Altered with The Stampman

This is my altered piece for The Stampman Altered Challenge. It is an altered paint sample card that has been turned into a "Scrapling" A Scrapling is a small card that is 1.5 inch x 4.25 inch card. (1.5 x 8.5) It opens like a card and I have become addicted to making them. They make such charming note cards and so fun to make. Recently Gingersnaps had a art swap of these little things, but this swap is now closed. However a new swap of 4 x 4 inch wintered themed images is now open to join in.

Gothic Elements with Gingersnaps

The current theme over on Gingersnaps is Gothic Elements. There are some fantastic creations over on the blog so hop over and take a look. I certainly had fun with this one and of course it lent itself to theose stamps I am rather partial to. Stampotique.

The background image is one of Itkupilli available to download from her site. She has lots of amazing images many very suitable for this time of year. Well worth having a look. 

The frame was textured and stamps applied. The Stampotique batwoman was layered so she looks as if she is walking out of the frame. An Alterations die has been used inside the frame. Stamps have been applied onto the frame and some Of Tim's dies added. The Stampotique stamps are available in the UK from The Stamp Attic.

Step out of the Box with PDCC 49

Step out of the Box is my contribution to this weeks Play Date Cafe Challenge 49 already. The time flies.
As you can see from the inspiration image below the colours were rusty orange, hot pink, turquoise, and chocolate brown. Colours I enjoy to work with. Mind you there are few colours I do not mind playing with. So here I have used a Tim Holtz Ledger stamp for the background after colouring the paper with Wild Honey and Rusty Hinge distress inks.. A Paperbag Studios sandal stamp, which I love, stamped with chocolate ink over paper distressed with Broken china and Tumbled Glass.  A Paperbag Studios spiral bound notebook stamp around the edges over a border cut from a die, also from Mr Holtz.

Colour Combo Month at SCD

Colour combo month at SCD. My friend Gez has chosen these fab autumn colours to start us off. I really like this stamp and as I had never used it thought it would fit in with trees losing leaves. However these trees have lost their all leaves which really shows I should have waited to use it until  the end of winter just before the leaves start to grow again and after their fine pruning. But I could not wait.

So please come and join us at SCD this week. You can make anything as long as you use these colours:

Oranges, goldie yellows and browns. Look forward to seeing your creations.

Black with the Sunday Stamper

This fabulous creation was all due to a fantastic workshop I attended run by my friend Hels at The Stamp Attic. We had such a good time and what a great make to take away with us. The Stamp Attic are running some great workshops at the moment so why not take a look.  This one was called Rosy Heart Art.
We were all given some metal sheets to work with and shown how to do that beautiful rose. I was so pleased with mine as the colours were just glorious. Navy blue metal rubbed away to show silver underneath. It was a lush colour combination. To get the colour to rub away we applied black Stazon and then just rubbed. Most of the elements were softened in colour by using this technique., black Stazon and elbow power.

It doesn't show up to well but these dinky bottles are so cute. I decided not to fill mine with beads and ink but took it home to add Bermuda pink sand. It really is pink but the photo does not do it justice. Needless to say the pink sand is quite a heart wrench for me as this is where my mother was brought up and returned there to re make it her home when she retired. I have many memories and adventures from time spent in Bermuda from my teenage years and beyond.

Stampotique Challenge: Vintage SDC 16

Goodness this card really made me chuckle when making it. It really appealed to my sense of ridiculous! Pretty vintage papers and ribbons with the central window filled with distressed papers with some very vintage characters stamped on to it. You can't get more vintage than these fellows, Lol.The peel offs are vintage too! So vintage I had problems getting them to stick! So Stampotique I hope you enjoy this silliness.

Friends with the Art Journey Challenge

This is my contribution to The Art Journey Challenge  the subject being Friends. I have used some new stamps by Art Journey. As well as liking to work with birds I like to work with fish. They always bring back grand memories of scuba diving in Bermuda on the reefs. I always loved swimming with the fish but I also believe that good friends swim together!
Hope you enjoy.

As Mad As.... PDCC 48

Look at these magnificent Mad March Hares! I think these two are just so noble and I love the way the taller one's eye just follows you from wherever you look at him.I just adore this stamp and also the colours from this weeks challenge. Blue, lime and grey. The stamp comes from 100 Proof Press.

Why not join in the fun at Play date Cafe!

Film Boy for Sunday Stamper

Film Boy

This is my contribution to Hel's Sunday Stamper, the theme being films. This stamp by Art Journey is called Film Boy which I thought was suitable. 

I tried an experiment with stamping this. I stamped the image twice. First with blue ink and then over stamped with black. I knew I would not be able to line it up properly, which I was after. I wanted it to look like old prints were the registration is not quite right and also to give the effect of when a film jams it sort of jumps on one frame. So I was quite pleased with how it turned out. As I wanted for once.

Haunted with Gingersnaps Creative Connection

“I am participating in a GC Creative Connection. I heard about this month’s GCCC - Haunted - from  Helene Huber at    Gingersnaps . Why not play along? Post a creation to your blog mentioning my post and the Creative Connection post on Gingersnap Creations. Let’s all craft it forward and see how far we can get this connection to go!”


