Almost Forgotten

Hi Everybody,

It is Inspiration Time over at the STAMPlorations Blog. This is where the girls from the Inspiration DT showcase their creations and invite you to CASE. You can link your creations up with the Inspiration CASE Playground the link to which can be found at the end of each Inspiration Post. To play along you can either CASE any of the Inspiration DT's projects or the one we chose as our inspiration for the month. You also don't have to use STAMPlorations stamps to join the fun, however we would be thrilled if you did. Why not have a go??? You don't have to exactly copy, it is simply about taking inspiration from a project. We would love to hear what inspired you....

Now it's time to show you my project ...
You might have almost forgotten something I mentioned in my video Easy Brusho Backgrounds. I showed you one I had created and said that I was waiting for the large Marigold stamp to arrive as I thought it would be a perfect match. Well, what can I say ... or maybe you would like to see for yourself ... here it is the finished card ...

I simply black embossed the marigold, stamped my sentiment from the Fond Expressions 2 set and layered on a black base card.

The keen eyed of you might have noticed that the French Marigold is a larger version of the one from the The Birds and The Blooms set, which was June/July's Stamp Club Set. I simply loved it so much that I had to get the larger version too! :-)

That's it from me for today. Feel free to pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog to see the gorgeous projects my teamies created.

Back soon with more projects ... until then ...

Have a lovely day!

hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used. Links to the STAMPlorations projects are in the above texts
 

Brushos - Lavinia Stamps
card, pigment ink and black embossing powder (wow powder) from stash

as a reminder of what it looked like, The Birds and The Blooms set ...
 

Playing With Wax Crayons

OOOOPS!!! This post was meant to be published on Thursday .... and then I forgot. Sorry, I was so tired, feeling more energetic again and ready to post. As you can see it is another one of my Spotlight Post from the STAMPlorations Blog

Hi Everyone. Today I am playing with children's wax crayons. Yes, they are the same parents buy to keep their children occupied during the long Summer holidays. I wanted to see if it was possible to create resist effects combining crayons and ink blending. The stamps I used are from the current Stamp Club set Floral Bliss. Here is how I got on:

• I started off by Stamping and white embossing the larkspur from the Floral Bliss set.
• Next I added some highlights to the embossed image and in a few places outside of where my frame was going to be using a white wax crayon.
• Then I blended tempting turquoise ink all over and added some more crayon before stamping my frame in black and the larkspur in pacific point.
• to finish I blended pacific point around the edges and a little over my embossed flower, added the sentiment, some highlights with a glitter gel pen and a white doodled border

Here is another look at the finished card.

There is also a video on how I made this card. I was meant to be a short one, but then I got into wonky stamping, which called for a rescue mission. If you fancy having a look, here it is, easy to craft along:

That's it from me for today. I shall be looking forward to seeing your creations and how you use this technique. I shall be back again soon.
Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

 

Playing with Brushos

Hi Everyone.
Today I am back with another Spotlight Feature over at the STAMPlorations Blog. My head was quite busy with lots of ideas, that's why I decided to keep things easy by creating some Brusho backgrounds and combining them with stamps from the The Birds And The Blooms, STAMPlorations' current Stamp Club set. Sometimes this can be a good way to clear your mind and ground your ideas.

As I am relatively new to using Brushos I thought it would be great to share my progress. The first time I used Brushos, I simply sprinkled them on damp card. This time 'round I sprinkled first and then spritzed with water ...

First up is a card using the daffodils and the black hooded oriole from the The Birds and The Blooms set ...

Just to recap: Generally speaking for the background, pick the Brusho colours you want to work with and sprinkle a little on a piece of white card, spritz with water and allow to dry. I made my two backgrounds together and tiny particles of turquoise ended up on my Brilliant Red/Cardinal background adding a little more interest.

I decided I wanted to add a little something and spritzed with gold Artiste ink too after the Brusho splatters had dried of course. Once dry I stamped the daffodils in matching red and the oriole in black before colouring my bird with Promarkers. To finish off I stamped my sentiment, layered on my base card and added some tiny pearls.

I am entering my card at:

Addicted to Stamps and More - Make your Mark

Time Out - Nature with an optional twist of animals

Inkspirational - Grunge

Just us Girls - Word

My next card is even easier to make.

 I created my background as above using Turquoise and Ultra Marine. Again I spritzed with gold. This time I wanted to do something a little different and simply stamped the cardinal on a die cut square. The cardinal, like all the other stamps in the set, is so beautifully drawn, it can very well hold the space and be the center piece without needing to be coloured. I layered everything up as seen and finished  by adding some twine and a charm.

TIP!: With Brushos you never quite know what your background will look like. Make several and use the one that best fits the stamps you want to work with. Leave the others for another time or to be altered and added to.

As always there is a craft along video for you featuring how I used the Brushos and how I made the first of my cards.

