THE HOLLY AND IVY #188

We are back at The Holly and Ivy  after a little break with some more Christmas inspiration for you.  

I've used some of Tracy Evans' Boutique Designs stamps and stencils for my card.  I started by stamping the word Christmas as a simple background.  The vase is a stencil which I coloured with Tim Holtz Distress Oxide.  I then added some more words and a crackle stamp.  

I masked off the stencil to add the Christmas bauble and added some holly in the vase and underneath the bauble. 

ON THE WILD SIDE

Another play with the new stamp sets from Tracy Evans Boutique Designs - TE50 On the Wild Side and TE45 Dog Rose and Butterfly.  I created the background with some Distress Oxide inks then added the stamping.  The butterfly was cut out and popped on dimentions and has lots of sparkle.  I love the extra ephemera pieces in TE 45 too.  I added a pop of colour as everything else had been stamped in Versafine Portobello or Black.  

This fits in perfectly with the Just Us Girls challenge and their mood board 

Stamping Sensations - AG 

We love2create - AG

We love stamping - AG 

Allsorts - AG 

Ellibelle - from the garden 

ADDICTED TO STAMPS AND MORE #497 - CHRISTMAS

Back to our Christmas challenge this week at Addicted to Stamps and More.  I grabbed a background from my stash that had been made with the gel press and a stencil a few weeks ago.  

I wanted to use these Indigo blue stamps as I spotted those little deer under the stamp.  I do like to see deer at Christmas.  I paired it with some Tim Holtz thinlets of the doe and her baby.  I covered them in Tim  Holtz Speckled Egg embossing powder.  They look a bit greyer in the image.  The oval image was also embossed to give it a bit of shine. 

TAG TIME

I do love to make tags but really don't know what to do with them after I've made them.  I couldn't possibly add them to a gift and give them away as I'm not sure the receiver would appreciate them and all that time I've spent creating.  What do you do with your tags?  

I was inspired to play along with the new challenge Tag-Along (and ATC's) and their theme is AG with the option of Garden. 

Tracy Evans Boutique Designs has just released a new set which is fast becoming my favourite called Dog Rose and Butterfly.  I love the extra ephemera stamps she has added for us and I just love the butterfly.

My piece started out as a play on the gel press - inspired by Alison Bomber to add real grasses to the paint and you can just see a faint imprint of the grasses I used. The paints used were Tim Holtz Walnut Stain and Cracked Pistachio.  I then stamped the butterfly collage stamp from Tracy's set in Versafine Shady Lane.  I restamped the butterfly in Versafine Portobello and cut it out and inked it with Distress Oxides in Cracked Pistachio and Unchartered Mariner.

I added some of the extra pieces of ephemera stamps and added some splatter.

I'm adding this into the following 

Tag Along - AG plus Garden 

Dream Valley - AG 

Stamping Sensations - flowers - AG 

INSPIRATION STATION - #75

Welcome back to another challenge from Inspiration Station.  We hope you are inspired by this gorgeous image - it could be memories of holidays taken, the beach scene, the colours, the houses, the shadows.  Anything that inspires you but do let us know what it was from the image that drew your creativity.  Mine was the little houses and I suddenly remembered an old stamp I had that hadn't had much love. Isn't it amazing that no matter how much crafting stuff we may have we can still remember that one stamp or paper or die cut!  

The stamp I used is an old Chocolate Baroque stamp called Mushroom House.  Sadly the owner and designer of Chocolate Baroque stamps Lesley passed suddenly late last year and I'm not sure what's happened to the company since.  

I used the gel press for the background with some Tim Holtz paints and layering the paint horizontally to see what image I would get.  I quite liked how it created a bubbly sort of texture and a round idea of sky, sea and sand.  I added a stencil by Alison Bomber for the branches and hand drew the leaves.  I stamped the little houses and used the same paint to colour in the thatch.  I thought the sentiment which comes with the set was just perfect for this challenge. 

A PEAR OF TAGS

A bit of a pun there for my heading as I'm not offering a pair of tags but a pear of a tag lol!   

I had great fun creating this tag - lots of lovely texture with stencils, paste, stamping, stamped ribbon for the background.  The pear image is an old one from Tracy Evans for Aallandcreate. 

I stamped it twice and layered it to give it more of a statement on the busy background.  I added some thread behind  and can you spot I even found an old leaf brad in my stash!  Brads need love too.  The ephemera words are from the same set.  I found a fruit embellishment for the ribbon at the top.  I layered this onto some strong cardboard to protect it and give it strength.  

