Colour therapy

I can only go so long without going back to my favourite colour combinations.  This little cutie from Lili of the Valley was just crying out for some bright green and pink!

My Copic YG21, YG23 and YG25 are almost always in use and I love them with the RV pinks in either the 20's or the 50's and 60's.

Another Christmas card done.  Or at least, it is now.  I forgot to colour the penguin's nose before I took the photo!

Tracey

Quick and Easy Cards Part 2

Following on from my post about using up my rub on and sticker stash,  here are a couple of cards I made with some more Anna Griffin rub ons.

I was tempted just to apply the bold sentiments directly to a card base but instead opted for a layered look and some sequins.  The Ho Ho Ho card actually features an ink-blended mat gone-wrong but the rub on covers the dodgy blending really well.

Quick, easy and perfect for a crafty fix when I'm late home from work.

Tracey

Lovely as a Tree

Some stamps just don't date.  This one, Lovely as a Tree from Stampin' Up, is one of my all-time favourites.

I love black and gold, especially for Christmas and other celebration cards.  Plus heat embossing for a CAS look is perfect when time is short and you want to get some batch card-making done.  I used Lawn Fawn gold embossing powder to emboss the tree and the Wplus9 sentiment.

And talking of batch card-making, I made some in red, too.

Have a great weekend.

Tracey

Where I make mistakes... so that you don' t have to

Now here's the thing.  I adore Jennifer McGuire.  I watch her videos and she makes everything look so do-able.And not so long ago, she did something with glitter and stencils and I thought: "I can do that".

I was wrong.

I did, eventually, after  much tearing up of cardstock, scrubbing of stencils to remove glue and, I'll admit, more than a little unladylike language, come up with this.

The link to how this process is meant to go, à la Jennifer, is here.  Who wouldn't want to use up the ton of glitter that is taking up valuable new stamps space?  I had everything I needed, apart from some new stencils, so I remedied that and bought some, including this one by Pretty Pink Posh.

The idea is that you cover your paper in double sided adhesive, lay the stencil on top and pour on your glitter.  Then you remove the stencil and put another colour of glitter over the remaining adhesive.  Which is fine if you can get the ****** stencil off the paper.  Which I couldn't.

I had a dreadful time with some double sided stuff that I'd had for ages - no idea of the brand.  Couldn't remove the stencil at all without ripping it and had to soak the thing off.  As I had opted to try several stencils at the same time I ended up with a sink full of soggy cardstock and glitter.

I did slightly better with Stick It but it's a bit patchy, especially on the second layer of glitter.  I didn't want to waste my one and only moderately successful attempt so I cut the card at an angle to remove the worst bits and tried to clean up the other dodgy areas with a craft knife and a white gel pen.

I adhered the glittered cardstock to a card base and stamped a sentiment with some Gina K red ink.

I really like the red glitter on white but in the interest of my sanity will be using glimmer paste to recreate the look.

Off to lie down in a darkened room.

Tracey

Quick and Easy Part 1

When I first started making cards, I used rub on images and sentiments, and Doodlebug stickers.  A LOT.  Then I discovered Copics and stamps and that was me, hooked.  But with that came a feeling of somehow cheating if I used anything from my sticker and rub on stash.  Not so much the sentiments as I still have some Pebbles Christmas rub ons which I love and use all the time.  But the images, well, I certainly wouldn't post what I had made with them.

But that's nonsense, isn't it?  Why be precious about how much work you've put into a card and what you've used when you can create something lovely - and quickly - with minimal supplies?

I found some gorgeous Anna Griffin rub-ons which are donkey's years old and it seemed such shame to leave them unloved in a drawer.  So I decided to start working through the ancient (in crafting terms) stash and here's what I made

I applied the rub on bauble directly to a fog card base and stamped a Pretty Pink Posh sentiment in Versamark ink so that I could emboss it in gold.  The card took less than 10 minutes to make and I rather like it.

I then got quite carried away, so there'll be more of my quick and easy cards to come!

It's Snow Time

Here I am again working my way through the cards I've yet to post.

I love this Mo Manning image and she is a dream to colour.  I opted for colours I rarely use for her clothes, choosing the tans and oranges in my Copics rather than my go-to reds and greens.

The dark sky seemed like a good idea at the time but the blending isn't nearly as smooth as I'd like.  I got fed up in the end and went for Sandy Allnock's tip of adding snow to disguise imperfections but frankly I should probably have created bigger snow!  In a certain light it looks like she's walking through woodland but who am I kidding, that's more luck than judgement!

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Tracey

Christmas flowers

I've been making an effort to find some crafty time and have managed to actually finish some cards other than my CaSS DT ones.  I'm dreadful for stamping images, colouring them and then not using them, or even stamping and cutting the images out, then leaving them in a box "for next weekend".  Having said that, I'm excellent (though I say it myself) at buying stamps... and dies... and, more recently, stencils...

So, my mission now is to post some of my makes.  For starters, here's a Christmassy version of a floral bouquet I made a while back

I used Wplus9's hellebore and rose layering stamps and cut them out with coordinating dies.  The background was cut with an Altenew cover die from woodgrain paper and I added some sequins and a sentiment from a Lawn Fawn set.

Once the stamping and cutting out is done these cards are pretty quick to put together  and if you don't use foam tape for the layering they aren't too bulky to post, either.

I  hope to be back later on this week with another post.

Tracey

Challenges entered:  Allsorts - Christmas Flowers

CaSS - Trees

Hi everyone

We're getting closer to Christmas and if you haven't already started your Christmas cards, Christmas at Sweet Stampin' is here to give you a nudge!

Our challenge theme this month is Trees so you need to feature a tree or trees on your projects.

I made quite a few cards because I can't resist tree-themed stamps for any time of year, only to spend ages trying to decide which one should be my DT card.  In the end I opted for this one which I made using a Neat and Tangled stamp set.

Those wonky trees are so lovely to colour!  I used a bit of white acrylic paint to make some snow and added a Pebbles Inc rub-on sentiment.

I hope you can play along this month.  Why not grab a cuppa and hop over to Christmas at Sweet Stampin' to see the fabby inspiration projects my teamies have made.

Tracey x