Butterflies

Well "yee hah " Mr Mojo made a brief appearance tonight and I really enjoyed making this card.messing about with distress ink pads and perfect pearls spray again, I can't get over the lovely  shimmery effect it gives and I love daubing it all on with my fingers, mucky tyke ! Every time I use the Tim Holtz butterflies I get the "wow" feeling, I just love this stamp ! The Hero flowers were done with markers and spritzed with the spray and worked just as I wanted (for once)   . I'm just happy that I finally got a bit of enjoyment back instead of struggling to create . I also made a start on a second card which I hope I can finish tomorrow if Mr Mojo hangs around .This is for:-

Make My Monday - Nature- Butterflies or dragonflies

Make It Monday - Anything goes

Slow boat to China !

Almost chickened out of the Postcard challenge this week, I just can't myself back into crafting mode,its a bit worrying as this mood has been going on too long !  So tonight I made myself find some bits and pieces and put together a postcard. Printed the map and stamps from good old internet and found a very old set of Chinese stamps that someone passed on to me years ago and I have never used,see everything comes in useful one day(my excuse for hoarding)  Elsie is still on her tour but she is getting fed up of all the travelling, she has not heard from Edward for a few weeks now and doesn't know if the mail is not catching up with her or if he is losing interest ?

Terrible teens

Well when I say terrible teens I mean making cards for them, was really stuck and needed a card like yesterday so ended up getting a Mo Manning digi , not something I often use but I was so happy with it,didn't need much adding to make the card and its really approriate for the boy it's for as he is always  engrossed in something electronic ! I haven't a clue about the stuff the kids have nowadays .
Found some challenges to enter it into:

Cards For Men - Boys and their toys
Celebrate The Occasion - Masculine birthday
My Craftspot - Lets Hear It For The Boys

Finger painting ?

Saw a little video on Hero Arts Blog using this stamp and loved what she (Think it was Sharri Carrol?)
was doing, painting using her fingers with distress inks and perfect pearls. I was really happy with how it turned out but struggled to make it into a card as I didn't want to cover any of it up, eventually just die cut a fancy label and added the sentiment. Its very glimmery too in real life.  Not been really much in the mood for crafting for some reason and made the mistake of trying to sort out my floor to ceiling craft cupboard, thrown all sorts away but whats left doesn't seem to want to fit back in let alone leave any more room.

Make It Monday - Anything goes
Make My Monday - Flowers and leaves

Brasil/Brazil ?

This is my third go at a postcard this week, my first attempt was a picture Of Christ The Redeemer statue but it was such a lovely picture I couldn't bring myself to alter or add anything to it. Its something I have always wanted to see but not likely to now. Tried a bit of drawing, again no success,left it to check my e-mails, one of them was from Dover Publications with their weekly freebies of which one was paper dolls and here was this beauty,meant to be or what ! Just daubed on background colours with distress dabbers and I was going to do "splats" all over to represent fireworks but once I'd done the first one it said "Sun" so left it at that.  My story has not advanced much, they are now a little less formal in that they are using Christian or first names. Elsie has had a great time in Brazil wonder where she will be next ?

Trying to get organised!

Well I finally got around to making some a book /book covers to store my various bits and pieces of steampunk . The cover was covered originally with some G45 steampunk paper,gessoed, then I used a couple of masks with pumice stone DI and stamped various steampunk images with black archival. The back cover and inside covers I just used up my very last pieces of G45 papers . Some of the pieces I put inside the book were really cards so I stuck them down the side and bottom to make them into pockets for tags.Have more stuff to put into it as I come across it. I am trying to stop having heaps of stuff on the dresser in here, so I also made a little book to put 4x4 pieces in.  I don't know how to do this post with text between the pictures so they will just be as they come .

Simon Says Stamp & Show - anything but a card

Do you believe in fairies?

Here's a quick card for Try It On Tuesday challenge which is do you believe in fairies? well not sure I do !  I do believe in Angels but fairies ??  what are they for !  Anyhow all that didn't stop me having a go. At first I was not sure I had any fairy stamps but a root about produced several including this Lily Of The Valley one.  I painted her with mica powders so she is quite irridescent in the flesh so to speak. I also managed to master the cutting with nestability oval without chopping her wings off (took a couple of goes before I got it right)  Not my usual sort of card but it will come in handy for one of the Great Grand children, there are three girls under the age of four so I'm sure it will suit one of them. I am trying to only make cards I know I can use so I don't end up with a lot more unused cards in my box.

