coloured using inks and a paintbrush.

And that's all there is to be said! Fairly straightforward, just like yours truly! I hope you like it, click on the image for a larger (if slightly blurry) view. :o)

Free template Saturday #1!

[EDIT - These files have been enhanced with extra shapes, and are now available again! Email me for details!]

Today is the start of a new feature on my blog. Every Saturday I will upload a free, original template that you can download and use as you wish! Each template will be available for 1 week only - when the new template is made available each week, the old one will be taken down.

There will be 3 versions of each template:

• A printable version that you can import into a program like Word, then print, cut out and use like any other paper template.
• A cuttable version which is in SVG format and can be imported into the Sure Cuts a Lot program and then cut out on your Cricut.
• A DXF version which is Craft Robo friendly, and ready to be imported into your Robomaster software (I'm not a Robo user, so if there are any problems with this, please let me know!)
  

Simply right click on the appropriate button below, and choose "save link..." or "save target..." and save your template!

Any feedback on the templates is more than welcome, and if you have any suggestions for possible future templates you'd like to see, please let me know! If you make anything using one of the templates, please post a link to it here so that others can be inspired by how you've used it!

This weeks template is the one I've used for the wonky houses I've been making lately. Here are two examples, and a picture showing all the parts that are included in the template. Click on an image if you want a larger view.

I hope you like the templates - let me know how you get on! :)

These files may not be uploaded to a group, forum or website for sale or redistribution, or shared among individuals. They are expressly for the personal use of each person that downloads them from this blog.

Templates © dan99crafter@gmail.com 2008

Sun Boy is in the house

Not too much to say about this one. It's another little house for the swap I'm involved in.

The stamp is by Elements, the little sun is by Non Sequitur.

Click on the image to enlarge it, I hope you like it! :o)

STOP PRESS:
My phone and internet service have gone down, and the fault isn't going to be looked at until Tuesday. Luckily I had already uploaded this image to the internet, so a friend has kindly created this post for me. If my service is not resumed tomorrow there will be no post as I am unable to upload images of new work. I hope to be able to see you all here again soon.

Dans ma maison, il y a... la couleur verte

Another week, another great challenge from the Dans ma maison... blog. This week it was "in my house, is the colour green".

I thought I'd try another forest scene, not a million miles away from others I've done in the past, but this time made more interesting by the fact that I limited myself to only using green, black and white in it.

Background is blended distress inks, stamping is black versafine and the moon is white acrylic paint. I hope you like it! :o) Click on the image to enlarge it.

House Tag Challenge

It's Friday again, so it must be time for the Tag You're It challenge!

This week the challenge is called "Our House", so how could I resist, seeing as I was already making houses for a swap I'm in?

Nothing new about this one technique-wise, just lots of the usual masking, ink blending and overstamping.

I hope you like it, click on the image for a larger view! :o)

3 more houses, somewhat on the small side

3 more houses to add to my "estate". I have to say I'm a lot happier with these 3 than I was with the two I posted here last night. I know that some of you have said that there was nothing wrong with last night's offering, but I'm entitled to my opinion, LOL!

Not much more to say about these three really. Also, I should add that I'm not actually home tonight, so this post has been made in advance, and I've used the "schedule" feature to automatically post this in my absence. I hope it works! :o) The smarter ones amongst you will also realise that when I said "I know that some of you said...", I will have egg on my face if no one actually came on here and said that they liked them! LOL I'm keeping my fingers crossed! :o)

I hope you like em, click on the image to get a larger view.

Home is where the art is...

... is a quote we've all heard before, I'm sure, but I couldn't resist it today! :o) I've just joined what I think is going to turn out to be a really fun swap! Each person has to make 21 itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny houses, send them off to the organiser, then gets 20 back from other artists in return.

Each house must be 2.5in wide and can be anywhere between 3 and 6in tall. Apart from that, all rules are off! I think 5 or 6 tiny houses arranged in a line will look awesome in the right frame, I'm really looking forward to seeing what I get sent back - I need more art on my walls! :o)

I thought I'd have a go at just a couple today, to suss out the lay of the land, see if there were any mistakes waiting to pick me to happen to or any problems I hadn't forseen - all that malarky! :)

The right hand house was coloured with distress inks (shabby shutters and broken china), stamped with basic grey and fontwerks flourishes and painted with a waterbrush and fired brick distress pad.

The house on the left uses the batik resist technique. It was stamped with the tree in embossing ink and clear embossed. After the rest of the inking/stamping was finished, I placed some brown paper over the house and ironed it with a hot iron - melting the embossing powder again so that soaked into the brown paper and was removed from the house, leaving a white image behind.

I'm not sure if I'm going to include these two into my swap or not. To be completely frank, I just don't like the one on the right. Those of you that read my blog regularly will know that from time to time I put "mistakes" onto my blog, and this is one of them, lol! I will approach the rest slightly differently I think - I just hadn't really taken on board how small they are, and am a little wiser now! :o) 3 more tomorrow, watch this space.

I hope you like them, click on them to see a larger view!