A few of this week's cards .....

A few quicky birthday cards I've made this week:

A few more bits & pieces

Due to the house purchase being imminent I have been trying to finish off some swaps I've signed up for as I know that in a couple of weeks I will have a household painting brush (as against a crafting paintbrush!) permanently fixed to my hand so playtime will be very limited. And, I have no idea when I will get a craft room sorted in the new house.

This card is for a Vase swap on the Oriental Stamp Art group, the stamp is from Joanna Sheen and the background paper is a page from a school text book.

These ATCs were made for a swap on UK Art Swaps with the theme being blue & green. The background is fabric paper, made by sticking various pieces of torn papers, napkins, tissue etc randomly onto a thin cotton background, over-stamping, stitching and then sealing with matte gel medium. After adding the fairy images I added another layer of gel medium and sprinkled some fairy dust on before it dried.

Another one for UK Art Swaps, this time an Autumn postcard. The background was done with distress inks and the leaves were made using a technique I heard about from Hazel at KnitYoga called Drunken Scotch - it uses clear glue and alcohol inks. I tried a couple of different clear glues but the one that worked best for me was Glossy Accents. The large leaf stamp used on both the background and for the large drunken scotch leaf is by Stampers Best.

I had another play with my new stamps from Stampers Best, this time I used Charlie Chaplin, masked him, stamped with the harlequin background stamp from Cherry Pie and layered onto a piece of grey c/s which I ran through the Cuttlebug and then swiped with silver ink.

Now for something totally different - a card for Mum's birthday. This gorgeous stamp is from Chocolate Baroque;  I layered it up, painted with watercolours and added Stickles.

Hollywood Greats

I bought some really great stamps (Hollywood Greats set) from Stampers Best recently and have had fun playing around with them the past couple of days, masking and brayering and getting VERY inky fingers (why do I always do this when we are due to go out to dinner?!). I liked the idea of the layout (although perhaps Betty Grabel should perhaps be standing a bit straighter!), not sure about the bright blue background though - it's Hydrangea Stayzon and I thought at the time it was good to use Stayzon on the glossy CS. I'll definitely be playing around with this a bit more using different inks.

Fun with Fabric Paper

Time's got away from me yet again; that's house-hunting for you, it takes over your life :(.  But, we have now found a house, had our offer accepted and it's all going ahead so I now have to play, play, play in my craft room before it's taken away from me. Who knows how long it will be before I get set up in the new house.

On the Arttechniques group we were challenged to make fabric paper - what fun! It's very messy but very addictive and a great way to use up scraps of this and that (junky bits which I always seem to keep).  Here are photos of my first couple of efforts. This one is quite small (possibly 8" x 6") and I used pictures ripped from a napkin for the main design. The flowers didn't show up well enough for my liking so I stitched around them, added a bit of extra colour and then used a watered down gesso wash to soften the background a bit. I finished it off with 3D Dimensional paints and accent beads.

This one is about 10" x 12" and was done in more autumal shades (the colours don't show at all well in the photo), I added a few skeleton leaves and after adding more layers I stitched around the leaf shapes. I have now used this as the base for covers for a book which I am making pages for on the Oriental Stamp Art group - it still needs a some work but I'm getting there slowly and if I remember I'll add photos of the finished covers!

Catch up time .......

After a slow start I am now going great guns in my craft room  - I decided the best way to start messing  up that pristine room was to have a session making background papers, spraying inks, splashing paints etc. It worked! I've been doing a few cards/ATCs for swaps, a birthday card for MIL, a new baby card to welcome my first great neice into the world and a get well card for an online friends hubby. I'm not too good at doing cute but I gave it a try for the first two below! Scroll down for the ones using the new backgrounds I made.

Mum in Law's birthday card

Card for Ellie

Get well card for Leo's hubby

'Beauties' ATCs

Koi mingle card (Oriental Stamp Art group)

Orange & Black ATC swap - Cherry Pie



Wendy's Challenge

This was to use a virgin stamp from our stash.  I have MANY such stamps so it was hard to choose! Whilst I have used the 'Horizon' stamp (Coronado Island) several times I had not used either 'Fall Lady', also Coronado Island or 'Tide Poem' (Stampmagick) before despite them being 'must have' purchases at the time!

Unfortunately the base card decided to curl a little whilst I was trying to photograph it; it is straight really!

My new craft room ........

Well, here we are, new house (temporarily) and new craft room. This one definitely has lots of pro's such as its size and the fact it has lots of natural light and a sink but, there are cons too. Being rented on a short term let means we can't do ANYTHING here, so putting up shelving is a 'no-no'. I have things stacked high and every wall has a bookcase or similar against it - I am thinking I may have to have some back-to-back bookcases in the middle of the room but I'd rather not.  I do seem to have a LOT of UM's, that's them in the little plastic takeaway tubs! In fact, I think I have a lot of most things!! I still have 4 boxes to unpack .........

Row Houses

I signed up for a swap to make 5 row houses not really knowing what they were or what I was going to do.  They were great fun to make - I dug out some backgrounds I had in the draw full of 'precious papers' and went from there. Oh yes, they all had to include a button - that was the taxing bit!

