Journaling at FSC

Yes the theme is 'Journaling' at Fashionable Stamping Challenges this week and we have the amazing Kate Crane as our Guest Designer. If you haven't seen Kate's fabulous work you can see it at 'The Kathryn Wheel', do pop over and take a look.

I love Kate's work and often pop over for a dose of inspiration.

The background for this tag is a gelli print and I have added some DIs and additional painted textures over the top.

Girl with heart purse from Stampotique was stamped on the tag and on card, coloured with Inktense pencils and cut and stuck over. A great technique as you don't have to worry about the fussy bits when cutting round the image like the dangly bits from her hair and at the bottom of her dress.

The sentiment I found on the internet, but fits her beautifully I think. I just generated it on the PC and printed it out.

The sun is shining for the second day and I have been out in the garden having a good Spring tidy up - yay, at last Winter might just be going. (Sorry that's why I am a bit late publishing today, I had forgotten to schedule it - duh!!!).

I hope you are getting some of the sunshine wherever you are.

Happy Sunday.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Challenges to have fun with -

Anything but a Card - Inspired by (Kate Crane)

Bloggers Challenge - Backgrounds

New Dylusions

I just had to have a play with my new Dylusions inks last night and this is the result.

I also used TH and Stampotique stamps and stamped the mushrooms onto a scrap piece which I had swiped the left over inks through, painted over with the inks and then used clear embossing powder to make it pop more. The doodling was done with both a black and white pen and the quote is from my sheet I have prepared myself to use for tags like this.

Have a great Monday and a fab week. I am just waiting for my grandaughters to arrive for the day as both their Mum and dad are starting new jobs today.

hugs {brenda} xox

Challenges to have fun with -

Stampotique Designers - Oodles of Doodles

Frilly and Funky - Take your word for it

My Mojo Monthly - Tagology

WOW - Nature or Vintage inspired

Doodling Journal style

I just wanted to have some inky fun last night and experimented with distress stains on two different types of card and on canvas with and without gesso.

Results -

Special stamping card

Canvas without gesso

Canvas with gesso

Manilla card

I need a birthday card for my teenage granddaughter so decided to enter the Stampotique challenge - Oodles of Doodles - as it's such a long while since I have done so and made this, using the top piece of card.

Over the inky and paint layers I added an inky frame, stamped onto tissue paper and glued on, stamped the heart border, punched some extra hearts and lots of doodling round the edges, round the frame, on the punched hearts and made the birthday tag. Hey-ho complete.

Sooo good to be getting back into the swing of things.

For those who know me, hubbie is home from hospital, having had a scan and an endoscopy. Some bits wrong like hiatus hernia, gastritis and sludgy gall bladder and he will have that out in May. So we are hoping he doesn't get the awful pain back again before he has to go in and have the gall bladder out. Here's hoping!!

Have a good evening .

hugs {brenda} xox

Other challenges to have fun with -
Smudgy Antics - Anything Goes

Winner and 18th Birthday card

Well before I go on - I firstly want to thank Brenda and the DT over at the Stampalot Challenge blog for choosing my card to win the July 'Anything Goes' challenge.

I also won blog candy at Suzanne's blog, Suz's Stamping Story - thank you Suzanne. Please pop over to see what Suzanne does - she makes some amazing things.

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome some new followers. It is lovely to see Deb at Stamp Dancer, Ali at Al's Bits and Pieces, Suze at CantStopCrafting, Angy, Eva, Sylvie at GibMiss and Tole_wils995, thanks for joining me on my creative journey ladies. (They were there with all my followers but Blogger seems to have lost them all at the moment).

This is my first card (or piece of art) since I have got back from holiday and oh boy am I finding it difficult to find any personal inspiration, Mr Mojo seems to have stayed on holiday and not come back with me!!!

