My Favourite Stamp...or is it?

The Challenge over at Allsorts this week is to use your favourite stamp... now that is a tricky one! I've ummed and ahhed  and thought about hares (my latest favourites), moons, leaves and trees, and finally came up with this tree from Inkylicious. The splatter circle is also a stamp and a very useful one too.

I stamped the Inkylicious splatter circle with second generation oxide ink in candied apple, fossilised amber, cracked pistachio, tumbled glass and wilted violet, sprayed with water. Once dry I stamped the inkylicious tree with versafine clair in Morning mist, grounded it with a little sponging and added buds with gold and green liquid pearls. The base card was sponged with the same distress oxide inks through an inkylicious stencil. You will be able to see the first generation stamping of the splatter circle on my mid month card for stamping Sensations Rainbow themed challenge, tomorrow.
A close contender for favourite stamp has to be one of my new purchases from Pink Ink designs. Here is my first inking of the lovely Meadow Hare.

 I stamped him onto a piece of watercolour card left over from another project and coloured him with Zig clean colour markers. I cut him out then stamped his tail again onto a snippet of white card, cut out and stuck in place with 3d glue gel. I did the same with the butterfly wings. I then stamped it once more onto a piece of smooth white card dusted with wilted violet, peacock feathers and citrus zest distress ink using a moon stencil. I coloured with the same pens and added dots of liquid pearls and glitter glue to the hare and the background. These stamps are such a joy to work with! I am taking this card to a couple of challenges. There is Cardz 4 Galz where the theme is March Hares or Rabbits and Miss Di's Snippet playground.

    Thanks for looking!

Distress oxides!

Have you had a play with Distress oxides yet? I have just purchased the second set and I love them! It is so nice to have something so different to experiment with. Here are a few cards I have made with the backgrounds I have made. The first was done with a bit of smooshing and spattering. Stamps are from Hobby Art. I painted with the inks to add a bit of colour and also added a little glitter and pixie powder to highlight the plants. As this one used snippets left over from other cards I'm off (shamefacedly) to Miss Di's snippet playground with it. Hopefully they will remember me and let me in!

The butterfly card was made using blending with a sponge, then splattering with water, left over ink and glimmer mist, adding a touch of gold sparkle. The Butterfly is an inkylicious stamp.

Finally, this was a smooshed background splattered with water, then stamped over with regular Distress inks for the leaves. The border down each side is from Crafty individuals and the rest of the stamps are from Inkylicious. In all cases I stamped the main images with versafine black and for the first two I clear embossed them.
Sorry I have been a bit quiet in blog land. I am back at work and working on a magazine commission as well. I probably should have said no, but it all adds to spending money for Doncaster in October😁😁😁
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments. I really do appreciate them all!

Fishing...

Hi there. How are you? I have only been back at work for three days then came down with a nasty virus, so have ended up doing very little except sleeping, coughing and sneezing since Wednesday. Over the holiday I had a little play with the Create a scene- Boating stamp set from Inkylicious. I used Memento inks in Dandelion, Cantaloupe, Danube Blue, Bahama Blue and tuxedo black. I used a moon mask.

For my second card I tried using a little bleach on a paint brush to pop the moon in afterwards, and I think it worked quite well. I went over the lower reflection with my ink dusters and blue and black ink. This was one of those off cuts where I had cut a square from an A5 sheet, as was the snippet of blue card underneath.
Thanks for looking!

A get well wish and a birthday card

 I needed a Get well card quickly last week, so reached for my ink dusters and inkylicious stamps. The background was dusted with Memento Dandelion and Rosebud and crushed olive Distress ink. It looked a bit flat, so I added a few dots and leaf highlights with a gellyroll clear stardust pen. You can just about see it from this angle...

The next card was the birthday card I made for the same person. Whenever I get to work she is generally applying her make-up, so I thought this stamp from acid drops and whatnots was ideal! The Best Wishes sentiment is from Inkylicious.

