Hubbys birthday card

This whopper (8" square) is for hubbys birthday tomorrow using a layout from Sketch & Stash blog. I really must invest in a light box so I can take photos on an evening as the colours look a bit wishy washy here when they're quite butch in real life.

I've used my brayer with bashful blue, brocade blue, night of navy & pretty in pink to brayer the sky and water and garden green for the hills.

Lovely as a tree was reverse stamped into the water with the brayer and the stampamajig used to position the main tree. Sponged with various greens & choc chip watercoloured over the trunk. Sentiment from Circle of Friendship & punched with 2 of the SU circle punches.

Mounted on to night of navy and papers from Nouveau Chiq & Tea & Crumpets. I used my new martha stewart punch around the page set to add a decorative border.

Finally brocade blue grosgrain ribbon with a few gems.

Sketch & Stash challenge

This is using a stamp from Autumn Days set. In truth I wasn't too keen on it and only really bought the set for a couple of the foliage stamps. But after seeing the stamp used with reinkers to create a custom ink pad I had to grab it from my neglected pile and have a play.

Reinkers used, so saffron, handsome hunter, elegant eggplant and taken with teal. Cut with nesties label 4 which was sponged with some creamy caramel ink. The elegant eggplant card has been stamped with versamark and gold ep using my favourite background, En francais. Mounted on handsome hunter cardstock with choc chip ribbon and a feather from an old (an unused) duster. Once I'd decided on colour & cardstock everything just fell into place for the sketch & stash challenge blog.

Lovely As A Tree

I've had this set a lil while but hadn't got round to inking it.

A few minutes in the gallery at SCS and I was in 7th heaven. All photos were taken in artificial light so havent photoed as well as I'd have liked.

This one is using the scalloped circle punch to create clouds. Bordering Blue & Night of Navy ink. Dazzling diamonds along the edge of some white pearl cardstock.



This one just goes to show how different cardstocks effect ink. I stamped baroque motifs with versamark, heat embossed with clear then brayered taken with teal over some white gloss from Clarity Stamps. Instead of that wonderful teal colour it's gone more of a light navy blue. The base is sponged around the edges with taken with teal but this time on whisper white. What a difference it's made.







The colours have came out dreadfully in the artificial light so I may have to redo the pic.

Brayered pale plum with elegant eggplant and a light sponge with bashful blue.

Trees stamped in basic grey. Sentiment from Season Of Joy.






This is my version of a card made by Rox71 on SCS. She used a variety of tree stamps. This one is just using the one xmas tree.

Sponged with summer sun, pumkin pie, bashful blue and night of navy.

Forground trees stamped in handsome hunter with choc chip applied with a water colour brush along the trunks. If anyone is thinking that I've left too much snow come back and see the card when it's totally finished in Apr ;o)

Wedding invite samples

Hubby has kindly offered my services to his niece for her upcoming wedding. All she knows is that she wants red & white with a top fold.

These are 4 I knocked up in a few minutes using Mr & Mrs set & coordinating wheel with real red and basic grey ink.

Seeing as these are just ideas these will be binned within a few weeks so I've only used cheap card & ribbon. I havent been none to precise with the stamping either.

A few more

While at Michelles blog I fancied having a go at these 2.

The first is 5 different red, orange & yellow SU inks sponged over some whisper white before being stamped with baroque motifs in chocolate chip. Michelle uses a fabby heart stamp for the central motif but sadly it's not available in the UK.. (yet)

The 2nd uses the oval punch to create 2 vases with wheat ears from Autumn Days and a leafy stamp from Pocket Silhouettes. Instead of stamping onto whisper white I've stamped onto some bashful blue dsp before sponging the edges with choc chip and distressing them. Sadly the pattern of the paper is playing havoc with the auto focus on my camera and it looks a lot better in real life.





