Try it on Tuesday: Stencils and Dies and Monsters...

Hey,

Happy Friday!

I found a new to me challenge this weekend.. Try it on Tuesday.. I liked the current theme, Stencils / dies or both and so I decided to play along.

I went with both stencils and dies - I made a ton of gelli plate backgrounds a while ago using a fave Neat and Tangled circle stencil and distress paints.

I dug one out and die-cut it using a mini triangle cover plate - which I bought second-hand on a Facebook group, I think it is by MFT.

I love the end result, the big circles with the random triangles works so well.

No card is complete without a Monster..and for this card I decided to break out one of my faves by My Cute Stamp (a gift from Jen). I love this Monster so much, that I stamped him, scanned him in and die-cut a bunch on my Silhouette, as he has no dies.

For the final touch I added a sentiment by Hero Arts - which came in this set and was also a gift (from Cheiron)..my friends gift me Monster stamps all the time, they are WAAAY too kind.

I have just noticed that my Monster matches the pink background LOL..honestly that was an accident.

Cx

Same, same but different...

Hey,

Hubby and I had a lot of fun last night, celebrating his birthday at Ravel. We'll be going back there again.

Good friends of ours have twin Sons.

I thought it would be great to repurpose the Dino card for one of them and make another similar one to compliment it.

Like being twins?!

I created the background panel slightly differently, I used a stencil and a white distress paint resist, instead of a Gelli Plate.

I thought the 'same' element would be the layout and the balloons. I used a Your Next Stamp Monster instead of a Dinosaur for this card.

I love it when I can repurpose an early make and it was fun to semi-recreate the original card.

Cx

Circle Gelli Plate..

Hey,

So about a bejillion weeks ago I bought a circle Gelli plate.

I liked the idea of having a circle one and since I bought it, I have made quite a few fun things with it.

Today's cards were my first attempt with it and I decided to go with a black base and layer colour on top.

I think it worked out really well.

The blue card was made using a stamp by MFT and white ink, I die-cut the circle out using the largest circle die I have and then I added the die-cut sentiment using staples. The sentiment dies are both by Tim Holtz.

The purple card I made using a Craft Scraps stencil and 3 different colours of paint, green, blue and purple. I was actually surprised at how much it stands out against the black. Result! The sentiment was made using a Winnie and Walter birthday die and a Tim Holtz die.

I love playing with Gelli plates now I have mastered a technique that works for me - you can read more about that here.

Cx

Heart Bouquet...

Hey,

Happy Sunday!

Hubby and I are off to AC today, we have the day off tomorrow - wah hoo! Let the fun commence.

I needed to make a card for a DT colleague recently and she LOVES MFT Pure Innocence stamps.

So as I recently acquired Heart Bouquet second-hand (my new fave way to acquire older stamps) I thought it would be perfect for her.

It also gave me a chance to work on my colouring of 'brown' people - I am SO bad at this LOL..considering my own skin tone, you think I'd be better at it, but nope I suck.

I coloured the stamp using Promarkers and I think this was a pretty good skin tone effort, following some tips from the fabulous Pocono Pam.

I thought that one of the gelli plate backgrounds I had on my desk worked really well with this cutie, I added a piece of shimmer washi and stamped the sentiment to finish off the card.

Another easy peasy card that I think will make the recipient smile.

Cx

Gelli Plate Backgrounds...

Hey,

A couple of weeks ago, one of my art crushes Kim Dellow showed a great way to use your Gelli Plate on Instagram.

I had to try it out that day and I am so pleased I did.

I have been using the Gelli Plates with varying degrees of success, but I think now with this simple technique I will be getting much better backgrounds.

All you have to do is cover the Gelli Plate in a colour using a brayer, then stamp that onto paper (I chose to use watercolour paper). Then clean the plate and put a stencil over it and then add paint over that using a brayer. Remove the stencil and stamp over your solid colour - voila! amazing backgrounds.

Here are mine -

 Aren't they pretty?

From left to right clockwise, the stencils are by Dutchdoobado, Tim Holtz, Dina Wakely, Dutchdoobado and Recollections.

I have only made cards using 3 of them so far, the main photo is my fave, it makes me laugh.
I thought that background looked a bit Jungle, so it needed a Dinosaur (The Alley Way Stamps, sadly no longer in business) and I added balloons that are a mix of dies and punches. I coloured the balloons using distress stains and the Dino using distress inks. The sentiment is by Simon Says Stamp.

The next two cards use roughly the same idea, giant die-cut sentiment, finished with a stamped sentiment.

Wplus9 happy die, Neat & Tangled birthday stamp

Winnie & Walter birthday die, Neat & Tangled happy stamp

I'm pleased with the colour combos here and JT helped me choose the yellow for the scalloped background as I couldn't decide.

Cx

Sketch Saturday #450...Drawn With Character

Hey,

Welcome to another superb Sketch Saturday..

This week our sponsors are Drawn with Character and they are offering a prize of 3 digital stamps.

Here is this week's sketch -

If you know me, you know I LOVE Monster stamps..

So it should be no surprise that I decided to use the awesome Valentine's Monster Love 2 digital stamp and I imported it into my Silhouette library and die-cut the two monsters out. I coloured them with Promarkers and stamped the sentiment onto the balloons.

I decided to dig around in my stash for fun things to accompany the Monsters. The grid paper is ancient and the last piece left, I bought it when I first started crafting around 2009... The groovy purple background piece was made using a gelli plate, purple paint and a scraper.

Unfortunately I don't think you can see how glittery my ribbon strip is! I added some staples here and there for a bit of interest.

Fun card that I love and is going to make an awesome Valentine card.

Your turn to show us your sketch interpretations, go over to Sketch Saturday and see what the rest of the DT have been making.

Challenge ends Friday 17th February 7pm GMT / 5pm EST.

Cx