.....and relax

What a great weekend I've had...after a very stressful week I have ignored the housework and indulged in some crafting which has left me very relaxed.  My creative session resulted in some entries for challenges of course. I started off yesterday by having a go at the quilting challenge over at Gingersnaps Creations. Not a technique I've used before I made a design for the front of a sketch book I've had hanging around for a while. I use the book for my scrapbook LO sketches and thought the linking squares where sort of representative of the many LO's inside - I have these notions occasionally!

I used the gorgeous colour palette set over at The Play Date Cafe who are celebrating their one year anniversary!  I was tempted to jazz up the book cover itself before applying my design but decided I liked the plain black border. I created four pieces of patterned paper by applying Distress Inks, then stamping and embossing with clear EP. I cut each piece into the required shapes and 'quilted' them onto card stock.  Obviously this is going into TPDC challenge and  Gingersnaps Creations - Quilting, but also Simon Says Stamp and Show - 'anything but a card' and Allsorts - 'spots and stripes'.I enjoyed myself so much with this technique I decided to stick with it and made this Christmas card using another pattern (there's a link to the patterns, which are from McCalls on the Gingersnaps blog).

 

This time I created the patterend paper pieces with alcohol inks before using versamark ink to stamp the snowflakes and embossed with silver and pearl EP. The BP is alcohol ink spritzed with Cosmic Shimmer though it's not very shimmery on the pic! I stamped and embossed the snowflake swirl and then added some gems which are not very clear on the pic either (unless you click to enlarge). This card is my entry into -

Beary Sweet Challenge - 'Spritz the Glitz', Totally Gorjuss - 'Sparkle' and Gingersnaps Creations -'Versamark'.

And finally I made this vintage style card - I love this style and as I'm trying to get together some Christmas cards to sell went with this lovely stamp from  Stampington & Company which I had last year but didn't get round to using. I created the BP by using an assortment of stamps, distress inks and a gold ink. I then layered up with some printed vellum, DP, lace and the Stamped image which I had layered a couple of times to create contrasting borders. It looks quite red on the pic but is much softer in real Life! I made this using the sketch from the Friday Sketchers challenge and it also fits with Charisma Cardz - 'vintage' and The Artistic Stamper - 'Layers'.

Wow...thanks for sticking with me if you got this far, maybe should of split that into two posts!! Hope you've all enjoyed the weekend too.....Esther xx