OK, so you have to turn your head sideways to see this one. On my computer the photo is the right way but each time I try and put it on here it goes sideways! Pity as it's my favourite!

A couple of Birthday cards .....

Sharing a couple of cards I've just made - the background on the first one is done with scrunching cling film on glimmer mist sprays and the second is swiping inks over glossy c/s.

Something to share .............

Whilst clearing the cellar I came across an old photo which we inherited with the house. The frame, which in it's day would've been beautiful, crumbled away but i rescued the photo which is printed onto a thick plate. I don't want to risk damaging it by cleaningit too much so there are a few marks on it. Please feel free to use this photo in your crafting.

Baby, it's a Winner1

A bit behind here but earlier in the month at the craft club I go to the competition was to make a baby card using the bleaching technique. This is my take on it, and, surprisingly, considering the other entries, my card won! I got a £5 voucher to spend in Finishing Touches craft shop in Totnes - it took me all of 5 minutes to do that!

In case anyone is wondering, the baby feet are made of polymer clay.

Washi Paper Swap Card

Another card made for a swap on the Oriental Stamp Art Yahoo Group - this time we were challenged to use some of our precious washi paper. Apparently it's not just for looking at and stroking, you CAN use it! I did a simple design which I highlighted with the use of gold thread, toning beads and a flower from the washi cut out and placed under a gel 'stone'. I enjoyed doing this one and will definitely dig into my washi stash again before too long :)

Mini Oriental Wall Hanging

This is what I made my 2 partners in the Oriental Stamp Art Group's MOSAS29 swap for March. We keep the same groups (of 3 people) for 3 months and each send a handmade oriental style card or gift to the others in our group.  The base is stampbord dabbed with a mixture of different blue alcohol inks with a touch of silver mixative and stamped with a text stamp (Legend of Mulan by Stamp Magick) then embossed several times. The top square is also a piece of stamped stambord coloured with watercolour pens. I added silver lined glass beads along the bottom using a strong glue, and a hanger on the back.

Wedding Card

I made this card for a work colleague, duck egg blue being her favourite colour.  The stamp is from Lili of the Valley who have the most gorgeous cute stamps (and it's unusual for me to say that as I don't usually do cute!).

Oooooh, another technique to try....

I've just read about gelatine printing - googled it, watched UTube videos etc and now I HAVE to try it. Watch this space - I will be reporting on my efforts in due course! 

I'm still waiting for my new pasta machine (aka fimo machine) to arrive - it's in the postal system somewhere, then I can decide which machine is best for pasta and which is best for fimo ..... then i can make more dragons!

Glimmer Mist Backgrounds

Over last weekend I played with my glimmer mist sprays (again!). I did the reverse stenciltechnique shown by Dyan from Art from the Heart which I had great fun with. At first I was concerned because I was getting through the sprays like crazy (and they're not cheap!), and especially didn't like blotting off with kitchen paper. But, once I saw the results I was hooked.

I made a card for Annie's birthday which maybe one day I will be able to show a photo of, but at the moment it turns itself round sideways as soon as I try and upload it - a pity cos I really like this card! I also made a card for the dragonfly swap over on Oriental Stamp Art, but then I re-read the instructions (note I said RE-read - yes, I had read them before, just forgot what they said! That's the difference between male & female - men don't read instructions, women forget them, LOL!). I should have made a regular A6 card, not square :( so then I had to make another one ....

I much  prefer the square one myself. Never mind - I now have a spare card!

Pesky Squirrel

So, the squirrels kept eating the bird food so Geoff had the good idea of utilising an old cat basket. We did debate whether a squirrel could get through the holes but thought possibly not. WRONG!

Needless to say the cage has now been relegated back to it's place in the garage and the birds are still fighting the squirrels for their food - until Geoff's next bright idea!

Altered Pen Pots

I am taking part in the Oriental Stamp Art Yahoo Group's Monthly Swap for the next 3 months. We are in groups of 3 and we each make something for the other 2 members of our group. My boss was getting rid of a load of pen pots which had 2010 calendars on them and no sooner had I said 'whoa, they can't be thrown away, they can be altered' than I had a great pile of them put on my desk. So - here we are, oriental themed pots. An added bonus is that they fold down reasonably flat for posting.



One for my boss

I'm one of those who finds it hard to think up designs for men's cards but my boss likes to receive a hand made card (I spoilt him the first year I was there!) so this year I went for the traditional 'old car' theme. He seemed pleased with the end result!

Lyn's Dragon (one for Wendy!)

Yesterday evening at craft club we were lucky enough to have the amazing Birdie Heywood showing us how to make polymer clay (fimo) jewelry. She was also doing other workshops at the shop where our club evening is held and I decided to go to the one today which was to make a standing dragon.  I had actually looked at doing this class when the schedule first came out but thought it would be waaaaay too fiddly for me, but after practising with the jewelry I was hooked. So, today saw me making this little (rather skinny) little lass (or maybe a gay guy).

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and I learnt so much, I just hope my wee little brain can contain all that information (I did buy Birdie's DVD just incase it doesn't!).