Alcohol in the sun…

No I haven't been lazy away in the garden with a glass of something – I’ve been playing with my alcohol inks (one of my favourite things) in bright, hot sunny colours!  I’ve missed Grungy Monday at Studio L3 for a while – just too much going on, but this week the technique is Alcohol Inks -  as demonstrated by Tim Holtz here - Adirondack Alcohol Inks! so this card fits right in. After colouring some glossy card I used an embossing folder – then lightly highlighted some of the raised areas with Gold mixative.

The backing panel is made using the same colours of Alcohol inks on shaving foam – my first attempt at this technique that has long been on my list to try, I loved it and shall be doing more!!  The Sun/Moon stamp is an ancient one from PSX, one of the first I bought I think, and I've embossed in gold and smudged a little DI round the edges. After stamping a few bits and pieces on the backing panel I layered it up with some twine and a button – coloured with more AI.

The letters were blue plastic freebies from some magazine or other and I coloured them first with Gold Mixative, then edged with gold pro-marker – dabbing with the Gold AI has left a slightly distressed surface which I was pleased with. It actually took my ages to put this card together after making the individual panels – maybe because I don’t often use colours this bright but I really struggled and turned to the sketch which is an optional part of The Stamp Man challenge to help me. 

Challenges -

The Stamp Man – Alcohol Inks

The Artistic Stamper – Hot Colours

Stampin for the Weekend – Favourite things (Alcohol Inks)

Studio L3 – Alcohol Inks

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge – Here comes summer

Moving Along with the Times – here comes the summer sun

Simon Says Stamp and Show – a Word

Thanks for stopping by – I’m off to play with more inks and shaving foam! Esther xx

Bank Holiday Challenges

I love Bank Holiday Mondays!! That lovely feeling on a Sunday night when you know you haven’t got to get up in the morning, and waking up in the morning and remembering it’s a day off…and then knowing that you’ll only have to work four days..and then having loads more time to craft!! AND – I especially like it because it means I can enter Linda’s Grungy Monday Challenge over at Studio L3 actually on the day. This week Linda wants us to use Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas, 2007, Day 10. And so, my card -

I have used this technique before and loved it…then forgotten about it and this is why I love the Grungy Monday challenge as it takes us back. I used it on the bottom panel of the card with Judikins Italian Script Stamp, then stamped again on some cream card which I’d coloured with Antique Linen Distress stains for the top half.

The flower I made myself (am going to put together  tutorial I think so won’t go into it now). As well as Studio L3, I’m going to enter this over at Simon Says Stamp and Show where they want us to use our favourate stamps. This is my all time fav background stamp so hope that counts. I’ve used ingredients from one of the Recipe Bingo lines over at The Stamp Man – Embossing Powder (in the Tim Technique), Ribbon and homemade background paper so am entering there too.  Finally I’m entering into the Sentiment challenge at Stamp Something.

Right off to make the dinner…thanks for visiting..and don’t forget the Craft-Room Challenge launches tomorrow!!  Esther xx

Busy, Busy…

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend for those of you who have one (like me…yipee!!)..I’ve had a busy day doing stuff that I can’t share at the moment, but I did manage one card for some challenges, so here it is…

It’s an A5 card and I’ve used Tim Holtz September 2008 technique as instructed by the lovely Linda over at Studio L3 for this weeks Grungy Monday.  This is one of my favourate techniques actually, I love the watercolour effect you can get with it using bold stamps and think this Penny Black stamp ( think it’s called Lofty) works just perfectly. So as you may have guessed I’m also entering this into the Penny Black Saturday challenge - ‘One for the Girlies’.

  The design of the card was inspired by this weeks Less is More challenge which asks us to ‘Pick a square’  - well, mine’s a rectangle but those in charge at LIM said that was allowed! After using Tim's watercolour technique I painted some more watercolour paper with the same inks to make a perfectly co-coordinating mat and simply layered them up and added the little gold butterfly, which was once a button. As well as those already mentioned I’m also entering this into the following challenges -

• Secret Crafter Saturday  - Clean and Simple
• Papertake Weekly – pale, pretty pastels
• Stamp Something – Sentiment 

Hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend.....Esther xx

First LIIU Design Team Post

I've been bursting to tell my news since Monday and now I can - I've been asked to be on the 'Lets Ink It Up' design team, the other team memebers have made me feel very welcome and I'm very excited! I love this challenge site because it's all about my favourate creative thing - Stamping! So - here I am with my first post and sample!

