INKY FINGERS

Today I just want to wish all of you Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m counting my blessings… I know we don’t celebrate in the UK, but maybe we should… I used my favourite Oxide colour combination and simply concentrated on saying Thanks.

We don’t yet have snow, though some parts of the UK have, but it’s certainly cold… so I thought I’d link these to the Simon Says Stamp challenges.

SSS Wednesday – Baby, It’s Cold Outside

I stamped the snowflakes and the words in Versamark, embossed in white powder, then sponged three different shades of blue Oxides over, finishing off with the large Woodware die cut snowflakes embossed in Stampendous Frantage Chunky White powder (which is also scattered over the background) and a couple of EK Success snowflake punches, with some Nuvo Sparkle drops.

SSS Monday – Let it Snow

This is a Michael Powell design from Do Crafts, coloured with Promarkers and spattered with Dylusions White Linen.

I’m also linking to Art Every Day Month – AEDM

It’s not too late to join in – it’s fun to see what people share each day.

Thanks for looking

Back soon

Cath

xxx

Catching up with my Month of Thankfulness.

So yesterday, I was thankful for Fun and Laughter… this page started life as a card, but I soon realised it wouldn’t be appropriate as a card, so I pulled out my 6x6 Kraft paper journal (reminded by Yvonne!) and attached it to a page, after stamping the words and drawing the speech bubble … then added Les Rats des Villes (Katzelcraft) as my imagination ran riot. I love the one slinking away on his belly…

I gessoed another page, then added Oxides through a stencil, using bright colours as a contrast to Weathered Wood, stamping the large Laughter (Hero Arts) a few times off the page. There were some larger die cut letters in my little box, and because I’d been colouring and cutting out les rats, I decided to stand them on the letters, with the top one running away from the girl with the shotgun...  It’s a bit busy, so the rats are almost lost, but  I just played around a bit until I realised I’d better stop before I made it any worse! Theoretically, it’s a continuation of the first page, but is actually on the page before… duh! It just happened!

I wanted to make another ‘Resist’ card for Fashionable Stamping Challenge, so I stamped an old word stamp on glossy card in Versamark, heat setting, then sponging Adirondack inks over the top, stamping the word background in the same colours as the background.

I was imagining butterflies on this, but took the easy way  cos I’ve cut out too many images and looked through my cut out basket. Ihis TH image worked well with the background words and I liked the fact that I wouldn’t have chosen pink for him… Hunting for some suitable words in my word box, I found these…

So today, I’m thankful for !IMAGINATION!

Allsorts’ challenge is CAS Christmas…I don’t make many Christmas cards, but I wanted to try out this die.

The black lettering is a little harsh, but I tried blue first and it was a little lost… if I do this again, I’ll stamp some watermark snowflakes in the background.

Finally, another Die cut… smooshed with Oxide inks, stencilled, the happy duck added,then the die cut Birthday.

I’ve never used as many die cuts in my life, lol. I love some of the latest designs but seem to acquire them just to look at - not to use… I especially like word dies.

I’m linking this to AEDM, Art Every Day Month

Watercooler Wednesday Challenges – Occasions

Penny Black and More – Make Someone Smile

Addicted to Stamps and More – Holiday

Thanks for visiting

See you soon

Cath

xxx

I’ve been wondering if colour can be considered a creature comfort?  What do you think?  Nothing cheers the soul more than a colour explosion – it brightens an otherwise dull day and just makes me smile! It certainly did this week, after a few days of limiting myself to black and white.

So, I decided it IS in fact, a creature comfort because it’s so comforting, lol but we CAN do without it

So here’s my spread for Art Journal Journey, whose theme for October is…. Creature Comforts.

Here’s each page in turn, so you can see more clearly.

 CAS Mixup have a Metallic challenge at the moment, so I thought I’d give it a go, using one of my die cuts and some gold leaf. I can’t find my multicoloured leaf OR my copper leaf (I bet I’ve thrown it out in one of my recent clearouts ) so I improvised with some Pearlex copper ink, which I dabbed over bits of the gold and spattered over the card, with some Delicata gold. It doesn’t look very CAS but ‘white space’ doesn’t have to be white – right?

This next card started life as CAS, but soon developed into a more colourful specimen… I noticed Neet had been using Promarkers and decided I’d get mine out – I just forget I have them and enjoy playing with Prisma pencils or watercolour, so I coloured the leaves with those – and yes, they bled out a little, despite the clear embossing! I quite like the result, though.

