Back to my first love ................ Inks and rubber/polymer!

Goodmorning lovely visitors,

Sorry for this bit of English weather obsession but it looks like we have a day of very English rain here, soft, gentle and very persistent, lol!  I hope it's sunny wherever you may be.

For once I made time last week to make some cards for a couple of lovely friends I've made on Twitter.  I was surprised at how out of practice I am and yet I love making cards, especially when I start with blank pieces of card and just use inks and stamps i.e. no designer papers, etc.

The first one was a birthday card for lovely Helen.  As any visitor to my post HERE will have seen I received some fabulous Kaisercraft goodies to play with for this month's Snazzy's DT projects (do take a look at what my teamies have been up to). As well as the gorgeous Basecoat Collection papers there were also some really lovely stamps but fate intervened and I didn't get chance to show them off properly especially my favourite Texture Windsor so making Helen's card was the perfect excuse to get them out for a play.

 

I stamped the middle butterfly from the main image onto card a second time, cut it out, coloured it with Versacolour ink, shaped it and applied a light glaze over the top before attaching just the body to the main image.

For the background layer I repeat stamped the Texture Laugh stamp using Versamark ink and embossed with WOW brilliant white EP before blending three shades of Versacolour ink over the top and buffing with a soft cloth to bring back the whiteness of the EP.

The quote is from the Tim Holtz Urban Chic stamp set and is a longtime favourite of mine.  The flowers were made with a set of punches that have been long neglected in a cupboard (no name on them) and a Crealies die for the leaves.  I am so glad Helen had a birthday this week to give me chance to kill two birds with one stone ....... mainly to send her my love and good wishes and secondly to showcase these lovely stamps.  There are many more in the Kaisercraft collection that I really 'need' over on the Snazzy's website.

My second card was a 'friendly hello' to Jacqui included with something I needed to post to her.  Apologies in advance for the iffy photos as I took them in a rush because I didn't want to miss the post.

This time I went quite simple and started by streaking a Distress Inkpad across part of my base cards (not done half as well as the brilliant Paula has done it in the past), stamped a flower image from Chocolate Baroque's Punky Flowers set using black Archival Ink.  I painted the image with various Distress Inks and added a teensy touch of sparkle with a Sakura jellyroll pen.  The sentiment is from a Hero Arts clear stamp set called Live Life which again, I've had for ages but never used :-(.  I wish I'd used my favourite Versafine black ink as I think I might have got a denser black on the solid part of the image but I still like the stamp so will try again sometime, lol!

I really enjoyed getting back to card making with these and must try harder to do more, after all it is what got me into this crafting lark in the first place, lol!

Till next time..............

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

Twitter Group Challenge ............. at last I made it!

Hi there lovely visitors,

I hope you're all having a good start to your week.  At least weather wise it is glorious here today with lovely sunshine, a few pretty white clouds and a lovely breeze to keep things comfy.  Although I have just been informed by one of my Twitter buddies that tomorrow is going to be 29c and humid ............ that's definitely not in my comfort zone, lol!

Speaking of Twitter buddies ....... a few weeks ago one of my Twitter friends, the lovely Lin (Art from Herts blog) set a small group of us an 'up-cycling' challenge.  She sent us a package of interesting bits and bobs followed by an email with a few do's and don't's and a couple of weeks to make something.  As usual, I was late to the party for several reasons, DT stuff, going away for a few days and not feeling up to the mark but this week I got my teeth into it and have made two projects.

The main rules were that we had to use everything we were sent and use only a monochrome colour (I chose green) with one contrast colour which could only be used once on each project.  I'm not sure how many of the others managed to use every little bit but I do know Nicky did.  I had these tiddy bits left and would have used the diecut key but unfortunately it got dropped on the floor and my four legged friend (dog not horse, lol) thought it was edible, lol.

One of the items sent was a cigar tin (they must be very slim cigars ;D) and I separated the top from the bottom and turned it into a little concertina book.

 The tin and all the embellishments have been painted with Fresco paints and I applied Grunge Paste through a script stencil and when it was set I put the stencil back on and applied Treasure Gold metallic wax.  Some of the embellishments have had Fresco crackle paste applied, some stamping with Olive Archival ink and some more Treasure Gold.  The little flower was my contrast colour item.

