Stamp Magic

I played a while longer with the Mini Memories set on Saturday night. I could have gone on until the early hours but I knew it would take me an age to clear away and I needed to make a reasonable start if I was going to make it to the show on Sunday.

This was the last Beautiful Dream card and my favourite so far.

I stamped and masked to give the impression of floating bubbles and wanted to make the swirly border look like hanging vines. It's hard to tell because of my poor photography but there is a subtle background made from the flourish stamp in the set. The background was made with Distress Inks after I was inspired by Lynn Robinson-Hunter's tags at the Graphicus open day. She has achieved some really rich shading on her cards which I'd love to copy. I think there are a couple more of the inks I need in my arsenal before I can even get close.

Anyway, it was a longish journey to Stamp Magic but I was really pleased I'd gone. Highlights had to be Once Upon a Stamp and Crafty Individuals. There were a couple of CI stamps on my wishlist but I talked myself out of them in the end. Not a bad thing after my recent spending. Curiously, I noticed that some motifs from the Crafty Secrets sets I'd just bought also appeared on some of the Crafty Individuals stamps. I asked if there was a connection between the two companies but apparently not.

Overall my purchases were modest. I picked up a handful of Versacolor cubes in colours I felt were missing from my range but will have to experiment with those. I stocked up on EZ Mount and bought a pack of mixed tags. As usual, the biggest shortage is not materials or inspiration but TIME!

Beautiful Dream

Well, tomorrow is Stamp Magic at Doncaster. It's one of the treats I promised myself to get me through this long school term. But I'm still wavering. I've spent far too much on stamps this month already and I'm bound to get found out soon. But if I miss it when do I get to ogle some more serious rubber? Maybe I could go and content myself with demos and soaking up all the inspiration.

I love my mini adventures (thinking of creating a new blog around them). The more obscure the destination and the more forms of transport needed the better. Doncaster is not the most inspiring of places but I do like the Dome and I really enjoyed the last Stamp Magic.

This week I've had another delivery from the US. Crafty Secrets Clear Art Stamps are really something special. I got two sets as I had a voucher from those generous Ebay people. Tonight I've had my first play with the Mini Memories set. They are just right for ATCs and make me want to chop up all my cardstock into little pieces! These two are literally my first impressions.

The card on the left was made by brayering Butterscotch and Wild Plum dye inks over Versamark. The one on the right was stamped partly in Versamark over a sponged background and then embossed in white, sprayed with Deep Plum Glimmer Mist, then overstamped with Wild Plum. I think I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of these stamps.