Ombre 50th

Evening folks.

The sun is blazing down this aft but there is a stiff breeze so you can't really sit out in it but it makes for a great washing day!

My Son got back earlier from a weekend at a music concert and a difficult journey home due to a closure on the M62. It's been shut since late morning so everywhere around Oldham is a car park!

Anyway when he finally made it back he remembered he needed a card for a neighbour's 50th. Simon is his old childminder's husband and his best friend's Dad and he has been a surrogate member of the family for over 20 years! So it was a plea to Mum to please at short notice could I...., well you know the rest!

So here it is.

I'd seen a similar card over at the MFT web site and it stuck in my mind as a useful sketch for a masculine birthday. I also had a couple of challenges in mind when I made it as well, so it didn't really take long for it to come together.

The stars were inked with a variety of blue DIs through a Tim Holtz stencil and a circle die cut from the bit box mounted on the inked panel. The 50 was die cut twice using a MFT die, one set was inked in mid blue DI, faded jeans I think. The th and birthday was stamped in black and the STAMPlorations 'happy' was embossed in white on black and mounted on pads. I stuck the blue 50 slightly to one side of the white set and then added them to the circle of white. The whole panel was trimmed and mounted flat onto a dark blue base card.

I shall join in at -

        

Thanks for stopping by, see you back soon. :)

Vintage?

Good morning and what a bright one it was early on when the dawn chorus woke me at 5!

We left the skylight in our bedroom open last night because it had been so warm and sunny yesterday so I can't really complain and I did drop off back to sleep soon after.

Anyway I'm sharing a card I made yesterday when I came in to have a rest from smashing up old  roof slates.

Now I'd been looking at the latest challenge over at CASology which is vintage but wasn't really inspired then the new challenge at ATCAS came up as well as the photo inspiration at Inkspirational. I had a root through my stamps and came up with a couple of Kaisercraft stamps I picked up on a trip to meet my team mate from STAMPlorations, Monika. I was also inspired by the sketch over at CAS(e) this Sketch, just flipped it across the diagonal. After playing around on a piece of scrap I ended up with this, which happens to look quite vintagey, I think!

I added some DIs in a w/c wash around the foliage and flowers and left the butterflies as stamped. The greeting is from a set I won from Uniko last week. After the panel was dry I cut a rectangle using my MFT die and inked around the edge of the central panel and frame before reassembling and gluing flat onto a base card.

Anyway that's it for card making. There is still a lot of old slate to be smashed. We are using it to finish off our long awaited patio. We have been converting our barn for nearly 10 years and have accumulated a lot of demolition rubble that we would like to reuse. The broken bricks are used in driveways and paths as hardcore, decent bricks are reused as were the good slates but there is a huge pile of broken and smashed slate so why not recycle and remove the tip at the same time!

Here are a couple of photos to explain.

  We are about halfway now, so the pile of waste is smaller but plenty to use up yet, in fact when moving some yesterday we found another pile at the back of some bricks!

I'm joining in at:-

   

     

Thanks for stopping by. :)

Muse Christmas Visions WOW

Welcome.

Just a quick post to show a tag I made for a couple of challenges.

My daughter says it gives her shudders when I post a Christmas card so early in the year so I've gone down the tag route. I need plenty and always end up having to use some bought ones!

This week's Muse: Christmas Visions is Kimberly Weiner and I absolutely loved her card and this is my take on it.

This is Kimberly's card.

I kept her idea of a circular theme but kept it to that and made a tag. I added a little sparkle over the roofs and hills with a snow writer. The hills and trees were in plain white card but the snowflakes and stars are in a pearlised white card. Ribbon is from the stash.

As the challenge over at Colour Me is WOW and Merry Monday's is sparkle I shall join in there also.

     

Thanks for stopping by. :)

Father's Day

Hi, are you looking forward to the weekend? I am. A little retail therapy is in the offing!

However before I go I'd like to show you a card I made for the latest challenge at Fantasy Stampers.

This challenge we would like to see you projects on the theme of 

Father's Day

Pretty self explanatary, just make sure you use a traditional stamp as the main focus of your design!

I'm sorry but we cannot include a digi however fantastic in our top 3!

Here is my card for the DT inspiration.

He's one of my favourites from LOTV that are now discontinued - Big Present.

It really belongs to my friend Di but she lent it to me, thanks Di. I coloured him with Copics, the colours picked up from the DP, before fussy cutting him out and mounting him on top of an embossed panel. 

I used a little bit of DP from an old set that was floating around in the bits box stuck to the base card and a double cut aperture to allow a little bit of blue card to show at the edges and in the center. 

The sentiment I cobbled together by masking off parts from a circular sentiment stamp and a Happy Birthday stamp both from LOTV.

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

If you fancy joining us for a guest spot, a taste of a DT without the commitment, just add GD to the end of your entry.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

I'm joining in at -

Fathers Day / Masculine

Loves Rubber Stamps - AG
Clear it Out Challenge - AG

Thanks for calling around, see you back soon. :)

Stamps and Washi

Good afternoon crafty friends.

It's time for a new challenge over at STAMPlorations. This month we would like to see your projects using Washi Tape. Now for me that is rather a tricky one as I don't really have much in my stash and a trip to the craft store is a major trek. I tried making my own with stamps and micropore tape but it still didn't inspire me. Then I saw Vicki's (All I do is Stamp) card over at MUSE and this got me to thinking. Here is the result.

Here is Vicki's fab muse card.

For my take I used a combination of an ARTplorations stencil Shower of flutters and the Trendy Butterflies stamp. My nod to washi are the tiny punched butterflies, which I punched from washi covered card. The large butterflies were first stamped with DI and then washed over with a little water before using the stencil to outline them with a fine line pen.

OK, now it's your turn.

PRIZES

*Note: you do not need to use our products to win -- the design team votes on the winner and top picks

Winner

Prize: $10 gift certificate for the shop or 3 digi stamps

+ Guest Designer spot in a future monthly challenge

Top picks

Guest designer spot in a future monthly challenge 

Winner and top picks will receive a personalized STAMPlorations guest designer watermark and a personalized guest designer badge to display on their blogs.

FREQUENT PLAYERS

We're doing away with the Frequent Players Spotlight. Instead, those who play in the two (monthly and/or sketch) challenges we host this month AND use a STAMPlorations product (stamp or stencil) will be highlighted, as well as get an entry to the random prize drawing. So play in the Sketch Challenge or Monthly Challenge or both -- your choice! When you enter projects using our products, you'll be in the running to win a STAMPlorations stamp and stencil pack valued at $10. The winner can also opt for a $10 gift certificate.

So no excuses for you not to join us!

For more inspiration check out what the rest of the team have been upto as well as our fab guests this month.

Rahmat GD

Carol D GD

Greta H GD

Becca DT

Laura Jane DT
Nonni DT

Sari DT

Wei Wei DT

I'm joining in at -