Love, Laugh, Listen

This is my card for the new challenge at Gingersnap Creations.  This week is a Blue Moon challenge so you can don't have to follow the theme for the month.

The challenge was 3 Words, 3 Papers, 3 Buttons. 

I love this stamp and so I cut my ladies out and dressed them in three different papers and decorated their hats to match.

I spritzed the background to loosely give a sky and sand impression and them painted the sandy area with glass bead gel which gives lovely dimension and glisten.

The buttons also doubled up as my words and with a couple of small corner flourishes, the piece was finished. 

Hope you like it and feel inspired to have a got at this challenge yourself - go on ... it's fun!

Avian

This is my newly completed page for my Isles of Scilly album.  The wildlife on the islands is far less timid than at home so I got some really close-up shots which was fantastic as I could capture just how lovely these birds are.

I scrapped the picture of the young thrush previously but wasn't happy with my layout so decided to start again.  The Islands are absolutely incredible and there are photo opportunities around every corner so of course, I just kept snapping.  I am trying to get my album finished so that all my shots of our trip are ready for us to re-visit but it's quite a big task!

I'm really pleased with this page now so that's another one closer to a finished album!

The City That Never Sleeps

This is my tag for Grungy Monday Challenge 12 over at Studio L3.

The technique for the challenge was absolutely that ... a Challenge ... well for me at least!  This was tag number 4!   The difficultly I had was getting the paint off the embossed areas once dry.  Either it refused to budge or the paper started to fall apart as I rubbed over the area - I just couldn't seem to master it.  I gave up yesterday and returned this morning to have another shot but this time I barely left the paint to dry before removing it.  Hey presto!  the images came through and the paper stayed intact - phew!  

Once the background was complete with the New York skyline at the bottom and the clock at the top, I had a wrestle with my Dymo machine.  Sir Tim insists that these machines will take normal paper but my little gadget had other ideas.  It took me ages to get my paper strip through the feeder and then it wouldn't move the paper on after each letter.  I got around this problem by manually pulling it through each time I printed a letter.  Obviously, this was hard to judge exactly, but it turned out OK and I like the idea of being able to use media other than dymo tape.

I've used a variety of other things on this tag - a glimmer chip wing which I inked with distress and spritzed with glacier glimmer mist; a small piece of film strip into which I punched a washer, an ideology pen nib wound with embroidery silk, an idealogoy hinged clip and an ideology philosphy tag.

The old pocket watch was re-glazed with UTEE into which some small watch bits and pieces were dropped. 

Hope you like it!

Money is the Root of all Evil

Over at Gingersnap Creations, the challenge for this week is the Colour of Money. The challenges this month are very kindly being sponsored by Altered Pages and some of my images have been provided by them. 

I dressed my mannequin with money - although this is hard to see as the stamp is so detailed. 

I wanted to tie this element in to the quote so I converted some tree branches (Maya Road) into roots.  I embossed them with clear powder before inking them with distress.

I backed this onto a collage of currency printed in black and white. 

Fairy Time

I have made this page for the Challenge #20 Things with Wings over at The Cheerful Stamp Pad. 

Last October, I went to a scrapbook retreat in Cornwall and we had a day with a professional photographer in the beautiful grounds of the hotel.  She gave us each a gorgeous little fairy to play with and we had to pose her in the foliage and experiment with setting up a shot and capturing it.  My friend and I had great fun with 'Miss Whippy' as we called her, due to her hair being like a whippy ice-cream!!

I love these red hot pokers (knifolia) and when I saw the challenge, I knew that this was the page I wanted to scrap for it.

I created the orange background using old sheet music which I sealed with Viva Croco before using acrylic paint and stamps over it.  The 'Giant Shroom' is by Stampotique and I made it in Ten Second Studio metal.

The fairy stamps and leaves are by Lavinia Stamps.  I tore the squashed fairy plate from an old book and I stamped script over it.  The large flower is by Prima and the smaller ones are by Petaloo.  These come plain white for you to alter as you choose so I stamped mine with music and spritzed them to match the layout colours.

Hope you like my entry and make sure you have a magical day :)  x

For You

House move over - thank goodness!! - so back to a little time to be creative in between sorting the new house out.  

I made this little card for the Stampotique Designers Challenge SDC32: Clean and Simple. 

This challenge involves creating a clean layout with plenty of free space ie minimalistic.  I always admire this look as it seems so simple, but I actually found that it was quite a challenging to create.  Either my layout looked unfinished or I added one more touch and ruined the whole thing!  Trust me when I say that my new bin is testament to this (Uh Oh!)


Several attempts later, I finally got it right and this is the result.  

My little Gog Lin stamp was a present from my children on Mother's Day so it's really got a special place in my collection and this was his first outing!


Hope you all like him ...  x

Off With Their Heads

How fabulous is this?  This dropped through my letterbox in the middle of my house move and it was a such a welcome diversion. 

This was the work I received as part of the art swap run in the April edition of the Craft Stamper magazine.  The theme was Fun and Games with a colour scheme is olive, rust and cream, up to  5" square and it had to include a game piece.

The quality of the card is amazing.  Absolutely incredible amount of detail and beautifully put together.  It was made by Franka Benjaminsen whose blog I am going to try and locate to see some of her other work.  So Franka, if you ever come to see my blog - a big thankyou for making such a fantastic card - it's got pride of place on my desk!  lol xx

Happy Birthday

 

I wanted to share this beautiful card I received for my birthday from a lovely friend of mine.  I think this is the best handmade card I have ever received as it's Alice (so major points scored already!) and it's absolutely gorgeous.  

How lucky am I to have someone to take the time to create this me?  

The only downside to having such a talented friend, is keeping up with her when we go to retreats together -  she's not only uber talented but also super fast!! lol x

Ooh La La

This is my piece for GC105: From the Mall Challenge at Gingersnap Creations.  

When I saw the challenge theme, my lovely shopping diva stamp came to mind straight away.  I wanted to combine this with the use of old photos as this is becoming my favourite technique of the moment!!

I decided to transfer my background photo image to my card so I painted it with matte soft gel and applied it face down to my card before leaving it to dry thoroughly.  Patience is the key but once it was fully dry, I rubbed off the backing leaving just the image.  I used acrylic paints to frame it into the page.

I stamped my diva onto a transparency and coloured her in suitable shades for such a fabulous shopper!  Both the striped fabric and the pink ric-rac are from garment tags which also tie they in nicely with the challenge theme.