We are going to Walsall, Birmingham, this weekend for an 18th birthday celebration (yes Sarah I am going to be near you again), so I need a card and a gift. Gingersnap Creations Random Redhead Challenge is a tribute to teens and Play Date Cafe is navy, bubblegum and leaf green, both of these fitted the bill to help me on my way. The Paper Variety want any threads including ribbons and Stampin' B's want any distressing so this fitted with them too.

I used Stampotique's Moth Fab and coloured her with promarkers. The birthday greeting is my own made in PSE and mounted on TH's large paper rosette. The backing paper is from First Edition papers - Spring Feast and I have given it a gesso wash. Edges have been distressed and inked with DIs and a scrunchy ribbon, crown and card swirls added as embellishments.

If I haven't got round to seeing you yet I am on my way.

Take care.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Grungy Monday meets Stampotique

The Key To The Secret Garden

Hi All - With DT pieces to catch up on, since coming back from Cyprus, I have only just found time to 'play', and I am enjoying every minute.

Well are you watching the wedding today? I will catch up on it later as we are all off to Thorpe Park to meet up with family who are coming up from Kent. This is a great opportunity for the younger ones to enjoy the rides while Granny looks after the little ones. Mind you I do like the water rides, so I may get a chance to have a go on them.

I hope you like this next piece of art. I am really pleased with it and have enjoyed the experimenting and playing with inks and paint and embossing powders.

I really wanted to experiment with the TH technique - a new dimension - at Grungy Monday this week. This is to create a niche for a found trinket to sit in and Tim gives a great tutorial on his blog. I also haven't entered the Stampotique challenge for a while and have several new stamps waiting to be inked and used and this week there is a great sketch to follow, so with 'anything goes' at Simon Says as well, these were my inspiration.

I coloured the mushrooms with DIs and used promarkers, the suede paint and stickles on the fairy.

The flowers were from my box and I die cut the leaves using a downloaded text paper and played with it in photoshop to get the right colours.

This shows the niche that the key is sitting in. The blog link for the tutorial is at the top of the page. I used the distress embossing powders on the key to give it more of a verdigris look.

Suppplies
Stampotique stamps - by Jill Penney and Jo Capper-Sandon
TH distrress embossing powders - peeled paint, weathered wood (on the key)
DIs - aged mahogany, peeled paint, victorian velvet, weathered wood, walnut stain, pumice stone
Stazon - timber brown
Crown suede paint - chocolate
Promarkers - satin, blushdusky pink, ivory, pear green
Sakura white glaze pen and glitter pen
Sentiment - my own
Nestie - labels one
Marianne Creatables and Crealies leaf dies
TH stamp - Nature's Moments
Tissue paper, modge podge, gesso
Stickles - crystal
Papers - TH Lost and Founf and unknown
A key from my (late) Dad's key wallet

I hope you have a great weekend. Thanks for stopping by to take a look.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Time on my Hands - CoC #32

Hi Everyone, we have been having sunny spells today, which is really refreshing again.

Today I am showing a tag I have made to join the CoC challenge 32 at Linda's fab blog, Studio L3. This week it is an inking and masking technique which can be found on P.59 of Tim's book. I learnt one very important lesson from playing with making my own mask and that is to be aware of the ghost or shadow around the image if you haven't cut the mask close enough to the line, in fact I would say cut just inside the line. I will next time. The wings were stamped on acetate and glitter added to the back, I also used glitter pens on the clothes.

Other challenge blogs I used for inspiration were Simon Says Stamp and Show - A Tag and Just for Fun - Time Flies (I used the wings and clocks but in a different way and used a different sentiment - hope that's ok girls?)

DIs -  tea dye, crushed olive, weathered wood, walnut stain

Stamp - Prom Queen - Stampotique

Stamp for background - Studio 490 - Wendy Vecchi

Wings - stamp - Scrolls Work

sentiment - my own

embellishments - downloads

Enjoy the rest of Wednesday and thanks for taking a look at my tag.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Other challenges to have fun with -

Paper Wings - Distressed

Totally Stampalicious - Bling

Incy Wincy - Colour me wonderful (I used distress inks, markers and glitter pens for the clothes and chalk for the face)

Simon Says Stamp - make your own embellishments (all made by downloading, stamping, cutting, adding glitter or glossy accents etc)

Crafts and Me - Time to spread your wings

Orange and Purple Stampotique

Hi Fellow Bloggers

I bought a couple of new Stampotique stamps the other week and finally got to use them over the weekend.

