INKY FINGERS

The new challenge at Try it on Tuesday is She’s Got the Look! I’m Guest Designer for this one, so here’s my contribution…

The stamps are from Time to Stamp (now I Brake for Stamps) da Vinci plate, Paperartsy Ink and the Dog and the words background just peeping through is Non Sequitur – are they still around?   The stars are from Stampinback.

After masking the main image, I inked the background with Oxides, taking some off by misting water through a stencil and wiping with kitchen towel.

I haven’t done a lot of stamping this week – it’s been an emotional week for a few reasons, but I did make a quick and easy Versamark resist version of my favourite PB stamp for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge – though I had to attempt this more than once – I’m definitely out of practice when it comes to stamping on glossy card and this is just a cut off section of the original.

I decided I’d also add a ribbon – just to fit the Addicted to Stamps challenge of Ribbons. It isn’t ribbon, strictly speaking – it’s knitting yarn, but it contains all three colours I sponged on the card and IS sari ribbon.  I intended making a bookmark, but decided against that because of where I’d stamped the sentiment – also a PB stamp…

I also made another card for the Destinations Challenge at TIOT. I added a little more colour this time, but not very much – I used three stamps on this one, masking as I went along. I didn’t think a sentiment would be appropriate.

These cards are some I have been making with my latest purchases from Port Sunny… just enjoying the playfulness of them.

I embossed the ‘fence’ effect on my scoring board. Can’t remember where I spotted this idea, but that’s all you do, dragging a dye inkpad downwards to get a faded ‘shabby chic’ effect. I really like it.

This one is a card I made for the KCUK May Mingle, which is Love, romance and at least one heart. I don’t really ‘do’ hearts, so I chose to concentrate on love. The background is made with Oxides and I watercoloured the hearts and flowers with them, too.

I’ll link this to one or two of the ‘Anything Goes’ challenges at

Creative Fingers

Crafty Creations

and

Word Art Wednesdays

also the

‘Use More than one Stamp’ challenge at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge

and

My Time to Craft – Circles.

KCUK (a Yahoo Group) began 17 years ago, mainly because a very special friend of mine encouraged (or was that insisted?) I start it.

Over the years, some of us have become very close, staying with each other (all over the world), writing and swapping – some of us have known each other since before the group began, as I have this particular friend.

Sadly, she passed away yesterday. She was such a kind, generous and loving person – it’s hard to put into words what a special lady she was, but she was one of those larger than life personalities, who lit up a room when she walked into it and cared about everyone. She’ll leave a big hole in lots of people’s lives – and she knew a lot of people, all over the world!

This card is an apt tribute to her.

I’m so thankful for having known her.

RIP Mary. 

Back soon

Thanks for looking

Cath

xxx

I’m still creating, though I’ve been a bit stuck on something for a few weeks… but I also went to the show at Port Sunny (Port Sunlight) on the Wirral, which was LOADS of fun and way too expensive… I spent a few lovely hours with my friend Neet (Hickydorums) and met up with lots of old friends (you know who you are…)not that they’re old, just that I’ve known some of them a LONG time, which always makes the show sweeter. I also got to chat to Sarah and Chris and KCUK Chris – so lovely to catch up and to share what we’d bought.  Sarah was doing another of her wonderful demos, but (un) fortunately, I’d already spent too much by the time I got to her, so I didn’t spend TOO much at her stall. I was hunting for something specific, which I didn’t – sadly – find, but I made up for that

I’ve been playing with a variety of things lately, so I’ll share a few now.

Here’s another card made with my favourite PB stamp – this time a very quick and easy, using felt tip pens. It’s way too much effort to use a stamp positioner to restamp, so it’s more of an impression than a proper image. I made the mistake of letting Izzi (Granddaughter) play with my Tombows, resulting in some dry ones, so I may have to get an alternative soon.

I have a couple more stamped, so will make something with them soon and show you.

I’ll link it to

Penny Black Saturday Challenge – Favourite PB stamp

This one was made for fun, because I love this new stencil and the stamp in the background.

This is a playtime gone wrong, but I’ll show it anyway… I love the background but I messed up on the tree stamping and the words just don’t show clearly enough.. I included it in a parcel I sent out, explaining it was a reject, lol.

This lovely new PB stamp arrived yesterday – a preorder. I coloured the flowers with Gel pens, which was fun – something I haven’t done much of for a long time. one of the pens I picked up just happened to be a Soufflé pen - I loved the result. The words are from the stash I ordered when I won the Simon Says Stamp Voucher and are from Impression Obsession. I used an old ISA stamp in the background, along with a stencil won in an Allsorts Challenge.

I’ll link this to the

Addicted to Stamps and More Make Your Mark Challenge

These I made a while ago – I really, really wanted these Kay Carley stamps but have found them difficult to use, if I’m honest. Must work on that! The larger stamps are a little TOO large for me  – really must try again.

This one is specifically for

TIOT Challenge – Destinations

I realise it’s a little oblique, but that’s cos I was planning to use a stamp that says ‘The journey is more important than the destination.’ I didn’t, so it may not make sense, lol.

Last but not least,

Close to Nature is the challenge at Stamping Sensations

I stamped the bamboo on the Oxide background and thought the birds would give the illusion of Japanese brush art, so I hunted out the text and voilà! I quite like the look.

I’ll link that to the

Penny Black and More Anything Goes challenge..

Enough for now.

Thanks for looking

See you soon

Cath

xxx

The challenge at Penny Black Saturday Challenge is Anything Goes, with optional ‘Use your Favourite Penny Black stamp’.