FRONT

BACK

The concertina inside was a strip cut from one of my treasured Mariposa pad onto which I inked through a tropical leaf stencil with Distress Ink and then stamped with Olive Archival ink, quotes stamps from Tim Holts and a lovely little cluster of butterflies which was a stamp I received as part of a blog candy win from the lovely and very generous Suzz.  I also heat embossed the butterflies with clear EP.

  I coloured the strips of lace with Distress Ink before sticking them inside the tin.

My second project was to decorate a small plastic ring binder.

 



I again used Fresco paints to cover the binder but for some reason the colours don't look very green on my screen, except for the embellishments but they are all the same shades I used for the tin.  I tore some book pages we received into strips and adhered the randomly to the binder and then painted over them and ........ completely obliterated the lovely German script, doh, but at least it gave me some extra nice texture!  I then cut the two doilies in half so that I could spread them out a bit and glued them to the front and back and the strip of mesh down the spine and painted over them too.

I added streaks of the last layer of paint with a dry brush and when it was all dry I stencilled the flowers using Distress Ink and then added the band of Mariposa paper.  All the metal bits were given the Treasure Gold treatment but I can't give you the colour name as it was a special edition one I bought from PaperArtsy at the Stamp Magic Show a couple of weeks ago and there's no name on the jar but it is a sort of patina'd green/gold.

I squished the bottle top in my Big Shot, punched a circle from the Mariposa paper (if you look very carefully you might be able to make out the part of a butterfly) and then covered this with a Tim Holtz Ideology Fragment (totally forgot I had these) and then stuck it inside the bottle top.  I made a little hole to hang it from the zip pull and lightbulb shaped pin.

The frame and the oval were painted with Fresco paint and then I dug out some really old Distress Crackle in Peeled Paint.  I didn't know if it would work because it's gone quite thick but the texture is lovely so I rubbed in some Forest Moss DI when it was dry and a bit of the Treasure Gold.  I stamped the Friends quote (from a Kaisercraft set) onto a piece of card and inked a little DI round the edges before sticking to the back of the frame and adding the brads from my stash.  The tiny definition in the stamp shaped brad is something else I had forgotten about and is an epoxy sticker from a Tim Holtz set.  The brad is painted with Honeydew Fresco but looks almost white on here.

After fraying the ends, I coloured the binding with DI  and water and the filigree embellishment with Treasure Gold and layered these onto the spine together with the  lovely strip of fancy bobbly edged lace.  I left this white as my contrast item.

And that, I think, is that, lol!  Sorry it's such a long post and I hope you had a cuppa and managed to get to the end without flagging ;D.

Thanks to Lin for setting this challenge up for us.  Once I got a clear run at these projects, I did enjoy myself and it pushed me somewhat as I had to work with things I probably wouldn't have chosen. If you haven't seen the original post on Lin's blog with my friends' projects I hope you get chance to pop over and take a look.  They are all quite amazing and all very different.

Till next time I hope life and the weather is good to you all.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

Snazzy's DT project for June .... My Holiday Cabin?

Hello lovely visitors,

Well, I'm hoping by the time you see this post that we've all had a lovely weekend with plenty of warm (not hot......I don't do hot, lol) sunshine because I've had to schedule my post early ........I'm going away to spend a long weekend in Chester!  OH and I are taking granddaughter #2, Alexa, to Chester Zoo on Saturday as a belated part of her birthday present.  Of course, Daddy and his lovely partner, Yvonne, are coming too and we'll all get to spend some time with Yvonne's parents who live near Chester so I'm really looking forward to it.  Alexa doesn't know that her Grandad and I are going so it will be nice to see her surprise.  Beware my next post as it may just contain a few weekend photos....... that's if I remember to take any, lol!

Anyway, it's my turn to post on Snazzy's DT blog this week.  As always, we've had some fabulous products to play with but unfortunately because of some family pressures we are living with at the moment my mojo has definitely done a runner and everything seems to be taking twice as long to accomplish so I've really only finished one part of my project.  I wanted to do a mini book/album as well but that didn't happen :-(.  Perhaps I'll get it done in the next couple of weeks to blog on here instead.

In the meantime, here's a sneaky peek of my project which you can see in full over on the Snazzy's DT blog.

BTW, the wooden banner, which I painted and stamped, was part of my fabulous blog candy which I won a while back on the lovely and talented Stamping Suzz's blog.  I so need more time (and energy) to play with more of the wonderful goodies that were in that box!

Till next time

Hugs
Lesley  Xx