Music for a man

Here is my entry for the Stamp Man's 4th challenge, where the theme is musical. I am also entering it into the last ever Rosie D's challenge where the theme is 'for a man'.
I started off with a sheet of white card, colouring it with Broken china and Dusty Concord distress inks applied with a shaving brush. I stamped music (Stampourium), notes (Aspects of design) and swirl (Paper artsy) in Weathered wood over the background then sprayed it with hydrangea blue and lucky shamrock green starburst stains. I stamped the notes again in Chipped sapphire DI, before stamping the Guitar (Aspects of Design) in Versamark and embossing with detail white EP. The background card was staped with versafine and brayered with big and juicy Waterfall (blue end) and soothing sunset (Purple end). I added a couple of ribbons and mounted onto a white square card. Here is a close-up where I tried to capture the sparkle from the Starburst Stains.

I also get to display this for using Aspects of design stamps!
Thanks for looking, and I hope you get some sunshine today!

The Stampman Challenge - Easel card

I've been playing with a few newish things that I bought in July and have only just got round to using.

Firstly there is a rather lovely Dreamweaver stencil. I felt a bit naughty buying it, as I rarely use metal stencils these days, but the design was so gorgeous! The spellbinders leaves were also bought at about the same time. Finally, after visiting my friend Lynne and seeing her Artylicious Essence of Nature CD I just had to have that too!
I began by securing the stencil onto some black card and pressing my versamark pad all over it. I then brushed some blonde moments pearl pigments (Art from the heart) onto it and sprayed with water to fix the pigments. I layered it on to paper from the CD and cut out and embossed the three leaves. I applied pigments in the same way. Finally I made it into an easel card, adding a stamped greeting (Papermania?). It really gleams when it catches the light.
I'm entering this into the Stampman Challenge where the theme is Easel cards. There are some fabulous DT cards offering wonderful inspiration. Thanks for looking!

P.S. If you like Digis and haven't heard my mate Teri has freebies up for grabs every day this week. Click on the link on my side bar to have a look.

Allsorts Challenge - Just for Men

Here is my card for Allsorts this week where the challenge is to make something for Men. It was very simple and quick! Most of the men in our family love walking, so I cut part of an old road atlas with the Lake District on it and used it as my backing paper. The boots stamp is an Aspects of design one from The Stamp man and the greeting is a Stamporium one. Thanks for looking!

Tuesday Taggers and I've won a lovely prize!

Tuesday Taggers theme this week is just Black and White. I wanted to play with a couple of stamps I bought recently. Both are Hero Arts - the birds are from a set of clear stamps and the Leaf Flourish is wood mounted. I stamped the black paper I used for the roses  with the leaf flourish too, but in white this time. The sentiment is from Graphicus. The roses were made following Brenda's instructions. Awful photos, but I had to use flash.
We have missed the worst of the weather here by about 10 miles. Mansfield and the surrounding area has had loads of snow, but we have been lucky (?). Our hilly road is still very icy, but negotiable with care. The school where I work has been open and all staff have made it to work... many children haven't though. I had a class of eleven today! We have let them out at playtimes too and they have worked together to build the most amazing snowmen. We did ban sliding and snowballs though (I know! What meanies!) Meg's school was closed as many staff live in the north of the county, so she spent the day with a friend after sleeping in, lucky thing! I was the lucky one later though - I found out I had won a set of stamps from the stamp man blog hop! Woo hoo!

Cake and a card

This is a Hummingbird Cake. My version isn't very pretty, but I prefer to just have the cream cheese frosting in the middle and not all over it. I got the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Cook book (brought by Santa), but there is a very similar version here. If you like banana cake and carrot cake you will love it. It is very moist and has bananas and pineapple in it. I made it yesterday, but by teatime there was only half left!
The card is another using the Funky flowers rubber stamp plate from The Stamp Man. It's my MIL's birthday next week, so this one is for her. The rose is covering a blob of glue that was in the wrong place! The leaf punch was another pressie. The flowers are coloured with sakura stardust pens and a water brush... oh yes and a touch of pastel blue promarker.

My best project of 2009?

Oooh, it was a tough choice, but I think this is my best project of 2009. I made my first easel card using a photo of a lovely lady who is 91 this week, but the photo was taken when she was 18 or 19. If you would like more details the original post is here. I took ages to get round to making one when they seemed to be all the rage in blog land, but when I did I received some really lovely comments. Thanks everyone!
Now I've posted this I can display the award in my side bar - hope you can join in too!

Don't Forget!

