Shoes

The challenge theme this week at CASology is Week #12: SHOE!!

It was Wednesday night and I got in from work thinking what shall I do? I deliberated over the singular shoe and then started thinking about all the shoes that are in my wardrobe, under the bed, lined up on the bedroom floor, you get the picture. So, I need to use multiple shoes.
I had a little bag full of shoes punched out of different colour paper so I tipped them out, lined them up on my desk, moved them around, made patterns with them and ended up with a pinwheel of shoes. Lovely. It looked like a flower so thats what I did for this challenge, a flower made of shoes.
Having carefully arranged them in a circle on the desk, the difficult bit was keeping them in a circle to get them stuck onto some card. I got busy, so revisited the shoe circle again on Saturday morning. I turned them over because the backs of some were white and I thought if I arranged them face down then I could stick a circle on top of them, flip it over and the shoes would be in place. It worked, but do it quickly or the whole lot will end up stuck to the desk.
This is my shoe flower card, I enjoyed making this one!

Recipe:
Shoes punched out of scraps of coloured paper.
White die cut scalloped circle mounted on pink die cut scalloped circle.
Mount on black card and pink card, add a pink Candi (Craftwork Cards).
Sentiment from Craftwork Cards.

Roses, Stripes and Banners

This week's LIM recipe challenge is quite open to interpretation as the theme is to use 3 past challenges. Whilst blog hopping recently I came across a sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches which appealed to me so I will enter my card in two challenges for the very first time. A friend has a birthday soon so this one is for her.
The recipe I used for my Less is More challenge is:
Week 1 : Pink, Black and White
Week 54 : One layer - Stripes
Week 69 : Not a Square

The black and white paper used for the stripes comes from DCWV Black and White Paper Stack, the rose is made from Hunkydory paper and is mounted on a die cut scalloped circle. The banner is cut from Craftwork Cards paper.

Thanks for the sketch from Tui at Freshly Made Sketches.

Family Tree Tag

The fortnightly challenge at Artful Times is to use a tree as the main focus so it was an opportunity for me to do a project I have been meaning to do for some time. My idea was to make my tree focus into a family tree. I used Autumn colours as it is September and Autumn is coming soon.
For the background I used Cosmic Shimmer Mist in Mango Blaze and Golden Mint then random stamped the brick images to represent all the brick walls that have to be broken down when researching your family history. The tree is stamped on Tim Holtz Kraft Core card stock, torn, distressed and lightly sanded. I added punched flowers and a washer and finally the names of direct ancestors going back to great grandparents.
The stamps are from Katzelkraft : Autumn set.
I hope you like it.

White on White

I have tried a couple of attempts this week with the CASology Challenge cue card : White. At first I thought of a white wedding but wasn't particularly pleased with the result so changed direction and tried an all white card using texture to break up the whiteness, better result I think. Having made the cards, the most difficult part was capturing a photo that actually makes the project look white! I ended up putting it on the garden table as the light indoors was just not good enough.

This is the card I will enter in the challenge.
Ingredients:
White 5inch square card
Scallop edged embossed frame (Craftwork Cards)
White glitter mesh fabric behind the aperture
Two white die cut flowers, the top one rolled over a pencil to add curl and a white candi (Craftwork Cards) added to the centre.
White ribbon tied in a bow.

For completeness I will also post the first attempt which I call "White Wedding".

Ingredients:

White cardstock from Craftwork Cards

White paper lace heart (Dovecraft : Tea Party)

3 sequin embellishments from stash

Stamp from FRCL036 Wedding Bliss by Woodware

Hearts on stamped imaged coloured with clear Sakura glitter pen

Less is More : Oval

I might just make the deadline with this entry in the Less is More challenge Week 85 theme to incorporate an oval into our projects. It wasn't as easy as I thought but a last minute idea resulted in this one layer card.

I used an oval aperture card as a template, spritzed with Cosmic Shimmer mister for the oval background and stamped the owl image in black archival ink. I added the sentiment - unsure of the English translation for "hou hou" but assume it relates to owls, Google translate did not help me out with this other than to suggest it is Dutch for "love love". The stamps are from an Autumn set by KatzelKraft, a French company, so unlikely to be Dutch. Perhaps someone can translate for me.

Less is More : Foliage

I enjoyed this challenge for week 84 at Less is More as it was an opportunity to use one of my favourite, and possibly oldest, rubber stamps from the Stampendous Petite Point Collection called Small Maple Points. The falling leaves were stamped directly onto white cardstock using ColorBox cats eye chalk in burnt sienna, blush rose, cadmium yellow and orange. The words are from Clarity Stamps and are stamped using black archival ink.
I was well out of my comfort zone with this challenge, I seldom use words and sentiments on my work but inspired by the examples by others I gave it a go and I do quite like it. I like the font on that stamp. Its quite tricky having the confidence to "go for it" as well, to commit to arranging the images on one layer. I probably need to improve on my photography as well but I reckon the mat for the background works with this one.

Inchies

Artful Times Challenge 12 is Inchies. I played around with inchies a couple of years back as I love miniature things. I remembered I had an old set of clear stamps that would be perfect for this challenge. I wanted to keep it simple as I think the images look best in black and white, this is the result, my inchies tag:

Ingredients:
Clear Stamps 98777 by Inkadinkado
Ranger Glossy Accents
Sizzix die cut swirl
Small luggage tag
Black ribbon from stash
Violet Shade 4703 Pan Pastel
Recipe:
Stamp images in black on white cardstock. Use glossy accents to make them look like tiles. Colour the tag background with violet pan pastel and add a die cut swirl cut from black textured paper. Add the stamped images and black ribbon to finish.

Travel Challenge

With the holiday season coming to a close, I'm still thinking I really should take a holiday sometime!

There is still time left for the Travel Challenge with Try it on Tuesday so I was thinking, what might represent travel other than a place to go. I have this sweet little rubber stamp of a camper van and it reminds me of the people I met in the early 1980's from Australia and New Zealand. Those vans seem to have come back into vogue now, we see a lot of them around nowadays.

So here is my attempt at a retro camper van.

Hope it makes you smile.

Recipe:

Background paper from Black and White Prints DCWV paper stack.

Fuschia pink card, sentiment topper and candi from the Tres Chic range, Craftwork Cards.

Camper van clear rubber stamp - free with Creative Stamping magazine, stamped with black archival ink and coloured with pink and orange Promarker pens.

Tim Holtz Tag Challenge September 2012

Well, here's my version of the September Tim Holtz inspired tag.
I must say I love the industrial look and really enjoyed the background technique although I did not have the correct materials to reproduce it exactly as I would have liked. I don't  have any black alcohol ink but do have ginger so used that, it sort of works OK. I will invest in some black as I certainly will try this background technique again.
My tip for metal embellishments to add to your stash is to pop down to the local DIY store and buy some bags of washers, very inexpensive and you get lots for the money - see the zinc washer top right.
A great challenge this month, loved it!