A New Year and a New Challenge at STAMPlorations

Good morning.

It's a new year so it's also a new month and time for a brand new challenge at STAMPlorations. Here's my take on this month's theme and photo prompt.

I was inspired by the multicoloured Cheerios and the theme of cups.

The cup is from  Always Tea Time, plus the freehand addition of a saucer and the multicoloured background panel was made using the smaller of the Bloomdala Bliss #14 Masks. 

After securing the mask onto a panel of white card, I inked through it with three DIs to create my rainbow of colours, Mustard Seed, Picked Raspberry and Salty Ocean. Putting it to one side, I then stamped the large china cup from  Always Tea Time, and added a freehand saucer for it to sit on. I could have used the cup and saucer from the same set but wanted the larger image. The delicate floral details were coloured using Copics and then the cup and saucer were fussy cut. 

From an A6 panel of white, I cut a circular opening and popped my stencilled panel behind on pads before adding the teacup and saucer to the front. The sentiment from the same set was stamped in black to complete.

How will you interpret the theme or perhaps the photo will inspire you. If you are like me then perhaps both will kick start your design process. For more inspiration, why not check out the rest of the team here and join in, we'd love to see your take in the gallery link up.

STAMPlorations December Challenge

 Good morning. A new month, so a brand new challenge at STAMPLorations Theme and Photo. Here's my take on the new cue card.

Using the theme, I used the single candle stamp from the Kathryn's Big Wishes stamp set and some paper piecing to create this festive array. All the candles were stamped onto a panel of white card and then repeatedly again onto a piece of striped DP I found at the bottom of my Christmas paper box. It was part of a set from over 10yrs ago so no idea of the make but I also had some coordinating plaid from the set left too which I used to back my base card. I quite like the more subtle colours used in the striped paper, including lots of festive elements, Christmas puddings, not used, candy canes and stockings, snowflakes, ornaments, holly as well as plainer stripes. Before adding the paper piecing, I coloured the candle flames with Copic markers.

I started off trying the camouflage technique with the Season's Greetings Phrase Die but didn't like the effect so added a further plain white Season's Greetings over the top. It would have been so much easier and taken a lot less time if I'd decided to do that straight off!!

So that's my take, what's yours? We'd love to see your ideas on the cue picture and theme in the gallery.

For more inspiration, check out the rest of the DT here.

STAMPlorations November Challenge

It's a new month so its time for the latest challenge at STAMPlorations Theme and Photo challenge.

Here's my card based on the theme and photo.

For my inspiration, I was influenced by the theme of fall and the maple leaf in the picture.

To start, I stamped three of the maple leaves from Leafy and stamped them onto MM paper with some Altenew Sea Forest Ink. I then added some colour with my Zig watercolour markers and added water to allow the colours to blend. I was surprised that the vein definition on the leaves stayed quite crisp, so although I left the stamp in my MISTI, I didn't need to re stamp once they were dry but I did fussy cut them, leaving a fine edge of the paper still visible. 

I am still trying to use up my stock of card, so found some textured card that has been in my stash since I made my daughter's wedding invites over 15 years ago to use for my background. Down one side, I added Dried Marigold and Carved Pumpkin DI, blending out the paler Dried Marigold towards the center of the panel. Some jute twine was wrapped around the panel over the inking and secured before I stamped the sentiment from Softly using Altenew's Mangrove Root ink. The leaves were attached along the twine border with foam pads and the completed panel added over a matching base card with pads too, this accommodated the twine wrap.

So that's it from me. Will you be inspired by the photo, the theme or like me both? We'd love to see what you make of the new challenge and look forward to seeing you in our gallery. For some extra inspiration why not check out the rest of the team here.

Joining in over at:-

We're Back!

Good morning, STAMPlorations are back with their challenges after a long summer holiday. 

So here I am with a card for our first challenge at Theme and Photo prompt.

What has more shine than mirror card, well if you've ever tried to photograph it you'll know all about it!

