A Kinda-sorta Self-portrait (ish)

I had so much fun making the tag for yesterdays Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, that I decided to revisit and rework it as a sort of self portrait.

I started out my taking a photo of my hand holding an ink blending tool, and converting it to a black and white pencil sketch in my graphics software. I then printed it out on white card, which I cut down to make a white tag with my hand in one corner. I printed again onto thin paper, and cut the hand out to use as a mask.

I masked off the hand and stamped "Head" by Stampotique (their name for this boy stamp). I also stamped the filmstrip down the side in two sections, first masking off the area where the trail from the ink blending tool was to go.

Next, I masked off the hand, boy and filmstrip and stamped the backgrounds. A bit of Promarkery magic, and bob's yer uncle :) Finally I applied some walnut stain around the edges and put some acetate filmstrip ribbon over the stamped filmstrip sections.

I had a lot of fun doing this :) If you're wondering which is the self-portrait part, the hand or the chubby boy with the enormous head, keep your wonderings to yourself! LOL As ever, click on the image to see a larger view :)

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! :)

Home is where the heart is

Another day, another card. I don't really think of myself as a card-maker, but I seem to have been in the right frame of mind for it lately! I'm not going to say much about it, cos it's late and I need to get to bed! :)

The backing paper (which you can scarcely see) and the text were printed from the computer. The stamping was highlighted with glossy accents, which as I look at it now is glistening and gleaming, so, of course, it's not even visible in the photo! :) As ever, click on the image for a larger view.

Citizen Kane ATC

Another trip down the dimly-lit staircase into the archives, this also hasn't been seen on here before.

Back in the day (you know, in the days of yore), I was on a forum that had an ATC challenge every Friday evening, and one week the theme was "favourite movie". Citizen Kane is one of those movies that always comes top, or near top, of the movie polls, but that no one actually likes. I must be the exception, I LOVE this movie, so it was a clear choice for this project!

I made a triptych ATC (you don't even want to know how much work it took to get those shaped doors to match up with the images on both sides of them!). You can see it closed and open here, along with the sleeve pocket I made to store it in. Obviously, this is another of my pieces before I started stamping! I hope you like :) Click on the image for a more detailed view, comments welcomed!

Halloween colours birthday card

I thought I'd break with my usual style and try a bit of digi-card making. I used papers and accents from shabby princess and 2 peas in a bucket for this, and must say I really enjoyed making it. And my hands were clean at the end of it!! :oD

Click on the picture if you want to see a larger view.