Just a bit of cardy messing about (again!)

No plan, no aim to this piece, just goofing around with stuff :)  Rather than discard it I stuck it on a 5x5 card, you never know when you might need one! :)

Blings ain't what they used to be!

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "some bling".  Those of you who visit my blog regularly will know that "bling" isn't something that finds itself on my creations with any regularity, so I really had to scratch my head on this one!

Having just taken delivery of the new Distress Stain colours, I was itching to give them an outing, so they played a big part in this piece!

The frame was "lime-washed" with a couple of coats of Picket Fence distress stain then I used an ink blending tool to sponge  Claudine Hellmuth's red, orange and yellow paint through a star stencil I had cut myself from a sheet of acetate.  The centre of each star was blinged up with the addition of an adhesive backed gem.

The figure was stamped and coloured with Promarkers.  The wings from Tim Holtz's Royal Script set were stamped in clear ink and embossed with clear powder.  I used a baby wipe to rub some of Claudine's black paint over the wings and then cut them out and fixed them on the frame with the figure.

The panel in the frame was spritzed with water from a mini-mister and then swiped with Dried Marigold, Fired Brick and Aged Mahogany Distress Stains, to give a blurry, watercolor finish. Finally I applied some black paint down the right hand side.  The stars were sponged in white and pastel yellow paint using the same stencil as earlier, then each one was edged with a white pen, which I rubbed with my finger to blur it before it dried.

And that's about it!  I had great fun making it, and I think the blingy gems really add to it!  Who knows, maybe I'll try to use some a little more regularly in future :)  As ever, if you'd like a closer view, click on the picture!

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! :)

It'll be all white on the night!

My friend Hels has been staying this weekend, and what a lot of fun we've been having! We went down to Art From the Heart today to see Dy (and stock up on some stash - I got some of Dina Wakley's new stamps, love 'em!).

Hels hosts her regular Sunday Stamper Challenge, and asked me to be guest "setter" this week, so I chose "white" as the theme.

I had a play with lots of new stuff on this tag - several of the new Distress Stain colours (including white picket fence, obviously), a couple of Dina's stamps and a couple of new techniques! Why not pop over to Hels' blog to see her piece for the challenge?  She made it while sitting at the desk next to me, and it's a stunner!!  Even better, have a go yourself! :)

A Panel Show

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "a Tim Holtz technique", and I had to think about this one for a while, just because there are so many techniques to choose from!

In the end I went for the Wrinkle-free Distress technique.  If you're not familiar with it, Tim has posted a video on youtube demonstrating it.  It's the 2nd technique in the video.

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! :)

A Night at the Movies!

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "a tag", and I had so much fun making this vintage movie-themed tag!

The green part was white card embossed in one of the Tim Holtz embossing folders from the "Playing Games" set.  I then sprayed with green and blue colorwash sprays, which I diluted with water and applied with a mini mister.  I then took a Wild Honey distress ink pad and applied it directly to the ticket to highlight the raised areas.

The stamps used were from Tim's set "At the Movies".  The popcorn was a bit of precision multi-stamping (which I always love trying - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, lol!).  I started out by inking the stamp with Barn Door distress ink and then used a baby wipe to remove the ink from all but the central circle.  After stamping, I inked the stamp with black Versafine ink and used the baby wipe to remove the ink from the central circle, before stamping again in the same place.  I'm pretty easy-going about this technique and don't mind if the two colours don't quite match up, but surprised myself by getting this one bang in the right place on the first try!  I coloured the background and highlighted parts of the popcorn kernels with promarkers and distressed the edges with Frayed Burlap distress ink, before folding it across one corner and running the ink pad down it to give a dark line.

I used a similar technique on the "sister eileen" movie details, but this time stamped the whole thing with Wild Honey and then restamped the top part again with black ink.  I wasn't as accurate with the positioning on this piece, so if you look carefully you will see wild honey peeping out along the edge of the black lettering.  Things often end up printed like this in real life, so if you try it and that happens, don't worry about it, think of it as extra "character"! :)

Edges were distressed with Frayed Burlap ink, and I added some strips of tissue tape to the left and right edges before I fixed the elements in place.  Finally I added a brown button with some baker's twine, to echo the red in the popcorn ad.

Phew!  These things take much longer to type than they do to create! 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! :)

Hugs and Kisses Card

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "anything goes"!  Which such an open-ended theme there's no excuse for entering this week, so give it a go! :)  My piece for the design team is this card, which (I hope) is bold and very graphic in style, that was my aim anyway!


After stamping with black Versafine ink, it was coloured with distress inks in Barn Door, Wild Honey and Frayed Burlap.  The stamps are from 2 of Tim Holtz's sets, Rockstar and From the Heart, and the main panel was matted onto black card then fixed to the white card front.


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! :)

I've got the blues!

But not in a sad way :)

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "some embossing".  As I've done quite a bit of heat embossing lately, I thought I'd use embossing folders for this one!

I'm going to make a set of these colour-themed boxes to store my Promarkers.  Obviously, this is the one I've made for the blue ones!  I also thought that as the pens would be brightly coloured I wanted to make the holder fairly monochromatic, to balance things out.

The main panels were embossed then spritzed with Denim colorwash spray and Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls spray, before the raised parts were highlighted with a black versafine ink pad.  It was edged with tissue tape and monochrome images from the Artistic Outpost Generation Redux plate were added.

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! :)

Fee, Fie, Faux Stitching!

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "stitches - faux or otherwise".  My piece is very definitely in the "faux" department on this one - needle and thread are not my forte! :)

I cut this purse-shaped favour box from kraft cardstock, on my Cricut, then decorated it with stamped panels and stamped (and hand-drawn) faux stitching.  Finished it off by dying some cheesecloth using Adiriondack ColorWash sprays and using a strip from it to tie a bow closure.

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! :)

A bit like flour!

(Flourish - geddit?)

The theme for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "a flourish".  On my tag I used the flourish from the French Connection Texture Fade set - although it's ATC sized, it can easily be used on larger projects such as this!

All the stamped images are inside panels stamped from the 7 Gypsies Rectangle set, which I've had for a while, but hadn't gotten around to using.  I have a feeling that today's project won't be the last thing I use them on! :)

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! :)

Mmm, ch-ch, mmm, aah!

First of all, 50 bonus points to anyone who gets the reference in the title!  (I'm afraid it also means you're probably over the hill, like me! lol)

Here's another card I made while staying with Hels last weekend.  I've shown it twice cos there was a bit of discussion about which way up it should go.  My favourite is the first way, which is yours?  :)