Gummiapan Squiggle Flowers for Swedish House Crafts

For my DT card today I have used the Gummiapan squiggle stamp. First I used yupo paper to drop ink onto in green and shades of red. When it was dry I stamped the squiggle and embossed in clear powder. If you use a heat gun with Yupo paper you need to be very careful as it will melt it! Just work quickly and carefully and do not apply the heat for too long.

I then cut out the squiggle using two sizes of the Roxstamps nesting round dies - pierced.

I cut out a leaf shape by hand from the green ink paper and drew some veins on with a green brush pen.

I then arranged the flowers and leaves adding a few sequins

Finally I stamped the Gummiapan Text frame Happy Birthday sentiment which comes in this really lovely frame.

Thanks for looking and as always all the items I have used are available in the Swedish House Crafts Shop. Click the links in the text.

Violets

I have a friend who loves violets and so I have used this Sheena stamp set for her card in varying guises. She received this a while ago now and I forgot to share it. This time I went for a brusho background and stamped over and coloured. I also managed to use a card blank I have had since my x-s days. I also gave the embossed detail on the card a little colour and whilst they are not violets I thought it looked ok.
I'm entering this into the Stamping Sensations challenge which is "anything with flowers".

Two challenges one card

The current challenge at Less is More is to use a coloured card base with a one layer. You also need to link the card to the AAA Cards challenge too.

For my card I used a Hero Arts flamingo stamp - which I stamped and then scanned to my PC and resized - I then printed it onto the card base along with my own text. Then I used a Lavina stamp to add the bull rushes with a little grounded by me.

Yesterday I went with a friend to Chatsworth House, it is fairly local to us so we've both been a lot of the years but at the moment they have a Fashion Exhibition on  covering five generations of Chatsworth. Rather than being a separate exhibition it is dotted around the house and it has been done so well. We arrived about 11am and a while later we both thought we could do with a sit down - looking at our watches we realised it was 1.45pm! we hadn't even finished the tour! We were keen to get started so we hadn't had a drink or anything since very early morning at home. I wish we had known there was so much to see, we could have had a drink first. Here are some of the photos.

A poppy hat! designed by Philip Treacy for My Fair Lady

 A photograph of it being worn

 The main entrance 

 Wedding dresses

 A fancy dress costume!

 A modern gown with exquisite embroidery

Based on this original gown 

 More gowns

 Finally we made it out into the sunshine.

mid month reminder For the Boys @ Penny Black & More challenge

I'm here to remind you of our challenge at Penny Black & More which this month is "For the Boys".

Like a lot of you I do struggle with male themed cards. I decided this set from Penny Black called Summer Fun would be ideal for any male but particularly those younger at heart. I used a spellbinder die called confetti to create the base from a sheet of PB paper pad. I then simple stamped in each aperture and the greeting over the top. Using distress crayons and a little water to colour.

Thanks for looking and hope you can join us this month at the challenge. Remember you can enter up to three times and you don't have to use PB stamps but no digis please.

Landscapes at Ooh la la Creative Challenge Blog

It's my turn to chose the challenge for this fortnights Ooh La La Creative Challenge blog theme. I have chosen the theme of "landcapes".

For my DT card I used the  Carnival of Colour CD rom and the Yorkshire Quilt image. I've kept it fairly CAS by printing out the image and then just edging with a black sharpie before mounting onto a card base.

Thanks for looking and we hope to see you over at the challenge blog. Remember you don't have to use OLL images or digital images to enter we love to see all projects as long as they fit the theme.

Up the garden path at CD Sunday challenge

I had a few ideas in mind when I saw the CD Sunday challenge was Up the garden path. In the end I went with printing some backing paper from a Daisy Trail CD called Oriental Blossom.

The rest of the card is created with Tattered Lace dies. I cut the background die twice and then cut all the roses and glued them onto the black base. I also cut it in green but decided after the first piece that it was just too messy to do so I opted to use a spectrum noir green glitter pen instead for the foliage.

The dress and larger roses I coloured with aquatints and glitter pens.

Oh you star for Creative Expressions Design Team

Today I wanted to show you that Christmas stamps don't have to be just for Christmas with my latest creation for Creative Expressions.

First I took three of the stamps from the Vintage Christmas words set and placed them on my CE foundation card. This created the "white space" for them later. I spritzed the card with water and then using Phill Martin spray inks - Mist Purple Paradise, Tangy Tangerine, Lush Pink sprayed the card, taking some of the excess off with kitchen roll.

Once dry I turned around the "HO" from the stamp set to make OH! I stamped JOY and PEACE - I cut out the letters I needed to make YOU - utilising the A from Peace. I affixed these into the white space on the card. I stamped the other two into the "white space". Embossing in silver the star then drawing with a black marker an outline around the star.

I used Splatterlicious Cracked & Splattered Background Stamp over the top - taking care to only ink around the edges.

Finally mounted onto some CE black foundation card and onto a card base made from CE foundation card.

Products used
Phill Martin CS Ink Spray Mist Purple Paradise CSPMMPARA

Phill Martin CS Ink Spray Mist Tangy Tangerine  CSPMMTANGY

Phill Martin CS Ink Spray Mist Lush Pink  CSPMMLUSH

Sentimentally Yours Splatterlicious Cracked & Splattered Background Stamp  SYSPCASB

Woodware Clear Single - Vintage Christmas Words  FRS356

Rainbow snippets

I saw this video by Jennifer McGuire on making rainbow cards and thought what a fabulous idea to use up snippets. In case you don't want to watch it she uses a shredder to cut all the little strips of card. Great I thought - this is going to be so easy and I had a little daydream of Miss Di presenting me with an award for services to snippets or at least a gold star!!!!!!!

I got my snippets - emptied my shredder so I didn't contaminate the snippets and began. That is where my dream ends - my shredder is not like Jennifer's it does this.........

I wasn't deterred - I remembered I had these security scissors. So I used those, but the strips were not going to be long enough.

So I cut through from each end and then with a normal pair of scissors I cut through the strips. Now at this point it was ok I was still channelling Jennifer!

However, by the time I had cut a lot more card I was beginning to regret even attempting this. I was just making more snippets and more mess. I thought originally that sticking them onto an adhesive sheet was the way to go, but I noticed Jennifer used a tape runner, so as she knows better than me that is what I did.

When I had finished I was not impressed but I wasn't wasting all that effort. So I got a few heart dies and the cards you see are the end result. Off to the snippet playground to share my efforts! I can only say they don't look so rough in real life and not so close up!