INKY FINGERS

Oops! I had a blip - and lost a week 😉 But I'm still determined to clean out my last year's folder, so here are some cards I made towards the end of last year. I've had this post waiting to upload for a week - so sorry. In between, it was my birthday and lots of other things have happened. I'm also working on a special project for a friend's 80th birthday, so it's been a little busy.

This was a Christmas card for someone special. I love Wonky Tonk images, but they're a little limiting. I was practising watercolour with these - lots of room for improvement, but I really enjoyed it and spent a while on them. I used irridescent inks on part of her hair and gel pen for her earrings. It's never easy to stamp words on watercolour paper, especially without a stamping platform. The stars are Jane Davenport and I used a deckle edged die. I cut off her hair... gosh, it's a long time since my own hair was that long! Long hair always looks so good on other people.

 This was the first book I made this year, in my quest to explore different ways of adding pages or bindings. I've made 4 since then...😊 but this is my favourite so far. I played with gluing pages back to back, using my favourite mixed media cardstock, which is quite thick. It worked beautifully, until I decided to add a little 'spine' to the cover, so that they'd fit better... it was very slightly too wide, so the back page and the cover split the pages a little on the fold. I still love the book, so I haven't attempted to fix it, although I did cover the spine with washi tape, inked to blend with the background.  It's a slimline format, which I love, and a nice change from the square/rectangular ones I've been making. Can you see the cracks? Such a shame because the thicker card works so much better.

 Hello bloggers! Happy Sunday! and wow! We have more sunshine 😁It may still be cold, especially if not in the sun, but it feels so bright and spring like - it's so uplifting. There are flowers everywhere - what a joy! I finished off a couple of things I was doing this week and decided to make two into journal pages for my 'planner journal'. I love these dies because I can die cut the binding side but make the page any size I like - plus I already had some great planner page dies and they all work really well together.

Aren't these stamps (Art by Marlene) fun? Everything Marlene does is BRIGHT, so I had to follow suit. Her t-shirt is actually lime green and white but it scanned as aqua for some reason...??? It's an A5 page.

This is another one I began last year and finished off this week... I've used it before, but this time I'd cut around the top edge so that I could add it to any b/g - don't know why I ended up putting it back on white!

And a very simple one...The image is stamped and clear embossed, then I added colour in the darker parts of the flower and drew them out with water, hoping to create paler colour, but there's so little card remaining after embossing that it doesn't really show up. Nice, bold image, though. This is a 6" x 6" card.

I've just finished and photographed another book, so I thought I'd better post the first one I made after Christmas, when I hadn't been able to stamp for a month or so... but I'll put it in a separate post. 

 I got a new laptop at Christmas - notebook to be precise - so I've just been transferring some of my files across. This is the start of the clearout of what's left from last year! 

I KNOW I'm doing a lot of JK stuff lately but I love them! This one's just a journal page, unfinished - or is it?  I haven't yet decided which of my journals it will go into, which is why I haven't trimmed it - though it may fit into the one I just made, which I'll show you another day. These are digital images.

This one was just to use up some of the images lying around. I'd had the colours in my head for a couple of days when I made it. I like the way they work together.

This one - shock horror! - isn't made with JK images 😊

 ...and round and round 😊

I'm dizzy now, just thinking about it, lol. 

I'm working between two laptops because my scans are on the other one, but the keyboard is misbehaving again. So, I've been working on these pages little by little, while listening to online teachings in my craft room. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but this is what came into my head. It's not very well planned - but that's normal for me these days. I can now send it to a special friend. The pages aren't in order because I rearranged them, once I attached them to my triple book rings - and I added a back 'signature' page, but I've taken a photo of that, so will add it before I publish the post. This size circle - 4" - is a nice size to work with. I've made a hole in my stash of coloured images, but not a huge one, because I coloured some from scratch for this and I still have quite a few uncoloured ones left. Some of them are still on my stamping platform, too, so I might just have to stamp them again before I put them all away 😉

 'Dafternoon! Hope you're all well and enjoying the weekend 😊

I thought I'd better get some more stamping uploaded or I'll have even more piling up in my folder, so I'll begin with my recent Mingle for KCUK. My theme was Bright and Beautiful. 

These three colours were on a Challenge Blog I had intended to take part in - can't find it now, but if it's still around, I will. I loved the samples in these colours, so used them on what began as a concertina book, then exploded into something bigger. That isn't the one I'm posting now, but this is what I made immediately after the first one, mainly because I enjoyed it so much AND the inkpads were out on my desk, so I made the pages while listening to podcasts.

The pages are each 4" (10cm) square, so I cut a piece of card 4" x 16" from my A3 card, which is a little thick for folding, as you'll see...😖 I just inked it with sponges, then added some background stamping and stencilling in the same colours, or water spraying with the flowers, and in black and white (Brilliance) inks.

