January's Inchie Swap- Let's Celebrate

These are super-simple, as I couldn't think what to do for this theme! February's theme is 'Oriental' so I should be able to do something more interesting.

Colour: Glimmer Mist, Distress Inks, Brilliance Ink, Stickles, Sakura silver Pen Touch pen
Stamps: Cherry Pie (Klimt star) and Stampendous
Other: Wording from the computer, star sequin waste used as stencil, eyelets from my stash (hammered for texture)

Do not adjust your set...

I did make this! It's colourful AND cute, and it is my entry for the UK Stampers' Sunday challenge for last week. The theme was monograms, and I thought I would save myself some time by using a wooden letter that my friend Vicky gave me a while back. I forgot, of course, that I can't do simple, so after I decorated the letter I decided it would make a great picture frame. It all works, and I can change the photo when I want.

Colour: Distress Inks, Ranger white pen, Stickles, Brilliance, Twinkling H2Os
Stamps: Paperartsy, Stampendous
Other: Acetate, ribbon, curtain ring, lots of card, staple gun.

The photo was taken late in the afternoon at Dan's first birthday party, and is quite funny to look at now. I was shattered, Paul had been scratched across the nose (by Dan), and Dan had not slept all day. It's still a good reminder of a great day, although this year I may have any photos done at the beginning of the party!

Cards for Babies.

Has it really been three weeks since I last checked in? As you can see, I have been busy. As well as making all of the cards, I have been to lots of baby parties, and held our own for my little one year old. Happy birthday to them all! The last of the parties was today, and although they were fun they were also exhausting! Babies, cake and toys equal noise and grizzly little ones after a couple of hours. And I'm sure it only gets worse as they get older!
As you can see from the photos, I have a couple of new toys. First of all, I have some new stamps, the fairy is from Wendie Rhodes and the boy with the balloon is Magnolia (the other two Magnolia stamps were kindly sent to me by Kym, thanks so much, Kym!). Then my lovely husband bought me a Cuttlebug for Christmas, and said I could have it now, bless him! Other than those, I have used H20s for all of the colouring in, and stamps from Stampendous, Aud Design and Forth Dimension. There's also a little Glossy Accents, Brilliance and Sakura glaze pens thrown in for good measure.
I found it interesting doing these cards. The colouring in was really good fun, but the designs were hard to do! I think grunge is much more my usual style, but I will have to get good at these cutie things too! Wish me luck!
PS I owe a couple of Ladies a RAK over on 2Peas. I haven't forgotten, just didn't make the time to organise it! Will sort this weekend.

Isa's weekly challenge- 'I'

Isa's challenge this week, as well as the usual alphabet theme, is to use something transparent and to use stitching. This is my entry, which I am quite pleased with, although I don't usually do sparkly. Maybe I should also enter this for UK Stampers' 'Cute v. arty' challenge, as this is a bit outside my usual style. Maybe I'm not quite comfortable with it because I only used three stamps!
The inside of the card is a wash of watercolour paints, some sparkly, over stamped and embossed in white with my well-used Stampendous stamp. The outside of the card was stamped at the top using A Stamp in the Hand's 'Field of Sky', one of those useful stamps, then embossed with holographic sparkle powder and over washed with sparkly watercolours.
It all happens on the acetate wrap on the outside. I stamped and embossed the Anita's dragonfly in white, then cut the same shape out of Art Institute's Fantasy Film in Aurora and glued it behind with Glossy accents. Then I did a separate dragonfly, this time embossing in holographic sparkle then cutting out the glued layers and mounting it over the first dragonfly, again with glossy accents. I pricked then stitched the word 'Iridescent' with sparkly floss and glued on the flower sequins with Sakura quickie glue. To attach the wrap to the card I ran a line of the quickie glue down the spine of the card, then weighted the edge to make sure it dried in position.
I think I need to start using more sketches for my cards, as this one uses the same basic layout as two others I have done this year! Funny how you are always drawn to a layout you are comfortable with! Oh well, off to 2Peas to look at sketches!

My first ever Wednesday Stamper

This is it, I bit the bullet this week and decided to go for it! I have been following the Wednesday Stamper challenge site for quite a while, but have never felt that I had the time or talent to put in a submission. If you look at the incredible pieces of art that are regularly entered on the site, you'll see why! Well, this week I found I had the time, and the theme was 'flowers', one of my favourites, so I decided to challenge myself by making something I felt was acceptable for an entry. It was fun! And this is OK!
Stamps used are Stampendous, and my trusty PSX alphabet, inks are Distress inks in Weathered wood and Antique linen, and I used silver detail embossing powder on vellum for the flowers at the front. The corner punch is from Anna Griffin, and the flowers are from a pound shop! Thanks for looking!

Shrink plastic embellishments

I didn't do an awful lot last night, I mainly tidied up after my mad tag-making session of the night before. I am obsessively organised with my craft storage, but when I get crafting, I think I get out practically everything I own and leave it in my working space of 1m x 0.5m! But then I do have the satisfaction of putting it all back in the right place and in the correct order. I also finished cutting out my unmounted stamp sheets and putting them away (in order, of course) in CD cases. I had just cut out the ones I wanted to use, so I am now up to date and organised.
What I did do last night was make some little embellishments to go on my black and white inchies. Practically all of my embellishments are coloured or at least metallic, and I thought I would be a purist here and only use black and white. So out came the shrink plastic again, and I stamped a variety of images in black Stazon on the white, and Brilliance Moonlight white on the black. Stamps used are from: Tandastamps, Anna Griffin, Aud design, Cherry Pie, Stampendous. I think that's all of them!