Blended Star Birthday...

 

Hey,

Happy Friday!

I am pretty excited today - a) I only did a 3 day week - whoop! Love me a short week and b) tonight I am doing a zoom craft session with the craftgang! YASSS.

I love MFT stencils and my cards today use a star stencil by them, it also comes with the star if you want a white space where my blended star is.

I used x3 colours of distress oxide ink to blend each star and I stamped over them using the amazing Inkadinkado 'Marquee Birthday' stamps. They look amazing over the star and it all just pops.

So pleased with these.

Have a great weekend.

Cx

Fusion Card Challenge - Flowers

 Hey,

Welcome to another fantastic Fusion Card Challenge.

This time we have 'flowers' for you! As always both the sketch and the inspiration image are awesome.

Which will you try? I have SO many flower stamps, that I knew I had to fuse them. 

The fancy vase kind of reminded me of a cup, so was a perfect fit for my Waffle Flower x Helen Dardik 'Enveloper Coffee' stamp (I literally worship Helen Dardik).

I stamped it onto watercolour paper and watercoloured it, adding some sakura gelly roll stardust pens for shimmer (IRL, SO SHIMMERY!!).

I added papers and a banner to match the sketch. The sentiment was just perfect, it seemed like the kind of thing that the cheeky girl in the cup might say if she saw you looking at her! It is by Rabbit Hole Designs from their 'Perfectly Blended' set and if you are a coffee/tea fan, you need these in your life.

I always love cards I make with this stamp and I am always reluctant to send them to anyone LOL.

Make sure you check out all the rest of the inspiration by the DT over at the Fusion challenge blog, and play along with your own creation! When playing along you may use the sketch OR the photo to inspire your makes. OR, if you are feeling adventurous, you can fuse them together (see what I did there!).

Can't wait to see your makes. 

Challenge ends on February 2nd.

Cx

Faux Watercolouring...

Hey,

Sorry I have been a stranger.

I went back to work and things got hectic.

But in happy news I have had a few days off with Hubby this week and it was nice, I know it was right after the Christmas break, but it felt great.

Last year I came across this faux watercolouring technique and it is AMAZING.

Ink up your stamp with a water reactive ink (I used distress inks) and then spritz with water before laying down your paper. You get a kind of watercolour feel to the stamping and you can use a brush to make the effect stand-out more. Let it dry and stamp over it in a darker ink - I used Navy ink for all 3 cards.

Looks great right?!

I chose to use one of my fave Ellen Hutson flower stamps 'Mondo Sakura', by my all-time fave crafter Julie Ebersole. 

I have used this technique a lot, it's fun and easy.

Cx

Retro Rubber Challenge #150 Winter Wonderland

Hey,

Welcome to 2021 and the first fun Retro Rubber challenge of the year AND our 150th challenge!! 

The majority of the team have been here since the beginning and I am super grateful for their talents and friendship. Big love to our leader Jane too for all of her hard work!

We love to start the new year with a Wintery challenge for you - it's pretty Wintery here in NYC (ugh!).

I really loved the quote from the Simon Says Stamp 'Winter Sayings' set that I have had since 2018 and barely used. It inspired my card and I paired it with 'Cute Snowflakes' also by SSS and it's one of my older sets, I've had it since 2016.

I stamped the background using 3 different colours of ink. I heat embossed the quote onto vellum - my fave thing to do if I want to show as much of the background as possible. The frame is actually from a tag set by MFT. I dug out an ancient freebie snowflake die, because I thought it looked a bit bare and then at the last minute I added some serious bling!

Here is a close-up for you.

I am super happy with how this came out. I love creating my own backgrounds.

How will you make a Wintery card? Be sure to pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends January 29.

Don't forget to tell us the age of your stamp, that is part of the fun of our challenge and please only enter 10 challenges including Retro Rubber.

Cx

Stamping over a background..

 

Hey,

Happy Friday!

Well, I don't know about you, but I am glad that the first week of work is over and passed easily, now I get to enjoy the weekend.

I got this great Spellbinders stamp from Jenn Shurkus' destash last year. But as you can see it is quite big! So I decided I would stamp over some fun backgrounds.

Creating the backgrounds is simple. I used a zigzag background stamp I have, inked it up using distress oxide's and spritzed it with water, I laid my watercolour paper down on the stamp and then dried it and repeated the process until all the ink was gone. You only need to ink the stamp once.

As you can see when you stamp over it, the zigzags show through, but the majority of that is hidden once you colour in the stamp. I kept the colouring simple and used Copics for the bigger areas and Sakura Gellyroll Starburst gel pens for the smaller areas to add a bit of sparkle.

I ended up with a bunch of fun cards.

Have a great weekend, I will be watching NFL wildcard weekend, trying not to be too sad about the end of the NFL season.

Cx