Last minute card

Hi all,
This is a bit of a rushed post.
I wanted to sustain my renewed card-making burst by entering the current Less is More challenge - but it has been a busy week.
I was thinking about this beautiful chocolate baroque stamp that I have only used once & wondered if I could try just using a portion of it for a card.
The current challenge gives a choice of 3 cards to case. I chose Chrissie's mainly because I love the sharpness of the white on white accented by the shadows created round the square & rectangular elements.



I wanted my colours to be bold so it would not look like a wedding card, and I wanted to keep the sentiment simple as well. I used copics to colour her and this is my third attempt, She thinks she'd like a little glitter & sparkle, but I have resisted. I might play with one of my early attempts to see how it would look.

Anyway, I managed to make it onto the challenge with just a few minutes to spare (whew)

take care & happy crafting, Dianne

One layer animal card

Hi there,
since I have been back crafting and blogging for a week or so now I decided to check out the Less is More challenge for this week..

It is a one layer card challenge and must include an animal. I tend to be attracted to flowers & plant life when I buy stamps, but I have a few animal stamps. One is a giraffe - a sketchy one rather than an African savanna one, and I have used him for baby and small child cards before.

So I masked up a card blank and stamped him, masked him and then used distress inks to create a background, I used the distress inks to stamp a jumbled letter background stamp at the top and bottom.
Then I peeled off all my masking, coloured my  giraffe in with copic makers and added a Happy Birthday.

It all sounds quite straightforward when written like that, but I have a whole spare card that became a giant experiment
... things went well 'til I stamped my top letters upside down (I 'm sure they were the right way up when I inked them).
Then I got them the right way up for the bottom of the card, but had wiped the wrong side so there was a sharp, clear line of letters ending ... rather than fading into the green as I had intended.
Also, I discovered the a post-it note mask does not always prevent a little distress ink getting onto the card when you stamp.
 ... And finally I discovered I had no birthday sentiment that would fit neatly onto the blank part of my card. My test card is covered in attempts to make 'happy birthday, work. I finally masked each word so I could ink and stamp one below the other.

Still - I got there in the end, and I have a cute giraffe bookmark as well :-)
Well, I'm off to link my card to the challenge, and to check out some of the other cards
Have a lovely weekend.
Cheers, Dianne

P.S.  I am also linking my card to AAA Cards another clean ans simple card challenge that I was previously unaware of  but it's 'Bare Naked challenge' sounds fun & just right for my card (so thank you to Sarah for suggesting it)

More with the masterboard

I had an idea for a card while I was at work yesterday and we had a friend round to dinner last night so I had to save it for today ....

I cut 4 small squares from the masterboard I made for my previous card. I clipped two opposing corners with my widest corner punch from each of them, inked the edges with vintage photo and then spent ages looking for the right colour to mount them. There is paper scattered all over the table as I experimented with purples, yellows, creams, white, black and and craft card. Black looked impressive, as did the purple, but they also mage the whole effect quite dark, and I also wanted to keep with the colours for the Chocolate Baroque challenge.

 My daughter and I both voted this our favourite combination and I do feel that it leaves my earlier card for dead. Still you have to start somewhere to move any further.

It is lucky it's evening here so I used the flash, which puts all my background mess into darkness.

I will load this up to the Chocolate Baroque challenge blog taking me from never having entered to entering twice in one challenge.
Take care and have a great weekend, Cheers, Dianne

Experimenting

There are so many creative and talented people out there doing amazing things with paint, stamps, inks, paper and anything else that inspires them. I am often daunted by their creativity, and also awed by their willingness to share techniques and ideas just for the love of creating. So thank you everyone for sharing your images and ideas so we can all benefit.

I have been watching the Chocolate Baroque challenge blog since shortly after it started and in my (longish) phase of procrastination I have started any number of  pieces with the intention of entering the challenge. This week I have finally finished something that I am quite pleased with - and better still - I can see where I would like to take it further.

I really love the colours for challenge 8 and I like that you are just given the colours, what you do with them is up to you ... you don't even have to use Chocolate Baroque stamps.  As it happens I have a little weakness for their stamps and have a few in my collection, though there is room for more :-)

I started with a painted background similar to my previous card but I stayed with just adding stamped images from the punky flowers set, and script from the paisley elephants set. Next I made a sort-of master board using the punky flowers stamps, colouring them with copic markers. I took a strip of this, added some gold embossing and then clear embossed it twice to give it a good glossy coat and mounted it on a piece of dark purple paper

I love how the colours have worked together and am glad I have finally completed a card for the challenge.
now I just need to add it to the site and get back to crafting.
Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment. They're very encouraging

Eleanor's Birthday card

Well here I am slinking back to my blog, looking shamefaced, but also pleased to have something I want to show off on the 'fridge door'.

