Once seen, never forgotten?

This weeks theme on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "a bit of brown".   I spent a few days thinking about this theme before I started work on my tag, and my mind kept coming back, again and again, to old sepia toned photos.  I started thinking about memory too, how some things are vivid in our memories forever and others slowly fade over time.

We keep photos and ephemera to remind us of people and events from the past, but as the name implies, they are ephemeral, objects created with a short life-span built into them.  What happens to our memories once the reminders are no longer with us?  Anyway, all of that was squashed together into this tag! :)

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Faux Frame

This is just one layer of white card, I used masking to give the effect of a frame border on it, which I highlighted with a white pen.  I'm still loving stencilling :)  - the circles you can see, but there are also some stars peeping out above the boys head.

I coloured the whole card with blended red and yellow distress ink, stencilled the stars and then stamped the image in black.  I masked off the image and stencilled, stamped and coloured the frame.  I used a white pen to create the sketchy border around the edge and then finally I stamped the image again on printer paper, cut out the boy and fixed him to the background.  Job done! :)

Home is where art heart is!

This weeks theme on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Anything Goes".  After moving to a larger home a year or so ago, I still have a lot of wall space to fill and have consequently been making a lot more framed pieces than I usually would.  This is one of those, destined for my kitchen I think!

The stamp is one of Wendy Vecchi's from her set "Residential Art".  I cut out 6 of the 2"x2" squares from the Retro Grunge pad and then stamped the house and text onto each one.  I then stamped them again onto white cardstock and set about altering each house and then cutting out just the house part and sticking it onto the stamped image on the patterned squares. 

Going from left to right, this is what I did:

• House 1 is red and yellow Claudine Hellmuth paint applied with my finger.
• House 2 was left white.
• House 3 was coloured with green Claudine Hellmuth paint and then parts of the house were coloured with a white paint pen.
• House 4 doesn't show too well in the photo, but it's very pale blue, with a slightly darker blue flourish stamped onto it.
• House 5 is coloured with Fired Brick distress stain.
• House 6 was coloured with Promarkers.  I knew they would blur the Archival ink I had stamped the image with, but I hoped it would make it look like it might have been on fire.  The "for rent" is a clear stamp from a set by 7 gypsies.

And there you have it!  I'm really pleased with how this one turned out, which is a good job, as I'll be seeing a lot of it if it ends up on my kitchen wall! lol  I think it should probably go above that bit of worktop to the right of the sink, before you get to the boiler, don't you agree?  :)

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

If I say it's a birthday card, it's a birthday card, alright?

I say that cos halfway through making this card I thought to myself "this looks more like a poster for a missing child" lol  I dunno, maybe some of you are thinking that too.  And that's fine :)  Really.  :)

I think that while I was making it, forefront in my mind were things like "the way we were", "years passing", "lost youth" etc  I'll be the first to admit that those aren't the cheeriest of birthday thoughts, and rest assured that I didn't include an insert that said "You're older! HA HA!" :)  For me, my happiest times crafting are when I just go with the flow, playing about without much planning or particular technique or materials in mind, and this was certainly one of those occasions, and I think that long after the birthday is over this card might still have a life as a little piece of art all of it's own :).  Fingers crossed :)

A Stamper's Sampler

No, not the magazine! Not THAT Stamper's Sampler! I mean this bit of nonsense, me having a bit of a play about, mainly with my new Sharpie Poster Paint pen, Extra fine tip, white, which I absolutely LOVE!! It's the white pen I've been waiting all my life for, and I'm grateful to Dina Wakely for recommending it to me! :)

Not much else to say about it really, apart from the fact that I had a lot of fun doing it! I hope you like it too :)