Minimal colouring with promarkers on this one, but all my matting and layering is from my snippet drawer, so I am taking them to Miss Di's snippet playground.
Sorry I am not around as much at the moment. We have university open days for Meg on consecutive Saturdays throughout September. I think I am going to be crossing my fingers rather a lot!
Thanks for looking!

More trees!

I have been using my new trees and one or two other stamps to make more Christmas cards and gifts. This first card features the black forest stamp and also Musical Melody. I used Adirondack inks in Pool and Cool Peri - I love this colour combination. The central panel is on silk art card using my mountain and valley stencil. All of the pieces of card on this one are snippets, so I am rushing off to the snippet playground with it. Miss Di says they will let me play on whatever I like now I am a brown belt, lol!

I've also made another easel calendar using the timeless rectangle spellbinders. 

I made the scene using memento inks and ink dusters in much the same way as the tree scene on my second video tutorial. I used the inkylicious twiggy trees, birds from the windswept set and a quote from a set of hobby art landscape quotes.

I picked out a bit of detail on the tree and reflection with a white gel pen.
If  you are going to the NEC then look out for all these stamps on the Inkylicious stall. Thanks so much for your lovely comments. There is just one day left on the follower candy which I will draw on Saturday. Thanks for looking!

Ey up me duck!

That's Nottinghamshire for Hello!

A very quick post to show you the birthday card I made for Steve at the end of January, and to give you a reminder that the theme at Stamping Sensations for February is Fur and feathers. This card features the fabulous 'Oh,Duck!' Stamp from Sheena Douglass. I used up some more snippets of inky papers and some snippets of black put through the cuttlebug with the gorgeous cattails die from spellbinders. The sentiment is very old and I can't remember the make, and the fancy label is also a spellbinders die.
Yes, it has got to be that quick tonight. I am number crunching data for work.
Thanks for looking!

A snippet make

Here is a quick birthday card for one of the TAs at work. She loves her shoes and wore some very sparkly ones a bit like this last Christmas - they were higher though!

The quote was generated on the computer. I saw it on a card somewhere and thought it was a good one! The sentiment is from Little Claires. The shoes were cut using a template from cranberry card co.
The roses paper is from Pink Petticoat. All the papers are snippets, so I am entering this into Di's Crafty snippet challenge. I am hoping she is still talking to me and that Henry the giraffe hasn't eaten the tree house as well!
Thanks for looking!

Made it back to the snippet playground

It is a while since I joined in with Di's snippet challenge. I've had some carefully selected snippets waiting for me to do something with for well over a week, but I must have been naughty, because I ended up doing extra work with no time for play! Anyway, I'm joining my playmates again with this little number.

I've got a feeling that the stripy paper is K & Co, but I really don't know the other one. I think it could date back to 1997! The text stamp is from Crafty Individuals and stamped in versamark with cosmic shimmer powders brushed over. The Butterfly (Elusive images) is stamped in Currant Adirondack and layered up. 

 The top layer was heat embossed with kaleidoscope embossing powder. What I do is ink up my stamp with versamark, then apply the Adirondack on top of the versamark, then stamp and then put the embossing powder on. After heating it looks like this.

Very sparkly! I wasn't sure if it needed anything else, but decided to leave it as it is in the end. Hope Miss Di is pleased with my behaviour! Well, thanks for looking and I hope you have a great week!

Purple, snippets and paper piecing

I have made a few more cards this weekend. Thought I would try and squeeze in a few challenges before going back to school.
First up is my offering for this week's Less is More where the theme is 'predominantly purple' - one of my favourite colours incidentally.

I used ink dusters to make the background with purple twilight and eggplant adirondack ink. I then stamped the plant (indigo blu) with eggplant and added a bit of stickles to the flowers.
Next up is my snippet creation for this week.

I used snippets of snippets from last week's card and a larger piece that has been lurking for a couple of years I think! the flowers (Hero Arts) were stamped and cut from another snippet too, with added stickles.

 I coloured the centre of the flower with a promarker. If you want to join in with your snippets pop over to Pixie's crafty Snippets challenge.
Finally I have also completed some paper piecing for this week's theme at Allsorts.

