G&T? Don't mind if I do!

So, while I was stencilling the background for the card in my previous post, I thought that another area of the stencil looked rather like a trace of bubbles rising in a fizzy drink... that made me think of gin and tonic (well, tbh most things make me think of gin and tonic...)

So, I stencilled it with Twisted Citron DI, I do love that colour, somewhere between lemon and lime. Then I stamped the G&T sentiment from Crafters companion, positioning it so that it looked as if the bubble tracks were rising from the middle of it, and interspersed the stencilled lines with traces of stickles to add to the "fizzy drink" effect.

This is my second entry to Less is More - One layer, focus on sentiment

Being awesome

It's one layer time at Less is More this time - it doesn't seem like 5 minutes since the idea of creating a one layer card left me quaking in my shoes, but this time I've created two cards for the challenge and it's still only the second day! Mainly because in recent weeks I've treated myself to several new sentiments that really deserve to be the star of their own show.

Here is the first:

For this card I used the distressed grid effect corner of one of the huge A4 sizex Crafters Companion stencils as a background then stamped the sentiment, from an Altenew set, over it and scattered around a few dragonflies using tiny stamps from a set I won in the Butterfly Challenge.

I am sharing this with

Less is More - Focus on Sentiment


Addicted to CAS - Grid

CD Sunday Challenge #4 - Anything Goes

It's time for our latest challenge at CD Sundays and once again our theme is Anything Goes.

This time I've used the beautiful Water's Edge CD from Design House Studios and my favourite theme of all, a dragonfly.

 

 

The background isn't from the CD, it is from a 6x6 pad of matching paper, but everything else is from a single sheet. They call this inverted decoupage a "side stacker"  and it comes with a frame to cover  the raw edges. I finished the inside with other pieces cut from the sheet.

Green and blue dragonflies

Yes, it's that Woodware dragonfly stamp again! I'm starting to realise it is much more versatile than I first thought - although it's so beautiful I'd have loved it even if I hadn't found it to be so versatile.

This time I have used a brayer and a Kaleidacolour pad to ink up the image. To complement it, I sponged some of the colours from the pad over the inside of an embossing folder before dry embossing white card.

I am sharing this with The Butterfly Challenge where my choices are Apple Green and Anything (dry embossing). I'm pretty certain Mrs A once told me that dragonflies can count as butterflies for her lovely challenge!

Wild Animals at Cardz 4 Guyz

Over at Cardz 4 Guyz, our new challenge has just started and our theme this time is Wild Animals.

The ribbon, from my stash, was the starting point for this - I think it's lovely for on a card for a little boy. I've used a very old Woodware stamp set, I think I bought it to make my granddaughter's first birthday card and she'll be 10 in the spring - for the image, sentiment, bananas and some of the leaves, a woodware punch for the other leaves, and lots and lots of bits from my snippets box for the punching and all the layers.

I am sharing this with
2 Crafty Critter Crazies
Crafty Calendar - add texture and ribbon

Seeing stars

The latest challenge at Twofers, where we are asked to make two different cards using one stamp, die or stencil, is Stars.

I decided to use a star stamp that was part of a recent magazine set.

A cute Christmas card and a distressed romance card - how different can you get? I am sharing this duo at
Twofers - Stars



Now for a closer look at the cards separately:

Here I have stamped and embossed the stars in gold, along with a line of Christmas trees. I might have chosen silver instead  of gold but for some reason my silver ink pad and embossing powder have started refusing to speak to each other although they both speak to everything else. Temperamental little things!

I stamped Rudolph and the sentiment on a scrap of white card and cut the top into a hill shape so that the tree line ran atop the hill, Rudolph is coloured with Promarkers and his very VERY shiny nose is courtesy of a liberal dose of Glossy Accents.

I am sharing this card with
Christmas Crafts All Year Round - Carols and Songs (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer of course!)
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Cute 

Recently I've seen several cards on Pinterest that have been stamped in brown on wood-grain paper, and thought how much they remind me of poker-work  - the art done by scorching the design onto wood with the tip of a very hot stylus - that was popular in the 1970s. I thought that it would be a super technique for a masculine card.

I wanted to make my masculine card romantic, avoiding the mushy hearts and flowers stuff so popular at this time of year, and what could be more romantic than Paris under a starlit sky?  I used a Tim Holtz Cityscapes stamp - I think these lend themselves beautifully to DL shaped cards - and a scrap of woodgrain paper left over from another project. It doesn't quite have the poker-work effect I was hoping for - I think the stamp is too detailed for that - but I like it anyway!

I am sharing this with

Just us Girls - Wood 


The Male Room - Love Your Men

Spotlight dragonflies

A few days ago I posted about having fallen into the Big Stamp Trap with this beautiful Woodware dragonfly stamp. It's such a beautiful stamp though, I can't bear to think of it hardly ever being used, so I'm challenging myself to see just how many different cards I can make with it.

This time I have stamped it twice, once onto white card and the other onto purple paper, and die cut two circles from the purple image, using then to "spotlight" the dragonflies.
The base card is stamped with postmark and text elements from the wonderful stamp set in the current issue of Creative Stamping. The dragonfly from the same set is stamped in purple ink and embossed with clear powder. I also used the purple pad around the edge of both card and topper and again, heat embossed them with clear powder.

I am sharing this with

Inkspirational - Text  (and no, I didn't intentionally choose the colours to match the graphic!)



Country View Challenges - Black and white plus 1