I used Tim Holtz Distress Inks for all my colours and wanted to take my inspiration from the old sweets we used to have called Fruit Salad.

I'm adding this into the following 

Tag Along - AG plus garden.- I have a pear tree in my garden but no fruit as yet.

Let's Craft and Create - AG 

Colourful Options 

The outlawz challenge - yum yum 

Inspire Create - Oranges and Lemons - colours Ive used 

CREATIVE ARTISTE MIXED MEDIA - #117

Welcome back to another Creative Artiste Challenge where Anything Goes as long as you use at least 3 different mediums on your project.  I really enjoyed creating this piece and it was just a lovely hour of playtime.

I started off with some packaging from a well know delivery firm lol which had the corrugated inner to the cardstock.  I used some Tim Holtz Distress Ink direct from the bottle in Walnut Stain to age the piece and then added some strips of gesso just to lighten it a bit.  I dug out some piece of fabric from my little fabric stash and stamped on them.  The wording stamp on the top left is a very old stamp I can't remember from where.  The flowers are from Alison Bomber.

I love watching Alison's videos and she has inspired me to add real flowers to my pieces.  The little fluffy things I have no idea what they are but they were up on our mountain on a dog walk and I just knew I had to pick a few.  I've also added a dried flower I had from when I went on a make your own paper course.  

The various ephemera pieces are from my little stash of pieces I've made - also inspired by Alison.  It's nice to have a few to hand and makes creating collages a little easier.  The quote is from Tim Holtz.  I added some circles with a bottle top and some gesso.  To make the piece sturdier I added it to some extra cardboard painted with brown acrylic paint and added strips of white gesso to mirror the strips of the cardboard.  I even used a few brads!!

Here are a few close up's also

I'm adding this into the following challenges:

Mix it Up - AG Mixed Media 

Crafts Galore Encore - AG 

Paper Rocks Scissors - AG 

Simply Ellibelle - Wed - AG 

Ellibelle - I spy - Vintage 

Outlawz - Not a Card 

Tic Tac Toe - Foliage - Layers Flowers 

THE MALE ROOM - CATS AND/OR DOGS

Welcome back to another challenge - our 200th challenge at The Male Room.  We are asking for your dogs and or cat cards this month.  

I chose to use my trusty Tim Holtz Snarky cats again.  The background was made with a gel press and one of Tim's very old stencils. It's almost falling apart I've used it that much.  I used some cog die cuts to sit behind the cat and used a couple of the sentiments from the set.  I added some washi tape and some background stamping. 

ADDICTED TO STAMPS AND MORE - CHALLENGE #496 - MAKE YOUR MARK

It's time to Make Your Mark at ATSM this week - and by that we mean get out those pencils, pens, inks - anything you would use to colour in.

I received some stamps by Indigoblu from a friend which I think were part of their latest magazine.  It's not a magazine I've ever seen in a shop near me so I didn't even know they did such things.  But this set has a fabulous assortment of stamps and words.  

I used the sunflower stamp, the dragon fly and the hearts and extra background stamps and decided to just colour in the sunflowers and the dragonfly and leave the rest as black and white.  I used some new, to me, Prismacolour pencils called Botanical Garden Set.  I love the vibrant colours they give - much more vibrant in real life than the picture is showing.

LOVE TO CRAFT - JULY #87

Welcome back to another Love to Craft challenge where we love to see all your projects on our Anything Goes challenge.  What will inspire you over the next few months?

I've been inspired by Alison Bomber of W0rdsandp1ctures.  I started off my card by playing with the gel press and a stencil with some Tim Holtz Distress Paints.  I think you can just about see the very soft image I eventually got after a couple of takes from the press.

I added some of Alison's gorgeous stamps from Paper Artsy Pressed Grasses Edition EAB40.  I think these are some of my favourite stamps of hers so far.  I found in my drawer an old Ranger Archival Ink called Seafarer which I didn't even know I had and I just adore this blue.  I'm going to definitely see if it's still a current colour in case it runs out of ink soon.  I used this colour and Versafine Morning Mist for the background stamping.  I then used a stamp by Sara Nauman ESN62 also for Paper Artsy.  This is a new designer for me and I loved this set with the gorgeous butterflies. I stamped the butterfly first then reinked it and cut out the butterfly and added it with some dimensionals. I cut the wings very gently to give them a bit of movement which doesn't really show up on the card. 

