Bokeh Butterfly

I've got another card for a few more challenges (yay!)

I've had this Tim Holtz butterfly for ages but never got round to inking it up, and seeing as one of my sort-of-New-Year's-resolutions is to tackle Mt NBUS, I thought it was high time it got an inking.  The bokeh circles were achieved by twizzing mini spongers round on the spot.  I then spritzed the circles with water, dabbing it off quickly to reveal - distressed bokeh.  The sentiment is from Altenew.

So, I'm playing along at:

CAS Mix Up - Bokeh (plus stamping and sponging)

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Clean & Simple

Fusion 5th Anniversary challenge - inspiration photo

Less Is More - water (spritzed onto distress inks)

Stellar Christmas Cards

The stars have a aligned for a few cards.  It all started with this card of Michele's:

Michele's card

Those big, bold stripes.  The snowflakes, the sentiment.  That huge star.  When a Sizzix stars die came up for sale, it was meant to be!  It leapt into my basket :)

As luck would have it, the challenge at Less Is More is Let It Shine.

And the challenge at Simon Says Monday Challenge is Star Light, Star Bright.

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So then I made another version inspired by ...

this wooden star at Inspired By All The Little Things:

It's also going into Uniko's Christmas challenge, seeing as I've used their sentiment (the sentiment on the first card is also from Uniko).

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And here's my third stellar creation:

Closing the circle with another nod to Michele's card.

This one's headed for AAA Cards - Christmas

STAMPlorations Inspiration #117

It's Inspiration Tuesday at STAMPlorations, and I've got a little sneak peek of what's coming in an hour from now - my newest stamp set, Fowl Play!  I've paired my chickie with balloons from Becca's A Snarky Birthday To You.

I'm adding this to Darnell's NBUS #10.  Not only are the stamps NBUS, but the grass is too - it's a Sharpie Paint Pen which I've had for ages and never used.  No optional bubblewrap for me today, but I'm sure I'll be back to play again with bubblewrap.

And to Less Is More (I haven't played there in ages!) where the theme is one or more balloons.

While we're on the subject of balloons and bubblewrap, there's some popping to do.  Pop on over to the STAMPlorations blog for more fabulous inspiration from the design team, and leave a comment for a chance to win gift certificate.  Then pop back in an hour for more of my Fowl Play stamps.

Speaking of which, if you are thinking of buying any stamps, stencils or dies from STAMPlorations, you can get 20% off, even on sale prices, if you use my code STAMPGIRLSHIRLEY at the checkout.

Seize The Birthday - With A Pocket Card

Time to Seize The Birthday!  For this challenge we'd like to see pocket cards.  I'm not quite sure this is what Nancy had in mind, but it's a card with a pocket, so I'm hoping I'll get away with it ;)  If you don't want to make a pocket card, any project will do, as long as it's a birthday project.

The pocket stamp is a really old one from Personal Impressions, and the balloons are from an oldie but a goodie Hero Arts set.  The lovely sentiment is from is from Clearly Besotted.

I'm entering this into Less Is More - Masculine.

and Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday - use a stamp.

Happy New Home

I'm playing along at Less Is More, where the challenge is a one layer card, and the theme is 'Home'.  I've used the little cottage from The Bee's Knees Houses, and the fence, gate, path and trees are from a co-ordinating set called HousesExtras, which will be released next month.

It's a cold day here, despite being the middle of summer, so I've drawn in a little plume of smoke.  English cottages always have an open fire going, whatever the weather!

In The News

Playing along with a few challenges today with this one layer card.  I've used one of the images from my new stamp set, The Bee's Knees BabyBump.  I pencilled a washing line, then stamped the jacket three times at different angles to make it look like they're blowing around in the wind, then drew in the line and the posts with a 0.5 fineliner.  The jackets are coloured with Distress Ink and the same colours are splattered across the card to look like pollen and dust floating on the breeze.

Ok, first up is One Layer Simplicity, where Karen's challenge is Blowin' in The Wind.

Then there's CASology - News, to celebrate the birth of DT member Gillian's baby boy :)

Next up ShowCASE Your Style where there's a (stretch-a-)sketch.  What do you think - a stretch too far?

And finally at Less Is More, it's a one layer splatter challenge - yay!

The grasses stamped on the card belong to a set that was in the goody box that I bought from Debby Lime Doodle in aid of breast cancer causes.  Wanna see all the contents?

Happy Scribbles

What makes me happy?  Playing with Distress Inks, definitely.  Stamping, yup.  Scribbling, uh huh.  So today I'm very happy making this card.