This one is easy for me…absolutely no hesitation!  This fuchsia stamp is my most loved and most used stamp and definitely my favourite Penny Black stamp, although I usually stamp it with markers for a great watercolour effect, especially on glossy card. It makes a very quick and easy card in CAS fashion or with inky backgrounds.

Here I’ve stencilled the Distress Oxide background with white acrylic paint and used another of my all time favourite stamps, a PSX word stamp, stamped over the background in toning inks..

On this one I’ve taken some colour off, using another word stamp with Versamark ink, misting with water before stamping. You can’t see it very clearly in the photo, but you can see it on the card.

This one was created just for fun and fits the current Country View Challenge of ‘Use Humour’.

It’s one of the old Designs Ink’d Humorous Seniors stamps – possibly the Red Hatters plate – they’re made with blue rubber, which always amused me.  The words were a gift  (a LONG time ago!) from a very precious friend in the US, who’s having a hard time at the moment.

I’d used a new roses stencil in the background, with the paler Distress Oxides (Squeezed Lemonade and Spun Sugar)  but because it looked empty, I added the thin cuts of black card and the brads, just to break it up and add some contrast.

This fits the challenge at 4 Crafty Chicks – Women Celebration and

Inspiration Destination’s Anything Goes challenge

and

Sweet Stamping’s Flowers Challenge

That’s all for now… I’m repotting tomatoes and sorting out my pots outside while the weather is good… happy days!

Have a great Bank Holiday weekend if you’re in the UK.

Thanks for looking

See you soon

Cath

xxx

Aha!  I bet you didn’t expect me to post again so soon… I saw the TIOT Challenge this morning – Dies and Stencils – and when I wandered into my Craft Room to put something away, I started messing tidying and playing with my dies… for someone who uses very few dies, I have a ridiculous number in my stash!

I’ll begin by saying this is a HUGE challenge for me because I don’t really do dies, even though I am an occasional collector. BUT you know you’ve had fun in your Craft room when you suddenly realise you’ve been in there for over 4 hours and haven’t even had a drink or a loo break !!!

So the first one didn’t work out very well, but I’ll show it to you anyway… I used the Tim Holtz flowers and dies, die cutting one of my hoarded Glimmer Mist backgrounds from aeons ago. I did add some shading with Prismacolour pencils and I stamped the stems, but the whole thing just didn’t come together well. Too much grass, not enough depth… I’m just not keen, but here it is. Maybe it would have been better on a smaller card base, I don’t know… I’ve also die cut the layers …I actually think these flowers may look better without the stems. I may try that later.

My second card was a play with texture paste (home made) and was far from perfect, so I found a word in my stamped words box and wrote another to go with it. I thought it was terrible but I have to admit that it’s growing on me, partly because I actually LIKE the imperfections. I think the choice of a creamy pearlescent card helped because it goes so well with the paste, which picked up a little of the inks behind – though drying with a heat tool may also have caused that... I love the smell of the baby talcum powder.

Some of the imperfections…

My third card was shamelessly cased from one I received from a lovely KCUK friend, Linda (whose cards I absolutely love!) when my Dad died recently.  I really fell in love with it, and especially with its simplicity, although I didn’t spatter ink on it, as she did. I used different butterfly dies and words and also added a touch of glitter…

Last but not least, with Brenda’s Pets Challenge over at Allsorts in mind, I played with the lovely TH dog dies and stamps. I had already cut up this stamp (Penny Black) as I so often do, but decided I didn’t want the ‘is like finding a four leaf clover’ bit at all, so cut that off and may well discard it. I always remove the dots and bits in between the words because they just don’t always fit what I’m doing with them, so cutting them off makes them far more versatile. I know – I’m weird – but words are important to me and this works for me.

I have a box of precoloured (while watching TV) doggies and crazy birds, so I like to pull them out now and again. Again, the card layers are die cut with double stitched dies. I really like the stitched ones and these are nice and big. I stamped the ‘Hard to find’ bit before I decided to cut the last bit off, so I decided to play with my Hero Arts circle stamps again to cover up the word behind the doggy’s ear and just carried on playing with them. I love the random effect.

Dogs are dear to my heart. I had an amazing best friend dog for 14 years and haven’t been able to replace him because he was like another child to me. Recently, however, I’ve decided I may well try to find a new friend, now that I’m in a house again and not the flat I lived in for four years. I prefer to rescue a dog that may not otherwise find a loving owner, so I’ve applied to a few places, one of which is just up the road, but they didn’t get back to me as they said they would, then didn’t turn up for the ‘house approval’ visit, so I gave up on them. I realise they’re all volunteers, but it’s such a shame when dogs are desperate for new homes. So I thought long and hard about what kind of dog I’d have if I was buying a pedigree and decided I’d prefer a lab…my last dog was half lab and was such a gentle, loving dog. So I applied to a couple of lab rescue places… I’m still waiting for the house visit, but I’m really hoping they show up soon. They’re a distance away from me, so I know they need to find someone closer to me but it’s been 3 or 4 weeks now and I’m excited about having another dog! My little granddaughter (aged 5) is also desperate for me to get one

Anyway, enough of that…

Thanks for the challenge, TIOT! It was fun.

Unfortunately, there’s no Linky on the Challenge blog – it’s saying ‘closed’ but I’m sure they’ll sort that out quickly…

I’m also linking to

A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes

Thanks for looking

Cath

xxx