INKY FINGERS

I’m still doing my skinny pages, so as a little light relief, I just altered a Cabinet card and since it’s a man, it fits in with the Crazy Amigos Challenge :)

Here are two more rejects – rejected for various reasons – the first one is too much and too bright – some of it is obscured a little here because I added bits of Opalite reinkers after I’d stamped – it looks really glitzy in real life :)

The second one isn’t quite what I wanted, but I like it although I would have added to it.

This is the prototype, though the colours won’t be the same – my pages will be based on this but after stamping – with the help of my good friend, Jacqui – all the little girls and all the top and bottom borders have been cut out, ready to attach when the pages are done :)

The last two are also in my favourite colour combinations, so I’ve entered them for the Theme Thursday Challenge – Favourite Colours.

I’m working on some Skinny book covers which mean a lot to me, so I tried all kinds and I think I finally have a prototype…  lots of cutting involved, though cos I have to do 38.  Just cut some covers and checked the back ones against some of the pages I’ve been sent, only to find that they’re oversized, so my covers don’t work – agggghhhh!!  I can either check 38x38 pages or cut more covers a little larger, but I’ve run out of the thicker card I was using… disaster and time’s running out.

Here’s one that went wrong :(

… and this time I masked each individual image, lol…

I’m hosting a ‘Colour’ swap on KCUK and here are my contributions.

I made a lot more of these, but these are the subtle ones… I was using up the Colour backgrounds I made during the power cut but I still have a lot of backgrounds left, so I’ll be sick of these bright colours by the time I’ve finished. With the exception of the first one (the pear) which was masked and the words stamped afterwards, these are made with collage stamps – I have a few GINORMOUS ones so I used parts of them and they were very quick and easy.

Here’s one I salvaged – I had an accident with some correction fluid, which I thought was a pen (because I didn’t pay close attention) and ended up tipping some of it onto the ATC. So, I wiped it off and covered with a vellum overlay. Late last night, I started scribbling on it but I wish I hadn’t – me and my faffing! The vellum worked well until then!!!!

I’m in an Oriental ATC group, so I made a few quick ATCs to send off to the girls on there.

A quick offering :)

We had no electrickery for over 12 hours yesterday – there was a cable fault at the top of the street, so it affected the whole street. It doesn’t half make you realise just how much of your lifestyle is dependent on technology! No cooker (despite being gas, it’s ignited by electrickery and the oven is powered by it), no phones, no lights, no music, no TV, no kettle, fridge and freezer defrosting, no clocks, no heating, no hot water – need I go on????? It was a great excuse to play until the light ran out, so got to play for an hour or so and then I made some papers, while the light was fading :) My stamping room stays light the longest in the house, but of course it was one of those really dark days, so even that didn’t last long :(

I added the Glossy Accents to this at around 11pm in the dark - well, by candlelight - so they're far from perfect, lol.

It's a while since I used Gesso :)

Thanks to those of you who corrected my spelling (Duh!) AND to Carol for reminding me of my schooldays, with her reminder of how to decline a Latin noun, lol!

I found one of my Faux Batik papers lying around (I’m MESSY!) so I made a card with it :) I must have loads of bits of faux batik hanging around because I was experimenting with getting a double faux batik effect and ended up with lots of ‘casualties’.

For personal reasons, I don’t do Hallowe’en but I do have this stamp and had to try it out :)

The first card is on a piece of black glossy card, embossed in the Cuttlebug Spider’s web folder.

The second one is my ‘Recycled’ effort for Saturday Workout. The stamped acetate was cut from packaging and is laid over a piece of roughly torn kitchen towel I used to ‘mop up’ some inks when making backgrounds. The next piece is also packaging (spotty card) from some stamps I received as a gift, to which I added ink over Punchinella and the next layer is the charcoal inside of yet more packaging.

The last one is one of my ‘Riot of Colour’ backgrounds on watercolour paper.

There's some fab BLOG CANDY on offer over at Linda's site - well worth bookmarking - Linda is really creative and full of fun!

I made this a couple of days ago and didn’t get chance to upload it until now. A bit late, I know, but I really wanted to do the Blackbirds challenge – they’re my favourite birds.