Here,  as you can see, I have had lots of fun. Totally OTT but why not once in a while after all I had all these new dies to use from Tim Holtz!  I have also used the clowns faces from one of his stamps too,  as I find the image quite terrifying. You can see them laughing at you in the bottom right corner! I smooched the die cuts with silver ink after embossing them first in a folder. I think the effect is quite good. I also stamped cobwebs onto the glass which has worked really well.

A Ticket to Fly

This week it is my turn to choose the theme for arches over on SCD. I have chosen birds. I enjoy working with birds and felt the arch shape lent itself to being a bird cage. However I do not really like to see birds in cages so mine has a ticket to fly! We have hundreds of sparrows in our garden and they must think our garden is a good restaurant. I have to fill the bird feeders daily! We have certainly done lots for helping the dwindling population of sparrows. Of course we have other birds such as tits, robins and blackbirds, the odd finch and when it is really cold a thrush. However I do like to see them flying free. Hence this make.

Seeing it photographed I think I will add a few stamps in the background on the tag as it looks a little empty and too dominant.

Hope you come and play along and look forward to visiting your birds!

Neutrals plus one colour with Gingersnaps

This Wednesday see the start of a new challenge over on Gingersnaps. It is a colour challenge of Neutrals plus one colour, so anything goes with regard to what you can make. I have chosen a small canvas that sits inside a frame. The main stamps are Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi images. The frame has been covered in Terra and painted with Trad Tan with stamped images applied. I decided to team up the neutrals with a soft turquoise. There are other items and colour combinations for you to see over on the Gingersnaps blog.

Distressing with The Stampman

I am on a roll! Another creation. This I have made for The Stampman challenge under the theme distressing.

As you can see this has had a fair bit of distressing.

I am enjoying these dress stamps by Creshendo as it reminds me of being a child and playing with paper dolls. Then I would want them to be all perfect and now a bit of grunge is called for. Lol.

The Red House on the Hill

How many weeks since I have played along at the Play Date Cafe? I am not sure but ages and far too long!
The colours this week are green, turquoise, red, black and white.
So this is my play result of today. I hope I am lucky enough to win the Paperbag Studio sponsors gift because I love their stamps. Fingers crossed.
This one is for you Roben-Marie.


I have also had a friendly nudge from my friend Hels who says these are the colours for Sunday Stamper, so I will also enter it for her wonderful challenges. All this crafting puts retirement into a different category . Once addicted there would ever be time to be board. Roll on retirement.

Arches with SCD: Stars

Italian Moonlight

This is an early stamp that I bought so it has been great to get it out again to use. It is well worth going through your stamps from time to time to find some old favourites that have been buried in drawers. I chose this one to use for the Star challenge because it has stars in it and it is an interesting arch shape. The therapy continued with the colouring in.

Stampotique Birthday Challenge

This is the first time in ages I have had time to join in the Stampotique challenge. School holidays are over and I am enjoying more regular "me" time and am thoroughly enjoying playing.

Why not pop over and take a look and join in the fun!

Gingersnaps New Challenge: Inchies

Well this is my inchie collage for the new Gingersnaps challenge.  I rather liked the pretty pinks alongside such scary images. It sort of made me chuckle, the incongruousness of it!
Well I am in the UK and I do not know whether anyone else has had this problem? Trying to find a 1 inch square punch that actually cuts 1 inch. I have bought several that say they are 1 inch but it is measured across the diagonal not the sides! I am somewhat frustrated by this. Can anyone help me please?

50's Style Arches with SCD

This week at SCD the arches theme is the Fifties. So I had a bit of fun with this glamour puss. I just love all those different 50"s style patterns on the borders and the colours they used. Come and join the fun and see what you come up with. For more inspiration visit the SCD blog and see what the other designers have come up with.

Arches and Lace with Something Completely Different

A new month and a new theme over on SCD. This month we are playing with Arches and this weeks subject is to incorporate lace in your design. So here is my contribution. There are some fabulous creations made by the design team so please hop over, take a look and come and play. Can't wait to see your interpretation on the theme.

My Unique Technique: Embossed leaf

Today I will show you a technique I developed to preserve fall/autumn leaves and to enhance them. I adore oak leaves. I just love their infinite variety of shapes and I find them all so unique and beautiful. I am completely drawn to them so I thought up this method to try to preserve them without drying or pressing them for ages. They are slightly stronger than dried ones but are still fragile and can break over time especially if they find themselves stored in a pile of papers or cards.

The finished leaf. Isn't it just beautiful?

So if you are interested in how to achieve this hop over to Gingersnaps where there is a tutorial showing you how!

 Once made you can then use them in your creations and projects.

Here I  made one into an ATC.  The ATC background was tissue paper stamped, torn, layered and glued. The leaf was matted and layered  onto card. cut out and gold pen run around the edges of the mat. The edges were stitched and beaded. 

As you can see part of a lobe has broken off over time but I did find it bunched up in a pile of papers, which did not help.

And Lavender dipped in silver....

Hope you have fun with this technique: Laura Liddell