To start, I die cut a panel of white card using the middle die of the Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Nesting Dies, then used the Christmas Icons Christmas Tree #2 die, to cut the shape. I flipped this panel over and added some double sided tape over the opening and flipped it back. Using the same tree die, I cut again using gold mirror card, but this time I was careful to keep all the cut out pieces as I wanted then to inlay into my first tree. The sticky side of the tape allowed me to insert the smallest pieces back into the openings!

To finish off, I stamped my greeting from Hello Christmas and embossed with gold EP. The finished panel was added to an A6 top fold note card.

So where will you go with the theme and photo? We'd love to see you in our gallery with your take.

If you need more inspiration please check out the rest of the DT here.

Joining in over at:-

STAMPlorations Sketch #28

God afternoon folks.

Today sees the start of a new sketch challenge over at STAMPlorations. 

Here is my take of this week's sketch.

and this is the sketch.

For my card I chose to focus on one of my Stamp Club stamps in the Sugar Rush set. 

I stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black then coloured the wafer cup with Copics. I coloured the cherry in Copics also, then added Glossy Accents to make it more lush. The texture on the ice-cream I made using Stampendous chunky white embossing enamel over a squiggle of Versamark pen. I like the look of some of the black showing through. I thought the sundae cup needed a lift so I mounted it on a circle that had been textured using the same Sizzix die as the panel.

The central panel I made using some NitWits stripey dp to match the colours in the sundae then overlaid the lattice work panel on top to give more interest.
My dieplate for the panel was smaller than I wanted so I extended the cut by first cutting to just before the end then moving the die plate to match the first cut area then cut again carefully placing the die in the machine so I would not cut fully through. I think if I did it again I would make it even longer to get rid of the curved edges.
The pink border was cut using a Fiskars border punch. The sentiment banner was stamped with the ENJOY from the Trendy Butterflies set and embossed with detail gold.

If you enter you get the chance to win these goodies-

Prizes:

Winner

prize: 3 digi stamps

guest designer spot in Sketch #31

2 Top picks

the option to be a guest designer in the Sketch #31 Challenge if you use a STAMPlorations digi stamp (to be provided )
or clear stamp (if you already have them)

All winners and top picks will receive a personalized guest designer badge that they can display on their blogs, as well as a STAMPlorations guest designer watermark.

Frequent Players Spotlight: Play in all 3 challenges for the month and gain entries to a random drawing. Prize is always going to be a stamp and stencil pack.

Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog and check out the fab GDs and the rest of the DTs work.

Sue V GD

Carol Dunham GD

Lee  Ann Barrett GD

Becca DT

Laura Jane DT

Sari DT

Tenia DT

Wei Wei DT

OK, that's a wrap, hope to see your entries over at STAMPlorations.

I shall also enter the following challenges:-
Allsorts - Not Birthday
Penny Black and More - Anything Goes except a digi
ABC Challenges - D is for Die Cuts
Creative Inspirations - Anything Goes, option of a sketch

Bye, come back soon.

Stamps and Hearts

Hi folks and welcome.

Today I'm posting a card for the new monthly challenge over at STAMPlorations.

This month our theme is -

Prizes:

Winner
(voted by the design team)
prize: 2 stamp sets (3" by 5") if she used our stamps, 1 stamp set if she didn't
+ guest designer spot in the April Challenge

Top picks

prize: 3 digi stamps 

+ the option to be a guest designer too in the April Challenge if they will use their winnings OR if they already have our clear stamps

All winners and top picks will receive a personalized guest designer badge that they can display on their blogs, as well as a STAMPlorations guest designer watermark.

Frequent Players Spotlight. Play in all 3 challenges for the month for entries to the random drawing. Prize is always going to be a stamp and stencil pack valued at $10.

Now I'm sort of overdosing on Valentine's cards at the mo, so this is very understated and needn't be for Valentine's at all. It's so romantic to receive a single red rose at any time, hint hint!