This was done with snippets too. This fabulous Woodware Poppy was a Christmas present from a lovely friend.
Well, it is back to work tomorrow, so don't be surprised if it is a while before I post again! Thanks for looking!

Some snippet makes

I have been having a major sort out. My snippets are now all together, lots of my unmounted stamps are in A5 folders and I'm just waiting on a delivery of eze-mount before I continue. I had some lovely images I had coloured in before Christmas and found the perfect papers to complement them amongst my snippets.
First another Hobby art scene coloured with aqua markers and distress inks. Not sure where the papers are from (other than my snippet drawer!)

Next were some stamps I got free on the front of a magazine (Quick cards made easy). I stamped and coloured these on Christmas eve, but hadn't done anything with them. They go pretty well with the snippets of Pink Petticoat papers I found.

These remind me of one of my Christmas presents - a gift box of tea.

Aren't the boxes so pretty?
I'm entering all three of my cards into Pixie's Crafty Snippets Challenge, who has taken over the keys from the lovely Jules. Hey, Di - do you think those boxes would count as snippets?! Thanks for looking. I'm off to drink some afternoon tea!

Age cards

I have been busy this week working on a few orders.My First card is for a colleague's son who turns twenty-one next weekend. He is a mechanic, so I went for a cogs and tools look. All of the images on this card were free clip art from the net, as was the font.

 The tools are novelty buttons that I've had in my stash for years.
My next card is for a lovely student I have in my class two days a week. She will turn Eighteen on Friday. For this one I used a computer generated number and then a Waltzing Mouse stamp for the fancy circle.

The roses and leaves were made with Marrianne dies, the border was made with my new Martha Stewart Doily lace punch (I wore out the old one) and the circles were cut with nesties. I used the Victoriana embossing folder on this one.
One of our lunchtime supervisors is fifty at the end of next week, so this next one is for her.

I cut out some numbers and used B&J soothing sunset, my ink dusters and a Fun Stamps paisley stamp to decorate them. The flowers and leaves were punches and the background was embossed with a paisley cuttlebug embossing folder, and the background paper is some I had printed out from an Artylicious cd, and just used a corner of it. The sentiment is a Waltzing mouse stamp. 

Finally I have a card for which I pieced together a selection of scraps and finished off with a little scene using Hobby art Scene it Tuscany stamps and coloured with Distress inks. I was rather pleased that you can't tell the backing paper was in five pieces and the corrugated card covers a big jagged gap!

The more I look at it the more I think I made a bit of a faux pas, as there is only one glass and two bottles of wine partially drunk! Apart from the first one I made all of these from scraps and snippets, so they are all eligible to be entered into Jules's Crafty Snippet Challenge.

Stamptacular snippets!

Hi There! I am getting to be such an infrequent blogger these days. However, half term, Doncaster stamp magic (23/10) and the 4th Stampalot Ultimate rubber stamping Demo day (29/10) are all coming up, so I'm looking forward to finding lots and lots of inspiration!
Anyway, here is my first offering for today...

I managed to use up all the scraps of paper left over from my boxes I made for cookies and cupcakes (post before last) and came up with this. The cake stand stamp was a freebie from the front of the magazine 'Quick cards made easy' and the sentiment is from Waltzing Mouse. The roses are cut with a Marianne design die and here is one in close up.

The papers are the 6 x 6 pad from Kaiser Craft called the Devonshire collection.

I'm entering this into Jules's craft snippets and Stamptacular Sunday, where the theme is  'You choose!' It would also be very suitable for the Food glorious food theme at Sir Stampalot this month - there are still a couple of weeks left to enter and a great prize on offer!

My second and third offerings are cards requested by colleagues. A baby girl card...

The paper is from Bearly Mine designs and the baby digi is from Squigglefly, coloured with promarkers. I love the fact that this image could be a boy or a girl.

Finally a digi hydrangea from my friend Teri at Delicious Doodles.

again coloured with promarkers. The paper is from an Artylicious CD - Seasons Greetings, but I'm sure you will agree not particularly wintry!

Thanks for looking and I will hopefully get round to visiting you all soon!