Gingersnap Creations - "Ginger/Copper/Rust" Challenge

"Ginger/Copper/Rust" is the theme over on the Gingersnap Creations blog this week. This also marks my last project for the design team. It's been a fun (though crazy) time, with "life" getting in the way for a while, during which time I had to step down from the team for a spell. I'm so grateful that they were kind enough to give me that time when other priorities took me away from crafting temporarily!

This card has copper stars, a copper tab and brads and rusty colours so I think it qualifies! :)

I want to take this opportunity to wish the team every success for the future and hope that the team members, both new and old, have a great next 6 months! Why not pop over to the GC blog to see how the DT members have interpreted the challenge - go on, you know you want to! :)

A Crown of Buttons

"Crowns" is the theme over on the Gingersnap Creations blog this week. I had planned to go a bit wild with the colours on this card, including giving the girl green hair, but it's actually come out sort of blonde - I guess you can't win 'em all! LOL Still, not my usual colour choices, and it was fun to do because of that :)

Pop over to the GC blog to see how the other DT members have interpreted the challenge - go on, you know you want to! :)

Queen for a Day!

Kings and Queens is the theme over on the Gingersnap Creations blog this week. The crown is one of my designs cut on the Cricut, and this stamp is a favourite of mine, from Paperbag Studios! Colour came courtesy of Letraset Promarkers. I had a lot of fun making this card! :)

Pop over to the GC blog to see how the other DT members have interpreted the challenge - go on, you know you want to! :)

Snow, Pine & Mahogany...

... is the theme over on the Gingersnap Creations blog this week. I used white acrylic paint and aged mahogany & pine needles distress inks to get me in the right colour zone on this tag.

I had just gotten these new stamps from Stampotique a day or so earlier and was keen to try them out! Add to that a bit of experimentation with a range of white pens to see which I liked best (not tried the Sakura Souffle yet, so the jury is still out!) and lots of doodling, scratching, scuffing and messing about, and this is what you get! :)

I discovered during the course of making this tag that if you use a heat gun to speed up the drying of a Sakura white glaze pen you only have a second or so to turn off the heat before the glaze turns transparent! I used that effect to write a lot of text on this tag which I then made transparent, so it can only be read by moving the tag around until that the clear glaze catches the light. (Interesting for those who actually have the tag in their hands, but perhaps not so much for you, dear reader!)

Pop over to the GC blog to see how the other DT members have interpreted the challenge - go on, you know you want to! :)

Neutrals and 1 Bold...

... is the theme over on the Gingersnap Creations blog this week. I enjoyed making last weeks inchie card so much I decided to do another, but this time stepping even further outside of my normal style to make it as stripped-down and simple as I could!

September is birthday month for many of my family, so this card is definitely going to find an owner sooner rather than later. A grid of inchie stamps using Memento Tuxedo Black were then coloured with putty, almond and berry red Promarkers. I did say it was simple - perfect though for those times when you need a card in a hurry! :)

Pop over to the GC blog to see how the other DT members have interpreted the challenge - go on, you know you want to! :)

Inchies Halloween Card

Over on the Gingersnap Creations blog there's a new challenge starting today - the theme is "inchies".

I decided to step outside my comfort zone for this challenge, and tried to make something clean and spare, not my usual style at all!

The inchies were stamped with Tim Holtz stamps and the background coloured with a "pumpkin" Promarker. They were then mounted onto a square of orange card and fixed to the card front.

Not much else to say about it really, other than I hope you like it! Why not pop over to the GC blog to see how the other design team members have interpreted the challenge? :)

Go 3d!

The theme over on Gingersnap Creations this week is "Go 3d". For my entry to the challenge, I decided to make this trio of beach huts (goodness knows, we haven't had much of a summer here in the UK, so anything summery by way of home decor items can only help to brighten things up!). I wanted to acheive that washed-out , sun-bleached feel, so I used Weathered Wood, Antique Linen and Milled Lavender Distress ink pads. The stamps were from Tim Holtz's Tiny Textures and Floral Tattoo sets.

