Shabby rose

After seeing the pictures of Elaine's stash for our current Quartet Challenge, I felt inclined to work on something a little more 'loved up' than is my usual style.

I used image transfers of roses and collaged sheet music along with pieces of newspaper to create a background for something I haven't quite decided on yet. At that point I came across Rachel's tutorial for a shabby rose. She had made the loveliest newspaper roses and I decided I just had to have a go. This was the result of my efforts. If you look carefully you'll see the petals are made from the lonely hearts columns! Rachel had edged her original roses with glitter but I thought that would be too heavy for the newspaper ones so I just ran a Stardust pen round the edges of the petals. It doesn't seem to have caught the light in this picture.


The flower was really easy to make and I'm already thinking of variations I want to have a go at. Whether that background will ever see the light of day is another matter.

Me and my big ideas

New year, good intentions....but maybe a step too far. My resolution this year was to use the fantastic Craft Stamper magazine as a bit of a teacher and attempt to do every project in it as a learning exercise. I thought this would take me out of my comfort zone and get me playing with different products. I wanted to keep 'interpretation' to a minimum and use that discipline to widen my horizons.


This is my first effort and exposed how bad I am at some very basic techniques. A beginners' class with Susie Jefferson at Blade Rubber last weekend will hopefully have helped. Sadly, I have got no further with my challenge yet. I counted how many projects I would have to manage in a month and had got to 80 based on last month's issue!!!! Even for a New Year's Resolution that is too tall an order. I'm a once-a-month girl on current form. My crafting buddies, Lesley, Elaine and Judith thought the basic idea was worth running with and are joining in but we have changed the brief. We are now going to choose one project from every issue of the magazine and each produce our own version (interpretation most definitely allowed this time). Not content with just sharing the photos with each other, we are planning on posting them on a new dedicated blog which you can find here. The deadline for the first finished projects is not until the end of February so please be patient. But in between times, we are going to show sneak peeks, products and new finds we are planning to use and possibly some techniques that we pick up along the way.

You have probably reached this page via one of my buddies' blogs but I would urge you to visit all three as I am lucky to be crafting alongside some very talented ladies. We met in the virtual world as admirers of Elusive Images stamps and Graphicus guru Glenda Waterworth but we try to get together in the real world when we can.

Please join us on our blogging journey. It should be a pleasant amble.

Just caught last post!

I can't believe I left my Christmas cards so late this year. I'm never what you'd call organised but somehow this year I couldn't get my head round Christmas cards until I was faced with last posting dates! I'd made a small handful at the beginning of the season but these were pretty much experimental.

The two cards below made use of a great pack of Kars paper I found reduced at the NEC. In each case I added a stamped panel made using the Inkadinkado Holiday Greetings I blogged earlier and an embossed section cut from Papermania card blanks.


This card used the Kars papers again and a greeting from Inkadinkado Christmas Silhouettes. It's not easy to see in the photo but the printed paper is quite glittery.

This card was made for the Graphicus Guild Christmas card swap and went to Veronica. You can see the card she made for the swap here on her blog. It's well worth a visit.


This card was probably the one I was most pleased with. It uses a Stampavie stamp called Bear and Robin. I coloured the stamped image with Distress Inks and added some Flower Soft to the bear's hat. I'd planned a more elaborate card but when I put the image against this gorgeous paper I really didn't think any more embellishments could improve it so I left it alone.

This card was a last minute cheat. But this year I've been able to justify cheating. I can't resist gorgeous papers and card like this Hunkydory pack. So I may as well use them and why detract from them by adding stamping or too many extras? A ribbon and die cut greeting were all this needed. I know the card doesn't have much of my work in it but I was still very pleased with it.

And finally a card that owes everything to Bev Rochester. I saw some of her silver grey cards at the NEC and just had to have the stamp and eventually the backing papers too. I was going to stamp a full page or more of these beautiful Whiff of Joy 'Lizzie' images. But time ran away with me and this particular stamping was the first and only one I got done. I decided maybe it would have looked better on a smaller card but all the same, I was pleased to have got such good results with my first attempt.

And my big boy is no longer a teenager

Yes, it's true. 20 years old now. That makes me feel so old! I made him this card with the Inkadinkado Rock Star stamps. First time out of the packet and they stamped beautifully. I really like the stripe stamp too. It's Hero Arts Holiday Stripes and I used it with my stamp positioner to make sure the stripes lined up!

My baby turns 18

Yup. No more children in my house. My youngest son turned 18 yesterday. This is the card I made for him. I chose an architecture theme because this is the subject he plans to study at university next year.

The background is a piece of 12x12 K&Co Life's Journey Architecture Studies. The left hand panel is a piece of card covered in crumpled tissue painted with three colours of Moonglow ink and highlighted with Distress Inks. The main image is an Illuminata stamp by Inkadinkado which I found in a box of clearance stamps at Ally Pally. There are three Stampbord 'spotlights' mounted on the image and the Architecture quote is from Beeswax stamps. The fibres are by Sara books and came with the key, which he'd seen when I bought them and already decided he wanted.

More Christmas cards

I'm really enjoying these MME papers. This card is another simple layout.

The next card was originally inspired by a card in the Stampington gallery which I fell in love with when I first started crafting. It changed along the way and is now nothing like the card that inspired it. It is an A5 gatefold card. I don't have a good picture of the front as it didn't want to stay closed. But this is one side of the gatefold .

The base card is brown and I have scuffed the edges with gold ink. The inside looks like this.

Making a start on Christmas

I fell in love with these Inkadinkado stamps (a clear set called "Holiday Greetings") the first time I saw them. It was an impulse purchase quite out of character for me. But the more I use them the more I love them and I'm beginning to see how versatile they are going to be. In fact, I can imagine being able to do my whole 2009 card quota with these 6 stamps. Which would be a shame as I bought several other Inkadinkado sets very close to Christmas last year and never got to use them.

My starting point was a blog post from Stamp Talk with Tosh. I love the way she'd coloured the images and attempted to do something similar. I stamped a sheet of images and enjoyed working on them in front of the tv, using Distress Inks, the odd marker, 'puffy colours' (a dimensional medium with a glossy finish which Elaine kindly brought back for me from her European trip and which I used on the poinsettias) and my trusty Clear Stardust pen. You can just see the sparkle in the images at the top of the sheet. I was really pleased that I seemed to get a nice balance between subtle and glam.

I managed to find the gorgeous Signature Christmas papers from My Mind's Eye to use with them and split the pack with my crafty friend Lesley. My first card was very simple but I thought the stamps needed very little to show them at their best.

By accident I found that once mounted, the images were a nice size to go on my tri shutter card so that became my second card.

I decided to make the panel for the handwritten greeting into a little card-within-a-card and to stamp with an image from Winter Trails which co ordinates with the design on the front.

A third card is almost finished but needs a final touch. I feel I'm on a bit of a roll so maybe I'll find the missing piece for my card this evening.