Seize The Birthday - Use Something New

Hello, and Happy New Year from the Seize The Birthday Team!  Our first challenge of the year has been set by Cathy, and it's Use Something New.

It's a great challenge to start the year because it means we get to play with our new Christmas or Black Friday goodies, if we haven't already ;)

I took advantage of the Sizzix sales of Tim Holtz products a while back, and the goodies have been piled up waiting to be used.  And now Tim is stepping back from releases, the bank balance has heaved a sigh of relief and I might get to actually use what I have instead of stockpiling (separate hobby).

Anyway, I used Brushstroke Flowers #1 and the ladybird from Funky Insects.  And in line with my New Year's resolution (again!) to try to join in more challenges, I'm adding this to Darnell's NBUS challenge.

Hopefully as the year progresses I'll manage to enter a few more challenges and beat last year's attempts.

Pop on over to the Seize The Birthday blog to see what new products the rest of the design team have used, and join in.   You could play Anything Goes if you prefer. 

We also have three surprise party guests for this challenge - Amanda Mertz from Did You Stamp Today?, who is with us for the next two months, and previous winners Valerie and Denise.

See you in the gallery!

Visible Image - The Great Outdoors

Morning, Visible Image fans!  Our theme this week is The Great Outdoors.  As I write this post the Great Outdoors isn't being very kind to us.  After heavy rain and winds, my village is flooded with some access routes blocked.  Somehow the flood defences didn't do the job this time.  Fortunately our house is on slightly higher ground so we're not directly affected.

So naturally I'm thinking of better days and nicer weather, and what is nicer than seeing dragonflies dancing across water, with all the tiny specs and particles dancing with them.

I started by stamping the images and sentiment from Live In The Moment using my MISTI stamping platform, making sure that the card was aligned right into the corner, because I was going to overstamp later.

I used the Curves stencil to create water across the lower section of the panel with Tumbled Glass and Peacock Feathers Distress Inks.

I added Tim Holtz Distress Spritz in Tumbled Glass and Crushed Olive across the top of the panel, dropped some of the spritz onto my mat and painted in the wings, adding a touch of Antique Linen as well.  

The sheen is gorgeous!

I knew that painting Distress Spritz over the black ink would cover it, which is why I was going to place the panel back in the MISTI and re-stamp.  You can see the before and after here:

All that remained was to mount the panel onto some mirri card, then onto my base card.

Here's a close-up of the wings after re-stamping.

And a close-up of the sentiment with the stencilling.  Love the teeny tiny splatters!

You can find this stamp set, and lots of other wildlife/great outdoors sets, in the Visible Image store here.  You'll also find plenty of stencils to add background and interest to your cards.  Happy stamping!