This uses the stem rose that Shery posted for us to use in our DT application, it's gorgeous to colour, I used Copics because  it is a very crisp image and I thought it deserved a graphic approach to the colouring. I softened the OL image by adding a bow made from georgette ribbon. I added the LOTV greeting tags with added hearts with a little bit of chord and left it at that. 

Pop over to the main blog to check out the rest of the wonderfully talented DT and our fab GDT of Kim, Loll and Karen.

I shall link up to the following challenges -

PINspirational - Photo

I thought about the chord around the bag and the heart

Rather appropriate I think!

CAS on Sunday - flower/s (just the one!)

Thanks for calling around ,see you again soon.

STAMPlorations GD

Good afternoon, and it really is a sunny autumnal one.

Today I am so pleased to join the fabulous team over at STAMPlorations for a GD spot. I won one of their sketch challenges for my Daisy card and this was part of the prize!

So without further preamble here is my card.

and this is the sketch for the challenge which I used -

I only have one set of STAMPlorations stamps at the moment but hopefully my next club set will be winging it's way over the Atlantic shortly, so for this card I used a free Penny Black stamp I got with a magazine and a Stampendous cling 'Christmas background'

I stamped the poinsettias in a grey Memento, London Fog, as I wanted the outline to disappear into the image to give it a more authentic w/c effect and used various red DIs to colour the bracts then masked them when dry to over stamp the word background in Versamark and heat embossed with detailed white. The foliage was washed in using various green DIs and feathered out to give the soft effect. I left off a separate sentiment as there was one from the background which was more or less in the right place, any more would have been too much I think. After it had dried I added a cluster of bugle beads to represent the flowers, poinsettias are strange in that the bright red bracts aren't the actual flowers, although they look like it! The panel was then mounted on a red base card.

OK, that's it, I hope you like the card and it inspires you to take part. Pop over to the STAMPlorations blog and check out the fab inspiration from their very talented DT.

I shall enter the following challenges:-

Time Out - Embossing with the added twist of sparkle

Allsorts - No design papers

Thanks for taking the time to visit and please come back again.

Snowflakes at Cards und More

Good morning Peeps.

I hope I find you well. It's double post Tuesday as it's time for a new challenge over at Cards und More. This time we would like to see your projects that have the theme of -

SNOWFLAKES

Hopefully we wont have any around here for a while but they do look good on a Christmas card!

Here is my card for your inspiration.

I'm afraid the Brushos came out again to create the background after I'd stamped the snowflakes with Versamark then heat embossed with white. The snowflakes (newly purchased!) were placed with reference to the sketch over at STAMPlorations. 

There is another tale to tell about these snowflake stamps. As regular readers may remember I couldn't find my stash of snowflake stamps as I'd tidied them up and put them in a safe place, you know one that's so safe you can't find it! Anyway after checking out a couple of retail outlets, I found the perfect set on Amazon and placed my order for next day delivery. When 7pm arrived and still no sign, I checked emails and it was still out for delivery. Anyway I went to bed still without the stamps but on checking my emails in the morning, found one that said they were supposed to arrive Friday afternoon but another said that because they didn't have my name it couldn't be delivered! However as we were off to my daughters for the day I couldn't follow it up, but on Monday a new email said it was out for delivery that morning and sure enough it arrived in the allotted time slot. The driver said when I commented on their none arrival that it was a different driver on the route and he probably couldn't find us! I know we are down a long  rutted country lane but there is a temporary sign at the top pointing down. I think the first driver didn't fancy his vehicle going down the rutted trackway!

Anyway back to the technicalities.

The sentiment was die cut using a very old die, think its Go Create, then triple embossed with silver to make it look like metal. (See technique here)

I mounted it on dark blue then flat onto an A6 base card.

 Check out the rest of the DT to see what they have made and hopefully, if you are inspired join us over at Cards und More for this challenge.

I shall also join in at the following challenges -

Loves Rubberstamps - Cool Colours

Virginia's View 

Thanks for calling by and hopefully see you in an hour for the latest challenge at Cardz4Guyz.