Crafty Stamping: #ispychallenge

Wednesday, 20 August 2025

GUEST DESIGNER I SPY CHALLENGE

I'm delighted to be a Guest Designer for Ellie and one of her challenge blogs which is I Spy. This challenge is I Spy ....Warm and Sunny Colours. I look through my projects and realise I do an awful lot of grunge and not much brights or pastels. So this was a challenge for me.

I started off my background my smooshing some Picked Raspberry Distress Ink from a mini cube onto my Tim Holtz platform. I then dipped my card into the ink and let it dry. I used two stamp sets here both from a lovely set by Sara Naumann for Paper Artsy ESN62 which has lovely butterflies and sentiments on it.

The first stamp was inked in stamped off Versafine Clair Morning Mist to give a soft gentle background. I then added a die cut in white on top to give the other two butterflies something to sit on. these butterflies are also from the same set and I cut them out and layered their wings a little to give them motion. These were coloured in using Prismacolor pencils from their Botanical Garden Set. I added some fine thread behind the butterflies and some glass droplets.

The sentiment has been stamped in Versafine Warm Breeze. I edged the piece in Tim Holtz Brushed Corduroy and mounted it on to a soft brown card stock.

I'm adding this into the following:

Stamping Sensations - Butterflies

Allsorts - B for Butterflies

As you like it - my favourite colouring medium at the moment are my new Prismacolours as I love the intense colours they give

Double D - Butterflies

Wednesday, 15 May 2024

I Spy With My Little Eye - something for boys or men - Guest Designer

I am delighted to be invited by Ellie of Ellies Corner to be a Guest Designer for her challenge I Spy With My Little Eye this week where the challenge is something for boys or men. I don't get so daunted at male cards as I used to since becoming a Design Team member for The Male Challenge but I still had to put a bit of a thinking cap on as I really don't have a lot of male type stamps!

I did find this old set from Creative Expressions which I had bought a few years ago as hubby, and my daughter, love to fish and I knew it would come in handy.

I started off by spritzing my watercolour paper with Distress Oxide Spray in Speckled Egg.

Once that was dry I used a stencil which I think looks like fish scales and spritzed it with Walnut Stain and then turned it over and added it to the paper. I love how it gave a messed up image of the stencil lol!

I stamped the stamp which is all one image in Versafine Clair Nocturne and covered it in clear embossing powder. I re-inked parts of the stamp such as the words and the fish and added them as embellishments. The male image is one of Tim Holtz paper dolls and I cut him away from his friends he was standing with - after all fishing is a solo sport. I added some twine at the bottom for his feet to look like fish netting. This one will be set aside for Hubby's birthday.