That's it from me for today. Here is another quick look at the finished cards.

Hope you feel inspired trying out and playing with a different medium, I would love to see what you come up with. Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog to link up any of your CASEd cards, to check out other Spotlight Features, all of which are tutorials introducing new and re-visiting favourite techniques. Feel free to leave a comment to be entered in our monthly prize draw.
I shall be back again tomorrow with a project featuring the yellow background from my video. Until then ...
Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

 

CASEplorations June

Hi Everyone,
It's a new month and that means a new round of CASEing starting over at the STAMPlorations Blog. CASE normally means copy and show everything, in our Playground however it is interpreted as take inspirations from. Each month you can take inspiration either from the card we, the STAMPlorations Girls, are CASEing or any of the cards posted by the Inspiration Design Team which you can find in the Inspiration Posts during any given month. This month we are featuring a card by Virginia Lu from Virginia Lu's Blog. Her post for our featured can can be found here ...

 ... and this is her beauty of a card ...

There is lots of inspiration to be had: layers, embossing, vellum, colouring, the colours themselves, kraft card, stripes, hearts, flowers ...

... I decided to work with The Birds And The Blooms set and this is the card I made ...

It is probably more of an anniversary than a wedding card and at first glance it doesn't look anything like Virginia's card, yet it has a lot of the elements she used; gold embossed flowers, colouring with markers, vellum, punched flowers and even some stripes.

I found it a little daunting doing all this gold embossing on vellum given that my vellum is very thin and light hence it tends to fly about a lot when I get the heat tool on it. I had to have a re-think and decided to gold emboss my flowers as a background. Virginia's card has a lace like quality which I tried to bring in through using a strip of vellum with a partially die-cut and embossed frame. The stripes from the Mixed Media Grunge set are partially covered by the vellum and in reality a little more visible than in the photograph. Given that I already had flowers for the background, I went for the hummingbird as my focal image. I stamped the hummingbird and my sentiment on a die cut piece of shrink plastic using black StazOn ink and coloured it from the reverse using Promarkers before heating it up with my heat tool to shrink. I had to keep my cool as at some point it looked as if I had to start again ... shrink plastic has its own mind as it crinkles and rolls up during the shrinking process, but it usually flattens out at the end ... Once it had cooled I run my gold Tinge Alcohol Marker along the edge to finish. I then punched a few daisies, layered as shown and finished off with some pearls.

Check out all the team's CASEs here on the STAMPlorations Blog. If you feel like getting your creative juices flowing and linking up with our Playground you can find a LINKY at the end of the post or at the end of any Inspiration Post. Linking up will close 5th July and there will be a random prize winner too.

That's it from me, back soon with more inspiration.

Have a lovely day!

hugs
Monika xxx

from STAMPlorations I used The Birds And The Blooms, which is our June/July STAMP CLUB set, and Mixed Media Grunge
  
dies used - Labels 28 and Imperial Gold Labels 28 by Spellbinders - Bic Warehouse via eBay
daisy Xcut palm punch by docrafts - local stockist
Tinge Alcohol Markers - The Works

Springtime Smiles

Hello All,

good to see that you were feeling inspired to use your eye shadows for card making! I would really love to see your CASEs for this technique in our Inspiration CASE Playground.

Today's card uses a mixture of STAMPlorations stamp sets which are: Boxed Blooms, Blossom Overture, Mixed Media Grunge, Mini Mixed Media Backgrounds and The bee's Knees: Small Birds.

This card started off as an Easter card project which never got properly underway. I simply run out of time and turned it into a card capturing the essence of Spring. Daffodils are still in boom around here and they looked especially pretty in the Easter sunshine. I always love seeing their bright and cheerful yellow popping up as an early sign of Spring. I used Promarkers to colour mine. I then masked them off and stamped the backdrop using one of the stamps from the Mixed Media Grunge set, our current Stamp Club set, in orange turning the stamp as I went along. I removed the mask and and continued into stamping a border using the same stamp. I added some extra texture using the dots from the Mini Mixed Media Backgrounds set before black embossing the word smile (Boxed Blooms) and stamping the sending you a (Blossom Overture) into place. I added a doodled border, used my warm grey Tinge Alcohol Marker to add a shadow and popped little birdie from the Small Birds set on to finish. I decided to layer on a dark blue base card as it best enhanced the cheerfulness; black was too stark, kraft drained the colour, and orange, green and yellow didn't work either. Guess that blue sky we've had of late wanted to be included too. :-)

My next card is the one I intended to post on Good Friday, but as you know my husband had other ideas ...

I used stamps from the Blossom Overture set, coloured with alcohol markers layered on a texture base card. I purposefully layered my panel off center to add some subtle interest.
If you feel inspired to CASE any of today's card, you can link up here where you'll also find more inspiration plus when you leave a comment you'll be entered into a random prize draw the winner of which will receive a $15 gift certificate or 2 ARTplorations stencils of their choice.