Don't forget that tomorrow is the start of the Stampman Blog Hop. It will be lovely to spend a few hours in front of the computer rather than the cooker!!!

AAAaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Here are the last few remaining birthday cards I had left to do for December. I can get on with finishing the Christmas cards now! I am only managing to blog these because a friend has lent me her dongle. I have no landline and no broadband at the moment. It went off yesterday and it won't be back on until tomorrow night at the earliest. I'm not a happy bunny. On the up side my boss has returned to work and this week is a lot less stressful.
The cards are all digistamps except for the 3rd. The top one is from CraftsUprint, the second is from Dustin Pike, the third has stamps from the Funky flowers plate (available from The Stampman) and the last is from Christine Dark. They were all coloured with Promarkers except for the 3rd which was coloured with sakura stardust pens and a water brush. Off to do more Christmas cards now - Thanks for looking!

A Wonderful Day!

I must be on a roll - this is my second post today! Yesterday Lynne and I went to the big Demo Day at Sir Stampalot. We went to meet Brenda and pick up my lovely promarkers (and shop of course!). We got there just after eleven and then spent the next three hours going between the demo room and the shop. Such wonderful inspiration, such talent and great ideas! We had such a brilliant day! Brenda is such a lovely lady and we chatted as she demonstrated some lovely little metal boxes and her beautiful roses. There were seven very talented ladies demonstrating a variety of techniques and they were all so friendly and obliging. If you are able to go to one of the demo Days I would urge you to go. I came home buzzing with ideas and with a lovely warm glow! I also came home with a very empty purse, but we'll not dwell on that!
So here is my first card featuring a rose (using stamps from The Stamp Man). It isn't as perfect as the ones Brenda made, but I am sure I will improve! I've made 6 now, Brenda, and I'm really getting into the swing of it! Thank you my dear friends Lynne and Brenda, for making my day week!

Where oh where is my Mojo?!

I've managed to make a couple of cards over the weekend, but again I feel my mojo isn't all there. The first is very like some we saw on the Stampman stand at Harrogate, where the Funky Flower stamps are available. I coloured them with my promarkers and used my martha stewart punch and retro flower punches.
The second card has a border across using the Craftwork cards Graceful Grasses and Martha Stewart punch. I added 3 inkadinkado inchies form the 'Spring is Here' set, but now they are stuck on I am not sure about them at all!

Wonderful!

Yesterday Lynne, Megan and I went to Harrogate to the Great Northern papercrafts extravaganza. We had a wonderful day. The weather was glorious, the shopping was fab, we met up with a couple of blogging friends and we had a lovely picnic in the sunshine! It was lovely to meet Debbie and Lisa for the first time. I hope they are both getting some 'playtime' with new goodies today. I have spent a bit of time playing with my new stuff and have come up with two cards. The first features 'Funky Flowers' stamps I bought from the Stampman. I stamped onto the base card with versamark and brushed over with pearl pigments from Blonde Moments. I coloured the main image with my promarkers and added some diamond stickles
I'm not sure about this second card, but I am so in love with my Martha Stewart Doily lace border punch I wanted to try it out straight away! I did a happy dance when I found it! The 'Graceful Grasses' stamps are by craftwork cards. They are stamped onto paper that I coloured with adirondak colour washes.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what people make with their lovely goodies. Does anyone fancy an ATC or tag swap made with their latest goodies? Leave me a comment if you do.

Fabulous Blog candy from The Stamp Man

Have you seen the wondeful blog candy available from the Stampman's blog? If you want to be in with a chance of winning it, click here and have a read of what you need to do. There are all sorts of things including some starburst stains which are really wonderful!

Butterflies

I bought the Aspects of Design 'Daisy Flutters' sheet on the way back from holiday a couple of years ago. We popped in to The Stampman and I bought quite a lot of stash... Steve claims it was half the shop. Anyway, it has been well used. I thought I would show you a few of the cards I have made using the butterflies on it. The first has a vellum overlay stamped with daisies that were embossed with a moonglow embossing powder - not sure which one. I used my tombow pens to colour the butterfly and added a few flat backed pearls.
For the second I stamped the base card with versamark and applied chalk in diagonal sweeps across the card. The square behind the butterfly was done with H2Os, with antenna made out of wire.
This one had layers of stamped acetate, torn vellum and silver embossed butterflies coloured with Tombow pens.

I think the fourth one is pretty self explanatory, so I won't bore you with the details. Finally I used starburst stains (Victorian Bouquet) on some scrunched and some flat paper, layering with stamped acetate and pearlescent card.