Try In On Tuesday- Fairies
Crafty Cardmakers - No Floral Embellishments

Butterflies and bugs

I've been busy trying to make a batch of masculine cards as I have a bunch of mens birthdays coming up in February and March and I was determined not to be chucking something together at last minute as I usually end up doing, not made anything very exciting but have a reasonable stock of them now,might make a few more if inspiration happens to strike !!!  After all the boats/planes/trains etc its been a real pleasure to play about with some more feminine stuff. Fashionable stamping challenge is for butterflies/bugs and my main problem was which of the many butterfly stamps to use, I can never resist a pretty butterfly stamp to add to my stash. Settled for this Artemia collage set in the end, all the stamps are from the one set other that the small ones on the BG which is an old (1995!) PSX butterfly medley.All coloured with distress inks.

Fashionable Stamping - Butterflies or Bugs
Make It Monday - anything goes
Sugar Creek Hollow - embossing

Blogger problems

Is anyone else having blogger problems again ? For the last two days I've been struggling with it,now I can't post my entry on the postcard challenge as I can't open Darcy's blog, most frustrating !!!

Postcard from Spain

Well as you will guess I nearly didn't post this at all.  I had thought I would challenge myself to actually draw something as I didn't have any appropriate stamps, its years since I really tried to draw anything and its taken me all week to produce anything remotely good enough to use, I gave up on the front view of the dancer as I couldn't draw a face that wouldn't scare anyone witless !  I was totally shocked when I logged onto Darcy's challenge and saw her postcard, obviously she is a so much better artist than me and I would hate anyone to think I was trying to copy her idea. Anyhow in the end I thought well I'm just going to post it anyhow and hope for the best.  The correspondence has not progressed much since last week but hope it will get more interesting as the weeks go by. 

Time

As soon as I set eyes on these Kanban stamps I just HAD to have them, love the steampunk manequins. especially that wonderful frock coat ! The clock was from a separate set and I really like that it all separate stamps, the outer ring,the number and the central cogs as well as the hands.The background was stamped with a stamp from ISC and clear embossed then coloured with pumice stone DI . I'm putting it on a few challenges

Sunday Stampers - Time
Try In On Tuesday - Resistance
Make It Monday - Anything goes
Rainbow Lady - travel in time

Nature

Had a lazy afternoon    instead of tackling the pile of ironing that has somehow stacked up again I've just been playing about. One of the challenges I noticed asked for "all your own work" no background papers or stickers etc and I have always enjoyed making my own backgrounds although over the last year or so I seemed to get waylaid with all the pretty papers that just beg to be used(after I've stroked them for the appropriate length of time of course!) I started  embossing flower and bird background in white and then coloured in with distress inks,overstamped the Hero envelope pattern with bundled sage and then the little sprig stamp all over(doesn't show much on here) The bird panel was done with distress inks on the craft sheet,then also overstamped with the same two stamps.Hero bird stamped  twice and the bird and flowers cut out and 3d'd. The sentiment is from A Stampman set that I bought in a sale  a while ago just for the verses which are all about nature. Enough waffling !

Try In On Tuesday - All your own work

Make My Monday - Nature/birds

Papertake Weekly - anything goes

Think I'm out of my depth!

Think I've bitten off more than I can chew on this one . I thought I would try the Postcard Challenge(button on left of blog) but what with Mr Mojo still on vacation and total lack of any imagination whatsoever  I think this might be my only postcard !  I thought about what I knew about Austria(visited the Tyrol once lots of years ago), my first thought was of the amazing scenery(and my first ever scary trip on a cable car),my next thought was of Julie Andrews dancing across the meadows and that then led me on Johann Strauss ,viennese waltzes etc  so my PC became a collage of these things.
Then to the charactors ,this is the really hard bit for me as I don't seem to have a "fantasy gene" . My first charactor is Elsie Jones, who is a Variety Show Artiste and her admirer, Edward who is a classical musical artiste, I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen to the two of them !

Angel In Training

I'm still working without Mr Mojo and I'm really missing him .  Finally decided I would just have to press on without him but its quite hard work!  The background papers are from a New Melissa Frances pad I got last week ,pity I covered up so much of the bottom piece as its really pretty. Its the first time I have used this stamp although I got it last October at Port Sunlight, got a bunch of Lost Coast stamps and they have been languishing in the bottom of a box while I have been so busy with Christmas cards, I would normally go for distress/grungy look with their stamps but she is actually quite a pretty little angel so went with the pink thing. The bit of lace trim has been around for some time and the buttons are old ones from my massive button stash (memo to self that I must try and use more buttons)Think it fits a few challenges

Fashionable Stamping - Anything goes with New Stash
Paper Sundaes  - something old/something new
The Squirrel and The Fox - Something new
Simon Says Stamp and Show -something old/something new
Make It Monday- anything goes