Hopes and Dreams ATC Swap

 

Our ATC challenge theme for March is Hopes and Dreams.  My ATC was inspired by teamie Brenda's dream to visit Paris, well, I'd love to visit Italy, one of the main reasons being I LOVE Italian food!!!

I have used Artemio Clear Stamp Set - Italy - 10001235 with a Starburst Stain background.  Both products are available on our website.  I think it is the nearest I am going to get to Italy as a visit there is not on the radar at the moment but I can hope and dream:)

If you'd like to join us you can either join online and add your ATC via Inlinkz, or post them to us to be swapped.  You can of course join in with both the online and postal swap!  The instructions are on the ATC Blog HERE

Hope you are having a wonderful Sunday

Jill x

Colours of Spring / Easter Challenge

Well, we are one week into our latest Stamp Man challenge, there is still time for you to join in as the challenge ends on Thursday at 9pm.

I'm only just getting round to adding my entry and chose a deep almost mustard yellow which is a favourite shade.

I have wanted to play with the Stampendous Frantage embossing powders so chose the aged gold.  The picture above shows this combined with a scrunch Starburst Stain background paper I made a while ago.

Normally when I emboss these background papers I gently swipe my embossing pad over the peaks then add the embossing powder to highlight and make texture.  This time I poured the embossing powder onto the dry paper and moved it about with my hand until it fell into the recesses.  I then carefully heated it from underneath.

I wanted to add more texture to the border, so used the same card  that was an offcut from the main image.  I frayed some white mesh ribbon and coloured it with alcohol inks.  I used alcohol inks rather than normal ink as the ribbon has a coating.

The products I used are

Stampendous CRP152-R Cling Botanical Daffodil
Stampendous Aged Gold Fran-tage Embossing Enamel
Starburst Stains
Mark Richards Self Adhesive 5mm Mosaics - Gold (MR5537)
Mark Richards Self Adhesive - Metals - Gold 3mm (MR1983)
Buttons
Mesh ribbon
Copier paper for scrunch technique

I love the randomness of Fran's Fran-tage embossing technique, you can see it on the border strip below.

I added a bit of bling too, the gold button was nicely textured and I added some gold mosaics, I really must use them more often!

So, I hope you will join in with our latest challenge too!

As I'm going on about the challenges, I would like to welcome our newest DT member, Kim Reygate.

I've know Kim for many many years, she is a very talented card maker and a very lovely lady too.  Kim has written a couple of books, one on tea bag folding and the other rubber stamping and is frequently featured in magazines as well as producing artwork for a number of other paper crafting companies.  We are proud and honoured to have her on our team.

Here's the link to Kim's blog Kim x, you'll find amazing artwork there and I believe Kim is on a mission to blog every day if she can so it's well worth you bookmarking or following her too.

We have a new challenge starting on Friday so I'd better get this current challenge card posted and get on with the next one!

Thanks for visiting

Jill x

Christmas cards DONE!

Cards finished and posted on Thursday..... yeah!!!!!

I cut it fine again this year by only posting them on Thursday.  I did make more, I ended up making more poinsettia cards than I intended but I really enjoyed making them and using the Starburst Stain papers I had to hand.  As you can see there is quite a difference in the shades and styles.

We've received lovely cards so far this year, so thank you for all of those!

We received something new yesterday that we've been waiting for, magnetic sheets, I'll get them on the website asap!  There are two A4 sheets in a pack for £1.90!  I've a few projects on the go that I need to get on with over the Christmas holidays for telly shows in the new year but I hope to have a little play with these too, as I can see other things to use them for other than just Nestie storage! 

But, the first job will certainly be to store away my Nestabilities on them, I think my poinsettias will be glad to be stored away for a rest, but only for a little while!  I think they will be back out pretty soon though for more flowers, sunflowers are a definite flower I'll be making with them in the new year!  I'll have to search through all the Starburst Stain papers I have made with yellows and rich golds, yum!  Bet I'll go back to using the French Country set (again) for them!!

In the next few days I will be announcing something that is happening around here very soon.  I know everyone is busy at the moment, but do call back for news about it!

Well, we've the Strictly final tonight and a 2 part Cranford starting tomorrow, nice to have some good telly programmes to look forward to over the weekend.

We had about 4" to 5" of snow here on Thursday night and it looks like we've more to come today and tomorrow to add to it, so it's going to be quite a pile! I just hope we don't get the amount of snow they have forecast for the US.  That's serious snowfall!!