I’ve cheated a bit on this one because I’ve used one of the ATCs from Saturday’s Workout but it fits the challenge, so maybe not :)

It’s the first time I’ve done these, though I’ve always wanted to and although I’m not 100% happy with them, I’ll do more now that I’ve tried them. I couldn’t find some of the stamps I wanted, so ended up substituting because it took me 3 hours to do these, with looking for stamps and other things in between. Let’s hope it doesn’t take as long next time, although I’ll be better prepared if it does :)

Woohoo! I’m the proud (temporary) owner of the poor little ‘Ugly Card’ which arrived this morning on its worldwide travels…

It’s been on the road since March of this year, setting off from Calgary but has just come to me via Yorkshire, so my task is to photograph it somewhere and to put it on my Blog. Watch this space…

I then need to choose a new owner from those who comment on my photo, so if you fancy taking the Ugly Card for a little trip, please be ready to post.

Just a couple more simple cards I managed to complete. Hope to post more in the next few days.

Crafty Individuals birds and tree, Stamp Camp words. Clouds made by sponging over torn paper. Glossy Accents over birds to make them stand out.

Those Stampin’ up flowers again, but this time in three different shades to give the effect of a host of flowers :) And words from Stampinback – another of my favourite sayings. I half wish I hadn’t edged this one with black but left it clean and simple.

Dymphie, who makes wonderful books, has a birthday today and to celebrate is giving away her fiftieth book.  Her work is awesome and the blog well worth bookmarking.

To find out more, click the above picture, which is linked to her blog, then leave a comment before 6pm on 16 October.

The blues don’t quite match up (last layer and ribbon) but never mind – I like the effect.

This is resist a la Nancy Currie – I love her resist work.

I’m feeling way too lazy to put my stamps away, so I’ve just used a few which were already out, he, he. We all have our favourite stamps, don’t we and this verse is one of mine. Sadly, it’s an old PSX stamp which is no longer available. The background of the flower was bleached after embossing.

This purple card is for a purple friend – you know who you are :)

(and the Belated Birthday greeting should give a HUGE clue – not!)

This is another of my favourite word stamps – from Stamp Camp.

Just found this great and totally free Photoshop course and thought I’d sign up to hone my skills :) I used it a lot in stamp designing but have done very little with colour, so it should be interesting.

http://creativetechs.com/freephotoshopcourse

Here are a few more of the Ecoline colour madness cards. Nothing too complex but they have to be simple because of the vibrant colours behind them. Someone was wondering how to get the same effect without Ecoline inks and I really think Adirondack reinkers would work OR Stazon reinkers - or you could even brayer or sponge Stazon inks directly onto the card/paper.

Just found that I’ve been given an award by the lovely Anne E!! Thank you Anne – very much appreciated.

I need to pass this onto six people – h’mm, too difficult to choose right now, but I’ll give it some thought and get back to it.

Thanks again!

On KCUK the monthly challenge is to make card/s with your scratch (or you may call it scrap) paper – the paper you work on while applying inks, etc.

Here are my three cards:-

All made from the same piece of scratch paper.

A dear friend, Jo Pritchard (super duper inspirational crafter!) uploaded some of the artwork from this year’s Stempelmekka to KCUK and I fell in love with one display of cards, which I can only describe as a ‘riot of colour’. Of course, I had to have a play… and this is how it turned out.

Images and words, Stampin Up

Images and words from Jozart Birds (drawn by Jo, herself) available from Stamp Attack

Same plate of stamps as above, background stamp Inkadinkado.

The Saturday Surprise theme this week is 'Your Favourite Colour/Colours' so I've entered this one because I love 'rainbow colours'.

I used Ecoline inks (Magenta, Turquoise and Yellow, with a splash of green) on dictionary pages first of all, then decided to try them on watercolour paper (hot press, smooth) and wow did they pop, as you can see from the above background and from the words! I love the way the colours blend to give us violets, oranges and greens. I’ll do more of this because I love the effect.

Thought I’d better get my act together and do my swap, especially as I’m the hostess and they were supposed to be sent out yesterday.

The bookmark isn’t finished yet – needs to be prettied up, lol – but it’s a standard Versamark resist ‘with a twist’, which I was reminded of by Lynne. Can’t tell you how to do it yet because it may yet become part of our Stamp Club workshop next month. The card is just Versamark resist.

I’ve been semi laid up with a bad cold - shouldn’t be allowed – seriously interfered with my fun times! I did get to read a couple of really good books, though and I’ve been playing some great PC Adventure games :)