The sound of leather on willow

Or in other words, cricket. A sport I love - you probably don't know this but throughout school and University I was a scorer (somebody who keeps the scores, not somebody who goes out on the field and actually hits balls) and occasionally an umpire. So I was very pleased to see there was a lovely silhouette cricketer among the stamps that came with the latest Creative Stamping magazine. 

I masked the card to leave a strip along the bottom and inked it with a green ink from a very old pad. The colour is called Grass Green but I reckon it's grass that hasn't had enough water for a week or two. Next I stamped the image and sentiment, then turned to the stamp set again to pick out a cricket ball stamp - and there wasn't one! There was a golf ball, a rugby ball, tennis, soccer and even a baseball, but no cricket ball. How odd, given there was a cricketer image. So I punched a large hole in a scrap of paper and stencilled red ink through it. I did think about trying to draw in the stitching lines, but you can't see them when the ball is flying through the air, especially if the bowler has used lots of spin, so decided it was safer not to. 

So there you have it - my second one-layer card in two days. I think I may need to go for a lie down. (Don't worry, this afternoon's planned project has lots and lots of layers!). 

Just in case you are unfamiliar with Cricket, I thought you might like to read this: 

• You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.
• Each man that’s in the side that’s in the field goes out and when he’s out comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out.
• When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.
• When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.
• Sometimes there are men still in and not out.
• There are men called umpires who stay out all the time, and they decide when the men who are in are out.
• Depending on the weather and the light, the umpires can also send everybody in, no matter whether they’re in or out.
• When both sides have been in and all the men are out (including those who are not out), then the game is finished.

– Attributed (tenuously) to the Marylebone Cricket Club.

Does that make it all clear? 

I am sharing this with 

Cardz 4 Guys - Sports 

AAA - One layer/Silhouettes

Cats on parade

 I was going to call this "Pussies on parade" but I thought it might attract the wrong kind of reader... 

I've used lots of stamps to make a very CAS card. These gorgeous kitties are stamps that were a freebie in Making Cards magazine a few years ago. They always remind me of Siamese cats so I've stamped them in brown and left them uncoloured, which adds to the overall CAS-ness of the card. It's one layer, too, which used to terrify me! 

I gave the cats some ground to sit on by drawing along a deckle edged ruler and finished with a stamped sentiment. 

I am sharing this with 

Allsorts Challenge - four legged friends 

CAS on Friday - Animals  

Less is More - in a row  

Tea Time take 3 - the coffee edition!

 I've already shared two tea themed cards with my friends over at Shopping Our Stash and I thought since the theme is actually "I need a cup of coffee" I really ought to make a coffee one too! 

The background is paper from the Indigo Blu magazine kit,  stencilled with a coffee design which is actually meant to be one of those stencils you sprinkle cocoa on to your cappucino with. I added a stamped sentiment in a darker brown and edged the paper with the same brown.  With the same brown I stamped the coffee cup on white card and coloured it with alcohol markers. 

Prancing around the world

 This reindeer just has to be Prancer,  doesn't she, given she's prancing so gracefully? (All Santa's reindeer must be female, even Rudolph, as male reindeer shed their horns in winter). 

The image is a beautiful Gummiapan stamp and I really wish I'd bought the matching die while it was available! I stamped it in dark blue, stamping several times to make the script stand out clearly. The script is in Swedish so the polyglot background goes well with it. 

The background is a Crafters Companion embossing folder with a lovely selection of multi-lingual festive sentiments. I swiped the smooth surface with embossing ink then embossed navy card, sprinkled with white embossing powder and heat embossed. Sounds simple, doesn't it, but this is my third attempt; the first two went in the bin. 

My first attempt used hologram embossing powder AND I forgot to use my anti static pad on the card. It was impossible to see the embossed lettering. Because I knew it would use a lot of powder, I used an old, cheap white embossing powder for my second attempt and the result was patchy and messy - if I'd been going for a distressed look it might have been just about passable. So in the end I used about half a pot of lovely WOW Opaque Bright White and got just the look I was aiming for. 

Although this was made with Let's Squash it and Christmas Kickstart in mind, I  am sharing it with LOTS of challenges, because my Christmas mojo has gone AWOL so I need to make the most of any Christmas card I make! So here goes...

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Anything Goes 

Fab 'n' Funky - Christmas 

Scrappymo's - Rudolph Day  

The Male Room - Animals 

Christmas Kickstart - such a deer! 

Fezziwig's Festive Frolics - Anything goes 

Let's Squash It - use an embossing folder and an animal 

Addicted to Stamps and More - Christmas  

Butterfly and flowers

 Have you seen all the gorgeous gap cards that have been created for the current Butterfly Challenge? My attempt to make one just didn't come together, it wasn't the direction my mojo was heading this week, so instead I've gone with a couple of colours from the challenge wheel - geranium and granny Smith. 

The background paper is one of the papers from the Indigo Blu magazine kit. I stamped and heat embossed the floral stamp from the kit onto the paper and also onto white card, then coloured the flowers with a watercolour marker pen, fussy cut them and applied them over the ones on the background. The butterfly is die cut with a Spellbinders die and the sentiment is cut from another of the papers in the kit. 

I am sharing this with 

Allsorts Challenge - Beautiful Blooms  

Butterfly Challenge - G for Gap 

The Flower Challenge - Embossing, heat or dry  

Green Mandala

 Just before Christmas (after I'd packed away all my craft stuff to make room for the family get-together that never was!) I received a gift of a "Mandala colour blending kit" and I've only just found the time and mojo to play with it. 

The kit consists of a selection of pre-printed mandalas, 3 Spectrum Noir Tri-Blend markers and two different thicknesses of black fineliner. There is an instruction booklet showing you how to use the three colours of one pen to create the illusion of dimension on one of the mandalas, and this is my first attempt. The fineliners are to darken and thicken the printed lines in the more shaded areas. 

Once I'd completed the colouring, I cut out the mandala and stuck it to a card, then found a curved sentiment that had just the right curvature and stamped it above the mandala. 

I am sharing this with 

Passion for Markers  - Anything Goes 

Up up and away.

 Well, I stayed away from my beloved Indigo Blu magazine kit for a few weeks but it's lured me back in.... 

I love the vintage balloon stamp and it's perfect for making masculine cards. This time I stamped and coloured it and then cut it out leaving a narrow border and layered it with black. I used a blue distressed paper from the kit for the background, stamping some of the smaller images randomly over it, and again layered it with black. Then I cut the compass and sentiment from another of the papers and layered them too with black. I stuck the compass to the card then used foam pads to attach the balloon and sentiment. 

I am sharing this with

Watercooler Wednesday - Anything goes with a masculine twist