Inked up the stamp with Distress Inks, spritzed and stamped, then scribbled à la Papertrey Make It Monday #203 inspiration by Ashley- doodling with stamps.  I used one of the wildflowers from Larger Than Life, and the sentiment from Wet Paint.

There's a hint of clover in there (if you ignore the shape of the leaves.  Just look at the flowers.) so I'm playing along with Simon Says Monday Challenge - A Hint of Clover.

And it all makes me happy.  So I'm playing along at Less Is More - This Makes Me Happy :)

Spring Coffee Lovers Blog Hop

I'm playing along with The Spring Coffee Lovers Blog Hop.  I shouldn't be here - I don't like coffee, in fact I hate it.  But fortunately for me and other coffee haters (I can't be the only one, can I?) the hop is open to tea drinkers as well.

I have very few coffee-related stamps, which isn't surprising, but I don't have many tea-related stamps either, which is surprising.  This stamp is from an old Kanban set.  I inked it up with Distress Inks and spritzed it, then stamped it off the edge of the card.  I sloshed some watered-down ink for a base, and added some splatters (yay!) and a sentiment.

I'm also entering it into Less is More - This Makes Me Happy.  Sloshing and splattering on cards makes me very happy.  Drinking tea makes me happy (nothing like a good cuppa).  Drinking wine makes me very happy - I may have to make another card ;)

And Inkspirational - Sprinkle.  I'm hoping that splattering also counts as sprinkling!

Love-ly

When I was painting some chipboard hearts pink the other day, they left a fabulous grungy negative on the scrap paper.  So I painted some more on card panels so that I could use the negative image.  This is version two - version one is below, with the sentiment stamped in black.  As soon as Less Is More's new challenge came in, I knew I wanted to make a version with a grey sentiment, so here it is!

PINK AND GREY

I'm also entering this into JUGS where the word is Love:

So here's the original version.  

The paint is deeper on this one (I added white to the paint for the top card to soften it against the grey sentiment).  

Fancy trying out this technique?  Feel free to CASE this card and enter your version into the CASE playground at STAMPlorations.  And have a look at our new CASEplorations game while you're there.  You could CASE one of those cards (or indeed any card from the STAMPlorations Inspiration team) during February and be in with the chance of a prize.  If you use STAMPlorations stamps in your creation, you can enter it into the never-ending Anything Goes challenge for more chances to win.

A Twofer And A Show & Tell

I meant to post one of the cards below yesterday, but I got sidetracked, so you've got two cards today.  But first, my Show & Tell.  

One of my birthday presents was a Take & Make session at a glass fusion workshop.  I went on the workshop last weekend and chose to make four coasters.  Most of the other students were creating recognisable images (flowers, snowmen, angels, trees, Christmassy stuff) but I just wanted to do random/abstract.  Having got the four coasters ready for firing (or whatever), I had some time to spare so I also made a bowl.  To keep conkers in.  Because conkers are supposed to keep spiders out of the house.  (One spider didn't get the message... maybe I need to refresh the conkers.)  Anyway, yesterday, I went to collect my masterpieces...

I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

Here's a before shot of the bowl.

So, here's card No. 1.

I'm entering this into Festive Friday.  I don't think I've ever entered this challenge before, probably because I don't usually start my Christmas cards till mid-late-November ;)

Here's card No. 2.  The patterned trees are made by creating patterns on a Gelli Plate, then once it's DRY(!!!), pressing sticky tape down over the pattern, burnishing and lifting it off.  The bonus is a clean Gelli Plate - yay!  Then you just die-cut shapes out of the strip.  I saw the video on the Gelli Plate website, but it was Jenny's butterfly that prompted me to have a go.

I'm entering this into Muse, where Therese has provided this lovely inspiration.  Suddenly one tree is a whole forest.

Also entering it into Inkspirational - Shine

Artist Trading Post - Stencil Mania.  (I used a stencil to make the pink dots.)

Less Is More - More Than One Tree

Come back tomorrow for a fabulous blog hop!

Christmas Bells

I'm playing along with the sketch at this week's Less Is More, although I've stretched the sketch a little bit.

I used my bargain-fell-into-the-supermarket-trolley-Sharpies to colour the bells and Distress Inks for the background.

I don't normally start making Christmas cards until November (it's bad enough that the shops start with Christmas in September!), but I got these gorgeous new Christmas stamps from STAMPlorations and they're burning a hole on my desk so I had to use them. (And they're on pre-release offer here.)

Looks like I'll have all my Christmas cards done in record time this year!