The huts were cut from white cardstock on the Cricut, and then stamped and assembled. Not quite my normal style here, I was trying to go a little outside of my comfort zone and aimed for something fresh and spare in style. Thanks for taking a look, why not check out the other entries on the Gingersnap Creations blog?

Gingersnap Creations Challenge: Quotes

A new challenge has started on the Gingersnap Creations Blog today and the theme is Quotes.

I chose to quote some lines from the Rolling Stones song "Ruby Tuesday". I'm not much of a Stones fan to be honest, but I really love the Melanie version of this song, and listened to it on repeat while I worked on this :) (You can hear it here if you're interested).

The text around the edge of the tag and the notepaper were computer generated (the notepaper having been stamped first with a TH stamp and then scanned into the computer). "Ruby" is one of my favourite stamps in my collection, a PaperArtsy image that I come back to time and again. She was stamped with a black Memento ink pad then coloured with Promarkers. The background was Promarker'd, distress inked and stamped with a TH scratches stamp. The notepaper was stamped with TH's small coffee cups and my handy fingerprint "stamp" :)

Check out the Gingersnap Creations blog to see the fun ways in which the other Design Team members have interpreted the theme! Go on, you know you want to! :)

Gingersnap Creations Challenge: Pencils

A new challenge has started on the Gingersnap Creations Blog today and the theme is Pencils.

Immediately I thought of that expression "I've seen more fat on a butcher's pencil" (I know, I know! Let's not get started on how my mind works!). Lost Coast Designs came up trumps for this piece, as both the pencils and the 3 waiters (who I turned into butchers) came from their collection. The text was computer printed, the brad was not :)

The pencils were stamped first, then masked off while I stamped the 3 butchers. The aprons were cut from white card, coloured and glued onto the tag. The pencils and background were coloured with promarkers and the tag was lightly edged with Fired Brick distress ink.

Check out the Gingersnap Creations blog to see the fun ways in which the other Design Team members have interpreted the theme! :)

Gingersnap Creations Challenge: Kraft

Another great challenge over at Gingersnap Creations today, this time a colour theme, "kraft". I used a kraft paper covered notebook as my base. I stamped and masked with Momento black ink and then used pastel shades of promarker to pick out some of the details. Why not pop over to their blog to see how the design team have interpreted the challenge? Go on, you know you want to! :)

Gingersnap Creations Challenge: Found Objects

The theme of the new challenge on the Gingersnap Creations Challenge blog is "found objects", and this is my entry. Why not pop over to their blog and see how the other Design Team members have tackled this theme? :)

The found object on this is the bottle cap. Stamps are by Tim Holtz, Darkroom Door, Crafty Individuals and U.N.Known :)

Colour is courtesy of distress ink pads and promarkers, stamping used Memento black, Archival black and Archival sepia.

The photobooth pics are by Darkroom Door, and were torn, sanded and inked until they looked like they had been .... er... torn, sanded and inked :)

The screws are not real ones, they just look like they are, they're actually snaps!

The French sheet is actually a rubber stamp of an old shoe bill. It was stamped with black Archival and then I tapped a Brushed Corduroy distress ink pad onto my craft sheet and spritzed very generously with water. The sheet was then laid in the puddle and dried with a heat gun. The edges of the whole thing were sanded and distressed with more Brushed Cordury.

As ever click on the image for a larger view :)

Keep out of reach of children

When I accepted the invitation to join the Design Team at Gingersnap Creations, I was asked to make something using gingery colours to accompany the DT announcement. This scary (at least I hope it's scary, I meant it to be!) Jack-in-the-box was the result. I notice that other team members have now started to blog their pieces, so here's mine! :)

The body, hands, collar parts, box and winding handle were all designed on computer and then cut on the Cricut using SCAL. The head, "cirque" and harlequin diamonds were Tim Holtz stamps. The spring was a length of Bind-it-all wire, the hinges were originally brass and I coloured them with promarkers.

As ever, click on the image for a larger view! :)