Monochromatic For Country View Crafts

Good morning and a very happy Sunday! Can you believe it's August already. After last year which lasted a decade, this one is really flying! 

As always on the 1st of the month it's time for a new challenge over at Country View Crafts, and this month the very lovely Debs has chosen Monochromatic.

I started by stenciling my background with a Sheena Douglass stencil and shades of purple, then added some Art By Marlene washi tape. I also stamped some Stampotique stamps in purples.

Then I added the Stampotique banner and some texture stamps. at this point I decided that a little bit of white would be nice, so I added some paint spatters.

Here's the lovely Moth Fab, again in her best purple attire!

And everyone's favourite, Smile.

I hope you like our fun challenge, and that you join in with the team. Have a very happy month, and thanks so much for looking x

Chrismas In July For Ink Art Designs

Good morning and a very happy Monday, I hope you've had great weekend. Over at the Ink Art Designs Stamping Playground my fellow teamies and I are having Christmas in July, so here are my first Christmas cards of the year!

I did take some step by step photos of making the back grounds, but then I deleted them when I was having a phone tidy up. So.... I made some backgrounds with Katzelkraft stamps and white and silver embossing powders.

When I have time I like to decorate my envelopes too. Those I'm still making 2 days before Christmas because 'I forgot that it was coming around' will be lucky to have envelopes at all!

It's just not Christmas without the Grumpy Penguins. The sentiment is from Stampotique and I can just imagine them saying it lol.

If I had to pick, this one would be my favourite. I love white embossing, and the fab grungy border stamp, and I think the reindeer looks so cute in his own reindeer jumper.

These are the stamp sets that I've used, as you can see there are quite a few! They are not all traditional Christmas stamps though, it's amazing what you can do with a Santa hat and scarf from the accessories set!

Dot has squillions of Katzelkraft and Stampotique stamps here in the store, together with some naughty but nice sentiments from Carmen's Veranda and Riley & Co.

Have a wonderful day whatever you are doing, take care, and thanks so much for looking xx

Christmas is Coming (ish)

 Good morning and a very happy Tuesday. I don't know about where you are, but it's starting to feel very Autumnal here, so before you know it, it will be Christmas!  Today I'm over at the Ink Art Designs Stamping Playground with my trio of Stampotique Christmas cards. I love Stampotique's Christmas range, there really is something for everyone, from the cute to the headless snowman, and Dot has an amazing range here. I'm typing this all in the dreaded New Blogger, so if you see words but no pictures or vice versa just pretend that you've not noticed 😂.

Ok, the first picture is in, and I've found all the old buttons that I used to click, so it's looking good!

I started with a sheet of A4 black card and gave it a thin coat of gesso, then I brayered these 2 shade of pale blue Fresco paint. The white blobs (snowflakes) have been applied directly from my new touch up paint. It's from Lidl and it comes in a tube just like the old fashioned pump whitener. What can I say it was 79p so I had to try it and it's perfect for what I wanted it for.

I couldn't use white again, so I've used pink for my stencilled snowflakes - much better than the yellow stuff! I've also added in some text in a dark blue.

Skinny cards seem to be all the rage at the moment. Back in't day when I wor a lad we just called them DL cards, but for today I'm going to be up to date and call them 'skinny' So the background was chopped into 3 and sewn onto my base cards.

This is my first one, I really like the snowglobe and you could put anything you like in there, not just for Christmas.

This is one of my favourite Kate Crane stamps, though I must admit I did put the two dots in for her eyes. That is where my drawing ability ends and I did have to practice first on a dummy face.

And finally, my favourite. Anything with these 2 guys on is going to be my favourite! The sentiment has been stamped onto acetate as the card underneath is so textured.

And here they are again, all together. I hope you like them and that you join in with us over at the stamping playground. As always the theme is 'anything goes' as long as your main focal point is from a range that Dot sells in the store.

I'm entering my cards into the ABC Christmas Challenge where the theme this month is S for snowy and T for Tinsel. My cards are all very snowy.

 Thanks very much for looking and have a great day x

Don't Make Me Kill You

Good morning and happy Monday, I hope you had a great weekend. Today I'm over at the Ink Art Designs Stamping Playground with my Humanoids.

These are such a fun set, very quirky and perfect (I think) for the dreaded masculine card.

I started by making my background. This is Brusho's in black and gray. My card was very wet so I squidged it onto another sheet, so now I have two.

When I took my stamp set out I realised how alike my colour palette was. When they design packaging it's always done to make the images look good, so I hoped that I was onto a winner!

I added some background stamping with Stampotique stamps, and stencilled some texture paste stars.

Then I stamped, cut (yawn) and coloured my Katzelkraft Humanoids.  The only problem was, they didn't look right on my 8x8 card, so time for plan B (by which I mean, time to come up with a plan B)

So I chopped up my 8x8, and also used my 'squidge' piece for the front. The sentiment is one of my favourites from Lost Coast/Carmen's Veranda.  I can really relate to this sentiment!