I thought I'd taken a photo of both sides, but I clearly didn't. Sorry. I don't even know if this is the front or the back, lol. 

Then I stamped some of Janet Klein's 'borg stamps' - as I call them - coloured, fussy cut and stuck them in front of whichever stamp I used to ground them, adding little bits of stamps from the sets and a bit of doodling as I went along. I don't think I used washi tape on this one, but I certainly did on the book. 

Here's the front cover, followed by the pages. As you can probably see, I made two covers in black card, attaching each to each end of the accordion, and taping a length of ribbon across the back one so that it would meet and tie at the front. Another 4x4 for the cover and it was done. I almost redid this one, to be honest, because I added way too much background stamping for my liking, but I thought I'd get away with it once the images were on. The wall wasn't a good idea!

As I promised, here are a couple more Fun cards, using feminine images. These are the ones I really struggled to colour because of the glass… and no, I still haven’t looked up a tutorial on colouring glass but I really must do that!

For Fabulously Feminine at Stamping Sensations again, I made this one…the wine is a pale lemon (or cream) colour, but it’s hard to see.

This one was an attempt at Red wine…not quite as successful, I don’t think…. back to the wine words

I must apologise for the quality of the scans – they’re both the same white card and there aren’t any specks on them – that’s from the scanner bed, which I’ve tried to clean, but obviously still has some stubborn marks on it. I’ll put that on my to do list for tomorrow!

This is a page from my journal for Art Journal Journey and Alison’s Geometrical shapes challenge.. I stamped a few of the girl and crown stamp, so this is the first one… I made another rough background on a piece of card, using Dylusions Spray inks, then added a touch of Salted Ocean Oxide at the base and stamped a border. Again, I used part of the words from the first set I got because it fitted with the page and with my mood! I wanted to use it as a tip-in, so instead of using one of my book binding punches, I cut out the little rectangles/squares of card and stuck it into my 6x6 journal. I kept some of the cut outs and attached them to the bottom to pull the top and bottom bits together. I found one of my date stamps, so added that for fun.  I think this is an old one that’ has the date American style, with the month first, but I’ve used it the English way. I may go back and colour that honeycomb in black and white…I think it needs a bit more definition, lol.

Thank you for popping in – it’s lovely to ‘see’ you!

Back soon

Cath

xxx

There’s a new Challenge Blog, which appeals to me because it really IS a challenge – CAS Stencil. CAS isn’t something I’d normally associate with Stencils. In fact, when I use stencils, I just throw on more and more layers of ink – most of the time. So I thought I’d try it…

The first challenge is Sponging, so for CAS Stencil, I made this… but also with Make My Monday’s Use a Sentiment challenge.

I used one of my favourite stencils – don’t know why I love it so much, but I love these higgledy piggledy rectangles and squares. I used Twisted Citron and Peacock Feathers Oxide inks.

I’m running a ‘Make Someone Smile’ Mingle on KCUK, so I thought I’d make another one, with a fun slant, this time stencilling only the corners.

My link to the ‘s’ is a bit ‘off’ – looks almost like an ‘r’. Must do that more carefully next time!

With the mingle in mind, I also made this one, adding spots and dots for the Sweet Stampin’ Challenge.

I also had Stamping Sensations’ Fabulously Feminine Challenge in mind when making this one and the next, although I really wish I hadn’t added the extra bubbles to the next one… it looked much better as a CAS card. I’ll do another one when I’m in the mood… I didn’t find this one easy to colour! I made another couple using another stamp I didn’t find easy to colour…I need to find a tutorial on colouring liquids and glass!

Just in case you’re wondering, while I do enjoy a nice glass of wine – or two – I don’t drink that much! In fact, I still have wine in that I bought for last Christmas and never got around to opening, despite taking a couple of bottles to my son’s on Christmas Day! But these words just make me chuckle, so I’m hoping they’ll do the same for the mingle recipients. WARNING… there are more to come!

The wine word stamps are new, so I’m pleased to be able to link to the Creatalicious ATG with optional ‘Something New’ challenge, SSS Monday Challenge and SSS Wednesday Challenge .

That’s all for now…

Thank you for popping by

Back soon

Cath

xxx

There are days when messing around with stamps is the only way to get things off your mind…

Gesso and Distress Oxides…

Acrylics and Oxides.

Oxides and Delicata (Shimmer White and Shimmer Gold) on Kraft card – though you can hardly see the Wilted Violet Shimmer Gold in the scan…

Distress Oxide Smooshing and stamping

Linking to:-

Allsorts, Thanks a Bunch

SSS Wednesday, ATG

That’s Crafty, ATG

Thanks for visiting

See you soon

Cath

xxx