Christmas penguins

 It appears that I have been neglecting my blog in favour of FB and Instagram ..... Time to put that right!

I am sharing this with Craftyhazelnut's Christmas challenge 'Anything Goes'.

I have christened a set of new stamps from Creative Expressions, penguins shaped as baubles!  The images were stamped in Versafine Clair black, then coloured.  I masked off the central one to bring him to the front of the group.  The sentiments are from Papermania (possibly) and Visible Image.

The complete stamped image was then matted onto a Julie Hickey die, I didn't have any coloured cardstock with me, but I do really like the white on white :-)

Sympathy Card - 100 day challenge - blog challenge

 

I find these cards to be the hardest to make, so I don't tend to have any in the box and then end up making one in a hurry when needed :-(  So in line with my new ambition to fill the 'gaps' in my card box, here is the first one.  I am sharing with the current Retro Rubber challenge - Anything Goes.

The stamp is at least three years old and is from Stamps by Chloe.  I have actually been looking for it for a while as it got 'lost' during our move in 2019, then found it in a box it shouldn't have been in, whilst looking for something else!!  I stamped and coloured several images :-)

I am also trying cards in different shapes at the moment, so this became an octagon.  I used silver mirri for the mat and the sentiment - impossible to photograph as always! - and coloured the image with SU markers.  The butterfly and sentiment are die-cut, but I can't recall either brand.  The centre is a separate circle, embossed in a folder. 

See my other 100 days challenge posts over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/craft.cook.repeat/ 

Mother's day card - blog challenge - 100 day challenge

 

I am sharing this with the Cardz4Galz challenge which is Mother's Day.

The image is 'Lovely Lattice' from Stampin Up, the sentiment is from Creative.  Both were stamped in Versafine Clair in grey rather than black, for a softer feel.

I coloured with Marvy alcohol pens and applied Wink of Stella on the flowers only for a nice gleam - that's as close as I get to glitter!

The background is stencilled, using DI's.

See my other 100 days challenge posts over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/craft.cook.repeat/ 

Silhouette blog challenge - birthday card - 100 days challenge

 

I am sharing this with the Countryview March challenge - Silhouettes.

Now I love silhouettes and haven't done any for a while, so there might be more entries to this challenge before the end of March!

The frame is cut on my Silhouette machine (seemed appropriate!), it had been in the 'assorted die cuts' box for a while.  I found a previously inked background and it cut nicely into two squares so you may see the other one soon :-)

The stamps are from Lavinia Stamps (cherry blossom) and Stampin Up (sentiment), over-stamped with Versafine Clair.

Blog Challenge - Use Yellow - 100 days challenge

 

Today I am joining in the Allsorts challenge -Use Yellow

This is a colour really far out of my comfort zone!  But I found some yellow splotchy background paper and in the 'bits' box, a punched out SU daisy which I had previously heat embossed and assembled using three layers.  So I coloured that with SU 'Bumblebee' watercolour pen.

The sentiment is from Stamping all Day, I rediscovered it recently and it is so useful :-)

See my other 100 days challenge posts over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/craft.cook.repeat/ 

Birthday card - blog challenge - 100 days

 

I do like a tic-tac-toe challenge!  I am sharing this with Retro Rubber challenge 153 and am using the line:  Birthday - The Ocean - Blue

The background is done with DiOx inks and an attempt at the salt crystal technique ... which looks OK, but probably would have worked better with the original DI's :-) 

The shells stamp is from Stampendous, one of the wood-backed ones I recently unpacked after our move, it's dated 2001.  I stamped directly onto the background in Versafine Clair Medieval Blue.

I had the narrow frame in my box of die-cuts and it happened to fit the image perfectly!  Love it when that happens :-)  I stamped the sentiment and punched out with an SU punch.

See all my other Instagram 100 days challenge posts: https://www.instagram.com/craft.cook.repeat/

Small decorated box - 100 days

 

I bought this small box from The Works, it was only a couple of quid and I liked the oval shape.  It's still available, at a sale price of £1.50 at time of writing.

For such a small item, it caused me a lot of grief!  I chose to paint it using a Rustoleum chalk finish furniture paint, in a gorgeous ink blue.  Lovely colour, and I have good experience of the brand .... but .... this stuff marks like crazy!!  It needs a protective coat of varnish even on an item which won't be handled much, so if I were to use it on furniture that would be at least three coats required.  But the colours in the range are lovely, so I will be buying more and now I know I will need varnish too :-)

I found the name plate in a box of  'things which will be useful at some point' and applied some gilding polish to make it gold to match the fittings.  That was as far as I got in my planning, the rest was ad-libbed from there!  I have some dark blue veined mosaic tiles so they went inside the name plate, on a bed of gold texture paste because I don't have any grout.  The name plate looked a bit lonely so I added some Venetian marbled paper in shades of blue to sit underneath the plate.  Then the sides looked plain, so I die-cut borders out of the same paper.

Still not enough!  I added gold peel off lines to frame the borders, then decided the top mat needed an edge so found some pearl strips and added some of those to the base as well.

Phew!  It's done ...... Now I have to work out what to use it for :-)

Anniversary card - 100 day challenge

 

The 100 day challenge on Instagram has started early this year, as we all have time on our hands and a need for motivation!

Today I am sharing a card made for the current Retro Rubber challenge 151 - using a stamp more than a year old and the colours red, black, white and grey.  Not quite so easy as you might think!

The Indigo Blu heart stamp is one I found whilst re-organising my craft room (actually I found quite a lot of things, which will be putting in an appearance in due course!).  It is probably around 5 years old.  The sentiment is new, from Creative Stamps.  Both have been stamped / heat embossed in 'Red Geranium' by Wendy Vecchi, my favourite true red.

The paper is from a 6" paper pad I am trying to use up :-)

I have been having a play around with making differently shaped card blanks, this is one of them ...... it was a happy accident after my original intentions took a wrong turn and I had to salvage the make!

Now to save this until March ..... luckily DH does not read my blog or Instagram page :-)

Black and Gold Christmas card

 

First Christmas card of the year!  Though to be honest, I did make it last year ..... but it got lost in a pile before I got to blogging it and I have just rediscovered it :-)

I am entering this into the Cardz 4 Guys black and gold challenge.

From the card base up: gold mat, scalloped mat in pearlescent Graphite (Julie Hickey die), white mat embossed with a dotty embossing folder, and a Christmas die-cut in gold (brand unknown) which was matted onto graphite and the outline cut by hand.  

I was stuck as to where to put the sentiment, but decided on a SU punched shape in graphite and a tiny peel off.