Clean and Simple

You may have noticed that I rarely produce a CAS (clean and simple) card, the main reason being that there is simply nowhere to hide with this style and I'm not best at keeping finger marks or inky splodges which ought not to be there from 'arriving' in the wrong place.  However I spotted something like this card on Pinterest and decided to have a go - this is the result.  I should confess that I did actually get a smudge on the plain background but thankfully it was very near the edge so my square could be trimmed down a bit before assembling the card. I'm not sure I could have achieved this result without using a stamp positioning gizmo to line everything up on the layers - mind you I had to think about it carefully to decide the order of stamping (feeling like a 'bear of little brain' today - see below!)

I'm surprised actually that I managed this because I'm feeling decidedly weary today after being kept awake by a lengthy thunder storm in the night - not too many crashes and bangs but flashes galore and of course heavy rain.  I eventually decided to get up rather than lie there trying to get back to sleep and I was having my breakfast at just after 5am so today has been a long day and it is still only mid afternoon ... yawn!!

Stamps - from Sheltering Tree set Stampin' Up
Misti stamp positioning tool - so useful!

Male Cards

I know many people struggle to make cards for men - I don't mind doing them because I have lots of suitable stamps in my collection but I often find that I've been making a run of more feminine cards so I've produced a few male themed ones to balance things out a bit.  This is one of them and I've used a motorbike  which was part of a set of transport stamps which I've had for longer than I care to remember (the company is no longer in business). I found a piece of striped paper in my stash, stamped the image onto watercolour paper and sponged the edges.  A scrap of black card was embossed and highlighted with gilding wax - sentiment added on a banner and that's it -  a relatively simple male card.

Image - from set of transport stamps by Tanda
Embossing Folder - Tim Holtz
Sentiment - Tim Holtz

Honey Bees

While looking through some of my dies I came across one which I've had quite a while but in fact it has never been used - how bad is that??  I'd been playing around with Pixie Powders yet again and one of the pieces I'd done was a lovely yellow so I've combined this with an embossing folder, the neglected die and some stamps - I also used some smaller hexagon dies too.  The background was embossed using a hexagon folder, cut to fit a card and then the edges were sponged with Wild Honey Distress ink.  The hexagon panel was cut from kraft card; the wooden beehive was stamped, coloured using pencils and then cut out with scissors.  I thought that I must have a bee stamp somewhere and sure enough after a search I came across a set of stamps which has bees in more than one size - I've used two sizes here.  Of course having used items from various die and stamp sets I now have some tidying away to do but it was fun coming up with a way to use the neglected die.  Details of everything used are below as usual.

Kraft Card layer - Hexagon Hive die Stampin' Up (possibly discontinued)
Yellow Layer - Mango Pixie powders, embossing folder from Embossalicious
Wooden Hive - Apple Blossom Stamps Honeybee Haven
Sentiment - stamp from same set on a Sue Wilson stitched banner
Flower - stray one which was lying around
Small Hexagons - Crafter's Companion Diamond Press dies
Bees - from Chocolate Baroque stamp set

Butterfly Challenge 79

There is a new challenge for the month over on the Butterfly Blog and they are asking for 'Layers and/or Cream'.  It so happened that I was playing around with ideas this morning for using some cream pearl and coppery pearl card with embossing folders  so when I spotted this theme I immediately decided that I'd add a butterfly into the mix.  I used two different embossing folders one of which was a magazine freebie and also some dies which happen to match the shape in the centre.  I just needed to die cut and emboss a butterfly, add a sentiment and that's it - seven layers!  Do pop over to take a look at the ideas for butterflies and layers - some lovely inspiration as always.

Embossing Folders - base layer Creative Expressions (I think)
Cream Square - free embossing folder with a magazine
Shaped square layers - Crafter's Companion dies
Butterfly - Spellbinders die and tiny punched one using X-cut punch
Sentiment - printed on computer punched with Stampin' Up punches
Card - Centura Pearl from Crafter's Companion

Distress Oxide Ink

I spotted an interesting technique for stamping with the Distress Oxide ink pads and decided to have a go using some three-step clear stamps.  I wasn't sure how (or even if) it was going to work so I started small with a single flower head, a stem and a couple of leaves and because of all the wetting required I used heavy watercolour paper.  The first stage was to choose the colours going from light to dark, stamping the base layer of the flower with the lightest, spritzing with water to let the ink bleed a little before drying with a heat gun.  The same layer was then stamped over the top with the second colour, spritzed and dried again.  Next came the second layer of the flower, again with the medium shade, again spritzed and dried - followed again with the second layer stamp again but this time with the darkest colour, spritzed and dried with a final coloured stamping without spritzing - phew!!  The final thing was to stamp the outline of the flower with black ink, masked the flower and stamped the stem.  I then repeated the multi stamping, spritzing and drying with the leaves - hopefully you are still with me here.

I was pleased with the result so die cut the piece, layered it up and added some toning elements for the finished card.  This is a technique which I will be repeating with other multi-layer stamps and maybe I'll get beyond a single flower - a bit time consuming but worth it I thought for something a bit different.

Distress Oxide Colours - Fossilised Amber, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick
Stamp - from Penned and Painted by Stampin' Up
Die Cut Border - Sue Wilson die
Circles - Spellbinders and Tattered lace dies

Snippets Turned into More Snippets!

It is time for the fortnightly visit to the Pixie Snippets Playground again and this time I've actually gathered together some snippets and cut them into even smaller snippets!!  You might have guessed by now that I'm very fond of using the Pixie Powders for backgrounds and usually work on fairly large pieces of watercolour paper which I cut down as required until pretty well every scrap is used.The diagonal die was used to cut a purple layer and I then used the interior part to cut a piece of the 'pixied' paper, carefully saving all the little strips, chevrons and triangles.  The purple piece was put onto a background before popping all the coloured bits into the spaces - some would say I'm mad to fiddle with this I'm sure!!  The sentiment was stamped onto yet another snippet of the background paper and cut along with a purple layer using banner dies.  I'm also trying to use up the tail ends of lots of 6" paper pads and luckily this piece was just the right colour.  Finally a layered flower was die cut and apart from some really tiny pieces I've used all the Pixie paper with these colours.  Time for another sprinkling/spritzing session I think!

Do take a look to see what Di has made to inspire us and as usual she has given several tips on the best way to put the card elements together for a good result.

Main Die - Diagonal Chevron from Spellbinders
Banners - Sue Wilson dies
Flower - Sizzix die and Stampin' Up flower punches

Back Again!

Two posts in one day  - whatever next?

Just when I'd decided I seriously didn't NEED any more crafty stash someone comes along with more temptation in the shape of some gorgeous 3D embossing folders and yes, you've guessed it I just had to have a couple of them.  They arrived on my doormat this afternoon and naturally I just had to have a very quick play and have produced this very simple, quick and easy card although I'm sure more elaborate cards will be coming along in due course.  Lots of potential here for gilding, sponging, brushing and so on.

I simply embossed some black card and rubbed over with gilding wax before putting the whole piece onto a 5 x 7 kraft card.  More black and kraft card was used to die cut a fancy shape and stamp a sentiment and that's it!

3D embossing folder - Country Garden from Crafter's Companion
Pebeo Empire gold gilding wax
Sue Wilson die - Frames and Tags, Zoe