I'm adding this into the following

We Love Stamping = Nature 

Inkspirational - Stencilled background 

Creative Fingers - AG 

Just us Girls - Stencils 

Simply Ellibelle - from the garden 

PEARLY SPARKLES - CHALLENGE #109 - SHAPED CARD

Welcome back to Pearly Sparkles Challenge #109 and we are asking for your Shaped cards.  This was a challenge for me as I don't often do shaped cards so had to get some inspiration from You Tube and found this great looking card which to me screamed Art Deco and I had the perfect stamp set by Hunkydory. 

 I was inspired by this video by Sarah Trebilcock 

The background green papers were created using the gel press and a stencil.  

CAS BUTTERFLY CARD

I'm not normally a CAS sort of person but thought I'd join in with a few challenges today and The Paper Players caught my eye with their tic tac toe.  I chose the top line of CAS Something that Flies and Square card.

I had recently been gifted an embossing folder by Hunkydory called Tattered Fabric.  I coloured it with Distress Oxide in Salty Ocean gave it a spritz of water and then ran it through the Big Shot.  I added a simple butterfly from Tim Holtz cut out of some old SU DSP.  I used the same paper for the background and then layered it onto black card stock. I added a sentiment from Tracy Evans and just a few gems for the eyes.

The paper players - as above 

AAACards - cAS 

Dragonfly Dreams - use a butterfly 

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - AG 

Can you handle the pressure - aG 

ADDICTED TO STAMPS AND MORE - #495

I've just come back from a fabulous week's holiday in Greece where we celebrated my niece's wedding.  It was so magical and here's the card I made for them.  The stencil is from Creative Expressions by Sue Wilson.  I cut it out of pearl white paper to give it extra shimmer.  The little love birds were part of some ribbon I had in my stash.  I kept the card simple and let the beautiful rose stencil shine.

I'm adding this into the following:

Krafty Chicks - CAS 

Creative Inspiration - AG 

Tic Tac Toe - Love - Free - Square - Stencil for Free 

Time out - The Heart 

A cut Above - Die cut 

Neglected Stuff - Mine was the die cut - I had tried many times to get it to cut with no luck but finally it worked when I needed it to 

Creations In Pink

THE HOLLY AND IVY #187

I'm back from a fabulous holiday in Greece where we celebrated my niece's wedding.  What a fabulous time and I must admit I'm having a hard time getting back into crafting.  What better way than to create a Christmas card in June - especially as the weather has turned again here in Wales and it's cold and wet.  

Once again I've turned to the lovely stamps by Tracy Evans Boutique Designs - I just love this mistletoe stamp and as my daughter adores penguins this will be tucked away for her until Christmas.  

In order to get the penguins to look at each other one was stamped onto some acetate and then stamped onto the cardstock to reverse the image.

I'm adding this into the following

Christmas Kickstart - Christmas Critters 

GirlzCreativeChallenge - Baubles - the penguins in the bauble 

Peace on Earth - AG 

We love stamping - nature 

The Outlawz Challenge Festive Friday - Christmas 

CREATIVE ARTISTE MIXED MEDIA

Something a little different from me this month for Creative Artiste Mixed Media as I've created a set of three tags in varying sizes.  I  had great fun putting this together. 

I recently had a birthday and a gift of some new stamps which I couldn't wait to play with.  The gorgeous butterflies on this tag are by Sara Naumann for Paper Artsy and this one is ESN62.  All the butterflies used on all the tags are from this set.

The backgrounds were made from a gell press session playing around with some Tim Holtz paints.  

The extra stamping comes from Alison Bombers set Pressed Grasses EAB40 which was also a new set to me.  

I added some pastes and ideaology pieces from Tim Holtz to complete the tags.

I'm adding this into the following:

I spy - at least 1 butterfly 

Dragonfly Dreams - Butterflies 

We love 2 create - AG 

WE love Stamping - Nature 

Triple B - butterflies 

Tag Along - AG 

THE MALE ROOM - FUN FOLDS

This month we want to see your fun folds for your male cards at the Male Room.  I decided as a male card I wanted to do quite a simple fun fold and found this great simple idea from Gina K Designs. 

I used an old stencil from Visible Image and added three different colours of blue Distress Oxide Inks for the image -  Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans and Broken China.  I added the steam punk heart in the middle.  I cut out the sentiment with a die cut and kept it simple.

You can see the inside of the card which I think is a great design and one I think I will be trying many times.