I also made another simple leafy card, using embossing resist – I noticed that there were still some Autumn challenges around, so I thought I’d enter those.

Stamping Sensations – Colours of Autumn

Penny Black and More – Autumn Splendour

Moo Mania and More – Autumn

 

The theme on Shopping our Stash is Pink is the New Orange, so here’s a simple offering for that, made with Oxides and Paperartsy stamps.

I think that’s enough for now… I have more to share, but will be back tomorrow or the day after with those.

Thanks for looking

Back soon…

Cath

xxx

I couldn’t resist this one when I saw the elemental inspiration on the Daring Cardmaker’s Blog…

I love these colours and of course I’ve been leaf obsessed for the last month or so. I did, however, decide to do something different for this one, so using Distress Oxides, I made this.

For the Calling All Sisters Challenge, Black and white, I made this…

…and for My Time to Craft’s Kraft card challenge, I made this, with my favourite all time technique – Versamark resist on glossy card…

… which, because of the quote, also fits Fashionable Stamping’s Quote Away challenge.

The challenge on Sweet Stampin is to use a stencil, so I used my Phyllis Harris stamps by Unity to make this.

The challenge at Allsorts is to use Trees and/or Leaves, so I took a break from what I consider to be Autumn colours and used pink and grey Oxides for this one.

That’s all for today...

I’m off to see the dentist now – unfortunately, I have an abscess, so have been in pain the last few days and my face is ridiculously swollen on one side

Thanks for looking

See you soon

Cath

xxx

Today is a good crafting day

I live on the main road, not too far from a large Tesco, Aldi and Iceland, not to mention pretty close to an M6 junction and to the A580, so the roads are always MAD busy here. Not to mention that there’s a primary school behind my house and another one across the road, plu a busy Nursery directly across from me. My craft room is at the front of the house, so I have learned virtually to tell the time by the sound of traffic. I love being in there on Sundays and Bank Holidays because the roads go really quiet when the supermarkets close… it’s great! 

Today, it suddenly went quiet just after 2pm. I wondered what was happening and suddenly remembered the football. Sure enough, the football was live at that moment. The roads are almost empty! If I hadn’t already been shopping, it would’ve been a great time to nip over the road for some

The challenge for this week at Allsorts is Sweet Treats. My first reaction was ‘eek!’ – I don’t have any ‘sweet’ stamps… so I hunted around and surprise, surprise – I actually DO have some ‘sweet’ stamps! I just don’t use them very often – or in some cases have never used them, shame on me

So I thought I’d have a change and go seriously cute and sweet… even using a deckle card, which is rare these days.

…just realised I forgot to add the glitter to the butter cream!  I’ll so that later.  I coloured these very sweet House Mice with Prisma Pencils. Although they look very sweet here, I wouldn’t be very happy if I found them lurking in my kitchen!

Sweet Stampers have an ‘Animals’ challenge, so I’d like to link that, and Sweet Stamping have a ‘Food and Drink’ challenge, so I’ll link to that, too.

I was playing around with some new stamps and trying to do a CAS design, but I wasn’t over happy with my results…

Then I really messed up on one by adding a few bits of painted Distress Oxide – it just didn’t work. SO, with nothing to lose, I started dipping into Oxides smooshed onto my craft mat and spritzed with water. Then I added a little stencilling with Moonlight White and finally, a few spatters with white paint.  I have to admit, I really like the end result.

I’d like to enter this into the Word Art Wednesday Challenge.

I liked the inks over the white embossing, so I did a little resist with them, stencilling over the Oxides with Moonlight White. I was also challenging myself to use more die cuts; I used five on this

This is for the Make My Monday Resist embossing Challenge.

The previous day I found one of my old ‘Faux Batik’ backgrounds, with a stamp I used to use a lot, so – knowing there was a Faux Batik Challenge at Art Cards Challenge,  I started playing with it, adding inks and experimenting to see if the Oxides would cover the FB image or not. They did, but I used a baby wipe to wipe them off, so you can just about see the (reverse) image in the background on the right hand side. I discovered that if you use another piece of card instead of (or as well as) newsprint or Kitchen roll when you iron off the EP, you get a lovely reverse Faux Batik effect.  You can, of course, take this a little further and create another resisting image, but I hadn’t done this on the piece I found, so I just overstamped it.