Here it is opened up.

I teamed it with some bright yellow card on the inside, and I'm really happy with the result.

A massive range of these stamps can be found here in Dot's store, and she still has an offer on all Visible Image and Darkroom Door, and selected Lavinia stamps, so check it out and grab yourself a bargain.

Take care and have a very happy week x

Under The Same Moon

 Good morning and happy Wednesday! So today we are due to have, in no particular order, sunshine, showers, thunderstorms, more sunshine, wind, and lightning strikes - it can only mean one thing, the English Summer! Actually, this is a Yorkshire Summer, although there is no snow forecast for today, but never say never!

So before you think you've inadvertently clicked into a weather forecast, I'd better show you the page that I've made for the Ink Art Designs Stamping Playground! 

I have literally hundreds of Stampotique stamps, and no way could I chose a favourite, but Take Your Time is certainly in my top 3. There's just something magical about these two brothers (in my head) standing together with no words needed.

I knew exactly how I wanted my page to look-(this is not going to end well is it...) Not a card today, a 'just for fun' piece. I brayered my main background in Fresco's, and also made a rather nice mop up sheet.

And then disaster struck. I put a moon in the top corner with my gelli plate, and I think I must have let it dry for too long because when I lifted it up, it took bits of the paper with it. As you can see, it wasn't toooo bad, but of course, I tried to make it better. -  you can see where I'm going with this can't you...

So a plan B was needed and I put in a new moon. The inside ring has been cut from my mop up piece. I also stamped Take Your Time and coloured with watercolours.

And here we are all done. The sentiment is another Stampotique stamp.

Have I mentioned today how much I hate the new Blogger, if not, consider it done now!!!!!!! and breathe.....

A whole range of Stampotique can be found here in Dot's store.

Dot has an offer at the moment in the store. All Visible Image stamps have been reduced by 10-15% and selected Lavinia stamps have a 10% reduction, so it's the ideal time to go shopping!

Thank you very much for looking, and have a great day, whatever you are doing x

Jingle Your Own Damn Bells

Good morning and happy Monday. We're continuing with our Christmas in July theme over at the Ink Art Designs Stamping Playground and I've made some fun Christmas coasters.

Yes, I found my old box of kitchen tiles at the back of the garage so out they came to play. I painted them with PaperArtsy Fresco's then added some stencilling in white, all ready for the stamping!

Don't you just love this zebra! He's from a Katzelkraft set which can be found here in Dot's shop. There are three stamp sets used here, Jungle Animals, the Accessories, and Noel Keep Calm. I made a bit of a rookie error on this one. I edged my words with a black Sharpie and then varnished my tiles. Of course, solvent varnish on top of a solvent pen equals smudges - Doh! Now I'm not going to say I'm glad it happened, but I don't think it looks too bad. In fact, if I hadn't told you what had happened you would think it was meant to look like this, so forget I said anything!

 Here's everyone's favourite Grumpy Penguins who have been teamed with hats and scarves from The Accessories, and a Stampotique sentiment.

Here's Gangnam Christmas Style, I'm not fond of the words in that order so I stamped them out and chopped up and re-arranged.

And last but not least, here's my Christmas Donkey! He's from the Farm Animals set. Do you like the crackle? I don't know how it happened. It had the same Tripple Thick varnish as all the rest, but this one crackled. I don't mind, I think it looks quite nice.

I must admit these did make me smile when I saw them, but they're all packed up now ready for Christmas. Of course, I'll lose them way before then, and find them again sometime in the New Year lol.

Have a very happy day whatever you are doing, and thanks so much for looking x

With Thanks To Kaz Hall

I recently went on a workshop to Art From The Heart run by the wonderful Kaz Hall. It was all to do with techniques using Ranger products, and we made a tag book. I wanted to make sure that I had really got to grips with it all so I have started my Stampotique tag book.

I'm not going to go into details of how these were made, but if you get the chance, go on Kaz's workshop, you will have a brilliant day.

This is the ink, spritz, and flick technique. I really think that Henny Penny and Rootie Toot are having a little do-si-do (with attitude) I love that Stampotique stamps are real characters (do the voices only speak to me lol) I did some stitching around the edges too - apparently the tension is all wrong, but I like the way it looks :-)

This is using metalic distress stain as a resist. I've used Spiraling Out of Control for the resist, then Superhero and Superhero Text have just been stamped on top.

This one's my favourite, the background has been made using a Tim Holtz stencil.
I want to adopt Janet Klein's Cat Family, and it would be rude not to take Dog Family too. 
So that's 3 down and about 20 to go, but they were great fun to make and it will be nice to have all the techniques in one place. 
I hope the sun is shining where you are, and thanks very much for looking x

Goodbye To Wonderland...

