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.

Blog Challenge - anniversary card

I have just unpacked all my wood backed stamps out of storage and had a happy time putting them into their new unit!  It was very nostalgic, so I am playing along with Retro Rubber this week, they have a tic tac toe challenge, as below:

I have chosen the bottom row - pearls, patterned paper and embossing.  The dolphin stamp has a date of 2002 on the label and the sentiment from Stamping all Day has been in my collection for a few years now, though it is still available here, along with many other very useful text stamps.

I stamped / heat embossed both images in white and then shmooshed in a mixture of DiOx inks - Broken China, Tumbled Glass, Peacock Feathers and Mowed Lawn.  Then I fussy cut the dolphins and trimmed the sentiment into a banner.  The mat was die-cut (Julie Hickey) and the patterned paper placed on top, then the image and sentiment were attached with foam tape.  Two pearls at each end of the banner finished it off nicely.

It's been ages since I did any resist embossing, really must try some more :-)

keyword RRCB145

 

Cross stitch update

The boredom factor has set in, a bit.  I did so well over the 100 days, but have rather neglected it since!  More progress made on the hat and a bit of beard :-)
 

Get Well card - blog challenges x 2

I am sharing this with two challenges today - Retro Rubber and Cardz 4 Guyz.  RR has a tic tac toe as below and I have chosen Blue, Rectangles and Patterned Paper.  C4G would like a masculine get well card.

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The cogs frame die is cut from patterned paper and is from Sue Wilson.  It has a central rectangle for the sentiment from Visible Image, which is around 4 or 5 years old, and I stamped/heat embossed it in silver.  The two mats are rectangles and the light blue is also patterned paper :-)  I have picked up the silver of the sentiment by making a silver frames using peel off sticker lines.

RR keyword: RRCB140