Sparkle the Dark Up!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "for the love of sparkle".  I've been getting quite into the Christmas spirit with this one - all those cosy thoughts of snuggling up to a log fire and watching the snow sparkle in the light outside.  Of course, I don't actually have a log fire and I'm much more likely to be digging my car out of the snow than sitting back and watching it sparkle, but that's hardly the point!  It's so magical to be out in a thick snow fall, watching the flakes slowly fall to the ground where they twinkle and sparkle - roll on December!

I've used this theme as an excuse to make a start on my holiday cards (I just hope that the next one I make isn't in a rush on Christmas Eve, lol).  I stamped the snowflake 4 times with Versamark watermark ink to create a resist on the background and then applied Distress Inks in various shades of blue over the top.

The main snowflake was stamped with black archival ink and then filled with a white paint pen.  I used the same technique on the "merry" panel, using the white pen and a grey Promarker to highlight the lettering.  Both panels were mounted on white card that had been lightly inked in blue and the card was assembled.

Oh, and "Sparkle the dark up"?  A line from my favourite Christmas song, "December will be magic again" by Kate Bush!

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!

Famous for 15 Minutes

 

This weeks theme on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Anything Goes", so why not get creative and give this week's challenge a try?

My piece this week was inspired to some extent by the work of Andy Warhol, particularly his images in the style of this one of Marilyn Monroe. Needless to say mine is a little more grungy than his very graphic style! :)  Oh, that's also why I paraphrased his quote "in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" as the title!

The two panels on the left use tissue tape as background, both taken from the Commute pack.  The lower background was coloured with distress inks applied with an ink blending tool and you can see that the colour is very subtle, tissue tape doesn't hold much colour that way.  The top panel was coloured with a distress marker which was then wiped with a wet wipe and you can see that much more of the colour has stayed visible.

The two panels on the right were stamped with Versamark ink and images from the new Tim Holtz set "Mixed Media".  I dried them with a heat gun and then applied distress inks on top, which is resisted by the Versamark, giving a ghosted image of the stamp.

Moving in a clockwise circle from top left, the men (Wendy Vecchi's stamp "Well Dressed") were coloured as follows:

1. Distress stains, which I didn't dry between colours, so that they would run together.
2. Uncoloured, with added white star brads.
3. Stamped in black then over stamped in red and yellow, offsetting the image each time.
4. Stamped and coloured with promarkers.

I think that of all the pieces I've made in recent weeks this one is by far my favourite - I hope you feel the same way too! :)

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Birthday Sneakers

 

I thought I'd have another bit of a go with the sewing machine on this card.  I have to admit, I'm quite liking this sewing malarky so far ;)  Add to that, it features my favourite stamp of all time, and I was quite the happy bunny making this! :)

Just the ticket!

This weeks theme on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "tickets". I really love the vintage photos that feature in Tim Holtz's Lost and Found paper stack, so used some of them on this card.

I also tried the versamark shabby resist technique on two of the panels.  I stamped the ornate border with clear versamark ink and dried it with my heat gun.  I then applied distress ink over the top of it, and it gave a white resisit where the image had been stamped.  More subtle than regular stamp-emboss resist techniques, but very effective!  Really great to be able to use the ticket paper in two different scales on the same card too, I love how it looks.  Plus I got busy with the sewing machine, I think I threw everything at this card! lol


Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)