Here are the new April release stamps for you to have a quick look at, we will be introducing each set with a week long blog hop starting 20th April ...

if you can't wait until then you might want to pop over to the shop now .... Shery has extended the 10% off offer on these sets until 12th April plus you'll get free international shipping too and if you area STAMP CLUB member you can also claim your 15% discount on top!

Well that's it from me for today.
Have a lovely weekend!
hugs
Monika xxx


the sets I used:
      

Back To Basics

... or so I thought ;-D

Hello All!

It's time for me to post another Spotlight Feature over at STAMPlorations and as usual I share my projects here on my blog too.

Well, the new Stamp Club set called Mixed Media Grunge arrived in the post the other day. Luckily I was able to have a little playtime recording a video as I went along. My initial idea was to use some of my chalks with the swirly flourish stamp from the set. I cut my panels to size, stamped my image with watermark pigment ink, picked up some chalk and ... arrrgh ... it didn't work the way I wanted it to. All I ended up with was a coloured panel or two or three ... that's when plan B kicked in. I had wondered for some time how this technique might work with some old eye shadows I have ... out came the Clarins luxury ones, at least for me, I got some years ago. I couldn't bring myself to throw them out despite my eyes struggling with makeup. Well, what can I say, I found another use for them. See for yourself ...

Yes, in my first card I highlighted the watermark stamped images with eye shadow which I found a lot easier to use than chalks. For my second card I used the panels which I had coloured using my shimmery chalks. The image was then stamped with black VersaColor ink.

Full descriptions on how I made the cards can be found on the STAMPlorations Blog here where you can also leave a comment to win a prize.
That's it from me for today. I shall be back again tomorrow with another couple of projects for you, until then ... have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

the stamp sets I used:
Mixed Media Grunge - VIGNETTE Tree Silhouettes - Mixed Media Grunge is the Stamp Club set for April/May 2015

  

Birdie Tweets

Hi Everybody,
How has your week been ... so far mine was busier than expected. As I'm writing this I got one more client to see, and then I shall be off for Easter ...
You might have spotted in my post yesterday that my new STAMPlorations stamps had arrived and that I was going to have some playtime, well here is one of my makes:

As soon as I saw the The Bee's Knees Small Birds set, I fell in love with this little birdie. He just looks as if he wants to talk.
I simply blended some yellow, orange and pink on a piece of cream card and added some blues around the edges, sprayed it with a little water and my background was ready. I stamped the bird on a piece of scrap cream card and added some yellow and orange ink using my dried baby wipe. It only needed a little dabbing, it must have been the quickest colouring I've ever done! I then stamped the sentiment from the Noteworthy set on a die cut speech bubble and my border from the Mixed Media Grunge set directly on the front of my card. I then attached my panel, sentiment and fuzzy cut birdie before stamping the inside as shown below ...

I had lots of fun working with this cute little dino. Here is a sneak preview of all the sets from the new release:

You can find all the information about the new stamp set, which are available at a discounted rate until 10th April, on the Inspiration Post here.
The Mixed Media Grunge set below is the current STAMP Club set, and I'll surely have lots of fun with it too .... need to get my Gelli Plate out asap!!!

I'm hoping to be back again tomorrow with more inspiration. Just in cars I'll get carried away gelli plate-ing ... Have a lovely Easter ...
hugs
Monika xxx

CASEplorations April

Hi Everybody,
It's CASEplorations Time again. This is where we, the STAMPlorations Girls, pick one card each month to CASE. CASE originally means copy and share everything, but in our playground we understand it as take inspiration from ...

This month we are taking inspiration from a card Kimberly Wiener made for her post here, when she was our Guest Designer for the Stamps & Glitter challenge last July.

I love the bright orange combined with the blue. The splatter pattern also stood out to me as something that I liked.
I actually made my card last Friday in between seeing clients which meant I didn't want my fingers getting inky. This is why instead of splatters I used dots and circles to get the movement for my card. I stamped these using the ring from The Bee's Knees Newlyweds Extras set, the ring was used for the circles and simply turned over for stamping the bubble like dots.
I then took a die cut butterfly and added some pattern to it by embossing the Distressed Damask Background in light blue and highlighting it with a darker blue using the resist technique.
To add some more contrast I decided to layer my butterfly on a piece of orange card with a blue banner and white on black greeting from the Joyful stamp set.

To finish my card off I simply added some sequins ... and here it is:

As always there is a chance for you to play along at the CASEploration Playground, more details can be found here.
Before I go just a quick reminder that the new APRIL Release Stamps are available at a 10% discount until 10th April. If you are a member of our Stamp Club, you will get your 15% discount on top of that too.

Smiles all around. Mine arrived in the post today .... off playing ...

Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

stamps I used:
   

April Release stamps