The current theme at the Stampotique challenge blog is to use turquoise and orange. This is another card that I actually started a few days ago, but only got finished last night. I decided to use the Sketch Saturday layout which actually proved more difficult than anticipated, but became a brilliant challenge. Everything on this card, except the backing paper and the metal clip, has had a coating of gesso, in fact I seem to have gone gesso mad.

The door and the cat are two separate stamps and I started by making a background of text and music papers gluing them as a collage and then covering them with a wash of ....... guess what? Yes gesso. I cut a mask for the cat and stamped the door to place it behind him (has to be a 'him' because I have 2 male cats), then painted with DIs. The turquoise layer was over printed with a TH stamp and the ribbon given..... yes you've guessed it - a coating of gesso. Finished off with some hinges painted and covered in rock candy crackle paint and little beads in the middle. The backing paper is from a pad with no name (lost the front cover...), all I did to that was stamp a corner flourish in turquoise but it looks rather green.

Love this little cat.    Have a great day.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Simon Says Stamp - Animal antics
Stampin' for the weekend - Getting warmed up

Stampotique again

Welcome.

I have loved playing with my new Stampotique stamp and had to ink her up again. I used the sketch from Sketch Saturday and themes from Stampin' for the weekend - new and blue, Basic Grey - dots and spots, Creative Inspiration - Use something New,  Craft Your Days Away - Anything Goes, and Paper Cutz - metal.

The result.

Image stamped on TH paper edged with sparlky embossing powder and over inked. Dark blue papers were run through embossing folder and the bottom one had blue foil added to some of the spots. The sentiment is a digi from Scrap n Fonts.

Supplies
Prom Queen stamp (Stampotique)
TH paper Vintage/Shabby Chic set
Basic Grey background paper
Miscellaneous embellishments from my stash












Other challenges to have fun with-
Tuesday Throwdown - Embossing
Creative Cottage - Something New
Stampin' B's - Old and New (New stamp for Christmas, papers and embellishments old)
Stamp Insanity - Metal
Simple Doodles - Embossing
Mark's Finest papers - Embossing
Scrapbook Sisters - Anything Goes
Rainbow Lady - It's all new to me
Cute card Thursday - Out with the old
Crafty purple Frog - New Goodies
Delicious Doodles - New
Anything Goes - The letter C  CROWN

Thanks for looking and have a great week ahead.

Luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

New beginnings, new stamp and COCC #26

Hello everyone and welcome

I have been itching to play with this new stamp that my husband bought me for Christmas. I had been looking at the Stampotique stamps all last year and wasn't sure how I would use them, yet they intrigued me and at last I have plucked up courage to experiment with them. I am pleased with the simplicity of this and the effect I have achieved. I had several challenges in mind,

Stampotique - to use punches/die cuts

Studio L3 - Rusted Grunge

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Your newest stamp

Unscripted Sketches -  old sketch #13     

Prom Queen by Jill Penney and Daniel Torrente has been stamped onto patterned paper and coloured using promarkers. Diecut and stamped pieces have been given the rusted grunge technique (see P45 of TH Compendium of Curiosities for how to do it) and stickles added to edges and crown. The sentiment is my own created in Word.

 

Other challenges to have fun with -

Creative Inspirations - Use something new

Mark's finest papers - Use something new

One Stop Craft - New beginnings

Paper Sundaes - Something new

Pile It On - Brand spankin' new

Creative Card Crew - New beginnings

Try it on Tuesday - New beginnings

Creative Cottage - Something new

Simon Says Stamp - New beginnings

Dutch Dare Card Challenges - Something New

Hope your week is going well - take care and have fun.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox