Creative Expressions Calling Card Challenge

The highly talented - and massively pregnant! - Sam Poole drew my attention to a design team call for Creative Expressions thats taking place until July 12th. The requirements to take part are all on their blog and in addition to the normal rules there is also a challenge with the theme of...

Calling Card
The only requirements of this challenge are that you create a project that includes rubber stamping of some sort and that an ATC is featured somewhere in the piece. Other than that the challenge is completely open to your interpretation! (NB: You do not have to use Creative Expressions stamps for this challenge).

As soon as I read the title I immediately thought of this beautiful Graphics Fairy image and the 12 days of Christmas song (I was pretty obsessed with this song last Christmas, I guess that never went away!). The card itself was pretty easy to put together, the panel on the left is a scrap of Pink Petticoat paper from last year and the panel on the right is card embossed with a snowflake folder. I added some ribbon from the Fantastic Ribbons special value pack, printed the image out to ATC dimensions with the sentiment added in Photoshop and stuck it down with foam pads. You can probably just make out that I stamped some curlicews and another sentiment and heat embossed them with WOW embossing powder in white pearl. All in all, its pretty damn close to how I imagined it and I'm really quite pleased!

Happy Birthday Tiegan!

You have to love Sj's Little Musings, she has such a way of drawing people... and animals or objects for that matter. I made this lil beauty with her Layered Lillie kit of 36 images.

It went thru a few design changes - the wardrobe was originally twice the size and a different colour - but I eventually got it to work how I wanted. The outfits are all laminated with velcro added to the back and to Lillie herself and I added a title along the front edge to make it clear exactly what it was meant to be - I mean the recipient is only three! Wanna place your bets on how long it'll take her to trash it?!

WOYWW 107 - The Debris Of An Evil Tuesday!

Does anyone remember when I first joined WOYWW, how tidy I was? Well, you know its only polite when u've got guests coming round isnt it? On my desk is a nearly finished blue version of my previous post, the inkblot butterflies, on which I have managed to smudge the sentiment, crease the vellum and glue down upside down... r u feeling wot kind of Tuesday I was having?! You may just be able to see the other colours... I think I'll leave those til I've calmed down a bit!

Following on from the theme of my last couple of WOYWW posts, on the windowsill is yet another canvas that I have painted a seaside theme on, this time with Paperartsy Fresco paints. Then I tried the Mod Podge transfer technique I asked about last week... n it didnt work! I did it Monday night, left it dry and out-of-the-blue on Tuesday, at work, it hit me that applying the water to get the paper off was gonna degrade the paint underneath and I was right. So.... back to the drawing board for how I'm gonna make my huge canvas that lil bit more adventurous....

Simply The Best

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best and the easiest to execute. I decided to treat myself to a craft mag over the weekend and from the selection I chose one that had a sample version of Serif Craft Artist on CD as its free gift - only belatedly realising that its actually Crafts Beautiful magazine and not an exclusively card making title, oops - and with it a set of free digi kits. The first one I opened is called Inkblot Butterflies (already a winner just from the title!) and one of the backgrounds was this beautiful creation:

Don't u just love an image that you don't really have to do anything to? I printed it out on some vellum and cut around some of the wings to make them stand up. Mounted onto kraft then a cream card base, I first tried to use foam pads but found them difficult to disguise so I balled up some glue dots and made my own card candy (google it, its so easy!) to finish.

I'd like to enter this for St Lukes Challenge - Come Fly With Me! - but I intend to make more of these so not actually sure what style you guys will receive!

Rainbow Wreath

A week or so ago, when I was looking on Ebay for some Safmat, it seems a Big & Juicy ink pad accidentally fell in to my virtual basket and I was really excited when it arrived - its so pretty! I was thinking about the Less Is More challenge earlier today and it occured to me that this stamp  kind of fitted the bill and then when I sat down at my desk I remembered the ink pad and lo, a card was born. Quite chuffed with it, actually.

WOYWW 106 - Experimentation

Following on from last weeks plea and ongoing discussions between my first and second greatest critics, I have managed to decide my large canvas will involve a seaside theme as I just love the beach (yeah I know I'm in the midlands) and the colourscheme of my room is kinda aqua n shades of blue & green. I was also inspired by this gorgeousness from the incredibly talented Vinnie Pearce - not only is she a very talented mixed media artist, i very much approve of her surname, lol - so I spent the weekend experimenting with some small 20 x 20 cm canvases from Wilko's.

From left to right: 1) Cosmic Shimmer Mist 'blended' with rubbing alcohol - got the effect I wanted, after a fashion, but none of the mica survived so not sure its exactly a sucess. 2) Distress Ink Reinkers & water to create the blend with a Vinnie Pearce scrapbooking overlay printed onto a white T-shirt transfer - not really a sucess as the transfer doesn't melt effectively. Bits of  it looks good but then bits look awful and now theres a plasticky layer over the whole thing which isn't nice. 3) A Pink Petticoat Perfect design printed onto a dark T-shirt transfer which gives good coverage but again gives a kind of plasticky finish so I think it will depend on my final design choice. 4) The first attempt at a white t-shirt transfer which I peeled off while still hot so at least its a matt finish but it really didnt adhere well, leading me to PVA some coordinating paper to cover up the worst of it. The wording is on Safmat which I'm quite disappointed didn't work as well as I hoped, I guess its not really designed for textured surfaces.

I think I'm just gonna have to - what is it Kath says? pull up me big girl pants! - swallow my misgivings n self-doubt and just put brush to canvas. Its not like I've not done it before and its not like a seaside has to be particularly detailed... I just wish I didn't have a burning desire to include text in the equation... eep :S

Edited to add: I noticed last night that the Safmat is now curling up at the edges that are in contact with the textured part (the lighter bit) - has anyone tried the mod podge transfer thing and/or on a large scale?

Finishing Post

So here we are at the end of the marathon, I've broken the tape and got my silver space banket thing and bottle of water... do I get a biscuit or is that jus for giving blood? Here are the final examples of the 2 scrap ladies creativity and my assembly skills:

I can only apologise for my appalling photography skills, but I have just run a marthon y'know! Who would've thought kraft and plum (it is more plum in real life, I promise) would go so well together. In fact so well I was inspired to do this one all by very own self:

Final Furlong

9, 10 & 11 are some of my faves, this owl punch from Stampin' Up is just ace isnt it? And the amount of different things u can turn it into (including an alien!) is pretty cool too! Not to mention  the book pages, which makes this a real winner!

This cow parsley (?) stamp is very me, I keep saying I'm not much of a stamper but I love both of these. I added my own touch with the lace and ribbon just to give it more dimension. The bird stamp is just gorgeous, I've admired since I saw it on Julia's blog a while back and I enjoyed playing with the twinkling H20's too, all my fave colours. Not 100% sure but I think the bird is embossed with cosmic shimmer EP which is just lovely, can see some of my pennies going in their direction. I didn't get around to stamping the sentiment on the day so I copied the wording from one of the earlier cards and applied it with Safmat.

Middle Ground

No's 6, 7 & 8 (for those of you who r counting - Loraine!) of the Marathon haul... so wierd to think this time last week I was panicking about getting lost, being late or all of the above! The smile one was on of those simple to put together ones that just looks so great, the pink one was my first play with a Martha Stewart punch (I didnt kno the sides folded up!) and this top right one took me a while to remember how u rolled the roses up but I got there in the end! I also added the hat pin things in - hope u dont mind Julia! - cos I have no idea wot I'm meant to do with em otherwise!!

Grandson

(Not mine, I hasten to add!) My first attempt at a hmm, what are they called double slanted easel card! Man, the positioning of the brads was tough! Think I moved them three times!

WOYWW 105 - The Week After The, Um Week Before...

After telling a whole bunch of people on Saturday that I'd met Julia thru WOYWW - without admitting quite how long it had been since I'd joined in - it seemed only right and proper that I should join in this week.

But as I suspect the majority of you (UK dwellers neway) will probly be showing ur PIF gifts off, I thought I would also buck the trend and play Whats On My Wall Wednesday. You see I've had this rather large canvas tucked away for quite some time and having moved my room around found I had wall space on which to hang it... but now I don't know what to do with it! I have considered painting some kind of scene on it but then I have considered a lot of things including a mural of Graphics Fairy goodies so I'd like to pick your considerable collective brain WOYWW - can u inspire me?

Pootling

I do enjoy pootling along to other peoples homes/towns and abusing their stash! At the Marathon, I learned about embossing ink in a bottle, I touched my first piece of cut and dry foam and I got to use this fantastic stamp (right) which is just gorgeous but v old I understand so I'm v unlikely I'll ever get my mitts on one! My stamp collection is definitely growing but I still don't consider myself a stamper!

 

My First Marathon...

...and the only kind I will ever take part in! Theres a line in 'The Faculty' about only running when somebody is chasing ya but I'm not sure I'd do it even then! So this Saturday I took myself off to Tidworth, Hampshire (just a few miles away from home, like) to take part in the 2 Scrap Ladies Midsummer Madness Card Marathon, and met the incomparable Julia & Ally and their team of elves who all helped the make the day run smoothly (cracking cous cous, Jan!) and managed to make fourteen cards - which I think is the most I've made in a month! 25 fabulous designs to choose from and - who'd've thought it - not enough hours in the day. but I'm chuffed with the ones I did manage to complete and maybe you'll let me share a few of em with y'here...

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