While in a red and apricot mood I got the brayer out and had some fun with real red, ruby red and apricot appeal. The wheat ears were masked before brayering then I triple embossed the entire image, left it to cool then cracked the embossing. Choc chip ink was rubbed into the cracks before being buffed away. Kraft satin ribbon bow is holding one of my teeny bulldog clips which in turn is holding an oval all sentiment stamped on to acetate and punched with the oval punch. Mounted onto choc chip & kraft. I'm not too sure about this one though.

Brayering gone wrong

I love Michelle Zindorfs blog, for those who don't know her she's a US Stampin'Up! demo and is amazingly talented with a brayer. While admiring her blog for the gazillionth time I decided to get the brayer out and have a play. 1, because I love my brayer and 2, we're having a brayer play day in Yeovil next month and I don't want to embaress myself ;o)

I loved a card she'd made a tut for but not having the bare tree stamp available in the UK I decided to use a frondy type stamp from Autumn Days to mimic a couple of rushes. Everything started out ok but as with my normal skim read of instructions I didnt quite get the inks in the right places then when I went back in to sponge some detail I had the worst accident possible... the moon mask ripped the top layer of whisper white. Typical, right in the middle of the moon where it stuck out like a sore thumb. Here's were I should have started all over again but no, not me. I struck on the bright idea of sticking the paper back and stamping a silhouette of a bird over the top. I've got 100s of stamps and the only one half suitable was from a donkeys years old and dirt cheap grab bag. I'd never even inked it before, and once I'd stamped I realised why it was dirt cheap and had never seen ink. It's not as bad as it could be but I think this one is one of those cards that I ought to learn by but wont ;o)

Taken with teal & apricot appeal cardstock and ink with bashful blue & pumpkin pie ink. White inkssentials pen across the water.

Yeovil girlies look away now.

There are a load of us docraft members meeting up for a playday in Yeovil in a few weeks and we're making 3 projects using the following 2 stamp sets. Soooo if you're coming to Yeovil look away now ;o)

One of the great things working with SU papers is that I can work at night and know that the colours will always match. Not like a few xmas's ago when I sat and cut 50 bookatrix cards while watching a film. I was horrified the next morning when I realised the white hammer cardstock wasnt all the same shade! It should have been as it had all been bought from papermill but it wasnt and it was glaringly obvious.

This is playful petals co-ordinating with it's DSP paper set Tea Party. Stamped onto whisper white before being coloured with markers and 3d'd.

My favourite SAB set, whimsical words sentiment stamped on so saffron before being attached to the main image with some rings.


This was supposed to be the project for Yeovil but our loud mouthed spidy had to say "but what about making it into an easel card"!


Well this one is Kraft & bella bleu dsp with playful petals stamped on whisper white & ballet blue before 3d'ing.

I opened my precious pot of filigree brads to make the drawer handle.




Here is the project we are making albeit we're using different colours.

This is an unusual combo of colours, taken with teal, very vanilla and mellow moss cs and Nouveau Chic dsp. Again playful petals has been 3d'd and I used oval all sentiments with the plain and scalloped punch.

Another of my precious filligree brads for the handle.






Top tip for anyone making these small treat boxes... decorate before you make the box.. makes life easier and you can use the stamp a ma jig to centre things, oops lol.

Almost amethyst & perfect plum card with perfect plum, bashful blue, lavender lace inks. Sentiment is from Vintage labels, flowers from playful petals, flight of the butterfly stamps and matching punch. Scalloped circle and 1 3/8ths circle punch.

Wow, huge recipe list for a box that only measures 2" lol



I love playing with backgrounds, this one was made by dapping on several colours of inks before spritzing with water and more dapping whilst still damp then triple embossed with clear ep and a dazzle versamark ink pad.

Craft white ink stamped onto vellum before being punched and a very fine edging of dazzling diamonds. Matted onto elegant eggplant over whisper white which had been ran through a cuttlebug folder. Scallop punched border and some elegant eggplant grosgrain ribbon.





This is the top secret project for Yeovil, a zig zag card using pocket silhouettes & flight of the butterfly.

Certain Celery, almost amethyst and whisper white cs with lavender lace, pretty in pink, certain celery ink. This is much easier to make than a trifold shutter but you have to be precise with the measurements.