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
