Seize The Birthday - Focal One

Hello, we've got a great challenge for you this week at Seize The Birthday from Ashwini, and it's Focal One.  Here is her explanation:

What this means is, in your card, for the focal image, use only one stamp and stamp it only once. No more stamping is allowed on the focal image. However, you are free to colour it and free to do anything else with the rest of the card.

If you don't want to follow the 'Focal One' theme, you can always play along with our Anything Goes theme.

I used a new to me stamp from Aall & Create, and a sentiment from Avery Elle.  Once I'd watercoloured the image with Distress Inks I splattered the colours across the panel, then I also splattered the colours across the card base.  I mounted the panel onto glitter card, then onto the card base.

Pop on over to the Seize The Birthday blog for some more fabulous inspiration on Focal One from the rest of the design team and our surprise party guests, and join in the party!

Visible Image - Winter Sweater

We've got a winter birthday theme going at Visible Image this week, so I've made a clean and simple masculine birthday card.  It's woolly jumper time!

I stamped the Knitted background stamp using a mix of Distress inks.

Then I die-cut it using the Christmas Jumper Die and softened the edges with a bit of Weathered Wood.

I wanted to wrap a scarf around the neck, so I found some cotton twill tape, frayed the ends and dyed it with re-inkers.

There wasn't enough variation in colour for my liking so I spritzed some Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays on it.  The shimmer didn't stick, but it was the colour that I was after rather than shimmer.

I wrapped the scarf around my fingers and stapled all but the top layer to the top of the jumper, then I used some PVA glue to stick down the top layer at the neck, covering the staple but leaving the ends loose.

Turning to my card, I stencilled some numbers down one side of a blue panel, using the Glitch Numbers stencil using Lost Shadow Distress ink.

I stamped the little starry cluster from Birthday Wishes in Lost Shadow Distress ink, then stamped the sentiment in Versamark and heat-embossed in silver, which catches the light beautifully.

Then it was just a case of affixing my jumper to the panel.

Pop on over to the Visible Image website for these and more goodies.  You'll also find plenty of inspiration for using the products.

Happy crafting!

Visible Image - Halloween Cats

 

Hi peeps!  Our theme this week at Visible Image is Halloween, of course!  One of the obvious Halloween images that springs to mind, apart from witches and ghouls, is black cats, and the dies in the That Loving' Feeline set were ideal for making my card.

Perfect as they are for die cutting the stamped images, they are just as good for cutting silhouette images - you only need to add green gems for the eyes.  So you're getting extra mileage out of your dies - win, win! They'd also be great for young children's Halloween crafts.

Now for my background.  I sprayed a panel with Distress Mica Stains using Jack o'Lantern, Flickering Candle and Hocus Pocus, then added a strip of washi tape which would help to ground my cats.

I don't have glow-in-the-dark supplies so instead I spread Cosmic Shimmer clear texture paste through the Stardust stencil, then after removing the stencil and while the paste was still wet I sprinkled Tailored Expressions Pea Pod loose glitter onto the texture paste.

As always with loose glitter, the finer particles clung to the panel, even though I'd used an anti-static pad. But once the piece was thoroughly dry, it was easy to brush off the particles and return them to the pot.

The bright green sparkle is incredible, but soooo difficult for the camera to truly pick up.

To finish my card, I stamped the 'Meow!' sentiment from the That Lovin' Feeline stamp set onto a scrap of card, added some mini staples then adhered it to the card.  When you've already got dimension on your base layer, sometimes it's easier than stapling through the layer.

There's loads more inspiration for you on the Visible Image blog - just click here to take a look.

Happy crafting!

Seize The Birthday - Feather

Hello!  Here at Seize The Birthday, Vicki is our host, and she's chosen Feather.

I went old school and actually used a woodblock stamp and embossing powder for this feather by Stampendous.  The background is a splodge of Fossilised Amber Distress Spray Stain, with a touch of Tumbled Sky.  The sentiment is from Wow!

Pop on over to the Seize The Birthday blog for some more fabulous inspiration from the rest of the design team and our surprise party guests, and join in the fun!

Visible Image - Autumn Home Deco Panel

Hi, Visible Image fans!  Our theme this week is autumn colours, and my brief is a non-card creation. So I've gone for a home deco panel for the mantelpiece.

I started off by tearing strips off a cardboard offcut and painting it with black gesso.

Once that was dry I spritzed some Antique Linen Distress Oxide, then a few Distress Mica Stains.

I tilted the panel to get the sprayed colours to run.  The gold reminded me of a bare tree, and I was quite happy with that.

I wasn't sure which leaves or sentiments I would use, so I just loaded everything from Erika's Maple onto my stamping platform and stamped them a couple of times onto watercolour card using Versacolour Onyx Black ink.

Using distress inks, I watercoloured and splattered the leaves and sentiments.

In an attempt to emulate Tim Holtz I dripped some Crooked Broomstick Mica Stain onto the leaves, but then disaster struck!

The drip became a huge blob, but I managed to rescue the leaf by using a black Posca paint pen and dabbing lightly where the black ink once was, so at least I recovered my outline.  I trimmed the leaves then ran a black felt pen around the edges before mounting them in place on my panel.

The sheen from the mica stains is fantastic!  Tilted one way, all the yellows show up, then tilted another the other colours shine.

I curled the leaves upwards slightly before fixing them in place with silicone glue, and ran a gold Krylon pen around my sentiment before adding a couple of tiny staples and fixing it to the panel.

Why not try making your own autumn home decor piece from some of the fabulous Visible Image stamps?  If you do, don't forget to share it on the Visible Image Facebook/Meta page.

Erika's Maple

Seize The Birthday - Dots

 

Hello, and welcome to a new challenge at Seize The Birthday!  It's my turn to host, and I've gone for Dots.

My dots are courtesy of a strip of washi tape, but you could stamp, stencil or draw your dots, or use patterned paper, or any other way you can think of to add dots.

The image and top sentiment are by StampingBella, and the Happy Birthday is by Altenew.  The bling is by Stickles.

Pop on over to the Seize The Birthday blog to see how the rest of the team and our surprise party guests have used dots in their creations, then come and join us.  If dots aren't your thing, you can still play along with any birthday themed project.

See you in the gallery!

Visible Image - Clean And Simple Cupcake

 

Hello!  This week's theme at Visible Image is Food and Drink, my favourite subjects for cards.  I've gone with a Clean And Simple (CAS) card, showcasing the cupcake from Blow Out The Candles.

This cupcake, a leftover from a previous post, was waiting in my stash to be used.  I had coloured it with Tombow dual marker pens and a Jane Davenport sparkly marker, then die-cut it with the coordinating die from the Blow Out The Candles die set.

For my CAS card base, I needed something subtle to anchor the cupcake yet still leave plenty of white space.  I opted for the dotty circle from Art Spheres #1 to suggest a doily.  I taped off the area surrounding the dots and stencilled Kitsch Flamingo distress ink over the stencil.

Then it was just a matter of placing the card into my stamping platform and arranging the sentiments.

I went with black for the sentiments because I think red, black and white is such a vibrant colour scheme for CAS cards.

You can find the stamps, dies and stencil over on the Visible Image website or the Hobbymaker website.