My Hero

Hi All,

It's Inspiration time over at STAMPlorations. I was playing around and decided to go grungy mixed media for my DT piece with a little bit of recycling thrown into the mix ...

Let's start with the recycling ... the card base is made from card Shery used as packaging and the bird is die cut from a piece of old cook book paper. I die cut the bird from a piece of mustard spritzed book paper and doodled the bird myself. The die itself is from the Birds Of Paradise Coordinating CUTplorations Die set. Once finished with the doodling, I added some shading using a matching Promarker. The background is made from a Gelli Plate print I created a while ago using the ARTplorations Bloom Factory Stencil. I sponged the edges with a Tangerine Tango ink and added some more detail to my print and the base card using stamps from the Mixed Media Elements and Hashtag Authentic sets. I attached the bird and added some doodles before finishing off with a sentiment from the It's All About You set.

Here is a last look at my finished card ...

For more inspiration, pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog. Whilst there, leave a comment for your entry to win a $10 gift certificate. you might also want to browse their blog for challenges, inspiration and tutorials.

That's it from me for now. Have a lovely day!

hugs
Monika xxx

Birds Of Paradise Coordinating CUTplorations Die set, It's All About You, Mixed Media Elements, Hashtag Authentic
   
Bloom Factory ARTplorations Stencil

Working Stencil Prints

Hi All,

It's time again for more inspiration over at STAMPlorations. I pulled out a couple of prints from my Gelli Plate demo at Craft Club last month to create some cards I could take to this month's meeting. The prints I used were taken off the stencil, Artplorations Stencil: Bloom Factory, whilst the paint was still wet.

First up are two cards using half of the print each ...

These were so easy to make ... I chopped my stencil print in half, die cut a curved stitched border from one piece, stamped my sentiments from the Fond Expressions 2 set, layered on red bases and finished off with gem and sequin. It really was that easy and quick ...

The print I used for my next card was yellow and red ... me being me, I had to add some Grape gelato to the flowers and some Grey to the background. That's when the fun started ...

... as happens at times I didn't know where I was going to go with it hence it was more a case of 'fasten seat belt and get ready for the ride' ...

I added some dots and/or doodles to the flowers using a white gel and a black fine liner pen before using a lilac fine liner to add a bold outline to three of the larger flowers. Next I decided to lend the edges with Elegant Eggplant (EE) ink before deciding that a touch of Folk Flowers was needed in form of some 2nd generation stamping of the small flowers and dots combined with 1st generation of the larger stems, all in EE. I black embossed my sentiment from the Noteworthy set, layered on a matching base card, added a doodled border and the card was finished. For more inspiration, pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog, where you can leave a comment for your chance to win a $10 gift voucher. They also still have a little Special Stamp Release Blog Hop, which finishes later this week. Why not hop along and have fun!

A spot of Garbarek's Visible World convinced me that I must post my last creation on my blog right away ... Live Life Out Loud!

Have a wonderful day!

Hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used:
ARTplorations Stencil: Bloom Factory, Fond Expressions 2, Noteworthy, Folk Flowers
   

CASEplorations August

Hi Everyone,

It is CASEplorations time again over at the STAMPlorations Blog. Today I'm not sharing one but two cards.

First we need to know what we're about to CASE. This month we are taking inspiration from Karen Dunbrook, who made this beautiful card ...

She posted about it here on her blog Snippets when she was Guest Designer for our Stamps & Die Cuts Challenge last August. She used stencil, stamp and die cut in her card.

This is my first interpretation ...

I used the ARTplorations Gridlocked and Bloom Factory stencils combined with the Subway Art Builders: Create. I started off by [pacing the Gridlocked stencil on a piece of white card and sprayed it with turquoise Artiste Spritzing Ink. I removed the stencil, placed the Bloom Factory stencil on my still damp card, I wanted the colours to mix a little, and sprayed a little green. Once dry I embossed my SAB in black and stenciled some white Craft ink through my Bloom Factory stencil in a few patches to lighten and add texture to my background before layering up and adding a die-cut butterfly with pearl to finish.

For my second card I simply sprayed turquoise ink through the Bloom Factory stencil, stamped the SAB and added birdie from the Small Birds set to finish. I needed something to lift my card as the simply stamped SAB didn't provide the contrast I wanted hence birdie is bright orange. :-)

Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog for more inspiration. This is also where you can find and link up with any other current challenges or simply comment to win draws. Each month we invite you to CASE any of our cards featured in the Inpiration Post and link them up for your chance to win a prize. By the way you can use any type of stamps you like to CASE our projects, and we'd be over the moon if you were to use STAMPlorations stamps, but you don't have to. Hope to see you in the Inspiration Case Playground to have fun and enjoy!

Have a lovely day!

hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used:
Stamp and ARTplorations stenils by STAMPlorations, links are in the text
   

butterfly die - Britannia dies