Our very dear friend Iain has had a pretty hard time over the past 7 months recovering from a stroke and adjusting to his new way of life. He is doing so extremely well – no surprise there given his inner strength, his faith, his wife Ruth and all his family and friends, not to mention his sense of humour. Happy birthday Iain.
Inks: Memento black and copic pens to colour
Card: tartan paper, stampin up old olive card and summer picnic paper
Stamps: Stampin up Golden oldies
Again using the masterboard method I made the background paper but this time using bashful blue and sage green ink. I had a special request for a card with dragonflies and a snowy background so this was the design I came up with. I was so pleased with it that I made a few more with this background and a couple more with fusible fibre and film dragonflies like these ones. You can’t really tell from this photo but this card also has gems, stickles and sprinkles of silver embossing for a nice sparkly effect.
The following card is for Rachel my stampin up supplier. There are many cards with this theme about: Santa and his sleigh flying over the roof tops or over the trees so this is my version.
What a busy time of year for crafters. I have, like many others, been making a few Christmas cards in the last few weeks. Here is a small selection made using the tutorial in Craft Stamper mag (Dec 09 issue) by Jo Firth-young for making your own master board. Christmas cards are not my favourite ones to make as I don’t like making them all the same so I like to come up with different designs, even if there is only a slight variation it allows each person to have a unique card. Now I know if I started making Christmas cards in June then I would have time to make ALL my Christmas cards but I really can’t get my head into Christmas mode in June so I still end up buying charity cards too.
Michelle Zindorf has a fab tutorial which I used for this card. I changed a couple of elements but I got the same overall effect.
Here are my three ATCs for the ukstampers November swap with the theme of Distressed. The first one is based around nature, the second ATC has an image of an Oriental vase which I distressed using crackle glaze and the third may look familiar to some of you as I used the same photo, of a rusty piece of metal, and same techniques that I used for a previous tag.
Naturally distressed
Vase distressed
Rusty distressed metal
So had you forgotten all about this then? My altered book project has been just sitting in a box waiting for me to have time to tinker with it. This is stage 4: make a niche. My niche as you can see is forming a grave. Please forgive the photo (5th attempt and there are still shiny areas – I tried with flash on and flash off, lights on and lights off then finally with just the poor light from the window behind it and flash on!).
I really like grave yards as they are always tranquil places to sit or stroll through and it doesn’t matter if they are kept neat and tidy; sometimes the wilder they are – the more wildlife friendly they are. I have used a daisy trim on the grass – pushing up daisies (get it?). The skeleton is just a plastic one bought from the pound shop around Halloween time.
Using a pencil and ruler I marked out a rectangle where I wanted to cut the niche from and made sure there was enough room for the articles being secreted away there.
I placed a cutting mat under a few sheets at a time and using a sturdy craft knife (or carpet knife) and a metal edged ruler I cut out the rectangles. Keep going until the required depth. To glue them together, with mod podge, I just glued the inside edges and the outside edges rather than the whole page to reduce wrinkling.
I painted the inside of the niche a nice muddy brown colour using a mixture of brown acrylic paints. The head stones are photos of real headstones printed on white card and aged even more with distress inks. The left hand page was painted black, then an orange border rub-on added and coloured with alcohol inks. Using quite a dry brush I painted over the black with perfect pearls. Stamped the Grave tidings in versamark and swished over some green perfect pearls. The dragon is stamped using black ink. The right hand side is paper that looks a bit like grass darkened down with distress inks.
El dia de los muertos
They were all plain beer mats painted with white gesso the decorated.
Embrace Imperfection
Inks: Distress ink frayed burlap, Archival ink coffee, Brilliance graphite black
Card: DCWV Once upon a time mat stack, gold angel hair
Stamps: Topaz lady (unknown) Stampers anonymous Mini muse
Other: old lace, bottle cap, mirror, Distress stickles walnut stain, copic pens to colour
Live the Life
Inks: Stazon black, Distress inks: peeled paint, mustard seed, marigold, black soot and worn lipstick
Stamps: Stampers anonymous Mini muse, Inkadinkado Rock star
Card: red glossy card, white card
Other: black wire, mica piece, peel-off notes, pens and bleach to colour
Metal
Card: Black card, silver coloured metal
Other: brad, gems, spellbinder impressibilities butterfly, pewter paint, crackle glaze, glitter, black acrylic paint
Fleur De Lys
Card: dark green patterned card decoupaged (unknown)
Other: fleur de lys brads (black enamel filed off then coloured with oregano alcohol ink)
I found this tutorial the other day and loved the card Michelle made so much that I just had to have a go for my mum’s birthday card. I didn’t have the same stamps or colours (nothing new there!) but I used her overall design. Mine is not nearly as good as Michelle’s but I would definitely try this again. (thank you for sharing Michelle)
Inks: Brilliance pearlescent yellow, Adirondack stream and terra cotta, Archival coffee, Versafine onyx black, Stampin up certainly celery and cream caramel, dark green, Distress ink weathered wood
Card: black, white, teal
Stamps: Papertreyink Out on a limb, Basic grey Flourish corners (small flower), Rubber Stamp Tapestry (foliage), Stampers anonymous Urban tapestry (splotches for leaves in tree), a text stamp unknown
Other: Silver brads
This cute little car stamp by Mabel Lucie Atwell was perfect for dad, I can just imagine him playing with one of these as a little boy. Actually it was probably a go-cart that he played with! I decoupaged the image and shaded the outside with distress inks.
Yet another fabby tutorial (thank you for sharing Nathalia) but I didn’t make an accordion book I just used the idea to make this card.
I used grunge paper instead of chipboard.
Inks: Distress inks frayed burlap and walnut stain
Card: grunge paper, white card
Stamps: I stamped the inside using selective colouring with Marvy pens with various stampin up pocket silhouette stamps and Rubber stamp tapestry stamps having brayered lightly for the sky and ground first. The greeting is from stampin up cheer and wishes. Dragonfly on shrink plastic from Aspects of design 38 Daisy daydreams
Other: Ckalky emulsion French turquoise for the undercoat, Crackle paint Picket fence paint, eyelets, small terracotta pot, flowersoft and wire, lucky white heather (plastic), filigree button for the handle, shrink plastic dragon fly with some thin black wire for it’s legs.
Here are a couple of 8 x 8 inch scrapbook pages based on a layout posted by Sue for a CBC challenge. We demolished the single garage and had a double garage built on that spot. It used to house the motor bike and a car but now is more like overspill from the house. It has no heating in there so gets really chilly and damp in winter.
Inks: Black document ink, Colorbox fluid chalk inks
Card: Cosmo cricket
Stamps: Stampin up Loads of love (pick-up truck) and totally tabs, Dimensional fourth (bike)
Other: coloured pens for the wavy lines