With the SSS Wednesday challenge of ‘Bright and Cheerful’ in mind, I made this next card, which was so much fun to make… the astute among you will notice that the words and stamps do NOT belong to the same plate…oops! I may just have ordered two sets…

I’d like to enter this into

Simply Papercraft Anything Goes challenge

A Perfect Time to Craft – Anything Goes

Back to Basics – Heat Embossing

and

Daring Cardmakers – What a Wonderful World

I’d also like to thank Brenda for sharing the ‘fix’ for receiving Blogger comments again!  Yay Brenda! Many thanks – I really missed being able to reply to the lovely comments people make.

That’s it for now.

Back soon

Thanks for looking

Cath

xxx

I love colour and I love the depth achieved by sponging, using whichever type of sponge you prefer, but occasionally, a light touch is preferable and gives a totally different effect.  I know ink brushing has been around a long time, but I never really fancied it until I watched the video Anja linked to, showing brushing inks with cosmetic brushes and really liked the idea…

So I had a play to experiment with them.

This one uses Distress Oxides and a couple of Tatty Button stamps, with a Chocolate Baroque border below. The words are from Stampinback and I coloured Tatty with Prismacolor pencils. The ‘bubble’ effect is from the card – I often stamp on the reverse of hammer cardstock because it seems to take the inks really well.

Addicted to stamps and more has an Anything Goes challenge, so I’d like to link this one.

 

I had the current  ‘Just Add Ink’ challenge in mind for this one, using the following colours… though of course I used the equivalent colours of Distress here…

The colours didn’t show up too well because I used glossy card so that I could play with a resist technique from Nancy Curry’s Resist book that I haven’t used for a while. I’m not sure I like the effect of the brushes here….

Next, I played with some of my Brilliance inkpads for a change, this time sponging the inks on and trying to keep (roughly) to the same colour scheme. I decided to reink some of my pads while I was playing, which led to some blotching, but I still liked the effects. I used the same stamps (Tim Holtz mini wildflowers).

I’d like to link this to the Flower Challenge, which is to use one of their previous challenges. I chose ‘Focus on background stamping’.

Not knowing when to stop, I overstamped one of my crackle stamps, using Brilliance Moonlight White ink.

For this one, I used the brushes again, but this time with standard distress inks, playing with this Canada goose stamp and creating a background for him. I love the subtle colours here. I used some Inkylicious stamps in the foreground and finished off with a light brushing of Gathered Twigs.

For Crafty Creations’ Anything Goes challenge.

This (Lavinia) Fairy card was sponged with Distress Oxides, but using the two palest colours to keep it subtle; Squeezed Lemonade and Tattered Rose. I managed to lose one of my little ‘shrooms – I’m very good at losing small clear stamps   - but I love ‘shrooms, so hopefully it will show up soon! The two shrooms in the centre (ish) is a broken stamp but it still stamps well, even though I have to put the two pieces together every time I use them…. I just love them. Her wings are lightly coloured and glittered.

I’d like to link this to the Anything Goes challenges at:-

Love to Craft

Creative Moments

Dragonfly Dreams and

The Fairy and the Unicorn

And finally, in keeping with the more delicate theme, a simple journal page based on a Bible verse I love… the bottle sketch very rough, but I actually like the whimsical effect.

The verse is ‘You have counted my wanderings, put my tears into your bottle….’ and is from Psalm 56:8, which is my inspiration for the page. I’d like to link it to Art Journal Journey’s ‘Inspired by…’ challenge.

I’m off to play some more, in between other bits I need to do.

Thanks for looking

Back soon

Cath

xxx

I worked on this journal spread a while ago, but only finished them off yesterday, so I thought I’d share them for the Art Journal Journey ‘Inspired by…’ challenge.

It’s inspired by a Waterboys track, ‘Trumpets’…

Make My Mondays Challenge is Embossing Resist… this is my first play with one of my favourite techniques.

I stamped on white card with Versamark, then stamped the verse in Versafine, embossing with clear embossing powder.  I then sponged on distress inks - Salty Ocean, Peacock Feather, Toasted Marmalade and Mustard Seed, wiping the excess ink off the stamping with a paper towel. Then I stamped the Hero Arts wheat a couple of times in Mustard Seed ink. I love resist techniques and there’s a Faux Batik challenge over on another challenge blog, so I may well be doing some of that soon…

This is a card I made a while ago, using some new tree stamps from Marianne.

And here’s a little card made with a scrap background piece I found… though I did add some colour to it. The butterflies were from my ‘already cut out’ image basket, as was the word ‘Prayers’.

I’d like to link to

Simon Says Monday Challenge – Anything But a Card,

Butterfly Challenge

and

Snippets Playground

Back soon.

Thanks for looking.

Cath

xxx

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