Seize The Birthday - Use Red As The Main Colour

Hello peeps, we've got a new challenge for you at Seize The Birthday, chosen by JoAnn, and she's gone for using red as the main colour.

I went with this lily from Altenew.  The flower parts were cut from a piece of watercolour card that had been inked and sprayed with Distress Inks and Mica sprays.  the leaves were cut from two shades of green card, with a little shading on the stem.  Carrying on from our last theme, I added some splatter.  I stamped the 'happy' in red and black, and added some scribbles from Tim Holtz Media Marks to emphasise the red.

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 guest, Deborah Wheeler, who will be with us for the next two months.

If red's not your colour, you can play along with any birthday-themed project.  Happy crafting!

Visible Image - Blow Out The Candles

Hey, Visible Image fans!  I hope you caught the launch of the new release on Hobbymaker TV last week.  There are some fabulous new stamps, dies and stencils, and also coordinating dies for the Blow Out The Candles stamp set.

For my card I stamped and coloured a lemon spongecake, using varying shades of yellow Distress inks.

I needed plenty of candles for this effect!  I coloured them using Zig Clean Colour brush pens.

They all needed cutting out, and the new dies did the job.

I wanted to make the candles look as if they were being blown right off the cake so I just worked with the flickering candle so that I could angle them, and the Radiate stencil was perfect for the look.

The background paper is watercoloured using Distress Mica Stains, so there's a subtle sheen to it.  I positioned the cake and sentiment to check everything would fit, then stencilled Distress Oxides through.

Then it was just a case of stamping the sentiment and attaching all the candles to the cake.  I adhered some to the front and some to the back of the cake for depth, and one being blown right off!

You can see a bit of the sheen on the background in this close-up.

Pop on over to the new Visible Image website where you can find everything in the new release and, of course, all their other designs.

Seize The Birthday - Splatter

Hi, it's time for a new Seize The Birthday challenge, brought to us by Glenda, and it's Splatter.  I love me some splatter!

I was quite light-handed with the splatter this time, just adding tiny splatter to the Concord & 9th You Are Loved image.  The stamped and diecut sentiment is from The Stamp Market.

Pop on over to the Seize The Birthday blog for some more fabulous inspiration from the design team and our surprise party guests, and play along with us.  If you're not into splatters, you cn still play along with any birthday-themed project.

Visible Image - Teatime

Hello Visible Image fans!  I've got a tea-themed card for my DT post today.   I wanted to use the Afternoon Tea stamp set in a cafe or kitchen setting, and the Distressed Brick stencil was the perfect background.

I started by stencilling Rustic Wilderness Distress ink through the stencil.

Then I added Cosmic Shimmer clear texture paste straight over the top.  And managed to slice my thumb when I was cleaning the spatula - duh!

I left that to dry overnight, and stamped and coloured the images.

The inspiration for my colour scheme came from a jug that I painted in a pottery painting session many years ago - there's a photo at the end.  I cut a negative mask so that I could stamp the flowers onto the cups and teapots.

When it came to cutting them out, I wanted to remove the white space in the handles, and I have a nifty little trick to make the cutting out easier.  Cut down the outline between the top of the handle and the cup or teapot so that you can manoeuvre your scissors more easily, then you stick the handle back down on the reverse.  You can hardly see the join.

Some woodgrain washi tape from my extensive stash was ideal for industrial style shelving against my green subway tiles.  I stuck it onto strips of white card for stability, then used double sided tape to add it to the panel.

Then I added the pots and cups to the shelves, and a sentiment.

Et Voila!  My industrial style teatime card.

And here's the inspiration.

Pop on over to the Visible Image store to check out these fab stamps and stencil, and loads more!

Seize The Birthday - Kraft Plus One Other Colour

Hello!  It's time for a new challenge at Seize The Birthday, and Colleen has chosen Kraft and Another Colour.

I plumped for pink.  I stamped the images from Thankful by Art Journal Love at Funky Fossil, and added colour with watercolour pencils.  The sentiment is from MFT.  It didn't really stand out enough against the kraft background, so I added a white pen shadow to make it pop, then added a few white highlights.

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 play along with us.  If kraft doesn't float your boat, you can play along with any birthday theme.

Happy stamping!

Visible Image - Celebrate With Sketched Tulips

Hello peeps, I've got a Visible Image twofer for you today, using the Sketched Tulips set along with the Celebrate sentiment from Birthday Wishes.

I knew from the outset what my layout was going to be (which is unusual for me!) so I started by stamping the tulip image, and stamped a spare in case I messed up.

I inked up the script stamp with Black Soot distress ink, then spritzed it before stamping at the bottom of the panel, but it stamped too dark for what I wanted, and I didn't like how it overlapped the tulip leaves.  So I reinked it with Hickory Smoke and spritzed a little harder, masking the leaves, and hey presto, that was what I wanted.

But I wasn't going to waste that panel!  On the left-hand panel I used a Speedball Elegant Writer pen (showcased by Loll in this card) to 'colour' the tulip.  You just add a bit of the pen to the outline, then bleed it out with a wet brush.  The ink bleeds into hints of blue and red.

On the right-hand panel I watercoloured the tulip and surround with Hickory Smoke.

Then I found some inky panels in my stash, cut them to size and stamped the word Celebrate onto them.Then it was just a case of assembling the panels onto black card.

Here's a close-up of the Speedball Elegant Writer version,and the Hickory Smoke version.Pop on over to the Visible Image store for these fab designs, and many more!

Seize The Birthday - Embossing Wet or Dry

Hello, we've got our first challenge of 2024 at Seize The Birthday, chosen by Cathy, and it's Embossing Wet or Dry, so there's plenty of scope for you.

I went with a Tim Holtz 3D embossing folder and used the debossed side, using the technique showcased by Erum Tasneem of blending darker ink over the panel.  The blended ink picks up loads of detail from the ridges on the debossed image.

The embossing folder is Roses, the stamped text is from CMS241 Ledger Script and the happy birthday is from CMS325 Glorious Bouquet.

Pop on over to the Seize The Birthday blog for some more fabulous inspiration from the rest of the design team, and from our three (yes, three!) surprise party guests, so you've got extra inspiration this month :)