Paris Blues

I've been cutting - no, worse than that, tearing - into NBUS Graphic 45 papers again. I know, I'm getting reckless!

These papers are from a 6 x 6 Cityscapes backgrounds pad and I've kept to turquoise and teal, matching them with a stamped Paris Skyline stamp from the Tim Holtz Cityscapes set and a Paris collage image and postcards from a lovely un-named set I got in a bargain box at a craft show.

I am sharing this with
Sweet Stampin' - travel 
Crafty Calendar - dots and/or stripes
House of Cards - where I have chosen the "Use patterned paper" option.

Use a Digi at Back to Basics

It's my turn to choose the challenge at Back to Basics and  this time we would like you to use a digi (digital image) somewhere on your work.

Digis are a convenient alternative to rubber stamps - they are generally cheaper (especially when buying from overseas as there are no hefty postage and duty costs), easy to store, and can be manipulated to whatever size you want, as well as being reflected, re sized and even digitally inserted into backgrounds depending on what software you use. For complex manipulation, I like to use Craft Artist but to simply resize and print them, I just use Word. I know some crafters only use digis now, but I still use real stamps for most of my stamping because you can stamp on any shape, size and colour background, not just ones that will go through the printer.

However I do have a pretty sizeable collection of digis, many of which have been challenge prizes, and the one I have used here is from Di's Digi Downloads which was part of a prize I won from Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge a while back.

I coloured it with Promarkers. A tip - when colouring digis, the printer ink can be inclined to run and smear into the colour, especially if you are using pale colours and/or alcohol markers. However, if you leave at least 24 hours between printing and colouring, the ink has set completely and won't smudge.

Actually I coloured this image to match a completely different background paper but once it was finished, it looked better with this one. The paper and embellishments are from a Craft Asylum 12x12 Candy pad.

If you would like to join in but don't have any digis, there are quite a few sites that give away free ones - many of the sites that sell them have free samples or end-of-range designs,  and if you do an online search for "free digital stamps" you will find many more. There is a lovely blog called Free Digi Dearies where there are hundreds that you can download and use - although the designer, Mary, is now semi retired from designing she has kindly kept all her images on the blog and available for anyone who wants to use them.

It's hot to be cool

I think this too-hot weather is getting beyond a joke now. Can't we have some snow or something? However the chillis in the garden are loving the heat. So here is a card to celebrate.

 
The stamp set is a sheet of chilli stamps from Rubberdance - they don't seem to be currently available but they are a real boon for anyone with a chilli head in the family. For the background I stamped sentiments from the set over the blue card using a Versamark pad to give a watermarked look.

I drew a band across white card the width I wanted, then stamped the large chillis to overlap the edges, fussy cut it and erased the pencil markings, then coloured the chillis red and green and stamped tiny ones to fill the background.

Very much a hot and cool card!

I'm sharing this with Rubberdance where I have chosen to use the colour theme.



                      
And also to the Rubberdance Forever Stamping Challenge

We are Siamese if you please

Our very first pets when we got married were two Siamese cats - actually they were just on loan to us for 6 months while the owners were overseas, but that was perfect for us as we were due to move after 6 months too. So when the lovely set of Siamese cat stamps appeared on a recent issue of Making Cards, I just had to have them!

The paper is also from the magazine. I used the two mirror-image cats then stamped the sentiment between them and hand-drew the banner.
And do you know, it's only just dawned on me that the banner would be LOWER than the point where it was tied to the cats' tails, not higher as I have made it. Never mind, there are actually invisible helium balloons holding it up....

The theme at Less is More is Pets, so I'm playing along

Hot Christmas!

We always associate Christmas with snow, but that's really only the case in the northern half of the Northern Hemisphere - and even then, snow at Christmas in the UK is pretty rare. I've spent Christmas in the tropics several times and it's still hot there, and of course heading on south it is in the middle of summer. So here's a card made in HOT colours.

I inked the embossing folder - an old magazine freebie - with red, orange, yellow and hot pink distress inks then ran it through with white card to give a faux letterpress effect.
The tree is stamped with some of the same inks and die-cut with a matching die.
I'd originally intended to place the tree in the centre of the embossed area to maximise the white space on this CAS card, but it looked lost - it's amazing what a difference moving it to one side made!

I am sharing this with
Alphabet Challenge - Jingle Bells
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Embossing or ATG
Christmas Crafts All Year Round - hot/warm colours
CAS Christmas - Tree

Krafty Sunflower

No, I'm not changing my name to Liz! But I must say I thought about her blog while I was making this card.

The sunflower is an old Linda Luckin stamp, coloured in with watercolour pencils and a water brush and then fussy cut. I scored parallel lines on the kraft panel to give it a tiny bit of dimension and added a stamped sentiment.

I am sharing this with
Love to Craft - Anything Goes
CAS Watercolour - Sunflowers

Bathing Belle

All the stamps I've used on this card come from the Rubber dance "Take The Plunge" set.

I chose a piece of deckchair stiped paper for the background. The image is stamped and coloured then die cit. I cut the rest of the layers in white card and stamped each randomly with one of the images from the stamp set, edging each piece with the same ink.

I an sharing this with
Little Red Wagon -  Use your favourite sketch (the sketch seems to have vanished from the challenge post but I used the one that was initially suggested)
Country View Crafts - Sun, Sea and Sand
Just Us Girls - Beach