It's the final chapter over at The Altered Alice and the theme is 'What a beautiful dream it has been'
Here is my version of Wonderland.
The background canvas has been coloured in PanPastels. I must admit that before I added my characters it did look like Teletubbie Hill :-)
The top layer is mountboard that has also been PanPasteled.
All of the stamps are by Stampotique and are available here

Isn't Chessy a cutie lol.
So for all you Alice lovers check out the inspiration and join in at The Altered Alice.
I'm also entering this into Country View Crafts How Does Your Garden Grow
and
Fashionable Stamping Anything Goes.
Thanks very much for looking x 

Cupcake Inspirations Challenge

This week Stampotique are sponsoring a challenge at Cupcake Inspirations. 

This time around it's a colour challenge.

And this is what I've come up with. The background is Pan Pastels, and Molly  and Teddy have been coloured with Distress Inks, and I Feel Happy Inside has just been stamped on the bottom.
Please join in with the challenge for the chance to win a $30 Stampotique gift certificate.
Thanks very much for looking x

Love Is Like A Butterfly...

It's time for another challenge at TIO, and this time it's the lovely May's turn to choose.

Hi Everyone... It's May here again... this time round I have another recipe for you for the next fortnight  "Orange...Purple....Butterflies..."

Thank you all so much for taking part in our Tag it On... We love to see all your fabulous tags our only rule is you must use at least one real stamp  on your tag.. The rest is up to you...Have fun  Enjoy!!

So orange and purple, Mmm time for the distress inks, and butterflies... I used to love the Wendy Craig comedy Butterflies many (many) years ago, and the mere mention of butterflies and the theme tune is running through my head.

I've used Stampotique Small Butterfly, Daniel's Hearts, and Abstract Foliage together with Frantage embossing enamels and glass glitter.

It's all been edged with a little silver Treasure Gold, and a computer generated sentiment.

So, the usual rules, make a tag - how simple is that, and use at least one real stamp.

Thanks very much for looking x

Drip Drip Drop Little April Showers...

I've been trying to catch up with my calendar using Roni's techniques and have done March's which is using a rubber band and a brayer, and April's which is faux bleaching.
These are great fun to make, and every technique has been new to me.
For March I've used Stampotique's Old Timey Frog, and for April it's one of my favourites, Under The Parapluie.
Check out Roni's blog, it's amazing, so full of inspiration.
Thanks very much for looking x

Off With Her Head!!

Yet more romance for February, this time courtesy of Tim's tags of 2013. Lot's of improvisation this time, as there seems to be a lack of stash in the old romance department.
I don't have his Queen of Heart's stamp so Stampotique's Queen of Hearts, stepped up, together with the letter Q, a heart stamp and the dreaded stamp positioner.
I've also used co-ordinations card and Tim's embossing folders.
Unfortunately even surrounded by hearts and romance Queenie has reverted to type, and so her only comment is 'Off With Her Head'

This was done with Tim's chit chat stickers (adventure is now just venture 'cos it was off with its 'ad' :-)
I'm also entering this into this months Altered Alice challenge which is Romance in Wonderland. Nothing says' I love you' more than a head in a basket.
Thanks very much for looking and have a great weekend x 

Oops I Did It Again..

Over at Dragons Dream Tag It On, Tracy has chosen the theme of Dress To Impress. The team have done some beautiful subtle tags.... and here's mine :-)

The recipe is a dress or dressform, an embossed impression, and some bling.
Ok maybe not so subtle, infact the queens face is making my eyes bleed, but I did enjoy making this.
The stamps are a mixture of Stampotique and Dylusions, and they've all been coloured with Distress Markers.
I'm also entering this into the Altered Alice challenge, which is anything goes, and the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge 'what are you known for'. I hope I'm known for not taking myself too seriously.
Please pop over to the Tag It On blog and check out the gorgeous inspiration, then Dress to Impress us and show us a tag using at least one real stamp.
Thanks very much for looking x

January Blues

I've been following Roni's  blog for ages, she has some amazing techniques to share, and she always does a calender. This year each month will be in the shape of a pennant. 
The technique for January is alcohol inks and felt. I must confess I had to cheat a little and use funky foam too as only one of my dies would cut felt.

This is how it looked with just the AI background. The big blue snowflakes were stamped with the die cut felt, and the other two were the funky foam. They looked so nice after they had been coated in the AI that I added them to the finished page.
The silver snowflake is a Christmas ornament that has lost its tie, and the stamp is Brrr from Stampotique.
A huge thank you to Roni for showing me this technique, it's one of the very few times that I've used alcohol ink and not thrown it in the bin :-).

I'm entering this into the Happy Daze challenge which is re-cycle. The backing to this is packaging from Amazon, and the snowflake fell of the Christmas tree lol.

Head over to Roni's to see her amazing calender, and thanks very much for looking xx