Feeling Grouchy

Well, it was lovely to get crafting again yesterday, but things didn't all go according to plan. Fist of all, I opened a bottle of Starlight paint and found that I'd not screwed the cap on tightly enough, so there was a crusted skin over the top of the paint and I had to chip it away before I could use it. I ended up absolutely covered in paint - and doesn't it go a long way?

Then I wanted to make an enamelled embellishment for a card, using ultra thick embossing enamel.  I did everything as usual, and finished off the very last of my green UTEE, but used a stamp I'd not used before, and after it had cooled I tried to remove the stamp.... and instead, the enamel came free from the base card, leaving the motif embedded in the stamp. It took me about an hour of careful picking to extract all the bits from the stamp, and none of the bits were usable. I think the stamp is going to be OK but I still don't know what went wrong - could it simply be that I'd used a grey rubber stamp instead of a red rubber one? Is the grey rubber somehow different from the red in the way it behaves? Or had my (admittedly rather old) UTEE gone off?

So all in all I was feeling rather grouchy. Oscar the Grouch-y! Yep, I cheered myself up by rummaging through my snippets box and having a really good play around, and came up with this:

Yes, it's my tribute to Oscar the Grouch, the bad-tempered dustbin dweller from Sesame Street. His head is a die cut scalloped circle, with hand cut eyebrows, googly eyes, and a mouth made by cutting the smallest circle and oval from my Nesties in black and red, sticking them together and cutting in half.

For the bin I cut a rectangle of silver pearl card and put it though the Ribbler, then edged it top and bottom with narrow smooth strips. The lid is a sliver from the edge of a die cut circle, also edged with a narrow strip and with a hand cut handle added. Finally, I stamped a sentiment - I did consider adding one of my snarkier Dylusions sentiment, but I thought this would be a fun card for a child and they might not appreciate the snark!

As this is made entirely from snippets, naturally I'm going to head straight to the Snippets Playground.

I'm also sharing this with Sweet Stampin - Humour : I know the only stamping is the sentiment, but Oscar always makes me laugh!
And with Addicted to CAS - Grunge.  I'm sure this isn't the kind of grunge that Jaydee was thinking of when she set the challenge, it was the grunge style, but what could be grungier than a dustbin? So I've taken a sideways look at the challenge prompt!

Back to the Fuchsia

Hello again all my long lost friends. You've probably not been missing me - I left you lots of posts to keep you occupied while I was away - but I've been missing you! I've been away to spend a few days with my Mum. It's hard work and very frustrating these days - she's almost 91 and very infirm, yet still insists on living alone in her home which really isn't suitable for a frail, disabled old lady. She wasn't up to being taken out anywhere this time, but at least we managed to get her to eat some decent meals instead of her usual diet of Fanta, Hobnobs, Cadbury's Mini Eggs and cigarettes.

Anyway, I now am home for a couple of days and delighted to be reunited with all my crafting kit, and my first task was to make Mum's birthday card, as her birthday is two weeks away. I bought this fuchsia stamp, part of a set from Clearly Besotted, a couple of years ago, specifically to make a card for Mum as fuchsias are her favourite flowers, yet it's never actually seen ink until today as I've kept having other ideas for her cards.

I stamped it with Stazon ink to make sure the ink didn't bleed, and then did all the colouring using Wink of Stella pens. It's a good thing I only needed clear, pink, green and yellow as they are the only ones I have. As usual, the sheen doesn't show in the photo but the image has a gorgeous pearlescent sheen.

I am sharing this with
Addicted to Stamps and More - CAS 
Always Fun Challenges - CAS

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - Y is for Yippee!

Y is for Yippee! this fortnight at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers. Or to put it another way, we want to see a Congratulations card.

I couldn't really think of a snarky way to say Congratulations - not without it sounding jealous or nasty - but I'm sure some of the sistahs will have found a way.

I coloured the background with distress inks and the very lightest scattering of orange brushos,  then stamped a few random bits from an old Linda Luckin texture stamp set here and there in grey, followed by a couple of sentiment stamps I bought in the days when I used to produce my comping magazine and run occasional comps, stamped in black and highlighted with white gel pen.

The die cut word was supposed to be going directly on top of the background,  but it just merged in and looked lost, so I added a white strip to make it pop.

I am sharing this with
Crafty Creations Challenges - Anything Goes
Inkspirational - Graffiti 
Crafty Gals Corner - Anything Goes

Inspired by a book at C.R.A.F.T. Challenge

Today sees my final week as guest designer at C.R.A.F.T. challenge and it's been lots of fun! This week our theme is Inspired by a Book and our sponsor is Bugaboo Stamps.



Many of my favourite digis are from Bugaboo, and here I've used the cute little dragon called Clyde - but today he's actually being Toothless from the "How to Train Your Dragon" Books, because the book that inspired me is book two in the series, "How to be a Pirate"

I used an old map style backing paper and cut the pirate ship using the now-discontinued X Cut pirate ship die set that I won ages ago in the Playground.

I am sharing this with Craft Rocket Challenge - Inspired by a book or movie.

The Great Outdoors at Cardz 4 Guyz

It's time for a new challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz and this time our theme is The Great Outdoors.

The main image I have used is from the CD "The Best of La Pashe 2014". It is a decoupage design but with only a couple of layers, just to give it a subtle hint of dimension. The scene reminds me a lot of the Lake District, so for a background I decided to use an old fellwalking map.

This is where it all went wrong - I didn't want creases in the map. So I decided to iron it. Luckily I put it between two sheets of paper to avid transferring ink to the iron plate or ironing board. VERY luckily - because it turned out not to be made of paper at all, but of a crisp, thin plastic which melted and shrank into a tiny little mess under the heat of the iron!

Luckily I had another map, and after all any fellwalker would expect to have creases in their map, so I used the second one complete with creases. Finally I added a sentiment that seems perfect for this image, a free download from the wonderful Gingers House.

Get Well Wishes at Ooh La la Creations

Our new challenge is ready at Ooh La La Creations and this time the theme is Get Well Wishes.

I've used toppers and papers from the Yesterday's Memories CD, available here,  and added a stamped sentiment, paper roses and die cuts leaves to make an easel card.

A sketch at CD Sundays

For our latest challenge at CD Sundays, we have a sketch for you. A lovely and versatile sketch designed by Carol, who has chosen this challenge.

For my take on the sketch. I have used the Creative Crafting World CD  "Through The Year With Seraphina" and with May Day only a week away I picked this pretty Maypole dancing scene.

The image, backing paper and flower are all from the CD and the sentiment is a pre-printed one from Craftwork Cards.

It always fascinated me to see what very different ideas the same sketch can produce,  and I'm sure you'll agree with me that the DT have come up with a very varied selection of cards - so now let's see what YOU can do with it, remembering, of course, that there MUST be something from a CD somewhere on your work.