I hope you are all getting into Christmas zone, keeping warm and stress free with the prep! 

Jill

Christmas easel card, scrunchy leaves, dotty C'bugs, nesties and winners...

Sorry, back to poinsettia flowers again for today's card after yesterday's chocolate box:)

Edit:  Just realised I've already shown this card on a previous post, so here's another!

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Well, as you can imagine, there were 3 very excited ladies emailing yesterday to claim their prizes, I am really very happy for them all! 

Congratulations you 3!  Kym, Pauline and Ann.  I hope their luck continues into 2010 and that they will share some cards they make with the stamp sheets with us as it is always so nice to see what other crafters make with our range of Aspects of Design stamp sheets. 

Kym was the first to claim her prize and she was especially excited as she had already had a great day, her son had passed his driving test (first time).  I think she was a little shocked at having 2 good things happening in one day!  Kym said in her email that she makes cards for charity so your choice of the Funky Flourishes is going to prove so versatile for you Kym!

Pauline couldn't believe she was a winner and Ann, well, as you probably gathered from Ann's post yesterday, she got a shock this morning when she popped by our blog, she checked and doubled checked, YES Ann, it really was YOU!!! 

Three truly fab winners!! 

Don't forget to enter our Christmas Blog Candy No.3, 'What does Christmas mean to you?'

We'd love to hear your thoughts so do join in the next giveaway!

Japanese Gardens - Starburst Stains

NEW - STARBURST STAINS IN SPRAY BOTTLES!
We now have the same set colours in spray bottles as well as the dauber bottles and brush on the fun jars. They are on special offer at £19.99 and contain the same quantity as the previous sets. Click HERE to find them on our website.

As I said yesterday, I'm working my way through all 11 Starburst Stain set to show the colour charts and cards to give you an idea of them in use. Unfortunately the shimmer doesn't show in all the photos but I think most people know about the effects of these now. I hope bringing this information together here will help those who haven't been able to watch our shows on Create and Craft.

Today I'm showing one of my favourite sets, Japanese Gardens. I have even used this set for Christmas cards, so it's versatile too. If you click on the photo it will give a closer view of the colours in the set, which are:

Black Orchid Silver, Cocoa Bean Copper, Poinciana Flame Red, Saxifrage Olive Copper

The card idea shows a number of techniques, mainly as the background is made with left over strips that I have woven together (approx 1" wide). The card is actually a 8" x 8" square card. I have also made paper beads with the leftover strips that I cut into long thin triangles of about 4"-5" before winding them around cocktail sticks. Use a glue stick or any wet glue and apply leaving about 1 cm without glue at the widest end then wind up and hold into place between your finger and thumb until it is stuck down. Long thin rectangular shapes will make cylindrical beads, use different widths of card to vary the size of the beads. You can also paint on varnish to give them a gloss or matt finish but it's not necessary. I tend to make them out of leftovers in advance so they are ready to use when required, I keep them in grip seal bags with pre-pared backgrounds I have made with the sets until I want to use them.

As an added touch I have used a quickie glue pen and gold leafing to add a bit of bling to them.

Have a good weekend

Jill

A Big Hello and Craft Stamper Magazine

Hi All
Well Jill has asked me to drop by and introduce myself(payback time i think,for all the ear bashing ive been giving her to do a blog)!!Well my name is Debbie Dolphin and have worked for Jill and Ian for nearly 6 years.I have been crafting for about 9 years now.It all started when i was shopping in Skipton one day and went into this lovely little shop which was an aladdins cave full of craft goodies and rubber stamps and this man(Ian) was stamping an image and sprinkling on this gold powder(embossing powder!) and heating it up and well we all know what happens to it then!I was absolutely gobsmacked and have been hooked ever since.Thankyou Ian(your the one to blame for me having no money now)!!!hee hee
Though seriously,i love my work and Iam very grateful to be part of the team.Plus i get to open up the boxes of all the new goodies and be first to try them out!hee hee.
Anyhow,back to the interesting stuff.When i got home today guess what was in my postbox?This months issue of Craft Stamper.Yay! and Kay has done a lovely article on her Japanese Dragonfly stamps.I actually have this sheet of stamps,so guess what i'll be doing tonight,but if you haven't you can get them HERE

Have a great weekend
Debbiex