It's all about swaps (and a birthday)

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all well and have a nice weekend to look forward to without rain possibly?  It's lovely here at the moment but we had heavy rain all through the night and more on the way tonight apparently so enjoying the sun while it lasts.

I should have been on a workshop today but unfortunately I have been proper poorly all week with a stinking cough and cold and with a water infection thrown in for good measure so just didn't feel up to the very long day it would have entailed not to mention the annoying coughing bouts which are best kept away from polite company, lol!  So, instead I'm sharing the small amount of crafting I've managed to do over the past couple of weeks.  I did make a birthday card for my Son's Father-in-Law (managed to get to his birthday lunch last Sunday before the lurgy struck on Tuesday) and also my swaps for this month in the UK Stampers Forum Facebook group.

First the card.  I wanted to make something bright for a change.....a little fed up of seeing browns for men all the time........so I mixed four little batches of Grunge Paste with different colours of Brusho powders and applied them through a stencil.  Simple matting and layering of the stamped sentiment then the same with the whole piece onto the base card finished it off.

Love how the PaperArtsy Grunge Paste works with the vibrant Brushos and it works equally as well with PaperArtsy's gorgeous Infusions. 

Now on to my swaps for this month and first up are the ATCs for which the theme was Anything Goes.  I'm still trying to use my rediscovered old backgrounds whenever I can and these were cut from a piece of glimmer misted card onto which a mask that had been sprayed over was flipped and placed onto the card to use the spray from.  I used a variety of stamps in the background which I thought appropriate for the gorgeous quotes from the lovely Alison Bomber's new stamp sets for PaperArtsy.  I love using quotes and I just know I'll be using these beauties a lot!

Next up is my postcard for which the theme was the sea.  All the stamps used on here are from Chocolate Baroque (except the little birds) including the beautiful poetry.  I have no idea how I created the background, lol, it's another piece from several years ago which I thought perfect for the theme.

 

Finally, I have my tag which again had an 'anything goes' theme and I began by using a ready prepared tag from my old background stash (doubt I will ever use it all, lol).  I began by adding some background stencilling followed by stamping.  

I then stamped the above image onto blank sewing pattern tracing paper, tore round it and adhered it to my tag with matte medium.  Unlike the finer tissue it didn't disappear into the background so much and looked a bit odd so I used a micron pen to follow the torn edge which looked better.

Finally, I stamped another of Alison's new quote stamps, cut it up and stuck it to my tag then added Treasure Gold gilding round the edges and also created a few highlights on the main image.

Well, that completes my swaps for this month and I do hope the recipients enjoy them.  I love receiving mine as they sure brighten up the mail these days but they won't start arriving till the beginning of August.

Thanks for dropping by and hopefully I might be a bit more productive next week 😊

Hugs

Lesley  Xx