Happy Easter

Good Morning and a happy Easter to all.
Today it is officially British summertime and since the clocks have gone forward I guess I should have said Good Afternoon.
I am off to visit friends this afternoon so I made a card to take with me. The Less is More Challenge this week is to use scallops so I will enter my card for the challenge.

Stamps used : Jofy09 and Jofy11

Flowers coloured with Promarkers

Scallop border punch - Martha Stewart

Background polka dot paper from stash and mounted on Kraft card

Have a very Happy Easter and hope your day is lovely too wherever you are,

Julia x

Songbird

A disappointing start to a Saturday morning to see yet more snow falling here in the South East of England, its supposed to be Spring. I was sitting drinking a cup of tea and thinking the birds must still be struggling to find food and they have eaten everything I put out recently so I ventured out in the cold with some bread for them. The crumbs were intended for the small songbirds but the first to arrive was the magpie closely followed by the pigeon.

For today's project I wanted to get my entry done for the CASology challenge which for this week is "Song". Songbird is the song I chose.
Last night reading Craft Stamper magazine (page 62 March copy) I also wanted to try the faux airbrush technique and enter the Craft Stamper Take it, Make it challenge where you take the technique and make something. Here is my one layer card:

I die cut some card and used that as the stencil. Using a sponge, dab distress ink in Tumbled Glass and a bit of Faded Jeans then stamp the music using grey versafine ink. The bird and Happy Birthday are all stamped in black archival. All stamps used are Papermania, the music and bird are from Urban Stamps Bird Print and the sentiment from Mix N' Match Celebration.

Stay warm and hope you have a great Saturday.

More Flowers

I was chuffed to bits to win the February challenge on the Show us your Twinchies blog, now I get to proudly display a winners badge. I really enjoy the twinchie challenges because the design team show such a variety of examples for each theme and the entries by others are so creative. There is plenty of time to think about the themes and to produce the artwork as well which is great if you are at work all week and have limited time. Go check it out, these twinchies are addictive and fun.

So, on to the March theme where Challenge 3 is 'Flower or Flowers'.
I seem incapable of using anything other than JOFY stamps recently, I love them so here is another one using  parts of the stamp set JOFY 11 and JOFY 9.

 

The 2 inch square background is kraft card that has been embossed, a scrap from a previous project. For the background I used randomly sponged distress inks and stamped the flowers and word in black archival ink. I used Inktense pencils to colour the flowers and painted over them with water to intensify the colours. Simple but bright and happy which was the effect I was after.

Flowers and Frames

The theme for week 111 at Less is More is "Frame it".
Here is my entry for this week's challenge :

The recipe:

Distress inks for the background - iced spruce and broken china, then spritzed with water.

PaperArtsy JOFY stamp JM11 stamped using black archival ink.

The leaves and buds were painted with bleach to remove the colour.

The frame was inked lightly with broken china distress ink and mounted with foam pads. This was not a die, it took an age fiddling to cut the aperture from a die cut topper I found in my stash.

I recommend using Ranger Manila cardstock for the distress ink and bleach technique. I tried the first version on white cardstock but the colours did not blend so well - in the bin!

Happy Saturday, hope you are having fun wherever you are. x 

Bunnies

Easter is going to be with us before we know it and I wanted to do something a little different for an Easter card. I used the Alice Palace stamp from Crafty Individuals called Crowned Bunnies, stamped them on white cardstock and coloured them with distress markers. This is mounted on blue card and then mounted on Kraft card embossed using a Sizzix beaded ribbons embossing folder. I added a doily strip to the bottom and the card is done. I'm thinking it is a little dark, not a happy bright Easter card at all but I do like those bunnies.

This week's challenge at CASology  is Bunnies so I will post my card there. I love the cute bunny examples that others have made and great inspiration as always on the CASology blog. 

Spots and Stripes

I am amazed at how quickly people who can knit manage to make scarves. My Auntie offered to knit one for me if I sent the yarn to her. The wool was purchased on Monday evening on the way home from work, posted on Tuesday lunchtime and the finished article has just arrived through my letterbox this morning. Less than a week turnaround, fabulous!

So, I need to send her a card to say Thank you.

Inspired by Jen's example for this week's Less is More challenge : One Layer Card with Spots and Stripes, I made this quick card:

The stripes are stamped using Brilliance ink in Galaxy Gold, stamp is from Hero Arts.

To add the spots I used a Crafters Workshop mask called mini punchinella with 3 colours of Colorbox chalk cats eyes.

The flower pot is from Polka Doodles and I added the black doodled lines around the stripes which was the idea from Jen's design that I wanted to try. My hand was not too steady but the doodling ties the design together.