It was my daughter's birthday a few weeks ago and just before and I was thinking what sort of card I could make for a beautiful, savvy, and (her word) sassy 16 year old.
I had just picked up the January Craft Stamper (we get ours a month later here) with the corset free stamp, and inside was an article titled 'soul Stamping'. I really liked how the author had built up her layers of paint, stamps and paper to create her art journal cover, and how she had used the same technique for a card.

I decided to experiment with her technique and to incorporate the corset stamp ... only I wanted something a bit more edgy than just the corset so I added the set of wings that were an earlier Craft Stamper free stamp to give it more of a steampunk feel. This is what I came up with...

I was pretty chuffed with how the technique worked and how it all came together and, just as importantly, Eleanor liked it. I have continued experimenting using this format. It is really forgiving because you can always paint over something, or stick something on top.

One of the reasons I have not put much on my blog recently is because I often get hung up by the need to 'create' a finished object and I end up with lots of half finished things ... or things not started because I'm not sure where they are going. So, for me, the absolute best thing about the 'Soul stamping' article was that it showed me how to experiment more.
Thanks for reading - cheers, Dianne

Yay - back at it

It is has been months since my last post and I have just spent part of last week, and the weekend making cards & playing with my stamps. It's been lovely.

I have read blog posts where people talk about losing their Mojo ... I felt like I had lost even more than that for a while. It wasn't just inspiration, but the confidence to actually sit down and create.
I  looked at challenges but didn't feel I had the courage to start things, or see them through. But I still enjoyed checking out entries to challenges and have seen some awesome cards over the last few months.

It's interesting how when one part of your life is out of kilter it effects other parts. Now I have started a new job and made some decisions about parts of my life, I feel so much better about myself and where I'm headed. I don't have the aswers to anything much - but at least I feel like I have some idea of what the questions and issues are.

Possibly the fact that it is winter (Spring supposedly - though you wouldn't know it) here and the family have all had horrible colds (sometimes more than once) has impacted my mood - so maybe the beginning of spring (if only notional) will boost my confidence.

Some Months ago I bought the Mackintosh Windows & Mackintosh Beauty stamps from Chocolate Baroques. They were so beautiful I almost felt unworthy of them amd, apart from a card for my daughter's birthday I have not used them. But my husband really likes these stamps, and it's his birthday this week so I sat down with them.

I can't show his card because he may well read this blog & I want to keep it as a surprise since he made the effort not to peek while I was working on it. Anyway having been envigorated by my success with his card I went on with the same technique and made a card for  his mum's birthday, which is coming up in a couple of months. This is it and I'm really happy with it.

I thought I'd get my crafty ball rolling by entering this in the Simon Says Stamping Wednesday challenge which requests the use of a rubber or clear stamp - no digi stamps & this is definitely a rubber stamp image.
I stamped the rose window stamp from the Mackintosh Windows set & embossed with copper & coloured it in with copic markers. The 'happy birthday, is from another Chocolate baroque set. The pink card has been versamaked with a selection of the single rose stamps & I popped it onto a dark blue card.
I was so chuffed at how this turned out that I went on to 'experiment' with different colous using the mini version of this stamp that came with a Craft Stamper magazine a few months ago ... & I now have my first Christmas card

 I was nicely surprised by the different effect created by using red for the roses. I still need to stamp a sentiment onto it. None of my current ones look quite right, so I guess I will have to have a look for one - but that's ok - I can handle the shopping :-)


The interesting thing about these Mackintosh Windows stamps is that they are so complete they don't need much in the way of extra work. They are definitely the star of anything they are applied to.
It's back to work for me tomorrow morning - but my crafty mess is still on the table and I have lots of ideas to keep me busy - yay
Thanks for reading & looking.
Happy crafting everyone :-)

Mothers' Day

It is Mothers' Day in New Zealand this Sunday and I like to make Mum a card - let face it - if anyone appreciates your creativity it's your Mum - especially once you move out of her house and any resulting mess is not her responsibility.

I thought she'd really like the shabby chic card I made a few weeks ago for a challenge (see here), but that had already been nabbed by Eleanor for a friend's birthday card. So I decided I'd do something similar. For the original I copied a Shakespeare sonnet & used a nice font I found.  I was hoping to do the same with a mum-themed poem, but I couldn't find anything on the net that wasn't too cute ... so I decided to write something.

Mum's are complex things - as are our relationships with them - so I thought I'd just write about how it took being an adult and having my own children to appreciate all that she had done for me, and is still doing.
Anyway it sounded ok when I'd finished (though definitely not a poem), however, having written it I couldn't bring myself to tear it into a strip for a card, so I ended up making a bit of a feature of it and building the card around that.

It was another card that used up bits from my stash, so that always makes me feel a virtuous. The little flowers are cut from some vellum & I like the translucence of them.  I was pleased by how willing they were to curve - I thought the vellum would be too inflexible for that.

Now I need to find an envelope to fit it and get it in the post today otherwise it wont make it to Feilding by Saturday's post.
I'm not entering it into any challenges ... except the 'hope Mum likes it' challenge.
Well - enough fun - I'm off to do some housework
thanks for reading, & have a lovely day
Dianne