Trying something new...

Hi everyone, guess who was allowed out early from Jury Service today?

I wasn't sure whether to share this tag that I made about a week ago. It's the first piece of this sort that I have ever made... so please be gentle with me!

As always I have learnt plenty along the way so if I try anything like this again hopefully it can only look better!

The image is from a fabulous set of unmounted stamps by The Doodle Factory called Grace Girls. I coloured the image when I came home from day one of Jury Service and the phrase 'like a fish out of water' seemed to sum up how I was feeling. If you've ever done Jury Service perhaps you'll know what I mean!

I used layers of torn white tissue and watered down PVA glue to get the effect of the water and sky (lovely and messy) and then coloured with Distress Inks. I tucked the little fish into the tissue before it dried.

There's plenty of Glossy Accents and Stickles and a mix of lovely blue wool as a finishing touch.

Thanks for taking a look, and happy crafting everyone!

A two Challenge kinda day!

I am constantly in awe of you girls that can effortlessly combine multiple challenges to create beautiful cards!
Two challenges in one card is my limit... any more than that and I have to move Custard the cat along the sofa so that I can lie down for a while.


Card Patterns Challenge #33 features this lovely little sketch, so I decided to combine it with Challenge 50# over at The Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge: 'One for the Girls'.

I first spotted this beautiful stamp several weeks ago over at Beth's blog Inkyfingersrule. As you know I am a big fan of Beth's cards. I was blown blown away by this fabulous card that she made for a Sketch Challenge.

I hope that Beth doesn't mind that I have taken inspiration from her use of black as a background to create my card. I wanted something dramatic for this image, which is one of the stamps from the beautiful Grace Girls collection from Doodlefactory/Starvingartistamps.

I coloured the image using the wonderful Mr Holtz's Distress Inks and my trusty watercolour pencils. A little clear embossing powder and my heatgun worked a little magic and made the image beautifully glossy!

The sentiment stamps are from Hero Arts and the circles are from my much loved Kelly Pannaci set. I am pleased to say that the paper (Black tie) is from some scraps left over from a previous project - so guess who feels ever so slightly pleased with herself right now!

The other stamps in the Grace Girls collection are equally beautiful, so don't be surprised to see them all appearing over the next few weeks.

Happy crafting everyone!