Sunday Stamper week 212

No I'm not a day early with this but hopefully just getting in by the skin of my teeth for last Sunday's challenge which had the theme of  SILVER DREAM MACHINE.  I've been mulling this over during the week and have only just managed to find time to bring the ideas together although mine is maybe more of a SILVER TIME MACHINE but there are some bicycles in the background!!  Background paper and the clock stamp are from Papermania, the wings and dandelion 'clock' are stamps from Chocolate Baroque Steampunk romance set.  Edges were sponged with Distress ink Weathered Wood.  I stuck some aluminium foil to a piece of card and embossed with a Sizzix folder then distressed it with black gesso, printed the words onto Dymo silver tape and that's it.  I will be looking out for the new challenge tomorrow and maybe I'll get that done with a bit more time to spare, especially if the weekend weather stays as wet and windy as it is at the moment.

Twinchies

What are 'twinchies' you may ask and if you pop over to this new challenge blog all will be explained!  At the moment I'm not convinced these are for me because I've always found ATCs a bit restrictive and they are larger (3.5 x 2.5 inches) than the 2" square twinchies but nothing daunted I've had a go for this very first challenge with the easy theme of 'anything goes' - in fact I've had two goes.  The first was another Zentangle which  as a newcomer to this technique was a bit difficult because the official Zentangle tiles are 3.5 inches so I had to scale down but I have managed a far from perfect example.

The second one is actually the promised 'slosh around with inks' which will fit the Make My Monday primary colours theme - as you can probably guess the weather just got wetter and wetter yesterday so no way I'd be out weeding. It is also looking very dull and dark outside this morning so maybe more 'playtime' is on the cards (excuse the pun). I used Distress inks and Distress stains to colour some card, cut out a two inch square and stamped some foliage with a Papermania stamp, finally adding some butterflies die cut with a Sizzix (for Stampin' Up) die.  At least I think this one will make a nice 'topper' for a card.

I hope you will take a look at what the Design Team have come up with for their twinchies and also follow this link to Eileen's blog to see some more.

Make My Monday Challenge

On the Make My Monday blog we are into a new month with a new set of challenge themes and for this first one they are asking for something made using the primaries of red, yellow and blue.

I decided I'd use my Bright Blossoms stamp set which was given to us at the recent SU Extravaganza day and some of the elements have been cut out and layered. Nestabilities dies in various sizes and a Marianne die (all cut from scraps of course) have been used along with a bit of ribbon and a computer sentiment.  Backing paper is also an odd piece of SU paper from my stash but now the card is completed I'm not at all sure  of the overall effect. I think it would maybe have been better with a less busy backing paper but at least it meets the brief in being mainly in red, yellow and blue.  I might decide to slosh a few inks about and make an entirely different card using the same colours unless the rain stops in which case I will be out in trhe garden trying to tackle the over abundance of grass and weeds.

Zentangles

I think most people doodle from time to time and I do too but I've been interested in Zentangles for a while so decided to have a quick go over the long bank holiday weekend early in June just by grabbing a fine liner pen and sketchbook without reference to any of the amazing designs which are available online and in books.  Since then I've been idling away some time now and again browsing around websites and think I might well get into this a bit more.  I was interested to see a reference to free machine quilting patterns and - silly me - I'd not made the connection but there are definitely similarities so maybe a bit of zentangling on paper will help me with my free quiting too.  This is what I did 'off the top of my head'.

The Day Needs Brightening

Well it has been a really dull grey day so far with rain and more rain so I thought I'd post this sunshine-colour card which I made recently from some of my 'bits and pieces' in the oddments boxes.  Image and matching backing paper were from a Joanna Sheen CD and the other pieces were also scraps.  An X-cut punch was used for the border.

Simply Stampin' Challenge week 66

The team at Simply Stampin' this week are asking for a CLEAN AND SIMPLE card which is a bit outside my comfort zone but always willing to have a go I've come up with this.  I've used the label shape from Everything Eleanor, words from Happiest Birthday Wishes and a flower from the Mixed Bunch set with a couple of petals removed and hey presto a butterfly!! The colours used came about because I'd not put away the ink pads from my previous projects - something I must do shortly so that I actually have space in which to work later. In fact once I'd decided what I was going to do this one didn't take too long to make and for once I managed not to get any inky smudges on that huge amount (for me) of white space.