Lucky!

I was one of the lucky people to win a prize in the raffle when I attended a Stampin' Up workshop recently - a handy set of floral stamps which I'm sure will come in for lots of different cards when I have more of a play.  They are clear polymer stamps and require multi-stamping for effect although of course you could just stamp the outline image and colour in the usual way.  I cut a square of white card slightly smaller than a card blank and die cut a section in one corner, backing this with paper to match the colours of the stamping.  Unfortunately my scanner has 'translated' the colours so that they appear different but they are a much better match in real life - sigh!!  I then used the Misti to position the various stamps to colour the lavender, leaves and ribbon; also it came in handy for placement of the sentiment as well.  Finally sponged lavender ink around edges of panel and popped it onto the card blank.

Stamp Set - Lots of Lavender from Stampin' Up
Sentiment - freebie stamp with magazine
Die - Mixed Media die set by Tim Holtz for Sizzix

Nouveau Poppies

I have another parchment card to share which I made yesterday based on what I could remember from watching the clever Tina Cox on the recent Clarity  Hochanda show but using a different plate for the main part of the design.  The shows were based on the pierced borders to highlight two new books and of course some new floral and butterfly plates.   I used three borders across the piece with some flowers and dragonfly in the top section.  There was some cutting involved and the image was coloured from behind using watercolour markers.

Flowers - taken from Nouveau Poppies plate
Dragonfly - taken from Tina's flowers and butterflies
Borders - straight and diagonal pierced borders plates

Groovi Parchment

I caught up with a couple of Groovi shows on Hochanda yesterday evening which of course reminded me that it is about time that I spent some more time on this parchment technique - more hours needed in each day!!  However I have a few cards which I made a while ago and here is one of them to share with you today.  What I particularly like about the Groovi system is the way that so many designs can be worked by taking elements from several plates and combining them. 

We've been promised lovely weather for the Bank Holiday weekend although it is off to a slow start this morning with fairly thick mist which I'm hoping is heat haze!  I hope you all have a good break whatever you have planned and hopefully the sun will be shining for us all.

Elements taken from Tina's flowers and butterflies plates
Sentiment uses various letters and tiny tags from one of the plate mates
Nested squares used for border, infilled with elements from a plate mate
Border embossed using a Border  design plate
Coloured using pencils

Inky Technique

Despite having  a large number of TV channels available nowadays there are often evenings when I can find nothing which I'd like to watch so I often resort to the laptop and either Pinterest or YouTube.  This card is more or less CASE'd from a YouTube video in which a square acrylic block was used to produce an inky background - these backgrounds are quite unpredictable and certainly cannot be replicated exactly another time but great fun nonetheless!  As I don't have a square block I die cut a mask from paper and printed through the 'hole'.  First of all a couple of colours of ink pad are selected and applied to the block as you think best, spritz lightly with water and then print onto your chosen piece of white card.  My piece of card was slightly smaller than a 6" card blank but with hindsight could have been a bit smaller so that I could have added a toning coloured layer behind.  Once this ink was dry I used the Misti to stamp a sentiment, the tree and a flight of birds before using a square die slightly smaller than the inked square to cut out the centre.  The white layer was adhered direct to the base card and the cut out square inserted into the square 'hole' using foam pads to raise it up.  The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted the small area behind the birds where some of the ink leaked outside the makeshift paper stencil but I decided that just added to the interest and unpredictability of this great technique (that's my story anyway!!).  I can think of quite a few stamps which would work well using this technique.

Stamp - Sheltering Tree from Stampin' Up
Sentiment - from the same stamp set
Birds - from High Tide stamp set Stampin' Up

Workshop

On Saturday I attended a great Stampin' Up workshop organised by the lovely Jill.   We received a stamp set with four small ink pads and a very comprehensive set of instructions for no less than eleven projects ranging from small boxes to cards, all using the same stamp set.  This is a good way of getting to know various ways in which stamps can be used to good effect and I came away with lots of ideas.  I managed to get most of the projects done on the day but this is one of them which I decided to finish at home having thought I'd like to emboss the top layer of white.  There are two layers of white card and a 'gap' is cut into one of the layers and the flowers are stamped onto the bottom layer filling the 'gap'.  Another flower and some leaves were stamped and fussy cut to add once the card was assembled.  Sentiment was stamped before embossing the top layer.  I expect you will be seeing some of the other projects at some point so watch this space!

The original idea for this 'split' card apparently came from Old Stables Crafts where I imagine you can find how it was made.  I'm certainly aiming to check out this link when I have some time to spare.

Stamps -  Painted Harvest Stampin' Up
Colours - Daffodill, Pumpkin Pie, Crumb Cake and two greens for leaves

Pixie Snippets challenge #325

It is time to visit the Playground again for the fortnightly challenge and this time I'm taking along a card made to fill a gap in the Anniversary section of my box.  I've used a set of dies which also has a matching embossing folder and some stamps and apart from the base card and a piece of patterned paper everything else uses snippets of card in toning colours.  The embossed panel was cut from some card which has a 'whitewash' effect on one side and a darker plain colour on the reverse and once embossed it was sanded lightly to emphasise the design.  Some snippets of cream pearl card also came into use for some of the hearts and the banner. One of the stamps was used on the centre heart and three of the tiniest hearts were scattered onto the background.  Die cut words onto a cream banner and that's it, a simple anniversary card.

 As always there is a great prize on offer this fortnight and Di has made a card to showcase this and again there are the usual helpful hints on how it could be used - well worth popping along to take a look and maybe making something using up some of your own snippets. 

Dies and Embossing Folder - Tonic

Banner - Sue Wilson Die

Wording - Crafter's Companion dies

New Home

No, I'm not moving - reckon I have far too much 'stuff' for that to be straightforward!!  I was sorting out my box of cards and realised there were a few gaps which needed filling so for now I'm concentrating on those categories rather than making loads of birthday cards.  This new Home card gave me an opportunity to make use of a die and stamp set which came free with a recent magazine.  Since we lost the bus service which  I used regularly I don't get to the larger newsagent so often which means I miss out on the temptation to pick up magazines with freebies but I'm pleased I didn't miss this one.  The house was cut using the die supplied and then I drew lightly in pencil through the windows onto a scrap of cream card so that I could then use some of the stamps to add curtains and blinds to make the house appear lived in.  The railings behind the house, the little cat sitting on the grass and of course the sentiment were all included, along with others, in the stamp set.  The tree was cut using another die which I've had for a while and wasn't part of the set although there is a tree stamp which could be used another time.

Circle - Sizzix die
Tree - Sizzix die
House and stamped details - using free set of die and stamps from magazine
Sentiment - using punch from Stampin' Up