The sponser for challenge #15  is Kreativ Hobby

"We are a Norwegian rubberstamp producer – with more than 1000 different designs. In our webshop you will find all our rubbestamps under the category "STEMPLER". All prices are in Norwegian Kroner.We ship worldwide and all information regarding international shipping is on the website: www.kreativhobby.no"

The winner can choose 4 rubberstamps from Kreativ Hobby Design. Value app. NOK 200 or $ 35

The theme of Challenge #15 is SENTIMENTS ONLY AND A 3D FLOWER -  use a sentiment as your focal point and make a 3D flower (remember NO DIGIS!). A tricky one to get started with but I had this little notebook hanging around so what better use for it then to keep my Design Team notes/ideas in and alter it for the first challenge!

I've used Waltzing Mouse 'Very Vintage Labels No. 1' with my Nesties and a Tim Holtz sentiment stamp.  To make the Background paper I used the technique from this weeks Grungy Monday with Linda over at Studio L3. This is the 'Twelve tags of Christmas 2007, day 8' technique featured on Tim Holtz's blog here. Over this base I used tissue tape, a texture fade embossing folder, some more stamping and some Glass Bead Gel round the edges.

My flower is of course grunge paper, some of it coloured with pro-markers and stamped with Hero Arts dots, the middle layer is covered with fabric.

I am also going to enter this into these challenges -

Stamp Something - Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Anything Goes

I can't wait to get started visiting your challenge entries so hop on over to Lets Ink It Up to see the inspiration from the other Team members and go get sentimental! Esther xx

Turning Japanese....

After a week of heavy studying (yipee the assignments are done and in the post!) this weekend has been dedicated to crafting. I made a wedding card yesterday which I can't share yet, and today was totally out of my comfort zone! I've never really been into the whole Oriental theme in my crafting - I'm not a big fan of using red either so today's project was very different for me, which is why I did it - wanted to stretch myself and see what happened. This is what happened -

The idea started with the technique from Studio L3 Linda's 'Grungy Monday' challenge which is to use this technique May, 2008 Technique Challenge  fromTim Holtz's blog. I'm not sure if I've missed the point as I made a Frame - but I did use the technique, maybe I'll have another go as we have two weeks for this challenge.  I decided on fans so I could enter the Random Redhead challenge at Gingersnaps Creations.  They took me absolutely ages to make -so fiddly, and could I get them to stick? but thanks to my trusty hot glue gun we got there in the end.  I stamped on some red and black card, then cut with Tim's rosette die but only used part of the strip,  fixed (eventually) with glue and added some tiny pearls and a bigger gold bead threaded with gold thread tassles (which also took forever!).  I tell you, I nearly gave up after the first one - but am glad I persevered as I think one would of looked lonely! The 'lettering' stamp is on the Artifacts cube by Judikins.

Here is a bit of a close up - though don't look too carefully - it's by no means perfect!. It was a devil to photograph too because of the reflection in the glossy card - that red shadow you can see is me!! Just happened to be wearing red so at least I match!!  I'm also going to add this to the entries at Allsorts as the theme there is Oriental and at Lets Ink It up who want us to use Embellishments.   

April Showers

Thankfully we haven't had any rain this weekend, not that it would of mattered because I've been busy writing an assignment that's due next week for the post qualifying social work course I'm doing :-( . Today however I decided to give myself the day off and relax with some crafting, so with the windows open to let the lovely sunshine inspire me I played with my distress inks and texture fades embossing folders a la Sir Tim (blog here).  This is because the lovely Linda at Studio L3 set us the challenge for Grungy Monday to use the technique that Tim demonstrates here with said Distress inks and texture fades. I did take it one step further actually and used ink on both the negative and positive bits of the embossing folder - incredibly fiddly but I'm pleased with the effect! I used water colour paper and gave it a bit of a spritz once I'd embossed.

To put the card together I stamped, embossed and cut out good old Umbrella Man (I love this stamp - am gonna need that Alterations die!) and glued him onto a sheet of acetate onto which I had stamped the sentiment (in Stazon) and blobbed on some 'pearly stuff' (that is what's it's called not just me not remembering!) to create what I hope look like raindrops. I layered onto a piece of blue card and after staring frustrated at it for ages trying to work out what else it needed,  decided on a line of faux stitching down the edge (oh for a real sewing machine!).

 

I'm entering this into the following challenges -
Studio L3 - Grungy Monday
Simon Says Stamp and Show - A Lord of Tim technique
Allsorts - April Showers
Lets ink it up - Show us your stitching
Stamptacular Sunday - pile it on (at least 5 layers - I'm hoping the base card counts as one!)

I hope you've all had a lovely Easter and not too much chocolate! Thanks for stopping by, Esther xx